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I'm trying to decide what list to buy for Tyranids.

For the troop choice, I will either pick Genestealers or Hormagaunts. (Termagaunts don't SEEM like they compare... and I have heard the Warrior Brood are destroyed by Instant Death, as Ripper Swarms are destroyed by templates.)

If I'm doing my calculations right Genestealers are 5%~ better against your average space marine when dishing out damage. Infiltrate vs Bounding Leap is a close call. So.. I don't know. If someone could supply me with some veteran insight that would be great.

Nerfed =/= bad. They're still good (for Tyranids...), they just got worse by not being able to assault out of reserve and the changes to random charge distance/overwatching.

The loss of assulting out of outflank is the main reason people say they are bad now. Its not true, they just have a diffrent way of being used. People just used to take big broods and send them screaming in from the sides.
Tanouther big nerf was the changes in cover, if they are in the open they can be focused fired. If you took a big enough brood you used to be sure to have at least 1/2 the brood in cover. That dooesn't work now either.
Final nerf was the loss of an attack on a multicharge. People would multiassault so that at least part of a big brood would be in CC.

So big broods that you just charge in from the sides in 5th are dead. Small squads that can get cover and a broodlord are much more effective in 6th. People just need to relearn them.

Comparing unit for unit gives the wrong impression. Compare how they act within an army vs other core troops.

Most armies can *easily* dish out enough firepower to kill genestealers en masse. The single biggest nerf to 'stealers in 6th was cover going from 4+ to 5+. Now even gaurdsmen with flashlights can cut down genestealers, the average gunline will utterly destroy it.

They also can't assault after outflanking. That's killed off the most effective way of using genestealers, having a mob of those bastards turn up on your flank and charge your infantry was a bastard in 5th.

a guy i play with uses ymgarl genestealers pretty effectively, popping out of a terrain piece and he can usually take a small group and pop them in one of the pieces of terrain to block all LOS then try and get an assault the turn after they come in.

he also uses regular gene steelers but tends no use mystic spores and uses them as cover, disembark 6 inches now so funnel the genestealers behind it in a cone where the enemy has to kill the pod before they can hit the genesteelers

Simple- you cannot charge out of outflanking, and you cannot charge on turn 1.
These are things you could do in 5th.
Therefore, you are able to do less with your genestealers
Therefore, they have been nerfed.

Not saying they aren't good.

Also, OP, I want to point out Tervigons and termagants are very good troop choices together. I'm no nid player, but 2-3 mobs of gants, a tervigon, and a mob or two of genestealers sounds like a well fleshed out troops section- points wise, i dunno

 Testify wrote:
Comparing unit for unit gives the wrong impression. Compare how they act within an army vs other core troops.

Most armies can *easily* dish out enough firepower to kill genestealers en masse. The single biggest nerf to 'stealers in 6th was cover going from 4+ to 5+. Now even gaurdsmen with flashlights can cut down genestealers, the average gunline will utterly destroy it.

They also can't assault after outflanking. That's killed off the most effective way of using genestealers, having a mob of those bastards turn up on your flank and charge your infantry was a bastard in 5th.

I agree with comparing two units from the same army as the only good comparison. So the real question is that do you want them to do?

I strongly disagree with the statement that gunlines will utterly destroy them. They will if you try to use them like gaunts. Use them like gaunts and they will die like gaunts.

They are now not the easy button for Nids like they used to be. However they are much better now then they were if 5th. If you use them properly.

1) Stealers are not vangaurd units. I repeat DO NOT SEND THEM IN FIRST! They are a second wave attacker. Send in your faster units like spawned termigaunts, hormagaunts and gargoyles first. They will block lines of sight, give you cover, take the overwatch/WoD and tarpit the units that can kill the stealers.

2) Don't attack large/invun units of dedicated CC elites. Stealers are great at killing light vehicles (AV10-11 rear), dreads and medium troops. Send them against 10 TH/SS terminators and they will die (take some of them with them, but still die). Take them into a 30 man blob of IG and they will die to just do to weight of numbers.

3) Take a broodlord. Besides the fact that they are psykers (and TK Dome on stealers is amazing) they can deal with most of the hidden powerfists that used to be the bane of stealers in 5th. Broodlords are also (pt for pt) the best challengers in the game. If you want to go IC hunting give him TS, Scytal and Implant attack. Lots of rerolls and on a 6 to wound you ignore armor and cause ID.

