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 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

GoatboyBeta wrote:
IIRC the 1st and 2nd gen hybrids "reproduced" in the same way as purestrains, they used there optivisers to infect humans with there DNA. It was with the 3rd and 4th gens that they lost that ability. Purestrains were born by infecting a human female with blood from the Magus.

1st and 2nd have the kiss, it's often sterile in 2nd gen, so 3rd gen sees a population slump, are most welcomed, and are the first of two generations that 'conventionally' mate. The 4th generation, all of them, have the capacity to produce purestrain genestealer offspring, through conventional mating. In some background this was only ever the firstborn child, in other mentions, it was all children of the 4th.

I know in the Shield of Baal campaign, the Deathstorm boxed set's missions involved hunting down a Broodlord and a pack of genestealers (The Children of Cryptus) who were born from a Genestealer Cult, and rescuing his brother, who is a human. So they're not all Purestrains. As a matter of fact, he's (the brother) afraid of them. It's explained (sorta) that they have a tenuous psychic link (which is likely because the Broodlord is psychic itself), but the human born of that generation has no desire to rejoin or assist the Hive.

Yeah, I can imagine that they feel a connection to the greater Hive depending on how much Tyranid blood they have in them. This is why the Religious aspects of the Cult are important to control the less tainted members.

 Bi'ios wrote:
I know in the Shield of Baal campaign, the Deathstorm boxed set's missions involved hunting down a Broodlord and a pack of genestealers (The Children of Cryptus) who were born from a Genestealer Cult, and rescuing his brother, who is a human. So they're not all Purestrains. As a matter of fact, he's (the brother) afraid of them. It's explained (sorta) that they have a tenuous psychic link (which is likely because the Broodlord is psychic itself), but the human born of that generation has no desire to rejoin or assist the Hive.

The novelisation heavily implies that they're only half brothers.

 Carnikang wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

You do know that the "invisible teleporting centstars" is basically costing that Marine player all his points, yeah? Or making him do some weird thing of formation+CAD?

Additionally, with the way the new detachments for the various Chapters are set up--a few cannot even get Librarius Conclaves or Centurions.

You do know that fitting five or more flyrants into a list costs tyranid players the majority of their points or make them do weird or undesirable things like taking two mucolids and a flyrant as one detachment x5.
You do also know that that centastar still wrecks havoc on most other lists despite being only part of an army, albeit a good chunk of points. And it can be Allied into other forces.

Clarify what you're referring to as a Centstar please.

And explain how it's being allied in.

What I see from most tyrants players is that they just want to be able to compete while not having to spam FMC. Giving us GSC could Very well be th first step in fixing some of the issue that plague the Codex. The first of a good few steps that hopefully include a semblance of balance amongst the armies.

That's great and all, but GSC throwing in armored vehicles isn't going to fix Tyranids being a subpar book.

Well I'm currently sitting on;

36 Accolytes
32 Neophytes
12 Aberrants
4 Genestealers
3 Magus
2 Primus
2 Broodlords

I'm hoping to grab 2-3 boxes of neophytes and box of Accolytes to round everything out plus whatever else it turns out might be good. I mean, currently what I have only totals like 1400pts per the pts from the DW:Overkill rules.

I have no idea how the new genestealer cult history will go, but I can tell a little about their first story and then we can just wait and see if gw will try to capture some of the original story.

The genestealer cycle. The genestealers or more likely the genestealer (who turns into a patriarch) implats the geneseed into a host.
The host will be altered by the geneseed, making the stronger, healthier and gain a long life. When the host breeds their shield will be a 1st generation hybrid.
The 1st generation implants the next host, which again breeds a 2nd generation hybrid.
The cycle continues with a 3rd generation hybrid. The gene is not always strong in the 3rd generations, so some may be drones who arn't able to implant the geneseed.
For those 3rds who still can implant they give their host the ability to breed a 4th generation hybrid, these hybrids can breed themselves their children can be either of their own kind, a hybrid or a genestealer.

