Codex Genestealer Cults Tactica: Our day of ascension draws near!

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**the_scotsman**

So lets talk about the possibility of a foot list a bit. I think there's a bit more discussion to be had on that vs on a mechanized list, where really your only option in my opinion is the bladed cog cult.

Grant for the moment the assumption that any and all melee units we'll be taking in a separate patrol of CTFAE to get our hands on Plan and the +2" to charge with the clamavus.

What do you go for for your shooting cult?

Seems like a number of good options.

Rusted Claw: Pros, durability-based in a durability based edition. Makes you bikes better, and bikes synergize quite nicely with a foot list having similar defensive profiles and being cheap enough that heavy firepower still loses almost all its efficiency. Cult specific psychic power is good. Stratagem is still decent on a bike squad though reduced in effectiveness from what it once was.

Cons: With the current space marine meta you run into a lot of spammed AP-2 with Tactical Doctrine Bolt Rifles, any of those you come across would have to be target numero uno.

Hivecult:

Pros, you get some mileage out of 3 parts of the creed, the warlord trait, both parts of the trait, and the strat are both very solid. Fall back and shoot can be handy, you're unlikely to get a ton out of it, but it's nice with Flamers which are about to get a very nice buff going to 12" range.

Cons: useless relic, useless power. For all the fun of making your models 2+ rerollable to hit, it drops off after killing exactly 1 unit. A LOT of your power is lose your Jackal Alphus if she's also the warlord, meaning you probably want to make an iconward the warlord instead, so you want to have both. Not quite as durable as Claw, I would say probably more durable vs most things than Cog because your opponent needs to be pumping AP-2 into neophytes for Cog to matter defensively.

Workers Arisen+Armor Piercing Ammunition.

Pros: If you're not playing with the asinine "you get literally none of the rules on your units if you fire out of an open topped transport" ruling, this is the absolute most offense you can pack into mounted up neophytes in trucks. Reroll hits with -1 to hit on the move is actually better than hitting normally (55% vs 50%) and with a +1 to hit from an alphus you get to 75% instead of 66%, very nice on the heavy weapons, and -1AP on all your Autoguns, that can actually be a lot of shots and it almost never doesn't give you returns.

Cons: No strat, no trait, no relic, no power, so make sure your list setup doesn't miss any of those things. Spending 2CP on a patrol of CTFAE instead of bringing your Aco bomb along in the main detachment? Congrats, now you don't need Overthrow or Vigor. Taking all buffed up neo squads in goliaths instead of Goliaths+Ridgerunners? The impact of losing Single Minded is lessened somewhat.

Bladed Cog: Seems to be the standard even with foot lists, I think we know generally what this is bringing to the table and it's not a bad deal, so I'll refrain from going into this save to say that I'm not convinced that it's ALWAYS the best choice for a foot list.

**Niiai**

Well a foot list might be doable.

The list i posted hiegher up by alex is a foot list with the exception of 6 ridge runners.

The problem with the 'pure' footlist is trefold.

- Our ranged anti tank weapons are locked in in heavy wepaon teams witch we can take a maximum of 3 of. We can also get some in the form of Bloodbrother guardsmen. Neither benefits for characters bonuses.

- So many of our units are overpriced. Abberants, Methamorphs and Purestrained are almost excluded from the get go. Not a big deal as our Acolyte we a good option for all posabilaties.

- Your assumtion that we would need melee units in a pure 4AE is a flaved asuption. We are bleeding for CP, so it is not nessasseraly a need for more units.

Also, if you turn the knob of Neophyte with mining weapons really high then the custon creed of ignoring heavy weapon penalty and re-rolling to hit becomes a real posabilaty. (Workers Arisen: Reroll the hit roll for any Heavy Mining weapons. Seasoned Enforcers: INFANTRY models ignore the penalty for moving and firing Heavy weapons. Half of the Bladed Cog creed. Good when combined with Workers Arisen.) Mostly you loose out on bladed cog 6++ and psyick power. Re-rolling mining lasers is good. If you can start realiably delete something that is really sweet. One squad is 80. If your list (and wallet) supports 10 such units you have 800 points for 20 mining lasers. Re-rolling to hit becomes relaly good at that point. Furthermore, there are other units that can have these as well. Mostly the Wolfquads.

