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I'm really loving this idea of doing movement trays. I have a drill press and forstner bits. I bet I could get the perfect unit spacing for blasts and go to town for units of 5. Two thin MDF boards would do the trick; one I drill through and one that is laid down as a base.

Since I do urban bases, I could even use lamp posts on the base to allow for an easy pickup like the previous poster with the doll rods.

Great ideas everyone!

Ok guys, got a question for you all. Are characters or more squads more valuable to you? I'm currently running an Incursion with 3x Flyrants. The flyrant part im sold on, but for the incursion im debating characters or bodies. I have a brood cycle and SubUp so I have all 4 HQs in there. Primus I know I want because of Hatred and a 3d6. Iconward is super valuable and I must take him in brood cycle. Patriarch and Magus are both valuable I feel, but not cheap. If I went pure MSU and moved around some acolytes I could fit in a second SubUprising. Dropping patriarch and Magis nets me 210 points, aka 3x5 man Metamorphs squads with claws or whips and an extra acolyte squad. My gut here is that the buffs and powers are worth it to include the characters, but they are damn tempting because of how nasty those squads are...

I'm loving bodies right now. Every additional squad in a subterranean uprising is another 2d6 of possible asssaulting! Summoning has also done well so far, I've stuck with neophytes due to model restrictions, but they make themselves super Annoying....but not quite valuable enough to waste fire on so every squad of 20 stays a pain in the ass all game

The 3d6 Primus ambush is neat, but only if you're running big units. In a MSU force you're getting a 75 point character to buff a squad that probably only costs 55 points.

My personal preference is pure MSU, leaving the primus at home. Using those 75 points to get 1 or (slightly less than) 2 more squads, which each roll 2D6. 4 extra ambushing dice, instead of just 1.

Magus and patriarch I'd always take, as summoning is just too good, regardless of what style of list you're bringing.

 jifel wrote:
Ok guys, got a question for you all. Are characters or more squads more valuable to you? I'm currently running an Incursion with 3x Flyrants. The flyrant part im sold on, but for the incursion im debating characters or bodies. I have a brood cycle and SubUp so I have all 4 HQs in there. Primus I know I want because of Hatred and a 3d6. Iconward is super valuable and I must take him in brood cycle. Patriarch and Magus are both valuable I feel, but not cheap. If I went pure MSU and moved around some acolytes I could fit in a second SubUprising. Dropping patriarch and Magis nets me 210 points, aka 3x5 man Metamorphs squads with claws or whips and an extra acolyte squad. My gut here is that the buffs and powers are worth it to include the characters, but they are damn tempting because of how nasty those squads are...

It all depends on your strategy and/or the mission you're playing. How do you handle the first turn when you go second? Also, I believe your magus, patriarch and iconward cannot join the subterean uprising unit with primus that got 3d6 cult ambush. The do not get the formation rules (New GW FAQ). So where do you put them? With the brood cycle you got enough objective grabbing units but I'am worried that those flying hive tyrants will have to do a lot of heavy lifting if you're GSC units are facing bad Cult ambush results, facing successful overwatch results or suck at assaulting. With a full GSC army its possible to deploy a few cheap units on the tactical objectives and still got enough units in their face to keep them busy. You might not have that luxury. Flying hives are absolutely not bad but I do think that GCS are a bit of a "go big or go home" kind of army.

To answer your question about the characters: Do you got the models to summon big upgraded acolytes/metamorphs units? If you do, then I would keep the characters because summoning is just to good.

 jifel wrote:
Ok guys, got a question for you all. Are characters or more squads more valuable to you?

More squads means more CA rolls, which is only ever a good thing. I'd drop the Primus before I dropped anything else too - Fearless is much more useful in many more situations than Hatred, which isn't bad, but is a bit of a waste given you're rolling a tonne of dice anyway.

I agree with shogun. I think if you're going to do a GSC army you want to be spending at least 80% of your points on GSC units, and if you want Summoning then having SitW all over the table is probably not a good idea.

Correct, if a non sub up unit joins them they lose the 2d6 rule. I'm trying tucking my magus (and a couple of CAD magus) into big neophyte squads from a doting throng for bonus wounds and some nifty bonuses. A Furious charge, might from beyond squad of 20 neophytes with zealot is nothing to sneeze at if you can stack all the bubbles

@the above:

So far in sticking the Magus in a big 18 man Neophyes squad with the Iconward. They usually infiltrate turn 1 instead of cult ambush to guarentee their buffs are up there. Patriarch, warlord trait not being a 6, goes with the stealers and also usually plays a support role not trying to get in combat with the initial rush. If I go second, I always will deploy very conservatively and then RTTS so I can pop up where I need to later and not relying on reserves. Flyrants have consistently been able to handle a lot and I have had no trouble avoiding SitW range, plus when in the air can prevent a tabling if I have a lot in ongoing reserves. The flyrants are absolute champs so far. And personally I find it way to hard to give up Hatred as it increases my effectiveness so much, and he is cheap. Dropping him would net me two more hybrid squads essentially, not even Metamorphs. Hatred is worth more imo.