4a) Keep it small and simple. Small broods of stealers (6-10 including the broodlord) are better now than a big unsupported unit. The big unit can get screwed by a bad assault distance, it will be hard to get cover and it will draw the fire of everything on the table.

OR

4b) Go big or go home. Massive broods of stealers that have been buffed can be devastating. Make them big units and treat them like deathstars. Take a bunch of psykers for support and make sure that they get as many buffs as they can. That means they should have FNP and either TK Dome or have venomthropes trailing after them for support. I haven't mastered this yet, but I have seen armies with two or three units of 20 genestealers just plow through everything with a few tervigons, Zoans and Tyrants for support.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jihallah wrote:
Simple- you cannot charge out of outflanking, and you cannot charge on turn 1.
\

You can charge on Turn 1 with infiltrated stealers as long as you go second. A lot of folks get that rule wrong. They clarified that in the FAQ.

Now that would be a very nasty trick to pull on someone Oh sup I just assaulted your termies with a blob of genestealers

 Gloomfang wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jihallah wrote:
Simple- you cannot charge out of outflanking, and you cannot charge on turn 1.
\

You can charge on Turn 1 with infiltrated stealers as long as you go second. A lot of folks get that rule wrong. They clarified that in the FAQ.

Choice! thank you for clarification

Also quick note. Spore pods only let you diembark 2". The new rules don't apply. Codex trumps BRB.

Yes it sucks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Testify wrote:
Now that would be a very nasty trick to pull on someone Oh sup I just assaulted your termies with a blob of genestealers

He ran them behind a screen of 3 units of 20 gargoyles. It was a massive wall of nids and it was a sight to see.

Took 20 min to deploy though. Definitly not a tourny army.

 Gloomfang wrote:
Also quick note. Spore pods only let you diembark 2". The new rules don't apply. Codex trumps BRB.

Yes it sucks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Testify wrote:
Now that would be a very nasty trick to pull on someone Oh sup I just assaulted your termies with a blob of genestealers

He ran them behind a screen of 3 units of 20 gargoyles. It was a massive wall of nids and it was a sight to see.

Took 20 min to deploy though. Definitly not a tourny army.

wow i checked your faq and yea that sucks you can't disembark 6 inches unless i am missing something just the 2... i will still nto call the nids player at my flgs on it and let him keep doing it as it is a nice equalizer, nids aren't in the best place right now, they are no tau but can use all the help they can get, i hope the faq it in 1.2 so you can get the 6 inch movement it doesn't make sense that you couldn't from a gameplay aspect

 DarkCorsair wrote:
Nerfed =/= bad. They're still good (for Tyranids...), they just got worse by not being able to assault out of reserve and the changes to random charge distance/overwatching.

the fleet nerf also hurts a lot

they where barely playable in 5th edition. the fact that they can't assault out of outflank makes them unplayable.

Also, the fact that you can shoot the once outside of cover is very bad for them this season.

Focus fire and the fact that cover from intervening models is now only a 5+ rather than a 4+, on top of the not being able to assault from outflank are significant nerfs. Apart from hitting vehicles improving from 4+ to 3+ and the ability to glance to death there seems to be little in 6th that made stealers better. Even then if I got a brood into CC with a vehicle you do enough swings to have killed it anyway - the problem, as always, with a CC only unit is getting them there.

Broodlord? Okay he's a psyker but roll a shooting attack on the table and he's just a boosted stealer. Worth the risk maybe but not something you can guarantee.

 Niiai wrote:
Also, the fact that you can shoot the once outside of cover is very bad for them this season.

...do whot? Why couldn't I shoot them outside of cover in the previous edition?
sense this does not make!

 Jihallah wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Also, the fact that you can shoot the once outside of cover is very bad for them this season.

...do whot? Why couldn't I shoot them outside of cover in the previous edition?
sense this does not make!

you can focus fire now , in 5th if you had half the squad in cover it was in cover . now you can just kill the dudes that are outside.

people forgot to added overwatch , specialy of the flamer kind .

Summary:
Cover going from 4+ to 5+ makes a big difference. They are too expensive for just a 5+ save
Cover per model in 6th edition in many cases gives them no save whatsoever.
Feel No Pain going from a 4+ to a 5+ against the weapons that target them hurt equally much.
Fleet no longer allows you to run in the shooting phase. This means that they lost on charge range. 2d6 charge range somewhat compensates for this but overwatch and models dying from the front really hurt them. You also used to be able to fleet in such a way that you could only reach models out of cover with your charge and therefore strike at initiative. That is now almost gone.
Loss of assault option from outflank is the final nail in the coffin.