Would have to be a serius consideration under a 4AE split list. And having 4AE with clavmagus charge can help on the CP bleeding.

The custom +1 AP custom cult on Auto weapons seems weak. (Armor Piercing Ammunition: Stubber and Auto- weapons gain -1AP at half range or less.) They are not good to begin with.

**Yarium**

I've had 3 games with a solid foot list, gone first 3 times, and won 3 times.

Game 1 vs Guard
Game 2 vs Ultramarines (3x 3 Aggressors, 3x Impulsors, Calgar, 3x 5 Plasma Primaris, 3x Intercessors w/Assault guns, Captain+Lieutenant)
Game 3 vs Iron Hands (3x 3 Eradicators, 1x 4-man Aggressor, 2x Primaris Dreads, 2x Bladeguards, 2x 5-man Assault Intercessors, 1x 5-man Intercessors w/Heavy guns, +1 to hit Techmarine, Judicar, Chaplain, Captain, Relic Sicaran)

The foot list is no joke. You kill almost nothing, block your opponent's movement options, and then win. Usually they're 25-30 primary points, and 35-40 secondary points. I'm 45 primary points and 35-40 secondary points. I've ended every game either board wiped or just about, and they're ended their games with slightly over or under 50% losses (Iron Hands lost only 3 units, so under 25% losses).

I have NOT gone second yet, and it really is hard to clear enemies off objectives with the list (though I do think the list can clear scouting units off an objective turn 1), but the battle plan is ridiculously simplistic. Ground-based enemies have almost no hope of beating you. The Ultramarines were a tough fight because of the Impulsors, but really, I never cared if I lost units or not. So long as my second wave was out of line of sight or not on the table, my opponent's would just kill whatever was blocking them with EASE.

**the_scotsman**

Niiai wrote:
Well a foot list might be doable.

The list i posted hiegher up by alex is a foot list with the exception of 6 ridge runners.

The problem with the 'pure' footlist is trefold.

- Our ranged anti tank weapons are locked in in heavy wepaon teams witch we can take a maximum of 3 of. We can also get some in the form of Bloodbrother guardsmen. Neither benefits for characters bonuses.

- So many of our units are overpriced. Abberants, Methamorphs and Purestrained are almost excluded from the get go. Not a big deal as our Acolyte we a good option for all posabilaties.

- Your assumtion that we would need melee units in a pure 4AE is a flaved asuption. We are bleeding for CP, so it is not nessasseraly a need for more units.

Also, if you turn the knob of Neophyte with mining weapons really high then the custon creed of ignoring heavy weapon penalty and re-rolling to hit becomes a real posabilaty. (Workers Arisen: Reroll the hit roll for any Heavy Mining weapons. Seasoned Enforcers: INFANTRY models ignore the penalty for moving and firing Heavy weapons. Half of the Bladed Cog creed. Good when combined with Workers Arisen.) Mostly you loose out on bladed cog 6++ and psyick power. Re-rolling mining lasers is good. If you can start realiably delete something that is really sweet. One squad is 80. If your list (and wallet) supports 10 such units you have 800 points for 20 mining lasers. Re-rolling to hit becomes relaly good at that point. Furthermore, there are other units that can have these as well. Mostly the Wolfquads.

Would have to be a serius consideration under a 4AE split list. And having 4AE with clavmagus charge can help on the CP bleeding.

The custom +1 AP custom cult on Auto weapons seems weak. (Armor Piercing Ammunition: Stubber and Auto- weapons gain -1AP at half range or less.) They are not good to begin with.

What I'm envisioning is the possibility of running a custom creed (as you said move+shoot heavy and reroll heavy) or possibly, -1AP on autoguns and reroll heavy. What you could do is take a detachment of brood brothers to get some astra militarum buddies, and actually deep strike the neophyte squads right into 12" range. That would allow you to use Seismic instead of Mining, which IMO is actually a bit better into the current meta of lots of W2/W3 marine type stuff.

The brood bros then get to have orders because you took some company and platcoms, and could be an extremely effective countermeta list against everyone teching vs vehicles/elites.

