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I currently only play a black legion army.  Working on other armies but the BL is where this comes into play.

How do you stop a genestealer brood from annihilating you in close combat?  I6 is impossible to stop.  Sometimes you just cant shoot all of em before they get to the front lines.  If you dont and they have feeder tendrils, flesh hooks and thier innate awesomeness hit first with thier three attacks on the charge. I tried the hidden powerfists on the champs with daemonic mutation but that didnt work.  He was dead before he could swing. Any special chaos thing Im missing or should I keep with the heavy bolter / flamer squads against the bugs and hope for the best?

How many of these guys are you letting hit you?
On the charge 4 Genestealers will get about 2 rends, and 2/3 of another wound, so if you have 5 guys, some are going to survive, and then you can countercharge the ever loving hell out of them.
If you are letting more than 4 or 5 hit you, you are either playing a really genestealer heavy army, and need to learn to use sacrificial units,if not, just get better fire priority/shot placement.

1. Don't deploy on the 12"/15" deployment line. Setup several inches back.

2. Heavy bolters and autocannons will decimate him. havocs with this loadout in the rear will really ruin his day.

3. slightly larger troop squads with hidden fists. Deploy them with the fist near the center of the squad, to ensure that he gets to swing. If the genestealer player is smart, he'll be setting up his charges to avoid the fist, and/or to cause as few casualties as possible, so as to destroy the squad in the next turn. The bane of my genestealer army is the hidden fists. Sure, I may rend two or three normal guys, and cause another 2 or 3 wounds, but when that fist swings back, it usually ends with several dead genestealers. It may not be enough to win combat, but those are genestealers that I *need*. Unless he is also fielding gunfexes with barbed stranglers, I think deploying close together would be a good idea.. this will allow you to remove normal guys as casualties, and still leave someone in BTB, to let the fist swing.

4. Avoid things that genestealers don't usually care about. This would IMO, include a deamon prince. Even if he gets the charge, it won't be good news for the prince, and will usually just be easy points for the stealer player. If he is fielding gunfexes, I would avoid vehicles, but even still, I have had trouble dealing with mutated hull possessed predators with HB/AC configs, with three gunfexes. 4+ to hit, 4+ to glance, and half of the glancing chart results are ignored. This might be a good choice.. again, just keep them in the back field behind your troops.

5. Stick to cover. Even if he gives his stealers flesh hooks, going simo is better than going after them.

Those are my thoughts, as a genestealer player

He plays a very genestealer heavy army. Multiple squads at 1500 points, dont remember the full amount of them. It was stupid of me not to keep the guys back. I was using 8 marine squads with flamers / heavy bolters in each squad. I ended up winning the match but he chewed through 2 tac squads and a dreadnaught. He fields genestealer broods, dakkafex, flying lord, tyrant and 1 full group of gaunts.

I was pretty clever with my prince and how I used him to counter charge his units effectively but those darn stealers ate more troops than I think should have. Essentially just killing enough troops to not allow my troops to hit back. Killing all within the 2 inch line.

Yeah, Ill try deploying behind the the line, far behind next time.

I have been using large tac squads with hb and flamers. Defiler and dreadnaught as heavy support with a statured lord. I made a tyranid killing force to get him used to fighting marine players. I normally field bloodletters and a bloodthirster and other MEq killing goodness.

Dreadnoughts are a bad choice when fighting stealers... defilers are OK, since they can fire indirect (the bane of most tyranid armies)

Really, if he only killed two of your marine squads and the dread, I'd say you got off pretty easily.

Another thing to consider, is leave one squad out in the open, atleast 6" from other squads, let it get charged, and then rapid fire the stealers that are now left in the open.

As far as the dread goes it was a fluff choice. One dedicated to Tzeench. The dakkafex toasted it. The other squads were in cover which is why I was able to live through it. They just turned in fired once the original groups died.

You do realize that Stealers are 20+ point models? With a 5+/4+ save?

They are meant to be exceedingly dangerous. They did not kill more than they were supposed to, and you got off very lucky with the losses you took.

You just have to be very careful around them. Make them charge into cover so you can at least strike simultaneously, try and get a round of rapid fire on them (bolter fire can hurt them decently well) and avoid them like the plague. That's about the sum of it.

Yeah, I was thinking about just using cover to my advantage much more against them. Funny thing is that this was the first army I came against that I was afraid to assault.

As posted in another thread I may try Slaanesh marines. Units that hist first all the time. Just a small unit of them, favored number with a doom siren leading the pack to soften the blow or some chosen with doom sirens. They could declaw them pretty quick. I like the idea of dealing with the issue directly, not just avoiding them. I also know Im expecting a lot out of my little CSM but it would be real funny the day they can stare down genestealers.

Heavy bolters.



Whenever I KNOW I'm facing tyranids... I make sure I have a devastator squad full of them (I find them useful against MEQ even). But against Tyranids, they're invaluable.

But like others said. Deploy back a bit, make him eat up as many shots as possible on their approach, maybe have a sacraficial squad to get ANOTHER round of shooting on them, and just hope for the best. Maybe have a Dread nearby with a Heavy Flamer to put a serious hurtin' on them.

