Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

A good friend of mine plays Tyranids (hive fleet Kraken), and whilst I win some and he wins some, he wins more, and when I lose there's a common theme:

1) His Genestealers end up in my face on turn 1 after using stratagems to move twice with double advance, then charging, so I spend the next turn using all my firepower (minus the TAC squad I just lost) to overcome their 5++ and remove them from the middle of my deployment zone.

2) I spend an inordinate amount of effort over the course of the game trying to overcome his Zoanthropes' 3++ to stop them spamming smite at me.

Here's my list:

Captain in Terminator Armor: Iron Resolve, Relic blade, Storm bolter, The Sanctic Halo
Lieutenant: Lightning Claw, Storm bolter
3x Tactical Squad:
. 3x Space Marine: Boltgun
. Space Marine Sergeant: Boltgun, Power fist
. Space Marine w/Heavy Weapon: Missile launcher
Venerable Dreadnought: Twin lascannon, Dreadnought combat weapon w/Storm Bolter
Land Speeder: Heavy bolter, Typhoon missile launcher
Whirlwind: Storm bolter, Whirlwind vengeance launcher

Apart from using flakk missiles at the Zoanthropes (which isn't massively effective as you only get 1 per turn and the critters have 3W) do you have any tactics you could recommend?

Cheers

A dev squad with cherub and flakk missile can shoot twice for 2D3MW. Same is with hellfire shells and a HB. Get a culexus assassin, or two, to stop smite spam. A vindicate assassin would also be a good counter, no inv against his shots.
A flyer, stormraven gunship, can block genstealers, they can't charge it, and must stay away from it's base.

Yeah my HB is on the Landspeeder so doesn't get hellfire shells

I'd already wondered about taking a Vindicare Assassin in it's place...

Genestealers are nasty and point-for-point must be one of the best Troop units in the game. I am still refining strategies against them myself after my last "close encounter" but here here some thoughts.

I don't know your feelings on Primaris Marines but they have some useful tools in their kit for dealing with Stealers. Stealers are S4 so if you can deploy some T8 units to screen, they will only be wounding on 6s. Repulsors are quite good here as they are T8, have plenty of wounds, lots of horde-thinning dakka and they have FLY. This means that after the stealers charge, the Repulsors can withdraw and still shoot at full effect.

Load them with a squad of Aggressors and after the Repulsor withdraws, they can get out and either shoot or flame the Stealers.

For Zoanthropes, you can try MW stratagems or you can just rely on weight of bolter fire to bring them down.

Your point about Assassins is a good one. A Culexus would really mess with Zoanthropes as it is immune to Smite and will also block it from targeting anything behind it.

Personally I think zoanthropes are best dealt with last. All they do is cast powers, and be tough to kill. So firing your whole army into them is playing to their strengths. They have no guns, and have a single basic attack each in combat.
Anti psyker stuff like a culexis will shut them down, but if you don't have that, you can just minimise the damage by putting a cheap unit close to them. Their smite has a bit of extra range, but still has to hit the closest unit.

They have a smite that changes depending on how many are left in the unit.
With a full 6 zoanthropes they do D3 + 3 mortal wounds
With 4 or 5 they do D3 + D3 mortal wounds.
With 3 or less they do D3 mortal wounds, and also can only cast one power per turn.

They're usually taken as a unit of either 4 or 6. So just kill one of them to make their smite weaker, and then put your firepower elsewhere. A full unit of 6 is 240 points, so they aren't the cheapest smiters around.

If your finding that the smaller points scale games are more about surviving than anything else, I would recommend you ignore objectives for the first couple of turns and play as defensively as possible, deploy as deep as you can to deny the genestealers a turn 1 charge (unless swarmlord is present then they should only be able to do the double advance range stratagem and still charge, max move and charge should be 30"). If there are any obvious defensive spots (bottle necks, craters, tall buildings), try to force the genestealers to take a longer route to you - 2 full shooting phases and an overwatch should take the sting out of their charge.

Both the genestealers and the zoanthropes have good invulnerable saves, so the only way you are killing them quickly is with high rate of fire weapons - aggressors, assault cannon razorback or scout bikes are some of the cost effective options - and at this point scale even heavy bolter devastators could work well. If you thinking about what parts of the list to change to fit these kind of units in, my top picks to drop would be the powerfist sergeants and the landspeeder.

A small squad of scouts infiltrating up in their face keeps the genestealers from zooming forward too much, and gives you a cheap unit to waste all the zoanthrope psychic power.

Hmmmm. It looks like some of the rules have been played wrong then - like Genestealers charging after using metabolic overdrive and casting 3 smites per turn from a unit of 3 Zoanthropes...

