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Ok, lets talk Tyranids. Everyone else can leave, because you have assault grenades. (You guys are dicks.)

The main problem Nids have is the "Smart Opponent". This savvy fellow knows your codex, and knows you have no assault grenades.
What does this mean? It means they are going to sit on cover and shoot at your assault bugs, and then not assault.
This is because they know that without grenades, assaulting through cover means you strike at Initiative 1, regardless of modifiers. (pg 36 BRB)

Sooo.. That kinda blows. Especially with genestealers , who normally enjoy striking first.

Here is how I handle this: I screen the assault with disposable free gants, and spend my genestealers movement moving AWAY from the enemy.
Lets look at some visual aids here. Lets assume a fight between Plague Marines and Nids, because Blight grenades make this even worse.

Ok, now jokes about the crappy terrain aside, this is two groups of nids, about to assault Plague marines in cover. There is an objective there, and I want it.


Ok, So what I've done is moved the genestealers as far away as possible, into the corner there, leaving a small trailing edge of two or three stealers.


Here, the Termagants have now moved as best they can to get in the genestealers way. Movement phase is over, lets move on to shooting.


Ok! So lets make sure those fleshborers can shoot those marines! Even though they are obviously within range, what you are doing here is figuring out where you need to move the genestealers when they run. Visually mark the spot, because you're going to roll shooting for the gants and then move the stealers there on your run move.


When you run your stealers, you're only going to run about 3 of them. Get the closest one about 3-4 inches away from the enemy, and space all the other stealers at max coherancy 2" behind, leading back to your clustered mob. Again, you measured where this spot would be during Termagant shooting, but you can technically measure again from the stealer to the spot. Here, the spot was about an inch in front of and to the left of that Termagant. Ok, lets move on to assaults.


Ok, first up are the Termagants. They assault normally, and will go last in this assault, even behind Plague Marines at I3. Make as much of a screen as you can.


All of the stealers move a full 6" towards the enemy in this situation, assuming I rolled a 6 for assaulting. Usually its about 3-4 inches, but this is a demonstration, and you can certainly have placed the stealers in this range, or even 1" away, just making the trailing line to the mob a little longer.


This is what the final assault move for the stealers looks like. I moved the full possible amount with all the stealers towards the closest enemy. Its just that earlier, I had ALSO moved/run them so that this contact will be minimal.


Here is the charge reaction for the Plague marines, with the maximum number to marines assaulting Genestealers. 3 Plagues are in base to base with the stealers, and 4 or 5 of the stealers will be within 2" of an engaged Tyranid model. Sure, take your attacks first this round!. Every round after that, and after pile in moves, ALL of my stealers remaining will get to attack, and they will go at normal initiative, rending through FNP.

Bonus strategy for extra credit: If any of the gants survive, make sure its the one near the top. This way, once models are removed, the plague marines will have some models that are stringing coherancy between the two combats and won't get to attack at all while all the genestealers will.


At the very least, the stealers will be contesting this objective.



This technique is also doable with only one unit involved. IT might actually work out better that way. If a pinky toe of your enemy is outside of cover, Line up 6" away from that toe, so you dont have to move anything through cover. Play smart, Play mean, and I'll have more tactics with pictures later this week.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but image #8 (showing the genestealers after their assault move) looks like it isn't showing any genestealer in base contact with any plague marine.

At least one genestealer has to reach base-to-base contact in order to successfully assault. If no stealer can reach base-to-base, then none of them make any assault move. They all have to stay where the started at the top of the assault phase.

I think I understand what you're trying to show--minimizing contact between the marines and stealers. But right now, the pictures here, I think, don't actually show a legal assault. Unless I'm not seeing something.

True, I'll update that when I load the next set of pictures.

For now assume that the termagant furthest on the left assaulted another marine, leaving the closest on to the genestealers open.
Its still basically the same assault though. Plagues can't get to all of the stealers and have to focus on the gants.

I agree that this seems like a good move. Thumbs up Doomthumbs. Anything to help the moast balanced codex that gets forsaced by the rules in 5th Edition. :-)

Question though: Will not genestealers die like flies due to combat resolution if they are within synapse? :-/

I have made mistaces of multi charging with the nids. I am leaning more towards bigger units and charging them one after another.

Yeah he'd have to arrange it so he gets in btb with the next guy over. Same concept, just has to be closer up.

Here's the problem though: You need a big squad of gaunts for this to work right. The plaguemarines in this pic have 3 that can attack genestealers. That's 6 attacks, 3 hit, 1.5 wound, about 1 of them dead. Then that's 14 attacks against gaunts. 9 hit, 6 wound, 5 dead gaunts. Your genestealers are unlikely to kill 5, and the gaunts won't kill any. You're looking at losing by about 5, making it very likely the remaining gaunts will die to fearless wounds. The genestealers would take a hit as well. If you're not in synapse, the stealers are looking at a -5 morale check. Not good.


Charging into cover in a SECOND round of combat doesn't impose the penalty on you. You should use a large squad of gaunts that can take the heat for two rounds, so there's still some alive when it's your turn again. Charge all the genestealers in and enjoy I6 goodness.

