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I love narrative gaming, and related games of differing scales provide a wicked story telling platform. These rules are for a campaign in which a genstealer cult kill team gradually becomes a full scale army.

Start your kill team with nothing but Purestrains. For every implant attack that takes a model out of action, add a brood brother to your 40k army.

Once you have accumulated 5 brood brothers, they begin to breed; roll a d6 before every game- on a 6, gain a neophyte. Every game, the target drops by one, but as soon as you get the neophyte, the target resets to 6 and the process begins again. This is intended to strike a balance- the decreasing target allows you to grow while the breeding pool is small, while the reset prevents growth from getting out of control as the breeding pool grows.

Once you have 5 neophytes, they begin to breed, using the same mechanic, accept they spawn acolytes.

Once you have 5 acolytes, they begin to breed new brood brothers using the same mechanic. These brood brothers are different than implanted brood brothers, because they are the ones whose offspring are purestrains, beginning the cycle anew. In modelling terms, you may want to visually distinguish between implanted brood brothers and those born to the cult.

Upon the birth of the first 4th generation purestrain, the most experienced stealer from the original kill team becomes the patriarch.

In the second cycle, every time neophytes successfully breed, roll another die against the same target; if this roll succeeds, you must pick a metamorph or an aberrant instead of an acolyte. Because the target for the second roll changes, from game to game, it does get easier to breed the more specialized model; the target resets with every birth to prevent elite generation from getting out of hand.

Also in the second cycle, whenever an Accolyte breeds, roll an extra d6 against a target of six; the first time you succeed, you get a magus. The second time, you get a primus. Once you have both, you stop rolling the second die.Because this target NEVER changes, it's always hard to generate the character.

The cool thing is that all of this stacks, so you're making one breeding roll for every full five models of the same type, while your kill team is still making implant attacks.By the time you've played ten games, you could theoretically be making 3 or even 4 rolls to breed neophytes and maybe even 1 roll to breed accolytes if you've been lucky.

Once you have alternate troop types in your cult, you can swap them into kill team, provided that there are kill team rules to support a model of that type, and of course, provided your opponents are cool with that.

A few interesting things here:

a) Even if your opponents hate these rules, you can still use them, as long as you're just using them to figure out how to build your 40k army; all of the recruiting/breeding occurs in downtime, so impacting the kill team game isn't a requirement of using the rules.

b) The recruitment and breeding rules can also be used in the downtime between games of 40k and Necromunda, and the increases from all 3 games contribute to the same cult, again, whether your opponent likes the rules or not- they won't even know you're using these rules if you don't tell them about it.

c) As for vehicles, I think you use vehicle models as objectives in special scenarios.

The purpose here is to let you grow a cult according to the way they would grow according to the fluff. It's a lot of book keeping with the shifting targets, but without them, either the cult grows too slowly, or if you try to adjust with a lower, constant target, the breeding gets out of control once your army/kill team/ gang gets too big. I think playing it out like this, rather than just buying models based on preference would really give your cult a unique identity and history.

Obviously, not the way to build a tournament army, although if you kept it going long enough you would eventually have a big enough cult roster to choose from that a competitive build would be possible, but it would take quite a few games to get there. Again, consistent with fluff- cults lurk and grow for years before risking discovery.

So what do you think? Interesting way to build an army or not?

Neat. This seems like a fun way to run your own personal "campaign." Not so much a change to the rules of whatever game you're playing. More of a fun "challenge mode" to impose on yourself while you track the progress and proliferation of your cult.

I really like this!
Very cool idea,and wonderful way to create the lore behind your forces!

I like the idea, but the cycle generally goes from purestrain to acolyte (1st and 2nd gen) to neophyte (3rd and 4th gen) to purestrain, with your aforementioned aberrant, metamorph, primus and magus opportunities. I lile the fact you have brood brothers involved though, so now want to make my own version and incorporate them.

Fifty, the 1st generation Hybrids come from those hosts implanted by the purestrain - those implanted models being represented by the first wave of Brood Brothers.

What's missing is the mechanic to breed the next generation of Purestrains; the rules in the OP say "Upon the birth of the first 4th generation purestrain, the most experienced stealer from the original kill team becomes the patriarch. " but don't actually say how to get those 4th generation purestrains.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/a/a3/GenestealerCultCycle.jpg

Either I've forgotten things or there's being some retconning; I was under the impression that the offspring of 4th generation hybrids was more "pure" members of the host species as well as purestrain genestealers.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Fifty, the 1st generation Hybrids come from those hosts implanted by the purestrain - those implanted models being represented by the first wave of Brood Brothers.

Yeah, that is what I meant, sorry. My point being though that you would gain acolytes before neophytes. Neophytes might be functionally equivalent to brood brothers in terms of combat ability though.

What's missing is the mechanic to breed the next generation of Purestrains; the rules in the OP say "Upon the birth of the first 4th generation purestrain, the most experienced stealer from the original kill team becomes the patriarch. " but don't actually say how to get those 4th generation purestrains.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/a/a3/GenestealerCultCycle.jpg

Either I've forgotten things or there's being some retconning; I was under the impression that the offspring of 4th generation hybrids was more "pure" members of the host species as well as purestrain genestealers.

He does have a purestrain mechanism, but reversed as before, with them coming from acolytes. Purestrains are born to 4th gen parents, so Purestrains are basically 5th generation.

I've been working on something related myself, both for my Kill Team/Gang/Army and for short story writing.

I had the idea of giving each type of 'stealer within the cult a rank/title. It seemed right, but left out possibility of advancement, and I have now come up with this:

Rank Cycle Stage Role Male Title
9 1 Patriarch Sire
1 2 Brood Brother (or sister) Kith
8 3 Primus Promised
7 3 Iconward Eldest
6 3 Alpha Chosen
4 3 Metamorph Herald
5 3 1st Gen Acolyte Elder
6 4 Adept Prophet (or Speaker)
4 4 2nd Gen Acolyte Elder
3 5 3rd Gen Neophyte Brother
8 6 Magus (Lord) Prophet
2 6 4th Gen Neophyte Brother
7 7 Purestrain Scion/Sire
0 any Aberrant (none)

Honorifics
1 Valued
2 Cherished
3 Esteemed
4 Honoured
5 Exalted
6 Venerated
7 Revered

Brother Nok will never be known as Elder Nok, but he could become known as Valued Brother Nok, if he does something good, and maybe one day could even become Exalted or Venerated Brother Nok. In the most remarkable cases, he might even be Revered Brother Nok.

Each rank could be seen almost like a "+1" to the inherent rank of a role. A venerated chosen might have more influence than a valued primus in some situations, for example. A bit like a grizzled sergeant being more valuable than a rookie captain, but still not truly having power over him. He'd need to know his place, but as long as he doesn't push it, could exert massive influence and the patriarch would elevate him.

Alternative Titles and/or Sobriquets
Father
Saint
Apostle
Harbinger
Master
Ascendant
Almighty
Emancipator?)

One who has transcended their role may gain such a sobriquet. For example, Prophet Zicarios might become Prophet Zicarios the Apostle, or simply Zicarios the Apostle