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I'm going to be playing my first game against my friends 'Nids with my IG soon, and was wondering what is the best way to counter his Genestealers. He spams around 50+ of them with a Broodlord and Rending Claws. I can't remember the Hive Fleet he uses, though I THINK it is Leviathan.
Against my Marines he has rushed them across the board ripping through my lines and swamping everything, I have no doubts that will be his plan again.

I was curious as to what people thought would be a good way to counter this with the Guard since I still have trouble countering it.

My army is Cadian with a mix of Infantry, Tanks, and Artillery. If you need the specific list I can provide it. Any and all help is appreciated.

Mass Infantry Squads to act as speed bumps while firing away at range.

Several ig squads to provide screen is essential to stop them from tagging big shooty squads. 2 layers or even 3 if posslble.

Guns stop them nicely if you get to shoot them but if he's smart he'll 3 point something so you can't shoot them. At that point you need h2h unit of your own. Bullgryns works nicely. If allies are ok sisters of battle have repentia and arco flagelants which works nicely. 10 flagelants will put out 20d3 s4 attacks hitting on 4's rerolling all. Or with stratagem flat 60... that's 45 hits, 22 wounds, 15 dead stealers. For 130 pts. Unit or two at your back hiding safely and when stealers mulch front line or two unleash them.

Leman Russ Punishers with heavy bolters and Guardmen with flamers. Deploy infantry in front of the tanks, when its your turn have the guardsmen fall back and shoot up the stealers with the tanks. Don't worry about the guardmen dying it's what they're for.

He's probably using Kraken which gives them an advance of 3 dice, choose the highest.

Anything that doesn't require LOS. Turtle behind cover.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Leman Russ Punishers with heavy bolters and Guardmen with flamers. Deploy infantry in front of the tanks, when its your turn have the guardsmen fall back and shoot up the stealers with the tanks. Don't worry about the guardmen dying it's what they're for.

He's probably using Kraken which gives them an advance of 3 dice, choose the highest.

Flamers bad, don't bring flamers. Better off FRFSRF with lasguns than getting in flamer range. 1d6 bolters won't save you from a charge, and if you're close enough to use the flamer that squad is already dead. Flamers are a trap this edition unless you're talking something like a Hellhound.

As far as genestealers, key is properly spacing infantry to buy your army time. Squads should be minimum 4" spaced, to prevent consolidation. You will lose the first line and probably the second. Sooner you accept that the better you'll be. You're guard, outnumber him and grind him down through attrition. That sounds like odd advice for nids but trust me on this. Your men are far cheaper than Genestealers, if you trade a squad for 10 genestealers you're going to tear him apart. Genestealerss are made of hopes and dreams and tissue paper, you have the ultimate weapons: guardsmen, Hellhounds, and punisher cannons. I would not recommend heavily tailoring just to kill genestealers though, he may get fresh and bring big bugs too.

Think about how you'll dig him out of your line, your counterattack will be key. Things like pskyers to smite genestealers holding units hostage, characters with some melee ability like bullgryn and priests are good too. Remember genestealers are not tough, a guardsquad getting the charge can actually chip a few genestealers with priest support.

Finally, consider your deployment. Something like hammer and anvil is easy, defense in depth, stick your tanks in the back, done. But Dawn of War, you'll never make the line deep enough. In those scenarios, sometime the best option is actually spreading the army out, and baiting him to hit a flank with a unit you know he fears, like a Punisher TC tantalizingly close to maybe get turn 1. If he fails, cool, if he succeeds, make sure you have other units ready to hammer the breakthrough. Close enough to optimally hit him, far enough to not get dragged into the initial combat. The key is bait juicy enough to drag him in, but cheap enough (in terms of points and objectives) that he makes the bigger trade there. Sometimes that means sacrificing your coolest model, but that's guard for you.

I'll second having some form of assault unit of your own.
You need a screen to prevent them from immediately assaulting and locking down your shooting units. However properly played genestealers will turn your screen against you, by surrounding models and using them to hide in combat.
It's difficult to prevent this, and at that point all you can do is throw a few smites their way, and have an assault unit ready to step in and punch them.

In my experience, most players do not play genestealers optimally. So maybe you'll be fine just throwing sacrificial squads in their way. But played properly they are an absolute terror to full gunlines.
Here's a good video covering some of what they can do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlFF_lEa50Y

There's multiple ways to go about it, but in my personal experience lines sacrificial infantry squads with punisher tanks in the back will be the most effective option. I wouldn't bother with any melee units. Just bring a lot of barebones infantry squads and throw more infantry in the way. Try to position/space your squads so that he can't charge/drag more than one into melee with a single unit at a time.

