This used to be slightly weaker than the Broodsurge, but still seen in a lot of lists. With the Aberrant nerf, this has basically vanished. If you’re still using them then by all means take it, but for most people this is on the bench until they get a buff. Psychic Powers

Core is fine" ; "Codex is solid, but just not what I wanted" is sort of the vibes I've been feeling so far. But I'm still hopeful and excited to play with whatever new rules we get, I mostly just care about getting to play with all my models and having it be strong and viable.The TGG power is also the best of the bunch, and combos extremely well with bike spam, helping them blow tougher targets to bits with their shotguns. It’s also great in soup builds, being a big help to Hive Guard when comboed with Tyranids. The game being one turn shorter reduces the time the enemy has to recover from an early lead, which GSC certainly used to be able to build. Cult Ambush’s ability to be reactive in deployment is exceptionally good in the missions, allowing GSC to adapt to going first or second on the fly. Use Scanner Decoys a lot. The Biophagus seriously amps up a combat unit, allowing them to access LETHAL HITS, and once per battle ANTI-INFANTRY 2+. He can also seriously enhance his own weapons once per game to make him a very scary anti-infantry character. Endless Hordes –GSC already played a grindy, horde based game in 9th, but the regeneration of units takes this up to 11. Outlasting your opponent via attrition and catching them out late game via careful deployment of ambush tokens will be huge this edition.

Genestealer Cults also get a second Army Rule, Brood Brothers. This allows them to bring up to 500pts of Astra Militarum units along in their army (with some exclusions for Epic Heroes and Militarum Tempestus stuff, and no Enhancements). While they’ll be operating without any real faction synergy, Guard indirect shooting is looking very strong in their Index, so there’s a decent chance this ends up being quite potent! Detachment Rules – Ascension Day Excellent Character Support –the GSC character range is stunning, and every single one of these little guys now brings something extremely valuable to an attached unit. Tool up your hordes carefully to enact your schemes to the maximum. To add shadows and definition to the bike, use a shade like Nuln Oil. Apply the shade carefully to the recessed areas, such as beneath the seat, around the handlebars, and between any parts where shadows naturally occur. Prepared Ambush– 1CP: A unit of Neophyte Hybrids that set up on the battlefield this battle round makes their autoguns assault 2 instead of rapid fire 1. The ceiling here is wildly low, and even in perfect circumstances with a 20 model full squad (which you don’t take) this is adding 16 BS4+ autogun shots. This needed to give rapid fire 2 instead. C This kit lets you build a Locus with a choice of four different heads – one with a hood down, one with a hood up, and two unhooded. These are great for personalising your models, while the spares are compatible with a host of other Genestealer Cults models.Workers Arisen: Re-roll hits with Heavy Mining Weapons (the ones Neophytes can take, so heavy stubbers, mining lasers and sesimic cannons). Since you actually can take some of these on Atalan Wolfquads too you get to affect a mighty two units, but at least the buff here is actually good. Turns out, however, that you’d rather take Neophytes in Bladed Cog and Atalans in Rusted Claw and leave this on the shelf. Still vying for the best of the bunch. C+ Mass Hypnosis – WC7: Make an enemy unit suffer a -1 penalty to hit, not be able to fire overwatch and fight last until your next psychic phase. All nice debuffs, and great for softening up a target like a Knight before your Patriarch goes in. Often somewhat overshadowed by the Amulet of the Voidwyrm relic, but still a great choice. B+ Some units in the codex have this keyword instead of a keyword, while still having the GENESTEALER CULT and TYRANID faction keyword. They can thus be included in your detachments as normal, and also don’t break your Cult Creed. They don’t get cult bonuses and aren’t affected by some abilities. Of these units, the most relevant one is the basic Brood Brothers Infantry Squad, which lets you fill out a troops slot for 40pts. Mortar teams are also pretty common, especially in lists filling out a Brigade. For each GSC detachment your army has, you can include up to one ASTRA MILITARUM detachment, ignoring the normal Battle Brothers rule for building a battle forged army. These have the following additional restrictions: The latter part used to be even more important, as some poor wording let you hold the deep strikers pulled with it past turn 3, but it’s still exceptional now that’s been fixed by a FAQ. Most GSC armies will contain several “bombs”, large deep striking units that often run to the 200-250pts range (usually Acolytes). You might not normally be able to get all of these plus their required support characters into deep strike under the “half your army limit”, but with this stratagem it’s trivial, and it’s very common to declare these units as setting up in Cult Ambush then move them underground. The only thing to be wary of with that is if your opponent has access to Vect or GSC’s own “counterspell” stratagem – in this case it is critical that you remember to put a Four-Armed Emperor unit down on the board prior to activating this stratagem, as that way you can counter their counter – getting this ability stopped if you’ve built your whole plan around it can easily lose you the game on the spot, with your fragile units ending up standing in the middle of nowhere looking awkward.

