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Hey there dakka!

So I have been kicking around the idea of starting up a GSC army... with a twist...

Fluff
The idea is that the genestealers have begun to spread to a mining planet called Mendacium that was already rife with chaos taint (khorne to be precise) however the cultist rebellion was still in it's infant stages when they arrived. In a miraculous coincidence, the arriving genestealers happen to have adapted a red carapace on their previous world. The rebels took these strange creatures to be patrons of the blood god and began to worship them. Slowly, the genestealers infected the cult and their numbers began to swell planet wide as people began to hear of the "Red Prophets" who walk among them. A side effect of the GSC buildup is that it tempered the murderous lust that typically accompanies the worship of the blood god (much to the disdain of khorne) which allowed them to effectively organize a global rebellion before the first shot was fired. The ensuing campaign is a bloodbath that eventually leaves the rebels in control of the planet. Within a week, a warp storm envelopes the planet. Once the storm subsides, no life remains on Mendacium and the only evidence of the rebels are towering mounds of skulls crested with the mutilated remains of the genestealers roughly placed in a pattern that outlines the Cult Icon to serve as a warning to all those who wish to twist the will of the followers of the blood god to their own will.

The "Counts as"

To Effectively represent this, I was planning to use the following models

-The Genestealers and patriarch will remain as the actual models, painted to look suspiciously like bloodletters.
- The Neophytes will be a mix of all sorts of IG, Chaos Cultists and renegades along with GSC Cultists (Especially the squad leaders to keep with the theme of them misleading the horde)
-The Acolytes and Hybrids will be Mostly khorne Bloodbound Bloodreavers since they are distinctly larger than the regular cultists. I will be adding pistols and mining weapons to keep them wysiwyg. The will also get other random conversions to make them more futuristic. There will potentially be some acolyte models mixed in to represent some of those who were " Blessed" by the blood god with mutations.
The Abberants will be the Blood warriors with appropriate weapons conversions to represent the brutes within the horde.

So what do you think, would you play against an army like this? In a tourney? In reality, most of the counts as models are actually larger than their real counterparts which eliminates the " modelling for advantage" argument. Plus, the GSC rules make an excellent stand in for a generic rebellion on an industrial world without having to dive into FW. Let me know what you think!

P.S: Its my first post on dakka!

Sounds awfully confusing to keep track of during the game for your opponent...that's a huge nix for me. In a casual game, if I knew you and we'd played several games and I became accustomed to what-was-what, perhaps, sure.

There's a line to me for counts-as. Something should be immediately identifiable as what it's replacing. Personal opinion.

Well to start off with tyranids avoid chaos like crazy usually, but who cares. The idea sounds pretty cool and execution is everything.
I'd play against it.

well the idea is that the wargear is the same across the armies I.E. A cultist is a cultist whether it looks Chaosy or GSC. The Bloodreavers (metamorphss/acolytes) are easily identifiable as hulking guys with no shirts. then the Blood warriors are so armored that they will also stand out as abberrants. Then the genestealers are just... genestealers.

I'd say go for it! Especially since you are putting in the time to make them WYSIWYG. I would play against that army without any complaints.

Probably want to make squads very clear- good markings, different accent colors, or something else to make it transparent.

Regarding theme, I think a hodgepodge of different styles would look fine enough. Also, I know that at least at some ancient point, there was chaos-nid lore, but I don't know what that was...

I'd play it. I have a bunch of Chaos Cultists unpainted I got a while back, and I'm totally going to use the autogun, flamers, and maybe heavy stubber models as GSC Neophytes.

I also bought the AoS starter set on the cheap a while back, but got zero interest in my group to play it. So you may have just given me a reason to turn those Blood Reavers and Blood Warriors, as well.

I'm a little sketchy about the Blood Reavers. IIRC Acolytes and Metamorphs have 4+ or 5+ armor, but the Blood Reaver models are basically naked. I'm a bit OCD with the WYSIWIG stuff, so this probably boils down to just personal preference.

 jasper76 wrote:
I'd play it. I have a bunch of Chaos Cultists unpainted I got a while back, and I'm totally going to use the autogun, flamers, and maybe heavy stubber models as GSC Neophytes.

I also bought the AoS starter set on the cheap a while back, but got zero interest in my group to play it. So you may have just given me a reason to turn those Blood Reavers and Blood Warriors, as well.

I'm a little sketchy about the Blood Reavers. IIRC Acolytes and Metamorphs have 4+ or 5+ armor, but the Blood Reaver models are basically naked. I'm a bit OCD with the WYSIWIG stuff, so this probably boils down to just personal preference.

