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But it's also a wish-list post!

So everyone knows that when GW designs whether units are fun or not, they kind of just make things up. Some folks then come in and spoil the fun by putting caps on things. I feel like this went overboard with GSC because they were in the throws of 8th edition when they were released, but they just haven't done anything at all to help them out. Why would that be? I think whomever at GW is playing GSC to report back how potent the codex is has still been playing with their "head-canon" of GSC rules, and these are what I think those rules are.

(FYI - No I don't actually think this, but man if there's a LOT of stuff here that just feels... right.)


#1 - ALL the GSC units get the Cult bonuses, except the Brood Brothers, which get their choice of Astra Militarum Regiment bonuses if they're in their own detachment. Brood Brother units chosen from the codex still have the <Cult> keyword though.

#2 - Rusted Claw's bonus is that they they have +1 to their saving throws (edit: but not invulnerable). Pauper Princes always add 2 to Unquestioning Loyalty rolls (not just the Warlord Trait). Hive Cult never lose more than 1 model to failed morale tests, and can Fall Back and shoot freely.

#3 - Genestealer Cults Brigades get an additional 8 Command Points at the start of the game, and Battalions get an additional 2 at the start of the game.

#4 - The Primus' reroll 1's to wound aura is selected at any time, and there's a stratagem to re-select it. He also has a 5+ Inv save from a stolen refractor field, and can purchase Familiars (who only act as extra wounds).

#5 - The Abominant hits on 2+'s intrinsically, has a +1 to hit aura for Aberrants, has an additional attack, and his familiar adds 2 attacks to the Abominant's profile. Also, the Abominant has a 5+ Inv save from Alien Biology.

#6 - The Magus has a 5+ Inv save from a stolen refractor field.

#7 - The Jackal Alphus' sniper gun is Strength 5 and does D3 mortal wounds on a to-wound roll of 6+.

#8 - Neophyte Squads can purchase their weapons for free, the Cult Icon adds 1 to the number of attacks of models in the squad.

#9 - The Cult Icon adds 1 to the number of attacks in a squad of Acolyte Hybrids as well.

#10 - Aberrants have an extra attack, and a 5+ Inv save from Alien Biology. The +1 to their FnP stratagem lasts until your next turn, and they have a stratagem to fight on death if they did not fight already this turn that can be used at any time.

#11 - Metamorph Claws are AP-2 and 2dmg. The Cult Icon adds 1 to the number of attacks of models in the squad.

#12 - Purestrain Genestealers have 2 wounds each. The stratagem of the Firstborn's Curse cannot remove the ability to advance and charge.

#13 - The Biophagus can enhance any unit other than a Vehicle or Genestealer one.

#14 - The Clamavus' ability to deal mortal wounds has a range of 12".

#15 - The Kelermorph's guns are AP-2, and his reroll 1's to hit aura works for any Cult unit, not just infantry.

#16 - The Locus never counts as destroyed for purposes of Victory Points.

#17 - When the Nexos is revealed, you can return a blipped unit to your reserves rather than just move it.

#18 - The Sanctus' sniper rifle is Strength 5.

#19 - The Gift from Beyond adds 1 to wound, but causes mortal wounds on a 5+.

#20 - Familiars can be used individually to cast an extra power, so there is a point to purchasing more than 1.

#21 - Heavy Rock Drill causes the run-on mortal wounds for each failed save, not just if the model caused "at least 1".

#22 - Atalan Incinerators and Clearance Incinerators have the Blast keyword, but only when they want to.

#23 - Clandestine Goals stratagem lets you keep your secondary objectives hidden.

#24 - If you roll 2 or less with the Perfect Ambush stratagem, count it as a 3 instead.

#25 - Cult Reinforcements stratagem can be used on any Infantry or Biker unit, not just Troops.

#26 - Prepared Ambush stratagem adds 1 to your wound rolls for a unit of Neophytes that were deployed this turn.

#27 - A Plan Generations in the Making stratagem can't fail, but also can't extra-shut-down your opponent.

#28 - Monstrous Biohorrors stratagem can be used on any Twisted Helix unit, not just Aberrants.

