Friday Night Internet Fight: Extra Innings

Hey there sports fans, my name is Dethtron and Tasty Taste has invited me here to bring you a weekly series of poorly thought out articles.  Good move Mr. Taste, hopefully you won’t  live to regret that decision.  For those of you who don’t know me, I write a blog called “Dick Move” that has been likened to a “pox riddled post-coital stain.”  I won’t insult your intelligence by prefacing what you’re about to read with a warning about whether or not this is all a joke.  Frankly, I don’t even know anymore…

Whoring myself out based on the success of my infamous Friday Night Internet Fight series, I am pleased to bring you its inbred cousin/spinoff- Friday Night Internet Fight: Extra Innings.  ‘Why extra innings?’ you ask.  Well because when  it’s 4^th and goal with seconds on the clock and you’re 10 points down you’ve got to reach down inside yourself, give it 110%, and sink that corner kick is why.

Working with the assumption that you have had zero exposure to my work, I’ll give you a quick primer on what you’re about to witness.  Pointless pissing contests over the internet have been a constant source of amusement for me over the years and no group of people is better at it than gamers.  I patrol (read: paTROLL) the net every week to find the most entertaining fight I can in a blog or forum, edit it into a coherent narrative structure, and bash the shit out of everyone involved (otherwise known as snowmobiling).  Now in editing I throw journalistic caution to the wind, restructuring things to make sense regardless of when they happened in a thread.  I never claimed to have integrity.  Should you really need to read the thread without my input there will be a link to it.  If the fight didn’t blow your tiny little mind away and you’re still with us after the dust settles, there will be a poll for you to vote on the winner.  Now for the last thing before we get started, I’ll just warn you up front that I don’t have anything against profanity.  If you can’t handle that, perhaps this is more up your alley.

For the first ever FNIF:ER, I wanted to do something special.  I set out looking for the best muckraking, shit-slinging fight I could find on the net about the Nova Open.  Sadly, most of the Nova discussions going on are just about as much fun to read as a set of washing machine instructions and have remained relatively civil.  So I says to myself,’ why not be a real class act and go after BoK’s own shenanigans in response to the Nova “controversy”?’  Well I tried and failed.  Sweet, starting out a new series with victim statements, this should be great….. Anyway, I think MVB put a lot of effort into the tourney and I’m starting to feel bad about the flak he’s taking.  I didn’t want to add to the shitstorm for once.  MVB, you can consider that your free pass- everybody gets one (don’t forget Herald of Nurgle, you already used yours up…).  False starts aside, I returned to an old standby for internet fights, Dakka Dakka.  After running through a pretty good string of potential fights involving fights over Vindicators and Predators, the prospect of drop-podding rhinos (?), and the like, I found Bug List that Decimates Mech IG a thread so filled with bile and everyone including the original poster ignoring the original poster, that I knew I’d finally found my match.  I think we can certainly say that you either will or will not enjoy this.  Of all of the posts I’ve written, it certainly is one of them.

The names haven’t been changed to protect the innocent.  Their avatars have been for my own amusement.  Without further ado and blathering, I give you the first ever Friday Night Internet Fight: Extra Innings–

DarthDiggler- I’ve been reading up on the ETC games and a Polish bug list claims to have easily beat at least 5 Mech IG lists over the course of the tournament. The bug list was specifically designed to beat Mech IG (Leafblower) ~any volunteers to join my crusade to stop calling all mech IG the leafblower? at 1750pts and it apparently did as advertised. One thing to keep in mind is that the ETC used a healthy amount of 18″-24″ square pieces of terrain each about 6″-8″ tall. ~give it up for Europe, the home of socialized medical care and adequate terrain This provided easy LOS blocking terrain, not just 4+ cover save terrain, on each board.

