Genestealer Cult Codex for 6th Edition

[Ambience 327]

Back again with another offering. This time, I present the Genestealer Cult - my favorite adversaries for my beloved Adeptus Aribtes. My initial thoughts and notes as to the design I chose are contained within the document itself, which weighs in at a mere 16 pages total. As always, I am quite open to comments and constructive criticism - and as you can see by reading though my other Codex development threads, I am definitely willing to incorporate good ideas into my rules - so fire away with your thoughts!

* UPDATED 03/04/2014 *



Additional options for downloading:

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[projectmanhatten5]

awsome man really cool but i have 2 things:
1. warlord traith number 4, i think that it is a bit overpowerd. I would say i has the eternal warrior and feel no pain 5+. or he has the all 3 but feel no pain 6+ and it will not die 6+?
2. why do the initiate pack have leadership X. does this mean that they have no leadership and with automaticlly fail all leadership test or are they immune to all kind of leadership tests? (because in the rulebook there is no referance to leadership none
but i love this my brother plays tyranids and the old genestealer codex was waaaaaaaaaay to old and now i am going to challenge him to battle against my IG and SoB in 3 days. (i will if you like send a battle report with the good (and possible bad) things aboutthe codex if you like.
greetings

[Ambience 327]

Thanks for the comments. I have received good feedback from several sources, and I have tried to incorporate the good suggestions and address criticisms.

Specifically, than you very much for pointing out that I neglected to explain Leadership X. That has been corrected. And yes, I definitely love hearing about games using my rules. That really helps a lot!


New Version Uploaded (see first post)

Change Log:

- Reduced the Magus to Mastery Level 1, reducing his points cost to 50 as well.


- Introduced the option to upgarde the Patriarch to an Ancient Patriarch, reducing his WS, I and A, but giving him Mastery Level 2.


These two changes were made as it was pointed out that that level tends to be reserved for very powerful individuals, which a Magus might find hard to match. I still wanted the Cult to have access to a ML2 Psyker, but I didn't want it combined with a pure combat monster like the Patriarch. However, a hoary old Patriarch who has been around a long time and has a fair few followers might just fit the bill.


- Altered Brood Focus to reflect the additional option of the Ancient Patriarch, and to make its bonus based on units rather than models for easier calculations.


- Removed "It Will Not Die" from the Will of the Brood Warlord Trait.


- Reduced the cost of the Genestealer Hierarch HQ to 15 points, reduced the cost to make him a Psyker to 10 points, and restricted the Force Rod as an upgrade only allowed if he is a psyker.


- Added the Mob Mentality rule to Brood Brother Initiate Mobs, which explains what Ld X means. This was an oversight - sorry for the confusion!


- Added the Poorly Maintained rule to Liberated Tank Squadrons and Liberated Artillery Batteries. They were supposed to have it to begin with, but I forgot.


- Reduced the cost of all vehicles with the Poorly Maintained and Specialist Munitions rules.


- Reworked Firearms to replace Gets Hot! with a random rate of fire. (D3+1, so 2-4 shots per turn.)


- Increased the Strength and AP on Firebombs to put it in line with Flamers, but added Gets Hot! and restricted their use mostly to non-Hybrid types to make them dangerous tools that are only given to the more expendable troops. They are situational, but now should at least be fairly competetive with Assault Grenades in some instances, without totally eclipsing them.


- Added an option to upgrade Brood Brother Bodyguards to Ogryn Bodyguards. Hopefully this is a good enough justification for the Hulking Hybrids for those looking for it. It also strikes me as a good use for Ogryn Brood Brothers - they are big and tough, so guarding the Patriarch and other higher-up members of the Cult would be a logical use for them. Giving them guard shields makes for a fairly resilient meat shield.

[projectmanhatten5]

cool man thanks for the update tomorrow my brother and i are having a battle: genestealer Cult (brother) vs Adeptus Arbiter (me). i am looking out to it. I use the old lady inquisitor as my Judge

[Ambience 327]

Sounds like a great battle is shaping up. Are you using my Adeptus Arbites Codex, are you running them as a "Counts As" force, or are you using some other rules?

[weeperpanda03]

hee ambience 327
i have red the Genestealer Cult Codex for 6th Edition it is realy nice i am my self a tyranid player.

nice work you have doing

[projectmanhatten5]

i am using them as count as force. Primary army and 1750 points of pure police like soldiers. I like the personal staff and the suppression team

[Lingula]

very nice

one thing i am not clear on, the brood brother initiate mobs.. it says 3 initiate packs to start, what constitutes an initiate pack? is that a single model/individual or a pack of more than one?

[projectmanhatten5]

i was thinking about the big (if you now IG) snetinal and Heavy weapon base with Initiates on it because they are infantry and swarms

[Dryaktylus]

Reasonable and well executed changes, Matt.