The clan will always try to implants the purest and strongest host, so they avoid mutants, but favor psykers as these are the most evolved specimen of a race. And the psyker gene will also carry through the generation giving 3rd and 4th generation hybrid s psychic powers.

From this could be deprived that broodbrothers are above the average population, since it is the best who are implanted and the geneseed bolster them even further. Also the army could also be quite psyker heavy since these are the prime target for implant attacks.

The original rules did not include rules for genestealer clans. It included rules for genestealer cults, which are clans who have turn to chaos.
Often the genestealers clans weren't able to grown enough power on their own, so the patriarch would make the pragmatic choice and turn to chaos. This would turn the patriarch into an oracle and often it would let a demon posses it.

The genestealers are a strong willed race, and chaos can't really lure them like they can with other races, so cult is more a allied with chaos than taken over by chaos.
Though the cult gain access to demons, mutant, beastmen and chaos spawns, the cult may suffer on long turn basis due to the genestealers natural adaptability to alien biology. Their adaptability also welcomes chaos mutation and many of the implanted hosts will breed mutated children. Mutants are instinctively avoided as hosts as they would mutate the gene. So a genestealer cult may run out of usable hosts if they don't launch their final attack early enough.

If gw follow this story the genestealer cult should be able to ally with chaos and demons, since its a chaos cult not a pure genestealer clan. They should even be able to include mutant/beastmen units.

The original cult force, where very light on heavy weaponry and armor. It relied on psykers and overwhelming numbers of trash troops with a touch of super assault troops (be it genestealers, hybrids, demons or chaosspawns, that could used as mounts!).

The cult could include lots of vehicles. But vehicles weaponry where quite spares. So it was mainly transport vehicles ranging from bikes and jetbikes to citycars and apcs.
So even though the cult did try to infiltrate military organizations to weaken the targets defense and gain access to trained troops and weapons, they were never able to steal military grade vehicles since this would rise unwanted attention.

Considering this, the cult shouldn't really have tanks but rhinos, bikes etc. could be fair game. But maybe the brood brothesr from the military could be able to commandeer a few tanks when hell breaks loose.

I think you'll see GCult fluff align more with the 2nd edition version. Many things have changed since Rogue Trader.

Heck, the Primus concept is from Tim Huckelbery's 3rd edition army list.

Something I've never quite understood, other than it's "Because GW says so" - why is it that the 4th generation hybrids can breed purestrain genestealers (let alone the technical aspects of actually giving live birth to a baby genestealer)?

Accounting for the fact that hybrids cannot breed with other hybrids until the 4th generation:

Original purestrain - 100% genestealer DNA
1st generation hybrid - 50% DNA
2nd generation - 25% DNA
3rd generation - 12.5% DNA
4th generation - 6.25% genestealer DNA

Average recombinant DNA would be roughly 6.25% if the 4th generation breeds with another 4th generation, or 3.125% if they breed with a non-hybrid. At most, through random gene pairing, you could get as much as 12.5% genestealer DNA, that somehow rewrites the entire organism to present as a purestrain.

The science doesn't add up. Is there a canon explanation as to why this can occur in a cult?

Tyranids are masters of bio-engineering.

I assume they have designed stealer DNA to actively rewrite the host DNA to pretty much ignore the rules of genetics as we understand them.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

The novelisation heavily implies that they're only half brothers.

Also the brother is older, he has no genestealer DNA on him.

If you're judging 40K fluff by 'the science doesn't add up', well... it's gonna be a looooooong night.

It happens because it's cool and someone wrote it that way. Less Stealer... less Stealer... even less... not much... BAM ALIEN DEATH MACHINE.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
From a background perspective, the originating genestealer came from a hive ship, it will be covered in nid 'bacteria' or nid 'microscopic constructs' or 'biological nanites' or whatever they want to call them, when the stealer remains in a single place long enough, that stuff starts growing, gets secreted whathaveyou, eventually bioorganic structures form, some of those might bud or fruit the weaponry and so on.

'Looks like some kind of secreted resin...'
'Yeah but secreted from what?'
'Nobody touch nothing...'

Sort of what I was thinking too.

