Welcome back scum and villainy to this Necromunday Re-Review. Today, one of the easiest gangs to get into if you already play 40k, Genestealer Cults! Join the mind-controlled rabble who are convinced that giving their flesh to serve the alien hive-mind is the best course of action. Since the release of the House books, the Genestealer Cults are a bit dated. We are looking at them again considering the current state of the game and giving you our honest opinions.
Genestealer Cult units. Credit: Michael O "mugginns"
The Good Stuff
Good Psychic Leader
The Cult Adept of the Genestealer Cult is a potent Psyker with a 5+ Willpower characteristic. They also have a 4+ Weapon and Ballistic Skill (WS/BS) and thus can actually hit with some of the attack based powers they can manifest. On top of this, most of their basic cult powers are pretty good, even letting you force the enemy to shoot their own with a little mental trickery.
Let Me Lend You a Hand!
Aside from the Cult Adept and the Aberrant, every member of the gang has or can be upgraded to have a third arm. This upgrade is fluffed by saying you’re recruiting an early generation hybrid, and costs 45 Credits. What this gives you is an arm that acts as a suspensor if a fighter is carrying a gun with the Unwieldy trait, or an extra unarmed attack in melee with the Rending trait. It also allows the fighter to carry four weapons instead of three, and attack with three Sidearm/Melee weapons in combat.
The extra arm is good on champions as it allows them to wield big guns without needing a suspensor, as well as turning a regular ganger into an overall good melee combatant, or the Cult Alpha into a nightmare in melee. It also can be useful in Ash Waste campaigns, as the extra arm effectively cancels out the Mounted special rule that reduces the number of weapons you can have by 1. It still doesn't let Mounted units have an unwieldy weapon, but you can still bring 3 Sidearm/Melee weapons and use them all in combat!
Free Armor
Aside from Adepts and Aberrants, every fighter in the gang starts with a Hazard Suit. While this isn’t the best armor in the game, getting a 6+ save with immunity to Blaze for free is good for saving a little bit of cash, which you’ll need with all the third arms you’re buying!
As an aside, since you can’t go to the trading post except as a post battle action, the Cult gets terrible saves for the first game, but can sell all their armor for a nice 5 Credits a piece before buying something more substantial. Or, if you’d prefer to spend a little more but keep the immunity to Blaze (such as if you are in a campaign with a heavy Cawdor/Helot Cult presence), just buy an Armored Undersuit and you have the same save as Mesh Armor but with extra fire protection!
Big Brother
The Aberrant is your best friend, the Aberrant cares for you. Just point out who is bullying you and the Aberrant will cave their skulls in. Aberrants are available to a Genestealer Cult as a ganger choice. Unlike Genestealer Corrupted gangs, who can only have one, regular cults can take multiple so long as the amount of Hybrid gangers doesn’t outweigh the Aberrants plus Leader and Champions of the gang. So depending on your spending habits you could have 2-3 of these guys. Give them good armor and a high AP melee weapon and watch them sweep the board like a broom!
Genestealer Cult gang for Necromunda. Credit: Mugginns
The Bad Stuff
Slow
Most of the members of a Genestealer Cult are slow. Like, Goliath 4” movement slow. Why? Who knows. Honestly it’s a great question without a really great answer. Maybe they are so brainwashed they can't help but stumble around when moving? Whatever the case, they don't get anything as a bonus for this, aside from the Cult Alpha and Aberrant being the only ones immune to this. Maybe it’s because the Alpha and Aberrant are juiced up on steroids though…
Weak Champions
The Hybrid Acolytes suck. I mean they suck bad. They’re Strength and Toughness 3, with 3+ WS/BS (actually not bad considering most Champions are a 3+ only on one or the other), and have good mental stats. The problem here is that the champions have 1 Wound, and 1 Attack. Why does a Champion only have 1 Wound??? What is wrong? What’s his damage, bro?
So you’re paying nearly double the cost of a Neophyte Hybrid on one guy who is just as squishy and gets better gun access. This makes it so that the best use case of the Acolyte is to sit in the back with a sniper rifle or really long range heavy weapon and snipe to his heart's content. The Cults, however, don’t get initial access to Long Rifles, only the Long Las. Additionally, the longest range heavy weapon is a Heavy Stubber, which has a -1 to Hit at its Long Range anyway!