Some more thoughts:
*it's the fault of the Tyranid codex, but like the Brood Lord the Patriarch can't use some psychic powers with a BS of 0.
*I never liked the Hierarch as HQ since Tim's codex. He's just not what I expect from a leader. Maybe he could get the same treatment as Haemonculi (1-3)? Or 0-5, replacing the Hybrid overseer options in several Brood Brother units (like warlocks in the Eldar army)?
*I think the support squad should have heavy weapon teams - would be in line with IG and better for using the available kits for them.
*the maximum size of Genestealer broods is 11 rather then the usual 12. I think this is unnecessary - if you want the Patriarch joining them to ride in a Chimera just take one less.

Additional idea:
*In the Deathwing novel a particularly large and strong Genestealer took leadership of the cult after the Patriarch died. A kind of Alpha Stealer with, for example, +1 S and +1 W (but without psychic powers) could be a useful upgrade character to Stealer broods or as 1-3 HQ choice for Brood Brother Units as something to deal with challenges (in narrative things: imagine the horror of soldiers attacking a seemingly ordinary unit of human rebels and suddenly disovering the inhuman horror they hide in their midst )

[Ambience 327]

Yes - the Initiate Packs are meant to be infantry swarms, 3+ models per base. I am doing mine up on the 60mm round bases, with three close-combat Chaos Cultists per base.


@ Dryaktylus

- I know, but I try to keep things in-line with GW as much as possible. The good news is if you stick to Brood Telepathy, he won't have to worry, as there are no Psychic Shooting Attacks there. Also, the non-Ancient Patriarch has the ability to re-roll any Warp Charge 2 powers, so he could potentially avoid some that way.

- The Hierarch is meant to be a low-level leader who might be in charge of a smaller raid or insurgency, rather than the actual Cult leader. I see the Patriarch's control of his minions being focused mostly on keeping them all coherent and driven, and may guiding the actions of those closest (physically) to him at the moment, while those further away might need a bit more leadership applied from other sources. The Magus and Patriarch are too valuable to waste on those smaller engagements, so the Hierarchs take the role. Also, they make for really nice, dirt-cheap HQ's for lower point games.

- I like HWT's to remain an IG-only thing. Leaving them as single models makes them play a little more like the rabble I see them as. As far as the "available kits", very few I have seen would actually require heavy weapon models to be mounted two to a base, though some IG models might be a tight squeeze for the heavy weapon model itself on a 28mm base. (I plan to use Chaos Cultist models as much as possible, so not an issue for me.)

- Good point on the Genestealer Brood. I get stuck in older codex conventions sometimes, and this is one of them. I will most likely toss that in to the next update.


- Interesting thought on the "hidden stealer". I will think about it. No promises though.

[Dryaktylus]

- The Hierarch is meant to be a low-level leader who might be in charge of a smaller raid or insurgency, rather than the actual Cult leader. I see the Patriarch's control of his minions being focused mostly on keeping them all coherent and driven, and may guiding the actions of those closest (physically) to him at the moment, while those further away might need a bit more leadership applied from other sources. The Magus and Patriarch are too valuable to waste on those smaller engagements, so the Hierarchs take the role. Also, they make for really nice, dirt-cheap HQ's for lower point games.

Yes, but nothing will stop you from using only one Hierarch out of 3 (or 5). I played some games with Tim's codex but never used one, even in small games. And like in Tim's codex, Patriarch and Magus are far too cheap to not use them in small games. And here they also given you the option to take an additional not too costly psychic unit. And Bodyguards. Options to make a HQ a serious choice are:

*cheaper (but the other HQ are cheap, too)
*special rules (none)
*numbers (no)
*synergy (not enough to beat the other HQs or the Hierarch council)

I like HWT's to remain an IG-only thing. Leaving them as single models makes them play a little more like the rabble I see them as. As far as the "available kits", very few I have seen would actually require heavy weapon models to be mounted two to a base, though some IG models might be a tight squeeze for the heavy weapon model itself on a 28mm base. (I plan to use Chaos Cultist models as much as possible, so not an issue for me.)

Essentially the comrades are IG/PDF, not the rabble.

Of course, these are only opinions, but from another Genestealer Cult enthusiast.

[projectmanhatten5]

the battle report from yesterday:
Adeptus arbiters won with 4-3 victory points Big guns never tie.
First turn the AA lost 2 bikes, 2 men of mijn combat and patrol squad.
First turn the GC lost 755 of his comrad unit and 1 truck.
Second turn the AA lost Chimera, 80% combat squad, 50% patrol Squad, 1 bike squad and a partol squad.
Second turn the GC lost 50% genestealer unit, 3 hulking broods, 1 Orgyn bodyguard, and a leman russ.
Third Turn the AA lost 2 combat squads and 2 members of the personal staff, lost last biker squad.
Third Turn the GC lost 1 Orgyn body guard, 2 hulking broods and 2 suicide bommers.

