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The Genestealer Cults Claw Their Way Into The World Of Warhammer 40,000
September 24, 2016 by brennon
As foretold, the Genestealer Cults have risen from their subterranean lairs and are now laying waste to Imperial cities. Warhammer 40,000 gets a new (old) faction and plenty of swanky kit to use with them too thanks to Games Workshop.
Leading the way, of course, we have the Codices for the army. The cover art here is rather epic and I do like the look of the Magus here commanding his troops into battle. It's good to see the 'big bad' alongside him in the background too, a link to the Hive Fleet in orbit above.
Inside the book you're going to get...
- Comprehensive information on the Genestealer Cults, the gruesome and frankly unsettling story of their rise from a single organism to unstoppable, planet-devouring insurrection;
- Rules for Genestealer Cults miniatures, the scavenged weapons they use to slaughter their victims, and army-building lists allowing for Hybrid and Brood Brother cultists drawn from the Astra Militarum;
- Formations that make use of both the Genestealer Cults and Astra Militarum ranges, with notes on the wargear that Genestealer Cults scavenge and use for their own sinister ends;
- 6 new Tactical Objectives and the complete Broodmind Discipline: new Psychic Powers used by Magi and Patriarchs;
- The Cult Ambush rule: dependent on a dice roll, Genestealer Cults units can set up anywhere on the table, deploy and charge in the same turn, and burst from their hidden lairs to surprise and engulf the enemies of the Cult;
- A showcase of beautifully-painted Citadel miniatures, presenting the colours and icons of the Cults that lurk below.
I like that they've mixed in the rules for using formations made up of both the Cults and the Astra Militarum showing that link between the two and their insidious planning behind the scenes.
There's also a Limited Edition version of the Codex you can snap up.
Of course,with this book you get the same contents as the regular book with some additional bits and pieces for collectors. I have to say I don't think that the artwork actually looks that good and neither does the box.
The art prints are nice and I like the metal Tactical Objective markers but I think I prefer the regular Codex this time around.
The Models
It wouldn't be a new army without some models to go along with it. The Neophyte Hybrids show the first stages of mutation as the Genestealers begin to take control of your mind and body.
Following on from them we also have the Acolyte Hybrids which are that next stage of evolution for the Cults.
Gone are the regular arms in favour of more claws and more obvious Genestealer mutation. They also appear to have quite an exotic weapon with the Heavy Rock Cutter. The Cults are certainly making use of everything they can on these Imperial planets.
Last but not least we have the Hybrid Metamorphs which have gone that extra step in the process and embraced much more of their Tyranid side.
With a plethora of hand flamers at their disposal and those nasty claws and talons backing them up I reckon these are the warriors you're going to focus on getting into combat with the enemy.
The Accessories
It's not just soldiers on offer right now either as the guys at Games Workshop have also put together some new themed Genestealer Cult Dice...
...and also the Data Cards for use in your games.
It's a fascinating collection for fans of the wider world surrounding Warhammer 40,000. New factions are always exciting and I think that the look of most of the Genestealer Cults army is very enticing.
What do you think of the range at the moment?
"I like that they've mixed in the rules for using formations made up of both the Cults and the Astra Militarum..."
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I am getting really sick of being in Australia tax, this is my favourite army and I was saving up so I could get the limited edition codex. But it costs almost 1/3 more if I ordered it anywhere else :/
Mate I know. You have my sincere empathic sympathy.
Well under the UK price if I bought it there it would cost £115 but if they bought it from here, it would cost them £190 if I was in the US it would cost me $195 but if they bought from here it would cost them $245.
It is just stupidly frustrating.
Not cheaper if I buy one and post it to you?
you may have to take P&P plus any import charges I think @unclejimmy
There’s no import duty on parcels to Australia under 1000AUD so would just need to add a shipping cost. Probably about £20ish for a sizeable book.
It would be but I would have to have someone order it for me as I don’t have a UK/US address, which adds more hassle. but yes it would be. But you have to send money and so on and so on. It is just frustrating, and just after having a $200 package lost just recently so yeah :/ it is just all round frustrating.
