Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I've gotten my freind Josh into 40k, he's been watching some games and trying to decide what army he wants and he decided on Tyranids. Now I have the codex and am letting him use it till he gets his own. He asked me if I knew any tactics for Genestealers but I don't play Nids, and since he isn't a member of Dakka (yet ) I'm creating this to get the information for him

So what are the do's and donts of genestealers? units size? Broodlord? Infiltrate or no infiltrate? Rending claws or Scything talons? adrenal glands? toxin sacs? the works thanks from Josh for any help.

Oh and what's the best way to do counter assault Warriors to hold an objective? I think he wants to do a shooty army so would Deathspitters and Boneswords with a Termagaunt screen work well or should he do Deathspitters, Scything Talons and Toxin Sacs with the gaunt screen? heck should he do Deathspitters at all

Genestealers generally work well in groups of at least 8, with Toxin sacs. You don't really need the rest of the upgrades on them, but Toxin Sacs are a must.

There are a few good strats out there with them, and it depends partially on what you want to Run. A Swarmlord makes outflanking Genestealers quite awesome, and useful. A Tyrant with Hive Commander also makes it work out pretty well.

You really don't want to walk them on, they'll get shot up real quick. Outflanking is your best bet.

My thoughts:

Adrenal Glands vs. Toxin Sacs:

Toxin Sacs every time. What you want with these guys more than anything is 6's, so being able to reroll your failed wounds is essential. You can wound anything effectively as well in a pinch, although you shouldn't get too excited about that because you might throw them somewhere they shouldn't be.

I don't like Adrenal Glands at all with these guys. You make them (slightly) more effective against T5, and that's about it. If there are a lot of Thunderwolves in the area, then maybe it would be useful, but that's also a cost that can add up and really only be effective against T-Wolves. Against AV 10, you go from penetrating on 6's to... penetrating on 6's... Sure, you can glance now, but you don't want to glance a vehicle in the assault phase with Tyranids. Now, this would help you quite a bit if you're assaulted by a Dreadnought, but that Dreadnought probably has a Heavy Flamer and will kill the squad that way first.

Rending Claws/Scything Talons:

It's important to note that if you take Talons, you don't lose your Claws. I like Talons on Genestealers because of the number of attacks they can get. On an assault, every 2 Genestealers get an extra hit on average, which means more potential wounds/rends. Not as effective as Toxin Sacs, but also cheaper. Also helps them out against vehicles, while Old Adversary doesn't.

Infiltrate/Unit Sizes:

Unless you're doing a synergy build that takes advantage of as many of the 6" abilities as you can, you always want to at least Infiltrate. Depending on the army you might outflank more too, if you know your opponent will have weak units somewhat close (~20") to the board edge, or if, like me, you use a reserve list with a lot of Spores. Outflanking forces your opponent towards the middle and to come through the center of the board, which can lead to multi-assaults, boxing in, etc.

Either go with decent sized unit (10-12+) or go with a minimum sized squad, and then ONLY if you feel confident in your ability to find a hiding spot within 18" of an enemy unit for a first-turn assault. I've used it before a couple times because we play with some LoS-blocking terrain, but usually I find it more effective to just go with the larger squads.

Broodlords are tough to decide on. Having Synapse in a shock troop is great for the first turn or so against shooting, until you get into assault, and then it can go downhill if the rolls are bad (Fearless). Considering the LD10 of the unit, you shouldn't be worried about morale tests in the open anyway. Also, the Broodlord is nice for tougher fights, while his unit isn't. Personally I use the Broodlord in my list because of his Aura of Despair, and I usually can get a lot of units in range of it. Also, he can protect you from some nasty psychic powers, but he is really expensive (more than 4 Genestealers). I think he'd be better out of the list unless you think you can really take advantage of his Aura.

