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Made in no
Liche Priest Hierophant





Bergen

Hi, fellow GSC player here. I have been trying out pure GSC all through 9th edition and got my first winn last saturday. Here are some of my opinons.

GSC are in such a rough place, to make a good list you need to work hard for it. By good, I mean one that has a chance of winning in even a very cassual setting. The book is quite bad: 1. Everything dies to a stiff breese, 2. very few units has any potensial to kill anything, 3. it has poor internal balance, 4. some 'tools' are missing from the codex and 5. it just costs to much CP to run efficiently.

Everything dying to a stiff breese you can not do anything with. Transports are how ever few enough in points that you can now use them. All goliath variants are gravy. And you characters are almost not worth taking because they are so hard to keep alive, and they do to little before they die. Trying to hold objectives through many bodies and attricion does not work as you are paying to much points for the models.

There are few units with a good potensial to kill anything. Hand flamers is our best ranged weapon vs troops. Heavy mining lasers are our best ranged weapon vs heavy thing. Grab these. Most of our killing potensial comes from close combat. All sign points to ridgerunners and acolytes.

The book has terrible internal balance. The only descent ranged anti tank is the ridgerunner with sniper girl backup. The closest comparison is the leman russ and that one is quite bad. (Leman russes is not taken by IG(AM), and that is with stratagems and synergies. BB has no stratagems or synergies in our current codex.) Metamorph Hybrids, Aberrants, Purestrain Genestealers and Acolytes are all variations of the same role. Acolytes is the only good one as it is cheaper and performs the job better then the other models. Now you have your units for ranged anti tank, ranged anti infantery, close combat anti tank and close combat infantery. This is due to bad internal balance, but you should be starting your army with ridgerunners and acolytes.

We are missing some tools in the codex. The most glaring one is that we have no good way to kill flyers. Flyers that are good at killing T3 5+ models is a problem. A dakkajett for instance kills on averadge 7 models each turn, mounting up to 35 dead models in a game. Any army with anti infantery flyers means you can not hold objectives in an atrition game. We can not charge planes, ridgerunners is the best awnser.

You can not rely on stratagems. We bleed trhough CP very fast. You can maximum pull of one 3CP 'A Perfect Ambush' once in the game, perhaps not even that. And 'Lying in Wait' is not worth 2 CP. The solution again is acolytes in transports, or reserves. The transports means they survive to charge. Hand flamers beeing range 12" means you save CP on Lying in Wait. You can of course use Hybrid Metamorphs for this. But you pay 2 more points for upgrading a dagger attack to a rending claw attack and loosing the troops abilaty to deny objectives. You are in fact paying more for a worse unit. It is again a problem with internal balance.

Take your choise of cult creed. Twisted Helix is good for S5, meaning you wound marines on 3+ and T8 on 5+. Four Armed Emperor makes charges easier. (3 CP to delay a stratagem might not be worth it.) Hivecult lets you fall back and shoot handflamers (if you are into that) and your warlord trait is not bad for ridgerunners. Bladed Cog would be good if neophytes where good, but they are not. I can not speak for Pauper Princes or Rusted Claw.

Sadly as the game is now, you should include acolytes and ridgerunners as the major parts of your list. Build your list how you want and have fun.

   
Made in us
Brainy Zoanthrope





Fire trucks and lazer cars are the only thing im being super successful with. I still advocate replacing your rocksaws with snippers.

I did find that a 20man blob of 20 flamers, 8 rocksaws and an icon is a pretty solid threat. At this point I just apa to shoot 40d6 hand flamers. That is super fun to roll.

Lazer cars need a jackal alphas and a primus to be good. It lets you rip apart 2 targets with heart of creed.

Other tricks I have found. If you want to cult mix, you can run a hivecult patrol for your lazer cars and use the broodcoven strat to give the primus the hivelord trait. This stops your trucks from getting that juicy +1 to hit but if you like other cults to dont have to suffer through playing hive cult.

The things that murder me now are d6 damage mining lasers. 9 lasers vary from 3 to 18 damage assuming they all go through.

Fire snakes an rusted cult bombs jusy bounce now. Everything moved into 9th and got too tuff
   
Made in no
Liche Priest Hierophant





Bergen

Yes. Trucks and handflamer is where we are at.

I hope the new point adjustments announced yesterday leave Britney alone and reduses the points on aberrant, purestrain and hybrids so that there is a reason to take them.