I’m from Canada and know the hurt all to well.
It’s a webstore exclusive, isn’t it?
Otherwise, you’d be able to email an online store somewhere else (online shops aren’t allowed to properly list their GW stock in their store, but you can call them up and order things just fine- a lot of them even give you discounts).
But your best bet is to PM one of these fine folks who live in the UK and Paypal them the full cost plus shipping.
The Neophyte Hybrids are my favourites! They are great for conversions 😎
But the whole range is super tempting.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed a Start Collecting box will hit the shelves eventually as well but I will have given in long before anyways..
Yeah the range looks great I will properly be buying a lot of it 😀
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Slowly.
Those are really nice for being xenos worshiping heretics.
Those could get me back into 40K … damn!
The models are brilliant, and the dice are beautiful, but I don’t see a limousine in any of the photos…
My issue with this in a nutshell there.
try Wargames Exclusive for the Limo – I just ordered this…
http://wargameexclusive.com/shop/heresy-hunters/genetic-cult-coven-limo-on-antigravs-28mm/
my only worry is it might be too small (?) – I can post some pics when it arrives 🙂
Everyone LOOK AT THAT LIMO!
Oh! My!
That limo is awesome. I’ll have 5 please.
My only criticism is that once again the dice have the symbols on the 1. Why GW Why?
Great looking army.
I could live with that if they just gave us a few in a different colour. The dice were popular though, sold out on GW in 25 minutes.
Least new style LE dice are better balanced than old style ones.
Completely agreed but as far as I know about designs that means six’s should come up more often.
Because the faction symbols are mostly circular and look like 1’s. Infinity faction dice are the same
Starting to think I might get my Enslavers codex oneday at this rate! I think the GC looks amazing personally, great work all over.
The vehicles look cool too, they are leaked here : https://war-of-sigmar.herokuapp.com/bloggings/1180
Thanks for the additional information 😀
They actually look like a functional vehicle for a change! I’d get them even for other games.
Oh my, those trucks look cool as hell. Will pick up a lot of those. They’ll even go nicely in a Necromunda setting.
This may be the army that gets me back into 40K.
Astra Militarum combined with Genestealer cult. Now that just tipped it for me.
I felt that the formations and army list released with Deathwatch Overkill were a missed opportunity to have GSC ally with Astra Militarum. Unfortunately for my wallet they have corrected that oversight.
Also I have read that there will be a GSC upgrade sprue. Fantastic.
Time for a little 1000pt army I think. Well actually lets go 1250…no wait 1500…..
Man are these some delicious looking releases. I am really digging the kits and love those genestealer dice!
…seditious talk!
The Neophytes would make an awesome Necromunda warband.
I’d love it if GW produced gangs along these lines (10 minis with weapon options) when they re-do Necromunda, some how I don’t think we’ll be that lucky.
mini-Inquisitor game had genestealer gangs 🙂
https://iten-game.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/In-The-Emperors-Name-1st-Edition.pdf
Beautiful models but the prices felt kinda steep… with a 25% discount they’re probably better priced.
I have no love for GW, but these models are the best the have product in a long time, I have to admit I really like them.
Good job GW
*Droooooool*
Loving the look of these only small gripe why does the mining equipment seem to be made for someone with 3 arms? Surely it should of been made for a normal human.
I have heard tell that the lore reason given is that the equipment is too heavy and cumbersome for an unaugmented human to use easily, and so was designed with a third handle so that it could be used by a human wearing a servo arm rig to add extra stability and strength. The Gene Cult members have the extra arm and enhanced strength, and so don’t need any technological assistance to use this type of heavy gear.
All we need now is some Cops to fight the xenos scum
Not a fan of the Metamorphs but the rest are a thing of beauty to my eyes.
Ooh my – I still remember genestealer cults seeming awesome when I saw them in one of the first White Dwarfs I bought back in the day (issue 145? 146? Somewhere about there…) – these guys will quite probably break my couple of year long no-GW-buying streak.
they look great, & the dice look good as well.
