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 Yarium wrote:
FYI "While We Stand We Fight" is 3 most expensive MODELS, not UNITS. Likely your Broodlord, Magus, and Primus would've needed to survive - which likely would've been better had you known that! Glad you had a good game

Ahhhh, I must have misread that. My bad! Actually, that probably would have been a terrible idea given that my opponent took secondaries focused around killing my characters.

Damn, I thought I'd found a fairly serviceable secondary to take vs marines. There really is no good one for fighting them at all.

You can try a psychic ritual?

pinecone77 wrote:
You can try a psychic ritual?

I feel you need 50pt or less psykers to go for those. If I include a psyker in my gsc it is gonna be for a critical cast.

Zoeys?

the_scotsman wrote:

pinecone77 wrote:
You can try a psychic ritual?

I feel you need 50pt or less psykers to go for those. If I include a psyker in my gsc it is gonna be for a critical cast.

Yeah, Guard is incredibly OP for Psychic actions with 25 pts Astropath and 60 pts Inquisitors

pinecone77 wrote:
Zoeys?

I'll admit, I don't know how they work, but possibly.

I dunno, it's not like GSC is actually bad at secondaries, so I don't see the need to give up CP to bring in allies just to get a category of easier secondaries. It's just that the secondaries that revolve around countering a particular army construction are for countering:

1) Knights
2) Vehicle Spam
3) Character Spam
4) Psyker spam, but only if you have no psykers yourself... guess that's to make it feel better to not have any way to stop psykers from doing their psyking.
5) Model spam
6) supercheap MSU spam

MEQ armies generally do none of those things. They're MSU, but not MSU enough that it's easy to rack up a ton of unit kills like it could be against like drukhari or sisters spamming tons of 5-gal squads or tau with tons of drone units. And then they bring all their points in infantry bodies, but only enough to make Thin their Ranks worth like...4pts. Some SM armies might have enough characters to make killing characters worth it, but an average SM list I've seen has 3-4 characters, not enough to make Assassinate really great. And SM characters tend to be really hard to bring down.

This would be the same issue in a game against Custodes. I wonder whether bringing cheap 'nid psykers just to unlock the possibility of Mental Interrogation. But don't you have to take 3x Zoanthropes per unit minimum, and they aren't characters? That seems kinda crappy tbh given that you'd give up their whole turn just to try and do Mental Interrogation. What about BB Primaris Psyker+3x BB Astropaths?

I guess you could also go in dependent on mission-specific secondaries or be ready to try to go for a turn 2 warlord kill. But the fact that that stupid Phobos captain everyone makes their Chapter Master is immune to the kelermorph and basically immune to all melee deep strikers makes that hurt so much.

BTW webbers are not single shot. They are worse now, but not that bad. They are d3 auto hits at 16" not 18"

the_scotsman wrote:

pinecone77 wrote:
Zoeys?

I'll admit, I don't know how they work, but possibly.

I dunno, it's not like GSC is actually bad at secondaries, so I don't see the need to give up CP to bring in allies just to get a category of easier secondaries. It's just that the secondaries that revolve around countering a particular army construction are for countering:

1) Knights
2) Vehicle Spam
3) Character Spam
4) Psyker spam, but only if you have no psykers yourself... guess that's to make it feel better to not have any way to stop psykers from doing their psyking.
5) Model spam
6) supercheap MSU spam

MEQ armies generally do none of those things. They're MSU, but not MSU enough that it's easy to rack up a ton of unit kills like it could be against like drukhari or sisters spamming tons of 5-gal squads or tau with tons of drone units. And then they bring all their points in infantry bodies, but only enough to make Thin their Ranks worth like...4pts. Some SM armies might have enough characters to make killing characters worth it, but an average SM list I've seen has 3-4 characters, not enough to make Assassinate really great. And SM characters tend to be really hard to bring down.