Also, if he has Elite slots available, I'd seriously consider Ymgarl Genestealers. I used to not see the point in these guys (mainly because of the point difference and lack of options) but their Dormant and Alter Form rules are killer. Just make sure you're not in need of any extra Hive Guard, Venomthropes, or Zoanthropes.

somerandomdude wrote:Broodlords are tough to decide on. Having Synapse in a shock troop is great for the first turn or so against shooting

Broodlords are no longer synapse creatures.



Editing to add:
Does anyone else think it odd that Brood Telepathy lets Genestealers ignore Instinctive Behaviour--being that Genestealers do not have Instinctive Behaviour to ignore?

As Kirsanth said, Broodlord has no synapse aura, and thus no Shadow in the Warp. I generally run mine in units of 12-16 with toxin only. Genestealers are one of the nastiest assault units in the game, but they are also extremely fragile. When given the chance, I'll put points into extra bodies rather than upgrades as if they can't get into combat immediately, in most cases they are going to take heavy casualties.

For the same reason, never deploy them normally. I always outflank, with the rare exception of if I get first turn and have a premium place to infiltrate them. Outflanking also makes for good timing in them usually coming in right as the bulk of my army hits the opposing lines.

For the toxin, it synergizes remarkably well with rending as it increases your chances of getting more rends against non-vehicles. You also want to strongly consider running more than 1 brood of them, just in case you get a bad outflanking roll, although if you have the Swarmlord, it's not really as much of an issue.

So would they be much use in a Shooty Nid army?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I mean from what you guys have said outflanking 2 units of them with rending claws and toxin sacks would be perfect for taking out backfield shooters like Long Fangs, Broadsides, Rifleman dreds etc.

Maelstrom808 wrote:As Kirsanth said, Broodlord has no synapse aura, and thus no Shadow in the Warp.

Oddly unrelated, Doom of Malan'tai has Shadow in the Warp and no Synapse.

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:So would they be much use in a Shooty Nid army?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I mean from what you guys have said outflanking 2 units of them with rending claws and toxin sacks would be perfect for taking out backfield shooters like Long Fangs, Broadsides, Rifleman dreds etc.

They work well in any army, really.

How you use them varies a bit, e.g. outflanking with a Swarmlord is nicer than without.

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:So would they be much use in a Shooty Nid army?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I mean from what you guys have said outflanking 2 units of them with rending claws and toxin sacks would be perfect for taking out backfield shooters like Long Fangs, Broadsides, Rifleman dreds etc.

You can pretty much fit them in almost any build for Nids and they will do fine.

On the warriors thing (I won't go into the issues of using warriors in the first place), you are best served by not going point crazy on upgrades. Give them one purpose and leave it at that. If you want them shooty, give them deathspitters and a barbed strangler and preferably a prime to up their BS and eat a missle shot or two.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

kirsanth wrote:

Maelstrom808 wrote:As Kirsanth said, Broodlord has no synapse aura, and thus no Shadow in the Warp.

Oddly unrelated, Doom of Malan'tai has Shadow in the Warp and no Synapse.

Lol, too true, I had forgotten about him.

Maelstrom808 wrote:Give them one purpose and leave it at that.

I already said the purpose, counter assault. That's why I asked what the best way to equipt them for counter assault was because I don't play Nids and don't know how to best equipt them for counter assault and neither does Josh.

Sorry, obviously missed that. Scytals, rending claws, and toxin sacs. Give them a prime with LW/BS.

Ok thank you

I hope you don't take this wrong but does everyone else agree with that?

Maelstrom808 wrote:Sorry, obviously missed that. Scytals, rending claws, and toxin sacs. Give them a prime with LW/BS.

its been awhile since i went over the nids but pretty much this right here. poison and rending is pretty damn win against any assault.

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:Ok thank you

I hope you don't take this wrong but does everyone else agree with that?

LOL!!! No, I don't take that the wrong way, in fact I encourage you to seek second opinions. I am a far stretch from an expert I don't even use warriors commonly as they are just too easy to ID (which is one reason you want to try to keep the points down on them). My troops are typically stealers, termies, and tervigons.

