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Probably the cheapest, easiest army you could ever do. I sort of had this idea before but I never posted it. I have to admit that there wasn't a whole lot of originality with the list. I can honestly say I thought about doing this before (because BFM stealers are so cheap) but it's a kind of list that I'm sure people have seen or played against a million times because it's a very simple and straight forward army idea but I'd like to think that it's balanced enough to include what I want - Mass CC death with just enough anti-tank support to make things work.

HQ
Hive Tyrant of Choppy Death - 213 Points
Wings
Warp Field
Adrenal Glands (+1I)
Adrenal Glands (+1WS)
Flesh Hooks
Implant Attack
Toxin Sacs (+1S)
2x Scything Talons

Troops
8 Genestealers - 192 Points
Extended Carapace, Flesh Hooks, Scuttlers

8 Genestealers - 192 Points
Extended Carapace, Flesh Hooks, Scuttlers

8 Genestealers - 192 Points
Extended Carapace, Flesh Hooks, Scuttlers

8 Genestealers - 192 Points
Extended Carapace, Flesh Hooks, Scuttlers

8 Genestealers - 192 Points
Extended Carapace, Flesh Hooks, Scuttlers

8 Genestealers - 192 Points
Extended Carapace, Flesh Hooks, Scuttlers

Heavy Support
Carnifex - 188 Points
Enhanced Senses, Reinforced Chitin (+1 W), Extended Carapace, Venom Cannon, Barbed Strangler

Carnifex - 188 Points
Enhanced Senses, Reinforced Chitin (+1 W), Extended Carapace, Venom Cannon, Barbed Strangler

1741 Points Total

Plan
Goal is a completely plastic army, to make it easy to dip and just because metal sucks.

Battlewagon Bits at the Warstore nets you 6 Battle For Mcragge Genestealers for $10.

$80 for the Stealers

Plan is to convert the Tyrant out of the Fex kit and use the plastic dragon wings set for the wings. All plastic makes everything silly easy to convert and easy to dip and shake afterwards. Is this even feasible to do though? I figure the Fex would look enough like a Tyrant, especially if you modeled the scythe style thing coming off the tyrants head with say an extra gaunt scythe cut down and greenstuffed onto the head, or something.

Fex Kit ($45) + Wings ($12) = $57 (or $45 flat if you get 25% off the Fex kit at a retailer that does discounts).

2 Sniper Fex's = $45 *2 = $90 ($66 with discount deal).

Total army assembly would take a day to do and dry.

Spray base color on all models = Morning

Paint Carapace parts different color, claws/guns the third color = Evening

Dip it! = Day

And on the fourth day everything should be dry and ready to go! If you don't like the "wet look" which should work well on Nids, you could do a quick matte spray job on the army.

The thing would be pretty small model count wise but could be "expanded" by dropping carapice on the stealers and adding other fun bits like Warriors or Ravenors, or something else. I just like the idea because the list would fit in a single case and would be pretty straightforward to start with and could be expanded over time pretty nicely. What do you guys think?

Add scytals to the stealers and 2-3 raveners and you have my friend's 2000 point Nids. He built, sprayed & speed-painted the army in possibly a week max. And it doesn't look bad either - in fact my finacee was giving me a hard time because the guy's carnifex were so bright and pretty compared to my dingy chaos boys

And yeah, kicks major butt on the table, and he has expanded it up to 3000 and beyond (trygon, heirophant in the pipe once FW sorts out APOC).

Personally I say go for it, as much as I hate fighting the stealer shock + big friends list. Dipping always works well with nids, I find.

- Salvage

One problem is that the BfM stealers don't have extended carapace so you'll need a way to convert that.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Sounds like a plan.

Ozymandias wrote:One problem is that the BfM stealers don't have extended carapace so you'll need a way to convert that.

Thing is, the last time I saw stealers with a 5+ save was ... never

So I wouldn't ding you on not having some armor plates on your stealers' shoulders.

