Heresy & Heroes

Hello again friends and happy new year to you all. Today I bring you a brand new lazy painters army list after Games Workshop were kind enough to send me the brand new Genestealer Cults codex.

And what a codex it is. Let’s start with the cover – that might just be the best looking Codex cover art I’ve seen in years. It has such a striking look to it that really captures the grimdarkness of the game, and the strange cultish behaviour of the faction. I love it – great work by the artist for bringing this faction to life even before opening the book. 

What’s more, I’m reminded that, by and large, the Genestealer Cults range is the finest range of miniatures in any system over all, in my opinion. So many characterful pieces and when the old genestealer models are perhaps bottom of that tree in terms of looks, almost entirely due to their age, and they still look pretty decent, that’s a pretty fine range. From the sneaky Sanctus to the Jackal Alphus, there are a lot of wins here.

I have to remind myself of all of this because, well, this list threw up a couple of issues, chief amongst them being, that I have failed in my usual quest. Every time I put together one of these lists, the objective is to take the codex, and make an army that can be fun to use but doesn’t contain too many models and tries to avoid repetition too much in the units you take. And I couldn’t do that with this book. At all. Let me explain.

When I did this with the Ork book, I was worried that I’d have problems with a horde army, but in the ork book you have big HQs like Ghazghkull, elite units like Mega Nobz, and huge things like Bonebreakers, Morkanauts, Gorkanauts and even Stompas to eat up those points. The most expensive thing in this book that I got into my list? A unit of 2 ridgerunners – light vehicles that come to only just over 150 points for the pair. That’s it. Without leaning too hard on repetition, there was no way to make a low model count army that was still fun to play with. So while I don’t think you’ll find too many GSC lists with fewer models than this, I’ve instead opted to focus more on having a fun, thematic list this time. Because the model count is… well, it ain’t low (not by my own standards anyway). But I reckon this could be a fun force to build and play with, so let’s take a look at its make up. 

HQs

I’m taking two detachments in this army, one that is brutal and footslogging, and the other that is fast and full of firepower. Leading the footsloggers, I will be taking a Patriarch and a Magus, along with their little familiar buddies. This gives me one brutal melee specialist (who’s also psychic), and a psyker to buff and support the rest of the units, while also blighting my enemies. Leading the faster detachment, I have two Jackal Alphus models – while this breaks the repetition rule a little, this is one of the best looking minis in the range and it does fit with what we’re doing here to have two of them. Also, the chance to do a little converting/kitbashing with the second one is very enticing.

Elites

Skipping troop choices entirely (because they involve a lot of minis for very few points in this army), we’re packing out the Elite slots to make our Footsloggers as deadly as possible. Two units of 10 purestrain genestealers gives us a lot of AP-3 claws and talons for not much money, and with movement 8, they’ve got a good chance of getting into the thick of it in early turns. Then we’re going to pack a unit of 5 Aberrants into a Goliath Truck to bring some more muscle to the party, and they’ll have back up from a Biophagus and there’ll be an Abominant skulking around too because he is hard as nails with his 5+ FNP and his Strength x2 Power Sledgehammer. Lastly in the Elites spot, we’re taking a Sanctus who’ll probably be armed with a sniper rifle to really capitalise on his Soulsight rules.

Fast Attack

Accompanying those Jackal Alphus dudes into battle will be plenty of speedy stuff. We have a unit of six Atalan Jackals that includes one quad and a lot of demolition charges that tear around the enemy’s flanks. Then we have three units of the aforementioned 2x Ridgerunners to provide a very mobile fire support team. While 6 Ridgerunners feels like too many to me, they will at least be a lot of fun on the battlefield, and they have a range of fun weapon options too.

Heavy Support

We’re rounding out our speedy detachment with two Goliath Rockgrinders because they do look pretty cool, they’re pretty hardcore, and they eat up plenty of points too.

