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This will be my first ever battle report so please forgive the many errors I am about to commit.


Tonight I decided to play test a variant of my new stealer shock list. This is the variant I went with tonight.

Hive Tyrant
Enhanced Senses
Catalyst
Toxin Sacs
Venom Cannon
Barbed Strangler
Total 167

Hive Tyrant
Enhanced Senses
Toxin Sacs
Venom Cannon
Barbed Strangler
Total 157

Carnifex
Enhanced Senses
Venom Cannon
Barbed Strangler
Total 148

Carnifex
Enhanced Senses
Venom Cannon
Barbed Strangler
Total 148

Carnifex
Enhanced Senses
Venom Cannon
Barbed Strangler
Total 148

8 Gene Stealers w Scuttl 152

8 Gene Stealers w Scuttle 152

8 Gene Stealers w Scuttle 152

8 Gene Stealers w Scuttle 152

8 Gene Stealers w Scuttle 152

9 Gene Stealers w Scuttle 171

Grand Total 1699

My opponent was an all infantry guard unit run by a very good 40k player named Dan.

Command squand.
Heroic senior Officer, Iron Discipline Master Vox, power Sword.

2 squads of elite storm troopers with 2 meltas and deep strike each.

Platoon 1
Command squad Iron Discipline Power fist, melta gun, flamer, vox caster. Melta bombs, light infantry.

4 squads with vox casters, 1 with melta the other 3 with flamers, light infantry

Platoon 2
Command squad, Iron discipline, power sword, plasma gun, flamer

2 squads with sharpshooters, heavy bolters, plasma gun, vox

Command squad.
2 anti tank squads of 3 las cannons each, sharp shooters
2 mortar mortar squads of 3 mortars each.

Heavy weapons platoon
Command Squad, iron discipline, power sword, melta gun, flamer, vox

3 fire support squads of 3 heavy bolters each, sharp shooters.


The mission was mission 5 from the Canadian hall of heroes scenario guide

Basically it was loot counters with a diagonal no mans land. (I don’t know how to make maps yet and this is hard to describe. You measured 18’ both ways out from a table corner and you set a 2 markers then you go the opposite corner farthest way and do the same thing, then you draw a line between the markers and this makes a no-mans land that runs diagonally through the board and is roughly 20 inches wide.)

We drew 3 loot counters and set them more or less in the middle of the board. The counters where worth 566 victory points each. Infiltration and deep strike where allowed.

The terrain was set by neutral party and consisted of 3 large buildings along each long table edge (6 in total) and many short low walls all through the middle of the “street” between them. Each wall was bout 6inches long and there were roughly 6 inchs of open space between them. We decided that the buildings were 4+ level 3 area terrain and that the walls where 5+ level 1 WUSISUG.


Now this set up should have favored my list greatly. I had great cover to put my MCs in and lots of 5+ cover to move my stealers through. In addition the strange deployment zone left me with less than 24 inches to cross.


During set up I put all my MCs behind a large building in the center of my zone. I bunched 5 of my troop squads up against my right flank and one troop of 8 stealers near my MC's in the middle.

Directly across from my 5 squad mob my opponent set up his heavy bolters right on the deployment line and behind them his laser cannons in a building. His mortars went behind the building the laz cannons where in. The rest of his units he set up across his deployment fairly evenly. His infiltrators came in on my left flank exactly 18 inches away from my left most stealer squad.

I scuttled 5 of my squads towards his heavy bolters and one squad towards his infiltrators.

We rolled for first turn and I lost.

Turn 1.

Dan fired 10 heavy bolters, 6 mortars in 2 squads, about a dozen flashlights and 6 laz canons into my 5 squads on my right side (My MCs where out of los at the time). The mortars killed about 11 the HB’s flashlights and las cannons combined killed about 7. On my left he fired what must have been 20+ flashlights into my single stealer squad killing only 4 of them.

At the end of his first turn of shooting I had lost 21 of my 49 stealers, many saved by 5+ cover saves.

All my squads passed their break tests, one or two benefited from synapse.

My turn 1
My 5 squads of right side stealers advanced, I felt sure with my scout move and a any kind of decent fleet roll I would be into HTH on the first turn.

Fleet rolls for my 5 squads on the right hand side came up 1, 1, 2, 1, and 4 respectively. The 4 inch roll went to a squad that had to negotiate some terrain and only got a 3 inch move through roll on 3 dice. I failed to get into assault range with any squad. Most of them came up short by about an inch….

My MCs moved into the building and started to shoot at the 3 heavy bolters squads.

My shooting went much better than my fleet rolls. Almost all fire went into the heavy bolters. Netting only 1 outright kill of a two man bolter team but pining all 3 squadss and reducing all but one of the teams to a single man.

