Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Gotta say I'm feeling salty about the Gene Cult FAQ

So with stealth, hit & run, and first turn shrouded has anyone thought to put Ghozar with a full brood of kitted Tyranid Warriors? Unless they have ignores cover this mob would just kill everything. Having the first turn to just rush the board and the possability of invis along with Shreek.

Where is the FAQ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also nids and genestealers are allied of convenience so you can't put them in units with each other

Q: Can units with a Ballistic Skill of 0 (Patriarch Ghosar from Genestealer Cults, for example) successfully use witchfire psychic powers (like the Telepathy primaris power Psychic Shriek, for example)?
A: Yes, provided no actual To Hit roll is required.

Q: Is the Ghosar Quintus Broodkin Formation’s Ambush the Unhallowed special rule negated by other Infiltrators or Servo-skulls?
A: No.

Q: Do units with the Genestealer Cult Faction count as potential targets of special rules like the Venomthropes’ Spore Cloud or the Swarmlord’s Swarm Leader?
A: No.

Q: How does the Genestealer Cult Faction ally with Tyranids?
A: The Genestealer Cult and Tyranids Factions ally with each other as Allies of Convenience.

Not sure how I feel about allying in these guys with my Tyranids now. Sorta glad I didn't buy the box now.

I am extremely glad I waited to buy the box. Now I don't have to! Seriously, whoever the rules writers are for GW, they're idiots. Taking away our only battle brother two months after we got our first ally? Come on guys. That wasnt necessary! The general faq and GSC faq have gone so poorly for Nids that I don't even want to see what the actual Nid faq does...

There's a nid player complaining about this FAQ, and I'll admit I'm not a nid expert, but I know my way around fighting them, at least.

At any rate, I don't see the big issue. They give you the ability to use its primaris ability, which seems big.

As for allies of convenience instead of battle brothers......is that such a problem? I mean, you can't cast onslaught or catalyst on them......eh.

No venomthropes is a little bit of a bummer, but how much do venomthropes help infiltrating units? I assume that they would generally be out of range of each other.

Question still stands, where is the FAQ?

Facebook

gameandwatch wrote:Question still stands, where is the FAQ?

https://www.facebook.com/1575682476085719/photos/pb.1575682476085719.-2207520000.1464212977./1621073641546602/?type=3&theater

Kap'n Krump wrote:There's a nid player complaining about this FAQ, and I'll admit I'm not a nid expert, but I know my way around fighting them, at least.

At any rate, I don't see the big issue. They give you the ability to use its primaris ability, which seems big.

As for allies of convenience instead of battle brothers......is that such a problem? I mean, you can't cast onslaught or catalyst on them......eh.

No venomthropes is a little bit of a bummer, but how much do venomthropes help infiltrating units? I assume that they would generally be out of range of each other.

It's just annoying. I guess when your fluff is written so that you almost always lose (yes, even in your own Codex, including being second best in adaptation to Tau), you kind of hope you get cool toys, like some Battle Brothers. But no, I guess only poster boys get cool stuff. Meanwhile your army turns into a joke, both fluff and in-game (aside from Flyrant ofc).

Psychic Shriek is nice, but that was clarified somewhat in the general FAQ so nothing new. But it wasn't what Tyranids could do for Genestealers with the Tyranid Powers, it's what Genestealers could do for the Tyranids with the Telepathy powers.

Venom/Malanthrope is upsetting too. Shrouded helps keep them alive. I think they only got Stealth before.

 gameandwatch wrote:
Question still stands, where is the FAQ?

It was copy and pasted above mate!

Also now since battle brothers has been ruined I'll be running them with something like Tau and enjoying the tactical challenge of one eye open and 12" deployment differences

 Spyro_Killer wrote:

 gameandwatch wrote:
Question still stands, where is the FAQ?

It was copy and pasted above mate!

Also now since battle brothers has been ruined I'll be running them with something like Tau and enjoying the tactical challenge of one eye open and 12" deployment differences

I know it was posted, but I just dont trust anything in this game unless I see it myself....