The List:

Vanguard Detachment – 

HQ  – Patriarch with Familiar

HQ – Magus with Familiar

Elites – 10x Purestrain Genestealers

Elites – 10x Purestrain Genestealers

Elites – 5x Aberrants

Elites – Abominant

Elites – Biophagus with Familliar

Elites – Sanctus

Dedicated Transport – Goliath Truck

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Outrider Detachment – 

HQ – Jackal Alphus 

HQ – Jackal Alphus

Fast Attack – 6x Atalan Jackals 

Fast Attack – 2x Achilles Ridgerunners

Fast Attack – 2x Achilles Ridgerunners

Fast Attack – 2x Achilles Ridgerunners

Heavy Support – Goliath Rockgrinder

Heavy Support – Goliath Rockgrinder

Points: 1977 (but you can spend 20 points on the “Excavate” Proficient Planning upgrade for one unit)

Model Count: 50. Yep, 50. Best I could do to keep this interesting and fun. 

Army Name: Too Many Extra Arms

Additional Stuff:

In terms of how this plays, you certainly have speed on your side. You have a lot of fast moving heavy guns, a few sniper rifles and plenty of demolition charges to offer fire support, and you have a big core of claws that will tear even power armour to shreds in close combat. To boost said core of claws, I would take the Twisted Helix as your Cult alignment because everything will get +1 to move, +1 strength, and your Abominant and Aberrants become even more of a threat.

Now, I know what some of you will be thinking of my failure – why didn’t I take advantage of the Brood Brothers rules and pack in some Leman Russ tanks? Well, I could have done that in theory because those rules do of course still exist:

But the rules and points for the available units aren’t in this book, I don’t have an Astra Militarum book to hand, and in my mind, I’m highlighting the fun things to do with this book, and this book alone. I could have added allies to any armies I’ve done for this if I’d really wanted to, but that’s not the point. Nor would it have been the point to give Proficient Planning abilities to every possible unit – where’s the fun in that (well, there are a lot of fun rules in there actually)? I stuck to this book, and the models included therein, because that’s what we as players, typically, want to enjoy.

And that brings me on to the real pain of this book – I will never be able to take a Genestealer Cults 2000 army. Not because I couldn’t write a list with a low enough model count to accommodate my inability to paint hordes, because as mentioned, I think this is one of the best looking ranges in the game and painting six Ridgerunners actually sounds quite fun. When the 40k survey came out recently, my major bit of feedback was that the game has a problem with having too many rules, especially when compared to AoS which feels quick and streamlined by comparison. Well, the GSC are among the worst offenders and while all the rules are thematic and in keeping with the army’s values, there are simply too many of them. What other army comes with a token sheet (albeit a very useful token sheet) attached to the codex?

And take the Biophagus – a unit that has pretty much an entire A4 page of rules, and costs just 50 points. That just feels a bit too much to me. So is the basic troop choice in the book having access to 16 different wargear options. That’s right, if you’re running Neophite Hybrids (another unit with a full A4 of rules) you can take everything from a an Autopistol to a Webber and almost anything else in between. Options and versatility are great, but I almost gave myself a headache trying to work this list out. Add onto this the Brood Brothers rules, warlord traits, relics, 4 pages of stratagems, psychic powers, a page of cult-specific rules, Proficient Planning abilities, Army-wide rules like Crossfire and… it’s too much (and I’m sure I’m forgetting some things there). It’s far far too much to make running this army fun for someone like me. Happily though, not everyone is like me, and I will say that the rules are certainly thematic.

But I love the miniatures – they’re fantastic. If I use them though, they’ll be in games of Kill Team or Necromunda. This codex has some wonderful art, fascinating lore, lavish model photography, but if you’re a lazy painter like me, it’s probably not the army for you. But if you do love rules, and lots of them, maybe this army will be ideal for you. I didn’t want to rant about all this but as someone who likes casual-competitive games, this is a bit of a barrier to me enjoying this army. I’ll still be enjoying the miniatures though – this faction is full of winners where miniatures are concerned.

Until next time, have a wonderful time painting and playing. Onwards!