I do not understand what this accomplished. If you assault the Plague Marines in ANY WAY, sense they are all in cover, your entire Genestealer squad will strike at Initiative 1. There is just no way around it. Another thing also, the Plague Marines will make their pile-in as soon as the Termagaunts finish making their assault, before the Genestealers will launch their assault.

If your trying to minimize the number of attacks torwards the Genestealers, yes, you can do this, but you most likely will not place many more strikes back at them either and you will lose many models to Fearless wounds or flee due to the leadership modifications from combat resolution.

He knows they'll be I1. Point is, only 3 plaguemarines can attack the genestealers, not 10, while something like 5-7 genestealers can still strike. Casualties will be taken from those that can't, in the back. The intent is to minimize casualties in the important unit so next round it can get its attacks in.

And you are incorrect. ALL assault moves are made before ANYONE piles in. Otherwise you could daisy-chain large units into assault with your entire army.

"Ok my independent character charges your mob of 30 orks....ok they pile in.... now my berserkers can charge, so pile into those....ok now the next squad is in range, so pile into them..... hey look my havocs are in range now too, guess they'll charge as well."

Every assaulting unit moves. Then the enemy piles in.

Thats about right.

Another plan is to either make sure as many enemies as possible make base contact with the little bugs and then barely make an assault with a second unit on a flank.
You can also single out powerfists and the like if they are in the front rank using the same strategy.

Spellbound wrote:1)Yeah he'd have to arrange it so he gets in btb with the next guy over. Same concept, just has to be closer up.

2)Here's the problem though: You need a big squad of gaunts for this to work right. The plaguemarines in this pic have 3 that can attack genestealers. That's 6 attacks, 3 hit, 1.5 wound, about 1 of them dead. Then that's 14 attacks against gaunts. 9 hit, 6 wound, 5 dead gaunts. Your genestealers are unlikely to kill 5, and the gaunts won't kill any. You're looking at losing by about 5, making it very likely the remaining gaunts will die to fearless wounds. The genestealers would take a hit as well. If you're not in synapse, the stealers are looking at a -5 morale check. Not good.


3)Charging into cover in a SECOND round of combat doesn't impose the penalty on you. You should use a large squad of gaunts that can take the heat for two rounds, so there's still some alive when it's your turn again. Charge all the genestealers in and enjoy I6 goodness.

1) I know, I'll change it. The pics will also be changed to reflect the strategy of placing them 3-4 inches away instead of 6.
2) Thank you for including the math in this. You're even correct in your numbers, except the genestealers and gaunts side of the combat.
5 Stealers attacking gets 10 attacks, 6 hits, 4.5 wounds (with toxic stealers) with 1 rending.
11 gants (average from a tervigon spawn), of which 6 will live to attack, 3 will hit, 1.5 more wounds (shared toxin sacs).
So 6 wounds and 1 rending wound total. 2 wont make armor, and 1 wont make fnp. so 2 dead Plague marines versus 6 dead nids total.

I lose combat by 4. About 3 more stealers and 4 more gants die. Totals for next combat are 6 genestealers and 2 gants VS 8 Marines, of which 3/4 wont be in range of attack, because I will have strung them between 2 continuing combats. At the very least, I live to contest. 6 stealers will win the combat next round, and are also guaranteed to stick around.

3) I'm assuming both Synapse coverage and a group of averagely 11 gants spawned from a tervigon (which everyone has in the list). A large group of gants would be nice, but isn't likely to be around.

Great tip and it looks like there are those that were unaware of it, so kudos.

Assuming the stealer has made contact with that PM and the gants have shifted to compensate, as shown it appears that more PMs would have been able to make contact or get within 2" of those that were contacting stealers -- however you've not strung out the stealers as much as they could have been also, so the tactic is still sound.

I guess my main point is that it looks like you moved all the remaining PMs to the closest bases to base -- this is incorrect. Only 1 PM has to react to the closest unengaged or base, the rest are free to move the full 6" as long as they follow the other rules (2" coherency and attempt to reach unengaged and b2b). Just keep that in mind when attempting this type of manuver.

Also using your own models to funnel or block react moves is helpful.

You can also single out powerfists and the like if they are in the front rank using the same strategy.

This is important when getting your MCs in the mix and has saved my bacon several times by either locking fists or strong ICs for atleast a round. Yes the opponent can minimize this early on by staying back in the front ranks but once he takes casualties or is locked ina combat it is harder to do.

My math was off by one marine dying - admittedly, you didn't tell me the gaunts all had poisoned attacks

Keep in mind though that the guys strung out between two units WILL get to attack. They'll either be supporting against genstealers or against gaunts. You'll pile in after this turn, and then on his turn you'll also pile in. There's always a pile in at the start of the assault phase too.

6 genestealers isn't a guaranteed win against marines. That's what, 12 attacks? 8 hit, one rends, two others wound. Between armor and fnp, that's not many casualties. Plaguemarines basically get a hit each and a wound for every two, so that's a couple wounds right there. It's at best a stalemate, and that's not counting the ones killing gaunts.