On my left the 4 stealers made it into HtH with one of his infiltrating companies.

In HtH my 4 stealers killed 4 of his men and took no casualties in return. His unit stayed.


Turn 2

Dan rolled for his two deep striking units and got both.

He took a big gamble and tried to get them both to land just behind one of my tyrants very near the board edge. One unit stuck dead on target and one rolled off the table.

Dan moved a second infiltrating squad of about 10 men towards the melee on the left flank in order to support the unit I had assaulted last turn.

Now with a target, Dan shot all 6 laz cannons plus the 2 meltas from the deep striking squad into one of my tyrants in in the central building. Bad to hit rolls and good cover saves meant I only took 2 wounds.

He moved the Heavy Bolter command squad forward to use a flamer template and a melta gun on my stealers. He tagged 3 stealers with the flamer and killed two of them. (These were the only AP5 kills in the entire game). His Melta killed one more.

I lost only about 10 stealers to mortars and flash lights.

Dan assaulted with his second infiltrating squad, but the HTH round went poorly for him. I killed 3 of the assaulting men and he killed nothing in return. Both his units stood their ground however.


My Turn 2.

One of my right hand squads had not yet advanced very far forward, were down to 3 units and where within about 10 inches of his 5 deep strikers. I turned them around and ran them back towards the strikers.

I left my MC’s in cover and finally moved my few remaining stealers into close combat with the pinned heavy bolters and the command squad that had flamed me.

Of 49 stealers only 18 made it into hth covering only 20 inches of ground with most of them getting 5+ cover all the way. (This does not bode well for the list in general).

My MC’s started to fire on his massed troops in the middle of his deployment, I managed to kill one company down to it’s heavy bolter and vox , pinning it, and managed to kill a few other guards men with poor pie plate rolls.

On my left flank my 4 stealers killed two guard and the guards managed to kill a single stealer. Everyone held.

On the heavy bolter side I forgot to use catalyst and one of my gene stealers died trying to kill a guard over a wall. All my other stealers managed to avoid crossing terrain and wiped 2 of his remaining heavy bolter squads and his command team. This left one remaining heavy bolter guard holding out against something like 7 or 8 stealers, happily preventing them from being targeted.

My one stealer squad that had moved back to take care of the deep strikers killed them down to 2 men and took no return casualties. The remaining men held.

Turn 3

Dan was starting to feel the pinch. All his high rate of fire weapons on his left flank (my right flank) had been destroyed. Most of my remaining stealers on that flank where locked in hth with a single guards man.

Dan fired all 6 las cannons at my wounded tyrant, killing it.

He fired all his mortars at my MC’s causing riots of laughter as the mortar shells tickled the big monsters thick hides.

HtH saw my 7 stealers kill his pathetic lone guard and sweep towards his laz cannons.

My 3 stealers finished off the deep strikers and swept behind a building to preserve their VP’s

On my left flank his remaining guard again failed to kill a single stealer and lost 2 more of their own, yet still everyone held.


My Turn 3

My 7 stealers advanced on his first las cannon squad.

My MC’s managed to pin his other laz cannon squad and did some minor damage to his troops in the middle of the deployment zone. (At this point they were mostly irrelevant, as all my stealers where now in HtH and the flash lights and single HB were a joke to to my MC’s.

I remembered catalyst this turn and used it on a squad assaulting the las cannons.

The 7 stealers wiped out the 3 las cannon teams but failed to sweep into the second company.

The stealers on my left flank killed a few more guards, lost nothing and both guard squads broke. The Stealers easly overran them and promptly swept into a nearby building to preserve VPs

Turn 4.

Dan decided to abandon his mortars and had both squads advance and rapid fire on my right flank stealers. Unfortunately he only killed 2.

His lone Heavy bolter and vox squad fired on my stealers and killed 1 more.

His las cannon squad was pinned, his right flank squads (my left flank) were mostly out of range, a few uselessly tried firing at the MCs.

1 stealer squad made it’s moral test and did not break.

My turn 4.
My right hand stealers advanced towards the mortar squad.

My MC’s moved out of cover towards the 3 loot counters which where only about 13 to 15 inches away to start with 3 turns of movement to get to them.

At this point my opponent conceded. He had very little left that could hurt my MC’s or push them off the objectives, my stealers were about to wipe out his mortar squad and consolidate into his las cannons.

We did not add points, I had lost about half my army He had lost a bit less in vps of his, but with all 3 objectives in my possession and very advantageous hth and fire coming up it probably would have been a massacre for me.


Final thoughts:

For this particular army I am very glad I did not take Extended carpace. Only two stealers in the entire army were killed by an AP 5 weapon. Similarly only AP 2 las cannons and AP 1 meltas ever really threatened my MC’s.