From a fluff perspective, GSC owes a lot to the Alien franchise. I highly recommend the Alien: Book One graphic novel by Verheiden. It came out in 1990 and featured a storyline where a religious cult which (you guessed it) worships the Aliens (aka xenomorphs) and uses human wave attacks to break into the lab where they are being held so that they can intentionally infect themselves with the "face hugger" aliens. It's a good read - likely better than whatever tripe they'll serve up in the new codex.

As an aside, I have my doubts about whether the cult has any idea about the true nature of the Tyranid race. As I recall, the Imperium has gone to great lengths to compartmentalize knowledge about the Nid threat. Thus, even if they knew ther "saviors" are out there, it's not likely the average hybrid has any idea what's in store for him once the Tyrannocytes start falling

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Less Stealer... less Stealer... even less... not much... BAM ALIEN DEATH MACHINE.

Genestealers....the homeopathic Xenomorph!

I always viewed it as a time delay mechanism for a weapon rather than biology.

The inital stage is that the genestealer seed arrives on the planet and begins infecting the natives.

While stage 2-3 are breeding they have to remain largely in the shadows due to how physical differences would betray their presence, they are very active but mostly concealed in the underhives and other out of the way areas where they need to build a support base.

Stage 4 they are at the point where they can properly infiltrate themselves into the planets population without detection allowing them to place themselves in vital areas to sabotage and subvert. Once this process is fully in place they no longer need the human disguise but need the genestealer muscle again so they revert back to producing purestrains to be the final stage in the invasion cycle.

Their genetics override the hosts, it temporarily imprints part of the host onto their form as a hybrid but at root they are still foremost a genestealer. It's part of a calculated & well planned sleeper cycle, the hybrid form is an adopted external disguise while the core is still always genestealer they eventually "reset" giving up any imprints of the host and going back to their true form once the final invasion is ready to be sprung.

Yeah i mean it's sci-fantasy so it does happen because it's cool and progresses the story. I just tried wrapping my head around it because the progression from purestrain through 4th generation is actually shown very realistically in the current DWOK minis.

 Asmodas wrote:
Sort of what I was thinking too.

From a fluff perspective, GSC owes a lot to the Alien franchise. I highly recommend the Alien: Book One graphic novel by Verheiden. It came out in 1990 and featured a storyline where a religious cult which (you guessed it) worships the Aliens (aka xenomorphs) and uses human wave attacks to break into the lab where they are being held so that they can intentionally infect themselves with the "face hugger" aliens. It's a good read - likely better than whatever tripe they'll serve up in the new codex.

As an aside, I have my doubts about whether the cult has any idea about the true nature of the Tyranid race. As I recall, the Imperium has gone to great lengths to compartmentalize knowledge about the Nid threat. Thus, even if they knew ther "saviors" are out there, it's not likely the average hybrid has any idea what's in store for him once the Tyrannocytes start falling

They have no more understanding than the average Gaunt... aka none at all.

Depends on the author and genestealer cult. It is 40k after all, in some stories they know nothing, while in others they are far more aware.

 paulson games wrote:
I always viewed it as a time delay mechanism for a weapon rather than biology.

The inital stage is that the genestealer seed arrives on the planet and begins infecting the natives.

While stage 2-3 are breeding they have to remain largely in the shadows due to how physical differences would betray their presence, they are very active but mostly concealed in the underhives and other out of the way areas where they need to build a support base.

Stage 4 they are at the point where they can properly infiltrate themselves into the planets population without detection allowing them to place themselves in vital areas to sabotage and subvert. Once this process is fully in place they no longer need the human disguise but need the genestealer muscle again so they revert back to producing purestrains to be the final stage in the invasion cycle.

Their genetics override the hosts, it temporarily imprints part of the host onto their form as a hybrid but at root they are still foremost a genestealer. It's part of a calculated & well planned sleeper cycle, the hybrid form is an adopted external disguise while the core is still always genestealer they eventually "reset" giving up any imprints of the host and going back to their true form once the final invasion is ready to be sprung.

