Okay, for the upcoming 1100pt tournament, I've come up with a modified version of my Genestealer army.

197 HQ Hive Tyrant: Winged, WS5 BS4 S6 T6 W4 I5 A3+2 LD10 SV2+ Implant Attack, Warp Blast

160 EL 2xLictor

192 TR 12xGenestealer

192 TR 12xGenestealer

112 TR 7xGenestealer

112 TR 7xGenestealer

134 HS Venomfex: BS3 S9 A2+1 SV2+ Venom Cannon

1099pts

In the spirit of my article, Be Prepared , I've evaluated my army to get a better idea of what I can expect it to do or not do at the tournament on Sunday.

What's my Motivation?
Why am I fighting this battle? Most tournaments use missions and all missions have some way of determining victory. Sometimes it may be Victory Points, sometimes holding terrain and other times seizing an objective. In Victory Points missions, I will likely be behind the enemy on points until I can close for close combat, since I don't have much shooting. On the other hand, once I get there, my Tyrant and Genestealers tend to do a lot of damage without taking as much in return. Secondarily, I have several units (Lictors, Venomfex) that can get lucky and do damage out of proportion to their cost, but I cannot rely on that possibility, but I'll try to set it up if the situation presents itself (Lictors assaulting an expensive character or light vehicle, Venomfex destroying or Immobilizing an expensive vehicle.) In terms of holding terrain, I'm at a bit of a disadvantage unless I can contain the opponent's army, since my army is almost entirely going to be in the enemy deployment zone by the end of the game. That said, the Venomfex has enough range to occupy one area and shoot pretty much across the board, and I may be able to free up my Tyrant to take another area as well, depending on how the melee goes. Finally, seizing an objective, either by being the closest model to it or by picking it up and taking it off the board. Again, this is a bit of a disadvantage for me, since I only have one model that has better than 6" movement and my Hive Tyrant is about 20% of my fighting power. On the other hand, it is hard to kill and my Genestealers should provide a good combat screen, so I do have a shot at this.

It takes all kinds
The opposing forces may have all kinds of different units available, so I need something to counter each type of threat. At the last tournament, there were Space Wolves and Blood Angels, Iron Warriors and Necrons and Tau and Orks and Imperial Guard as well as a couple of vanilla Space Marine Chapters and even some Dark Eldar. That's a pretty wide selection. I'll need something to counter vehicles and light troops and heavy troops and possibly even Monstrous Creatures like Greater Daemons. Vehicles should be handled fairly easily by my Venomfex and my Hive Tyrant with it's Warp Blast. As I close on the enemy, too, the Rending Claws of my Genestealers and Lictors should also tear up armor that can't move away fast enough. Against Light infantry, my Lictors and Genestealers have lots of attacks that should scythe through their ranks swiftly. Against Heavy Infantry (Space Marines and their ilk) I have plenty of Rending Claws in the Genestealers and my Tyrant should rip them up as well. Against Monstrous Creatures, again, I can rely on my Genestealers, though I would prefer not to send my Hive Tyrant in against them, saving it for other things. In addition, some MCs have only a 5+ invulnerable save, so shooting them with my Venomfex should be very helpful.

Plan your Work and Work your Plan
Even if only the same people show up as last time, that's a pretty wide variety of armies to fight. It's useful to briefly cover what to do against different enemies, if only to make sure you haven't left out anything useful (Oh man, I forgot to include anything to take out vehicles with!) from your armylist. It can also give you the luxury of a plan ahead of time instead of trying to figure it out on the fly. There have been a couple of Necron players at several of these tournaments and, though they haven't included C'tan or Monoliths, those would be rude surprises if I didn't consider them. In general, I'd ignore the big nasties and concentrate on the Necrons themselves, going for phase out. I might attempt to specifically target Destroyers with my Venomfex, Tyrant and Lictors, since they provide an awful lot of killing power against my Genestealers. Against assaulty Space Marines like Space Wolves and Blood Angels, as well as Assaulty Chaos Marines, I expect they'll meet me halfway as far as coming over to my side of the table, which means I may be able to use my Lictors to attack the back of their formations. If they have transport vehicles, I'll try to disable some of them to split up the army (breaking them into bite-size chunks!) Against static, shooty armies such as Imperial Guard and Iron Warriors, I'll try to use the Venomfex and the Tyrant's Warp Blast to suppress their vehicle-based firepower and distract or tie up their front lines with my Lictors to block line of sight to my Genestealers. Although I haven't seen any Eldar recently, I'd plan on trying to ground any Grav tanks swiftly with my shooting, and hit Aspect Warriors with my Tyrant, leaving the Farseer/Seer Council/Guardians to my Lictors and Genestealers. My Genestealers would also try to hit any Avatars or Wraithlords. Against Orks, I'd suppress the vehicular shooting with my shooting and put my Lictors out as distraction/bait (in cover to get the good save, of course) then let my Genestealers sweep up. My Hive Tyrant would aim for the Warboss and any Nob retinue, though I'd give him some Genestealer backup if there was more than a small retinue of Nobs. I haven't seen much of the more limited lists, such as Iyanden Eldar or Deathwing or Armored company, but I might as well touch on the subjects while I'm planning. No sense in being surprised by 8-10 tanks sitting across the board! Against Iyanden, I'd want to use my Lictors to knock out any Farseers or support troops they used, while my Tyrant takes on the Wraithguard and the Genestealers swarm the Wraithlords. Against Deathwing, I'd try to use my Lictors as a distraction (or to pick off Characters) while my Genestealers and Tyrant do the clean up work against the rank and file. Any Land Raiders would be targeted by my Venomfex, of course, with a priority going to those pesky Crusaders with their extra dakka. Finally, against Armored company, I'd use my Lictors and shooting to hit the outside vehicles first, trying to box in the army for my Genestealers and Tyrant to finish off.

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