So I just played a game vs a Mech heavy guard army 1850 pts with 2 manticores, 2 wyverins, the 4 big rocket one 3 hellhounds and 3-4 chimeras with 2 vet squads and 2 command squads. A russ or two.
I had my incursion with cavalcade(Vanq/Laz Russ, 2 heavy flamer Armored Sents, 2Neophytes with 2 flamers in chimeras) Sub Uprising (Primus, 10 Claw metas with icon, 2x 5 Claw metas, 3x5 Acolytes, 15 Acolytes with icon), LoC: Magus ML2 Crouchling, Patarach ML2, Iconward, Shadow Skulkers 5 Purestrains
GSC CAD 2 ML2 Magus, 2 Neophyte squads with Autocannon team, Tyranid Allies Flyrant, Mucilid

He won first turn so I Reserved everything except the Mucilid, 2 AC neo squads, and one Chimera Neo squad.
He wiped one AC squad plus one or two guys from the other squads. He clamed first blood and 2 VP from melstorm
I just dug in behind blocking los cover.

Turn two
He does a bit more damage to my remaining guys pops the chimera but after he is done I still have The mucilid, one nearly full AC Neo squad and most of the Chimera Neo team. he claims 2 more VP melstorm
I proceed to roll 6 for 5 separate units including my primus unit with 10 claw metas. With this I destroy 2/3 of his tanks(including his anti air) on the charge my flyrant takes out a hellhound staying behind blocking terrain until my assault units can deal with his anti air. I summon a unit of 8 genestealers to objective grab and net 2 VP.

Turn 3
He does a lot of damage to me wiping all my meta squads except the primus and a few acolyte squads but it's desperation now and his back is broken.
My units mop up I keep summoning 10 man neo squads as they are easier (I can get 2/turn since I managed to get summon on 2 of my magus)

We continue to turn 5 end. I quickly overtake him in VP and if we had gone another turn probably would have tabled him. He was a good sport about it and is even now making plans to tweek his army for next time. To quote "Fire barrels on everything"

I was worried about the wyverins as a squad of 2 puts down somthing like 16 small blasts I think with shread and ignore cover but by reserving most of my army he didn't have any good targets, same went for his big rocket tank, If I had played agressivly he would have wiped a bunch of units off the map and I'd have had nothing to counterattack with.

I found my MVP's were the Primus for his hatrid bubble and the magus's with their summons. Being able to replace 2 units/turn after they get killed is great.

Planning a hunge day long game with 5000 pts of my GSC with Tyranids, Guard, and Inq all included vs a 2500pt Dark angels army and a 2500pt chaos army. I'm looking forward to some serous carnage.
PS: Yes Inq is come the apox but I'm bringing Coteaz and a henchman squad to man an ADL with Quad gun and give me the best possable chance of going first.

This last weekend I played Classic Hammer. It is like playing 5t Ed with only a cad allowed.

I found GSC has to have tanks to be able to be played in a Cad format.
I faced Wyverns and Thunder fire cannons in two of the three games. I did killed 4 models with the IG guy. I couldn't even get close to him to assault.

Not being able to Cult ambush first turn with everything is devastating.

I think playing GSC with a CAD is really not possible without tanking up.

shadowfinder wrote:
This last weekend I played Classic Hammer. It is like playing 5t Ed with only a cad allowed.

I found GSC has to have tanks to be able to be played in a Cad format.
I faced Wyverns and Thunder fire cannons in two of the three games. I did killed 4 models with the IG guy. I couldn't even get close to him to assault.

Not being able to Cult ambush first turn with everything is devastating.

I think playing GSC with a CAD is really not possible without tanking up.

I'm running into a similar situation. I'm playing in the Adepticon Team Tournament and we're doing a blend of a cult themed list. One army can take a formation, so that's obviously a subterranean. One list will be pure tyranids, and the other is a tempestus scions list. But for the two GSC lists, I'm contemplating more mech. Potentially Primus as HQ's attached to big genestealer squads. They're fairly durable.

When you have to run essentially CAD and only get 1 HQ, 1 Elite, 1 Heavy, 1 Fast and 3 Troops, it makes for interesting selections.

