Genestealer Cults in 2013

[swarmy]

I had a conversation with a chaos playing friend the other day and he was talking about cultist being the tie-in between chaos and the demons codex. Something along the lines of having the capacity to summon demons. If you've ever played the Relic RTS games think about those. It made sense in the context of things that are priority for them in the coming year.

Do you guys think it could just be chaos cultist?

[guns]

To N.I.B.:

They would almost certainly have access to vehicles (although there could conceivably be limits to the types they can access, ie. possibly no access to IG Flyers, or some of the more esoteric tank types).

By and large, a proper Genestealer Cult army would simply be an Imperial Guard army with a couple of new HQs, access to purestrain Genestealer units, and a new unit type of Hybrids (basically mutated Guardsmen with a better close-combat upside than regular ones).

But not every model in a Genestealer Cult is contaminated with Tyranid DNA -- some of the participants are regular, deluded humans who have fallen under the sway of the rebellion (ie. tank crews). Only the inner circle units are actual Genestealers or Hybrids. To get an idea of the flavour of the army you can picture the rebellion going on in Syria at the moment, or the one that took place in Libya, in which the rebel forces consist of civilian militias, military defectors, and weapons systems/vehicles appropriated from the regime. A Genestealer Cult would have the same sort of distribution, with the addition of Genestealers and Hybrids. I kind of wish the Free Syrian Army had Genestealers, actually.

Edit: I doubt the release is just Chaos Cultists, because then the word "hybrid" would be out of place in the list. And when you pair the word hybrid with the word patriarch it just seems like too much of a coincidence to be anything but a Genestealer cult release.

[bayne]

When i started 40k in 1st ed the genestealers weren't known to be tyranids, tyranids had hardly any minatures, barely any army list and genestealers had two good army lists (the invasion force and the cult force) and far more miniatures and in background were a dire threat to the imperium all on their own.

Two releases? Seems like they are there to allow an ally option. I approve.

[Psychichobo]

Well, from what I know from the older Cult dex, you're generally looking at GEQ units with an erratic mixture of guns - nothing like IG regiments. Stealers are present in the list, as are psychics and heavy weapons, and lots of low grade vehicles (there was the first vehicle I ever saw there that was AV9). Patriarch was similar to a Broodlord but was more of a psychic Tyranid Prime like stealer. And there were psychic guys whose names I can't remember.

New models are always possible in the list too - more vehicles and maybe even MC's.

[dirkspair]

if GW is smart then they will release miniatures with a little codex to include them as allies. i believe the genestealer cult guys will be allies to IG (pre-nid invasion) and tyranids (post-nid invasion) and on that list were also imperial agents, like death watch teams and characters, assassins and other stuff that could ally with any imperial force.
harlequins will probably get a mini dex with a solitare as a character and hopefully with the option to have death jesters provide decent fire support without having to prance into CC with the troupe. allies for possibly eldar, dark eldar and maybe tau.

[Gravekeeper]

I really wish that it is an upgrade pack for Genestealers cult hybrids and that one can use this to convert IG units, maybe some AA, into said hybrids and that we (Tyranids) can allie with them.

[N.I.B.]

Well I'm not interested in any other models that Tyranids. I pray that GW wont fall in the trap of putting all the candy in the allies category, for nids. I want the OP stuff in my codex, not outside.

[Gravekeeper]

Yeah! I agree that would be better, but there doesn't seem to be a new codex coming that soon, but maybe something in like a White Dwarf thingy or a downloadable pdf file with additional rules will be coming.
Who knows? One can hope.