Eh I see asking for adivece the same way I see doing a lab experiment. The more trials you have the more accurate your results are going to be

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:Eh I see asking for adivece the same way I see doing a lab experiment. The more trials you have the more accurate your results are going to be

back in 4th edition me and a friend ran 500 points, me necron him nids, his eldar ate my infantry so fast i didnt get a first turn -_-
just saying i like genesteelers alot iv learned em pretty well, i dont know names but i know poison, rending, and outflanking or infiltrating is the best way to use them

If you have a bunch of Genestealers, and if you bring in a Broodlord, which you should, generally, they will, and I quote, "Cause so much pain... and suffering that your opponent will get down on his knees and go, 'Why, oh why did you bring a Broodlord? '"

AwesomeFex wrote:If you have a bunch of Genestealers, if you bring in a Broodlord, they will, and I quote, "Cause so much pain... and suffering that your opponent will get down on his knees and go, 'Why, oh why did you bring a Broodlord? '"

wait, you were there for that, i wasn't crying, that was sweat, from my eyes...

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:Eh I see asking for adivece the same way I see doing a lab experiment. The more trials you have the more accurate your results are going to be

Especially on the intrawebz.

I'll provide some rationale behind that warrior load-out though:

Scytals - They are free, and replacing them with any of the bonesword options makes the brood far too expensive for a unit that is going to be hugging an objective most of the game and can be wiped out fairly easily.

Rending Claws - You do need to give them some teeth (so to speak) and these are free if you replace the devs with them. You could keep the devs and replace the scytals with rending claws, but it'll cost you 5 points a piece, which isn't really worth the one round of shooting you are going to maybe get with them.

Toxin Sacs - As kenzosan noted, Toxin Sacs + Rending = win. Rending typically is only effective en masse, which is one reason sniper rifles are pretty pitiful. By taking toxin, not only are you able to reliably damage things like C'tan/wraithlords, and can get rerolls on your failed to-wound rolls, but those rerolls also increase your chances of getting more rends...which is almost always a good thing.

Tyranid Prime - It gives them a nice boost to WS (although there are only a few armies that bumping WS5 to WS6 will really help you against), has T5 so you can eat some missle shots on him without having to ID a regular warrior, and you can slap him with a LW/BS combo to provide a reliable punch to the counter assault.

Keep them as cheap as possible. As I said before, they are very easy to ID for many armies in shooting and CC so you want to keep them as cheap as possible while still remaining effective at their given role so you can put more bodies on the field (yes I know that can be said for any unit in 40k but it tends to apply even more-so to Nid units).

You just can't expect them to perform miracles. They aren't going to take down that nob biker squad, TWC, or TH/SS termie unit by themselves. They will finish off any such unit that has been chewed up already by a good screen, especially if they have support from a HT giving out prefered enemy and/or paroxysm and maybe a tervigon giving them FnP.

AwesomeFex wrote:
If you have a bunch of Genestealers, if you bring in a Broodlord, they will, and I quote, "Cause so much pain... and suffering that your opponent will get down on his knees and go, 'Why, oh why did you bring a Broodlord? '"

I'm not entirely sold on the Broodlord as a "must have" option. He's Nice to have, and I've used him to good effect, but it depends on what you want out of your stealers. In my case they tend to be used as a pressure unit for when my flying circus hits the opposing lines. If they don't do much more than cause them to peel resources away from my main force, then they've almost done a good enough job for me. If you are using them as one of your main offensive punches, then yeah, I'd probably take a broodlord if you have the points.

I personally wouldn't ever bother with the Broodlord. For his points you could just have more stealers and thus more attacks. Seeing as a lot of their power comes from rending anyway, his S5 is less useful than more rending attacks. This leaves his powers as his only real use, and well... I wouldn't pay that many points for powers which you aren't gonna find a massive amount of use for, except against monstrous creatures.