That's something I've already noticed with people running lists that are nothing but Ghaz+Boyz: They win because NOBODY is bringing antihorde weaponry. nobody. If your whole list is just bodies bodies bodies with min bike squads with HMLs, neo squads with Autogun+Seismic, and Brood Bro squads with commanders for orders maybe plasma guns maybe just naked, and your opponent comes ready to fight marines with tons of d3/flat 2 damage weaponry it's just gonna be a nightmare.

Burning command points I dont mind because I'm honestly not gonna use them much at all with this sort of list. I don't really have a melee bomb to spend all my CPs on, I'm just killing thru shooting and scoring the pants off my opponent.

**posermcbogus**

Hey guys! New to the Cult, and to 9th anyone got any good wholesome wisdom about what to give Genestealers?
Planning on finally building some up this weekend!

**Red Corsair**

posermcbogus wrote:
Hey guys! New to the Cult, and to 9th anyone got any good wholesome wisdom about what to give Genestealers?
Planning on finally building some up this weekend!

Trucks and buggies and sentinels, oh my. Load everything to the gills with heavy weapon toting neophytes (mining lasers mostly) and take the jackal alphus + magus or patriarch for mission flexibility.

You can take pretty much anything else but bikes are solid choices as well as cheap(ish) elite slot characters for taking actions.

If you dip into guard for brood bros it cost you CP for another detachment but you can get the best characters for missions in the game IMO. With orders or deepstrike they can be anywhere and are dirty cheap in some cases. For example an astropath is a funny choice for the psychic mission at the center.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Red Corsair wrote:
posermcbogus wrote:
Hey guys! New to the Cult, and to 9th anyone got any good wholesome wisdom about what to give Genestealers?
Planning on finally building some up this weekend!

Trucks and buggies and sentinels, oh my. Load everything to the gills with heavy weapon toting neophytes (mining lasers mostly) and take the jackal alphus + magus or patriarch for mission flexibility.

You can take pretty much anything else but bikes are solid choices as well as cheap(ish) elite slot characters for taking actions.

If you dip into guard for brood bros it cost you CP for another detachment but you can get the best characters for missions in the game IMO. With orders or deepstrike they can be anywhere and are dirty cheap in some cases. For example an astropath is a funny choice for the psychic mission at the center.

You can go all infantry, but I have for 2 editions and I am bored of just taking deploying and removing handfuls of expensive models so I can tick spots on a dry erase board. It's like a very expensive and sadistic game of bingo.

**the_scotsman**

So the more I run the cult the more I like seismic over mining lasers.

Maybe it's just my meta being extremely tilted toward marines and custodes and eldar wraiths and the other extreme being totally infantry based guard and ork armies, but I like Ridgerunners for lascannon coverage and Seismics in my Neophyte squads.

I tend to run out of great targets for MLs after turn 2, and the neophyte squads are almost always one of the last things to go from my list, because my opponents almost always target ridgerunners or rockgrinders T1, Acolytes primarily T2, and then get distracted by characters, stupid small units, and other assorted chaff junk T3+, so I almost always have undamaged neophyte squads runnning around with impunity the later turns of the game.

**dreadlybrew**

I run a mech GSC list with trucks spam and 10 man neophyte hybrids with 2 siesmic cannons. my generic list tends to have 6-8 of these and a jakal alphus and a primus.

Hive cult is a trap imo. your neophytes will just die when they get out of the trucks t2-3.

Bladed cog is the key. re rolling wounds against 3 targets is super important.

mining lasers will miss. siesemic cannons will fire 10 more shots that can rend. shots=hits=wounds

**Niiai**

Your reasoning makes sence. But I am not up against marines. Siesmics have no good targets with me. I need as many lasers as I can get vs T8.

**the_scotsman**

dreadlybrew wrote:
I run a mech GSC list with trucks spam and 10 man neophyte hybrids with 2 siesmic cannons. my generic list tends to have 6-8 of these and a jakal alphus and a primus.

Hive cult is a trap imo. your neophytes will just die when they get out of the trucks t2-3.