The broodbrothers stuff except chimera is to expensive. But they are priced as IG, so I hope the reduce the cost of both of them. But as long as they leave Britney alone at least I can stil play firetrucks.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/24 07:59:22


   
Made in us
Brainy Zoanthrope





I dont even bother with brood brothers stuff other than to be cheeky and bring a baneblade.
   
Made in no
Liche Priest Hierophant





Bergen

Yeah they are quiiiite bad, to OK. I think their top contender is the double flamer chimera at 85 point. It can do some jobs and it is very independent for 85 points. And while it dies easaly, it is not as fragile as T3 5+.

   
Made in us
Brainy Zoanthrope





But they can't hold cult infantry, only brood brothers. That makes them even worse
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





Guaranteed we are overlooked in the Chapter Approved points adjustments. I wouldn't bet on any of our stuff being reduced by more than 1 point, and that'll probably be on the Jackal Alphus.

 Galef wrote:
If you refuse to use rock, you will never beat scissors.
 
   
Made in us
Brainy Zoanthrope





All I want from chapter approved is our mining lasers to go up to d3+3 damage. Charge me more points for acolytes for all I care
   
Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut




We won’t get that, this is just points changes
   
Made in no
Liche Priest Hierophant





Bergen

There are 'leaks' out there. But they included many mistakes. And the points made little sence. No way to verify if they are real. (I do in fact feel slight confident they are not real.) We must wait and seen.

   
Made in us
Brainy Zoanthrope





Will abberants be playable at 17pts a model? 30 per model right now is such a point sink that its 1000 points for 30 of them. Shrinking that cost down. To 600 to 750 would make them super playable imo.
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





dreadlybrew wrote:
Will abberants be playable at 17pts a model? 30 per model right now is such a point sink that its 1000 points for 30 of them. Shrinking that cost down. To 600 to 750 would make them super playable imo.


I just saw that one as well. Sounds too good to be true. I would say YES they will be playable with a damn near 50% points drop! I'd almost say you'll need 30 of them per list just because they're the only unit we have that can actually survive on objectives.

 Galef wrote:
If you refuse to use rock, you will never beat scissors.
 
   
Made in no
Liche Priest Hierophant





Bergen

I saw the leak as well. And I am very sceptical to how true that leak is.

However, if they are true, then abberants with picks might be better then once with hammers. The pick ones have 4 attacks S5, S6 in twisted helix.

17 for a 4 attack pick vs 22 for a 2 attack hammer. (Also, that just sounds far to cheap for the leak to be true.)

   
Made in us
Brainy Zoanthrope





After playing around with the fire trucks and laser cars list a bit. Im going to switch it up and run 9 cars. It seems like I need a little more punch midgame and the swing d6 damage weapons kill me more often than I want. The nice thing is that I only sacrifice 1 firetruck to pull this off
   
Made in us
Brainy Zoanthrope





Played a couple games with 9 cars this weekend. Its the correct amount. It gives you more mobility on a strong mobile list and the mid game punch you need. Its also really really hard to kill them all. So even with their dedicated anti tank fire you can end the game with 3 to 4 cars. That shooting focused the cars also gives your 5 trucks the ability to have free reign on the board. Charging the trucks is a trap but they have just enough punch to keep heavy infantry pinned down. Final ratio im settling on is 9 cars 5 trucks. Taking this list to a local semi competitive league just to see how it does
   
Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut




Sounds so cool but the thought of buying all those cars/trucks makes my wallet hurt. What’s the rest of the list look like?
   
Made in us
Brainy Zoanthrope





Its 5 Goliath trucks

A primus, a magus with 2 familiars, and a jackal alphus.

4 units of 10 acolyte hybrids with hand flamers, icon and 3x rock cutters(these instant kill most characters, necron stargods, and mortarion...eventually)

1 unit of 8 acolytes with hand flamers an icon and 2 cutters.

Insert 9 laser cars
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User




How are you deploying? I’m finding Scanner Decoys and Meticulous Uprising to be our two most important stratagems. Combined they allow the cult to completely overwhelm a chosen flank.
   
Made in us
Brainy Zoanthrope





Deployment for me depends wholly on the list.

Laser cars is aggressive with the laser cars not as blips to utilize the scout move to get back into cover or be more aggressive with better shots.

If im playing a balanced list I cant spend cp on any of those stats because we are so starved of cp making something resembling a playable army. However if they have flyers you can zone them out of your Deployment by grid bliping 9 to 15 inch bubbles. Thats super neat.
   
