Warhammer 40k - Start Collecting! Genestealer Cults

Product Information

The Twisted Helix are designed to smash things, ideally with Aberrants and souped up Patriarchs. Unfortunately, Aberrants got dumped head-first into the bin in this year’s CA nerfs, and that leaves this Cult without enough of a draw to bring you to it over and above other options. Thanks to the Lying in Wait stratagem, which lets a unit appear within 3″ rather than 9″ in exchange for not being able to charge, it turns out they are, and a full squad of these with flamers can lay down a withering hail of chaff clearing shots, in a fashion that’s a complete nightmare for some armies to deal with (including being an excellent tool to have in the arsenal against other GSC armies). This strategy is referred to as the “flamer bomb”, and appears quite often in lists.

Acolyte Hybrids are phenomenal, and almost every list will have some. They’re best as either 4AE (to increase their chance of landing a charge) or Twisted Helix (so they’re S5 without needing to faff with buffs) but are seen in other forms too. If you want to play GSC competitively, get lots. Neophyte Hybrids Effective Planning: Some units can be improved through unique abilities like Effective Planning. It’s hard to create a Genestealer Cult list without including four or five of them.

Wrap-up

Stratagem – Monstrous Bio-Horrors 3CP: A unit of TWISTED HELIX ABERRANTS can fight again at the end of the phase. In addition, enemy units within 6″ of that unit get -1LD this turn. If they are an INFANTRY or BIKER unit, set up underground, an improved version of deep strike. You declare this in the Reserves and Transports step of deployment like you would for any other army. Power – Undying Vigour – WC6: Give a BLADED COG unit within 12″ a 5+++ until your next psychic phase. Underground Deployment: Some units can be deployed underground, remaining hidden until turns 2 and 3. At that point, they can emerge and potentially make charges from 8″ away.

For units set up underground, meanwhile, this works like a normal deep strike ability, but better. When such aEvery time someone tries to hurt him the wounds bounce onto the acolytes, who can then fire their hand flamers at point blank range when they die half the time. Any unit can choose to deploy in Ambush. Rather than deploying a unit on the board, you instead place an ambush marker down in your deployment zone. This doesn’t count as deploying in tactical reserves, so any number of your units can do so (and generally, all of them should).

Finally, he ignores cover – a nice to have against things like Librarians which might otherwise shrug off his shots once concealed. Alas, the no Epic Heroes condition means you can’t hypnotise or infect characters like Lord Solar Leontus , but you can still add extra tactical options to your army, such as Leman Russ tanks , Field Ordnance Batteries , or Deathstrikes . Unit Spotlight Cult Russ: Admittedly these did get the same cost cut that mainline Guard Russes did, so with a demo cannon they’re an OK cheap threat – but not benefitting from any auras and not getting access to all the new toys Guard get still stops them doing what you want them to do. Warlord Trait – Entropic Touch: Unmodified wound rolls of 6 made by RUSTED COG units within 6″ in the fight phase get an additional AP-1.

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Warlord Trait – Augur of the Insurgent: Re-roll charges in a 6″ aura for Broodsurge units. Top tier. A The Pauper Princes are probably the weakest cult, now that Hivecult is on the up, but when compiling the original version of this I found a list that used them on 40kstats, so in they went. We’re getting ahead of ourselves there – for newcomers, what does this ability do? Well, Genestealer Cultists are incredibly sneaky insurgents, and also pretty squishy, so just setting up on the battlefield like anyone else would be a foolish move. Instead, every Genestealer Cult unit has the Conceal ability, which gives them two choices when setting up: All the Stratagems, Relics and Chapter Approved rules you’d expect from a 9th Edition book, plus rules for bringing a small contingent of Astra Militarum along for the ride. That strat is used by almost every GSC army in the majority of their games, but there are some ways to mess with this.

The crooning domination of the Genestealer Patriarch is so powerful it can control thousands of offspring and direct the forces of many more unwitting cultists, drawn in by promises of freedom from the Imperium and a new life uplifted by the incoming Star Children. The other thing that’s pretty handy here is the warlord trait. Via the Broodcoven stratagem cult can hand out extra warlord traits to a Magus and a Primus, and this is a great one to put on a random Magus for some extra CP if you have nothing better to use it on. All units have the BROOD BROTHERS tag instead of a regiment keyword (or MILITARUM TEMPESTUS). This gives them +1Ld and the Unquestioning Loyalty ability as their regimental trait.

Thankfully, when beginning your own Genestealer Cults army you can’t go wrong with the Combat Patrol: Genestealer Cults box, which replaced the earlier Start Collecting! Genestealer Cults set. HQ: Acolyte Iconward – Field Commander – Augur of the Insurgent, Relic – Icon of the Cult Ascendent Attach this fearsome creature to a unit of Purestrain Genestealers to grant them the Devastating Wounds ability, making it even easier to slice your way through your enemies with those lethal claws. Weapon Spotlight