Warhammer 40K: Genestealer Cults Get New ‘Crossfire’ Rules And More Ambush Tactics
The Genestealer Cults are getting even sneakier and more deadly with these new rules. Get ready to get caught in their Crossfire!
The Genestealer Cults have always had the potential to be a strong army. Between their ambush tactics, their deployment tricks, and just the overall nature of the army they seemed like they the tools to get the job done. But they never quite got there. I still think they have a really high skill ceiling and require some “outside the box” thinking to perform well. However, that was the old codex. With a new version on the horizon the GSC look like they have some more tools to add to their Swiss Army Knife approach to things. Their Crossfire rules are really going to help.
via Warhammer Community
“Unprepared foes find themselves trapped in a cage of gunfire from all sides, as cultists spring up from prepared positions to blanket them in bullets. Whenever a unit with the Crossfire keyword shoots and scores at least five hits (or a hit with a Damage characteristic other than 1) their target gains a crossfire marker.
Once an enemy unit has a crossfire marker, it becomes especially vulnerable to attack. First, any further Crossfire units shooting at them add 1 to their hit rolls. Then, if the target is Exposed, they’re in for a world of hurt.”
Basically, to “Expose” a target unit, they have to be caught between the base of the attacking unit and another friendly unit with Crossfire. Honestly, this doesn’t seem that difficult to pull off — just get two units between a target and unload.
So what does “Expose” do? It’s pretty nasty:
“Attackers add 1 to their wound rolls against the Exposed unit, and if the attackers are within 12” of their target, they ignore enemy cover too. Enemies taking cover in Obscuring terrain have some protection, but unsuspecting foes will fall victim to the Cult’s diabolic pincer attacks.”
Yikes! If you’re keeping track at home, that’s a +1 to hit, +1 to wound, and you can ignore enemy cover, too! That’s a potent set of boosts and they don’t stop there. The Genestealer Cults still have even more tricks up their sleeves (which makes sense considering they have extra sleeves to go around).
More ‘Crossfire’ Stratagems
Crossfire doesn’t just help in the shooting phase, either. Once you’ve got a target pinned, things start to get even more interesting. Spending a few CPs can basically lockdown a unit and prevent them from acting until you’re done trying to kill them in the Fight phase:
This combo of “you can’t shoot me and you can’t fight until after I’m done” is a really good way to finish off that troublesome unit. They basically can’t react until your army is finished fighting. Hopefully, you’ve been able to dump all the attacks you needed into the target to wipe it out. If not, well, maybe it wasn’t meant to be.
What if you can’t quite pull off the requirements to get all these Crossfire tricks to work? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just…I dunno, pay some points to gain those benefits? Turns out you can.
You can’t do that for EVERY unit. But you can do this for the ones that really need it to function. Seems pretty solid to me.
The Genestealer Cults are already on Terra…you’ve just got to wait until later to get your hands on their rules.