 Yarium wrote:
So everyone knows that when GW designs whether units are fun or not, they kind of just make things up. Some folks then come in and spoil the fun by putting caps on things.

What do you mean by fun or not? What caps are you complaining about, you are suggesting a lot of changes and a lot of them don't seem to have any bearing on fun or caps.

... they just haven't done anything at all to help them out. Why would that be?..

They haven't helped out any of the armies that are struggling, I think mostly due to covid. 9th had crap balance out the gate because GW just applied a slapdash algorithm to decide points costs and then made a few token changes to the algorithm before publishing. That's a result of 9th edition being an edition for narrative gamers, people that want good balance were hardly considered.

#1 - ALL the GSC units get the Cult bonuses...

Surprising to me that they don't already, makes sense why I've never seen GSC vehicles.

#2 - Rusted Claw's bonus is that they they have +1 to their saving throws (edit: but not invulnerable).

This is going to be by far the best option for vehicles, either Rusted Claw vehicles are OP or vehicles with any other creed are UP.

#3 - Genestealer Cults Brigades get an additional 8 Command Points at the start of the game, and Battalions get an additional 2 at the start of the game.

#7 - The Jackal Alphus' sniper gun is Strength 5 and does D3 mortal wounds on a to-wound roll of 6+.

#18 - The Sanctus' sniper rifle is Strength 5.

What are the purposes of these changes?

#8 - Neophyte Squads can purchase their weapons for free...

The people that don't have two special weapons for each of their squads can just go stick their heads where the sun don't shine or what?

Absolutely these changes have no bearing on that. That was me trying to get across the idea that GW's design methodology is based on making things cool first, and then making it fit into the rules second. I was suggesting changes on the idea that the person that made up the rules may be the person that is telling GW that GSC are still fine and points costs for them should remain high, but that this person was still thinking and playing with the GSC based on the rules they made up, and not by someone that had them fit into the rules, and thus they were playing with a different rules set than what GSC actually are.

I then went ahead and said that's totally bollocks and absolutely NOT the case, but it was funny to think that way.

The changes suggested here are kind of like me making things more like how I would expect things to work if you told me about the unit, and I made a guess on their rules. For example, the sniper rifles being S5 so they wound on 3's rather than 4's most of the time. If you told me there was a single-model sniper specialist HQ or Elite, I'd expect them to be competent in that role, and not bad at it. These elite units have a sniper rifle that is about as good as the Space Marine Scout's sniper rifle. The bonus command points bit is because GSC was designed in 8th edition to spam detachments to gain command points, often starting the game with 20 command points. The army is pretty much designed to run on 20 command points, not 12.

Yeah, the Neophyte one is the one I'm least happy about looking back on it. I'd scratch it off the list, but I can't help but feel like GW thinks that Neophytes are capable of doing things that they simply aren't capable of doing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's another example of changing things to be more of "what would you expect".

Say you have a unit worth over 100 points. He's an HQ, biggest model in the army other than the Patriarch. Carries a giant hammer, no gun. Here's his image:



What would you expect this guy's stats and abilities to be like based on that description?

Did you say that he has no invulnerable save, 3 attacks, and hits on 4's? If you did, you're a cruel person, but correct. I would say he probably has some kind of invul save, 6 attacks, and hits on 2's. So that's why I made the changes I did.

 Yarium wrote:
Absolutely these changes have no bearing on that. That was me trying to get across the idea that GW's design methodology is based on making things cool first, and then making it fit into the rules second. I was suggesting changes on the idea that the person that made up the rules may be the person that is telling GW that GSC are still fine and points costs for them should remain high, but that this person was still thinking and playing with the GSC based on the rules they made up, and not by someone that had them fit into the rules, and thus they were playing with a different rules set than what GSC actually are.

Say you have a unit worth over 100 points. He's an HQ, biggest model in the army other than the Patriarch. Carries a giant hammer, no gun.

What would you expect this guy's stats and abilities to be like based on that description?