Bladed cog is the key. re rolling wounds against 3 targets is super important.

mining lasers will miss. siesemic cannons will fire 10 more shots that can rend. shots=hits=wounds

3 targets? I know Single Minded gives you one target, and only for the transports themselves (Yet another reason I generally go for Ridgerunners for my lasers) but how do you get reroll wounds on more than 1 target?

In general I don't rate reroll auras very highly in GSC. either my units bring a reroll aura along with them (Acolytes with banners) or they can't use a reroll aura fully because they're in a truck. I bring one alphus, I give her single minded for my HMLs and Autocannons turn 1 (love autocannons with RR to wound) and past that point I dont really worry about rerolls.

My second HQ is generally a Magus, who pops in with the acolytes to give them 5+FNP and +1S +1A.IMO that's better than +1 to hit and RR 1s to wound with the primus, but I suppose I could be wrong there.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Niiai wrote:
Your reasoning makes sence. But I am not up against marines. Siesmics have no good targets with me. I need as many lasers as I can get vs T8.

Yeah I fully expect its totally meta dependent. Like 50% of the lists in my area are W2+ MEQ at this point between the many people who picked up very cheap custode lists and the primaris lists.

**dreadlybrew**

The bladed cog WL trait lets you re roll all wounds, primus stratgem from greater good lets you choose 2 for re rolling 1s.

**the_scotsman**

dreadlybrew wrote:
The bladed cog WL trait lets you re roll all wounds, primus stratgem from greater good lets you choose 2 for re rolling 1s.

Ah, Ok, i read that as someone having a way to get full reroll wounds.

RR 1s to wound I would value more if aura abilities worked on units within transports. As it stands, I tend to use the primus' aura for exactly one round of melee attacks, to make whatever my acolytes are chopping up more dead. And it's generally overkill, which is why I switched to the magus to support the acolytes, because one of his buffs is offense (if not as good as the primus' buffs) and one of his buffs is defense in BC, making my acolytes that much more irritating to get rid of.

I rarely need anything more than Overthrow the Oppressors to massively overkill whatever I want dead with my Acolytes. They frequently blow through 70-80% of their point value in the one combat phase, then my goal with them is to make killing them as much of my opponent's next turn as I can manage.

I just wish Aberrants were sanely priced. God, would I love to have those guys sucking up antitank fire bottom of turn 2/top of 3 after obliterating a unit.

I've almost caught myself wondering if they might still be the pick despite how objectively overcosted they are.

Typically I go for 20x acolytes 6x saws+Banner, which is 230 plus I think 95 (might be 100) for the magus with familiar who I probably wouldn't bother with with the aberrants. That is enough to buy 10x pick aberrants.

They don't have Cult Reinforcements, which is a big con because when the acolytes survive with 1-3 models spending 1CP to respawn usually ALL the rock saws is just...hideous, but they do have monstrous vigor which makes them extremely obnoxious to remove, and my opponent would be more likely to be tempted to put D3/D6 damage weaponry into them to try and score a lucky 3+ damage hit on them, which is what they need to kill my vehicles...

**KurtAngle2**

the_scotsman wrote:
dreadlybrew wrote:
The bladed cog WL trait lets you re roll all wounds, primus stratgem from greater good lets you choose 2 for re rolling 1s.

Ah, Ok, i read that as someone having a way to get full reroll wounds.

RR 1s to wound I would value more if aura abilities worked on units within transports. As it stands, I tend to use the primus' aura for exactly one round of melee attacks, to make whatever my acolytes are chopping up more dead. And it's generally overkill, which is why I switched to the magus to support the acolytes, because one of his buffs is offense (if not as good as the primus' buffs) and one of his buffs is defense in BC, making my acolytes that much more irritating to get rid of.

I rarely need anything more than Overthrow the Oppressors to massively overkill whatever I want dead with my Acolytes. They frequently blow through 70-80% of their point value in the one combat phase, then my goal with them is to make killing them as much of my opponent's next turn as I can manage.

I just wish Aberrants were sanely priced. God, would I love to have those guys sucking up antitank fire bottom of turn 2/top of 3 after obliterating a unit.

I've almost caught myself wondering if they might still be the pick despite how objectively overcosted they are.