Okay, we can’t promise these dice will always succeed, but they will indicate your allegiance to the Genestealer Cults, and come complete with the faction’s icon on one face. Ignoring cover and showering on additional hits is extremely potent into a wide range of armies, and combos extremely well with the other tools on display in this index to make your reinforcements hit extremely hard. Hitting the foe with a crippling blow from deep strike is a classic GSC strategy, and you are well placed to do so once again with this rule. Enhancements

Wings here. I have been asked to take the wheel and come up with a starter list recommendation that tries as hard as possible not to be completely unreasonable to buy into – we can understand that the advice of buy six start collecting boxes might sound a little extreme. In addition, Genestealer Cults currently lean very hard into 8th’s version of army construction for successful lists, and it’s likely 9th is going to change them a lot, so going all-in on what’s currently good might not work out. I’m happy that what I’ve put together below should remain a decent foundation going forward – all the stuff you end up with is good. I’m afraid I am still going to ask you to buy three start collectings, but Kevin assures me that three is a smaller number than six, and in this case that’s better. Thralls of the Patriarch: Halve the number of models that flee. In an army that can trivially become fearless. The bad morale-mitigation siren is going again. F Devout Worshippers: Units within 3″ of Hybrid Metamorphs can re-roll charges. OK, cool, at least we’re being up-front about literally focusing on a single unit now. Hilariously, this isn’t completely irredeemable simply because Metamorphs are priced to move now, and a Vanguard of three units with this plus Innate Fighters is one of the more plausible detachments you can throw together out of these. Still not competitive, let’s be clear, but nearly plausible. Oh, also can’t be comboed with Hunters Instincts, which is fine because you in no way want to. C+

Raise the Banners High (Shadow Operations): You have a lot of small INFANTRY squads, and your opponent often won’t be able to safely push onto objectives you’ve flagged till you’ve squeezed a decent few points out of them. Its also at least worth thinking about Repair Teleport Homer in this category against an opponent with low ground coverage – If they’ve sent their forces to engage elsewhere, you can drop a unit in their deployment zone and start scoring this (you can begin it straight out of deep strike) while protecting the unit with Lurk. One with the Darkness is an invaluable 1 CP option that enables you to make a GSC infantry unit untargetable outside of 12”, and also gives it STEALTH. This helps you hold ground, protect hammer units, and forces the enemy closer, all playing further into the GSC control game. I can see myself using this every turn for the rest of my life… Preternatural Speed: Always fights first. Always a bad ability unless it’s near army- wide, because your opponent’s first charger still gets to go. D If a unit set up underground has any abilities that are used in your Command phase (e.g. Meticulous Planner), then the first time that unit is set up on the battlefield, it can use any or all of those abilities as if it were your Command phase. Relic – Metallophagic staff: Replaces a force stave. Gives S+2 and AP-5, damage D3, and the haywire effect (mortal on 4+, d3 mortals on 6+) against vehicles.

Brood Brothers

Neophytes return as the rank and file go to of the army. They can put out a lot of shots with a standardised ‘hybrid firearm’ profile, Seismic Cannons take a mild nerf to D3 damage but remain very versatile, and Mining Lasers hit the anti-tank strength 12 break point. CP regen for holding objectives and very generous regeneration via an icon keeps Neophytes relevant as ever (this procs in the Reinforcements step, but doesn’t have a fixed timing, so as it stands I think a Neo squad can come in, take an overwatch hit, and then regenerate casualties… neat). Use this Stratagem in the Fight phase, when a GENESTEALER CULTS unit from your army is selected to fight. Select one model in that unit, then select one Grenade weapon that model is equipped with (excluding weapons that can only be shot with once per battle which that model has already shot with). Until the end of the phase: You can use the Meticulous Uprising stratagem to move up to three markers 12″ for one CP just before you reveal one (they have to stay within your deployment zone, and can’t go within 9″ of the enemy). Hopefully you’ve put your plan together such that you can achieve whatever shuffling you need without this, but it does provide yet another way to confound the foe, and a useful “undo button” if you survey your opponent’s first turn movement or deployment and realise you’ve messed up.