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I had a similar idea at the beginning but making a brigade deteachament

patriarch with a unit of genestealers (they will reroll cult with strategms), primus with big unit of acolytes and heavy weapons (they will auto pass morale with stratagems) 3 rockgrinders, 3 small units of acolytes in them, 3 sentinels with missile launcher, 2 small units of methamorphs(ambush), and 2 units of acolytes(ambush) or 2 units of neophytes.


I think that the problem with this list is that we only have 2/3 "big" miniatures (rockgrinder) and all weapons with multiple wounds are going to them, and kill them easy..


And at at the end id prefer mix with a brigade of guard, for 700/800 points you can have 6 units "inmune" to moral, some heavy weapons and a lot of bodies to capture points (and 11 scommand points with kreed)

With the remaining 1300 points you can make full cult genestealer ambush units.

My biggest doubt is what is better, big units, or small units to ambush.. If you faill ambush, both will be dead.

-With big unit its easy reroll ambush or charge, but if you fail too, its a really big problem. Also if you assault and kill one or two units, next you must go walking around the table.. so all fire is going to them.

-With small units, you will roll more ambush, and have more chance to assault, but then there are 2 problems, overwatch.. and dont have the power required to kill the enemy unit..

So.. i dont know what to do :(


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mmimzie wrote:


The drills are a little more versatile and can take out tough units or horde units as the mortal wounds spill over, and so they are a flex unit.

Thank you for saying this. I didnt remember that mortal wounds spill over!
Also, magus, you deploy it on table or use ambush?

zamerion wrote:
I had a similar idea at the beginning but making a brigade deteachament


My biggest doubt is what is better, big units, or small units to ambush.. If you faill ambush, both will be dead.

-With big unit its easy reroll ambush or charge, but if you fail too, its a really big problem. Also if you assault and kill one or two units, next you must go walking around the table.. so all fire is going to them.

-With small units, you will roll more ambush, and have more chance to assault, but then there are 2 problems, overwatch.. and dont have the power required to kill the enemy unit..

So.. i dont know what to do :(


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mmimzie wrote:


The drills are a little more versatile and can take out tough units or horde units as the mortal wounds spill over, and so they are a flex unit.

Thank you for saying this. I didnt remember that mortal wounds spill over!
Also, magus, you deploy it on table or use ambush?

Big units. You take turns deploying units this time around, and the person who finishes deploying first goes first. which is why most of the stuff in my list are either big units or in transports, and i have a spare transport ican put heros in to drop my deployment coutn even lower should i need.

Magus if he has might from beyond then deploy him on the table. If he has mind control or Mass hypnosis you have to ambush or turn 1 you might not be in range of your desired target. Don't give might from beyond to the patriarch. You'll want to use that on what ever unit needs the extra push to destroy an important unit, and the patriarch is almost always in ambush so you might get a bad roll and he'll be out of range to help you out. I usualy give the patriarch the weakest of the spell either mass hypnosis if my opponent over watch sucks or they ahve lots of msu, and i give him Mind control if my opponent doesn't have anything big & shooty like a imperial knight or land raider.

So someone on one of my FB pages asked for a potential maximum amount of mortal wounds that could be done in the first turn for a 2k point game..

I instantly thought of GSC.. and here is what I got.

3 Units of 20 acolytes, each with 4 drills at 460pts a unit,
presuming you did go like rolls... all 3 units make charge and you got amazing rolls on the Drills special.. you are causing 120 mortal wounds in a single turn

(capped at 3 unit to leave points for units so they can Ambush)

Im still thinking that big units arent the best idea.

2 or 3 units of 15/20 miniatures of T3 are really very easy to kill, and with the heavy weapons are very expensive units. Yes, when you assault with the ambush you can kill one or 2 units (if they are near) but the next turn you are dead.
Also deploy 20 miniatures more than 9 ums from ebemy units, sometimes will be hard.


So i have 2 lists to test

The friendly:

Brigade genestealer cult
-Patriarch with 2 familiars
-Magus
-Primus
-3 goliath rockgrinder, heavy stubbers, demolition charges, incinerators
-3 scout sentinels, heavy flamers
-2 x 10 neophytes
-15 genestealers
-2x 5 metamophs whips
-3 x 5 hybrids , 3 heavy rock drill (one each)
-15 hybrids, 6 heavy rock cutter

1966 points 12 command points

Maybe one familiar go out and little fixes more to add other magus.
Patriarch with genestealers, reroll ambush if i need. Primus with big units of hybrids (to kill big creatures), and auto pass moral if i need.
The small units of hybrids in goliaths.
6 units with ambush (+ patriarch and primus)



And this is the ugly list:

Brigade astra militarum
-Kreed
-2 company commander
-3 commisars
-6 x 10 company squad, 4 mortars
-3 scout sentinels, multilaser
-3 x 3 heavy squads mortars

Batalion genestealer cult
-2 primus
-6 x 5 hybrids , 6 heavy rock drills

Batalion genestealer cult
-2 primus
-6 x 5 hybrids , 6 heavy rock drills

2000 points 20 command points.

