Faction Focus is up

[acehilator]

www.warhammer-community.com/2023/05/30/warhammer-40000-faction-focus-genestealer-cults-2/

I like it. A lot, actually. Although I am pretty sure Cult Ambush is not going to survive the first Balance Dataslate, lol.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Infinitely bringing back battleline units seems stupid strong. It might come down to points.

Also, I'm looking forward to forcing my opponent to do to weird corners of the map just to remove my ambush tokens.

[omnivore]

As usual the spawn of the Tyranids is far more effective than their sires…

[infornography]

I really like the cult ambush mechanic. It has a ton of potential.
I am not so happy with the Patriarch. He seems to be a relatively weak beatstick with little else going for him.

[yoritomo]

I don’t think cult ambush is going to be auto nerfed in the next balance dataslate. Yeah, it’s good but your opponent has a great deal of say on how many units you get back and how close to the action they will be.

They could be a big problem for slow moving armies with a low model count (like knights). On the other hand mobile armies that hop onto cult ambush markers (like grey knights) or horde armies that can box you out of the table (like guard) will make this ability trivial.

It should also be pointed out that you only place a marker on the turn a unit was destroyed. If a unit doesn’t redeploy because their marker was destroyed they don’t get to place a new marker. So effectively they would be destroyed for good, though we will probably need an errata to clarify if a unit that has been dead for two turns can come back.

[infornography]

It says the unit gets put into cult ambush, it doesn't say it is ever removed. And you pick which unit in cult ambush gets to use the ambush marker.
As written in what we have been presented, I see no reason to believe you cannot bring your unit back in a later turn after a different unit dies and places an ambush marker that matures. Unless the rules in the index are substantially different than what was presented, I think the interpretation is pretty solid without an FAQ.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Counter intuitively, I think your opponent might have to decide "do I actually want to kill this unit as it could come back at full strength?"

[infornography]

Yep. It really messes with your opponents' strategy to have to deal with this. That is the real strength I see. I suspect direct benefits won't be that great, but baiting your opponents to go after the markers and disincentivizing them from killing units off will provide lots of opportunities. And hey, if you bait them out and they don't take it, you might be able to charge them on your turn with a newly fresh unit.

I like this a lot more than all the other tricks they have tried to give GSC, though crossfire was pretty cool.

[jesses]

RAW Cult Ambush is pretty straightforward. Yes, a unit can stay multiple turns in "Cult Ambush". The markers are not tied to a specific unit.

R1 - Three units die and are placed in Cult Ambush (Neophytes A, Neophytes B, and Acolytes). Three markers are placed on the board.

R2 - Opponent destroys one marker. You decide to return Neophytes A and Acolytes to the board. As there is no 3rd marker, Neophytes B cannot be returned to the board.

R3 - Atalan Jackals are destroyed and placed into Cult Ambush. One Cult Ambush marker is placed on the board.

R4 - With one marker you can return Atalan Jackals OR Neophytes B, your choice, but not both. You choose to return Atalan Jackals.

R5 - You roll like pants and no more units are placed into Cult Ambush. Without a marker, Neophytes B is stuck in Cult Ambush and cannot return to the game.

[yoritomo]

While I believe you all are correct, RAW interpretation says that the turn a unit died on is irrelevant; let's not kid ourselves. This will be FAQ'd. If for no other reason then to clarify this to all the people who whine about it that don't play stealer cult.

I think it's fair to point out again that every cult ambush marker your opponent destroys is a unit that is effectively destroyed. If you can only pull one unit out of cult ambush for each marker, and you only get markers when units are killed; then mathematically you'll always come up short if your opponent destroys a marker. Granted, you get to choose which units are truly destroyed, not your opponent.

And that choice of not killing a whole unit is fine in theory. Reality says that will never be the case. Between things like the cult icon that brings back up to six models a turn and the fact that you are just going to suicide units that are almost dead in the most annoying way possible for your opponent, it's always going to be better to kill of the unit and deal with the marker later.

[jesses]

Effectively it's destroying a unit, but the fact that you get to choose which, and don't have to choose till the end of the game is great for us.

Especially because if you end up with something you really want on the board "orphaned" in CA, you can always sacrifice a cheap Battleline unit to generate a CA token. I may take a couple MSU units explicitly for that freedom, especially if we can still take 5 model AH squads for cheap.

Also, I'd bet good money there will be ways to generate CA markers outside of units dying. A stratagem, or maybe the Nexos (or both).

[LordPathos]

Is there a way to effectively use the Cult Ambush part where they pop up during your opponents' turn? Ready to be shot again?

[jesses]

Not that we know of, but possibly a stratagem.