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Hi, just wondered if dakka had any ideas?

I really like the playstyle of the genestealer cult army - CC and reserve shenanigans, but the way I'd want to play them would involve a LOT of acolytes and metamorphs. I'd not be prepared to spend £500 on 100+ hybrid models however - £5 per 8-point acolyte seems a bit ridiculous, and I'm not bowled away by the models (they're nicely sculpted but I'm not a massive fan of their aesthetic). So my question is how to convert a whole load of warped, clawed, humans for gaming purposes?

My first thoughts were ebaying a bunch of cadians and using a combination of daemonette, genestealer and dryad bits to add the various claws and appendages to them, with a bit of green stuff bridging the gaps? One concern I had was that the bases that come with the hybrids/metamorphs are the 32mm ones, so I'd need to get a supply of those to rebase them onto...

Catachan with genestealer arm and bolt pistol arm and gene stealer head.

ebay for bits or used bit bunches. If not buy some genestealers and catachans and mix and match a bunch of deformed hybrids.

I purchased one box of Acolytes. With some extra heroclix models I was able to make 20 Acolytes/Metamorphs with all the bits. It's surprisingly a good value if you have some extra models kicking around.

I've lost the link since, but the WWII US troops originally from Warlord Games were very good, and any extra tyranid bitz would really slam it home

32mm.

What about the imperial ruined sector ones. You get about 48 a box

I wouldn't worry about the bases too much; the acolytes fit fine on a 25. Personally I think the 32s look a bit oversized, so I'm sticking all mine on 25s.

ork or skaven plague monks would make for better hybrids, just get a ton of nid bitz from ebay.

DV chaos cultists have very little actual chaos stuff on them and would be a cheap source of GW cultists.

Otherwise you can check out Frostgrave's plastic cultists or one of the multipart WWII sets out there.

Regardless you'll need a big bitz box!

Get some 2nd-3rd Edition Genestealers and add a gun for a back hand. Done. They're different enough from modern Purestrains that you can easily tell them apart, even mixed all together and if you want to get all technical about it, the Genestealer models of that time were hybrids with rounder heads, shorter tails and much more human secondary hands and fingers, perfect for naked Acolyte Hybrids. It was a bit annoying at the time but now those 30 models of mine will be put to good use.

A cursory search brought up a poor image for reference sake for those that don't know the models:

Thanks for the inspiration guys, there's some really good ideas here

I think I'm going to go the eBay cadian route so I can use my existing guard as neophytes (or allies) and it still look like a unified army. I like the idea of just getting one box of acolytes and canabalising the bits - with their extra arms and canabalising a few genestealers for their rending claws I'd be able to 'enhance' quite a lot of cadians! Thanks for the other suggestions though - I agree that chaos cultists in particular would work well if converted.

I'm surprised at how good a deal the sector imperialis bases are tbh - 33p per base actually seems reasonable enough considering they have nice sculpted detail. Still not sure if anyone would make a fuss about base size at tournaments etc though.

I had a bunch of those old genestealers at one point from various ebay sources. Genestealers sold for so cheap there before this codex was released... You could easily find 60p stealers all over the place.

Is anyone else thinking of converting models? Seems like it might be a common solution as the cult army functions really well as a horde but acolytes are £5 for 8pts...

Orks.?

they seem beefy enough.

just add some extra clawy bits and change the head

I'm holding out for a favourable start collecting box or Xmas deal