It doesn't look good. It's a great tactic for making the best of a bad situation, but I think that tervigon should join the combat, or you should have something else to jump in after that round is over, or you should thin them down with more shooting first to swing things more in your favor.

If it were me I would rather assault with gaunts first then assault with stealers the following turn. Stealers would then strike at I6. You could also use FnP on the different units each turn to limit casualties more efficiently. Just make sure there are enough gaunts not to die off completely, though again FnP helps mitigate this.

I have tried to do this quite often in games with my nids. the only thing that i would have a problem with if i were your foe would be the fact that you are measuring not from the barrel of the gun to your target, you are obviously measuring from the target to the stealers. This would raise some eyebrows if i were faceing you and i would immediatley complain about it. just my .02$

Damn, didn't see Spellbounds post.

If it were me I would rather assault with gaunts first then assault with stealers the following turn. Stealers would then strike at I6. You could also use FnP on the different units each turn to limit casualties more efficiently. Just make sure there are enough gaunts not to die off completely, though again FnP helps mitigate this.

The example given by the OP is in a vacuum. Early game or end game? Is there tervigon support? Other enemy units that can either shoot the stealers or counter charge the termagants? Those are all important factors in deciding how to assault a unit entrenched in cover.

Also note that even with FnP and biomorphs those 11 gants are in danger of being wiped in the opponents turn, putting you back to square one on the turn you planned to bring the stealers in -- and you will rarely have more then 11 gants to throw into the mix.

Finally, the numbers illustrate one reason why many tyranid players have stopped running small units of stealers in favor of the bigger ones. Clip units like this with larger stealer units and they have a good chance of winning assaults in the opponents turn. And its much easier to do this with one large unit then two smaller ones (hard to give FnP to two smaller units, sometimes impossible to assault in with two units, etc).

^ exactly. Sadly this example isn't one of how to win. It's how to take less points of nids and hold an objective. In this scenario, the stealers live through at least 3 turns. And the chaos player that expected a 230 point babysitting squad in cover gets it taken away by 170 points of stealers and some free gants.

I think you might run into problems if the opponent has a firmer grip on numbers. What I would do would be pile in on the termagaunts and only let the 1 genestealer be in base to base with a plaguemarine.

This means only 2 genestealers can attack me (1 in base to base and 1 supporting), combine this with the fact I can kill off most of the gaunts (18 attacks, 12 hits, 8 wounds, 6-7 dead gaunts) means I receive very little in retaliation.

Realistically this means I should win combat by 6, resulting (within synapse) in wiping out the gaunts and killing 4 more genestealers. Leaving me with 8 or 9 plaguemarines against 5 or 6 genestealers. When outside of synapse this means your need to test on -6, which means a good chance of running away (and getting shot up the next turn).


I get what you are trying to do, but unless you expand that genestealer unit to be able to take some additional wounds and still be effective and also can garantee they are within synapse range I don't see this working terribly well.

I prefer the simpler two-front assault that involves spawning a unit of termagants with a tervigon, giving them FNP so they survive, and assault them into whatever i need dead. Next turn, if all goes to plan, the combat will still be ongoing and my genestealers or trygon can mop up.

Or hell, vs plague marines send in a trygon regardless of cover. When the red mist clears there will probably be nothing left of the plagues with only one or two chunks taken from the Trygon.

@Dutchsage Well, then you fell for it. I could care less about 55 points of (free) termagants. I want the stealers to live, and there is no possible way for them not to. That objective is contested, and they cannot be shot at. For at LEAST two full game turns. If I did this on turn three, game might be over. Turn four? That bjective is mine, on the cheap, and the rest of my forces are free to pursue goals on the rest of the board.
2/3 of all games are objective based. In this situation, I'm not trying to beat plague marines, or save any of my troops. I have sent them to their death, attacking enemies in cover. But I have not sent them there in vain. That objective is gonna be mine pretty much forever.

@Tetrisphreak M trygons are usually busy in other parts of the board than my stealers operate, but yeah. Again, Im not trying to take this objective, just to show how a small point value of troops can assault a higher value of tougher troops IN COVER, and still live to contest.

Thing is though that it is more effective to hit termagaunts for combat resolution or no-retreat wounds. So in effect by not hitting the genestealers in worst case scenario (within synapse range) I still do more wounds on them than if I had tried to hit as many of them as possible and best case (outside of synapse) I can almost guarantee that they will run away (-6 on Ld = very high chance).

I know the idea is to keep them locked, but comparing both situation (piling in on Genestealers vs Termagaunts) in both cases I kill the same number of Genestealers, but when piling in on the Termagaunts I kill these too, meaning all my plague marines are left to focus on the genestealers.

Yes, but it also means that the genestealers will only lose another maybe 1 or two, and you only kill the other two termagants.
The stealers will still be there, locked in combat. I don't gain any more kills versus the plagues if I charge both groups all out. In THAT situation, you would pile in against the genestealers, kill all of THEM, leaving me with gants. Doing it like this ensures that I am killing more plague marines, and holding the objective in the long run.