The pie plates where very hit and miss, they did however come through on the all important pinning of 3 heavy bolter squads just when lousy fleet rolls had ruined my assault.

So far I like this build. Pumping up the Armor on the MC’s or the stealers would have left me with far fewer stealers and not given much advantage in this particular case.

interesting report. the guard list could definately have been optimized, and generally lacked mobility to contest objectives. But nevertheless, congrats on the win! Nids are always scary as a guard player.

Very well played on your part. However, i am not a big fan of the all genestealer lists. i find they die far to quickly. then again, i played tyranids all last year, before moving to orks again, and i only ever played on extremely open fields. I also think that taking 3 carnifex's and 2 hive tyrants is way th cheesy.

Mixing it up a bit is good, i love raveners. Expensive, but will usually absorb a good amount of fire before going down. and when they do get into combat, they tear everything apart if youve gotten 4 or 5 in. I had one 5 man squad tear through an entire 10 man squad of grey knights and his hq with a thunderahmmer. And take out a bloodthrister before it even knew what was going on.

warriors are a lot of fun to, i forget what i did to make them so nasty, but i had a 6 man squad wade through an entire sister of battle army.

then again, i a lot of time senjoy doing stupid things. I have pllayed an entirely close combat necron army, an shooting ork army that would be about equal with gaurd in hth, and a shooting tyranid army that would get its assed kicked in hth by anything with half decent close combat capacity. Though shooting orks, even with the current codex is unbelievably effective. they can equal gaurd in volume, i even fit 35 rockit launchers into a 1000 point ork army.

Very well played on your part. However, i am not a big fan of the all genestealer lists. i find they die far to quickly. ..snip.. I also think that taking 3 carnifex's and 2 hive tyrants is way th cheesy.

Well you can see how the cheesy MCs and the lousy stealers can balance each other out then...

I have only played one stealer shock game myself yet I have to say I am skeptical of stealer shock. I lost 70%+ of my stealers trying to get them in into C2C over 2 turns with cover.

I know from reports that several tournaments have been won with this style list but color me skeptical of its effectiveness through a season of tournaments with differing terrain.

First I read this:

Russell wrote:My opponent was an all infantry guard unit run by a very good 40k player named Dan.

... and thought to myself 'Oh cool! Guard v Nids. This should be great!'.

Then I read this:

sanman;3462774 wrote:Heroic senior Officer, Iron Discipline Master Vox, power Sword.

... and this...

sanman;3462774 wrote:Command squad Iron Discipline Power fist, melta gun, flamer, vox caster. Melta bombs, light infantry.

... and then this...

sanman;3462774 wrote:4 squads with vox casters, 1 with melta the other 3 with flamers, light infantry

... and this...

sanman;3462774 wrote:Command squad, Iron discipline, power sword, plasma gun, flamer

... and then this...

sanman;3462774 wrote:2 squads with sharpshooters, heavy bolters, plasma gun, vox

... and this...

sanman;3462774 wrote:2 mortar mortar squads of 3 mortars each.

... and then finally this...

sanman;3462774 wrote:Command Squad, iron discipline, power sword, melta gun, flamer, vox

That, sanman, is not a Guard army. I would go back to your friend with your lovley Stealer Shock list and ask for a rematch, and ask him to this time bring a Guard list that doesn't suck.

BYE

Wow....

No one said his was an optimized list...

Why be such a jerk about it?

Russel, meet H.B.M.C.

I think you did a great job, and I'd keep giving stealer shock a try. I use it with great success, although it can come off very cheesy, especially if you optimize it to have as many MC's as you can fit in. Stealers are going to die, but that generally means your MC's survive to get stuck in.

Nice battle report.

Well of course you're happy about not having EC, you're playing against one of the very few armies where the basic trooper doesn't have an AP5 weapon.

Try this list against any bolter army and you'll watch your Stealers evaporate before your eyes.

You NEED EC and you NEED a flying Tyrant if you want to win regularly with Stealer Shock, period.

And you can (and should) expect to lose 50%+ of your stealers before they get into combat, that's the nature of the beast. But as you clearly witnessed, the stealers that *do* get into combat do a pretty darn good job decimating the enemy.

You should also remember that EC doesn't just help you against enemy shooting, but it also makes your stealers more resilient against basic CC attacks as well.


Last, remember that entirely shooty armies are going to be your toughest challenges (outside of mechanized armies) as 100% of their models can contribute to stopping you. Against any army that has put a percentage of its points into CC troops you will have a much easier time as you will have less shots coming at you and your Stealers tend to still be able to take care of most enemy CC units in a heads-up faceoff as well.

I fully intend to try this list and the EC variant I made to your advice out against different armies. I happen to have a tough marine opponent i will play against in the new year.