Typically I go for 20x acolytes 6x saws+Banner, which is 230 plus I think 95 (might be 100) for the magus with familiar who I probably wouldn't bother with with the aberrants. That is enough to buy 10x pick aberrants.

They don't have Cult Reinforcements, which is a big con because when the acolytes survive with 1-3 models spending 1CP to respawn usually ALL the rock saws is just...hideous, but they do have monstrous vigor which makes them extremely obnoxious to remove, and my opponent would be more likely to be tempted to put D3/D6 damage weaponry into them to try and score a lucky 3+ damage hit on them, which is what they need to kill my vehicles...

If Aberrants were sanely priced I would definitely use them for my melee deepstrike purposes instead of Acolytes (which are unwieldy in mass and extremely fragile whilst having no better charge possibilities than Aberrants now) but right now it's a big fat NO

**the_scotsman**

Sawcolytes+Magus are definitely better at the job of killing stuff. Even if you ignore entirely EVERY model without a saw, the 6x saws with MFB can kill a full squad of primaris marines, which is basically all I can expect them to get themselves into.

But the aberrants are undoubtedly better at being annoying to kill the following turn. And they still kill 8 primaris, so theoretically if I needed to I could drop Overthrow on them if I got them into something really nice and beefy.

I dunno, I'm actually weighing the options against one another and I'm kind of thinking the number of times it'd be better for me to be more durable vs the number of times it'd be better for me to be more killy is a pretty high ratio...

My current setup for acolytes+Magus is 325pts total. they obliterate pretty much whatever I fling them at.

10 aberrants is 320 with all picks. They definitely do less damage. but, between bestial vigor aberrants and 5+FNP Acolytes, it makes them about 50% more durable against anything except specifically damage D3/Flat 3/D6 weaponry, which is exactly what I want to be trying to redirect away from my vehicles...

**KurtAngle2**

With the Hand Flamers range increased to 12" I see NO REASON not to play 5 sized units of Acolytes with 2 Rock Cutters and 5 HF for 70 mere points: you get the antinfantry you need and with a charge you can still dish out your damage where before your hand flamer acolytes needed 2 CP to function and 0 charge possibilities

**Keramory**

I'm happy with the hand flamers. Now I can just drop them and reliabley kill something fairly important without the 3inch ds strat AND charge them if anything is left.

**Niiai**

KurtAngle2 wrote:
With the Hand Flamers range increased to 12" I see NO REASON not to play 5 sized units of Acolytes with 2 Rock Cutters and 5 HF for 70 mere points: you get the antinfantry you need and with a charge you can still dish out your damage where before your hand flamer acolytes needed 2 CP to function and 0 charge possibilities

What do you mean with the handflamers increased?

**Grimskul**

Niiai wrote:
KurtAngle2 wrote:
With the Hand Flamers range increased to 12" I see NO REASON not to play 5 sized units of Acolytes with 2 Rock Cutters and 5 HF for 70 mere points: you get the antinfantry you need and with a charge you can still dish out your damage where before your hand flamer acolytes needed 2 CP to function and 0 charge possibilities

What do you mean with the handflamers increased?

There was a recent warhammer community post that showed off the updated stats for several weapons, including handflamers becoming 12" range.

**Zkuartatutti**

KurtAngle2 wrote:
With the Hand Flamers range increased to 12" I see NO REASON not to play 5 sized units of Acolytes with 2 Rock Cutters and 5 HF for 70 mere points: you get the antinfantry you need and with a charge you can still dish out your damage where before your hand flamer acolytes needed 2 CP to function and 0 charge possibilities

Why playing 5 man squad? in a goliath rockgrinder?
I think is better to run a 15 man squad, possibly in the center of the table so that you can flame a squad and then charge the other.

Bottom line hand flamer 12" is really good for us.

**godardc**

I have heard gene cult is one of the worst codex in 9th ? What do you think about that ?

**Strat_N8**

That is a bit of a loaded question...

For what it is worth, I think it isn’t so much our codex is weak rules-wise as our current points are limiting available options. There are a lot of units and equipment options that are too expensive at their current costs to be efficient, despite otherwise having relatively good rules (Aberrants being the #1 example).

