Surviving Mental Onslaught

So I haven't played against the new Genestealer Cults Codex yet, but the new hot tactic from it seems to be stacking LD buffs and debuffs before using the psychic power Mental Onslaught, which is a roll off based on the caster and target's leadership - with each roll off dealing a mortal wound until the target's player beats the caster's.

This seems like a bit of a problem for us. It's very easy to get a Patriarch to 13 LD, and from there any of our vehicles or monsters will be either instantly killed or very likely instantly killed. That's quite a significant return on investment for the GSC player!

So, I'm wondering on paper what the best strategies against this might be. Screening seems difficult, considering Genestealer Cults specialise in popping up next to you and Mental Onslaught can be cast on any visible model within 18". Maybe just sucking up the loss of a model before trying to kill the Patriarch as quickly as possible? Trying to desperately deny the Warp Charge 6 power using Helm of Spite or allied psykers?

Is it just not a big deal at all?

Defending against Freakshow lists is difficult.

Taking out the go-juice (the character with Mental Onslaught) can work if you regularly bring snipers or what have you to take him out. GSC Freakshows in particular seem vulnerable because Mental Onslaught is their BIG punch, and without it they just have a lot of setup but no real payoff.

Be mindful of the bubbles. A lot of the Ld negatives that Freakshow combos work on rely on debuff bubbles to reduce your leadership (or enhance theirs). If you can keep your forces free of as many bubbles as possible, you'll reduce the amount of damage you take.

That being said, most players are reluctant to tool around with leadership shenanigans in my experience. I wouldn't be super concerned about it coming up. If it DID come up against me, I'd probably focus the Onslaught bearers. (Unless they were using the Onslaught bearers to lure me into a meat grinder...then I'd just try to ignore them until they were more exposed.)

We actually have a different advantage over that then other armies in that (pessimism take hold) our characters (really the only worth while target for that power as it targets a model and not a unit) , short of our two named ones, (drazhar not counting here) aren't exactly essential or even good for our army, and I would check to see if that kind of power can harm vehicles, so if they use it to try and snipe our characters ... Well they basically just opened themselves up to rapid fire splinter weapons, assaults from wyches (not ideal but still strong) and all the blasters/dissies that Druhkari lists pack nowadays ... So I say our counter to that psychic powers is pretty ground into just the way our units operate, and I do believe we get our feel no pain 6+++ against mortal wounds so just a tiny tiny bit of extra protection

Mental Onslaught does affect our vehicles, and with a LD 13 Patriarch it instantly kills all of them - including the Tantalus.

There's a large thread on Thetyranidhive, about how using multiple buffs including a Vigilant detachment, people insta-kill Imperial knights with the power.

Burnage wrote:

Mental Onslaught does affect our vehicles, and with a LD 13 Patriarch it instantly kills all of them - including the Tantalus.

Good thing our vehicles are inexpensive

I guess you could take a Dark Creed Reaper/Tantalus for the snipe strat and the reduction of his leadership to make stacking harder, but then you've taken Dark Creed and have probably gimped yourself a bit. Also he would just pass the wounds over to some pleb cultist nearby. I just wouldn't worry about it since its only 1 model per turn within 18".

dumpeal wrote:

Burnage wrote:

Mental Onslaught does affect our vehicles, and with a LD 13 Patriarch it instantly kills all of them - including the Tantalus.

Good thing our vehicles are inexpensive

I agree, despite a Tantalus, I wouldn't be upset if they use the weapon the whole list is built around to blow up only one of our vehicles.

But it would scare the hell out of me if I were playing imperial knights.

I wouldn't write off instant losing vehicles so easily. I recently faced GSC in a tournament and 2 of my ravagers got insta killed by mental onslaught very easily. It doesn't even really require a whole lot of freakshow investment on the part of the GSC player. He had IG psyker with the -2 LD power, then his prime deep striking in for mental onslaught, and given how many units GSC were deep striking in the game (well over half his army after using all his blip shenanigans), it's pretty hard to screen everything. I will admit the deployment map really didn't work in my favor (it was one of the long edges maps), but I think it's still worth mentioning that mental onslaught completely nuking something every turn sucks. Only real counter is probably helm of spite, just save it for blocking that one counter.

Just LD strike them too. If they get -4 to leadership, they won't be able to instant-kill ours crap. Maybe I'll start using dark creed again.