Well that f***ing blows, I mean yeah the primarch deal was covered in the general FAQ but man, GW really does hate nids it seems

Yeah a part of me is regretting getting the genstealer cult now

Well, it is STILL A DRAFT, so prone to change, hopefully they will see the error of their ways. I personally just posted for clarification on their determination with regards to the cults ambush rule...cause if enemy infiltrators and servo skulls cant stop them infiltrating...holy shiza

 Frozocrone wrote:


It's just annoying. I guess when your fluff is written so that you almost always lose (yes, even in your own Codex, including being second best in adaptation to Tau), you kind of hope you get cool toys, like some Battle Brothers. But no, I guess only poster boys get cool stuff. Meanwhile your army turns into a joke, both fluff and in-game (aside from Flyrant ofc).

Psychic Shriek is nice, but that was clarified somewhat in the general FAQ so nothing new. But it wasn't what Tyranids could do for Genestealers with the Tyranid Powers, it's what Genestealers could do for the Tyranids with the Telepathy powers.

Venom/Malanthrope is upsetting too. Shrouded helps keep them alive. I think they only got Stealth before.

I hadn't thought of using telepathy on nid units, that is a valid point.

Yeah, it's annoying to have your own fluff have you lose all the time, and battle brothers would be nice - I only play orks, so I feel you on both points. But what's a bad guy to do?

Note was delayed in posting so rehasing a bit

 gameandwatch wrote:
Question still stands, where is the FAQ?

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1621074768213156&id=1575682476085719

There's a nid player complaining about this FAQ, and I'll admit I'm not a nid expert, but I know my way around fighting them, at least.

At any rate, I don't see the big issue. They give you the ability to use its primaris ability, which seems big.

As for allies of convenience instead of battle brothers......is that such a problem? I mean, you can't cast onslaught or catalyst on them......eh.

No venomthropes is a little bit of a bummer, but how much do venomthropes help infiltrating units? I assume that they would generally be out of range of each other.

The general FAQ already made it fairly clear BS0 could use the primaris, but nice to get it specifically clarified.
There was some nice synergy with Invisibility being cast on Tyranid units. Thats the main loss. Would have also been nice to join each others ICs around a bit.

And Catalyst never worked on GSC (catalyst specifies Codex: Tyranids or in 7ed terms Faction Tyranids), would have taken an errata to make it work BB or no. Same for venomthropes, so that question was someone fishing for an errata assuming GSC was BB with Tyranids.

I think the main concern now is even when there's finally a GSC codex the possibility of synergy will be pretty low. Which sucks.

I don't like how much more difficult it is build a proper narrative allied list now. Like nids fit perfectly when they were battle brothers, now I'm forced to thinking about stuff like a Tau invasion during a genestealer uprising or genestealers inadvertently opening a warp portal/webway portal

So Cult genestealers are no longer battle brothers with nids...that blows. I was starting to enjoy actually having some independent characters and some different psychic powers. Well all I can hope for now is the errata is errataed...

Yeah, the FAQ sucks. GSC opened up some interesting possibilities with allies for Tyranids. Having IC's with interesting abilities is a huge new dynamic for the nids. That's all dashed now, though.

Personally, I think the FAQ in general is lining things up for the changes they intend to make in 8th Ed. Wouldn't be surprised (and would hope in fact) for an across the board limiting of battle brothers and nerfing of the ability to combo allied armies. A lot of the FAQ already does this. I think the GSC FAQ is just in line with this - limiting the ability to make combos with allied armies. This sucks for Tyranids, but I think is good for the game generally if they limit allied combo's more broadly.

For the time being, the main thing the FAQ changes for me is a shift from infiltrating Tyranid allies to deep striking Tyranid allies. Shame I can't mass infiltrate with troop Genestealers anymore, but the cult still makes a great starting point for a Tyrannocyte assault list. Might also be amusing to try running them with the Neural Node formation, lots of Psychic Shrieks and might even get Terrify to reduce leadership values further...