Finally: both codexes are amazing, very good balance. GC's best unit are a 10 man hulking hybrid sqaud qith on the charge almost 60-80 attacks.
and the nice thnig about the AA was the Personal staff and the grenades, webbers and grapplehawks nice things to first half the Initiative from GC and then to blind them.

the codexes are good and we have tested played them with mutch fun.

[Ambience 327]

Thanks for the quick report. Glad you like the rules and find them balanced. That is what I strive for. I am especially pleased that you find them balanced against one another, as that is one thing I really wanted to get right. Hopefully some time soon I will be able to play a nice campaign between these forces. Arbites vs. Genestealer Cult as a narrative campaign is just such a great concept.

I agree that the Hulking Hybrids have the potential to be very deadly, especially when outnumbered. They downsides to that are that you pay 45 points per model, so a full 10-hulk brood is 450 points, and that is without any upgrades (like Rending Claws or Fleet). ALso, their Flak armour means they are somewhat fragile for a Deathstar unit, and the Carapace upgrade may help a bit, but adds another 5 pts/model.

As to the Arbites, sounds like you were using them as intended. I love the playstyle I've managed to create with them - that of shutting down the enemy's plays rather than being focused on certain aspects of combat themselves. If used properly, they can do a number on your enemy's battle plans.


Any chance you could share your full army lists so I can see what units were involved?

[projectmanhatten5]

My army list of the Adeptus Arbiters:
*Arbiter Judge with: Combi-webber, Thunder maul, Riot Shield, Book of LAw, Cyber-Mastiff, Med-pack. (150 points)
*Personal staff with: Bailiffs, Psionic, Medicea, investigator, 2 Chasteners (with GrappleHawks), 5 arbiter shotguns, 6 riot shields, Power maul, Breach charge (185 points)
*Combat squads 3X (10 man), 3 arbiter grenade launchers, 2 grapple hawks, meltagun, 3 shocking mauls, 3 breach charges. (366)
*Patrol Squad 2X (10 man), 2 arbiter grenade launchers, 2 webbers, 2 power mauls, breaching charges (240 points)
*Eagle Assault Shuttle: autocannon, Hurricane Bolters, 2 hunter killer missles (205 points)
*Castigator: Side webcannons, Heavy stubber (90 points)
*Halligan: Heavy stubber, 2 Hunter killer missles (100 points)
*Suppression squad (10 man): 10 Suppression shields, Webber, arbiter grenade launcher, Shroud grenades, Breaching charges (152)
*Pursuit team: Bikes, meltagun, Webber, Riot shield (220 points)

[Ambience 327]

New Version Uploaded 02/08/2013 (see first post)

Change Log:

- Allowed Genestealer Purestrain Broods to take up to 9 additional Genestealers.

- Added an option for Genestealer Broods to upgrade one model to a "Firstborn"

- Changed the HQ Hierach to allow an additional Hierach to be added for every full 750 points in your army.

- Added Version # and Page #'s as a footer, helpful for those who might be printing this thing out to keep track of which page goes with which version.

[Aunodin]

I swear I dont know if it is the wording in this codex or what but i had to reread the special rules like 3 times before I even processed what the heck it meant.

Other than that it is a good codex just not one that I would personally play and enjoy. One suggestion I do have is moving Dark Eldar up to Desperate allies because I am not sure where I read it but the Dark Eldar have been known to use a Genestealer cult to soften defenses before a slave run.

[Ambience 327]

Clarity is very important to me. Was it just some of the rules, or all of them that were giving you trouble? Any particular examples of confusing wording?

Obviously, I know exactly what I mean, so they make perfect sense to me, but if they are unclear to others, I want to fix that.

[Aunodin]

Clarity is very important to me. Was it just some of the rules, or all of them that were giving you trouble? Any particular examples of confusing wording?

Obviously, I know exactly what I mean, so they make perfect sense to me, but if they are unclear to others, I want to fix that.

Children of the farther and Die another Day where the ones that gave me the most problems. It just gave me problems at first but now i cant find where i had the problems. Like i said got through it after I read it a few times. I think one of the main problems is that the rules are very unique and I have not seen them in other codexs.

The rules for the munitions and poorly maintained do seem that they can be confusing in big games especially with keeping track of all of your units.

[Ambience 327]

I see where you are coming from on the Poorly Maintained and Specialised Munitions, but I figure that a simple counter placed on the vehicle will suffice for each. Shouldn't be any worse than the Dark Eldar Pain Tokens.