Goatboy’s 40K: Genestealer Cults Rise Up in The Greater Good
Goatboy here again to talk about the Genestealer Cults side of the Greater Good. The Day of Ascension is NOW!
Goatboy here with the final Greater Good review – the GSC get some new rules that resemble all the other additions in this book. In fact – it seems to be the consistent thing right now with only the Chaos Space Marine missing these types of rules. With that in mind lets begin with the most important set of rules in this book – the Name Generator!
Cult Creeds
Ok just kidding the big new addition to GSC is a batch of Cult Creed rules you can combo up by picking 2 of them. I don’t think will see these nearly as much as we see Marine ones as a lot of the specific Strats you need are very much locked into Cults. Marine’s ability to have basically two sets of Keyword rules (Marine keyword and Successor Chapter keyword) means taking two set of chapter traits and still having access to your Successor’s strats gives you a lot of power. Losing your Cult Strats for creating your own Creed is a big loss to those GSC armies that love to soup out a detachment to gain access to some specific abilities. I like the ability to move and shoot with your Heavy Mining Weapons rules as I think having a small detachment of high damage output units could be good. Time will tell of these show up as GSC has seemed to have gone downhill with the return of the Marine dominance in the current meta.
Oh and GSC don’t get Tank Aces even though they get access to Astra Militarum rules. This is kind of a bummer as it would be neat if they gave them some “GSC” feeling Tank Aces rules like ignoring your brethren by shooting at units in assault or maybe some kind of demolitions options. Still a bit of a bummer as it could have been a nice sweet set of fluffy rules.
Strategems
After this batch of cult creeds we get some Stratagems that seem ok. The new CA adjustments really did a number on the army so while these strats a few months ago would have been good – they are less interesting now. You could make a cheap biker army without all those fun Demo charges if you wanted. Same with a lot more options for coming out of the shadows and doing more damage too. There is another nice little combo for your Heavy Mining Weapon options as well which is neat. Giving them a +1 to wound is great as they can pop up, throw out some laser shots, and then hopefully do a ton of damage. This sounds pretty sweet for those Ridgerunner models that everyone loves but we don’t see so much on the table top.
Psychic Powers
Lastly we get a set of new Cult specific Psychic powers. It is odd that we get a whole slew of rules to customize your own Creed and then get a ton of powers for the specific Cults. I wish we had a Successor style system for the GSC that would have let these splinter cults be a part of the large cult in general. Thankfully the Cult powers are not swaps for powers and instead are additional powers your cult psyker knows. Some of them are not even cult specific for targeting so they are better than expected. A Bladed Cog ability grants a 5+ FNP to a Cog unit within 12″ of the caster. Big units would love to have that option so that seems good. The Rusted Claw rules picks an enemy vehicle and everyone gets an additional -1 AP shooting at it. That seems pretty good as it benefits the entire army.
Overall
The GSC additions are the smallest bit of rules in this new Psychic Awakening so it is a bit of a shame. I was expecting a few more Relics and Warlord trait options as it could have been interesting for some “cult” specific relics that were found. I think the book sits in a weird space as it came out towards the end of the new 8th books so its a weird bridge set of ideas. Still if you are playing GSC you will want to grab this book to add to your list of options for your army. I don’t think it is all bad just wish there was more bang for your space buck.
~How are the GSC going in your neck of the woods these days?