Maybe i will change 2 primus for 2 magus.

12 units with ambus + heros.

zamerion wrote:
Im still thinking that big units arent the best idea.

2 or 3 units of 15/20 miniatures of T3 are really very easy to kill, and with the heavy weapons are very expensive units. Yes, when you assault with the ambush you can kill one or 2 units (if they are near) but the next turn you are dead.
Also deploy 20 miniatures more than 9 ums from ebemy units, sometimes will be hard.

That is true

It all depends on how badly you want that first turn..

The large squad sizes if you want that greater chance at first turn

If you are not phased then MSU (which if you are taking Guard is the better option)

zamerion wrote:

The friendly:

Brigade genestealer cult
-Patriarch with 2 familiars
-Magus
-Primus
-3 goliath rockgrinder, heavy stubbers, demolition charges, incinerators
-3 scout sentinels, heavy flamers
-2 x 10 neophytes
-15 genestealers
-2x 5 metamophs whips
-3 x 5 hybrids , 3 heavy rock drill (one each)
-15 hybrids, 6 heavy rock cutter

1966 points 12 command points

Sorry I am not seeing 12 Command pts there.. I only count 6

GodDamUser wrote:

zamerion wrote:
Im still thinking that big units arent the best idea.

2 or 3 units of 15/20 miniatures of T3 are really very easy to kill, and with the heavy weapons are very expensive units. Yes, when you assault with the ambush you can kill one or 2 units (if they are near) but the next turn you are dead.
Also deploy 20 miniatures more than 9 ums from ebemy units, sometimes will be hard.

That is true

It all depends on how badly you want that first turn..

The large squad sizes if you want that greater chance at first turn

If you are not phased then MSU (which if you are taking Guard is the better option)

I like the second list Zamerion. I think Drillcolytes are def gonna be the way to go with cult this edition, and I think 2/5 is too high in terms of both points and the danger of them getting sniped out. In terms of unit sizes though, in addition to the first turn issue, I see unlimited overwatch being the problem. Some units with huge volume of fire could actually very easily wipe out a 5 man squad, or do substantial damage to multiple units if they fail their charges (as is liable to happen if, say, you're 9 inches away due to rolling a 4/5 on ambush. You also dilute the usefulness of the Primuses somewhat. What I am wondering is whether you could do something along the lines of 2x10 and 2x5 in each detachment to maximise the Primus benefits whilst removing the potential for dangerous overwatch. You also don't have to take 16 units to begin on the board with if you cut the number of ambushers a bit, which frees up points to run fast melee stuff from say, Nids (since we can share detachments with them) and pose a combat threat with the entire army. You can use Mucolid Spores in FA slots to fill things out.

I will say that one other nice thing about MSU is that you don't even need a Patriarch for morale immunity really!

What are people thinking about the Rock Cutter

I can see that being a potentially good character killer.. and also being a cheap option with 2 damage at -4

Benlisted wrote:

I like the second list Zamerion. I think Drillcolytes are def gonna be the way to go with cult this edition, and I think 2/5 is too high in terms of both points and the danger of them getting sniped out.

I will say that one other nice thing about MSU is that you don't even need a Patriarch for morale immunity really!

GodDamUser wrote:
What are people thinking about the Rock Cutter

I can see that being a potentially good character killer.. and also being a cheap option with 2 damage at -4

benlisted cutters are tyhe best, re-read through the rule for drills as i had been playing it pretty closed book, since i've had a good number of games. The friend who brought up morale woudns spilling over, then looked that book and pointed out that you stop rolling for the drill once the model is slain.

SO if you do some math hammer cutters win out for points effectiveness and in damage per model. against imperial knights (2+/3+ save T8) and other such big stuff. due to the reduction in armor. Drills might do more damage to 4+ save vehicles, but i think the difference wouldn't warrent the price tag so i didn't do the math on it. Even more so the snip rule works well for finishing off characters and monsters.

GodDamUser wrote:


Sorry I am not seeing 12 Command pts there.. I only count 6

brigade detachment gives you 9 CP and all armies start with 3+ for being battle forged.

zamerion wrote:
Im still thinking that big units arent the best idea.

2 or 3 units of 15/20 miniatures of T3 are really very easy to kill, and with the heavy weapons are very expensive units. Yes, when you assault with the ambush you can kill one or 2 units (if they are near) but the next turn you are dead.
Also deploy 20 miniatures more than 9 ums from ebemy units, sometimes will be hard.

Your opponent often deploys with a large gap either in front of or behind them. If they deploy funny because of your ambush your already messing them up. Coherency is 2" so your 20 models unit on 32mm bases can span up to 65" or 90% of of the length of your average warhammer game table. If you can only connect to one maybe two units you and your opponent have set up on two totally different tables, and you need to figure out how that happened....

As the days go by i more and more gravitate toward bigger units. You can only effect one unit with might from beyond. as such a 20 man unit vs a 5 man unit can be dramatically different. in just how dramatically powerful that spell can be. Do you put +1 strength on 16 +(5 from cultist knives) attacks or 61 (+20 for cultist knives) attacks?? because that's a really big difference. on top of this the 20 man squad can chain over to your primus; allowing you to hit on 2+ rerolling in situations where you didn't cult ambush that unit with the primus. This seems too good to pass up in my book.

