Notes
OK, before I start, I should say that I liked Andy Worsley's rules in Firepower Magazine 3,
and I have no real problems with them. The things is, it seems to me that they were designed
to be used as Tyranid allies, which is fine, but I want a whole army like this. There was
only one type of detachment and the Patriarch was the Commander, which meant that two
detachments lead to two Patriarchs. While Genestealers do provide a vanguard for the
Tyranid forces, they also often get thrown away from the main Tyranid attack, and can simply
disrupt a planet and confuse the Imperium. That is what I wanted.
My appreciation for Genestealers goes a long way back. They were one of the two first things
that I ever bought from Games Workshop, along with the now legendary 'beakie' Marine Mk6 boxed
set. It was a Mail Order deal of an entire Genestealer Cult Army for around £60 and I was hooked.
I think that I even still have some of the mimiatures waiting to be painted. I followed Genestealers
through Space Hulk and beyond, before they were even anything to do with the Tyranids - who
had not been 'discovered' yet, aside from an obscure entry in Rogue Trader.
I have wanted to work on a third Epic army for a while now. My Eldar and Marines are well
enough, but they both have expensive infantry and cool tanks. I wanted a horde army, something
massing towards the enemy at short range and with lots of simple firepower and very few tanks at all.
Something NOT elite or disciplined at all. I guess that a Genestealer Cult army has always been
waiting to happen for me. And then the price of the plastic infantry dropped dramatically!
|
Background
For the majority of you reading this, it will all be a bit strange and might not fit into the
background that you know completely. Early on, Genestealers had no links to Tyranids and they were
blue and purple in colour. For this army list, I have gone right back to the original ideas for
Genestealers, those of four distinct generations of hybrid and including mutants and daemons.
A single Purestrain Genestealer is all that it takes. One single 'Stealer, who finds his way into
contact with an intelligent and social race, making humans the most ideal and most common. The
'Stealer is able to hypnotise his victim, paralysing him and rooting him to the spot. From there,
the Genestealer corrupts the hosts genetic structure, by the use of an ovipositor located in his
tongue, in a grim parody known as the Genestealers Kiss. Often the victim will remember nothing
except for nightmares of powerful claws and deep eyes. However, in a short time, the victim finds
that he has a strong desire to mate and to produce offspring. When this happens, the first born is
hideously deformed, possessing at least an extra arm ending in a large claw, a bulbous head, a purple
tint to the skin, a dislike and lack of ability to understand the simplist technology and other symptoms.
It is a first generation Genestealer Hybrid. A parental nature is a very strong thing, and this is
reinforced by the Genestealers corruption and the hybrids latent psychic ability, and so the infant
is protected and looked after. He also has the hypnotic ability of the Purestrain, and so the social
infection continues and spreads, with each hybrid generation the offspring become more like the host species
and by the third or fourth generation they reproduce as normal and do not have the use of their Ovipositor.
There are four generations of Hybrid, the fourth being almost indistinguishable from a normal human. Any
subsequent offspring of a fourth generation hybrid can be hybrid, a normal member of the host species, or a
Purestrain Genestealer.
A Purestrain Genestealer has a very strong, bestial presence in the Warp, and this is what counts for
its hypnotic ability, and so they are all latent psychics. However, with subsequent generations of hybrids,
when the strength of the Purestrains presence becomes tempered by the subtlety and control of another
actively psychic species, the potential for full psychic powers becomes greater. In this way, a Genestealer Cult
becomes more likely to produce and attract psykers as it matures. Additionally, all direct members
of the cult - those who are hybrid offspring and those who have been genetically tainted by a Genestealer -
share a psychic link in the form of a brood telepathy, allowing the will and wishes of the Genestealers to
be passed onto other members.
When the fourth generation hybrids come into existance, the cycle is complete. One of the fourth
generations becomes the Magus, a charismatic individual able to conduct business and to understand
the society in which the cult is embedded as well as being a powerful psyker, while the original
Purestrain becomes psychic and grows in size to become the Patriarch - the real cult leader. Imperial
scholars have conjected that if the original Purestrain corrupts ten humans (a very conservative estimate indeed
and numbers are more likely to be around 50 or 60), and each of those ten resulting Hybrids infect ten and
so on down the line, there will be over eleven thousand one hundred Genestealers by the fourth generation,
in addition to the human parents, relatives, enthralled, sympathisers and other cult members. This is what
makes Genestealers so very dangerous.
Initially, the cult seems fairly innocent, and certainly one of the more benign and peaceful posibilities that
planetary governors should worry about. The cult promotes family values and respect for ones elders. The
members are humble, shunning complex and expensive technology and dress in simple robes which hide them almost
completely. Often, the only way that a cult is recognised is by the large, dark cars which no-one ever
sees inside of. As the cult matures, it uses any method possible to grow in size and strength. Often, members
will turn to Chaos in an attempt to gain power, making pacts with Daemons and other cultists. The cult
also attracts the dregs of society. Those abandoned by the system find a home and a family within the walls
of the cult, and so it becomes a haven for beastmen, mutants and psykers of all types. Even its own members are often ignorant
of the real purpose and beings behind the Inner Circle of the cult, and innocent people looking for guidance,
as well as the relatives of Hybrid generations, frequent the building.
And then, when the cult reaches maturity, it turns on the society in which it is situated. By then, it is often
too late. Large sections of the population are connected and support the cult, including the planetary defence
forces, and Genestealers emerge in vast numbers. The society almost literally explodes, and is torn apart by
civil wars, with the authorities never knowing exactly who is on the side of the rebels. External forces,
such as the Adeptus Astartes, are sent, or the planet may be Virus bombed from Orbit, if the uprising is caught
quickly enough. Genestealers are sent out in ships, with Hybrids and Brood Brother cultist to care for them and
set autoguidance systems in the star ships (which are unintelligible to the Purestrains) before these devotees die. A Purestrain Genestealer does not breathe,
it does not age or die of natural causes, it can wait forever, until a new host is found and the cycle starts again
on another planet.
|