This would be the same issue in a game against Custodes. I wonder whether bringing cheap 'nid psykers just to unlock the possibility of Mental Interrogation. But don't you have to take 3x Zoanthropes per unit minimum, and they aren't characters? That seems kinda crappy tbh given that you'd give up their whole turn just to try and do Mental Interrogation. What about BB Primaris Psyker+3x BB Astropaths?

I guess you could also go in dependent on mission-specific secondaries or be ready to try to go for a turn 2 warlord kill. But the fact that that stupid Phobos captain everyone makes their Chapter Master is immune to the kelermorph and basically immune to all melee deep strikers makes that hurt so much.

Zoeys are not Characters, a Brood of three also gets cool warp lance smite stuff. A unit of three Zoeys, a Brood lord, and some Hiveguard could be a nice addition, not too expensive in points, or Dollars.I'd use Kronos to hose Phychers, and shoot better, or Jormangandr to use cover better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also you could do a Jormangandr Broodlord to do a Ritual, and take three units of x5-6 Stealers with extended carapaces, or "regular" for acid maws, rending claws, and major cover bonus.

What are secondaries GSC armies should choose? Raise the Banners, linebreaker, engage on all fronts, repair teleport homer. seem like they are good. What about pierce the veil? Against an assault heavy or elite army where you can sneak in the back with a magus and neophyte squad to score repair teleport homer and linebreaker it might not be bad for a 145 point investment.

Resipsa131 wrote:
What are secondaries GSC armies should choose? Raise the Banners, linebreaker, engage on all fronts, repair teleport homer. seem like they are good. What about pierce the veil? Against an assault heavy or elite army where you can sneak in the back with a magus and neophyte squad to score repair teleport homer and linebreaker it might not be bad for a 145 point investment.

I think the only reason a GSC army wants to rock psychic secondaries is if you're bringing in a Brood Brother AM patrol and slapping a couple Astropaths into your army.Then I think it's a viable secondary to take.

If you're a GSC player who owns a leman russ tank, taking him as a BB AM tank commander in a patrol with some BB infantry and a couple astropaths is worth 2cp in my opinion. Just to get a reliable 3rd secondary, a better tank like a Punisher or something, and maybe an officer to put some orders on your infantry squads.

Actually, I think that's a pretty solid mission focused ally detachment regardless of whether you bring the tank commander or not. 2cp to not have to worry about fitting the square peg of GSC units into the round hole of 9th ed missions sounds great to me.

I actually have been considering scions.

Why not fill Chimera with reliable AT and more durable infantry. They still have obsec and can actually bully the objectives and crack enemy armor at range.

 Red Corsair wrote:
I actually have been considering scions.

Why not fill Chimera with reliable AT and more durable infantry. They still have obsec and can actually bully the objectives and crack enemy armor at range.

Can scions go in a chimera? For some reason I thought they were limited to their fugly jeep thingies that wish they were goliath trucks.

I'm bummed we didn't get AM codex brood brothers rolled into one detachment. It definitely seemed too good to be true but all the 9th stuff stacked against the army from the start seemed too harsh for them to not throw GSC a bone of some sort.

Madjob wrote:
I'm bummed we didn't get AM codex brood brothers rolled into one detachment. It definitely seemed too good to be true but all the 9th stuff stacked against the army from the start seemed too harsh for them to not throw GSC a bone of some sort.

There might be a silly way around this. Just thought of it and started a thread: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/791019.page

TL;DR - if you take a GSC detachment made solely of Brood Brothers, you might be able to still do it.

EDIT: Okay, there could be a dissuading voice still coming, but it seems like this would work. Here's the breakdown:

Step 1: Take a GSC detachment and put a single Brood Brother unit from the GSC codex in it. I suggest a Brood Brothers Infantry Squad or Heavy Weapons Team. Then take the rest of the detachment using Astra Militarum stuff that replaces its Regiment with "Brood Brother". This is not you making up a Faction name in order to get around a restriction; this is you using a legit Regiment name. All units in this detachment now share a single Faction keyword; Brood Brothers.

Step 2: Take a Tyranid detachment.

Congrats. You can now have 3 Tank Commanders alongside 3 Exocrines, and you only need to pay CP costs for one of those detachments!