HQ1: Tervigon (160), Catalyst (15), Cluster Spines (0) 175

Elite 1 : 3 Hive Guards 150
Elite 2 : 3 Hive Guards 150
Elite 3 : 3 Hive Guards 150

Troop 1 : Tervigon (160), Catalyst (15), Cluster Spines (0) 175
Troop 2 : 10 Termagants ( 10*5 ) 50
Troop 3 : 20 Genestealers (20*14) 280
Troop 4 : 20 Genestealers (20*14) 280
Troop 5 : 20 Genestealers (20*14), toxin sacs ( 20*3) 340

From what I have gathered, the basic tactic was to reserve everything and let the reserves dictate the flow of the game.  The Stealers would outflank and come on with some part close enough to a Tervigon to cast FnP on the unit (to help vs. heavy flamers.~gotta love tactics guaranteed not to work 2/3 of the time Vehicle heavy IG would be forced to bunch in the center with such huge stealer squads threatening the sides and the Hive Guard would come on the board and target vehicles that strayed to close to the center. ~why the fuck would you huddle up in the center when cowering in fear in a corner makes it incredibly unlikely that outflankers will pop up in the right place at the right time? I’m very curious to see how this list wold do against vehicle heavy SW and BA ~yeah seeing what a list designed to deal with guard would do against not-guard sounds like a blast lists who might suffer the same weaknesses the Ig players would have had in deployment.

Lycaeus Wrex- Tailored list. Boring. Next.

I would add more but…whats there to say? ~what he actually meant to say was, ‘I would add more, but I’m gonna go ahead and add more’Tailored list > tailored list > tailored list, I’m pretty sure some IG player with more time on their hands could craft a 1750 list that would mulch this one just as easily.

This is also one of the reasons I dislike highly intensive competition in a wargame that, let’s be honest, isn’t all that hot on balance. People turn up with lists like this and it drains all the fun from what is, in essence, a game of toy soldiers. ~maybe if you didn’t participate in threads about tournaments you could use that extra time to figure out a way to get your panties unbunched and perform a sandectomy on your vagina

WAAC players be damned ~oh hot damn, another argument I’m sick to death of seeing, I’d much rather fight a tactically interesting, well balanced list than something like this anyday; that’s not to say I condone ‘leafblower’ Guard either, I don’t, ~so what do you believe in?  Sucking?  Boring easy games?  Seal clubbing?  Going to clubs with seals?  I’d love to know but people look at whoever wins a competition and copy-pastes their list in the belief that they will perform just as well for them.

Take into account all the subjectives that occur in a game and…well…don’t be surprised if this list doesn’t perform for you the same way as it did in the ETC, especially as it is so obviously a paper to someones rock. ~time to get out the scissors and remove this half-baked analogy from the gaming vernacular

But then what happens when you meet the scissors? ~duck and cover?

L. Wrex ~in case you didn’t know the post was already attributed to him, he went ahead and signed it.  Thanks for that.  Speaking of redundant, I just wanted to make you aware that L. Wrex is responsible for this post and signed it in addition to letting us know that L. Wrex had this post attributed to him

DarthDiggler- Thanks for the constructive feedback Wrex. ~my sarcasm detector is showing off the chart readings.  Look out, critical mass is inevitable Did the time it took you to type that drivle make you feel better, because it sure didn’t change the world. ~I don’t know, I heard a rumor that Israel and Palestine just got together to eradicate WAAC gamers based on that post.

Tell me the scissors to this rock and tell me if mech marine lists will fare better – BTW it will be painted up by a Golden Daemon winner so this WAAC list can win best painted to. Happy? ~wait is the GD winner the guy who plays the list or is he paying to win best painted at any cost?  And what exactly was the point of that? I’m confused as shit.

Lycaeus Wrex- Granted it was a little rant on my part. It just seems…souless to me. Play your game how you want to, ~underwater 40k here I come but don’t be surprised if people have an alternate opinion on a list than your own.

