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I was watching a game today, and the significance of No Retreat was very apparent.

A unit of Daemonettes charged a squad of Grey Knight Terminators, and due to some poor rolling by the Daemons, and good rolling by the Grey Knights, the Daemonettes took 7 more casualties. Since they're Fearless, they're subject to No Retreat. They immediately took 7 more wounds, and failed most of those too. (Don't miss the import of Daemon Instrument that this demonstrates).

Now, currently I'm painting a bunch of Gaunts, and this is making me worried. If you're taking 6 point Gaunts to attack 15 point Marines, you're comfortable losing more Gaunts than the Marine player loses, because you're still coming oot ahead.

Example: 20 Gaunts charge 10 Marines.

20 Gaunts: 40A, 20 hits, 6.67 wounds, 2.2 dead Marines
10 Marines: 10A, 6.67 hits, 4.44 wounds, 3.7 dead Gaunts

But they're Fearless, so they lose combat by 1.5 wounds, and this take 1.5 more wounds. They lose another 1.25 models.

Marines lose 33 points worth of models. The Gaunts lose 29.7.

They're still coming oot ahead, but they've charged... In subsequent rounds, it will get worse for them.

Bottom line, it seems like the No Retreat rule, and the combat resolution system in general, really hurt horde based assault troops.

Does this make Genestealers more appealing than Gaunts? Especially with the incredible buffs to Feeder Tendrils?

They're Ld10, not Fearless, and they're also more punch per model, meaning they'll probably win combat, and will not be subject to No Retreat if they don't.

Yeah, no more tarpitting. But gaunts now have a new role as a screening unit. And you can still use them in cc, but they'll need backup. Probably tendrilstealers.

And if the stealers manage not to make it to the party, it may become wise to keep some lictors hiding in the bushes so one can pop out and add some feeder tendils to the fight.

Take a lower number of gaunts and give them without number. This gives you an unlimited number of troop units to claim/contest objectives all game long.

Use your TMC's to kill marines and the gaunts to win the games.

But, if that same unit did not have fearless, they'd run away screaming, and get their init of 4 matched 50% of the time by the marines...

They're Ld10, not Fearless, and they're also more punch per model, meaning they'll probably win combat, and will not be subject to No Retreat if they don't.

Stealers are also subject to No Retreat if within synapse, just keep that in mind. Not that they lose combats very often but small squads can and do lose if sent out unsuported.

The Gaunts may loose combat and take an extra wound or two each round from it... but you should still be killing one or two marines a turn and those same marines could be rapid firing and doing a lot more damage at range, not to mention that they might be firing at something more valuable than Gaunts.