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One Trick Pony

Thoughts?

I know the suck will be not having frag grenades.

20 Genestealer Brood @ 280 pts
20 Genestealer Brood @ 280 pts
20 Genestealer Brood @ 280 pts
20 Genestealer Brood @ 280 pts
20 Genestealer Brood @ 280 pts
20 Genestealer Brood @ 280 pts
3 Zoanthrope Brood @ 180 pts
3 Zoanthrope Brood @ 180 pts
3 Zoanthrope Brood @ 180 pts
6 Spore Mine Cluster @ 60 pts
6 Spore Mine Cluster @ 60 pts
6 Spore Mine Cluster @ 60 pts
1 Tyranid Prime [Boneswords (x2); Scything Talons; Toxin Sacs]@ 100 pts

Total Roster Cost: 2500

You will never make it across the field with the Zoanthropes...the Tyranid Prime will have nowhere really to go...and well...120 Genestealers is a nifty idea...your opponent will know what's coming and how to deal with it...

I'd keep this list for fun games as a few flamers will leave you crying.

If you want to compete drop the prime, two units of stealers, and all of the spore mines down to units of 3.

Then get pods for all the zoans, add a tyrant with hive commander, add 1 unit of 10 termiguants to sit on an objective, add 1 terigon with Catalyst, poison and F charge.

Then if you have any points left give the stealers poison.



By running this you now get +1 to reserves, an outflanking tervigon that scores and creates meat shield all while giving Feel no pain to your forward most stealers. You also get to use your zoans instead of letting them take shots to the face for 2-3 turns.

Dave_Fay wrote:One Trick Pony

Thoughts?

I know the suck will be not having frag grenades.

20 Genestealer Brood @ 280 pts
20 Genestealer Brood @ 280 pts
20 Genestealer Brood @ 280 pts
20 Genestealer Brood @ 280 pts
20 Genestealer Brood @ 280 pts
20 Genestealer Brood @ 280 pts
3 Zoanthrope Brood @ 180 pts
3 Zoanthrope Brood @ 180 pts
3 Zoanthrope Brood @ 180 pts
6 Spore Mine Cluster @ 60 pts
6 Spore Mine Cluster @ 60 pts
6 Spore Mine Cluster @ 60 pts
1 Tyranid Prime [Boneswords (x2); Scything Talons; Toxin Sacs]@ 100 pts

Total Roster Cost: 2500

I know what you're trying to do here; I still haven't given up on Genestealers, either.

Let's see if I can figure out the play style:
Spore mines are dropped to deny your opponent portions of his deployment, forcing him to cluster more than he might like (and, in DoW, with a decent chance of keeping him off the board entirely).

1 Genestealer brood infiltrates in front of your lines, as close to the enemy as possible, and as spread out as possible - this one is giving cover to everybody behind it. Odds are, given 20 models spread out to maximum dispersal and the freedom of Infiltrate, you can ensure that this front unit has cover, too. Most of the rest deploy as far up as possible, while respecting any large blast/template threats to some degree; keep them all concentrated on one side, to maximize target saturation. Infiltrate is a major advantage here, provided your opponent lacks Infiltrators to push you back (spore mines will help with that). 1 or 2 broods of 'stealers might be assigned to outflank, depending on terrain/spore mine landings/mission type/etc. The Prime attaches to a Zoanthrope unit; he'll be catching the odd S8 hit. Everything moves forward as fast as possible, and your opponent has 1 turn to kill as many 'stealers as he can, before 80-120 or so swarm over him. You're playing the metagame a bit - people bring a lot of AT weapons, and you don't have many viable targets for those expensive meltaguns.

It may work. I've used a unit of 18 poisoned 'stealers, backed by Catalyst, to similar effect - between cover and FNP, most of a Tau gunline only killed 12/18 in a round. You lack FNP, but can spare the numbers...for one round, anyway.

Things that'll cause you problems:
1) Lash. It does unpleasant things to 5+ save 'stealers with no psychic defense, and may cost you most of a unit per turn.
2) Mech'dar - fast enough to deny you many attacks at their skimmers, and with enough shooting to put down your Zoanthropes before they get to do much damage. (Runes of Warding hurt zoanthropes quite a bit.)
3) Mech IG. They have enough fire to seriously reduce several large units of 'stealers in a turn, and you don't have enough return firepower to seriously inconvenience them; they also have access to a lot of heavy flamers, and may also have an old-style psychic hood along. Outflanking may be quite useful here.
4) Plague marines in cover. I hate these.