As for Warriors, I'm trying stuff out myself at the moment. I'm thinking of just giving them boneswords and adrenal glands. Before I have had them with deathspitters, but I haven't tried them out with devourers instead to see if having the points to spend elsewhere will be more effective than having S5 shots.

I like a large unit of infiltrating Toxin Sac stealers as a mainstay of almost any nid army. It needs to be a big enough unit that you can have it tail back into range of your Tervigon, who will give it Feel No Pain using catalyst. If you have 1st turn, this unit is incredibly resilient (infiltrate them in cover, very close to the enemy; give them FNP; run forward for a 2nd turn charge; few armies can take out 20-odd T4 models with a 4+ cover save and FNP in one turn, and on Turn 2 they kill almost anything). Broodlord optional; I quite like him, with scytals and implant attack, if I have spare points.

My experience differs wildly from that of many other (probably better) players, but I really like 5-man stealer squads, one member of which is s broodlord with scything talons.

My reasoning:
1. At the low-pts games I play a lot of, 5 is the perfect number. Just enough to take firepower from one squad, barely survive, charge into combat, stay locked for a turn before winning in the opponent's phase, allowing me to charge again. The broodlord's better T, W and Sv allow me to do this very efficiently.

2. Synergy. I typically run three or four of these 5-man Broodlord stealer squads at 1000pts, and they never disappoint. Their ability to rickroll monstrous creatures is unparalleled, as the Broodlord's hypnotic gaze is awesome. I also run the Doom of Malantai for extra synergy points, as three or four broodlords casting aura of despair in 12" of a couple of squads means Doomy gets to suck a whole lot of souls.

3. Double threat. Stealers are easily my fave CC unit in the game, as they can really lay the hurt on anything, including vehicles. If stealers charge a gun tank that hasn't moved, expect that it will not be shooting next turn, or worse, dead.
In case it wasn't apparent, this means one less gun pointing at the rest of the Tyranid army.

All in all, I really love broodlord stealers at lower pts values. Other people's opinions of how stealers are best run may differ, but I would encourage them to try this method before criticizing it as it can be really vicious.
@OP - My best of luck to Josh, and all of his gribbly misadventures.

Lets compare a couple of builds kids!!

A) Broodlord w/ Scything Talons, 4 genestealers w/ Toxin Sacs - 130 points
B) 8 genestealers w/ Toxin Sacs - 136

I think these are a couple of the more effective builds. Happy to compare others later if people think they have a good build.

A) 8 S4, 4 S5 attacks, 4 T4, 3 T5 wounds
B) 16 S4 attacks, 8 T4 wounds

B) has 3 more attacks, and one more wound, though the smaller size of the A) means its more likely to get cover or be out of LOS and more effective at infiltrating.

A) Charges into 10 standard Marines: 11.518 hits, 8.345 wounds, 1.39 rends, 2.318 failed saves, 3.7 kills
B) Charges into 10 standard Marines: 16 hits, 12 wounds, 2 rends, 3.333 failed saves, 5.333 kills

A) 6.3 Marines hit back, 5.3 attacks due to HG: 2.65 hits, 1.325 wounds, 0.6625 vs broodlord, 0.88333 vs stealer, kills
B) 4.777 Marines hit back: 2.3885 hits, 1.194 wounds, 0.796 kills

A) wins by 3.03/2.81
B) wins by 4.53

B) kills more marines, though is far more likely to win combat in one round and if save is taken on the broodlord then the combat effectiveness does not diminish due to lost wounds. Doesn't take into account the extra attack on the Sargent because I forgot and couldn't be arsed to do it all over again. Would have a very marginal effect anyway.

A) Charges AV10 which moved under 6": 6 S4 hits, 2.777 S5 hits, 1.46 pens, 0.46 glances
B) Charges AV10 which moved under 6": 12 S4 hits, 2 pens

A) Charges AV11 which moved under 6": 6 S4 hits, 2.777 S5 hits, 1.127 pens, 0.333 glances
B) Charges AV11 which moved under 6": 12 S4 hits, 1.333 pens, 0.666 glances

B) is far better at popping armour.