Did you say that he has no invulnerable save, 3 attacks, and hits on 4's? If you did, you're a cruel person, but correct. I would say he probably has some kind of invul save, 6 attacks, and hits on 2's. So that's why I made the changes I did.

It's problematic to play with because all of those changes stack up and it becomes hard to remember what is official, what was your house rules 6 months ago and your house rules today. I felt that Necron Warriors should be really cheap and fearless when I wrote a Necron fandex in 7th, the unit ended up looking totally different from GW's Necron Warriors, I loved them but it led to all of those issues I mentioned. I got the feeling that this wasn't really intended for playing with on a daily purpose anyway so it's no big deal if you suggested S5 sniper rifles for your HQs just because that feels slightly more cool to you since you didn't also have to figure if the change was worth making in terms of book-keeping and confusion, I totally get it.

 vict0988 wrote:

They haven't helped out any of the armies that are struggling, I think mostly due to covid. 9th had crap balance out the gate because GW just applied a slapdash algorithm to decide points costs and then made a few token changes to the algorithm before publishing. That's a result of 9th edition being an edition for narrative gamers, people that want good balance were hardly considered.

I'm sorry but WAT

HUH

How can you compare 9th edition 40k to....any other edition of 40k and make the judgement "obviously this was designed by those fluffy narrative players, certainly no tournament gamers designed these rules right here."

As a palette cleanser I'm going to ask you to read just a bit of the movement phase rules for 2nd edition 40k, if you wouldn't mind:


GW literally starts a section with a quick overview of how movement works: Declare charges, make compulsory moves, move chargers, normal moves. Then they talk about terrain for a minute, which gets them distracted, so they forget about the order of operations they just established and launch immediately into a DIFFERENT thing you can do in the movement phase, Overwatch, that they didn't bother putting into the sequence at all and which contains two sentences that directly contradict each other - that you have to declare overwatch at the START of the movement phase, BUT you can still go into overwatch if your unit didn't do anything but rotate in the movement phase. When did I rotate them Games Workshop? When did I have the chance to rotate if I do the overwatch at the start of the phase???

Ahem. Sorry. 9th edition is factually the most tournament-oriented ruleset that GW has ever made.

It's a TERRIBLE tournament-oriented ruleset. but it is almost inarguably the least fluff/narrative-driven edition GW has ever put out. GW defined the rules for 9th more precisely than any of their other rulesets I've played.

the_scotsman wrote:
[I]t is almost inarguably the least fluff/narrative-driven edition GW has ever put out. GW defined the rules for 9th more precisely than any of their other rulesets I've played.

Crusades are probably the biggest single investment into narrative-focused gaming GW has ever made. The same goes for putting out updated PLs alongside updated points which they didn't do at all in 8e. Just because they've put in extra effort to keep their rules clear and concise doesn't make the edition any less narratively focused.

So I think stat changes, points changes and the like aren't really that interesting as a fix for any army. (There will be some situation stat buffs listed below but these are the result of engaging with the game not just balances) I think you need to look at what it does as a concept and how it engages with the theme of the edition. I think in addition, every army should have a key thing that they do that no-one else does. So how can we keep the GSC concept and allow it to not only compete in the new edition but do the things that 9th ed values, and also do that in a unique fashion.

- An exception to this is gift from beyond. +2 to wound is broken, because there's not enough -1 to wound to count (that the FAQ didn't provide an actual example is telling). +3s, +1 to wound, and mortals on a 5+ would effectively give the exact same outcomes. This is a patch rather than a buff/nerf, to end up in the same position as before.

One problem with GSC is that (ignoring deployment which remains a really fun thing to do) you're having to make the same decision (deep strike) over and over again to be successful. If we're successful, we will have increased that decision space.
I think a unique proposition with GSC in 9th that they do best when the scores are low. A high scoring game isn't one that GSC will win. Most armies are looking to improve their ability to score points, I think we will succeed by introducing an army that looks to reduce the ability of the opponent to score.

GSC aren't durable, they shouldn't be. What they should be able to do is engage with the board state to counter that. So what unique things could they do.