When the 20 man unit rolls a 6 (or a 5 on ambush with a high charge roll and/or movement roll) can surround transports and big shooty monsters forcing them to stay locked in combat with no possibility of escape, and in the process potentially also protecting you from enemy shooting. Even better with the large unit you can charge two or three units, leaving one unit alive on purpose by doing your best not to kill one, and then hold that unit hostage till the next combat round to keep you safe from enemy shooting.

Lastly, the primus provides a reroll and so do your strategems. You can only use one reroll per phase. As such your min squads are relying on all lock, while having 3 or 4 big ambushes allow you to use a reroll on all or most of your ambushes to get them exactly where you want. Which is why i believe my last list contains 4 squads. 1 squad that can roll with primus using rerolling. Then the iconward & Patrarch can go with another two different squads using strategems to let them be abit safer. The last squad had a magus that went with shotgun neophytes that can preform well with rolls of 1,2. & 4+ rolls.

Which brings me to a final and mildly separate point. You guys really should look at shotgun neophtyes. They are cheap and versitile. 114 points for 36 shotgun shots and 2d6 flamer hits can melt all the basic units most armys bring, and give you a nice edge. Really great for taking out tau marker lights and they just demolish most eldar units.

mmimzie

Thanks for clarify the drill. Then id prefer cutters.



So you think that the best way to play genestealer cult army is an alpha strike? Kill everything as you can the first turn with big units.

The problem with this is that the enemy begins first, or stole your initiative. Or other alpha strike armys or armys with only a few units and he can deploy them very separated.

With small units you can use the ambush 3 turns, and select where and when make the damege (yes less damage than a big unit)


i really dont know



Also, i have a question, the rule of ambush said:

during deployment you can set this unit up instead of on battlefield.

other similar rules said:

during deployment, you can set it up in a teleportarium chamber instead of placing it on the battlefield"

you need to select a unit, and said this is on reserve? so, it counts as a unit in the deployment, and you need go one by one?

Yeah both deployments work the same they each take up a slot in your deployment You set up both units else were where the else where is doesn't matter matter, but they each count as a set up.

I don't see the big units being any more or less resilient than the small ones other than morale, and the patriarch can make this not a thing. MSU is less of a thing as you can split fire every model.

There is definitely an element where you want to do damage, but the genestealer cult models are all kind of skewed toward getting the jump on a unit or at least hopping in combat quick to hide.

If for whatever reason you go against an opponent where cult ambushing to much is not gonna work you can just deploy on the table, and run if you must.

To answer your what if they just deploy a few units etc. 1 you have to deploy as many units on the table as you do in reserves. So if they only deploy a few units they are likely a elite army so those few units might hurt them, even if they ally in something really small to take up the table space. You can deploy your big units to take up a lot of the table deny enemy reserves, while also charging. Not every model in a unit has to pile in so if your opponent deploys garbage. Clean it up with 5-10 of your 20 man acolyte units and strike the other 15-10 across the table to help take up space, and make enemy reserve deployment more difficult.

Also note the game isn't all killing you also need to try to win at the objective if tabling isn't an option.

recently i ran 4 trucks with neophtyes inside as my "core" and this worked out nicely as it was really tough for the points you pay. Trucks are pretty tough, and if you look at some of the big heavy weapons you have to pay more than the truck to take them out, and these are on high rolls. For instance imperial guard needs to roll really well with 2 lascannons to take out a truck in 1 turn. To take out a turck in one turn half the time you need 9 lascannons for guard ( 8 for space marines). These cost 2 or 3 times the truck to pull off. Then we haven't even killed all the neophtyes inside of the truck. So, you can set a good core and not worried about being tabled, and odds are your core will still be around doing work while you ambush units are being aggressive.

edit: for prospective a land raid can be kitted out with 4 lascannon shots, a hunter killer missle, and a melta and alone it wont taker out a truck in a single turn. while gcosting nearly or over 400 points?? The cheapist ithink you can get away with is lascannon devastors for ~280, and these are for a 50/50 shot of taking it out in one turn of shooting.

mmimzie wrote:

Benlisted wrote:

I like the second list Zamerion. I think Drillcolytes are def gonna be the way to go with cult this edition, and I think 2/5 is too high in terms of both points and the danger of them getting sniped out.

I will say that one other nice thing about MSU is that you don't even need a Patriarch for morale immunity really!

GodDamUser wrote:
What are people thinking about the Rock Cutter

I can see that being a potentially good character killer.. and also being a cheap option with 2 damage at -4

benlisted cutters are tyhe best, re-read through the rule for drills as i had been playing it pretty closed book, since i've had a good number of games. The friend who brought up morale woudns spilling over, then looked that book and pointed out that you stop rolling for the drill once the model is slain.