As an alternate idea, I've been toying with the prospect of combining the Genestealer Cult with Cult Mechanicus. Since the broodkin are set up as being miners it would be fun to borrow the robots as repurposed mining mechs and maybe throw in some of those electro priests as more 4th generation hybrids. As an added bonus, the effect from the Phosphor weaponry on the robots isn't limited to "friendly models" or models from either ad-mech factions, so all of our cultists get to shoot at an enemy with -1 to their cover and we can re-roll the dice when attempting to charge the affected unit.

 Strat_N8 wrote:
For the time being, the main thing the FAQ changes for me is a shift from infiltrating Tyranid allies to deep striking Tyranid allies. Shame I can't mass infiltrate with troop Genestealers anymore, but the cult still makes a great starting point for a Tyrannocyte assault list. Might also be amusing to try running them with the Neural Node formation, lots of Psychic Shrieks and might even get Terrify to reduce leadership values further...

As an alternate idea, I've been toying with the prospect of combining the Genestealer Cult with Cult Mechanicus. Since the broodkin are set up as being miners it would be fun to borrow the robots as repurposed mining mechs and maybe throw in some of those electro priests as more 4th generation hybrids. As an added bonus, the effect from the Phosphor weaponry on the robots isn't limited to "friendly models" or models from either ad-mech factions, so all of our cultists get to shoot at an enemy with -1 to their cover and we can re-roll the dice when attempting to charge the affected unit.

My cult is actually converted from nids/skitarii bits

GSC may not be BBs with NIDs, but AoC is still pretty nice. Keep in mind that only Imperials (admittedly 50% of the current codices), Chaos and Eldar/DE have BBs. Necrons, Orks, Tau don't have BBs and Nids have been CtA allies with everyone since allies were introduced

I play Eldar and I have 2 common allies that I use. DE, of course, but I haven't used them much in 7th, and Grey Knights. I actually get more "synergy" from the AoC GKs. The provide WC and fast durable units that are great in CC. Tatcically, that is what I want to "fill the gap".

GSC can easily do this for Nids, even as AoC. 600pts to guarantee that most of your Nids do not get shot at turn 1 is pretty fair. As an Eldar player, GSC scares the $h!+ out of me and I am very glad "Nid" players have access to this kind of tactic.

--

Personally I think that with the removal of battle brothers that nids aren't worth taking as cult allies. Now I'm a genestealers player not a nids player per say so I'll be exploring numerous allies firstly tau and necrons

Well I hope this is still only a draft and GW might change there mind on this aswell as the BB transport ruling too. I wanted to get the GSC for my nids to run with deathleaper, lictors, and more genestealers but this just shattered the knee caps of that idea

The big problem with allies of convenience is that the formation gives all of the cult members infiltrate. Well that's great except all tyranid units are treated as enemy unit which means you have to infiltrate 12 inches out of line-of-sight or 18 inches in line of sight. That means that the entire infiltration rule for the cult formation is pretty much useless. Except of course for the patriarch in the princelings.

Oh and also don't forget that means that the Magus and patriarch also suffer from Shadow in the warp.

 Gloomfang wrote:
The big problem with allies of convenience is that the formation gives all of the cult members infiltrate. Well that's great except all tyranid units are treated as enemy unit which means you have to infiltrate 12 inches out of line-of-sight or 18 inches in line of sight. That means that the entire infiltration rule for the cult formation is pretty much useless. Except of course for the patriarch in the princelings.

Oh and also don't forget that means that the Magus and patriarch also suffer from Shadow in the warp.

I'd planned a game against eldar with a 4 formation list before the FAQ came out - Sporefield, deathleaper's assassins, manufactorum genes, and quintus broodkin. Decided to try it with the new FAQ to see just how bad it'd be, and it sucked. Even though we were playing hammer and anvil, having to leave an 18" gap between my nids and my cult was cripplingly bad. The cult ended up wedged in a corner in the end, and most of them never ended up doing anything as a result. The patriarch also showed his vulnerability to not going first - dropped him next to a unit of foot seer council in a ruin, but his genes got killed for first blood despite 2+ cover and he only managed a 3" mtc and then fluffed a 8" charge with fleet since they ran away, so ended up failing to accomplish much.