What would you prefer me do? ~shutting the fuck up would be a great place to start Proclaim this to be the ultimate answer to a mech-vet spam? Maybe it is, hell I don’t know. What I’m trying to say is that you can’t look at this at face value. You said yourself the board was full or large,~so which was it, full or large? LOS blocking terrain, which helped the ‘Nic player immensely as he could hide his Hive Guard and still shoot at full effectiveness. Play on a board with sparse terrain and you get a different ball-game altogether. This is subjective, and it changes how well the list performs.

Don’t expect me to get on my knees and bow down just because someone managed to find a way to counter a mechanised army. ~wait so nobody had this figured out until now…. I’m offering my opinion, nothing more. If you don’t like it…well…tough. It’s my opinion after all.  ~well opinions are just like assholes: you are one.  Wait, I think I fucked that up, can I get a do over?

L. Wrex ~are we doing this every time? Really?

Puma713- Also, Wrex, the OP ~yeah you know me! was making reference to the ETC, which has a very different format. It encourages lists like this because of how it is set up.

The team captain chooses who will play who. So, if the opponent puts up his Leafblower IG Teammate, then you’d put up this list to play him. It’s a rock-paper-scissors dynamic and it is built to be that way. ~wow, now that you mention it, that does sound kind of boring

In regard to the list though, if I were playing against it and not in a mech-heavy list I would go for the Tervigons first. With Genestealers outflanking, you have at least 1 turn of nothing on the board but the Hive Guard, the tervigons and the gaunts.  ~followed by several turns of watching stealers run a gauntlet of bullets and flashlights if you know how to not deploy like a dumbass.  It’s also a good thing guard don’t have a way to delay reserves or anything.  Oh they do?  Shit Take out the Tervigons and you lose the FNP bonus and you lose Synapse, which will make those guants run and hide. After that, you just have to deal with 60 Genestealers. That’s really not too tough. The list has major flaws, I think, but, then again, it was built to take out mech IG. And that’s what it would do.

Against BA or SW, I think it would be lacking. ~yeah, not shit.  Next question please BA are fast enough to stay away from the Genestealers if need be and can get some Baal Predators into those gaunts/hive guard very quickly. Not to mention units like Meph who can take out a tervigon in one assault or FNP TH/SS termis that don’t necessarily fear Genestealers.

SW may have a little more difficulty, but what BA has in speed, SW makes up for in firepower. Razorbacks can make a bad day for tervigons. And what’s the range on Hive Guard? 24″? That’s a 12″ difference for Assault Cannons and a 24″ for lascannons.

Against an army that sits still and pummels the other side of the board (Mech IG), it could be good – you don’t have to chase anything and they’re not going to move alot. Against an army that likes to move or -wants- to be in assault, it may not be as prolific. ~pro-tip- if you’re going to use a big word to sound awesome, use the right one

Just my 2 cents.

~Puma713.  There, I just wanted to be sure we all knew whose post that was….

DarthDiggler- What would I prefer you do? Either post a constructive comment or keep your mouth shut. ~Hiyo! I didn’t ask if this was the be-all-end all of lists. I didn’t even say I would ever build/play it. You assumed all of that.  ~looks like he really made an ass out of himself.  Wait, I think I fucked that one up to.  DO OVER! If the USA is going to compete in the ETC next year they will have to take this list under consideration; learns the ins and out of it and deconstruct it. ~they better learns it real good like That is what I am trying to accomplish here.