SO if you do some math hammer cutters win out for points effectiveness and in damage per model. against imperial knights (2+/3+ save T8) and other such big stuff. due to the reduction in armor. Drills might do more damage to 4+ save vehicles, but i think the difference wouldn't warrent the price tag so i didn't do the math on it. Even more so the snip rule works well for finishing off characters and monsters.

Not convinced on cutters > drills, certainly not all the time at least. Sure, you stop rolling mortal wounds once the model is slain, but to work the drill only has to be hitting a multiwound model, not a non-vehicle with 3-7 wounds remaining. Its the wounds remaining that really irks me, as you will have to roll models one at a time to optimise - attack with regular acolytes until it's below 8, then come in with the cutters. Against say 3 wound models you'll be alternating between cutters and normal guys if the cutters fail to wound, which will be a massive hassle. Assuming you spread the cutters out through units, you may not even get the optimal attack pattern - if your one cutter fails to instagib, you will have to attack with the normal acolytes before you can get to the next unit's cutter! The 'roll higher than wounds remaining' element is also far from ideal, as you only have decent odds when something would die to 3-4 more wounds anyway.

The drill, on the other hand, statistically gets slightly over 2 mortal wounds, on average (.55 or so prob to roll 2+ then 3+). that means across enough of them, you average essentially 3 wounds (2 mortal) each time you do wound. Sure, due to lower AP you're sligtly less likely to, but the invuln save ignoring of the mortal wounds is pretty tasty as a counterbalance. Obviously 3 wounds is higher than the damage of the cutters, though I know that doesn't account for the ease of getting past a save and the snip chance, where applicable.

Point being, despite the limitation to a single model I think drills are more generally useful, largely as they work on vehicles too. I could definitely see a big squad with 4+ cutters doing anti monster duty though, as it would more readily be able to plan when the cutter attacks go. Hell, drills softening stuff up for cutters seems a great idea! Fire drills at a monster first to chip wounds off, once you're close to 3-5 begin to use normal acolytes, then go for the kill with cutters. Guess the conclusion is both are options, which is probably a good thing!

So any ideas on what AM forces to take with cult? If you assume most cult units are going to try for ambush, what would be the best picks to start on the board?

Is taking a Baneblade just being cheesy?

Benlisted wrote:


Not convinced on cutters > drills, certainly not all the time at least. Sure, you stop rolling mortal wounds once the model is slain, but to work the drill only has to be hitting a multiwound model, thing!

If you look at my post of you do the math the cutters do mote damage against most targets. The special rule is just a cherry on top for the cutters. The drill does 2.77 damage effectively, but the power so means you kind of lose out on more.

AM allies take them for fliers. Dont replace our troops with theirs as the commisar buffs army worth it and the troops in chimeras arent as good as neophytes in trucks.

I am wondering if it will be worth it to take a techpriest and some artry (have a basie in the closet I would like to use)

So we pay more points for worse units then we had. No other army got their core rules completely gutted.

The solution people are giving is to use trucks instead. so the best way to use GSC is to not actually use the abortion that is their new special rule, the flavorful thing that the entire army hinged on. Walking onto a random table edge wouldn't be so bad if we weren't paper thin melee only units who die if looked at and can't afford to spend half the game slowly walking at their stupid human move speed towards something to attack. we're purple orks now with lower toughness. Cool. Glad our unique playstyle was gak all over.

Danny slag wrote:
So we pay more points for worse units then we had. No other army got their core rules completely gutted.

The solution people are giving is to use trucks instead. so the best way to use GSC is to not actually use the abortion that is their new special rule, the thing that the entire army hinged on. Walking onto a random table edge wouldn't be so bad if we weren't paper thin melee only units who die if looked at and can't afford to spend half the game slowly walking at their stupid human move speed towards something to attack. we're purple orks now with lower toughness. Cool. Glad our unique playstyle was gak all over.

Trucks are unique to genestealers and are amazing.

There are 3.5 reasons to bring neophtyes over astra miltarum allies. All situations different to that bring AM as they do techniqualy have better shooting.

1 & 1.5 Neophtyes in trucks ROCK!!! very tough unit with 10 T6 4+/6+++ and 10 T3 5+ wounds for 157 points is great. It has tons of daka throwing out 10 rapid fire shots, twin autocannon, and a heavy stubber. If the car gets charge everyone has pistols so they can shoot from inside. Lastly the other sub reason is that this is 2 deployment letting you sink more into cult ambush while also having few drops.

2. You can take a unit of 20 so you heavy weapopns can be well protected. These 20 man units can do work in melee with might from beyond asi t buffs 20 models. It also gives you 16-18 models in front of your heavy and special weapons before you need to pick them up.

3. They can cult ambush. Ambushing shotgun are stupidly cost effect, and only really do poorly on a 3 or on a 1 roll in which you end up on a bad table edge.

No other army gets more gutted??? imperial fist, raven wing, salamander, most of the traitor legions, etc dont even have rules. Canticles for other armies are meh. Ultra marines don't have nay special rules for them and they are the flag ship army of the game. These indexs are temporary rules hold overs for when codex drop.

mmimzie wrote:

Danny slag wrote:
So we pay more points for worse units then we had. No other army got their core rules completely gutted.

