Games Workshop - Warhammer 40,000 - Genestealer Cults Atalan Jackals

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The “classic” GSC psyker is a lot less impressive than the Patriarch and is actually fairly steeply priced for what they are (a one-cast psyker that can buy familiars to boost to two with naff combat stats). However, at least one still turns up in most lists. The only unique thing on their datasheet is that they grant all cult units within 6″ a deny in your opponent’s psychic phase – nice against some armies, but often not super impressive. Why do they show up so often then? Well, they’ve got a good few uses:

Contemptor” Kevin Stillman had a decent run in the 40k Narrative, narrowly winning a team game against Orks and then narrowly dropping a game to Necrons. The First Curse – 1CP: Give a unit of Purestrain Genestealers a random buff. This is an abysmal stratagem – quite apart from purestrains not being good, one of the “buffs” makes them lose advance and charge in exchange for +1 to their base save. Awful, never use this even if you have purestrains. F Munitions Experts: +1S to grenades. Absurdly narrow, needing a stratagem to get any real benefit from it. D

Overcharged Weaponry – 1CP: A unit shooting clearance incinerators, heavy mining lasers or heavy seismic cannons gets +1 to wound. Extremely good on Ridgerunner squads with 3 HMLs, and part of the reason they’re making a big splash in lists. Doesn’t even require them to focus fire on a single unit like some similar abilities. A That used to be offset by helping Aberrants land their charges via the Anointed Throng specialist detachment, but as they’ve vanished from lists so as he, as he’s not that many points shy of a Patriarch and way less good at anything else. Power – Undying Vigour – WC6: Give a BLADED COG unit within 12″ a 5+++ until your next psychic phase. Monstrous Vigour – 2CP: Use at the start of your turn. Add 1 to FNPs for an Aberrant unit until your next turn. Sadly the timing on this makes it a miss – the Aberrants won’t be on the board to target at the start of the turn you bring them in, and your opponent is, shall we say, highly motivated to kill them straight away. if you manage to roll them straight into a wrap-and-trap this gets a lot better on subsequent turns, and can be worth it if they’re a clear priority target. C+ Strategem 2 – Fight for the Anointed One! – 1CP: An Abominant can grant re-roll 1s to wound to an Aberrant unit. As previous, this is a good ability but won’t really see competitive play any more. C

The Gnarled Fist – 1CP: Upgrade an Abominant’s Aberrant-boosting aura to be 9″. Even more so than the above this wasn’t needed, and now it’s not even got good units to buff. C

Also noteworthy here is the Nighthaunts making an appearance – we’ve already talked a little about how they may match up well against dragons and get a boost from new Nagash but expect us to talk more about them this week. Siegler’s Closing In on the ITC Win Obviously you can have both the first two on the same mode thanks to Broodcoven, and summing all of this stuff up basically leaves you with some potent firepower that is non-trivial to remove in return. Ridgerunners aren’t the toughest, but thanks to being a unit of 8W models with a 6+ FNP your opponent has to put a decent amount of shooting in to deplete them at all, and risks losing damage to overkills when firing with multi-damage weapons. Anthony Vanella is playing Drukhari and won the US Goonhammer Open GT last year, taking home the prize belt. I have to ding him a little for not wearing it around the event, but he’s had a hell of a run to get this far and a #1 finish at LVO could see him winning the ITC.

Psychic Ritual (Warpcraft): No really. Most lists are going to contain two Psykers that want to end up near the centre of the board, are reasonably tough and get a lot more of their value from other capabilities than most casters do. I genuinely think there’s a case for trying this one, and more ways to force your opponent to come party with you on your terms mid-board is good. You can also take Mental Interrogation if you’re some sort of coward. Cult Creed – Devoted Zealots: Re-roll hits for units that charged, were charged or heroically intervened this turn.As you may recall, Boon went 3-0 on day 1, piloting his Thicc City drukhari list past a Crusher Stampede list round 1 and Andrew Gonyo’s 6-Dreadknight Grey Knights list round 3. A narrow win that came down to the wire secured Boon’s spot among those still hopeful to advance. The Boon Cocoon The only other thing to note here is that Familiars got rounded up to 15pts each. Taking one to turn into The Crouchling. Is still fine. Troops

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.The Cult’s Psyche – 1CP: Once per game pre-game, upgrade a Magus. They get +1 power use per turn, and +1 to their casts for each friendly psyker within 3″. You’re mostly looking at the first part here, and that is basically good – Magi are unusual in being one-cast psykers that know two powers, so they get a benefit from this straight away, avoiding the need to buy a familiar and being more consistent throughout the game. The boost to casts almost never comes up – most lists are on one or zero magi, Patriarchs are generally elsewhere on the board, and they often aren’t the same . Still worth using pretty much every game if you’ve brought a Magus though, and makes them a more attractive choice. B+ You can set up this unit anywhere on the battlefield that is more than 8" away from any enemy models. Thanks to the Lying in Wait stratagem, which lets a unit appear within 3″ rather than 9″ in exchange for not being able to charge, it turns out they are, and a full squad of these with flamers can lay down a withering hail of chaff clearing shots, in a fashion that’s a complete nightmare for some armies to deal with (including being an excellent tool to have in the arsenal against other GSC armies). This strategy is referred to as the “flamer bomb”, and appears quite often in lists. The other thing that’s pretty handy here is the warlord trait. Via the Broodcoven stratagem cult can hand out extra warlord traits to a Magus and a Primus, and this is a great one to put on a random Magus for some extra CP if you have nothing better to use it on. The Twisted Helix are designed to smash things, ideally with Aberrants and souped up Patriarchs. Unfortunately, Aberrants got dumped head-first into the bin in this year’s CA nerfs, and that leaves this Cult without enough of a draw to bring you to it over and above other options.