Thinking about starting a Genestealers Cult Army

[Gamerzsatx]

I am looking at starting a Xenos army and looking either Tyranids or Genestealer Cults.  What are you thoughts on starting with this as a base?  What else would I need to field a solid 1500 and 2000 pt list?

 

10 neophyte hybrids 2 of them have special weapons, 1 has an icon and the squad leader has a power mace and Webber pistol

5 abberants
10 acolyte Hybrids 2 with the lashwhip and sword, 4 with special weapons, 1 with a banner
11 brood brothers 1 with a flamer, 1 with a grenade launcher, 1 heavy weapons team with a lascannon
1 magus (primed)
1 brood lord (painted) with 2 familiars
1 iconward
1 abominant 
24 purestrain genestealers 
1 Goliath rock grinder 
1 leman Russ battle tank with 2 plasma cannon sponsons and a lascannon 
1 Primus (painted)

 

Thanks the input..

[Debauchery101]

I am looking at starting a Xenos army and looking either Tyranids or Genestealer Cults. What are you thoughts on starting with this as a base? What else would I need to field a solid 1500 and 2000 pt list?

 

10 neophyte hybrids 2 of them have special weapons, 1 has an icon and the squad leader has a power mace and Webber pistol

5 abberants

10 acolyte Hybrids 2 with the lashwhip and sword, 4 with special weapons, 1 with a banner

11 brood brothers 1 with a flamer, 1 with a grenade launcher, 1 heavy weapons team with a lascannon

1 magus (primed)

1 brood lord (painted) with 2 familiars

1 iconward

1 abominant

24 purestrain genestealers

1 Goliath rock grinder

1 leman Russ battle tank with 2 plasma cannon sponsons and a lascannon

1 Primus (painted)

 

Thanks the input..

I would suggest taking an actual Astra militarum battalion. You can take a tank ace, some cheap psykers artillery and nifty stuff like a hades breacher drill vet squad.

 

They don't get <cult> tag or regiment doctrines but they get better ld. I play them a little bit..I'm not the GSC expert..though my buddy takes 2 tank aces, 1 or 2 basilisk, Cheap troops and 2 or 3 hades drill vets with a couple plasma guns. That drill is actually a pretty tanky unit in hth .The rest of his army is mostly genestealers, broodlord and buffing characters along with tax units

[crownedzoidberg]

Really depends on what you want to do and what models you like.

If these are the models you already have and want to play - go for GSC.

All that matters is that you got enough models/wounds on the table. If you want to play Tyranids or Genestealer Cult effective, you will have to go hard on horde and use the model count as an advantage to secue objectives. Your opponent won't be able to clean the board and compete on objectives in time.

This means tons of Terma-Horma-gants for Nids, Neophytes and Acolytes for Cult. If you like Purestrain Genestealers, you will probably have to go for Nids, just because there's kraken for extra mobilty. Sadly Genestealers don't get much beneficial synergies in Genestealer Cult.

GSC are one of the hardest armies to start 40k, but it might be rewarding to fight against the odds and prove the statistics wrong.

Edited September 29, 2020 by crownedzoidberg

[Dr. Clock]

Great start!

 

Definitely got the bread and butter of a solid list here: main thing I'd suggest is a heap more Acolytes. A single unit of 20 for Perfect Ambush is standard for me... Although I suppose you could just use the Stealers that way too - they're just not quite as efficient and lack ObSec.

 

Basically with this army you can't go too far wrong with just more Troops. I generally start with at least 2 substantial units of Acolytes and Neophytes. I'd recommend effectively doubling down on all your basic infantry and the vehicles... The Start Collecting box is also pretty solid because ridgerunners are... very helpful. So 2 Start Collecting in addition to what you have here would get you to the maxed-out Acolyte blob, a solid 2x15 Neophytes for backfield, and 2 Ridgerunners to support your two larger vehicles.

 

One recommendation on the Acolytes front is to come up with a unit you want to convert into them: you get so many extra arms in the Acolytes kit that any basic '10 infantry' box can become Acolytes pretty easily with the leftovers. I used Necromunda Delaques for this, but almost any Necromunda kit could work. It's certainly frustrating to have a unit that works best at 20 only available 'officially' in a box of 5...

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.