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Hello, im have some models of GSC(buyed as its looks cool) and now thinking try to play 40k. would you recommend GSC as first army? saw that its hard to use and scary to throw bunch of cash on not friendly army?
and can you recommend me some general advices on how to build roster on 500-750 pts as start point.

ps: models im have:

just to know.

I don't think I could recommend GSC as a first attempt. It is a very technical and precise force that requires a lot of game knowledge.

You've got lots there, so you'll be able to make lots of combinations of starting armies with that. It's not a friendly army for playing competitively, but competitively-speaking, no army is easy to play. I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun with the Cult as a starting player! Enjoy what you have, and play around with it.

As for "good" lists, it'll depend on the types of games you're playing. From what you have listed, the Kelermorph, Magus, Broodcoven, and Acolytes are your heaviest hitters. The Biophagus and Abberants can be funny together, randomly hitting for tons of damage, but also often doing nothing at all. The Bikers, Neophytes, and Atalan Alphus biker are good objective grabbers and support units but probably won't win many fights on their own.

Have fun!

also have 8 genestealers from kill team starter.
So army not easy to use, oh. might be funny, i guess..

No army is easy to use at a high level.

You'll be fine.

I would suggest against it. They require a lot of micromanagement to get the most out of them and are very CP intensive.

 Resin Glazed Guardsman wrote:
I would suggest against it. They require a lot of micromanagement to get the most out of them and are very CP intensive.

may be on some points its more forgivng? already have models and want to try, but im know that im need more models, so afraid)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
No army is easy to use at a high level.

You'll be fine.

thanks, but most people say GSC even harder, this is why im doubht


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Yarium wrote:
You've got lots there, so you'll be able to make lots of combinations of starting armies with that. It's not a friendly army for playing competitively, but competitively-speaking, no army is easy to play. I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun with the Cult as a starting player! Enjoy what you have, and play around with it.

As for "good" lists, it'll depend on the types of games you're playing. From what you have listed, the Kelermorph, Magus, Broodcoven, and Acolytes are your heaviest hitters. The Biophagus and Abberants can be funny together, randomly hitting for tons of damage, but also often doing nothing at all. The Bikers, Neophytes, and Atalan Alphus biker are good objective grabbers and support units but probably won't win many fights on their own.

Have fun!

saw somethere that bikers can abuse granades. and abberants + abominant looks interes, but low model count on 500-750 is bad?

simakover wrote:
[thanks, but most people say GSC even harder, this is why im doubht

Well, it's a bit late for that now isn't it?

So now what to do since you've already stepped in it & bought stuff?
1) Don't listen to what "most people" say, listen to what other GSC players say. And then take even that with a grain of salt....
2) Decide what pt lv you want to build to. (I'd suggest finding out what the most common pt value games are played at where ever you intend to play) Form what you've got into an army & see if you've got enough. If you don't, buy more stuff until you reach that pt value.
2a) Find out how competitive games are played wherever you're aiming to play. Take that into consideration when building/buying.
3) Buy stuff you like. This is an expensive hobby so you should like the models your buying/building/painting.
4) Realize that you will lose plenty of games as you learn this game - no matter what army you've chosen.
5) As you play games you'll figure out what works for you & what doesn't (this won't always line up with the math the hiveminds spew about the game/army). So after awhile of tinkering with what you've got, consider additional purchases.

ccs wrote:

simakover wrote:
[thanks, but most people say GSC even harder, this is why im doubht

Well, it's a bit late for that now isn't it?

So now what to do since you've already stepped in it & bought stuff?

buyes, as you told - as they looks good and im use models for necromunda and kill team)

You'll be fine. They're a complicated army, but they're also a good army.
Yes they may be a little more difficult to play than most, but you'll start to get the hang of them soon enough. There's a lot to learn, but once you do, you'll find you have lots of powerful options.

You just need to get used to your guys dying a lot. Defensively they're quite possibly the weakest faction. But they're very powerful offensively. So a lot of it is figuring out the best ways to hit the enemy before they hit you, and make it count.

Well I'd say right now you have a lot of characters and not a lot of troops. I would say wait on using the second magus and Jackal Alphus.

I will say though you got very very lucky. With what you have you can make a really great starter list and I will get into detail on that in a while.

Run 2 squads of acolytes and 1 neophyte, 1 primus 1 patriarch and 1 magus in a battalion, and add your kellermorph, genestealers, Abberants and biophagus to play ~750 point games.