To be honest, I've never put that much thought into it, but that seems like a pretty reasonable explanation. Exalted.

Well, to break it down in roughly scientific terms...

First off, we know that 4th gens can birth pure genestealers, meaning that the entire genetic code remains intact through the generations in some form. Secondly, we know that aside from the above there is a reduction in genestealer-traits from one generation to another. This makes me think that the initial implant includes one or more viral elements which insert themselves into the host genome appropriately, as well as a separate bacterial element which exists and multiplies within the host's cells but keeps its own distinct genetic code (somewhat similar to mitochondria) and holds the entire genestealer genome. This extra element does not modify the host's code, but is passed on to offspring while the initial viral elements are not. This means the alien traits are reduced in frequency with subsequent generations but said generations still carry the full genome of a 'stealer via the bacterial parasite. Upon an appropriate trigger, this parasite commandeers the host's reproductive systems, replacing the native genome with the full genestealer one that it carries.

We need some pregnant female 4th gen hybrid models.

Mr.Church13 wrote:
Handing Tyranids tanks would effectively make fielding regular guard the most useless thing in the game. Why would anyone take plain guard, ever, when they can just take the Tanks + Biomonsters of a BB genestealer cult.

No, there's no way they end up BB. It would mean the end of IG almost completely.

Col. Hardsell says
What sort of Heresy talk is that! No self respecting guard commander is going to put up with that alien filth in the ranks! Even if you need to unzip your trousers to count to count past 10 you can figure out 2 arms good 3 arms bad suffer not the alien to live!

Oooo look, someone has got their hands on a LRBT,well whoop de do,we field them them in fething squadrons!

End rp rant.
That was my way of saying I don't think so, though I am looking forward to a small GSC army, and will loot any imperial vehicle they add for my arbites!

i still have a purple Leman Russ tank in a box somewhere from 1991, alongside all of the metal hybrids...
it might be time to bust out that box

cheers
jah

 jah-joshua wrote:
i still have a purple Leman Russ tank in a box somewhere from 1991, alongside all of the metal hybrids...
it might be time to bust out that box

cheers
jah

Careful. They have been plotting your downfall.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
We need some pregnant female 4th gen hybrid models.

Funnily, this kinda possible (though not mentioned and of course not thought through by GW)... Genestealers and early generation hybrids don't have a gender, but the 4th generation mates like humans, so... female Magus as Forge World event-only miniature when?

Tyran wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

The novelisation heavily implies that they're only half brothers.

Also the brother is older, he has no genestealer DNA on him.

I don't recall that part (not that I doubt you), so I think I might have to reread that one. It's not too long anyway, and it was sweet anyway (DC Dread blowing the Carnifex's head off with its melta = awesome). But thats going OT anyway. But, yeah, there ya go. Modern example of a GS cult right there.

Warhams-77 wrote:
The first 40k Tyranid Army list was the one in White Dwarf 145 (1st Edition) and both were fighting side-by-side

Did you know that the Ultramarines Chapter were a 2nd Founding Chapter created to replace the original Ultramarines who all turned to Chaos? Did you also know that the Ultramarines Chief Librarian is a half-human/half-Eldar hybrid?

The point I'm making is that Rogue Trader was a long time ago, and what was written then may not be what is true now.

Then there's Zoats..

 tetrisphreak wrote:
We need some pregnant female 4th gen hybrid models.

Eh... not really. The Cult isn't going to expose a pregnant mother to combat, it would be like having a pregnant IG female.

I guess this all stems from a lack of information GW has put out on the subject of GSC/Tyranid interaction. Hopefully something in the codex or black library will address this.

Tyran wrote:

 tetrisphreak wrote:
We need some pregnant female 4th gen hybrid models.

Eh... not really. The Cult isn't going to expose a pregnant mother to combat, it would be like having a pregnant IG female.

Sarcasm, friend.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Quarterdime wrote:
I guess this all stems from a lack of information GW has put out on the subject of GSC/Tyranid interaction. Hopefully something in the codex or black library will address this.

There's a GSC novel coming alongside the codex that I'd like to read.