Genestealer Cults... Im really not that worried.

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The Shredders are modification to my generic list. Overall, the list itself is a variation of my 'Death By A Thousands Cuts' list

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I dont know the exact list the guy will bring but he likes to run the Genestealer Decurion. However, he is also a very seasoned player and I'd imagine he's tweaking his list to counter DE.

Ah alrighty, well I apologize as I didn't look to much into your stuff for an accurate reply, as for mein my gaming area it's practically taboo to list tailor. I didn't realize that both sides were tailoring to a degree.

Post Battle Report.

Well... I didnt do nearly as well as I had hoped.

Due to time constraints, we had to stop after turn 3 and score (including both primary and secondary objectives) was 7-1 in favor of Genestealers.

However, I was dealing MAJOR damage to his army and was about to take out his Magos and had erradicated 4 squads of Acolytes, a Purstrain Genestealer squad, his Leman Russ Eradicator and he only had two sqauds of Neophytes in Chimera's, a Scout Sentinel and a conjured squad of Acolytes left along with the Patriarch and Primus.

I had dealt some wounds to his Patriach and Primus from TONS of shooting and taken out the squad they were attached too. The guy told me he was about to send the Patriac back to the shadows if the game went to turn 4 (which means that when he came back on turn 5, my army would be Fearless)

However, I had also taken heavy losses with the following remaining:
x3 Reavers
x4 Reavers (one w/ Heat Lance and a Caltrop)
x3 Reavers (one w/caltrops and Blaster)
x5 Kabalites w/Shredder
x10 Kabalites in a Raider w/Splinter Racks, Night Shields and a Shredder

If the game had kept going then MAYBE I would have tabled him but his lone Patriach would have done some serious damage if he got a good Cult Ambush Roll (which he could do with three dice, so getting a roll of 6 was a 1 in 2 chance)

Pro's

Shredders were absolute ALL STARS in the game. I kept rolling direct hits and was wounding an average of 4 models per shot which did most of the damage

Reavers Caltrop's did manage to deal some serious blows to his squads

Multiple small squads shooting at close range are a great tactic against the Acolytes. I'll have to sacrifice a squad of Kabalites but all the Rapid Firing Splinter Rifles really wore down the Acolyte units quickly.

Battle Boat did pretty good, all the twin-linked Splinter rifles layed on the pain.

Con's
NEED BETTER COUNTER CHARGE UNITS. Reavers took too many losses to being charged.
I will definitely be taking some Covens units in lieu of Reavers in the future as I need units that can take a charge from the Acolytes (Grotesques in a Raider) and then counter charge.
Also, Bring Liquifier guns and any other flame templates (Medusae), the Genestealers are just as vulnerable to them as we are.

No more Archon. I was not aware that the Archon's buff's from WT (which was a 12" Fearless Bubble) and Helm of Spite ONLY APPLY if He Is On The Board (and not in a Venom).

Ravagers didnt perform well, 250pts to take off two Hull Points from his Leman Russ... DANG IT!!! I see some Haywire Scourges in my future.

Draw better cards AND Don't lose first turn initiative (ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!)

Splinter Rifles had terrible To Wound rolls, consistently.

On a tactical note,
The longer the game goes on for, the worse off the Genestealers play since they will need to keep pulling units back to the shadows to keep them alive.

If you can survive turn one, YOU HAVE A CHANCE. Turn one is THE turn for the Genestealers and when they are at their best. His ENTIRE ARMY had both Infiltrate and Shrouded on turn one, but after that, they were veeeerry susceptible to lots of shooting attacks. The longer the game goes on for, the better the advantage against them.

Use Covens units to bubble wrap the shooters.

Reavers are for charging, not being charged! Get a grotesquerie for that messy business. They love it.
Seriously, I think the grotesquerie will wreck the GSC.
I'm glad you saw that caltrops do work tho.

You HAVE to try a grotesquerie and reaver units working together! They cover each others weaknesses and are more than the some of their parts.

You can thank me later.  

smith1186 wrote:

Shredders were absolute ALL STARS in the game. I kept rolling direct hits and was wounding an average of 4 models per shot which did most of the damage

Why were the GC models so tightly bunched? Do they arrive by DS? If so, why are they not running after arrival to spread out?

Count Adhemar wrote:

Why were the GC models so tightly bunched? Do they arrive by DS? If so, why are they not running after arrival to spread out?

Oddly enough, when his units arrived via Cult Ambush, he kept a lot of them bunched together. I think its just something he does.

He was also attempting to keep as many of his units in cover as he could. Most of his guys that came on the board that couldn't charge he bundled into ruins. Cant blame him because all of my combined shooting would wipe out a squad at a time.

Well, I am glad of my decision to start including medusae in my armies. Got to love 2 AP3 templates for 50 pts

I  am really struggling to handle GSC right now.  The GSC player I play against always brings flamer heavy lists.  I have tried castling up but he still swept through my army at ease.  I wasn't even getting trough is hordes with my Grotesquirie.  

How can I counter a flamer heavy list that just pops up and roasts everything inside of transports?

jjw771 wrote:

How can I counter a flamer heavy list that just pops up and roasts everything inside of transports?

The omni-answer is: spam more units then he does and spread them well.
Go second and deepstrike lots of venoms.
Consider sacrifing min squads of bike to tie them in CC while the surviving venoms kill the rest.

Slightly costly cheat: put a bike autarch with banshee mask in a 6 reavers squad and multicharge the f**ker's with no overwatch.

I struggle with bringing in the reserves since he has a special rule where I need a 4+ to bring them in.  Ill have to try more MSU than I have now and more of a null deployment style.

More reasons to ally an autarch for reserve manipulation.
Or a air superiority detachment if you use dfts. +2 to your reserves, flyers can't be flamed and missiles should make cultist cry.

What would your suggestion be for a small Eldar detachment to fit in with Dark Eldar.  I really want the true kin to be the center piece of the army.

Yeah those both sound like nice counters

Especially if you don't tell him what the Autarch does until after you've declared your charge on his big blob of flamer neophytes

If you want to keep the Dark Eldar theme of the army, you could do a bit of 'creative modelling' to make Dark Eldar versions of Craftworld units. Kabalites with Catapults, and an Autarch Archon would work quite nicely

As for competitiveness it's very difficult to beat Scatbikes...

If you want to keep an allied Eldar detachment small then 3 Scat bikes and Autarch on bike with banshee mask is enough to get you what you want for ~200 points.

You could also consider Tau allies with Interceptor. That will wipe the smile off GSC faces pretty quick!

Just the autarch and a troop (3 scatterbikes) as an ally detachment.
I used this configuration versus a flamers of tzeentch heavy list.
The autarch and 6 reavers killed 10 daemonettes and 2 flamesr squads in one charge.

It sounds like he was list tailoring to you. I don't know anyone that runs flamers on GSC (I'm coming from Tyranid and GSC) as they make them prohibitively expensive. The hand flamers are only S:3 and AP 6 so you should still get saves on most of your units. GSC are typically MSU, kill a couple of models and force moral checks. Once they are falling back they lose their power. Remember too that they can't Return to Shadows if you have a model within 6". Good luck if they ally with flyrants though.