Don't buy anything else yet. Take your time to learn the army at this level and how your abilities and units work. I will tell you what to add later but spend time now building and painting your stuff!

Came back to 40k with them, they're a blast. Odds are your opponent doesn't get how they work any better than you do, which gives you a more level playing field than you may expect. Just don't try and do all the funny tricks off the bat, start with a bunch of deep strike and a couple strategems, Once you have a few games down you can start getting into the more complicated bull we can pull.

If you like the models, the background, etc.. just play with them.

They might not be as point-and-click newbie friendly as Imperial Knights, but being largely a solid competitive army, you'll do just fine.

You'll certainly have far less road work ahead of you winning a fair share of games than if you'd fell in love with Grey Knights or Space Wolves or whatever.

Here's a 750 point list:

GSC Battalion (cult of the four-armed emperor to get you into combat)

HQ: Patriarch
HQ: Magus
HQ: Primus

Troop: Neophytes, Heavy Stubber and Webber
Troop: Acolytes, 2 Rock Saws
Troop: Acolytes: 1 Rock Drill

Elites: Abberants, 2 picks, 2 hammers, improvised weapon on Hypermorph

Elites: Kelermorph
Elites: Biophagus

Fast: Atalan Jackals, Wolfquad with incinerator and shotgun, 3 jackals with shotguns and cult knives, leader with hammer and shotgun.

750 points.

Alternative list, swap out the biophagus and atalan jackals for purestrain genestealers. But I think this list is more fun to play.

You have 10 units, which means 5 can be held off the board in ambush. hold the Primus, 2 Acolyte squads, Kelermorph and Abberants.

Then, before the game begins, use the stratagem that allows you to take 3 of your blip deployed units, and put them off the board also in ambush. Pick up the blips for the Patriarch, the neophytes, and the Primus.

You should play this army as if you are springing a trap on your opponent: In the beginning of the game, you should be hiding. Your little bike squad is the toughest thing you have in your list, but you should also hide it (and the magus) as far as you can away from your opponent, and hopefully behind a building or rock where they cant be seen. Your plan starts on turn 2, not on turn 1, so don't move your bikes out to fight until turn 2. If they stay alive - awesome! If they die - no big deal.

Then when you deploy for turn 2, what you want to do is pick which of your characters are going to be hanging out with which of your units.

The Biophagus wants to go with the Abberants, the Primus with the Acolytes, and you can have the Patriarch support the Aberrants if your opponent has a lot of tanks and the acolytes if they don't. The Kelermorph should be next to the neophytes, so that when he kills something, the neophytes get a reroll to hit.

Take long range powers on your Magus like Might from Beyond and Mass Hypnosis, since the magus will need to be running up the board turn 2 to try and get in range. The Patriarch can have shorter range powers like mind control and mental onslaught.

that should be a very good starting point for 750 point games. You can play around with switching things like the Primus for a Jackal Alphus, or the genestealrs for the bikers, but I think this should be your basic list that you usually run. Then, when you have at least 5-6 games and a good amount of your things painted, you might look to get some more models.

I would say that models you want are things that can start on the board, and a few more things with guns so your Jackal Alphus has someone to give her bonus to. A Goliath truck to transport your Neophytes, more Atalan Jackals, all would be good things to buy.If you find that one of your troops units is just your favorite one, maybe buy another box worth of them after you've painted them all up.

Thanks for all of yours) really helpful information.
But im not steady person, so buyed even more(now need stop and painting)
Now have:


Really cool models

I don't think GSC have the difficulty of play some people ascribe to them. I would say they have a high skill cap to master, but most people after reading through the codex would have an idea of how to use them and have fun at pickup games and minor local tournaments. best advice I can give is to watch videos of games and how they work, then play some games explaining to people at the store or club you are new and lookign for help learning to play. most people will put away the dick stomper lists and pull out something more appropriate to teaching a person the game.

simakover wrote:
Thanks for all of yours) really helpful information.
But im not steady person, so buyed even more(now need stop and painting)
Now have:

Spoiler:

10 neophytes
5 abberants
10 acolytes
8 genestealers
6 bikes
1 wolf bike
2 magus
1 patriarch
1 primus
1 abominant
1 kelermorph
1 biophagus
1 alphus
1 sanctus

Really cool models

I would still say it would be smart to start with 750 point games before you go bigger. Then, later on, you can just add in the other models you have now and probably go up to 1000pts.

I'd echo that thought; put together a couple (2-3) units and an HQ or two, then get a demo game. That might help drive you in how you assemble/paint/consider the other units.