 Yarium wrote:

Madjob wrote:
I'm bummed we didn't get AM codex brood brothers rolled into one detachment. It definitely seemed too good to be true but all the 9th stuff stacked against the army from the start seemed too harsh for them to not throw GSC a bone of some sort.

There might be a silly way around this. Just thought of it and started a thread: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/791019.page

TL;DR - if you take a GSC detachment made solely of Brood Brothers, you might be able to still do it.

EDIT: Okay, there could be a dissuading voice still coming, but it seems like this would work. Here's the breakdown:

Step 1: Take a GSC detachment and put a single Brood Brother unit from the GSC codex in it. I suggest a Brood Brothers Infantry Squad or Heavy Weapons Team. Then take the rest of the detachment using Astra Militarum stuff that replaces its Regiment with "Brood Brother". This is not you making up a Faction name in order to get around a restriction; this is you using a legit Regiment name. All units in this detachment now share a single Faction keyword; Brood Brothers.

Step 2: Take a Tyranid detachment.

Congrats. You can now have 3 Tank Commanders alongside 3 Exocrines, and you only need to pay CP costs for one of those detachments!

By that logic you can take space marines in your GSC army by giving your cult <Ultra Marine>. After all, its a legit faction name.

The GSC codex clearly specifies how you get the Brood Brother keyword and it requires an AM detachment.

And while the rules let you ignore AM for the Army faction it does not give you permission to ignore the individual detachment rules which require units to share a Faction Keyword.

 Yarium wrote:

Madjob wrote:
I'm bummed we didn't get AM codex brood brothers rolled into one detachment. It definitely seemed too good to be true but all the 9th stuff stacked against the army from the start seemed too harsh for them to not throw GSC a bone of some sort.

There might be a silly way around this. Just thought of it and started a thread: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/791019.page

TL;DR - if you take a GSC detachment made solely of Brood Brothers, you might be able to still do it.

EDIT: Okay, there could be a dissuading voice still coming, but it seems like this would work. Here's the breakdown:

Step 1: Take a GSC detachment and put a single Brood Brother unit from the GSC codex in it. I suggest a Brood Brothers Infantry Squad or Heavy Weapons Team. Then take the rest of the detachment using Astra Militarum stuff that replaces its Regiment with "Brood Brother". This is not you making up a Faction name in order to get around a restriction; this is you using a legit Regiment name. All units in this detachment now share a single Faction keyword; Brood Brothers.

Step 2: Take a Tyranid detachment.

Congrats. You can now have 3 Tank Commanders alongside 3 Exocrines, and you only need to pay CP costs for one of those detachments!

I'm afraid this doesn't work as you are suggesting. While you can legally make a detachment where the only shared keyword is Brood Brothers, at that point it ceases to be a Genestealer Cults detachment (since not every unit has the faction keyword) and runs afoul of the restriction of needing a Genestealer Cults detachment for each Brood Brothers detachment.

The 9th edition detachment rules are also fairly straightforward. All units in a detachment need to share at least one faction keyword and all units in the army need to share one keyword. The Brood Brothers rule allows us to bypass this second rule by ignoring the non-Tyranid factions, but it doesn't allow us to ignore the first one.


I suppose as a playtest update, I was able to run a few games with my brothers and we determined that a pure ranged build doesn't work so well with the 9th edition objectives. Neglecting melee assets makes it harder to play the objectives and makes one very vulnerable to getting pinned in the deployment zone by infiltrating units and very fast units (tests involved Marine Infiltrators and Necron Scarabs). I do think hybrid lists are probably going to be the most viable option for the time being. Mix ranged infantry for holding objectives, assault infantry for clearing objectives, Ridgerunners for fire support, and bikes/'stealers for early aggression.

Most of my tests were with Hivecult. In all honesty, their trait is fairly nice with the mid-field dominance emphasis of the 9th edition mission set. Being able to leave combat and still shoot is a big deal, plus it makes moral less a bother as well.