DO NOT underestimate the amount of havoc FRFSRF can wreak on genestealers and gaunts. I cannot stress this enough. A single squad of cadians in rapid fire range with the FRFSRF will kill an average of 4-5 genestealers. Cadians will probably work best, just keep your tanks far in the back and try not to have to move them around so you can take advantage of the reroll 1's to hit. For sponsons I would take a lascannon so you have some kind of anti-monster, and 2 heavy bolters.

Hope this helps

 chrispy1991 wrote:
There's multiple ways to go about it, but in my personal experience lines sacrificial infantry squads with punisher tanks in the back will be the most effective option. I wouldn't bother with any melee units. Just bring a lot of barebones infantry squads and throw more infantry in the way. Try to position/space your squads so that he can't charge/drag more than one into melee with a single unit at a time.

So how you plan to deal with units locked into combat w/3pointer? They have stratagem allowing 2d6 consolidate. Combo that with fight again(3" more pile in and then 3" consolidate) and they can trap ridiculouly far away. Better have 10" gap at least between first and 2nd line...he charges, wipes unit, moves 2d6, triggers fight again, piles in.

One interesting thing if they 3 point might be either the Cyclops Demolition Vehicle or the Psychic Power Gaze of the emperor. Both have friendly fire ON and can be used to kill a captured model. In case of the Cyclops this happens at the end of the movement phase, so your army can still shoot afterwards.
It sounds a bit nonsenical, but if a strong melee unit is about to hide from the shooting phase with a Guardsman as meat shield, blowing up said guardsmen an some collaterals is not a bad idea.

Special mention on range: you can stretch for example a large conscript Blob out, with one line of conscripts in the back up to your Cyclops/Astropath with GotE. If for example three Genestealer units capture one of those Conscripts each at the front of your line, you can attack your own Conscript blob in the backfield, kill three and remove the three that are caught. It does not matter if they are half a board away from the source of the friendly fire. RAW you choose which models are removed.

He is using the most obvious Nid tactic with the biggest flaw. His GS are only a huge threat to what they can get into contact with and the way he gets them into contact most reliably is the Swarm Lord who is a VERY expensive sling shot for the GS.

Kill that Swarmlord. Bring enough big guns to lay him to waste turn 1. Once that swarm lord is out of the way the GS loose a lot of their mobility.

Then the GS are only a threat to your front lines. Layer your deployment into barriers of cheap infantry with high rate of fire anti infantry weapons behind them. The GS will either hit the barrier and stop or kill the barrier and then be strandard in the open as long as you space each layer intelligently to deal with his consolidation moves. Conscripts with 1" spacing between models in a long line for example. just take several units and space them out as best you can. (genestealer bases are too big to fit within 1" spaces). Then 3.5" back you make another line of conscripts. Then 3.5" behind that your actual gunlines for killing including lascanons or whatever the hell to kill off that swarmlord.

On your turn fall back to 1.1" away and light them up with guns. They become DRASTICALLY less effective with every model lost.

He has a 1 trick pony list. It's a good trick but it's ONLY 1 trick. Which means it has a hard counter. Leverage it and show him why he should be doing something more interesting with his models.

Dont get wrapped, you could lose from that alone in some cases.

 Smirrors wrote:
Dont get wrapped, you could lose from that alone in some cases.

It's pretty hard to avoid that with stealers who can do average 13" movement after eating first rank away. For record at the dawn of war that's more than your deployment zone depth...


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 Lance845 wrote:
He is using the most obvious Nid tactic with the biggest flaw. His GS are only a huge threat to what they can get into contact with and the way he gets them into contact most reliably is the Swarm Lord who is a VERY expensive sling shot for the GS.

Kill that Swarmlord. Bring enough big guns to lay him to waste turn 1. Once that swarm lord is out of the way the GS loose a lot of their mobility.

.

How many basilisk that requires? As unless tyranid is idiot only los ignoring weapons gets to shoot at it

You can play Valhalla, with their special order, your other units can shoot to an enemy unit in combat; so if you cant fallback, that might come on handy

Babar_babar wrote:
You can play Valhalla, with their special order, your other units can shoot to an enemy unit in combat; so if you cant fallback, that might come on handy

Yeah but he runs cadians. Plus at a certain point we're no longer giving him tactics and instead just list tailoring, which isn't fun for anybody

Add straken, a Priest and bulk your squads up. fight him over it. you can also snag a bane blade to cut their movement in half.

Screen with Hellhounds.

I play tyranids often.

Here's some counters:

Genestealer rush - multilayered screening with infantry.
Any of my bugs - mortas

I've had great luck against them running Mordians with an Emperor's Fist bunch of Leman Russes. Shoot them, shoot them again in overwatch, and have your tanks do the same. Leman Russes in Close Order with Defensive Gunners and within 6" of the tank Commander... Anything that does make it through won't be much of a threat. I have a Malcador Defender too that 'Stealers really aren't a fan of.