Then, just add units as you have them assembled. In my experience, most players are more than willing to play whatever points you have assembled/painted, once you get past the minimum (1 HQ 2 Troops). Once you get to 750 or higher, it'll start feeling like a real game.

Look youtube for videos of 750 points, everybody use leman russes, is it so needed for cult? Im dont want use vehicles at this point

simakover wrote:
Look youtube for videos of 750 points, everybody use leman russes, is it so needed for cult? Im dont want use vehicles at this point

I don't use any vehicles at all in my lists. The idea being to give the opponents anti-tank guns no good targets to shoot at. All they can fire their big expensive guns at is cheap infantry.
So yeah, it's perfectly fine to not have any leman russes. They're often used in cult lists mainly because many people already have them from guard armies that they can use.

simakover wrote:
Hello, im have some models of GSC(buyed as its looks cool) and now thinking try to play 40k. would you recommend GSC as first army? saw that its hard to use and scary to throw bunch of cash on not friendly army?

I think they should be fine as a first army. Generally the hardest part of any army is memorizing your stats, which isn't too hard for GSC since almost everything infantry-based is either T3 or T4 with a 5+ armor and generally 1-2 wounds for units and 4 wounds for most of the characters. Almost everything also has an autopistol and just about everything assault based has a Rending Claw, so regardless of what you use you'll have some commonality.

The hardest part for learning the army is remembering the aura abilities on your characters (everyone has one that does something different) and determining when to hold back your ambushers and when to commit to an offensive push. The former can be learned through memorization, but the latter will need some trial and error before you get a good feel for it.

simakover wrote:

and can you recommend me some general advices on how to build roster on 500-750 pts as start point.

Generally with GSC you are going to build an army with two parts; an on-table "anvil" part consisting of shooting units (Neophytes, Jackals, vehicle-mounted units) and an off-table "hammer" part that consists of your heavy hitters (Acolytes, Aberrants, Genestealers, Metamorphs). The "anvil" part is generally going to be geared towards clearing away chaff and keeping the opposition pinned in while the hammer part is tasked with eliminating key threats. Like others have said, I'd probably start by building simple lists focusing on 1-2 units and selecting characters that support them well.

You might want to consider Rusted Claw as your main creed until you get more comfortable with the army. Most GSC durability comes from killing off threats before they can do too much damage to you, but Rusted Claw is a bit more forgiving due to the durability improvement they offer.

simakover wrote:
Look youtube for videos of 750 points, everybody use leman russes, is it so needed for cult? Im dont want use vehicles at this point

No, they're definitely not necessary. The no-deploy strategy that I laid out above is going to be solidly more successful than spending 150 of your 750 points on a single anti tank gun.

the_scotsman wrote:

simakover wrote:
Look youtube for videos of 750 points, everybody use leman russes, is it so needed for cult? Im dont want use vehicles at this point

No, they're definitely not necessary. The no-deploy strategy that I laid out above is going to be solidly more successful than spending 150 of your 750 points on a single anti tank gun.

that relics you use for HQ/Elites? traits?

simakover wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

simakover wrote:
Look youtube for videos of 750 points, everybody use leman russes, is it so needed for cult? Im dont want use vehicles at this point

No, they're definitely not necessary. The no-deploy strategy that I laid out above is going to be solidly more successful than spending 150 of your 750 points on a single anti tank gun.

that relics you use for HQ/Elites? traits?

My free relic is almost always the -1 to hit when shooting, no overwatch relic on my Patriarch. Somtimes if I am running a list that is heavily featuring Aberrants I will also buy the "mindworm" relic from the special Vigilus detachment on my Abominant, that gives them an extra bonus to charge rolls.

I have tried the special pistol on kelermorph, I think it's unnecessary. he is a monster without it and it doesn't add much.

I have also tried the relic sniper rifle on the Sanctus, it's pretty good if your opponent has like 2 or more Toughness 4 psykers, like librarians or Thousand Sons. If you know for a fact he's goign to be able to be causing Perils of the Warp every time he shoots at something, you want to think about having that special relic gun.

For Traits, people mostly seem to go one of two routes:

1) Cult of the Four Armed Emperor. This is what I'd always run as my only trait on a small army. It is too important to get your turn 2 deep strikers into combat, and making 8" charges is almost 25% more likely than 9" charges. Also, the special "stratagem blocking stratagem" is very important in certain matchups when your opponent has some kind of stratagem ability to shoot at something right when it comes down from deep strike. Craftworld Eldar are the big one for this, they have a stratagem called Forewarned that is very strong and really important to block.