Played a good game yesterday where I won,

2000 points and used goliath rockgrinders to ambush a deathguard plauge crawler. Being brazen with them seems to be the Key, using command points to destory the trucks whenever the reach 0 health is great. Plus remeber the stratigum that lets the rockgrinder inflict damage as normal regardless of how many wounds it took.

I had my first game of 9th yesterday. Nid and GSC vs Orks. 2000 points After end of turn 1 I had no CP left.

I was wondering if perhaps if I am the only one who feels that I will not have points to use a perfect ambush in 9th edition? Perhaps it is different in a pure GSC list.

What is your experience?

Had quite a good game yesterday with a combined GSC and Nids list vs Iron Warriors, 1500 points, Mission: Shifting Front.

However, I don't think this game was at all representative of 9th generally for the following reasons:

1. we're still using 8th ed points as we don't have the field manual yet. (Alternatively waiting for Battlescribe to update...)
2. we're still allowing specialist detachments from Vigilus. However, these are only specifically disallowed in the GT pack, so in ordinary games of 9th you could still use them.

I ran the following list, which came out at 1500 points using old 8th ed points values:

GSC Battalion - Bladed Cog
Specialist Detachment - Anointed Throng -1CP

HQs

Abominant - Warlord: Insidious Mindwyrm, Relic: Mark of the Clawed Omnissiah
Jackal Alphus

Elites

2 x Aberrants (8 with picks, one hypermorph with stop sign)
Clamavus

Troops

4x Neophytes (10 man squads with 2 mining lasers and a grenade launcher in each)

Fast Attack

Scout Sentinels (3 with missile launchers)

Tyranids Patrol Detachment - Leviathan -2CP

HQ

Tyranid Prime (lashwhip & bonesword, deathspitter)

Troops

Tyranid Warriors (6 with deathspitters, 3 with venom cannons, all with scything talons)

In short, it's a big dumb aberrant list that I don't see surviving into 9th proper. That said, they still did an awful lot of work, and completely bulldozed an entire flank. Abominant was just fun to play - absolute wrecking ball, and Insidious Mindwyrm comboing with a clamavus gives a pretty respectable 7" charge distance for the aberrants. I know acolytes would have been more points efficient,
but I found the aberrants actually hit harder and he just didn't have enough firepower to deal with 18 aberrants plus a roided out abominant sweeping through his flank - especially when everything else was tied up in combat across the board.

Neos with mining lasers were incredibly swingy as usual. First turn they all missed or failed to wound his rhinos, while the cult sentinels all hit and wounded and nearly destroyed one! Second turn the mining lasers did a bit better, but not by much. The neophytes achieved more by actually charging his rhinos which had advanced onto objectives - by wrapping round the front he couldn't deploy his Iron Warriors close enough to completely sweep me off the objective. They all died by turn 3 of course, so I may need to bring bigger squads. The scout sentinels were useful for early objective grabbing, but they couldn't hold it and I reckon they're too pricey for what they offer.

My warriors were a bit of a disappointment sadly - had to charge them in to try and bully some marines off an objective, but with only scything talons they just weren't killy enough, and he had power fists to whittle me down. Need to equip them with boneswords next time...

Regarding secondaries, I went for Engage on All Fronts, Bring it Down (he had five rhinos and a helbrute), and Test their Lines (the mission specific one, which turned out to be a terrible choice as it required you to have at least 2 units within the enemy deployment zone BUT within 6" of two different battlefield edges - no way were my aberrants going to pop up just to sit in the corner all game!)

We only played until end of turn 3 as it was quite late, but at that stage it was 31 - 19 to the Cult! I think had it continued it really could have gone either way - he was set to get Linebreaker, and also had Assassinate and Thin Their Ranks so would have racked up more points from killing the jackal alphus and the tyranid prime (easily doable at that stage).

I think I need to be more careful in picking secondaries next time, I need to give my warriors more CC bite, and maybe spend less on neophyte weapons but more on bodies to hold down the board. Not sure I'd use quite so many aberrants again, but I love them and it was a right laugh when his chaos lord got KO'ed by a stop sign.