I had three list ideas involving cults and nids - fishing for invis with the patriarch in raveners or shrikes as a mini deathstar (dead due to no being in the same unit and no casting on each other); LD shenanigans with neurothropes broodlords and DL assassin brood (less dead than others but I was planning to put the magos in a unit of zoans going through an escape hatch, and the cult guys now get hit by shadows); and then stealer shock as i described above (killed due to the lack of infiltrating near each other). Literally the only viable build I think does involve deploying only the cult and deepstriking flyrants, lictors, and probably mawlocs - which is really just more of the same for nids and not what I wanted from cults at all. And even that suffers from having no good invis targets and cult psykers eating a LD debuff!

Basically this has completely killed my interest in cults. Until a dex comes out that gives them some more options (chiefly letting me stick the patriarch in a big unit of genes to make him worthwhile) I don't think I'll be playing them again - and even then, the fact they don't play well with nids really ruins it for me.

The synergy with nids has pretty much crippled the ability to run the cult as allies for them.

Infiltration issues, shadows in the warp etc, all adds up to making it close to impossible to run them.

Next issues with cult is the buff from running broodkin.
That alone is the reason to run a cult, as the benefits from it are too good to pass up.

Since the cult has no answer for AV14, struggles massively with AV13 and cannot shoot down flyers, its impossible to run them on their own aswell.

I was looking at running a CAD list purely of cult, but it simply has no answers to alot of issues.
And the biggest hit in doing so is also the loss of the broodkin rules.





So all in all, I'd say they are dead in the water until GW throws them a book.
Or at the very least gives them BB with nids.

Any of those would work fine for me, but it needs something to make it worthwhile.

 Jackal wrote:
The synergy with nids has pretty much crippled the ability to run the cult as allies for them.

Infiltration issues, shadows in the warp etc, all adds up to making it close to impossible to run them.

Next issues with cult is the buff from running broodkin.
That alone is the reason to run a cult, as the benefits from it are too good to pass up.

Since the cult has no answer for AV14, struggles massively with AV13 and cannot shoot down flyers, its impossible to run them on their own aswell.

I was looking at running a CAD list purely of cult, but it simply has no answers to alot of issues.
And the biggest hit in doing so is also the loss of the broodkin rules.





So all in all, I'd say they are dead in the water until GW throws them a book.
Or at the very least gives them BB with nids.

Any of those would work fine for me, but it needs something to make it worthwhile.

The alternative is to run them with Guard. The two compliment each other really well in my experience. The Cult struggles against AV14, fliers and units that can escape their ambush. Guard can counter all of that with their ranged firepower, and can happily camp the objectives in your half of the table while the Cult mops up on the other half. There is little to no reason for them to ever come into contact with one another, so the CtA level of alliance makes absolutely no difference to things at all.

The only other option if you don't want to run CtA allies is Cult CADs with extensive fortifications. Squads of Faithful filling a Wall of Martyrs network is pretty cool. You could even go th whole hog and take an Aquila Strongpoint (Macro or Vortex, both are fun) and start supplementing your shortcomings with that. It's even fluffy (!!) because what does a Cult do the moment it reveals itself? It starts seizing planetary defences! Dual CAD could get you plenty of cheap infantry, an Aquila Strongpoint and then either another fortification (or fortification network) of your choice. Wall of Martyrs is nice because you can load up on Icarus stuff.

Hadn't actually thought about fortifications!

While its no perfect fill in, it seems to fit the bill fine for a pure stealer cult army.
May have to tinker with some ideas now :p

 Jackal wrote:
Hadn't actually thought about fortifications!

While its no perfect fill in, it seems to fit the bill fine for a pure stealer cult army.
May have to tinker with some ideas now :p

Without taking multiple formations/cads though you need an expensive fortification

 Spyro_Killer wrote:

 Jackal wrote:
Hadn't actually thought about fortifications!

While its no perfect fill in, it seems to fit the bill fine for a pure stealer cult army.
May have to tinker with some ideas now :p

Without taking multiple formations/cads though you need an expensive fortification

Macro Cannon! Bring it, Wraith Knights!