 Cptn_Snuggles wrote:
Potentially Primus as HQ's attached to big genestealer squads. They're fairly durable.

Cannot do this...genestealers can only be joined by a patriarch.

shadowfinder wrote:
This last weekend I played Classic Hammer. It is like playing 5t Ed with only a cad allowed.

I found GSC has to have tanks to be able to be played in a Cad format.
I faced Wyverns and Thunder fire cannons in two of the three games. I did killed 4 models with the IG guy. I couldn't even get close to him to assault.

Not being able to Cult ambush first turn with everything is devastating.

I think playing GSC with a CAD is really not possible without tanking up.

I disagree, A full GSC CAD infantry army is very good but you simply have to go second and go into the shadows and start playing turn 2.

2 patriarch
6 big acolyte units
3 big genestealer units
aegis defence line with gun

Its very strait forward but can be devastating. And you need the models to...

shogun wrote:

 Cptn_Snuggles wrote:
Potentially Primus as HQ's attached to big genestealer squads. They're fairly durable.

Cannot do this...genestealers can only be joined by a patriarch.

said one thing and meant the other... yeah Patriarch as HQ attached to the genestealers. I'm struggling making a team tournament list for adepticon.

Timeshadow wrote:
So I just played a game vs a Mech heavy guard army 1850 pts with 2 manticores, 2 wyverins, the 4 big rocket one 3 hellhounds and 3-4 chimeras with 2 vet squads and 2 command squads. A russ or two.
I had my incursion with cavalcade(Vanq/Laz Russ, 2 heavy flamer Armored Sents, 2Neophytes with 2 flamers in chimeras) Sub Uprising (Primus, 10 Claw metas with icon, 2x 5 Claw metas, 3x5 Acolytes, 15 Acolytes with icon), LoC: Magus ML2 Crouchling, Patarach ML2, Iconward, Shadow Skulkers 5 Purestrains
GSC CAD 2 ML2 Magus, 2 Neophyte squads with Autocannon team, Tyranid Allies Flyrant, Mucilid.

Remember that the Subterranean Uprising has to be on the board turn one per their detachment rules.

 jifel wrote:

Spoiler:

 BBAP wrote:

shadowfinder wrote:
Patriarchs are beast in close combat and it is a odd day that he doesn't kill what he is fighting.

Happens often enough in my games that it's become a running joke. A Rune Priest took two wounds off him last time I played and Paw couldn't land a glove on him. Needed some Acolytes to come over and help him out.

In a large combat unit he thrives.

... because he's in a large combat unit. A Magus thrives in a large combat unit because he has lots of other models to make up for his suck. Patriarch, same deal. Being able to deal 1-2 wounds a turn isn't a massive hindrance when the dudes around you are dishing out 7+.

GSC is a Combat army not a shooting army.

Who said they weren't?

His fearless bubble makes sure get to finish the job. If you are taking him just that bubble you are missing out on het best skills.

The bubble is his best skill. Combat is a distant third. If you charge him in without an assault unit for backup he could end up stuck in CC with whatever he's fighting for four or five rounds, which means your bubble is static for two turns. That means one less bubble to repop units that G2G against shooting or keep units fighting a losing combat.

I have had kill A lot of stuff so far making his points back in spades.

"Making back points" is not a good way to judge the quality of a model. My Patriarchs never "make their points back", but they're the lynchpin of my army and indispensible for a lot of the tactics I use. I couldn't run the army without them.

Very interesting with the double first curses. I hope you switch the patriarchs between them so both have shrouded turn 1? Not a huge fan of first curse personally but I'm glad you've been able to find success with it. I found it was just too expensive to fit in a list with allied Nids, but it's certainly the first place Id look if I were pure GSC. Have you had the chance to play against Daemons or Nids by the way? Seems like pure GSC has a major problem with killing fliers, and both Flyrants and Daemon FMCs have the potential damage output to make ignoring them a little too painful to work. Also, I'm surprised your list seems to favor pure Acolytes over Metamorphs. To me, the 3 ppm is more than worth it to get the claws in, and I've personally had a lot of success with maxing out Metamorphs in both a single and double SubUp. I eventually settled on a single SubUp with more support and larger squads, but I'm surprised you chose the acolytes as the big squads rather than the metamorphs.

I've been running first curse supported by essentially another first curse (using 20 stealers from the brood cycle and a side CAD's patriarch). They're great but what really does the work is the subterranean assault formation. I use my CAD to grab a second primus as well, which allows me to roll 3x on two different squads.