You NEED EC and you NEED a flying Tyrant if you want to win regularly with Stealer Shock, period.

I am not sure I agree.

To get EC would cost him 9 stealers. So it is only valuable if it stops 10+ stealers from dieing.
It would do nothing against AP4 or better weapons. So you can't consider any deaths caused by krak missile , heavy bolters, assault cannons, heavy flamers, etc.
It would do nothing against any weapon if he were in/behind 4+ cover.
So you can't consider any of those deaths.
It would do little against any AP5 weapon and he were in/behind 5+ cover.
It would take 40 deaths of this type, before EC would be worth it. (With EC it would be 30 deaths)
It would help some against AP5 weapons and they were in/behind 6+ cover.
It would take 30 deaths of this type before EC would be worth it.
It would not help in CC against power attacks.
It would help little against regular attacks.
It would take 40 deaths of this type before EC would be worth it.

So really, the only real benefit, is the times a stealer dies to an AP5 weapon, when having *no* cover benefit.

A full unit of marines, that rapid fire into stealers, will get 6.667 wounds. So it would take doing that 3 times before EC makes sense.
If you let 3 of your 6 broods get caught out of cover, and within rapid fire range of 3 different marine units.... you deserve to lose that game


Granted, each example is single, and they can be combined, but you still have to 'ignore' the AP4/3/2 weapons.

But I think my point still stands. It takes a lot of very specific types of deaths for EC to pay off. And I can count on one hand the number of times I have let a brood of stealers get caught in rapid fire range, with no benefit of cover.

On top of that. Even if you do finally get killed enough that EC would have helped. By turn 4 they shoot enough that you could have saved 10 stealers if they had EC. That is *turn 4*.
By taking EC, you are 'killing' 9 of your stealers on turn 1. I would much rather lose 10 stealers over 4 turns, then lose 9 of them on turn 1. (even worse, before turn one.)


Edit: Reviewing my numbers, I made a rounding error. You lose 8.5 stealers by getting EC. So you need to lose 9 to make EC equal. (not counting timing of losses.)
In any case, I think the crux of my argument still stands. Moreso, even if one decides EC is 'worth it'. It is a far cry of "You *need* it. Period"

The thing is, the most models in the game carry an AP5 weapon, and the armies that feature such a weapon as their basic armament are by far the most common armies you will face in a tournament.

When facing a stealer shock army every model that has a basic sidearm will be aiming it at the stealers on the first two turns trying to prevent them from getting into combat. As a Genestealer player you will absolutely not have the luxury of moving your stealers through cover, you have to move full bore straight ahead in those first two turns so most of the time your stealers will indeed be out of cover.

Also important to note is that often stealers will be forced to charge into cover in order to get into those first combats and successful basic attacks made by their opponents will have to be drawn from stealers who are engaged, any extra stealer models in the unit that are out of engagement distance cannot be pulled.

What that means is that if you have 10 non-carapaced stealers in your unit but because of extreme charging distance (which is common) you only get say 4 Stealers into engagement range but the opponent gets to strike first because they are defending cover. Any casualties suffered are going to directly reduce the amount of attacks you will generate in that combat. The fact that you have extra stealers outside of the engagement zone because you skimped on EC doesn't help.

Unfortunately, partial enagements are the meat-and-potatoes of the Stealer shock. You can't risk putting every stealer in your unit in engagement distance because then you tend to wipe out your opponent's unit and leave your stealers open to enemy fire. So you intentionally make a staggered charge that only gets a few stealers into engagment distance. EC is crucial in making sure that those models who actually are fighting are more resilient.


Furthermore, your example about "losing" 9 stealers on the first turn due to EC is simply wrong. 40K is a game of Victory Points and full-strength/half-strength units. While you will have less stealers on the table with EC your squads will obviously not have lost any models for any victory conditions.

10 Scuttling Stealers without EC = 190 points.
8 Scutting Stealers with EC = 184 points.

The non-EC Stealers are under 1/2 strength when they lose 6 models, the EC stealers when they lose 5 models.

When you compare the numbers on a unit by unit basis and you realize that the most common weapons faced in the game are AP5 (or worse) and the most common attacks faced in CC are also affected by EC it is clear that EC is essentially required unless you know that you are facing an army with a boatload of AP4 or better weapons.

My dire avengers would love to see some 5+ AS Genestealers coming their way.

But thanks for the report, interesting armies you don't see that often fighting against each other...

Greets
Schepp himself

Dire Avengers? My GAURDIANS would welcome them into the 6-18" range on the start of their turn. They still have Assault 2 AP 5 weapons! Even a lowley squad of 10 will make some nasty dents in the Stealers. Think what a squad of 20 would do...and this is BEFORE the weapon platform.

EC is needed more often then its not.