**Niiai**

godardc wrote:
I have heard gene cult is one of the worst codex in 9th ? What do you think about that ?

I do not know all of the codexes in 9th edition, and I have not had enough of games in 9th edition. But I will try to awnser anyway.

It depends on how you measure worst. Can you build a comptetteive build out of it who can stand with the best? I think so. This person Alex has a good list on a podcast. It is mentioned further up in this thread.

But let us break it down in some other categories:

Number units, points of the units, stratagems, 8th edition porting to 9th edition, types of units performanse, what is good.

1. Number of units. GSC do not have very many units. HQ has six, troops have 3, elites have 9 (6 who are characters), Fast attack have 3, heavy support have 3, flyers have 0, dedicated transports are 2, 1 fortifications. That is a very low number. To make things worse you can not have 2 of the same characters in the same unit.

2. Some of our units are prised very badly. All 3 unit choises in elites are very overpriced. Some of the characters are not good, and you can not duplicate them in the same detachment. All of the heavy support choises perform very bad for their point cost (although heavy weapon teams are OK, but the bad BS makes them very unreliable.)

3. GSC are the kings of stratagems. We have very good stratagems, with very unique effects. What we are missing is a universal shoot twice and fight twice (last one being rolled into twisted helix.)

4. Porting from 8th to 9th. GSC could often have over 20 CP in 8th edition, and the stratagems are prised thusly. Porting over to 9th edition means one of GSC best aspects did not do very well.

5. Many of the HQ perform quite well. The bread and butter units are either high power lascannons mining- or heavy mining laser or great melle options in rocksaws. These are on neophyte acolytes and rudgerunners. Also, the humble troop choises are very good for disrupting or fight for the board controll points. Unfortunetly about half of the codex does not get cult creeds: Patriarch, genestealers and brood brothers. Brood brothers are also splitt on transports and rules as they mix bad and do not benefit. Unfortunetly this also carries onto leman russ, and heavy wepaon teams. Sentinels are only good for scout move. Bikes are good for the grenade bomb (heavy on points and CP) or for grabbing points.

6. So what is good? We have a small codex. Some of them looses out for just not having good rules/performanses. (All heavy support options, to some degree sentinel and bikes, both transports and the brood brother troop choise. Many of the characters who are not mentioned later.) Most of our elite choises disapear because they are far to exspensive abberants, genestealers and neophytes. So what is left?
- Neophytes with autoguns/heavy weapons or naked shotguns.
- Acolytes with rocksaws (honorable mention hand flamers.)
- Ridgerunners.
- The following HQ's. Patriarch, Magus, Primus, Jackal Alpus, Acolyte Iconward.
- The following elite characters: Kellemorph, Sactus.

All of the above units needs some form of stratagem to perform well. 6 out of the 9 units are characters (who you can only take 1 of in each detachment mind you.) All GSC lists will essentially have choises of a mix of Ridgerunners, Neophytes and Acolytes.

Does that mean the codex is bad? Yes I would think so. Espesially the more 'cassual you are' the worse is it for you. If you had a codex with many good units you are much more free to make choises based upon flavour and not performanse.

But it is a very unique and fun army.

**godardc**

Yeah I could have written it better^^
I meant that the codex isn't well suited for 9th, with fragile glass cannon units unable to correctly keep objectives for example. Haven't played 9th yet though so hard to tell by myself

**Niiai**

godardc wrote:
Yeah I could have written it better^^
I meant that the codex isn't well suited for 9th, with fragile glass cannon units unable to correctly keep objectives for example. Haven't played 9th yet though so hard to tell by myself

You can try something like this. It is Alex#s list. In the original list the one biker and 6 ridgerunners are hivecult, and the 5 man acolute and sanctus are 4 armed emperor. The rest are bladed cog.

