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I'm going to preface this with: I have yet to fight GSC (though I want to), so bear that in mind.

One of our local Nidz players has picked up GSC and has gotten a reputation for being unbeatable with them. Now, he is known for being a VERY competitive player in tournies, so it's possible he's beating weak lists with a tournament level list.

One of my good friends recently lost to him with his Ad Mech and said that GSC are almost unbeatable due to Turn 1 charges.

So to anyone who's played against/played them regularly, how are they? Are they beatable?

I wouldn't say that they are omg overpowered and unbeatable.

However, for someone not prepared for how GSC fights, they are a serious handful to deal with. The turn 1 charges only happen on a roll of a 6 (and some units/formations allow two dice to be rolled for this), but other rolls give the units out of sequence shooting attacks with pinning, and a whole lot of movement tricks.

I would say a big strength is the 'return to the shadows' rule, that lets the GSC pull units off from one point of the board, put them into ongoing reserve (with some formations/units returning d6 casualties) and popping back into the cult ambush. So that means that facing them, you have to focus fire whole things down and get rid of them, and never assume that you're safe.

In a way, it's very much fighting a shadowy guerrilla force, out in the open, they aren't that intimidating. Cultists with some special guns and decently strong melee units. But their strength doesn't come from being out in the open, it is in their ability to reposition and punish opponents hard for leaving stragglers, or having exposed elements of their own army.

A very competitive GT player here is starting a GC army, and he said he is playing it like a beta strike army, pray for sixes T2 and beyond. The turn where he gets the most he goes in on isolated units and the such.

I have yet to play him, but he is a very good player, so no doubt he will good with them.

Proper bubble wrap and counter assault units might be good, anything that ignores cover. They are only T3 5+

 curran12 wrote:
I wouldn't say that they are omg overpowered and unbeatable.

However, for someone not prepared for how GSC fights, they are a serious handful to deal with. The turn 1 charges only happen on a roll of a 6 (and some units/formations allow two dice to be rolled for this), but other rolls give the units out of sequence shooting attacks with pinning, and a whole lot of movement tricks.

I would say a big strength is the 'return to the shadows' rule, that lets the GSC pull units off from one point of the board, put them into ongoing reserve (with some formations/units returning d6 casualties) and popping back into the cult ambush. So that means that facing them, you have to focus fire whole things down and get rid of them, and never assume that you're safe.

In a way, it's very much fighting a shadowy guerrilla force, out in the open, they aren't that intimidating. Cultists with some special guns and decently strong melee units. But their strength doesn't come from being out in the open, it is in their ability to reposition and punish opponents hard for leaving stragglers, or having exposed elements of their own army.

Yeah, you have to focus fire and completely destroy entire units. You cannot just do a little bit of damage and then ignore. Even if it means you technically waste shots on overkill.

Also, if they have a psyker who gets their summoning power, kill him ASAP.

I'd not say they're OP....

They're just different. There is nothing quite like GSC in the meta. They're fast and mobile without actually being fast and mobile. They're a horde army that focuses on a MSU approach. They're a crappy armour, crappy toughness army that tries to assault the biggest, strongest and toughest things they can find.

It's an army of contradictions and that actually makes it fun!

 DarkStarSabre wrote:
I'd not say they're OP....

They're just different. There is nothing quite like GSC in the meta. They're fast and mobile without actually being fast and mobile. They're a horde army that focuses on a MSU approach. They're a crappy armour, crappy toughness army that tries to assault the biggest, strongest and toughest things they can find.

It's an army of contradictions and that actually makes it fun!

This is part of it. The other part is that because of this stuff players facing them have to actually use tactics beyond basic target priority and positioning, some of which come up nowhere else in the game.

Depends

How many Demo Charges is he Fielding?

Yeah I find that Genestealer Cult either absolutely [MOD EDIT - Please find a different way to express that. - Alpharius]
Also great at mealstrom missions and getting that late game objective for the win..

Yeah I think they're similar to Ynnari in a way. They're an army that is powerful, but works rather differently from other armies you're used to playing and will need a different approach to take apart.

Ynnari are those elves that shoot twice? How's that so different from elves that shoot once? Other than shooting twice?