I could certainly see some of these being used in Necromunda gangs
I’ve got to give some kudos to the artist responsible for the codex cover illustration. That is one seriously epic piece of artwork.
Looking forward to a 40k charted on these bad boys
Coolest army in the 40k universe, and some very nice minis i must say
It is great to see the return of a classic faction like the Genestealer Cults, and I really like this grimy, more industrial treatment of the faction. All the models I have seen work for me, and I particularly like the extra gribbly-ness (totally a word) of the Metamorphs and their more extreme mutations.
The new vehicles also look the part of re-purposed industrial equipment, and the ability to include Imperial Guard – sorry, Astra Militarum – units in the army not only harks back to the classic Genestealer Cult background but also opens up all kinds of interesting tactical options.
In case it is of interest, GW’s Facebook page has a video up that offers some further explanation and insight into how the Cult army is going to function on the tabletop and how it fits into the current game lore. Here’s a link:-
https://www.facebook.com/1575682476085719/videos/255988944796091/
There are all kinds of interesting tit bits in that video, but I was particularly pleased to see that a clear distinction is drawn between the Hive Fleet Genestealers (the shock troops we are all familiar with from the Tyranid Codex) and the more independent, intelligent and generally deadly Purestrain Genestealers who rove across the galaxy seeding Genestealer Cults to new worlds. Hive Fleet Genestealers can also develop into full Purestrains if separated form their parent Hive Fleet.
One of the tabletop consequences of this lore is that apparently the Genestealers of the same brood that the Patriarch originally came from are extra nasty, with each carrying the potential to become a new Patriarch even more readily than other Purestrains, and can form a formation on the battlefield with their Patriarch called the First Curse. Rules details aren’t given, but from the description it sounds like the formation will be seriously vicious. It looks like we will be getting up-gunned Genestealers after a fashion, since the formation is described as being one of the most powerful in the game, able to plough through squads of Astartes in a single round of combat without breaking a sweat, and generally being very, very bad news for anyone or anything on the receiving end.
Thanks for the reminder about the video – I’d been intending to go back and watch it and it had slipped my mind 🙂
At last! I don’t play 40K any more, but I’ll be getting this codex, as well as a bunch of the new models. Simply amazing…
Price fail. What a shame.
I thought they might do a rat-ogre sized super hybrid (?)
…was that in an old Necromunda unofficial ruleset (Citadel Journal?) or did I see it in the Warhammer Comic (?)
I remember an ogre-hybrid throwing open the doors of the imperial temple as the congregation scattered – the new gods come 🙂
Deathwatch Overkill had some larger hybrids called Aberrants and I’d be very surprised if they don’t make it into the 40k range
The Aberrants are in – leaks show them listed in the Codex contents. From what I have seen, the smaller Hybrid Metamorphs will also be more than capable of bringing the pain up close as well.
I love those Neophyte hybrids, they really capture all the character that the original 3rd generation hybrids had.
Faeit 212 has some more leaks up, including a video originally from Bell of Lost Souls that shows quiet a few excerpts from the Codex. Here’s a link:-
http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/new-video-walkthrough-of-genestealer.html
A few things that I particularly noticed from the video. The Patriarch and Magus now get access to Telepathy as before along with the new Broodmind Powers (that we still know nothing about but sound awesome) and also the Biomancy discipline. Imagine a Patriarch buffed with powers like Iron Arm? Or increased durability offered to entire broods of your deadly but quite fragile Purestrains?
The detachment rules for the Cult seem to have some very nice buffs that synergize with the Cult Ambush special rule, Of particular interest is the fact that pretty much every infantry unit in the detachment gets Infiltrate, and those that already have Infiltrate get Shrouded on the first turn of the game. Bearing in mind that Purestrain Genestealters (if they have the same rules as the Purestrain Princelings from Overkill at any rate) and the Patriarch already have Infiltrate, Stealth and Hit and Run as standard, this has the potential to restore the Genestealer to its former status as a feared tabletop critter. Infiltrate into cover, and your opponent will be hard pressed indeed to kill your six limbed walking blenders before they shred some of their favourite units into tiny pieces.