Broodlord units, working with the Doom and devourers, could lead to some real nasty. In fact, I may have to write a list around this...
I don't think the math really gave credit to the broodlords hypnotic glare ability. Giving the broodlord implant attack and combining it with the HG could make him an awesome IC killer, and HG alone can make the small unit more survivable in combat.

Could you outflank a prime with the stealers?

PS. As much as I love them, I wouldn't take warriors. They are far to expensive and easy to kill with S8 pie plates. If you really want to take them with just death spitters and a barbed stranglers to keep points down and don't take CC builds as all the ones I have seen have sucked.

kenzosan wrote:

AwesomeFex wrote:If you have a bunch of Genestealers, if you bring in a Broodlord, they will, and I quote, "Cause so much pain... and suffering that your opponent will get down on his knees and go, 'Why, oh why did you bring a Broodlord? '"

wait, you were there for that, i wasn't crying, that was sweat, from my eyes...

Oh yes, sorry for the "misunderstanding."

Warriors: If they are a counter attack unit I would agree with rending, scytals and toxics. Attach a prime to do some proper damage.

Their lack speed and vulnerability to ID makes them a sub par choice for pure counter attack, but they are still scoring and have that wonderful synapse.

A good choice for a small army and a player learning the ropes.

I can also recommended giving the ymgrals a try. They are crazy fun.

Lithophile wrote:Warriors: If they are a counter attack unit I would agree with rending, scytals and toxics. Attach a prime to do some proper damage.

Their lack speed and vulnerability to ID makes them a sub par choice for pure counter attack, but they are still scoring and have that wonderful synapse.

A good choice for a small army and a player learning the ropes.

I can also recommended giving the ymgrals a try. They are crazy fun.

My problem with this argument is: "A couinter attack to what?" Everytime I play nids I am lumbering over to the oponent who backs away. Today for instance my 3 warriors died to a malbero blast. Yay.

Niiai wrote:

Lithophile wrote:Warriors: If they are a counter attack unit I would agree with rending, scytals and toxics. Attach a prime to do some proper damage.

Their lack speed and vulnerability to ID makes them a sub par choice for pure counter attack, but they are still scoring and have that wonderful synapse.

A good choice for a small army and a player learning the ropes.

I can also recommended giving the ymgrals a try. They are crazy fun.

My problem with this argument is: "A couinter attack to what?" Everytime I play nids I am lumbering over to the oponent who backs away. Today for instance my 3 warriors died to a malbero blast. Yay.

That much is true, I prefer my assault elements to be either rock hard or dead fast. I run my warriors now in a brood of 4 with some form of gun, scytals and toxics. They sit in the back field minding objectives and providing covering fire and synapse. But I have had some success with the rending/prime build.

so yesterday i looked at my friends nid codex and remember this thread the whole time and just thought, the entire time, how amazing it is that my ba were able to beat these guys at all when warrior w/ st, ts, and rc is 35 ppm and the gene steelers were (i think) not even 20 ppm with rc and ts. all this said, my friend that played nids used the warriors with guns and never used ts <_<

(at the time my ba consisted of 2 assault, 1 tactical, 1 sg, and 1 captain)

Just want to add my experience. I played nids vs nids the other day. The other guy had a large squad of Warriors with toxin sacs, whips+swords, and scything talons. He put Catalyst on them when he could and kept them in cover. An extremely hard squad to kill. Oh yeah, a prime there too with regen to absorb hits.

I am seeing his point of view now. The devourers rarely do anything. Either go with that or upgrade to spitters and shoot with them.

They were 50 points a model or so but they did so much damage in the game, they were worth it. Nothing I had could deal with them as he kept making cover saves against my hive guard. I was using Swarmlord but even he wouldn't have been able to deal with that squad at full or even half strength.