I was unwittingly using sacrificial squads before but Ill definitely use them better this time.  Im facing the nid player tomorrow and see how it goes.

I like Ki's advice of a HB dev/havok squad. I have had great success with a 6 man/3HB squad. It can effectively kill 1-2 meq a turn, and wastes 5-6 Geq a turn, plus it has a major psychological effect, because the second you roll 7-9 hits and 6-8 wounds on a marine squad or kill 8 guardsmen, the opponents instantly put way to much fire into it, or avoid it way too much.

Get in your Rhino and drive away, if you have em. I dont understand how your not rapid firing and flaming him off the board. Why take P fists...regular P weapons still strike at what is essentially the same speed. Why not strip the AC down all the way and just have simple marine squads? Your Black legion...mix in some CC marines in your sqauds and pull the Bolter marines as first casulties.

Yea, cus init6 stealers NEVER empty the kill zone with 3 attacks on the charge with higher ws and rending......

Land speeders are the bane of stealers, whirlwinds are great for their cost IF you have a spare HS slot.

The speeders won't live long if that is the only armour you have though.

Since in another area the hot topic is the powerfist slaanesh combo, I may just stick with a chosen squad of slaanesh marines with powerswords. Strikes first beats init 6 any time.


One day I would like to incorporate one of every god in my army.
Bloodthirster- Check
Dreadnaught dedicated to Tzeentch- Check
Marked marines of Slaanesh- Check
I think for nurgle I will also build some marked marines. The toughest marines and the quickest marines. Good combo and the dirty looks they would give each other on the field is priceless. Gotta love Black Legion.

How about nurglings, they are reasonably cheap, hold up stealers well and add a Nurgle element to your all-gods list.

Stealers can be held in CC by those swarms, they are your best bet untill your ready to deal with them.

Well it appears after a couple games that shooting is a great, if not the most efficient, way of dealing with the stealers. Of course you guys were right.

Slaanesh marines do also seem like a great way for a more adventurous way of dealing with them. Nurglings can only be had if you have a squad of Nurgle marines to begin with.

Well it appears after a couple games that shooting is a great, if not the most efficient, way of dealing with the stealers. Of course you guys were right.

Slaanesh marines do also seem like a great way for a more adventurous way of dealing with them. Nurglings can only be had if you have a squad of Nurgle marines to begin with.

You could get a dreadnought with corsucating warp flame. I think that's the ability where anything that assaults it takes an automatic str6 ap4 hit before any combat happens.

It's S D6, so it isn't super reliable. It is AP4 though.

Doesn't seem worth it considering the dread will die before it gets to strike after said flame...

Sacrificial squad (preferable in cover so they do some damage) with a duel flamer squad nearby is nice, easy if your eldar as you get said squad for 48pts

If you kill all models that are in base to base contact with the dread, who can hit it? Its not a guaranteed for a steeler squad to kill a dread. Its a 1 in 6 chance for ever stealer in the squad. So unless it rends and then gets a decent roll on the glancing chart its a dead stealer. Its not 100% but it is slightly in the stealer's favor.

Well considering you dont choose which models die you will never empty the kill zone like that.

Each stealer has a 2/3 chance to hit, 1/6 chance to rend, after which they have a 1/6 chance to glance and 4/6 chance to pen.

so basically:
1/59 chance to glance
2/27 chance to penetrate

This is PER attack, with 3 attacks on the charge your looking at 6/27 chance to be penetrated by each stealer, its not guaranteed but if your facing more than 4 stealers then you should be worried.

Not to mention they have higher init so even if they fail to hurt you the first time you still only get your meager amount of attacks before they strike again.

You may be over emphasising stealers vs. Dreadnaughts a bit there Vsurma. While still not a good matchup in the dreads favor, each steal only has about a 25% chance of inflicting any damage on dread, so even with 4 on the charge the dread is looking at a 30% chance of taking no damage. Compare this to the 25% chance PER ATTACK of a space marine powerfist on a dreadnaught, and while still clearly not in the dreads favor, 4 genestealers represent a lesser threat than your numbers seem to present. Plus, despite its small number of attacks, if the dreadnaught escapes the charge with its arm intact, it will in all likelyhood kill a stealer, and the next turn the 3 remaining genestealers drop to a rather pathetic 44% chance of dealing damage, while the dread is nearly guarenteed a kill a turn, plus wounds from outnumbering if it suffers no damage.
Clearly, a dreadnaught can accept a charge of 4 genestealers without it being an automatic losing proposition. I would not want to put myself in the position to play the odds this close, but in a tight spot, it may be an acceptable ploy.

That was not really my point, I was just pointing out that even a squad as small as 4 stealers represents a significant threat to said dread so it would not want to be on the receiving end of a charge for fear of being destroyed before it could even strike.

More often than not there will be more than 4 stealers assualting and even if there wasnt I would still be wary.

Still dreads arent that bad, a single SM AC/HF dread will likely earn its points back if it gets to shoot for a few turns or use the flamer even once. Just dont expect it to hold its own in CC.

Yup, I see that Vsurma, without quotes it was hard to follow the conversation, but yah, I agree with that.