The solution people are giving is to use trucks instead. so the best way to use GSC is to not actually use the abortion that is their new special rule, the thing that the entire army hinged on. Walking onto a random table edge wouldn't be so bad if we weren't paper thin melee only units who die if looked at and can't afford to spend half the game slowly walking at their stupid human move speed towards something to attack. we're purple orks now with lower toughness. Cool. Glad our unique playstyle was gak all over.

Trucks are unique to genestealers and are amazing.

There are 3.5 reasons to bring neophtyes over astra miltarum allies. All situations different to that bring AM as they do techniqualy have better shooting.

1 & 1.5 Neophtyes in trucks ROCK!!! very tough unit with 10 T6 4+/6+++ and 10 T3 5+ wounds for 157 points is great. It has tons of daka throwing out 10 rapid fire shots, twin autocannon, and a heavy stubber. If the car gets charge everyone has pistols so they can shoot from inside. Lastly the other sub reason is that this is 2 deployment letting you sink more into cult ambush while also having few drops.

2. You can take a unit of 20 so you heavy weapopns can be well protected. These 20 man units can do work in melee with might from beyond asi t buffs 20 models. It also gives you 16-18 models in front of your heavy and special weapons before you need to pick them up.

3. They can cult ambush. Ambushing shotgun are stupidly cost effect, and only really do poorly on a 3 or on a 1 roll in which you end up on a bad table edge.

No other army gets more gutted??? imperial fist, raven wing, salamander, most of the traitor legions, etc dont even have rules. Canticles for other armies are meh. Ultra marines don't have nay special rules for them and they are the flag ship army of the game. These indexs are temporary rules hold overs for when codex drop.

so one unit per game, of neophytes with shotguns are good, 50% of the time or if 100% of the time if in trucks. Your 3.5 reasons are one unit just repeated in different ways. Awesome, unfortunately that leaves the rest of our army as trash. So i guess i'll mothball 80% of my army. Isn't that exactly what GW stated they were trying to do away with? Having armies where most of the units were not worth using?

Imperial fists, raven wing, and salamanders arent' an army, space marines are. Space marines still have chapter tactics, drop pods, ect. What was done to GSC is the equivielent of if chapter tactics and drop pods were removed from space marines.

I didn't pick up GSC to be imperial guard lite, i picked it up because i liked their unique playstyle of being paper thin sneaky gits, now all the melee units are worthless garbage, which is the majority of the army. I have 40 acolyte hybrids and 10 metamorphs that might as well be dog gak.


The best unit to cult ambush is the neophytes since they can shoot so aren't a complete waste on 50% of the results. But the best unit to transport in trucks is also neophytes, so i'm trying to figure wtf to do with what used to be 2000 pts of models I have lovingly worked on which is now only about 300 pts of useful stuff and 1700 points of trash. If I wanted to play "run up the board in trucks shooting inaccurate low damage mass volume fire" i'd play orks.

Scions could be interesting in that they can be placed in areas to support ambushing units with special weapons fire. I have a pair of Hydras/Wyverns painted for my GC, so they'll probably get a try from me at some point. Fliers obviously would be interesting too.

Danny slag wrote:

mmimzie wrote:

Danny slag wrote:
So we pay more points for worse units then we had. No other army got their core rules completely gutted.

The solution people are giving is to use trucks instead. so the best way to use GSC is to not actually use the abortion that is their new special rule, the thing that the entire army hinged on. Walking onto a random table edge wouldn't be so bad if we weren't paper thin melee only units who die if looked at and can't afford to spend half the game slowly walking at their stupid human move speed towards something to attack. we're purple orks now with lower toughness. Cool. Glad our unique playstyle was gak all over.

Trucks are unique to genestealers and are amazing.

There are 3.5 reasons to bring neophtyes over astra miltarum allies. All situations different to that bring AM as they do techniqualy have better shooting.

1 & 1.5 Neophtyes in trucks ROCK!!! very tough unit with 10 T6 4+/6+++ and 10 T3 5+ wounds for 157 points is great. It has tons of daka throwing out 10 rapid fire shots, twin autocannon, and a heavy stubber. If the car gets charge everyone has pistols so they can shoot from inside. Lastly the other sub reason is that this is 2 deployment letting you sink more into cult ambush while also having few drops.

2. You can take a unit of 20 so you heavy weapopns can be well protected. These 20 man units can do work in melee with might from beyond asi t buffs 20 models. It also gives you 16-18 models in front of your heavy and special weapons before you need to pick them up.

3. They can cult ambush. Ambushing shotgun are stupidly cost effect, and only really do poorly on a 3 or on a 1 roll in which you end up on a bad table edge.

No other army gets more gutted??? imperial fist, raven wing, salamander, most of the traitor legions, etc dont even have rules. Canticles for other armies are meh. Ultra marines don't have nay special rules for them and they are the flag ship army of the game. These indexs are temporary rules hold overs for when codex drop.

so one unit per game, of neophytes with shotguns are good, 50% of the time or if 100% of the time if in trucks. Your 3.5 reasons are one unit just repeated in different ways. Awesome, unfortunately that leaves the rest of our army as trash. So i guess i'll mothball 80% of my army. Isn't that exactly what GW stated they were trying to do away with? Having armies where most of the units were not worth using?

