For the first time, the new 10th Edition Warhammer 40k Genestealer Cults codex will have a full custom detachment and stratagems to represent the army’s popular Brood Brothers mechanic, Games Workshop has announced via its Warhammer Community site.
That’s a big enough change for Genestealer Cults players on its own – but in addition, so long as you’re running that new Brood Brothers Auxilia 40k detachment, you’ll now be able to take twice as many points’ worth of Astra Militarum units as before – up to 50% of your total army.
Revealed late on Tuesday, the new rules really lean into this Warhammer 40k faction‘s ‘sneaky body-snatchers’ theme harder than previous codexes, playing into fans’ enthusiasm for units of genetically reprogrammed Imperial Guard alongside the usual xenos-warped, industrial-themed revolutionaries.
Enough preamble – Tuesday’s WarCom article showed off the new detachment rule and three new 40k stratagems – let’s take a look at them, shall we?
The Integrated Tactics detachment rule looks pretty tasty – similar to how ‘guiding’ units works in the Tau Empire‘s ‘For the Greater Good’ rule, except stronger, because once you’ve tagged one target unit with shooting, all your Genestealer Cults units get the +1 to hit buff against it, rather than just the one ‘guided’ unit.
Still, as a primarily melee-focused army, most Genestealer Cults guns aren’t anywhere near as zappy as the Tau’s and needs to hit the target far more often to kill – so we’re sure it’ll shake out all right.
Of the first two stratagems, the one that catches our eye most is Acceptable Losses. It’s pricey at 2 command points, but it’s potentially a super-powerful move, with nice narrative color behind it.
Basically, it allows your Brood Brothers to shoot an enemy unit that’s in melee with one of your regular Cults units – but they take the risk of friendly fire, with each of those friendly units getting a 1/3 chance of taking D3+1 mortal wounds. Ouch.
And the third, Regimental Reinforcements, tells us most about how GW expects the new Brood Brothers to play with their mutant brethren: for 1CP, it gives you a 3+ chance rescue a destroyed Astra Militarum infantry unit and place it in reserves, to use for a later Ambush as per the core GSC Cult Ambush rules. This’ll serve to tie the two sides of your allied strategy together.
All in all, some encouraging signs for fans of the Tyranids‘ somehow-even-scarier spin-off faction. Fans are always pleased when GW tries hard to flesh out a popular narrative subfaction or theme with powerful rules, and these look pretty viable to us!
For more grimdark goodies, check out Tim Linward‘s piece on how Warmachine helped make modern Warhammer 40k – or get the latest updates by following Wargamer on Google News.