- Redeploy. Let's say a stratagem, or a unit ability. If a cult ambush unit has used cult ambush this turn, killed a unit, and are now not in engagement range, they can return immediately to reinforcements (either for CP or reflected in unit price). If you can achieve the thing you set out to do (assault and wipe out an enemy unit) then you gain extreme durability and mobility. However, using this means you can't gain objectives; purely denial. In addition, the opponent can act to prevent this through heroic intervention. This makes the stratagem less likely to be available, but you've forced them to expose a key unit to do so.

- Turn off actions/secondaries. If at any point in your turn, you have more models in range of an objective, or have more models in engagement with the opponent than they do, you prevent them achieving their objective, or they do not count for secondaries this turn.

- Engage in cover. Let's give GSC additional benefits from cover. an extra +1 to saves, or all light cover is dense. Maybe by foregoing shooting or actions in a turn while in cover, obscuring also counts while inside area terrain. Again, it's durability with the cost that having it limits your ability to gain objectives and VP. We haven't seen an army engage with the cover systems in a unique fashion, and GSC are one of the most obvious candidates.

GSC are mobile and have board control. But with strategic reserves, that mobility has lost something. True, GSC can essentially get anywhere on the board via deepstrike, Perfect Ambush and Lying in Wait, but it means that the army very much plays the same every game and since you have to do it by turn 3 and many of the tools are assault, you end up with a very compressed game which ends in a wipe for either player quite early, often at the whims of a dice). Neither player has as much control over the outcome as they like. The unique mobility comes in deployment. So let's extend that instead.

- Ambush tokens can be placed anywhere on the board (except within range of objectives). The ones in your deployment zone act as they currently do (opponent cannot be within 9 inches, turn up at start of your turn or end of opponent's movement phase). The ones in mid board can appear on turn 2,3 or 4. The ones in your opponents deployment zone can arrive on turn 4 or 5. The opponent can get within 9 inches of these. You cannot deploy out of these blips into engagement range, but you can charge out of them. You do have the stratagems to move blips and send units underground, but this is now limited to 1 per strat, or gets a CP increase after the first round. It's very similar to deep strike but both players have the knowledge to act around them. The defending player can shut down the blip but they're giving up that unit's mobility for 2 or 3 turns. The GSC player can turn up later than turn 3, but they run the risk of their blips becoming irrelevant as the game goes on, and having less time to achieve things. The GSC player gains board control as a threat, but both players have control over the situation throughout the game.

Finally, GSC lack shooting. There's a lack of s4-6,any AP, and the volume of fire (outside of hand flamers) isn't there either. There are some units that can hang here, but mostly through efficient points rather than the unit itself being particularly good. While it's okay for an army to lack in an area, the problem is that being bad at shooting is much worse than being bad at anything else, and GSC don't have anything to mitigate their bad shooting. Let's introduce things to help this.

- A perfect ambush. Add a third clause to this. You can move up to d6 inches, You can immediately shoot, or you can gain +1 to hit, +1 to wound and an additional -1AP for the next shooting phase. This is a 3CP strat, so of course it's powerful - Only one unit can get it a turn - it's limited to infantry and bikes, and it's mostly turning bs3 st3 ap0 weapons into bs3 st4/5 ap-1 weapons.

- When in cover, have a bonus to shooting. In addition, gain a bonus for being higher than the target unit. Roll a d3 for each thing that is true, and gain one of bolter discipline (+short wave seismic cannons at full range), rerolls to shooting, auto wound on 6 to hit. We're leaning into the idea that the army wants to be in cover and providing benefits to doing so. It doesn't make the guns better but it may be enough to encourage a shooting part of the army. The idea of adding the height is that higher units have to travel farther to gain objectives, and it becomes easier to counter-charge out of deep strike. Also it's an addition to the board state that exists but isn't really used. Also I think seismic cannons offer something that doesn't get enough play and want to give that a more viable option.

- A stratagem that if an action is performed within range of a GSC unit, they can shoot at it (ie auspex scan). If they kill a model the action is stopped.