Lycaeus Wrex- Perhaps this was what I was missing. It’s an…interesting way to run a tournament to say the least but it is, as they say, their party…. ~and you’ll cry if you want to.  Clearly you want to

@ DarthDiggler

Perhaps you need to take a step back and chill the feth out.  ~rubber, meet glue I never made any inclination ~inclimation?  I think you intimate things like that dog.  Did I not already warn you guys about big words?  Am I going to have to invoke a time out policy here? that you would build/play the list yourself (nor did I make any mention about paintng the army, though God knows why *that’s* constructive to the discussion…). Anyway, you want a bit of constructive feedback so maybe I will impart some, ~early prediction: he won’t.  Weigh in via text message and see what you think.  Operators are standing by seeing as how we’ve both sufficiently thrown our toys far enough…

I think that anything relying upon a single MC and judicious use of outflanking may well find themselves vulnerable to armies that can mess with reserves, such as the OoTF in Guard armies for example. Delaying reserves, or making them enter the table on the wrong side, may prove desicive when facing an army of which 3/4 of its killing power is tied up off the board. ~nice only took us how many posts to point out why outflanking is dumb

Blood Angels may well be able to rely upon their speed to deal with the Tervigon quickly, and tie up the Hive Guard in CC. Once the guns are occupied/killed then the Baals/Razorbacks could simply kite the ‘Stealers for the rest of the game. Three squads being the size they are could lead to them being particularly susceptible to flamestorms/heavy flamers once the Tervigon is disposed of.

L. Wrex ~phew, I thought that was Goethe writing for a second there.  Now we know who’s post this is.

Puma713- Alright, well here are the glaring problems to me:

1) You never know when you’ll get your reserves. It’s just not a given. They can come in all together, or they can come in piecemeal. ~yeah, something like a hive commander might help that be less of an issue.  Oh man that almost sounded constructive.  Eat a bag of dicks you hosebag!  Yeah, more like it

2) Tervigons can’t outflank (without the Swarmlord). This seriously restricts the lethality of the FNP combo, especially since Catalyst only has a 12″ reach. ~and anybody who understands basic target priority will shoot the shit out of the Tervigons that you deployed.  Anybody going to mention how potentially awful it is to play the whole reserve part of your army game and get your deployed forces blown off the board on turns 1 and 2? If the genestealers are within 18.1″ of the IG line, then the Tervigons probably aren’t. Sure, they can move, then run turn 1, but if they are reserved, that puts them 12″ from the board edge, with the genestealers being roughly 24″ more inches away. No Catalyst till turn 2 or 3, at least. Not to mention the fact Catalyst is cast in the movement phase, before they’ve gotten a run move.

3) Catalyst is only a single use. It’s not a bubble. ~yeah, after the FNP bubble collapsed in 2008 government reform has prevented it from ever acting like a bubble again That means one of the units of Genestealers would have it. Two if both Tervigons were within range. But, if they’re within 12″ of the genestealers, they’re probably within 24″ of a hood. ~leafblower has Inquisition in it?  News to me That, and they’ve probably taken fire the first couple turns as they try to get within Catalyst range.

4) Genestealers aren’t fearless and the Tervigons are the only Synapse. This one is minor, but it could hurt. It takes 5 genestealers to force a Ld check. That’s not bad if you’ve got plenty of assault cannons/melta/plasma, etc. Or, kill the Tervigons, take the gaunts out of the game and possibly the Hive guard.

Just a few things to recognize.

I’m sure there are a few others ~if by a few you mean lots

Svendrex- Other than the Tervigon fighting in assault, there is nothing in that List that can take on a Land Raider. ~Landraider, the rock in every good IG list That is a huge disadvantage against SW, BA, SM, CSM, BT, and DA. Las raider would shoot up the tervigon, ~nice, IG landraiders can drop 6 wounds on a T6 creature with a 3+ save.  Need to get me some of them then tank shock stuff off the board. A redeemer would BBQ all of the Stealers nearby. A Crusader would dump huge number of TL AP5 shots into the stealers as well. ~and Terminators with theoryhammers would shatter the fabric of space and time That is you scissors, a Land Raider. In all honestly it is one of the more common vehicles simply because of the number of armies that can take one. Zoanthropes in a pod or MC’s are your answer to LR. ~the arms race going on in your head sounds exciting.  Any way we can get a made for TV movie about it? S8 can kill mobs of light mech, but face any heavy mech and you lose. That is what makes this list boring, the game is decided before the first turn. You face light mech and win, you face Heavy stuff and lose.