Imperial fists, raven wing, and salamanders arent' an army, space marines are. Space marines still have chapter tactics, drop pods, ect. What was done to GSC is the equivielent of if chapter tactics and drop pods were removed from space marines.

I didn't pick up GSC to be imperial guard lite, i picked it up because i liked their unique playstyle of being paper thin sneaky gits, now all the melee units are worthless garbage, which is the majority of the army. I have 40 acolyte hybrids and 10 metamorphs that might as well be dog gak.


The best unit to cult ambush is the neophytes since they can shoot so aren't a complete waste on 50% of the results. But the best unit to transport in trucks is also neophytes, so i'm trying to figure wtf to do with what used to be 2000 pts of models I have lovingly worked on which is now only about 300 pts of useful stuff and 1700 points of trash. If I wanted to play "run up the board in trucks shooting inaccurate low damage mass volume fire" i'd play orks.

Hey Danny this will be my last reply to you as i can see your inconsolably upset at a game you have very little experience with. SVC as an are army very competive, and very agressive. One of the most agressive and will result in more turn 1 charges than most other armys. As an army they are quite tough as many units are cheap like trucks that are tough for the price or neophytes that are relatively highbwound coun5 for the points.

Acolytes do alot of damag3 and 2ill charge 50% of the time with rerollw to thier cult ambush and better than that if you attempt a 9" charge and reroll one of the dice.

Our genestealers at first I thought they were bad but then I mess with one genestealers, and out genestealers being able to chqrge turn one are powerful as they dont need me to bring a glass cannon swarm lord to charge turn 1.

Our patriarch is just better than broodlords for the price.


Metamorphs are abit meh. They do good dqmage for thier points, but dont do anyone thing particularly well. but aberrant can do a real number to large tough models lik3 one raiders and knights.

Anyway if all you can s33 is rage, than it is not warranted. I've won game's now against eldar tau, nods, space marine, AM, and death guard now. All of thes3 gam3w felt very competive, and nev3r hqv3 I really felt i was at an unfair disadvantage.

Goodbye mr Danny slag.

mmimzie wrote:

Danny slag wrote:

mmimzie wrote:

Danny slag wrote:
So we pay more points for worse units then we had. No other army got their core rules completely gutted.

The solution people are giving is to use trucks instead. so the best way to use GSC is to not actually use the abortion that is their new special rule, the thing that the entire army hinged on. Walking onto a random table edge wouldn't be so bad if we weren't paper thin melee only units who die if looked at and can't afford to spend half the game slowly walking at their stupid human move speed towards something to attack. we're purple orks now with lower toughness. Cool. Glad our unique playstyle was gak all over.

Trucks are unique to genestealers and are amazing.

There are 3.5 reasons to bring neophtyes over astra miltarum allies. All situations different to that bring AM as they do techniqualy have better shooting.

1 & 1.5 Neophtyes in trucks ROCK!!! very tough unit with 10 T6 4+/6+++ and 10 T3 5+ wounds for 157 points is great. It has tons of daka throwing out 10 rapid fire shots, twin autocannon, and a heavy stubber. If the car gets charge everyone has pistols so they can shoot from inside. Lastly the other sub reason is that this is 2 deployment letting you sink more into cult ambush while also having few drops.

2. You can take a unit of 20 so you heavy weapopns can be well protected. These 20 man units can do work in melee with might from beyond asi t buffs 20 models. It also gives you 16-18 models in front of your heavy and special weapons before you need to pick them up.

3. They can cult ambush. Ambushing shotgun are stupidly cost effect, and only really do poorly on a 3 or on a 1 roll in which you end up on a bad table edge.

No other army gets more gutted??? imperial fist, raven wing, salamander, most of the traitor legions, etc dont even have rules. Canticles for other armies are meh. Ultra marines don't have nay special rules for them and they are the flag ship army of the game. These indexs are temporary rules hold overs for when codex drop.

so one unit per game, of neophytes with shotguns are good, 50% of the time or if 100% of the time if in trucks. Your 3.5 reasons are one unit just repeated in different ways. Awesome, unfortunately that leaves the rest of our army as trash. So i guess i'll mothball 80% of my army. Isn't that exactly what GW stated they were trying to do away with? Having armies where most of the units were not worth using?

Imperial fists, raven wing, and salamanders arent' an army, space marines are. Space marines still have chapter tactics, drop pods, ect. What was done to GSC is the equivielent of if chapter tactics and drop pods were removed from space marines.

I didn't pick up GSC to be imperial guard lite, i picked it up because i liked their unique playstyle of being paper thin sneaky gits, now all the melee units are worthless garbage, which is the majority of the army. I have 40 acolyte hybrids and 10 metamorphs that might as well be dog gak.


