Tyranid Tacica: Genestealers

Old School here to talk about one of my favorite units; Genestealers! One of the first creature entries I read in the old Rogue Trader book was about the Genestealers and since then I have hated them in the hands of the enemy and recently came to love them in my tyranid force.

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Let's talk about the good things first:

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Genestealers are troops. Being troops helps you score when they do manage to live, but for them it makes even one genestealer a unit the enemy must try to gun down.

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Infiltrators - Genestealers can outflank thanks to this rule - much to the displeasure of guardsmen across the Galaxy. This forces the enemy gunlines to either move (losing possible shots) deploy in the middle of the board (which is where the rest of your army should want them) or just risk it and possibly get popped (S4 rending is a threat to any vehicle that isn't a Land Raider or a Monolith). Don't forget that if you have enough LoS blocking terrain, you can infiltrate them, but the cases where infiltrating is better than outflanking is rare.

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Move through Cover and Fleet are another great benefit these guys have. The combination of these two rules mean that you will generally get good distance through terrain, a run move and if assaulting through cover (careful there stud!), you have three dice to make that on as well! This also makes a real difference when somebody is whacking you with weapons that make you move as if you are in difficult terrain as well. Overall, genestealers are quick and when lingering near the board edges, the enemy has to be very afraid of your speed.

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No need for Synapse - no brainer here.

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Finally, high initiative, high Weapon Skill and rending AND volume of attacks - This means you will regularly catch troops, elites (ones without 3+ Inv) and even MCs, strike them first, achieve hits on 3+ and then rock them out of their armor with rending and mass saves - often before they can even swing!

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Alright, let's talk about the bad stuff:

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Armor - This is the thing that all the 4th Ed Nid players cried about; they have a 5+ save, which means in the open, they are going to get rocked and if anything can live through their assault and return even a mediocre number of wounds, the stealers will start to die and lose their edge. The solution? Stay in combat, pick fights you can win and stick to cover.

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Too good at killing mech - often times, stealers will catch that tank on the edge of the board and get a decent number of rends. This is good right? Well, sometimes our claws get a little over-zealous and explode the vehicle, making us take that crappy save again and costing us some stealers. Depending on the rest of your list, this can be an acceptable loss or a devestating one - tactics can fix this problem.

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Not having grenades is another blight to the GS existence. You have these terrible claws and fangs and the ability to move through cover, just not the ability to use those claws first if you assault through said cover - bah! Tactics and synergy can overcome this problem - a friend with whips is a friend indeed.

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Lets talk upgrades:

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Scything Talons - No need for these as you will most often hit on threes, at worst fours, what will re-rolling your ones do that you can't get from ...

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Toxin Sacs - One of my favorites for these puppies, the sacs will make you the bae of almost all standard troops in the game and make MCs crap their ... whatever they wear and BEST of ALL, give you the chance to rend more, which will make for more dead troops. If you plan to use your stealers for more than just a cheap distraction unit, then consider these badboys a mandatory choice! If you think they will make you too killy (ending combat in the turn you charge), then just take these, but less stealers.

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Adrenal Glands - Glands are good for the guy who really wants to kill vehicles (you could potentially glance a Land Raider), but the sacs are a better choice for hunting troops and MCs. The adrenals also only work when YOU charge and with I6, the initiative bonus will mostly be lost on them. I have seen folks use both sacs and glands, but I feel it makes stealers a little too expensive for their survivability.

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Mycetic Spore - this is the unit that needs the spore least in the whole codex. With all the other great ways to get to the enemy, why take the pod; the one option that ensures you will not assault and will most likely get shot to death? If you just want to take the pod, give it to 10 guants and call it a day.

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Brood Lord - Here we go. I am in the school of thought that would rather take more stealers than take a Brood lord ( I get more attacks without him). He has even more bite in the WS and initiative department, but do you need it? He has higher strength and toughness, but do you need it? When I ask myself these questions, I typically say no.

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The redeeming qualities that he does have is that he can take a save here and there to get more stealers to the enemy (at this point his extra attacks start to shine, if he lives) and that he can be given Implant attack, making his rending insta-death to ICs, all the while he is a squad upgrade, making him impossible to pick out in CC.

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Aura of Dispair is a power worth mentioning. Let's say you outflank and want to get those pesky Long Fangs or those damned heavy weapon squads, but you rolled a 1 for your run move. Aura allows you the chance to at least lower the leadership of those units. Guard players and Wolves players know that one point can be life or death and now all you need to do is make that Harpy or Zoan or whatever kill 25% of that squad and you have a better chance of it running - possibly off the board. It doesn't always work and a lot of units out there are also fearless, but it is worth mentioning.

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Overall, the brood lord is expensive, but is very useful if you want to hunt down an IC with your stealers or scare static firepower footpounders off the board, but otherwise (even with his powers ), he is best off in the case while the regular stealers do the fighting instead.

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Builds:

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Stealers work well in Hive Commander lists where you have an increased chance of them coming in along with other units you have in reserve. they also work well in Swarmlord lists sometimes (depends on the list) as he allows you to re-roll the side you want.

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I take genestealers one or two ways; Naked for the sheer joy of a few cheap dudes running in to either kill a tank or some troops and maybe living to do it again (or to add a distraction) OR I take them poisoned so that I can make life hell for MCs, troops and well ... anybody AND I still have the option of killing tanks. The poison build also makes the enemy want to expend ammo killing them, which may seem counter productive for me (losing scoring units), but it also takes shots away from the rest of my army (the really big nasty stuff) - besides, your tervi's will just crap more scoring units anyway!

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Numbers: I normally run two units of 8-10 no matter what upgrades I give them. This makes some opponents nervous about the edges, adds redundancy and gives me hope that one squad will get a side with prizes nearby(!) and provides enough threats in the enemy deployment zone to draw attention away from the Trygons or Tervigons or whatever else is one the board.

Army builds they work well in - They really work well in both drop armies and foot armies. They can add distraction and deployement manipulation to both styles of army, which is good for both. I prefer to run mine in a very fleety army that includes 3 trygons (one or two as primes or relacing a trygon with a unit of raveners), a hive commander Winged Tyrant and a strong base made of termaguants, troop tervigons and hive guard - this way, I can use them in the mass drop bananza, use them to distract from a walking wall of MCs OR I can use them to castle up against a drop army (daemons) and get the jump on them with stealers AND fleeting and flying MCs.

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Stealers also do well in shooty nid lists as Harpies and Tyrannofexes can pop transports for the outflanking stealers (solving a major problem for them and making the insides into lunch). Obviously, you want to try to blow the vehicle up BEFORE you make the run move for the stealers!

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I think that is all I have for these nasty gribblies! Stay tuned for more Nid tactics. I have also been getting a ton of e-mails for building lists to fight specific enemies and while I don't condone tailoring lists to fight one person's army (take-all comers only dammit), I can sympathise with a person who struggles against a certain type of army - so there may be some VERSUS articles coming up. Let me know what you think and please add something to this tactica if you think something is missing. I am by no means the end-all for tyranid tactics.