I'd echo the sentiment that although time is an issue (my 1850 list is 144 models), you're pulling them on and off a lot, so I don't find time to be as big of a deal. I cycle about a third of my army on an average turn to keep them safe from shooting as well as giving me the ability to tactically re-deploy for objectives, etc.....by which I mean I just want to roll more 6's

My list is 100% footsloggers, and absolutely ignores flyers. You're right that they can do a ton of damage if there are a lot of them, but I've played against Nids with multiple flyrants. They just don't have enough bullets, especially since the flyrant's guns let us take armor, and of course cover saves. The other thing about flyers is that they come in on turn 2 at best. By then, my game is largely decided. Yeah, they could swing the game, but chances are if you have that many points invested, you're doing me a favor by keeping it off the table until turn 2/3/4

Personally my area has been playing it so that a non-Subterranean Assault Primus can't get the formation bonus since he's not in it, but I'm glad to hear you've had success playing quickly. I'm at 99 models with 3 Flyrants and honestly getting worried about time. Haven't had a hard timed game yet though so we'll see. Thinking about dropping the third flyrant for a CAD of Magus/Patriarch but haven't done it yet. We'll see... I just feel that the third Flyrant is mandatory to have a chance against Lions Blade and BattleCo

lions blade is not an auto loss you just have to play smart and pick your battles and play the mission. after that you should beat them every time. regular battle company is way easier to play and does not really put up much of a fight.

as for time. i play a list with almost 200 models and 9 psy dice for summoning. i have not had a game go to time yet and have managed to get at least 5 turns in every game. but that being said it helps to have a chart to roll on for all of your units and know what your pulling in and out every turn when it comes to it. just time and practice and the game speeds up quickly

So vs. a lions blade. Do you prefer going biomancy for the chance to get a 3+ fnp to run through their overwatch or for broodmind powers?

Just charge in a sacrificial unit to either eat the Overwatch or lock the enemy in combat. Avoid multi-assaults unless you have at least one sacrifice for each unit you're hitting. I wouldn't waste psychic dice trying to save 5 Acolytes.

Do you not have any big units in your army? I run at least 2, 20 acolyte squads.

And I feel like losing most of a squad to overwatch every time you charge one of their units will end up with them winning. They have like 10 units in rhinos and probably some plasma bikers.

 vercingatorix wrote:
Do you not have any big units in your army? I run at least 2, 20 acolyte squads.

10-man Neophyte squads are the biggest I run. I've dabbled with 10-man Acolyte and Genestealer squads, and 14-man Neophyte squads on occasion, but never any more than that.

And I feel like losing most of a squad to overwatch every time you charge one of their units will end up with them winning

That's why you take 4 squads of 5 rather than one squad of 20. You're still charging with 10-20 models, but Overwatch is killing 5 dudes max instead of 5-8. GSC is all about overloading your opponent's capacity to deal damage to your army; big squads have more wounds than small ones, but they're easier to focus fire on and regenerate less models during Cult Ambush than MSU squads do. Your 20-man unit gets D6 models back every time it RttSes - my 4x5 squads get 4d6 models back, d6 each.

MSU also helps with mech armies too - charge the transports with a sacrificial "first line" of Claw-Morphs and Acolytes, let them get boltered down by the stuff that falls out, then next turn you get another Ambush in which can run into the dismounted infantry.

 vercingatorix wrote:
So vs. a lions blade. Do you prefer going biomancy for the chance to get a 3+ fnp to run through their overwatch or for broodmind powers?

I would almost never go for biomancy. maybe if already got summoning an invisiblity then I could give it a try. Best case scenario would be putting feel no pain on 20 genestealers or 20 acolytes (if the don't get instant killed) and you need to go fish for that power because all other Biomancy powers are not that good. I'd rather summon an extra 20 rapid fire neophytes or 10 acolytes with 4 rock saws, or 10 metamorphs with claws/whips.

Broodmind powers got 5 great/nice powers (with the primaris) that are almost never useless. I once used 'mind control' on a melta-legion of the damned unit that was standing next to a flyer that just went into hover mode..hilarious...
Also don't forget the 'psychic stimulus' power (fleet + run and charge). Almost every game I got a unit metamorphs/acolytes that really really really needed to be in close combat and I roll a 3 for assault distance.

 BBAP wrote:

 vercingatorix wrote:
Do you not have any big units in your army? I run at least 2, 20 acolyte squads.

10-man Neophyte squads are the biggest I run. I've dabbled with 10-man Acolyte and Genestealer squads, and 14-man Neophyte squads on occasion, but never any more than that.

