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Hey Dakkaz!

So I'm a long-term WHFB fan, but since AoS - I don't want to play anymore, I dislike the "ethernal" lore part of it plus looks like too few people plays it. Especially locally in Russia/Moscow.

So now I'm watching out to start Wh40K and wow I was amazed with genstealer cult lore part. I'm waiting for codex now. Can you guys recommend me some books or comics about Genstealer Cults?

I don't know WH40K 7th edition rules - in my times there were this dumb allies thing. So can someone explain to me how the army of Genstealer Cult will look like? Is it like some Genstealer weird humans + regular guys from Imperial Guard + Tyranids?

The Comic "Deathwatch", the Black Library novel "Deathwatch" and the Black Library novel "Deathwatch: Overkill".

Audiobook "Mission: Purge".

Ciaphas Caine books - genestealer cults are a repeated opponent in quite a few of them. For the Emperor, and the Emperor's Finest for definite.

So can someone explain to me how the army of Genstealer Cult will look like? Is it like some Genstealer weird humans + regular guys from Imperial Guard + Tyranids?

Short version:

Tyranids send out genestealers as a 'vanguard' to find inhabited worlds. Space hulks, things like that.

One or more genestealers makes it to a populated planet.

Genestealers - mature, full-grown ones (like you get in the GSC codex, not the quick-grown throwaway things the tyranids use as shock troops) - can infect and/or mind control whatever species they hide within the society of.

The cult tends to pretend to be a benevolent religion, or charity, or worker's association - whatever will let it survive in the shadows with plenty of members and no official crackdown. Humans infected give birth to hybrids. Hybrids get more human-looking with each generation.

Eventually (I think 5th generation?) a genetic 'timebomb' goes off, and the babies born to the cult are all switched back to purestrain genestealers, and they, and all the suborned humans and hybrids, try to take over the world - at the same time sending out a telepathic message to the tyranids "all you can eat buffet over here!!!"

The resulting army is mobs of genestealers (and hybrids), plus normal workers who've siezed guns to defend what they perceive as their gods, plus (normally) planetary defence forces or guard stationed on the planet (because the cult tends to try very hard to infect and corrupt any regular army to improve its chances).

In theory you can ally in some tyranids but you don't need to. A lot of the time the stealer cult takes over the world all by its lonesome and sits around happily waiting for god to arrive (and dissolve them all in a digestion pool, but hey, that's organised religion for you).

I'm not normally a fan of Tyranid things, but the GSC fluff is pretty cool. I find it almost tragic, like a horror movie where the cultists finally come face to face with their "god" and realize it's a hideous otherwordly monster that proceeds to eat their brains. Very Cthulhu-esque, now that I think of it (can't believe I never made that comparison before). In fact... oh my feth, that's the perfect flavor for a Genestealer Cult. Straight out of The Shadow Over Innsmouth and similar stories (hell those guys are pretty damn close to GSC, with hybrids and monsters and such). The Esoteric Order of Dagon 40,000. O_O

My only concern is the army looks to be pretty expensive as far as 40k armies go. Lots of cheap troops (points wise) so you need a lot of expensive boxes (money-wise) would be the only thing keeping me away from it.

Ignore the Ciaphas Caine books. They're written very much tongue in cheek and generally are not that great either.

Genestealer Cults saw a "Legends of the Dark Millenium" book released alongside their army, which is going to be short stories about the army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac wrote:

My only concern is the army looks to be pretty expensive as far as 40k armies go. Lots of cheap troops (points wise) so you need a lot of expensive boxes (money-wise) would be the only thing keeping me away from it.

Lots of cheap troops pointswise, but also really expensive armor in the form of the IG tanks

Deathwatch: Overkill is actually a good springboard for a prospective GSC player. 16 Neophytes(2 with Grenade Launchers and 2 with Mining Lasers, 12 with Autoguns), 12 Acolytes(all with Pistols/CCWs/Rending Claws), 4 Aberrants(2 with Hammers and 2 with Picks currently only available in the Overkill box), 2 Purestrain Genestealers(which have a very distinctive look compared to the normal Genestealers), then the three character types(Primus, Magus, and Patriarch--with their Familiars).
That's $120 and some change on the Neophytes/Acolytes, $60 for the Broodcoven totaling $180 right there plus the Genestealers, Aberrants, and the "remaining" 6 Neophytes and 2 Acolytes.

GLs and Mining Lasers aren't necessarily the best choices but they aren't bad choices, and you can grab a box or two for Neophytes to add a champion, icon bearer, and a few extra special weapons/mining weapons.

Ignore the Ciaphas Caine books. They're written very much tongue in cheek and generally are not that great either.

I have to say I strongly disagree. They do have a sense of humour to them but I feel are at least as good as a lot of other black library novels. The characters act a lot more believably than in a lot of other BL books.

The odd one-line jokes aside (I'm not going to try and defend the Reclaimers chapter as anything but a one-line joke, for example), AS plays a lot less fast and loose with the fluff than say, Dan Abnett.



Oh, there's a genestealer cult element in the Inquisition War trilogy, too.

Wayniac wrote:
I'm not normally a fan of Tyranid things, but the GSC fluff is pretty cool. I find it almost tragic, like a horror movie where the cultists finally come face to face with their "god" and realize it's a hideous otherwordly monster that proceeds to eat their brains. Very Cthulhu-esque, now that I think of it (can't believe I never made that comparison before). In fact... oh my feth, that's the perfect flavor for a Genestealer Cult. Straight out of The Shadow Over Innsmouth and similar stories (hell those guys are pretty damn close to GSC, with hybrids and monsters and such). The Esoteric Order of Dagon 40,000. O_O

My only concern is the army looks to be pretty expensive as far as 40k armies go. Lots of cheap troops (points wise) so you need a lot of expensive boxes (money-wise) would be the only thing keeping me away from it.

I am fan of the tyranids (and the fact that they are "shout-outs", in many combinations, of real organisms), but you are spot-on on the cult. The Lovercraftian influence into 40k has always been there, but I find this one perfectly executed (model wise too, it really looks back to Blanche, and is a good call back to movies like the unloved Alien 4 - I KNOW, I KNOW BUT THE DESIGN OF THE HYBRIDS WAS AWESOME).

It gives you, too, a "change of perspective". We see everything on the galactic scale, with multi-planetary wars, crusades, black crusades but the cult summon stories - like the stories you just evoked - on the planetary, or lesser, perspective. A bit like the Necromunda game, or the incredible change of perspective a native of a feral world can have when is recruited as a potential Space Marine. The illusion is gone, for the good or the bad, and the reality out there, in case of the Cult or the SM, reveals itself.

locarno24 wrote:

Ignore the Ciaphas Caine books. They're written very much tongue in cheek and generally are not that great either.

I have to say I strongly disagree. They do have a sense of humour to them but I feel are at least as good as a lot of other black library novels.

The odd one-line jokes aside (I'm not going to try and defend the Reclaimers chapter as anything but a one-line joke), AS plays a lot less fast and loose with the fluff than say, Dan Abnett.

Considering most of what Abnett has done is establishing the initial fluff "back in the day"...yeah, Abnett has played fast and loose with the fluff but he also established that fluff as the standard as well.

Oh, there's a genestealer cult element in the Inquisition War trilogy, too.

Inquisition War is what was considered a "Heretic Tome" previously. That means it was a series that was to be ignored as canon, but instead to be looked at as a window into the way things used to be.