Spoiler:

**Yarium**

godardc wrote:
Yeah I could have written it better^^
I meant that the codex isn't well suited for 9th, with fragile glass cannon units unable to correctly keep objectives for example. Haven't played 9th yet though so hard to tell by myself

Ah, well in that case I'd say your assumption is incorrect. While our army is absolutely TERRIBLE at playing anything like "let's shoot and punch each other to establish dominance", our army is pretty good at doing the important things of 9th; holding territory. Why? Because we can get to objectives nearly instantly with a host of fast units followed up with objective secured deep strikers, and we have two stratagems that let us put blocking units in the way of ground based opponents. I'm regularly killing less than 50% of my opponent's armies, getting tabled, and winning because I scored the points while they didn't. Just played against an Admech list with a metric ton of guns in Cawl, Mars Robots, and tons of Mars Kataphrons, Chicken-Walker gun dudes, etc. Won 82-40. He just was never able to score more than 5 points a turn. I was also able to keep my main characters hidden the whole game (he had them picked for Assassinate secondary), so despite losing everything else, I was okay. My secondaries were all holding objectives-based, nothing based on killing, though I was able to kill 1 unit of my opponent's "While We Stand We Fight" (his Aircraft; didn't get Cawl or a Dunecrawler).

EDIT: I killed; the Thopter aircraft, 3 chicken-walkers, 2x 5-man squads of dudes with radiation guns, the "toaster" transport, and 10 Electropriests. Nothing else.

**godardc**

Ok, that's interesting, I'm glad to hear that

**Strat_N8**

To swing back to the_scotsman's musings regarding a foot list earlier, might I propose Twisted Helix as a potential candidate?

The early competitive meta appears to be bifurcated between two general archetypes - cheap melee horde that can pressure midfield objectives and high toughness/multiwound non-vehicle models (Bikes and heavy infantry/beasts). Twisted Helix has a lot of tools to deal with the latter archetype (base strength boost, relic and warlord trait, unique power) and the speed boost granted by their second trait helps get them to the midfield in time with the former. With the Twisted Helix trait, Acolytes are effectively as fast as Genestealers (only requiring Psychic Stimulus or Genetic Lineage to get advance and charge) and bikes can threaten an impressive 22'' with Flare Launchers. The strength boost also makes bikes not quite as inept in close combat if you need them to bully small units.

Main drawback that I can see right now is that they are down a stratagem until Aberrants (hopefully) have their price adjusted and they don't directly improve durability, but I think they might be able to copy the Ork and Slannash melee horde archetypes.

I had an interesting 1500 game on Tuesday as well against Nurgle Daemons. We played the mission where objectives remain in control of the player who secured them last. The opponent brought a Nurgle brigade with two 20-strong blocks of Plaugebringers, some nurglings, and support characters, as well as a spearhead consisting of three Skull Cannons and Skarbrand.

My list:

Spoiler:

As odd as it sounds, the Metamorph squads ended up being MVPs for the game. The board had one large ruin with two objectives within charging distance, one of which was claimed by one of the large plaguebringing squads. The metamorph squads ambushed in on the bottom-most floor, with the intention of charging out to take the objective, but all three squads failed their charges. However, when the Plaguebringers charged in retaliation they weren't able to get many models engaged with the 5-strong units due to terrain and coherency rules, so they only killed 2 models from one squad and 3 models from another (the third squad was out of charge range). The metamorphs in turn killed 12 out of 20 Plaguebringers and moral took 2 more, leaving 6 left to fight the following. The free (unhurt) squad then moved out and charged into the other squad of Plaguebringers that had engaged with my Ridgerunners and killed about half of that unit using Violence Unleashed while the other metas finished off what was left of the 6-strong unit.

While I'd argue they are still probably a bit overpriced, based on their performance in this game (despite my blunders) I am considering keeping some Metamorphs in my lists as tech to deal with opposing melee hordes. Plaguebringers are still fairly tough by horde standards, so I'd imagine against something like Ork Boys they would do even better.

As for the game itself, we unfortunately had to end the game on turn 3 due to the store closing. The opponent ended up winning by 5 points but they didn't have much left at the end of the game (basically Skarbrand, a Skull Cannon, three Nurgle Heralds, and a single Nurgling base), so had we been able to continue I think I could have made up the deficit fairly easily.

**Commitz**

I was using metapmorphs before 9th with some success, the whip ones are handy to have around regardless of your opponent. Just wish they weren't priced so weirdly (i.e. a bit too expensive compared to acolytes to take them often).