- Salvage

Those tiny little wings on the carapice?

Please, I'd simply start the game saying "all the stealers have extended carapice". I've seen "normal" stealers played with extended carapice so often it's not even funny. As a non nid player I never even knew there were two tiny bits that represented "Extended Carapice" on stealers till I helped a friend build one and asked "what are those for?".

I seriously don't even consider that an issue. I mean really, are you going to sit there and tell me you won't play my army when I say "they all have (or all do not have) EC"? I only see it being important if you have a mix of squads with or without EC, which the way I build lists, I'd never do.

I really like the idea. It'd be a really fun foil army to have for games. The other similar army I'd build would be based on berzerkers, as they're cheap as chips (at least they used to be). Have zerkers, raptors (with jump packs), two DPs, and you've got a party.

I'm sure you'll eventually run into some tool who will insist that your models don't have EC properly modeled, and personally, having him say that up front would probably be all the warning I'd need to know that it's going to be a crappy game.

I'm liking it. Stuff the rulebook and a list in the box and you're ready to rock.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:Those tiny little wings on the carapice?

Please, I'd simply start the game saying "all the stealers have extended carapice". I've seen "normal" stealers played with extended carapice so often it's not even funny. As a non nid player I never even knew there were two tiny bits that represented "Extended Carapice" on stealers till I helped a friend build one and asked "what are those for?".

I seriously don't even consider that an issue. I mean really, are you going to sit there and tell me you won't play my army when I say "they all have (or all do not have) EC"? I only see it being important if you have a mix of squads with or without EC, which the way I build lists, I'd never do.

I personally would not have a problem with it, but you never know who you'll run into at a tournament. You are probably right, as long as all of your stealers have he upgrade it shouldn't be an issue.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

For pure cheapness, what about the Mycetic Assault Apoc box (5 Carnifex for $175 before discounts)? Having never bought one, I'm unsure if it contains all the gun sprues you would need for a proper Nidzilla list, but if you can get that at a discount I could conceivably see a decent army for just under $200 total.

That list is a miniature (heh) version of the list Doc Thunder used to win the 'Ard Boyz semi at Endzone games. He used 6 squads of 12 basic 'Stealers, three Dakkafexs, three Carnifexes with twin linked Venom cannons, and two Hive Tyrants with Venom cannons and CC weapons, if I remember right. He started of the tournament with two 24 point massacres on his opponents and only had trouble with the Eldar player in the last game. In the first tournament of 'Ard boyz, he walked away with 72 points, from what I've heard, and it would have been interesting to have seen what he'd have done with his army in Baltimore, if his job circumstances would have permitted his going.

You are definitely on to a wicked army list.

I want to point out that this idea is meant with no disrespect to Centurian99, Dr. Thunder, or anyone else who has run a "Stealer Shock" style list.

The idea was born a long while ago as "make a cheap Nid army" and not "ZOMG Stealer Shock won a GT!". Difference was that back then I didn't realize exactly how effective the Heavy Fex's were, just that you wanted two for anti-tank. It was based around getting lots of cheap Stealers from the BfM starter set and then the few MC's you'd need to make the list work. The source of the idea came when a friend of mine was starting Nids and didn't want to use eBay, so I was buying Nid Sprues from BfM off Battlewagon Bitz when they just sold on eBay by the bucket load. On seeing how cheap they were and looking at the Nid rules and seeing that Stealers didn't need Synapse to work, I had the idea that you'd only need them for troops and then you add "X" for support.

Fast Forward to now when I know exactly how well a Nidzilla list plays and seeing how effective a lot of scuttling stealers are, you get this list. My idea was just how to build it up cheaply, other guys came out and did this before to show that it "works" competitively. I just don't want it to look like "I came up with a competitive list", other guys really did that - not me. I'm just the cheap bastard who likes to come up with really cheap ways to build armies.

Besides if you think this was cheap, you should see what I did to build Dwarfs in Fantasy.