Geoff “I’m Pretty OK at Starcraft” Robinson brings us his GSC review!
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Geoff “I’m Pretty OK at Starcraft” Robinson brings us his GSC review!
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
Genestealer don’t get cult traits, no?
Don’t believe so, no.
Yeah from a guy who’s been playtesting the codex for two months, that’s a huge mistake. It could be that the ‘no-creeds for you Genestealers’ was a last-minute nerf that slipped by Geoff, and he has apparently not been following the internet discussions the last days.
Yeah from a guy who’s been playtesting the codex for two months, that’s a huge mistake. Could be that the ‘No creeds for you Genestealers’ was a last minute nerf that slipped Geoff by.
Yeah from a guy who’s been playtesting the codex for two months, that’s a huge mistake. Could be that the ‘No creeds for you Genestealers’ was a last minute nerf that slipped Geoff by, but still… It’s one of the most talked about things the last days.
This is purely anecdotal so bear with me:
Had a 3k game vs two friends of mine. Both guys wanted a game today so we did me (3k GSC + Nids) vs 3k of Astra Militarum and Blood Angels on the 4 Pillars CA mission.
This army is really good but VERY unforgiving on mistakes. I didn’t get first turn, lost a unit of hive guard and some Hivestrain Stealers. Used my kraken stealers + swarm lord to hit their massive guard screen Turn 1, killed some stuff, tied up some earth shakers. Too much screen was left so I sent a Kellermorph + 20 guardsmen with the 2cp 3″ away strat to clear more screens.
The Kellermorph is good but 12″ weapons on a 9″ ambush is more limiting than you’d think.
I ran mostly Twisted Helix with Cult of the Four Armed Emperor so I could use the Vect trait. It came into play in garbage time so I blocked On Wings of Fire (and made them waste the CPso n a 6+) but just some observations:
I badly, badly misplaced my 1×10 pick aberrant unit. They’re hardy but die to concentrated fire. Str 5 acolytes are nice but Str 5 does nothing if you’re caught in the open; I brought everything in Turn 3, made 3/6 charges and had a big 20 man acolyte squad caught in the open. They got gunned down like chumps along with everything else.
20 man acolyte squads are probably too big. 10 with 2-4 saws and an Icon is most likely the way to go. The amulet relic on the Patriarch (not sure if he can take it, may have misplayed this) is Clutch as Hell. The Helix elixir is basically wasted on the Abominant, he actually got killed by Cadian snipers and a multi-las Sentinel.
This is going to be a very fun army (especially when I’m playing with the book instead of scribbled down notes and a handful of strat) but is going to be finesse. Acolytes are in the same neighborhood as boys but killier and less survivable. I think this is a good place for them.
PS. Great review by inControl. Thanks bud.
Does cult ambush not work for turn 1 charges anymore, since it’s more of a deep strike thing now?
Also, will the deny stratagem be increased to 4cp?
No and almost certainly.
WOW devoted zealots a built in chapter master for combat in every unit just better because its not just FAILED hit rolls. For a army that has no other way of re-rolls. Nothing or all for everyone its a little controversial , because most of the other buffs u can get by characters or specialist detachments or spells or stratagems. IT feels a little strange although they have the banner in some squads for re-roll ones.
I have all the codex’s of 8th except this one , yet :). I cant wait to read through it although i will never have the army maybe a kill team in the future.
Very good review, Geoff; definitely long, but there was a lot of stuff to cover and you were quite thorough about it, so not a shock there. GSC is for sure going to shake up the meta because it has some great tools for punishing several of the top armies out there.
I think there is a legit shooty GSC army in the book somewhere- you can get up to +2 to hit +1 within a radius, +1 against a specific target) and reroll 1s within a radius, which if you start stacking up Neophyte squads you could do some serious work. Of course, it’d probably function more like a hybridized army, since you’d still have some excellent melee tools at your disposal that you’d be a fool to ignore, but IG has already shown us that an army with decent shooting, decent melee, and tons of bodies can be a real terror to get rid of.
With regards to the “advance six inches” ability on the Ridgerunner- it does say “instead of rolling the dice,” so I think it’s pretty hard to say that you still get to make the normal advance roll. But I doubt anyone who is bringing both Ridgerunners and bikes to the table is gonna be winning games, so…
Jackals are… not good, definitely. But they come with a Heavy Stubber each, which is… something? I guess you could combine them with the +1 to hit aura and have a longer-range anti-infantry thing for a reasonable cost. But they’re definitely still bad, just not _quite_ as bad as Geoff was saying- they at least shoot better than Guardsmen do. If you could take more than three squads of them, I can possibly see an army that ran lots of units of them to clear out the enemy being a thing, but with a max of three I can’t imagine it really working.
Only the wolfquad comes with a heavy stubber. the rest can take grenade launchers and/or demolition charges as the heaviest options.
I think there’s a place for jackals, filling FAs on brigades. The minimal unit, with minimal gear, is about as cheap as a sentinel, but adding an extra ambush marker to play with, while being a bit more durable (4 models instead of 1), and decently fast.
GSC is seemingly MADE from cities like the one I come from, which is mainly a “hard rock” mining town. I love the look of the bikes, and am going to convert them into snowmobiles. My GSC already has a snow theme, and literally as I was writing this a trio of snowmobiles went by, because we’re a town of hicks, and GSC are weaponized hicks.
I’ll make the bikes work. I think they’ll mostly be for diving in with shotguns and grenades (combine 1cp for all of them throwing grenades, another 1cp so they get +1 to wound with them and then run away, jackal so they hit on 3’s).
The exeption of Genestealer Cults being able to bring reinforcements turn 1 was removed in the Big FAQ 2
Strongly disagree on the Jackals.
With Rusted Claw trait and a leader, they are hitting targets on 3+ and ignoring movement penalties. Two weapons means they can take shotguns and a power pick, making them a decent melee unit that can fire 2 S4 shots at 6″, and then charge for two swings (that is assuming the claw mentioned in the rules is a typo, and the second attack rule stays). Alternatively two pistols is a fun way to arm them.
Worst case, just a few ablative wounds for a mobile lascannon, which is pretty neat.