They are not useless but are simply a worse option. With the decline in need for Hive guards Ymgarls become far more viable as they have their own gimmicks for assault an survival.

Makumba wrote:

 Jihallah wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Also, the fact that you can shoot the once outside of cover is very bad for them this season.

...do whot? Why couldn't I shoot them outside of cover in the previous edition?
sense this does not make!

you can focus fire now , in 5th if you had half the squad in cover it was in cover . now you can just kill the dudes that are outside.

people forgot to added overwatch , specialy of the flamer kind .

Overwatch isn't that horrible. But focus fire is. Once clarified, sense the comment does make, mmmmm!

Ok it sounds a lot like people are just looking at the bad and not taking them because of Theoryhammer.
I have played over 30 games of 6th with my Nids. I have played against every army except Demons and SoB. (I hope to get in a demon game next week or so).
I have used stealers in every game in differing brood sizes and both with and without Broodlord. (Actually every game from 2nd till now honestly. My stealers are from the original Space Hulk and are old enough to vote.)

OK so what makes the picture not so bleak for stealers from my playing them?

1) Night Fighting. It is a huge buff for Nids when it happens either at the beginning or end of a game, but for an expensive unit that is as fragile as stealers it is big.

2) The fall of power weapons and the rise of the TEQ. With most power weapons either becoming AP3 or gaining Unwieldy there is a definite rise in 2+ armor saves. That means that units with rending (or boneswords) are "better" because your opponents are paying points for something that doesn't really effect you.

3) The fall of metal boxes. The changes that make mech easier to hit and making it so you can be really confidant that you are going to kill something is a big boost. It also lets you line up your assaults a lot more reliably.

4) Boots on the ground. This goes with the fall of mech, but units in transports having to get out to count as scoring/denial. That means that tank shocking stealers off an objective last turn isn't going to happen anymore (except in Big Guns).

5) Challenges and wound allocation. This helps remove the hidden powerfist or the character that used to just place all the wounds on the grunts and then just murder stealers. Now you know that you can isolate that power weapon or at least kill it before it can strike.

6) Rise of the psyker. Putting a broodlord into a unit is stealers is pretty much a must now. Besides challenges broodlords also give some big buffs. They let the unit DtW on a 5+. They can trade in 2 "meh" powers that nobody used in 5th for a chance of a some really good powers in 6th. Yes there is a chance you could end up with 2 powers that don't do anything, but the odds are small and most people never used his old powers to much effect anyway.

So give stealers a try and see if they work in your list. Things are so different now that without actually using a unit multiple times you can't really get a feel for how to use them. 6th was a massive sea change that will take a little while to settle out. (Starting to see a LOT more spotlights on mech now.)

Remember, Ym'garls CAN still assault after arriving!
But yeah, people just arent being flexible in their usage of them

You can assault from an infiltrate on game turn one, just not on player turn 1 folks.

They are still useful if you go second.

 sfshilo wrote:
You can assault from an infiltrate on game turn one, just not on player turn 1 folks.

They are still useful if you go second.

thought it was if a unit arrives from reserve then they cannot assault (outflanking) and doesnt infiltrate say specifically may not assault after infiltrating?

not entirely sure as dont have the book in front of me.

I like genestealers. but i like tervigons as troops more.

zteknon wrote:
thought it was if a unit arrives from reserve then they cannot assault (outflanking) and doesnt infiltrate say specifically may not assault after infiltrating?

not entirely sure as dont have the book in front of me.

I like genestealers. but i like tervigons as troops more.

If a unit arrives from reserves it can not assualt unless they have a special rule that lets them (like Ymgarl Stealers).

As for infiltrate look at the FAQ. It is specificaly for Scout, but Infiltrate has the same language.

Q: The rulebook states "A unit that makes a Scout redeployment
cannot charge in the first turn." Does this mean that if your
opponent has the first turn and you go second, your Scouting unit
can charge? (p41)
A: Yes.

And the roll of a Tervigon and the roll of a genestealer squad are diffrent. I wouldn't count on a Tervigon being able to kill a mob of Nobs for example.

Thanks gloom.

You can pretty reliably make a list designed around going second. And stealers can make the opponent think real hard if you infiltrate right.