Yes, genestealers cant charge after metabolic overdrive and a unit of 3 zoanthropes can only cast smite once.

..and the can also cast psychic scream (smite -like). 4+ zoans cast bigger smite and he probably also used single neurothropes for smites. So thats your 3+ smites I think.

shogun wrote:
..and the can also cast psychic scream (smite -like). 4+ zoans cast bigger smite and he probably also used single neurothropes for smites. So thats your 3+ smites I think.

No, the unit of 3 Zoanthropes was incorrectly casting 3 smites per turn.

 Brother Castor wrote:

shogun wrote:
..and the can also cast psychic scream (smite -like). 4+ zoans cast bigger smite and he probably also used single neurothropes for smites. So thats your 3+ smites I think.

No, the unit of 3 Zoanthropes was incorrectly casting 3 smites per turn.

There is your easy fix, play by the rules and zoanthropes and genestealers arent so dangerous anymore.

 p5freak wrote:

 Brother Castor wrote:

shogun wrote:
..and the can also cast psychic scream (smite -like). 4+ zoans cast bigger smite and he probably also used single neurothropes for smites. So thats your 3+ smites I think.

No, the unit of 3 Zoanthropes was incorrectly casting 3 smites per turn.

There is your easy fix, play by the rules and zoanthropes and genestealers arent so dangerous anymore.

Well indeed!

 Brother Castor wrote:
A good friend of mine plays Tyranids (hive fleet Kraken), and whilst I win some and he wins some, he wins more, and when I lose there's a common theme:

1) His Genestealers end up in my face on turn 1 after using stratagems to move twice with double advance, then charging, so I spend the next turn using all my firepower (minus the TAC squad I just lost) to overcome their 5++ and remove them from the middle of my deployment zone.

2) I spend an inordinate amount of effort over the course of the game trying to overcome his Zoanthropes' 3++ to stop them spamming smite at me.

Here's my list:

Captain in Terminator Armor: Iron Resolve, Relic blade, Storm bolter, The Sanctic Halo
Lieutenant: Lightning Claw, Storm bolter
3x Tactical Squad:
. 3x Space Marine: Boltgun
. Space Marine Sergeant: Boltgun, Power fist
. Space Marine w/Heavy Weapon: Missile launcher
Venerable Dreadnought: Twin lascannon, Dreadnought combat weapon w/Storm Bolter
Land Speeder: Heavy bolter, Typhoon missile launcher
Whirlwind: Storm bolter, Whirlwind vengeance launcher

Apart from using flakk missiles at the Zoanthropes (which isn't massively effective as you only get 1 per turn and the critters have 3W) do you have any tactics you could recommend?

Cheers

There is a move x 2 stragagem but you can not charge that turn. Kraken has a stratgem that lets your roll 3d6 and choose one when advancing. To do the move 2x things he needs the swarmlord (250 points.)

You should use some small units to screen. Something needs to get killed by the stealers, make sure it is a bad unit and when the GS are in rapid fire range you can kill them. Both GS and Zoanthropes hate regular bolter fire, or heavy bolters.

Thanks all - I think we've established the root cause of the issue now

 Niiai wrote:

There is a move x 2 stragagem but you can not charge that turn. Kraken has a stratgem that lets your roll 3d6 and choose one when advancing. To do the move 2x things he needs the swarmlord (250 points.)

+ Kraken got stratagem for an extra advance and genestealers can charge after advancing.

shogun wrote:

 Niiai wrote:

There is a move x 2 stragagem but you can not charge that turn. Kraken has a stratgem that lets your roll 3d6 and choose one when advancing. To do the move 2x things he needs the swarmlord (250 points.)

+ Kraken got stratagem for an extra advance and genestealers can charge after advancing.

To be precise Kraken Hive fleet (all of them) have 3d6 take best for advances and can fall back and still charge.
They also have a stratagem (1CP) that allows you to dbl the Advance roll (IE 3d6 take highest and dbl it) for a likely 10-12" extra move when they advance and use that strat which they can still assault from.
Often they use a Swarmlord to allow one unit (within 6") to move again in the shooting phase (including advancing again which they can use the strat again on if needed)
They will often use metabolic overdrive to dbl move a buffing unit such as the aforementioned Swarmlord or a broodlord or a Malanthrope to keep the genestealers both fearless (in 12" synapse) and buff them.

Just to clarify the zoanthrope casting further, a psyker cannot attempt to manifest the same power more than once each turn.
So even if the zoanthrope unit had 4+ members, allowing it to cast 2 powers, it could only use smite once. The second cast would have to be of a different power.