Expensive Leadership
As mentioned above, the Champion is expensive. 85 Credits for a fighter with 1 Wound, or 130 if you want to give them a third arm. On top of this, the Leader is expensive too; the Psychic Adept going for 120 or the Melee-focused Alpha for 145 (though he automatically comes with the third arm). Overall, you can end up spending half or more of your initial gang list just buying the characters alone!
Expensive Unique Upgrades
The Extra Arm upgrade is 45 Credits. It's not a bad price, unless you’re outfitting your Champion(s) for heavy weapons or melee combat, and deciding some of your gangers would be good with an extra autopistol so need an arm to hold it, so on and so forth. At that point, 45 Credits a piece really adds up. Before you know it, you’re fielding a gang that’s just as expensive per model (or more) as Goliath, moving at the same speed but with none of the survivability benefits!
Gang Overview
Cult Adept (Leader)
The Cult Adept is a powerful Psychic Leader, with a 5+ Willpower to manifest his powers with incredible reliability. The powers he has access to are good, with a focus on mind controlling the enemy, projecting an aura of calm about him for his allies, or forcefully pushing the enemy out of his way. While the leader has a 4+ to both WS and BS, he still is more reliable than a Helot Witch.
The Adept ideally wants to be in the throngs of their Cult for protection, but not far back enough to be useless. Give the Adept the Mind Control power and have them force the enemies biggest gun to target their own side. Or give them Assail to have a ranged attack against an enemy, potentially throwing them off the edge of a cliff to their death. Unbreakable Will allows friendlies to use the Adepts 5+ Cool and Willpower, while the Zealot power makes gangers fighting within 9” reroll 1’s to Hit. Surround him with Aberrants and pop this off to crush their enemies underfoot!
In a campaign, the Adept will love to pull powers from the Biomancy Discipline. Cause Pain can be extremely useful if you just had an Aberrant hurt an enemy leader or champion but not kill them, giving more chances to take them Out Of Action (OOA). Stop Bleeding will let you remove all Flesh Wounds from the mountain of muscle Aberrants, making it even more frustrating to remove them from the fight. And the Quickening bumps up your Movement, WS/BS and Initiative so that the Adept can zoom around blasting enemies with pistols. In one campaign here locally, a player used the Quickening along with autopistols loaded with rad-rounds to melt Flesh Wounds off of enemies like ice in the desert.
Genestealer Cult Magus. Credit: Jeff Scarisbrick
Cult Alpha (Leader)
The Cult Alpha is the Melee-focused option for the Cult. If you don’t want to be doing psychic shenanigans, take this bad boy instead and cleave through your enemies in close combat. For 25 Credits more than the Adept, the Alpha gets a third arm, as well as an extra inch of Movement and point of Strength. He also comes equipped with a Hazard Suit straight out of the gate, so you don’t need to spend extra money on protection upfront.
The Alpha gets access to Combat and Shooting as Primary Skills, allowing him to be used like a technical: poorly armored, heavily outgunned by the enemy, but fully prepared to come in and wreak as much havoc as physically possible before being disabled. Give him 3 Laspistols and the Hip Shooting skill to be the fastest (and most accurate) gun in the west. Or equip him with 3 Autopistols and Fast Shot to spray and pray all around him.
Genestealer Cults Kellermorph - Credit: RichyP
Hybrid Acolyte (Champion)
Ugh. These guys again. Like I said before, you’re paying nearly twice as much as a Neophyte to get the same guy with better WS/BS. Obviously the play that they want is a good shooting ganger who can also do melee if required, but I really don’t like the cost. Giving them a third arm and a Mining Laser or Heavy Stubber is good, as stated they have a 3+ BS, it’s just so damn expensive to pay for. My opinion? You can get by without them. Just flat out don’t take them. The money and non-Neophyte gang allotment is better spent on Aberrants. If you have to take them, going cheap would be better, give them just a Longlas and no extra arm. Maybe there’s a perfect use case for them but as is you're paying tons of money for a champion that doesn’t bring much more to the table than the Neophyte does. Oh and their Primary Skills are Cunning and Ferocity, so yeah, actually, it seems like the designers think you’ll forgo the extra arm on these dorks to Infiltrate them with a Long Las or a grenade launcher.