 Niiai wrote:
I had my first game of 9th yesterday. Nid and GSC vs Orks. 2000 points After end of turn 1 I had no CP left.

I was wondering if perhaps if I am the only one who feels that I will not have points to use a perfect ambush in 9th edition? Perhaps it is different in a pure GSC list.

What is your experience?

With my pure GSC lists I generally have had no trouble reserving 4 to use Perfect Ambush on one squad.

it's an ability you have to build your list around for sure. Don't put a unit of 5 demo charge bikers in there dependent on spending 4CP themselves if you want to perfect ambush a unit. nids are also pretty cp hungry as well.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
I had my first game of 9th yesterday. Nid and GSC vs Orks. 2000 points After end of turn 1 I had no CP left.

I was wondering if perhaps if I am the only one who feels that I will not have points to use a perfect ambush in 9th edition? Perhaps it is different in a pure GSC list.

What is your experience?

With my pure GSC lists I generally have had no trouble reserving 4 to use Perfect Ambush on one squad.

it's an ability you have to build your list around for sure. Don't put a unit of 5 demo charge bikers in there dependent on spending 4CP themselves if you want to perfect ambush a unit. nids are also pretty cp hungry as well.

I was playing sv an Ork. 2 burna bombas started attacking my AT. 1 morkanaught with sparkly bits. Battlewagon with death roller T8 and full of nobz. They meet my line turn 2, he got first turn. I had to pour all my attacks into them. Some good range support from flashgits as well.

Here are where my CP went.

I started at 12. Had another detachement 2 CP. Outflanked pyrovores 1 CP. Enchanted warriors 1 CP.

Shoot twice with warriors (Hive guards where dead.) 2 CP
Raking Fire 1 CP
Overcharged Weaponry 1 CP
Pathogenic Slime on Tyranifex 2CP
Re-roll hit 1 CP
Re-roll wound in close combat 1 CP

That last re-roll from my hive tyrant was what killed the morkanaut. Perhaps I could have skipped on the raking fire and the re-rolls. Raking fire took out somebody who was on an objective. But saving 3 CP for A perfect ambush just seems very unusable in that situation.

I mean, sure, that's a circumstance where you'd want to be not using APA. in fact, knowing you're up against a hyperaggressive opponent, it could be worth deploying whatever unit you were going to APA on the board turn 1, since they'll get handed a free charge and they'll be useful as a screen.

I don't think this is APA being useless, I think it's just a case where you determined that it'd be more useful to go for a different tack with your command points because you were against a particular hyperaggressive style of opponent.

I've been making real games of it with my GSC, and had a strong win vs Astra Militarum the other day. Going to take the same list again tonight vs Space Marines and give it a real test. I won on the back of embracing our new NPC status. I took a ton of Troop squads, 3 Ridgerunners, 2 Demolition trucks, Chimera, and a core of GSC characters - Brigade detachment to fit the 10 units of Troops, Bladed Cog. Almost everything started on the table so that I was presenting a front of 6+ Inv, 6+ FnP (Iconward) bodies, and almost nothing in reserves (just 3 units of Acolyte Hybrids in reserves).

I ended up winning 95 to 55. I got the first turn, and just zoomed out to objectives, raising banners as much as possible. From there, I used transports and our 2CP "arrive outside of 3 inch" strat to just move-block my opponent and keep them in their deployment zone. My firepower was solely utilized to push back AM Infantry squads; didn't bother targeting his big beefy vehicles or 9-man Bullgryn unit at all. I was able to avoid the Bullgryn for a long time, and then he ended up charging while under Mass Hypnosis. I still lost my Locus and two Familiars protecting the Patriarch, but then the Patriarch was able to clean up the Bullgryn over the course of a couple turns.

I was nearly tabled by the end, but won on points.

Interesting, so you took troops on foot rather than mounting them up in Goliaths? I've actually really been enjoying the way Goliaths perform with troops mounting inside, so haven't tried a foot list, but I feel like it'd just get carved up by MEQ firepower at extreme range.