Has anyone else got mileage from the Abominant? It won't really kill things consistently, but since I was running Bladed Cog recently I took one with Mark of the Clawed Omnissiah and Born Survivor and while it mightn't have been a meta-pick it was very funny watching some Sanguinary Guard just bounce off it as it waddled around the midfield objectives and occasionally splatted things with the hammer. Might try using it to hold objectives some more.

**Niiai**

I have been running Alex McDougals list one game. I mostly collect and paint, and with covid I am not getting games in.

For easy referense it is like this:

2 Detachments

5 10x Neo 2xLaser
2 20x Neo shotgun
1 5x Acolyte
1 15x Axolyte 6x Saw and banner
3 2x Ridgerunner Laser
1 Alphus
1 Primus
1 Patriarch, familiar
1 Magus, familiar crouchling
1 Acilyte Iconbearer, S banner
2 Kellermorph
1 Sanctus

Now, some thoughts I have after playing it:
- The basic idea of the list works well
- The current list has absolutly no plan on what it wants to start on the table, and it is a huge problem.
- The list is very points starved. It would be much better as a brigade.

What I need from you are suggestions to good units to start on the table. What is our most durable units?

**Strat_N8**

Commitz wrote: I was using metapmorphs before 9th with some success, the whip ones are handy to have around regardless of your opponent. Just wish they weren't priced so weirdly (i.e. a bit too expensive compared to acolytes to take them often).

I agree on the price certainly. I was enjoying them a lot at the previous bracket (which was closer to their 7th edition glory days). With that being said, I was shocked at how well they did the last game I played and given how many of the tournament performers have been including things similar to what they performed against it got me wondering it they may be worthwhile to include. I have not had a chance to play since then, but I'm hoping to get some more tests in soon.

Commitz wrote: Has anyone else got mileage from the Abominant? It won't really kill things consistently, but since I was running Bladed Cog recently I took one with Mark of the Clawed Omnissiah and Born Survivor and while it mightn't have been a meta-pick it was very funny watching some Sanguinary Guard just bounce off it as it waddled around the midfield objectives and occasionally splatted things with the hammer. Might try using it to hold objectives some more.

I have not used mine in 9th yet, but one in Bladed Cog with the Mark was one of my favorite units in fun games. As you said, he generally waddled around the midfield making other squads play keepaway, and as long as he wasn't getting buried under mortal wounds he would generally survive the game. His Chosen One aura (6's to hit cause extra hits) and Overthrow the Oppressors (6's to hit cause extra hit rolls) are quite a fun combination as well.

I know the Hammer nerf made him not as lethal as his pre-codex incarnation, though he still has a S6 rending claw that hits on 3's when fighting lesser infantry. Min 3 damage on the hammer is nice for Blade Guard though.

Niiai wrote:
What I need from you are suggestions to good units to start on the table. What is our most durable units?

What constitutes "durable" is somewhat meta dependent. My local meta for instance has tended towards lots of anti-infantry firepower with relatively light anti-tank (generally deepstrike suicide squads and outflankers) so vehicles have generally been better for me than hordes of foot sloggers. In a meta where 3 squads of Eradicators are dominant, that obviously would not be the case (though admittedly, a Goliath Truck is still "relatively" durable in the sense of being one of the lower cost vehicles and the firepower in question is gross overkill, so it isn't the most cost-efficient target compared to say a Repulser or Monolith).

In general, I'd say the Atlan Jackals, Brood Brothers, and Goliath Trucks are the main "durable" units, as defined by being relatively inefficient to target. The Abominant with the Mark of the Clawed Omnissiah is also a fairly tough anvil, if not the most consistent in damage output.

One thing that might be worth looking into that has been mentioned before but not really acted upon: The Bladed Cog trait either grants an invul or improves an existing one - it doesn't care where the invul comes from, just that there is one. As such, a Void Shield Generator or Skyshield Landing Pad could be used to provide a 4++ to a fairly large chunk of the army for the first turn, with the potential for additional use depending on where the objectives end up. This trick didn't really get explored in 8th given the opportunity cost was so great, but in 9th fortifications only cost 1 CP instead of effectively 5 (for giving up a battalion) and the preference to fit as much into one detachment as possible means there will generally be at least one free detachment available.