Neophyte Hybrids. Credit: Corrode
Aberrant (Ganger)
Honey in just 7 days, I can make you a MAN. That's the Aberrant, the strongarm of the gang. Along with leaders and champions, you can’t have more of them than Neophyte Hybrids, but otherwise they are considered a standard ganger. 5 inches of Movement, Strength 5, Toughness 4, 2 Wounds; with a 3+ WS and 2 Attacks and these guys are a tankier Goliath Forge Boss. They can’t take any wargear aside from armor, but just load them up with the best armor you can afford so that their higher Toughness and Wounds will sustain them longer. They can have whatever melee weapons you want though. Because they have high Strength, they want melee weapons with good AP. If you’re strapped for cash, two Fighting Knives will give them enough until you can earn more and the AP-1 with Backstab is a good starting point. If you’re good on money (such as from not buying Acolytes) you can give them two Power Picks. AP-3 is absolutely killer here, and with the extra point of Strength it gives you will wound most gangers on 2’s.
Specialist Aberrants get access to Brawn and Ferocity, so you can beef them up even more, or just make them Fearsome and harder for the enemy to get the first hit in in melee. Seriously, these guys RULE in this gang. Additionally, the Aberrant starts with the Unstoppable skill, which helps keep them in the fight should they become seriously injured (throw a screen of Neophytes in front of them to keep this from happening, they’re too valuable!)
Aberrants. Credit: That Gobbo
Neophyte Hybrid (Ganger)
As with any gang, Neophytes are your basic fighter, the one you’ll have the most of in the gang. They have pretty average stats and are nothing to get too excited about. The most interesting part of them is that they come with Hazard Suits for free, and that they actually have fairly good mental stats. Since they’re connected to the hive mind, they get a 5+ Cool and 6+ Willpower, so they’re incredibly likely to keep their head and not go insane. Leadership and Intelligence are more average for this level of ganger, but you take far more Cool and Willpower checks than you do the other two.
The best part about these goobers, however, is their price. 45 Credits is the same cost as a no-equipment, no-wargear Cawdor Ganger, and for the same price you get better mental stats and a free 6+ armor save! Give this guy a lasgun and send him off to battle. For another 45 Credits, he can of course take an extra arm, which is by no means the worst thing that can be given to him, but considering his profile it's not the best. Still, if you have credits to burn and are playing in a particularly close quarters campaign it may be useful to give him the third arm and a pistol/melee weapon combo.
Best suggestion for armament is to give this guy a lasgun. If you aren't that great at kitbashing there's no problem with an autogun, but my opinion says to go with the lasgun. This is because the genestealer cult availability list doesn't have a reclaimed autogun in it, so you can't save money with one. Therefore, instead of spending your money on an autogun, the lasgun (which is the same price) is arguably the better take. No, it doesn't have a chance to get multiple hits, but it makes up for that in accuracy and reliability. The accuracy is the big plus here, hitting more and thus pinning more gives you more control over the board and your enemies less chance to take you out. As an added bonus, pinning your enemies let's your Aberrant(s) have more chance to charge in and wallop them without taking too much fire beforehand! Give the specialist a grenade launcher and call it a day!
Genestealer Cult gang. Credit: Michael O "mugginns"
Pets and Powers
Psychic Familiar
The psychic familiar is a little Genestealer organism that functions as a psychoactive pet. Basically, for 25 Credits, the person given it can take a Willpower check once per turn to ignore a hit against them. These are perfect for giving to your Cults leader so they can avoid hits and keep on doing what they do best (depending on which one you chose, of course).
Arbitrator Note: Consider limiting the amount of Psychic Familiars available to each fighter. RAW, Leaders and Champions can take them, and the gang can have 0-3, but no limit as to the distribution of those 3 in the gang. Consider making it a maximum of one Familiar per fighter that’s eligible to take them, so that you don’t have a Cult Alpha running and gunning down your whole gang while they can roll their 5+ Willpower to ignore 3 hits per turn.
Genestealer Cult Wyrd Powers
Hypnosis: Choose an enemy within 9” to make a Willpower check. If they fail, they can only make one Move action when they activate. Extremely basic power, but not the worst thing ever. Unfortunately, most gangs have a good WP, and a competent player will have multiple gangers present to fight, even if one gets hypnotized.
Unbreakable Will: This is a sustained power that is the same as the Helot Cult Demagogue’s Devotion ability; any gangers within 9” can use the manifesters Cool and Willpower whenever they are called upon to make a Nerve or Willpower test. Normally, this power would be extremely good (like the SR is in Helot Cults), because giving a regular fighter a much better Cool stat is keeping them in the game. However, all GSC aside from the Aberrant have a sweet 5+ Cool, but the Willpower is nice to have in case you’re playing against a gang with cursed weapons, Mindflect Shards, or worse.