They are all about luck and alpha strike, if you can handle the first wave of them, you have a chance, i have lost a game in turn .5 before because he wiped out half my army in his first turn.

Just repeating what's been said already; they're not OP, just very different. As such, they tend to do well against armies designed for a standard tournament type game. The best defences against GSC is to keep your units tight together to deny them spaces to attack from, and keep stuff around that makes your units Fearless or otherwise very difficult to break. Flyers are almost impossible for a GSC to take out. Nova powers are potentially very destructive. Flamers are your friends.

Your goal should be to tie down the GSC units so they can't pop back into reserves. Drops Pods and other stuff that does very well normally because they can engage enemies in the right spots are a TON weaker against the Cult, because the Cult will just disappear away. Death Stars are much worse against the cult unless that Death Star is using powers to teleport around the board to keep pace with the Cult, because otherwise the Cult can easily keep away from the Death Stars.

As orks, I've only played them a handful of times, and I have yet to be even marginally impressed.

2 of the players I fought were fairly new to them, I think. One was a the LVO. And every time I just stomp them flat.

I think that may be due to the fact that orks are rather strong v. them. We all like to fight, so we don't care about getting charged, we tend to have large amounts of bodies, and no armor, so rending doesn't really mean much.

Last game, my opponent got a 6 with 15x genestealers and a broodlord, but I had first turn, so I just bubble wrapped my good stuff with a boyz unit, waited for them to get charged and die, then shot the genestealers to little bits.

The acolytes are pretty much pushovers. Basically guardsmen with rending.

Had 3x 5 man squads of acolytes charge nobz and a warboss, they did like 3 wounds. Though, I'll admit, they did spectacularly awful when rolling to wound.

Anyways. I don't see them much, but I'm not terribly scared of them, either. But I think orks are strangely strong against them.

In the immortal words of kaptin bluddflagg, on the subject of being ambushed:

"HAHA! Dese gits just made da classic blunder. Attackin' an ork who hadn't found 'em already! Now we's can stomp 'em fasta!"

Even at their best they're mid tiers. But they are an hard counter for some armies that are all shooty units and maybe lacks mobility. AM simply can't have chances against them and tau would struggle a lot.

A good army overall but if you can minimize their turn one charge because you null deployed, have a better close combat units or play with a MSU style they're not scary.

 Blackie wrote:
Even at their best they're mid tiers. But they are an hard counter for some armies that are all shooty units and maybe lacks mobility. AM simply can't have chances against them and tau would struggle a lot.

A good army overall but if you can minimize their turn one charge because you null deployed, have a better close combat units or play with a MSU style they're not scary.

Chimeras with guardsmen armed with flamers would be fantastic against the cult. If they charge the Chimeras, the overwatch is killer from the guys inside. Then if it blows up the guys inside just get out and flame the genestealer cult again. Just need to have a healthy number of Commissars present. Also, Veterans in Valkyries would be devastating to the cult. classic ordnance, not so much.

 Yarium wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Even at their best they're mid tiers. But they are an hard counter for some armies that are all shooty units and maybe lacks mobility. AM simply can't have chances against them and tau would struggle a lot.

A good army overall but if you can minimize their turn one charge because you null deployed, have a better close combat units or play with a MSU style they're not scary.

Chimeras with guardsmen armed with flamers would be fantastic against the cult. If they charge the Chimeras, the overwatch is killer from the guys inside. Then if it blows up the guys inside just get out and flame the genestealer cult again. Just need to have a healthy number of Commissars present. Also, Veterans in Valkyries would be devastating to the cult. classic ordnance, not so much.

I agree but that would be a tailored list. TAC AM lists struggle a lot against gen cult and lists that are tailored to face gen cult are not very competitive against other armies.

Doesn't your typical AM list have a lot of flamers, though?

Martel732 wrote:
Doesn't your typical AM list have a lot of flamers, though?

Don't know about typical, but no, mine doesn't. I will usually have one Platoon Command with 4 flamers and those are the only ones in the army.

played a half dozen games vs my buddies GSC, every single game whoever goes first has won the game, and each game has been non competative because of it. i play eldar so 5 of the games with the CE codex and once with my reborn warhost. I think now with the null deploy factor of the ynarri i would have a better chance winning going second than under the old codex.