Made in us
Brainy Zoanthrope





So I just completed my fourth game in my league with the firecult. I am 3-1 and it looks like we get a buy as well. My bracket contains a necron player with the silent king and sort of an unworkable list. 2 death guard players running death shrouds. And a white scars competitive list.

My only loss was against the white scars because I forgot that his banner was in range of some multimelta attack bikes and he went hot on the extra shots. If I had staged my turn one a little better I could have easily won that game.

Playing cult has been fun. No one expects to see the entire army on turn 1 and there are so many blip shenanigans that keep your opponents at bay.


   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





Has anyone as of now attempted to run an Acolyhte heavy list?

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





I haven't been able to have a game in a couple weeks, but I have been having success against some lists with a Acolyte heavy list. It has 60 Acolytes in it; 2 squads of 20, and 4 squads of 5. It's also got about 60 neophytes in it, 16 bikers, 3 ridgerunners, and then just Patriarch, Magus, Primus, Acolyte Iconward, and Nexos. I run them as Rusted Claw so that I have access to both Drive-By Demolitions (for the double-move, the bikes don't carry demo charges) and to +1 to my save vs AP0 and AP-1 (very useful if your meta is lower on Space Marines; most stuff out there is AP-1, which gives you more survivability than if you were Bladed Cog).

The list just tries to gum up the ground, get in the way, and score points. The 60 Neophytes and bikers allow you to block early and do banners or actions in your table, and start controlling where your opponent can go. You can threaten 2 turns in a row of Perfect Ambush for the Acolytes so you can actually kill stuff, or just do Lying in Wait for the 3" but no charge to really block things off.

Your goal isn't to kill your opponent, but just to make their scoring game really hard, and you can score really easily. The 5-man Acolyte squads are great action monkeys, being small enough to get places, and cheap that you don't mind them spending a turn raising a banner or retrieving some data, or spending 2CP to show up on an opponent's objective and steal it from them for just 1 turn.

I went 2-0 at a mini-vent (had to drop before 3rd game, but I'm pretty sure I'd have lost vs Admech) and won vs T'au (close to the current meta build) and Death Guard w/Morty (actually killed Morty - but he threw him in unsupported and dropped 100% of his CP turn 1 to do very little).


I had to run my list as double-battalion, but it'd be better if it had 3x3 Mortar Teams for Heavy Support, and 2x Metamorphs for Elites, and drop some Neophytes and 2 squads of 5-man Acolytes to do this. Would give more CP to allow actually using drive-by demolitions, or having CP to use Lurk in the Shadows on some crucial turns.

Just give up any concept of killing your opponent, and it actually plays very well.

 Galef wrote:
If you refuse to use rock, you will never beat scissors.
 
   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





Good to know.
I soonish Finish my GSC project and i got mostly infantry.
30 acolythes, 20 neophytes, 16 aberrants, a "Patriarch" , sadly only 4 Bikers and 2 ridgerunners , but i could add in cult russes and mortar teams.
Iconward with an actual flag, basically all minor charachters and a jackal.

I did think about 3 x 10 acolythes 1 with four demo charges 2 with a drill and saw each. Probably better to instead Run 2 x 10 one with saws and drills one with charges and 2x 5 Objektive monkeys..

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in us
Brainy Zoanthrope





Flamer bomb acolytes doing 40d6 flame shots for 5 cp is also on my list of archetypes.

I find rusted claw to be fine but if you are not biker focused you are better served getting the re rolling all wounds from bladed cog.

Plus 20 man acolyte hybrids can go hot with the bladed cog strat which explodes on 4+ against admech. Its a neat way to tech against the kings.

That 6+ invuln and 5+ fnp spell also take the squishy blob and make it slightly.more annoying to kill.

   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





My current list, by being so Acolyte and Neophyte heavy, is more about spamming the board in all the places I need to be to score points - so often my ability to cover a core of units for buffs is severely limited. As such, I don't get a lot of benefit in being able to reroll wounds against just a few units. I really do miss the 6+ Inv vs high AP stuff, but having my dudes have an effective 3+ save in cover vs small arms fire more than makes up the difference.

Losing out of the 5+ FnP hasn't been a big deal for me, since my opponent normally can just ignore that unit anyways (again, because I'm pretty spread out in my approach as it is). What has been a big deal for me is losing Death to the Oppressors strat for exploding hits. Thankfully, the Inescapable Decay psyker power has oddly been remarkably useful - far more than I've expected it to be (turns my really bad shooting into only somewhat bad shooting; nickel and dime'ing my opponent's vehicles to death), and Drive By Demolitions for extra movement shenanigans for movement shenanigans on bikers can be clutch.