Flavius Infernus- I’m with DarthD. It looks to me like, in the hands of a competent general, this army could not only handle mech guard, but doesn’t have any crippling blind spots against other competitive builds either. ~except that whole outflanking being horseshit, not being able to effectively deal with AV 14, and being based on psychic combos that will be difficult at best to pull off thing I think it has two major innovations that make it work really well

(1) catalyst on stealers is like giving them their old 4+ extended carapace back–except it also works against heavy flamers. Granted it only works on one unit at a time, but there are only 3 stealer units here and you can use catalyzed unit(s) to screen others, and screen the big bugs & hive guard. Because stealers are T4, their FNP works against the widespread str6-7 shooting that guard armies have. ~making no changes to a list, but using obvious tactics: Innovation brought to you by Flavius

(2) Coming in from reserve (if you get second turn) is an advantage for this army against a mech opponent–because you always get the first shot off, and you deprive your opponent of a turn of shooting. Even one or two of the hive guard units coming in can shut down a major blast threat or two on turn 2, and by turn 3 IG tanks (or razor spam) will be blowing up like firecrackers. ~I’m loving all this innovation.  When can I get me some?

Puma713- That’s all well and good, but coming in from reserve if you don’t want to (because you have to – you want to deprive the enemy of shooting) isn’t always a good thing. Like I said earlier, if you come in piecemeal, you’re allowing the enemy’s entire army to focus fire on one or two units at a time. ~like I said earlier, this is a huge problem for this list Many tournament-goers feel that you should have the game won (or nearly won) by turn 3. If you’re not getting units like Hive Guard or Tervigons on until Turn 3, you’ve effectively removed half of your army from play for most of the game. That will only make it easier to pick off other units.

Flavius Infernus- If you get first turn on a table with lots of LoS blocking terrain, ~if your plan involves relying on “if,” it’s probably not a good plan then obviously you can infiltrate at 12.1″ with stealers and make a huge alpha-strike assault on tanks that haven’t moved yet and just overrun the whole thing. ~seriously people, learn to deploy and dumb shit tactics like this won’t work.

The stealers don’t have to outflank–they can walk on as a screen with the tervigons ~and get blown away by the handful.  I’m going to foot slog some expensive, fragile units across the board at an enemy that doesn’t like moving.  I think it’s going to work out. (also useful in DoW). I’m surprised that the tervigons here don’t also have onslaught, since it would be really useful to cast on the hive guard to keep them in synapse while everything moves forward. But maybe the guy ran out of points.

Puma713- Maybe. Also, I’m fairly certain that Tervigons can only use 1 power a turn. If he’s using Catalyst, then he can’t use Onslaught. Onslaught is great, but it also limits the tervis, because they can’t shoot anything else or assault anything else that turn.~no way, throwing away points on powers you won’t use is the coolest

Flavius Infernus- As for accusations that the list is boring or soulless, wtf? I think it would be a really interesting & challenging list to play, or play against. Come to the dark side, guys. We have cookies. ~you had me at soulless

Svendrex: At Str8, Hive guard can glance a LR to death if they have to. ~let’s change “have to” to “get ridiculously lucky,” and I think we’re onto something Or, if they can at least immobilize it, then a tervigon can wail on it until it’s dead. Stealers with catalyst on them get a 4+FNP against flamestorm cannons.

Puma713- I think the point is, you can’t count on glacing a Land Raider to win a game. ~punching them with a S6 MC on the other hand…. I mean, when you’re walking up to the table and you see 3 Redeemers across the table from you, you don’t think, “Well, I can glance them!” ~I tend to think things like ‘thank god those aren’t Crusaders’ No, you start thinking about how you’re going to stop them. You’d have to roll a 6 to glance, then a 6 to immobilize. I believe that’s about a 4% chance. ~I was wondering when the real mathhammer was coming out If you don’t immobilize them, they’re going to run down your throat, carrying their payload deep into your backfield (or into your stealers, depending on what they’re carrying). If you can only keep them shaken, they can still shoot with Machine Spirit.