I do feel like Bladed Cog has the full package for 9th. Squads are a bit more durable on objectives with the 6++, move and shoot really helps when shifting Goliaths around to grab and contest, Single Minded Obsession lets your Ridgerunners+Goliaths bring down a single priority heavy target T1, the relic allows you to slip in a surprisingly durable wildcard like a Kelermorph or a knife Sanctus, and Overthrow lets you run a single squad of Acos in deep strike using APA to prevent enemy melee units charging in and having their way with the transports.

Other cults, I feel like I get a benefit for MSU deep strikers, or bikers, or this unit or that unit, but Cog I use every part of the buffalo and feel like it's a good solid buff to the whole list.

Bladed Cog is hands down the best in 9th. Literally every part of the buffalo like you said.

Heck even small perks like having a 4++ on the locus and Keller is pretty great just for gaining the +1 to invuln.

I do think the strategy of using lying in wait to just move block is hilarious. It's the reason I wanted some form of tank shock back in the game, I like big guns never tire but being able to picket line block massive battle tanks with GEQ is forever going to be idiotic. That said it's a great tactic for sure, and we kind of need to use what we can get.

Following up on secondaries I've found that Raise the Banners and Engage on all fronts is okay if you want to run MSU GSC. I tried running linebreaker, peirce the veil, and repair teleport homer and it just doesn't work because you can't sit back there against even the most aggressive midboard lists.

the_scotsman wrote:
Interesting, so you took troops on foot rather than mounting them up in Goliaths? I've actually really been enjoying the way Goliaths perform with troops mounting inside, so haven't tried a foot list, but I feel like it'd just get carved up by MEQ firepower at extreme range.

Only because I have yet to own enough of them. Just bought two and finished painting them as of yesterday (with a Tim Horton's cup in the hands of one of them! Sudbury for the win!). I would've gladly run more if I had more, because I would see that as just helping do the plan even better still.

Resipsa131 wrote:
Following up on secondaries I've found that Raise the Banners and Engage on all fronts is okay if you want to run MSU GSC. I tried running linebreaker, peirce the veil, and repair teleport homer and it just doesn't work because you can't sit back there against even the most aggressive midboard lists.

Just to make sure, I do not know if you are doing it, but I see a lot of people talk about raise the banners. Only one units from your army can do the same action per round. (Page 77 on the GT2020.) Is it not very hard to get a bunch of points of raise the banners?

 Niiai wrote:

Resipsa131 wrote:
Following up on secondaries I've found that Raise the Banners and Engage on all fronts is okay if you want to run MSU GSC. I tried running linebreaker, peirce the veil, and repair teleport homer and it just doesn't work because you can't sit back there against even the most aggressive midboard lists.

Just to make sure, I do not know if you are doing it, but I see a lot of people talk about raise the banners. Only one units from your army can do the same action per round. (Page 77 on the GT2020.) Is it not very hard to get a bunch of points of raise the banners?

Raise the Banners has a special exception written into the Secondary itself that allows you to do the same action with multiple units in the same turn. It's a REALLY hard objective though; since any enemy unit getting close topples the banner. It's only useful if you either KNOW you can lock your opponent in, or if you want to create an extra incentive for your opponent to over-extend.

I think there's an exemption although once its done though you don't have to keep doing it on that objective marker. it was good versus a Cadian Gunline army that wanted me to take first turn so he could blow me off the middle of the map. I sat at home first turn and raised the banners on backline objectives and forced him to the middle of the field first. When I say its okay its not going to win the game but it provides a tool to force initiative by your opponent.

 Yarium wrote:

Raise the Banners has a special exception written into the Secondary itself that allows you to do the same action with multiple units in the same turn. It's a REALLY hard objective though; since any enemy unit getting close topples the banner. It's only useful if you either KNOW you can lock your opponent in, or if you want to create an extra incentive for your opponent to over-extend.

I agree with all of this, I think you can take it to force initiative by your opponent on round 1.