 Galef wrote:
If you refuse to use rock, you will never beat scissors.
 
   
Made in us
Brainy Zoanthrope





Inescapable decay is solid. I wish it worked on things other than vehicles though.

I run hivecult for the warlord trait on a jackal alphus. Fall back and flame is also pretty useful. Halving the units that run from combat attrition is actually insane. It garuntees that you will have at least one obsec model where you want it. And the next turn all you have to do is add d6 back to the unit.
   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





I'll add another 20 Neophytes with mining lasers...
I guess with that many bodies my patriarch will atleast be decent ...

As an aside, since he has to be warlord, what are the traits one picks for him? I toyed around with the +1 A and S, which ontop of extra galactic might would put him to S8 and 8A?
Or people nowadays just forgoe the patriarch?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/26 15:00:22


https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in us
Brainy Zoanthrope





If you are taking the patriarch you are best off taking a primus and a Magus for 3 traits.

I pretty much always give him DR1 because it means he can survive failing his saves.

If he is solely a support role character for you I would give him the added range to his auras with that many bodies.

Also with that many mining lasers and neophytes (i have about 150 myself) it might be worth it to consider having them in a detachment of one of the custom creeds (yuck) that gives them AP-1 on autoguns and rerolling mining weapons.
   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





dreadlybrew wrote:
If you are taking the patriarch you are best off taking a primus and a Magus for 3 traits.

I pretty much always give him DR1 because it means he can survive failing his saves.

If he is solely a support role character for you I would give him the added range to his auras with that many bodies.

Also with that many mining lasers and neophytes (i have about 150 myself) it might be worth it to consider having them in a detachment of one of the custom creeds (yuck) that gives them AP-1 on autoguns and rerolling mining weapons.

I only have atm 20 Neopphytes in 2 x 10 blocks with twin stubber.
I'll make another 20 Neophytes with mining lasers so that i am on 40 "Neophytes" *

Honestly the list sofar i have planned:
Spoiler:


Battalion: Bladed Cog

Patriarch: +1 S/A trait, Extragalactic might , Psy stimuli
Magus: Blind obsession (bladed cog one) familiar, Extragalctic might, psy stimuli
Primus: +3 " aura trait. Bladed cog 4++ relic.

10 Acolythes, icon, 2x Drill 2xSaw
10 Acolythes, icon, 4x Democharges
5 Acolythes
5 Acolythes
10 Neophytes 2 Mining lasers

Patroll: Bladed Cog

Jackal Alhpus
Iconward

10 Neophytes 2 Stubbers
10 Neophytes 2 Stubbers
10 Neophytes 2 Mininglasers

2 Ridgerunners
4 Atalan Jackals and a wolfquad, 4 democharges and a GL

Nexos
Sanctus with Rifle.

Total if not added up wrong 1491 pts.


Theorethically i also have 16 aberrants but at 30 pts a pop...... i just don't see them as particulary viable nor effective, i technically also can just skip the rifle on the sanctus since i kitbashed/ converted mine.
It kind of annoys me that i am in a sense back at 8.5th marine era when i still played my renegades and used the blob list. Otoh, this list atleast has some potential bite with democharges galore.
The bonus traits are a bit of a nobrainer when you have a patriarch, but it'd be a better strat if GSC were atleast able to hand the traits to all HQ choices and not just Primus and magus, i'd have prefered it on the iconward. A nexos primus combo atleast allows for some maintenance and semblance of maintaining momentum ... but i honestly can't estimate how well that list would work.


*its a daemoncult, i kinda wanted an army to inherit the mantle of my now legended Renegades.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/26 15:34:58


https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





Favourite choices for a Patriarch:

If Bladed Cog - Single Minded Annihilation for the extra reroll of wound rolls. Since it's all and not just 1's it's massively useful, and is both either alongside a Primus for latter reroll support and close combat buffs, or can also be used in lieu of a Primus if the close combat buffs aren't that important for you.

If Pauper Princes - Benevolent Grandsire is just a must, as it makes the Patriarch so hard to kill.

Otherwise, I tend to default to Biomorph Adaptation, because being able to more reliably jump out and kill combat characters that get too close unsupported is vital.

 Galef wrote:
If you refuse to use rock, you will never beat scissors.
 
   
 
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