Red Brotherhood

[Zoatibix]

@Roguereally glad you guys managed to pull out the win! 

[Rogue]

Played an Open War mission last week - lost by a couple of points to Tyranids (Vanguard Invaders); I killed almost everything he had (20 termagants, tervigon, psychovore, 3 leapers, 10 stealers, screamer-killer, 5 bugs with slow-down guns), but his greater mobility allowed the survivors (death leaper, a neurolictor, the new floaty brain and some neurolictors) to cover the objectives at the end, and then Shadow in the Warp at the end of the game lost me control of an objective and it was all over.

 

But, on the plus side, I killed almost everything he had. I was trying out Xenocreed, which was interesting. As it turned out, I only lost one infantry unit all game, which didn't come back even with a reroll, so that side of it was a bust (and in a tight game, could have tipped the scales). The advance and charge enhancement got the metamorphs into combat turn one, and the stratagem to make hand flamers into assault weapons was good too.

 

The main take-away for me was hand flamers. I really leaned into them, with three units of ten acolytes and one unit of ten metamorphs all toting them. I went first, and the metamorphs and one acolyte unit removed three slow-down bugs and 14 termagants between them, allowing the metamorphs to finish off the last two bugs and last six gants in combat. With another acolyte unit taking down five stealers (and a couple more with overwatch), I'd taken out most of his infantry by the end of turn one.

 

Into light infantry, they're brilliant (especially on acolytes firing at a target on an objective, when they hit automatically and reroll all wounds). I was also able to leverage two ridgerunners for -1AP, by firing the stubbers into the termagants (and the mining lasers into the tervigon, I think).

 

On the sneaker side, my deployment consisted of three vehicles with scout (thanks to metamorphs in the truck), three acolyte units on the table and one in reserve. With three Primi in the list, I could then put all three on-table acolyte units into reserve, and then strike them back in on turn one, giving me a ton of flexibility in bringing those flamers to bear.

 

I want to try the Xenocreed again, maybe with more of an MSU approach, but so far it feels like it has potential.

[Ulfast]

Intersting. Fun that you tried out new tactics with falmer and made it work. 

[Rogue]

A friend and I play a local doubles tournament every year, and this weekend just gone was the first time I've taken the Cult (alongside Necrons). We won all three games and placed second overall (the only other team that won three scored way more battle-points than us) - it's very exciting, as we've capped out at 2-1 a couple of times, and never previously gone undefeated.

 

I was running Biosanctic Broodsurge, with this list:

 

Patriarch (biomorph adaptation)

Primus

Biophagus (predatory instincts)

10 neophytes

10 acolytes - six mining tools

10 genestealers

10 genetealers

3 ridgerunners (two mining lasers, one mortar) 

 

The Patriarch led one unit of genestealers; the Primus and Biophagus teamed up with the acolytes. We usually infiltrated both units of genestealers and the acolytes, but then used the Primus to pick up the acolytes into a turn one deep strike. The Neophytes and the mortar buggy held the home objective, and the other two went wherever they were needed.

 

My friend brought three doomstalkers, a reanimator, six wraiths with a technomancer, three tomb-blades, three wraith-like destroyers. The wraiths could also infiltrate, the blades and destroyers played objectives, and the stalkers provided fire-support.

 

We were able to use the combat units (genestealers, acolytes, wraiths) to apply tons of early pressure and gain control of the board - with so many threats active from turn one, we had a surprisingly good survival rate, as we often killed everything in the immediate vicinity, limiting how much damage we could take in return. The Patriarch's stealers were good into various hard targets, including armigers, sanguinary guard and custodes wardens; and having enough resurgence points to bring back which ever unit of stealers died first meant that I could be really aggressive and still have turn two/three threats.

 

The acolytes were a bit of a surprise package, and chewed through whatever was put in front of them. In the third game, they finished off a warden unit after the Patriarch's unit fell short - the acolytes deleted the last two and an attached hero in a single turn, then turned around and counter-charged a knight, taking nine wounds off and leaving it ripe for death by doomstalker in our turn two. The combination of the Primus, Biophagus and Biosanctic was really strong: they get +1 to charge, and then +1 attacks when they do, meaning 18 mining weapon attacks that hit on 3s with full rerolls and lethal hits; they can either get +1 to wound infantry from the Biophagus, or +1 to wound vehicles and monsters from a stratagem (on top of native anti-vehicle 4+) - it means you're looking at around 16 hits, wounding on 2s into most infantry, -2AP (or -3 with crossfire from a ridgerunner) and 3 damage (enough to one-shot a custodes, as it turns out).

 

I'm not sure how I'd turn this into a 2000 point list of pure GSC, but I think I'd look at three Rockgrinders as fire-support, then small neophyte and acolyte units for objective play. Maybe aberrants, but it would be tempting to go with another 10 genestealers, just to have 30 of them infiltrating into midfield from the get-go...

[brother_b]

Great information. I’m a sucker for neophytes and abominants so not sure biosanctic is the best call but dang it’s tempting to yolo stealers and aberrants and follow up with tide of neophytes.

[Rogue]

Yeah, it was certainly a fun way to play. Very proactive, close-combat units getting to do their thing, rolling buckets of dice knowing that you just need a fairly average result to wipe something off the table :)