I’m not trying to shoot everything down here,~well you fooled me.  Well played sir but I think it does have some glaring weaknesses. If you have to try to make excuses for why something is worth what its worth, maybe it should be reconsidered. The tervigons are the weak link in the chain, imo. Kill them and you’ve neutralized half of the threat. No FNP, no spawning guants – you’ve caused 3D6 (I think) hits on the nearby gaunts and if the gaunts or hive guard fail their LD, they go into Lurk mode. If you want to keep the tervigons safe, you reserve them. Then you run the risk of not getting them, the genestealers far outrunning the tervigons (why you took Catalyst in the first place) or wasting turns not spawning. ~well the plan was paper-thin at best

As the OP pointed out – I think this list is great against Mech IG.  I don’t think it will do so hot against MEQ, especially BA or Wolves. Loganwing could give this list a very hard time.

DarthDiggler- This is was originally designed to be played in the ETC where matchup control would most likely prevent it from having to face Land Raiders. ~and then you went and asked how this would fare against other armies, jackass It seemed to be a very effective counter to Leafblower IG and I was wondering if this couldn’t expand to razorspam lists and MSU wolves.  I know there are hard counters to it, but I’m just constraining the possible oppoents to Leafblower, razorspam and MSU wolves. ~and now you’re getting pissy that he’s trying to answer your question.  What do you want from him, blood?

The Tervigons can come on the back board edge and the stealers can outflank a side. The stealer squad is so big that you can trickle a line of stealers down to the 18″ line of your deployment zone to receive the catalyst from the tervigon and still have the bulk of your stealer unit in/near your opponents deployment zone. ~IF the dice gods allow you to deploy there

I really like the deployment tricks this tyoe of list plays on the Mech heavy lists. It forces them to deploy centrally, ~again with this nonsense. which they all can’t fit into because of size, and so they spill out forward. This allows the Hive Guard to get the first shot off as they walk onto the board centrally. I’m sure the stealers are mostly toast by turn 6, but the damage those 3 squads can do might seal KP games for the bugs and the 2 Tervigons can make the scoring units later in the game to claim objectives nearby. Very interesting.

Puma713- Yes and no. If I were playing the IG army, I would stretch out my tanks as far as I could on my flank across the board. That way, it would force you to come in halfway up the board and you’d probably only get to one or two tanks. ~yay, you know how to do it I could give up two chimeras, especially on the off chance that you don’t get the board side you want.

Yes, a lot of players will deploy centrally,~like lambs to the slaughter but I don’t think it’s the only way to play~or even a good way and deployment is one of the ways to control the game. Deploy across the board edge (in all scenarios but Pitched, even then, 12″ up) and then deploy your bulk near the back of your board edge and you’ve screened much of your army. Enough of it that if you can lay 60+ shots into the genestealers, you may eliminate them – and that’s only if they get all 3 units in and all 3 on the board edge they want.

Flavius Infernus- Aha, but remember that the nid player is only going to consider outflanking if he’s going second. ~woo hoo, more ifs. So he gets to see where your tanks set up, and if you set up as described here, he can just deploy normally and/or infiltrate instead of outflanking.