And I feel like losing most of a squad to overwatch every time you charge one of their units will end up with them winning

That's why you take 4 squads of 5 rather than one squad of 20. You're still charging with 10-20 models, but Overwatch is killing 5 dudes max instead of 5-8. GSC is all about overloading your opponent's capacity to deal damage to your army; big squads have more wounds than small ones, but they're easier to focus fire on and regenerate less models during Cult Ambush than MSU squads do. Your 20-man unit gets D6 models back every time it RttSes - my 4x5 squads get 4d6 models back, d6 each.

MSU also helps with mech armies too - charge the transports with a sacrificial "first line" of Claw-Morphs and Acolytes, let them get boltered down by the stuff that falls out, then next turn you get another Ambush in which can run into the dismounted infantry.

I mean, everything is so cheap that there's still plenty of msu to go around. In my 1850 I have 19 units. Do you run yours with upwards of 30?

I feel like savy opponents will pick off all your HQs if they're not protected behind some bodies.

 vercingatorix wrote:
I mean, everything is so cheap that there's still plenty of msu to go around. In my 1850 I have 19 units. Do you run yours with upwards of 30?

I like me some Claw-Morphs so I only have 24, plus three Patriarchs and three Maguses (one Insurrection, two CADs). Focus on Acolytes, drop a HQ or two, and you could easily go above 30 - and, since it's Acolytes, you're not giving up that much killing power. It makes Land Raiders and Monoliths harder to crack, but you have an Iconward so it can still be done.

I feel like savy opponents will pick off all your HQs if they're not protected behind some bodies.

So bring more HQs :-P The only one that'll cost you anything if he dies is the Warlord; once your opponent starts losing units the Patriarch's Fearless bubbles become progressively less important and the Maguses are just Summons receptacles. They're exactly as expendable

You use terrain for cover saves, also with los blocking terrain they can only kill what they can see in overwatch then you can charge in with the reat of the unit.

My lists usually are running more then 30kp 6 being charecters. Depending on what you play having 4 shrieks helps as well as getting a summon for more neophytes.

I practice ITC and ETC missions and massive msu with large neophyte units are what we found to work best so far. Neophytes absorbe overwatch and tie things up for the acolytes and metomorphs

I haven't looked carefully at the rules but would a squad overwatching in a vehicle be able to shoot at any unit that declares a charge since they're not engaged by units making the assault?

 vercingatorix wrote:
I haven't looked carefully at the rules but would a squad overwatching in a vehicle be able to shoot at any unit that declares a charge since they're not engaged by units making the assault?

That's right - but they can still only Overwatch once per turn, so as long as you're not charging in with a single unit at a time (which you shouldn't be, ever) then it's not a big deal.

Using terrain is a good idea, like Moose said, but be careful because even at 3" your charges can whiff and going through DT makes that more likely. Another thing to bear in mind when you're doing this is unit placement; your assault moves have to be done in a very specific way, and if you're playing a rules lawyer (or at a tournament or something) then you need to make sure you place your sacrificial Overwatch lambs correctly, otherwise they can clog up the charging lines for your other units, preventing your more killy units from engaging fully or potentially cutting some of them off altogether. If your Neophytes get in but your Purestrains don't, you're gonna have a bad time.

im curious if Tank shock becomes a big disadvantage to the GSC since the only unit giving fearless is the patriarch. I see guys running multi units of genestealers. However without fearless they become more susceptible to Tank Shocks. MSU and gladius could preform this pretty well.

Is this a correct assumption or false ?

i also wonder how they preform against Lots of Wverns or TFCs ? Barrage blasts would be pretty brutal against them.

Its why im still trying to figure out a Mech GSC army

 zedsdead wrote:
im curious if Tank shock becomes a big disadvantage to the GSC since the only unit giving fearless is the patriarch. I see guys running multi units of genestealers. However without fearless they become more susceptible to Tank Shocks. MSU and gladius could preform this pretty well.

Is this a correct assumption or false ?

i also wonder how they preform against Lots of Wverns or TFCs ? Barrage blasts would be pretty brutal against them.

Its why im still trying to figure out a Mech GSC army

Both of those are problems yes, but not ones we're incapable of addressing. First off, you should be able to get the drop on artillery. If not, then MSU limits the damage that they can do. After all, a Thundefire can only kill one unit a turn, and if the largest happens to be 5 models, his waste. But its definitely better to charge the artillery first and not get shot at. Same with tanks, we have plenty of CC anti tank to deal with them, so kill them before they can shock! Patriarchs are also very useful there for fearless, one reason why many people take a few extra in a CAD.