This gets even better when you look at the other detachment buff, where units that go into Ongoing Reserve (probably courtesy of the Cult Ambush rule) get D6 models lost earlier in the battle returned to the unit as it reenters play. Genestealers can do this as well, so if your brood gets trapped out of position, pinned under enemy guns, or takes too many attritional casualties, it can sneak off into the shadows, gather a few more of its kin, and then pop up somewhere else entirely, with good rolls right on top of an enemy unit and able to immediately assault.
The video offers a glimpse of the First Curse formation too. It is a Patriarch and a brood of Purestrain Genestealers with a minimum brood size of 20, so really costly in points but still benefiting from all the rules that make Genestealers very nasty in this force, and you get to roll on a table to give the unit a buff that lasts for the whole battle. These are all pretty handy, including results such as a 4+ save, Preferred Enemy, poisoned close combat attacks, the Rage USR… and on a 1 the ability to ignore initiative penalties for assaulting opponents in cover. On a 6 you get to pick whichever result you want. While everyone will be hoping for a 1 or a 6, there aren’t any bad results really since all are useful, and it is all gravy anyway given how much more effective Genestealers look set to be in this army list.
The standard variant Goliath also peaked my interest. It has the same rugged construction rule as ts Rock Grinder cousin making it hard to immobilize with crew stunned or shaken results, though slightly less frontal armour. It is also open topped with a transport capacity of 10 models, so you can use it as an assault transport. It can’t transport Purestrain Genestealers or the Patriarch (though that is less of an issue given the other rules previewed), but that still lets you carry squads of 10 Hybrid Acolytes, probably 10 Hybrid Metamorphs (who seem to get some kind of special close combat weapon rule for each of their claw, talon and whip mutations), or 5 Aberrants who can pile directly into close combat and most likely really, really ruin someone’s day.
Finally, Web Pistols and Web Guns look interesting, with the Web Gun having a blast, 16″ range, some unspecified special rule pertaining to AP, and the Cocooned rule. If, as seems likely, that allows the weapon to pin targets, then that is not only very thematic – more new recruits for the cause! – but also offers another means of dealing with enemies who like to skulk in cover. Hit then with web weapon fire until they are well and truly pinned, and then let your heavy hitters like the Purestrain do what they do best without any annoying cover bonuses spoiling the fun.
More claims being made about the Genestealer Cult codex over on faeit 212. No pictures to back this one up, but the leak claims to include Warlord Traits (that gives another chance to ignore the effects of cover when charging among other things), the Broodmind Pyschic Discipline (which includes some very nice powers including a pretty epic summoning power), and some weapon and formation info.
Most interestingly of all, allegedly the Purestrain Genestealers have had more of a makeover that anyone realized – supposedly they have an extra attack for three a piece basic, can still take scything talons to push that up to four attacks and five on the charge (six if they get Rage – one of the Broodmind Psychic powers can give you that as well), and now get a 5+ invulnerable save, explained in the lore as the product of their incredibly fast reflexes (so far as I can tell the Patriarch is too big and powerfully built to get the dodge, but has rocking stats and those Patriarch Claws that are basically more effective lightning claws, so it doesn’t sting too much). Most incredibly of all, they come in at 13 points a model – one point less than the Genestealers in the Tyranid Codex (apparently everyone’s favourite gribbly denim thieves get a nice little points discount – a perk of appearing in their own Codex or so it seems). If true, this would represent one heck of a step up in tabletop Genestealer lethality, especially considering how it all works with the detachment and Cult Ambush special rules. Improved surviveability against all forms of attack, far superior deployment options, and extra attacks that make their rending claws far more effective would all combine to once again make Genestealers the kind of very scary prospect they were back in Second Edition.
I remember some old Tyranid power called ‘Cataphract’ or ‘Cartilage’ (?) – that gave Genestelers and Hybrids a 2+ save :-O
I really hope they have done a sprue of Hybrid heads to convert the IG – I would put the new heads on some of my many-many unused chaos cultist figures 🙂
Awesome looking models!