The best unit to cult ambush is the neophytes since they can shoot so aren't a complete waste on 50% of the results. But the best unit to transport in trucks is also neophytes, so i'm trying to figure wtf to do with what used to be 2000 pts of models I have lovingly worked on which is now only about 300 pts of useful stuff and 1700 points of trash. If I wanted to play "run up the board in trucks shooting inaccurate low damage mass volume fire" i'd play orks.

Hey Danny this will be my last reply to you as i can see your inconsolably upset at a game you have very little experience with. SVC as an are army very competive, and very agressive. One of the most agressive and will result in more turn 1 charges than most other armys. As an army they are quite tough as many units are cheap like trucks that are tough for the price or neophytes that are relatively highbwound coun5 for the points.

Acolytes do alot of damag3 and 2ill charge 50% of the time with rerollw to thier cult ambush and better than that if you attempt a 9" charge and reroll one of the dice.

Our genestealers at first I thought they were bad but then I mess with one genestealers, and out genestealers being able to chqrge turn one are powerful as they dont need me to bring a glass cannon swarm lord to charge turn 1.

Our patriarch is just better than broodlords for the price.


Metamorphs are abit meh. They do good dqmage for thier points, but dont do anyone thing particularly well. but aberrant can do a real number to large tough models lik3 one raiders and knights.

Anyway if all you can s33 is rage, than it is not warranted. I've won game's now against eldar tau, nods, space marine, AM, and death guard now. All of thes3 gam3w felt very competive, and nev3r hqv3 I really felt i was at an unfair disadvantage.

Goodbye mr Danny slag.

Every time you try to claim they aren't bad you have to use rerolls to make your point valid. Rerolls for cult ambush, rerolls for charging. Where are you getting all of these rerolls every turn? And if a unit requires a bunch of rerolls to be viable, doesn't that prove it's not?
So one unit of acolytes takes 2 rerolls to have a 50% chance to ambush and a less than 50% chance of making a charge. So blowing 2 rerolls you have less than a 25% chance of one unit doing its job. What exactly are the odds of a drop pod stern guard unit doing its job? 100%, and doesn't require rerolls. What kind of dumpster fire of an army relies on rerolls for everything?

Neophytes are ok, genestealers ar good. But acolytes and metamorphes, which make up most GSC armies, are utter trash now. And barring all that and what has me so salty is that they ripped the flavor of the army out. They took out the swarming sneaky ambushing style and made GSC bland.

To be fair, all the unit cycling was dizzying. I wish there was a Return to Shadows mechanic - even if limited - but I also think we might see it return as a stratagem or something.

 gorgon wrote:
To be fair, all the unit cycling was dizzying. I wish there was a Return to Shadows mechanic - even if limited - but I also think we might see it return as a stratagem or something.

I agree it was clunky, and I wouldn't have minded something different, as long as it had kept with the flavour of the horde of sneaky GSC. But they removed so much of what made GSC work as a faction, and then raised the costs, all without rebalancing to account for that.
I've used this exemple to death but it would be like removing marker lights, supporting fire, and crisis suits jumping ability from tau, then increasing their cost. They changed how suits worked, but didn't flat out remove their flavor of how they work. Id have been fine if they changed return to shadows, or changed the units so they didn't need return to shadows to work, and managed to kept the feel of the army.
Just pulling things out of myvarse here for examples, One turn GSC units can replace their normal movement with a 12 inch movement as long as it's into a piece of cover. Or, every turn roll a die and on a 5 or 6 a single additional model gets added to the unit to simulate more GSC crawling out of the shadows. Anything. But they just ripped out rules and did nothing to rebalance or rework the army without those removed rules.

Hell even giving acolytes a movement of 7 instead of 6 would have made them worth considering. Now they'll just spend the whole game slowly walking several feet across the board with no hopes of doing anything useful.
We went from a paper thin ambushing melee swarm that played totally uniquely, to now needing to play as a mechanized high volume low accuracy shooting horde in trucks, essentially purple orks. no other army I've seen has had its entire flavor and theme so drastically changed. Every answer to what's been removed is "use trucks instead of ambush." Doesn't the fact that it's a bad idea to use their one remaining special rule kind of prove these were badly designed rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's another question I have. Since the whole army needs to be mechanized to be effective now how do we use all our character bubbles? Min squad of neophytes is 10 man and goliath transports 10 max, so can't ride along, won't be near any other units since they're all in trucks.
It's like no one thought about how this would play. It's wanting to be a horde melee footslogging infantry army but doesn't have any of the tools needed to make that work anymore, namely either effective range or a way to cross the board. But in the flip side none of the special rules synergize with a mechanized army. It has no real identify or Intra army cohesiveness.

Anyone try running a genestealer heavy army with allied MCs from nids? A more elite but large wound army?

Just a suggestion, but one way Tyranids might help their Cultist Brothers and sisters is with a Vanguard(?) with Deathleaper, and three Lictors...+1 Command point and several Bio Ninjas to pop into the foes backfield.

pinecone77 wrote:
Just a suggestion, but one way Tyranids might help their Cultist Brothers and sisters is with a Vanguard(?) with Deathleaper, and three Lictors...+1 Command point and several Bio Ninjas to pop into the foes backfield.