In small games, more often than not just one action decides the course of the game. Which player loses thier most expensive unit? Having that stratagem means you can avoid having that be you sometimes.

2) one of the two traits that makes their units tougher. EIther Bladed Cog or Rusted Claw. I see this mostly when people go up to 2000pt lists, they will run their units that will be on the table getting shot at as one of those two, and then their units that are deep striking as Cult of the Four-armed Emperor.

Broodcoven stratagem and grandsire's gift stratagems is not good? or its for more point army?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
that do you think about this? try to add more power to bikes for granade strategy

I like to run a battalion of acolytes with rocksaws. Mix in whichever 2 HQ's of your choice and give them cult of the four armed emperor for all their tasty strategems.

GSC are a true glass hammer army. You're going to murder pretty much whatever you charge with your melee squads, but will probably die to small arms fire in the next turn.

simakover wrote:
Broodcoven stratagem and grandsire's gift stratagems is not good? or its for more point army?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
that do you think about this? try to add more power to bikes for granade strategy

Spoiler:

++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Tyranids - Genestealer Cults) [43 PL, -1CP, 744pts] ++

+ No Force Org Slot +

Cult Creed: Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor

Stratagem: Broodcoven [-1CP]

+ HQ +

Magus [4 PL, 80pts]: Broodcoven Magus, Power: Mass Hypnosis, Warlord Trait: Inscrutable Cunning

Patriarch [7 PL, 125pts]: Amulet of the Voidwyrm, Power: Mental Onslaught, Warlord, Warlord Trait: Born Survivor

Primus [4 PL, 75pts]: Bonesword, Broodcoven Primus, Warlord Trait: Alien Majesty

+ Troops +

Acolyte Hybrids [3 PL, 59pts]
. 2x Acolyte Hybrid (Hand Flamer): 2x Hand Flamer
. Acolyte Hybrid (Heavy Weapon): Hand Flamer, Heavy Rock Saw
. Acolyte Hybrid (Heavy Weapon): Hand Flamer, Heavy Rock Saw
. Acolyte Leader: Autopistol, Cultist Knife

Acolyte Hybrids [3 PL, 59pts]
. 2x Acolyte Hybrid (Hand Flamer): 2x Hand Flamer
. Acolyte Hybrid (Heavy Weapon): Hand Flamer, Heavy Rock Saw
. Acolyte Hybrid (Heavy Weapon): Hand Flamer, Heavy Rock Saw
. Acolyte Leader: Autopistol, Cultist Knife

Neophyte Hybrids [4 PL, 50pts]: 9x Neophyte Hybrid
. Neophyte Leader: Autogun, Autopistol

+ Elites +

Aberrants [7 PL, 126pts]
. 4x Aberrant (Pick): 4x Power Pick
. Aberrant Hypermorph (Improvised): Heavy Improvised Weapon

Biophagus [2 PL, 35pts]

Kelermorph [3 PL, 60pts]

+ Fast Attack +

Atalan Jackals [6 PL, 75pts]
. Atalan Jackal: Demolition Charge, Shotgun
. Atalan Jackal: Demolition Charge, Shotgun
. Atalan Jackal: Demolition Charge, Shotgun
. Atalan Jackal: Demolition Charge, Shotgun
. Atalan Leader: Demolition Charge, Shotgun

++ Total: [43 PL, -1CP, 744pts] ++

Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)

That list is quite good for the smaller point games you'll be playing. Aberrants for example are extremely good in high point games with the Hammers, because they have a strength of 10. In a low point game that doesn't matter, so you'd rather have the picks for more attacks.

In my versions of the list, I tried to give you units that would be the weapons you'd want at the higher point value games, because most play groups move towards the level of around 1,500 or 2,000 points.

I think you've got a fine list there. The Broodcoven strategem is perfectly fine, especially if you make one of the three of them have the warlord trait that just gives you D3 command points: Then using Broodcoven is basically free!

I think the only thing you might regret later is building the aberrants with all picks instead of 2 hammers. in a 2000 point game, the first time you face a leman russ tank or an imperial knight, you'll say "wow my hammers just did 9 damage to that thing, thank god for those!" They will definitely feel like trying to use a hammer to kill a fly in small games though. "Let's see how your dreadnought feels about...EIGHTEEN WOUNDS!"

Bikes with grenades and shotguns are good, and most importantly they are very fun to use. A great piece for smaller games where usually one big tank killing attack is all you really need.