I was a bit off with it to. However, an explanation could be that all of their hulked out muscles cause them to be more resistant. Although that would be normally represented with a toughness stat, the acolytes and metamorphs are t3 so I need to explain the hulk somehow.

slargy wrote:

I was a bit off with it to. However, an explanation could be that all of their hulked out muscles cause them to be more resistant. Although that would be normally represented with a toughness stat, the acolytes and metamorphs are t3 so I need to explain the hulk somehow.

That would be enough of an explanation for me

 jasper76 wrote:

I'm a little sketchy about the Blood Reavers. IIRC Acolytes and Metamorphs have 4+ or 5+ armor, but the Blood Reaver models are basically naked. I'm a bit OCD with the WYSIWIG stuff, so this probably boils down to just personal preference.

Everything in the GSC codex has a 5+. Except for the patriarch, who gets a 4+. Makes it nice and easy to remember.
I'd just fluff it as the genestealer curse giving them a tough subdermal layer of chitin, coupled with chaos mutations hardening their skin.

The amount of times people have played GSC using Guard and/or Chaos rules in the past

I see no problem with this

My only caveat is that the models must not remain unconverted.

Even if it's just gluing some extra horns or claws on it, you should at least modify each model. You have a pretty good story going for this so you must go all the way.

If it were a convincing paint job, I'd probably be fine with unconverted (as long as the gear wasn't confusing etc.)

 jasper76 wrote:
I'd play it. I have a bunch of Chaos Cultists unpainted I got a while back, and I'm totally going to use the autogun, flamers, and maybe heavy stubber models as GSC Neophytes.

I also bought the AoS starter set on the cheap a while back, but got zero interest in my group to play it. So you may have just given me a reason to turn those Blood Reavers and Blood Warriors, as well.

I'm a little sketchy about the Blood Reavers. IIRC Acolytes and Metamorphs have 4+ or 5+ armor, but the Blood Reaver models are basically naked. I'm a bit OCD with the WYSIWIG stuff, so this probably boils down to just personal preference.

Why not paint them up with "psychic" tattoos and icons on the shirtless guys - the same idea that celtic woad paint made the warriors "invulnerable".

I would be ok with it as an opponent, the conversions would probably look great. All those regular human bodies are interchangeable for conversion purposes if you ask me.
But why would you use the GSC codex ?

There are already codexes that would perfectly fit the fluff and the models, khorne daemon kin & FW renegade lists.
Why not use one of those or a combination of those instead ?
The daemonkin gives you blood points and the ability to summon bloodletter once your hordes start dying for their god.
The fw list has mutant cultists and all sorts of strange stuff that might fit your fluff more.

 oldzoggy wrote:
I would be ok with it as an opponent, the conversions would probably look great. All those regular human bodies are interchangeable for conversion purposes if you ask me.
But why would you use the GSC codex ?

There are already codexes that would perfectly fit the fluff and the models, khorne daemon kin & FW renegade lists.
Why not use one of those or a combination of those instead ?
The daemonkin gives you blood points and the ability to summon bloodletter once your hordes start dying for their god.
The fw list has mutant cultists and all sorts of strange stuff that might fit your fluff more.

I have looked into all of the possibilities for the lists and the settlement was on The cults for several reasons. I will go through why I opted out each of the options.

KDK: Great army list, cool blood tithe but the focus is on the daemons and CSM. Cultists are essentially a sideshow. I wanted a worker's rebellion.

Renegades and heretics: Actually, my army is currently tooled up to work as renegades but there is not really a good way to represent a guerilla force in the same way as GSC. That and I dont think that the rebels of a mining planet would have access to the artillery which essentially makes the list function.

Honestly, the biggest seller for the genestealer list are the mining weapons. I love the idea of the worker's rebellion on a mining planet and would love even more to build a refining facility board to go with them. Truth is, the idea of the rebels being misled to follow chaos is merely my excuse to have a GSC army that is distinguishable from the rest. That and really am not a big fan of the acolyte models' bulbous heads.

If it helps people get over the whole "chaos tyranids ERMAGERD NO" syndrome then here is a better explanation (subtracting reference to khorne). The workers, oppressed for countless generations, began to pray to the chaos gods. Being such a miniscule blip on the radar during the tumultuous times of the gathering storm, their prayers are largly ignored. Then one day, the genestealers show up. The workers, not knowing any better, assumed these were entities sent by the dark gods for their liberation. The cult leaders use this misdirection to spread the message and the insurrection spreads like wildfire . Hence why there really arent very many " genestealer mutated" cultists. The hulked out bloodreavers are simply analogues for the brute (penal?) labor force that is used inside of the mines for manual labor which explains all of their mining tools. So in reality, the chaos gods have no part in this until it has passed and they realize that a foolish cult had used their name in vain and punishes them.