Definetly not overpowered.

 Blackie wrote:
I agree but that would be a tailored list. TAC AM lists struggle a lot against gen cult and lists that are tailored to face gen cult are not very competitive against other armies.

Lol, I think TAC AM struggles against everything .

my experience... GSC are tailor made to give imperial armies problems, Xenos aremies have very little issue. watched a few necron games it was laughable. against my tau and elder they struggle. orks are practically their hard counter, Harlies outclass them in what they do, though I am curios how they will do against DE. I theorize well, but nobody in my meta plays DE so no firsthand experience.

 don_mondo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Doesn't your typical AM list have a lot of flamers, though?

Don't know about typical, but no, mine doesn't. I will usually have one Platoon Command with 4 flamers and those are the only ones in the army.

Hmm.. the last AM list I faced had at least 12 flamers. They use them as surrogates for assault. They work pretty well, actually.

Throw some flamers on suits for tau and suddenly the cult is a lot less spooks.

Its a perfect ambush army. Hard to deal with if you havent thought about list building beforehand.

I played them once and forced them to assault a Rhino wall. 3 of the four rhinos also had heavy flamers in them. It didn't go well for the GSC vs that particular BA list.

 koooaei wrote:
Ynnari are those elves that shoot twice? How's that so different from elves that shoot once? Other than shooting twice?

Because the main strength of the elves that shoot once is their super-fast objective secured bikes that excel at Maelstrom, and other stuff that wants to stay well away from the enemy army while shooting them up from a distance.

Ynnari lose obsec, and want to be really up in people's grilles so they make use of the enemy's death for soulburst as well as their own.

Same units, radically different playstyle.

I have been working on my GSC army and I would say I win a fair bit. My general win strategy is to alpha strike the units that roll 5's or 6's at the enemy deployment zone. Drop the rest on objectives. Farm a boatload of points the first 2 turns, RTS and Ambush around the board to avoid counter attacks, and hope I don't get tabled before the game is over. Generally I win by points with a shattered army struggling to stay on the board, but points is what matters.

I find it is kind of interesting because my opponents lose, but have fun because they get to wholesale slaughter units.

Morris782 wrote:
I have been working on my GSC army and I would say I win a fair bit. My general win strategy is to alpha strike the units that roll 5's or 6's at the enemy deployment zone. Drop the rest on objectives. Farm a boatload of points the first 2 turns, RTS and Ambush around the board to avoid counter attacks, and hope I don't get tabled before the game is over. Generally I win by points with a shattered army struggling to stay on the board, but points is what matters.

I find it is kind of interesting because my opponents lose, but have fun because they get to wholesale slaughter units.

Most of my opponents so far have felt the same way. It's refreshing to see units die in droves but still know that you're winning/losing despite it! And unlike most horde armies, it's not a force that's slowly being grinded away in one spot either, but rather is evaporating from different spots across the board and is actually changing their damage output as you go. It feels great.

As for Ynnari, having played them once so far, they do feel a bit different from Eldar in that you're more willing to throw caution to the wind to gain extra advantages, but I do worry that the ability is a bit too easy to go busted.

Only played them once, this is what happened:

Every unit got to roll 3 dice on the cult ambush table.
Every unit got multiple dice when rolling to enter from reserve.
Every unit could leave the board and replenish its numbers, returning the following turn at full strength and shooting / charging anywhere on the board.
All the units can charge and attack at initiative through difficult terrain.
Units with rending get instant death.
Every unit can charge the turn it ambushes.
Automatically pass look out sirs in every single unit.

Yeah they're strong. Very strong. Or my opponent really misplayed.

All in all i actually came out ahead, thanks to some good VP cards. He had no answer, weirdly, for my dakka predator (although by then his Patriarch was dead). But I didn't move from my starting position because he was always charging or spawning right on top of me. Literally like 6" away.

 koooaei wrote:
Ynnari are those elves that shoot twice? How's that so different from elves that shoot once? Other than shooting twice?

Can't speak for Ynead, but my Ynari are CQC based, so they do play quite different, relying on sacrificial units and overwehlming the foe. different from other elves I think