I'm not certain if the extra numbers are worth forgoing poison - it'd cost you 21 stealers to get poison on all the rest, but the impact of the survivors goes up, which is especially important against things like Assault Terminators.

You've pretty much nailed it Janthkin.

you may know the answer to this: If it's DOW and I block him from deploying/cover his board edge is it an auto win if he has no vehicles to tank shock onto the board with?

My only other debate is taking spore drop pods for everything and dropping them empty sans the zoa's and prime to provide some block line of site cover. I'd have to run 15 man squads at that point.

The things you've listed as problems are all major concerns. We also have a lot of horde ork players in m our local environment and running into a can wall can be problematic.

Thanks for the feedback!

Dave_Fay wrote:You've pretty much nailed it Janthkin.

you may know the answer to this: If it's DOW and I block him from deploying/cover his board edge is it an auto win if he has no vehicles to tank shock onto the board with?

My only other debate is taking spore drop pods for everything and dropping them empty sans the zoa's and prime to provide some block line of site cover. I'd have to run 15 man squads at that point.

The things you've listed as problems are all major concerns. We also have a lot of horde ork players in m our local environment and running into a can wall can be problematic.

Thanks for the feedback!

As regards preventing deployment, the answer is "yes, but don't." Decidedly not worth the pain/drama involved.

I wouldn't bother with empty pods - you lose numbers (bad) and gain a lot of easy-to-kill KPs (worse). Podding all the 'thropes (and the Prime) would be very interesting, so long as you remember to stay out of your pods against enemies with armor that you *must* crack early on.

While Dreadnoughts (and especially Soul Grinders/Ironclads) are a problem for 'stealers in this kinder, gentler rending world, I wouldn't fret Kans - they're easier to hurt (AV 11 + squadron rules for death-on-immobilization), and will only hit you on 5's (WS 2). Kans are nastier shooting you with grotzookas.

Something to consider - give the Prime regeneration. It's fairly cheap on him, and he's going to be soaking the odd S8-9 hit for you often enough that you'll have frequent chances to regen.

Also, you probably know this, but for everyone reading along at home: remember that there is no requirement to remove casualties to keep coherency. This can be very important for keeping cover saves - if you're in a line from 1-20, you can kill models 2-19, leaving 1 & 20 some 50+ inches apart, and everyone behind them is STILL getting a cover save for "shooting through an enemy unit."

Seriously? Youre betting on an opponent not having 1 vehicle in 5th edition 'ard boyz? really really bad idea

Kirasu wrote:Seriously? Youre betting on an opponent not having 1 vehicle in 5th edition 'ard boyz? really really bad idea

Don't focus solely on that, Kirasu. It's an odd list, but consider how long it would take a "take all comers" list to shoot 120 genestealers who have cover. There will be a fair number of lists which simply lack the tools needed to kill everything that needs to be killed.

Now, how well it will win depends on the missions, the matchups, and the terrain.

My advice is to play test the list the guys over at Capture and Control make a good case for this in an article on their site. Check it out here Capture and Control: Preparing for 'Ard Boyz. The list looks interesting enough, I like that you are trying something other than nidzilla which doesn't work anymore. I agree with maybe adding a tervigon and some spores for your zoans. But in all seriousness, play the list and see how it works for real. Speculation and mathhammer will only get you so far.

Dave_Fay wrote:You've pretty much nailed it Janthkin.

you may know the answer to this: If it's DOW and I block him from deploying/cover his board edge is it an auto win if he has no vehicles to tank shock onto the board with?

Yes. However, a canny "non-mech" opponent will realize that you have a large number of infiltrators and will sacrifice one to two troops, spreading them out 6-12" away from and along his board edge to deny you the auto win scenario.

My only other debate is taking spore drop pods for everything and dropping them empty sans the zoa's and prime to provide some block line of site cover. I'd have to run 15 man squads at that point.

Well, you are spending alot of points on very easy to kill models that provide KP but little dakka. Also, it is likely that your oppoenent will have alot of bored meltaguns that will be happy to have something to shoot at...otherwise, melta and lazcannons are pretty much wasted against your list as you well know.

I would be tempted to trade a few Zoes units for hive guard (to put some ranged preasure on IG, Eldar, and Rhino/Razorback mech lists) but then you would be very exposed to LR spam, which you are going to have a tough time dealing with as is thanks to hoods.

The only thing I can say is that when playing your games, make sure that you have some say in where the terrain is placed and thus stack some area terrain mid field for your stealers to capitalize on.

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