There's one more unique aspect to GSC - brood brothers. As it is, the brood brothers rule has too many downsides to be valid to take and the fact that some of the brood brothers units in the codex proper are there to fill out a unit count. Now I would say that for every detachment of GSC, you should be able to take a free patrol of brood brothers. This is too close to the drukhari raiding party concept (so I dont want to crib it). So:

- a third of the units (rounding down) in each role may come from the astra militarum codex. This does not turn off cult creeds, but the Astra militarum do not gain a regiment bonus. So if you are taking 6 troops, 2 may come from astra militarum. If you're taking 3 fast attack, 1 may come from Astra Militarum.

- A patrol, can have 1 troop unit, but nothing else (because all other roles are less than 3 slots).
- A batallion can have 2 troops and 1 of anything else.
- A brigade can have 1 hq, 4 troops and 2 of anything else.

I think that covers everything. What I've suggested gives 9th GSC an identity as an area denial/disruption army. They win low scoring games - they're more lethal and more durable if they're not in a position to score primary objectives themselves; they'll have a method to turn off actions either through shooting, or via overwhelming the opponent in number. They're not more lethal in general than they were before, they're playing a different, guerrilla warfare game.The brood brothers changes limit the depth of the integration but widen the scope. The cult ambush changes mean that the deep strike nature of the army is similar, but both players have the option to make trade-offs in order to have more control over the situation. The best part of cult ambush is the threat of cult ambush, not rolling to make a 9 inch charge 12 times a battle.

The idea is to have an army that doesn't need to kill the opponents, because they really don't and shouldn't have the tools to. They're an uprising, after all.

There's some broken stuff in here that would need fixing/balancing. There's an unkillable 20 acolyte blob in here that deletes a unit every turn for example. I can't balance points and there's no point trying to do so for fanfiction.

 Yarium wrote:
Absolutely these changes have no bearing on that. That was me trying to get across the idea that GW's design methodology is based on making things cool first, and then making it fit into the rules second. I was suggesting changes on the idea that the person that made up the rules may be the person that is telling GW that GSC are still fine and points costs for them should remain high, but that this person was still thinking and playing with the GSC based on the rules they made up, and not by someone that had them fit into the rules, and thus they were playing with a different rules set than what GSC actually are.

I then went ahead and said that's totally bollocks and absolutely NOT the case, but it was funny to think that way.

The changes suggested here are kind of like me making things more like how I would expect things to work if you told me about the unit, and I made a guess on their rules. For example, the sniper rifles being S5 so they wound on 3's rather than 4's most of the time. If you told me there was a single-model sniper specialist HQ or Elite, I'd expect them to be competent in that role, and not bad at it. These elite units have a sniper rifle that is about as good as the Space Marine Scout's sniper rifle. The bonus command points bit is because GSC was designed in 8th edition to spam detachments to gain command points, often starting the game with 20 command points. The army is pretty much designed to run on 20 command points, not 12.

Yeah, the Neophyte one is the one I'm least happy about looking back on it. I'd scratch it off the list, but I can't help but feel like GW thinks that Neophytes are capable of doing things that they simply aren't capable of doing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's another example of changing things to be more of "what would you expect".

Say you have a unit worth over 100 points. He's an HQ, biggest model in the army other than the Patriarch. Carries a giant hammer, no gun. Here's his image:



What would you expect this guy's stats and abilities to be like based on that description?

Did you say that he has no invulnerable save, 3 attacks, and hits on 4's? If you did, you're a cruel person, but correct. I would say he probably has some kind of invul save, 6 attacks, and hits on 2's. So that's why I made the changes I did.

It's not a daemonprince, and it should not be one. However, 3 attacks is fething insulting as is his equipment option...i mean, common, why shouldn't i be able to give him a pick and claw?
(personally 5 for the abominant, 4 for a hypermorph abberant and 3 for a normal abberant would make them actually , you know dangerous but.. ehh..) also s5 for these things is just sad, s6 seems appropriate personally. might be an issue with twisted helix but nobody said that traits shouldn't differ for differing types of units, (f.e. Genestealers should have a diffrent effect from the rest of the cult which should have a diffrent trait from vehicles and yes vehicles SHOULD HAVE TRAITS *rages in IW and count as GSC former R&H)