Don_mondo– ~so true story, I came home drunk from a BBQ and tuned in to the NOVA live chat.  He got interviewed and everyone was like ‘who the hell is this?’  To which I replied, ‘I think it’s bad santa.’  He then read that in the chat window and laughed.  Were it not for the other way worse things said about other people’s appearances that day I’d almost feel bad about it. I faced a similar list in the 4th round of the Nova Open. He won first turn, put his swarmlord, alpha, and tyrant guard on the board, along with a unit of Hive Guard and Mawloc, declared all three units of stealers outflanking. Deathleaper and two pods (one zoies, one gaunts) in reserve. Heh, I placed my entire army in Reserves. He spent two turns moving forward, got all three stealer units and deathleaper on turn 2. ~there bonafide experience proving what a fucking dumb idea outflanking versus IG is I walked a blob onto the flank that got two stealer units along with some chimeras and their occupants, shot down one stealer unit, shot up another enough that the blob took them out in hth later, PCS chimera pushed forward far enough to disembark and melta down the now exposed death leaper. Pretty much left his last squad and the termie pod out of position, letting me gun down his big guys now walking towards me.
And that’s the problem with this build. Even if he goes first and infiltrates the stealers, I can gun down (at least make them combat ineffective) two 20 man squads of them with blobs (gotta love FRFSRF),~hell yeah you do, go flashlights letting my tanks and other vehicles (gotta love no cover save weapons) pick off remnants or weaken the third squad. Then starting about turn 3 I focus on his other stuff. Sure, he’ll probably kill my 4 AV 12 vehicles with those hive guard, but then they become ineffective anti-infantry platforms.

Flavius Infernus- There’s a key difference between the list you faced, Don Mondo, and the ETC list. Your opponent didn’t take tervigons with catalyst to protect the genestealers from your FRFSRF and flamers. ~so IF you pulled off the FNP trick, that woudn’t have saved everyone from getting shot to death That’s the thing, IMO, that makes the ETC list work. Also your opponent wasted a ton of points on the Swarmlord, alpha, Deathleaper ~ok, for those not in the know, Deathleaper is the shit. and tyrant guard. He’s doing the standard thing of trying to make a 4th edition stealer shock army with a bunch of overpriced 5th edition toys–doomed to fail.

(Also your brief battle report demonstrates the value of going all in reserve, and also the way that hive commander works *against* nids and should never be taken.) ~would all reserve have made a big difference?  Not sure if I read the same brief report you did

With the ETC list against your list, your opponent should infiltrate in cover on your side of the table (never ever outflank if you’re going first, duh), eat your first turn’s fire with catalyst on, then overrun you with genestealers.

Puma713- I just don’t get how you’re putting so much emphasis on Catalyst. ~you and me bothIt is not a game-breaker. It is a 12″ power that limits your range severely. And if you play to keep your units in a certain bubble so they can have something cast on them, that limits your movement even further. Not only that, but it is just a 4+ reroll. It’s not like the genestealers have a 2+/4++ or anything. Read Dash’s batrep against the same list Don Mondo is talking about – FNP would not have helped genestealers that much against deffrollas, power klaws, and 120 wounds worth of Burnas.

To say that FNP (especially one that has to be cast) makes or breaks an army is inaccurate. I think it helps keep them alive, but turn a beatable army into an unbeatable one, it does not. ~unless you get the invincible version of FNP, but that costs you extra and is only found in a version of the codex that exists in my mind

Edit: To be clear, I’m not saying this list won’t work. I’m just saying I think it needs some tweaking.

Zeekill- You, sir, are a list tailorer. ~and you, sir, are quite late to the party.  Oh, and a troll.  Oh that and rehashing arguments that have already been dropped. Stop doing that and learn to beat your opponent by your skill of the game not by just knowing that unit A beats unit B, so therefore taking 3 units of A. When you list tailor people get bored of you quickly. ~more quickly than I was bored of you?

Flavius Infernus- Who are you talking to, zeekill? The guy who wrote the original list is Polish, probably doesn’t read Dakka. ~in Poland Dakka reads you

Anyway part of my point is that I think this list is much more widely workable than posters here are giving it credit for. It’ll struggle most against land raiders and armies with heavy psychic defense, but would work better IMO than any other 5th edition stealer shock list I’ve yet seen. ~and we’ll end on this vague implication that stealer shock is, in fact, viable.  Jury is out on that one.