Zealot: While Zealot is maintained, the fighter projects a 9” bubble that makes any friendlies performing a Fight or Charge action able to reroll 1’s to hit. With a handful of Neophytes, this is great, as it improves their close combat effectiveness. However, don’t forget about big bear, how dare you if you forgot about big bear. An Aberrant, or group of them if you chose to spend big on them, clustered around the Adept leader who’s maintaining this power is a fearsome prospect. They’re already going to be making 2-3 attacks depending on whether they have one or two melee weapons, and hitting on a respectable 3+; adding rerolls of 1 to that is overkill and will absolutely churn through an enemy gang.
Mind Control: Force an enemy to shoot their own! Any enemy within 9” can be selected, as long as the check is successful you manifest the power. The fighter that you target doesn’t even get a WP check to deny it like with Hypnosis! Once manifested, the enemy can make a single shooting attack against any fighter of your choice. Do keep in mind that it’s a Shoot (Basic) action, so no controlling the Van Saar champion with a Lascannon and vaporizing the enemy leadership (unless they have a suspensor). Though I think the best use of this power is to use it to pin enemies, as opposed to actually taking them out of action. The better to rip them apart with Aberrants.
Assail: Make a shooting attack against an enemy within 12”. If you hit, you can push them D3” in whatever direction. Maybe not the best power here, compared to Mind Control or Zealot, but at least the Adept has an ok BS with a chance to hit with it.
Force Blast: All enemies within 3” of the fighter get pushed back D3+1”. The power can be well used if you are surrounded, though the Cult Adept absolutely SHOULD NOT be getting surrounded. If they are, it had better be because you have Aberrants as a bodyguard to smash them apart!
Tactics Cards
Cult Ambush: Playing this card allows you to expand your deployment zone by 3”. Depending on what board you’re playing on, this may be a really good and/or vital tactic. On Ash Wastes or Zone Mechanicus, it isn’t too terribly useful because of how large deployment zones are; but in Zone Mortalis an extra 3” can get you close to an objective on turn 1/2!
Hidden Swarm: When you deploy reinforcements, this card will let you deploy D3 reinforcements (separate from your regular reinforcements rolls and setup) either as per standard setup rules or, if a Leader or Champion is near a Vent, within 3” of the Leader/Champ and 1” of the Vent. On Zone Mortalis this could be incredibly useful to bring more guys in to reinforce your leader without needing to run them up the board. In other environments its usefulness is definitely lessened, but up to 3 extra reinforcements is a damn fine thing in the middle of a firefight.
Gang Lists
Standard Play/Zone Mortalis
The idea behind this list is Aberrants. The list forgoes champions to have two Aberrants for maximum carnage in Zone Mortalis, especially since there is a slew of Neophytes in support to pin enemies and potentially take fire.
The Ash Wastes list is based around the Rockgrinder and using it in tandem with bike mounted gangers. The Leader and Neophytes can be outriders to harass the enemy, while the Rockgrinder moves up with a champion firing its laser. Once the Rockgrinder is close enough, the Aberrant hops off the back and starts busting heads!
Genestealer Cult gang members ride in the convoy on the Ash Wastes. Credit: Michael O "mugginns"
Sump Seas
The Sump Seas are the one place Aberrants may not shine well, as they don’t seem to swim well! This list focuses around using the Sludge Barge to transport the majority of the fighters, though you’ll note the Alpha is still doing his own thing!
Sludge Barge (Scum Racer Crew) - Heavy Stubber (Passenger Operated), Body Spikes, Easy Turnover, Ram, Redundant Drive System, Smoke Vents, Transport Bed, Weapons Stash.
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Genestealer Cult units. Credit: Michael O "mugginns"
Genestealer Cult gang for Necromunda. Credit: Mugginns
Genestealer Cult Magus. Credit: Jeff Scarisbrick
Genestealer Cults Kellermorph - Credit: RichyP
Neophyte Hybrids. Credit: Corrode
Aberrants. Credit: That Gobbo
Genestealer Cult gang. Credit: Michael O "mugginns"
Genestealer Cult - Credit: RichyP
Genestealer Cult gang members ride in the convoy on the Ash Wastes. Credit: Michael O "mugginns"
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