Sadly Deathleaper is not an HQ choice

That is sad! Oh, well I guess you'd need a differant HQ... So are any GSC players planning to use big blocks of Conscripts to hold the table while the Brotherhoods Ambush?

So...Possable Detachment..

HQ: Brood Lord
Elite: Lictor
Elite: Lictor
Elite: Lictor

That should run just under 300, add a unit of Hive Fleet Stealers as Troops as points allow.

Looks like this would be a useful addition, lots of close in DS Bio Ninjas, and a Psycher that can cast off a differing Table.

pinecone77 wrote:
That is sad! Oh, well I guess you'd need a differant HQ... So are any GSC players planning to use big blocks of Conscripts to hold the table while the Brotherhoods Ambush?

definitely a unite that can stick around, but where we are weak is against enemy infiltrators. You need models that can take out infiltrators as they can limit the space you have to ambush either to 0 or make it so you have no access to good ambushes.

In this role ratling & scouts can deny some infiltrators, scouts, and enemy deep strike units. Ratlings can provide okay anti character. Scout sentinels don't do as good at stopping infiltrators, but can compete with other scouts and stop deep strikes. THe scouts also provide good flamer dakka for clearing out infiltrators.

Stealth suits and scout squads (Marines) will be big trouble. Both of these if set up first can deploy right next to your deployment line and create a terrible bubble that makes ambushing difficult. i haven;t looked super hard, but can't find any other ways around this other than killing a hole through the enemy.

Which is why i love the trucks so much as they are tough and bring lots of dakka, to prepare for ambushes.

We really need some rule as this (escape thrust)




But if you are more than x from enemy, and rolling in the ambush again to set in the battlefield.

Honestly, I am a bit pissed that our army that had hardly any variety to begin with, now has less variety due to non viable options. Let me explain.

Metamorphs are absolute garbage, as someone noted already, whips are not ideal, they basically trigger when your unit dies. This is fine when your not paying 15ppm for a t3 5+ model. Mind numbingly stupid how expensive these are now, and they don't stack with rending which honestly makes sense and needed to happen, but not with a price hike as well. Now claw metas cost 7ppm more and don't rend, this is way to far. Whats even worse, is s6. The new wound chart means the rending claws on s4 platforms means your wounding up to T7 on 5's with a -1 save while the claws wound a mech on only a 3+ and again with no ap.

Hybrids are decent, again though the hike went too far. 11ppm for a t3 5+ save again with absolute trash for special weapons. Consider the cheaper option is 23 pts (CLEARLY a typo btw when you look at the cutter and saw) and you get 2 swings that are s8 -4 with 2 dmg. This is not good IMO. In fact this is hot trash just stick with the weight of normal rending. You get more bodies for more attacks that come with stock -1 ap.

Abberants are OK, but are WAY over cost still. No reason to take the picks over hammers, ever. You take the Abbs to deal multi damage not kill infantry, per point the hammers do more. It's -1 to hit, but generally +2 to wound on the picks against high T targets (3+ rather then 5+) while doing flat 3 damage rather then averaging 2 per pick. I want to like these but 41ppm for 2 t4 wounds is INSANE. Should have had 3 wounds IMO.

Purestrains, love them. They are the best unit in the book at assault. Fast, built in invuln and higher toughness. Only they have a real problem which I will get to in a minute.

Neophytes! These are the best unit entry in the book, BY A MILE. 5 points a dude with access to 2 grenade launchers and two mining lasers per 10. So while 5 T3 hybrids with a pair of cutters has to roll EXTREMELY lucky or have a ton of support to work and costs 101, 10 neaophytes loaded the way I suggested costs 88.... They don't require extreme luck to work. Their mining lasers hit on 4's while the cutter hits on 3's but wounds on 3's against t8 targets while the cutter wounds on 4's, and those are the targets we want either of these for. The lasers don't need to risk assault or overwatch and can be effective first turn and to top it all off they do more damage at d6. PLUS we have the grenades. Then we have all the ranged autoguns or flamers for over watch. Equal points of neophyes will kill equal points of hybrids, it's not even close. But these also have an issue for me like the puerstrains...

Two other armies we can allie in do our job better. Guard out shines us in shooting by a mile and nids out assault us and out shoot us. Literally our best two units in the book are purestrains which nids get at a 33% discount PLUS all the other better units, but we will ignore them for now. Guard has better infantry with cheap weapon teams and automatic orders.

Honestly, the design team WAY over adjusted for cult ambush. A guard scion cost the same a a hybrid only he AUTO drops anywhere while we require a 4+ AND he has better gear stock as well as upgrades.

It's actually quite sad because the entire faction consists of 3 unique characters (patriarch is a broodlord), two unique vehicles and just 4 unique infantry units. Yet they rushed this garbage out in extreme haste. I mean seriously, how on earth is a rock saw +1pt over the rock cutter?

I think a big thing with GSC is that in this Index is, it is designed to utilise Guard along side it.