We are restricted to one character per detachment, which was fine when we could easily run triple battalion. No CP means we deepstrike to no man’s land to get shot up. We ambush in and spend CP to make charges. We aren’t tough enough to march across the board. Many armies were designed to be strong and then have CP be a power boost and some cool flavor. We also are dealing with substantially fewer command points then we are used to, and GSC is one of the armies that exist on CP.
Our durability comes from stopping the opponent from doing damage, not just having enough to weather the shooting phase. Well, wrapping and trapping took a huge hit, and GSC are not tough. Tons of wrapping, trapping, and move blocking. So, obviously, we have one less turn to do that, but typically taking command in the late turns came from shutting down a lot of what other armies could do. GSC is the army that gives up early game points to take position on the board slowly and then comes screaming back in turns four, five, and six. GSC wants to play a patient game and slow the pace except on the turns where they get to drop the hammer blow. As far as I can tell, this new edition may be a wasteland for GSC with the knocks to combat being the biggest issue and five turns probably being a close runner up. I found myself leaning more into forces of the hive mind to give me a turn one ground game to keep infiltrators in check and have some breathing room for later turns, but that’s a whole different article. In teching so extremely to deal with Marines, it would also skew how we could cope with the rest of the armies in the game.
When you were preparing for an event as a GSC player, so much of your list building had to keep Marines in mind since they would be half the players at any given event anyway. Between units we couldn’t deep strike near, tanks with built-in negatives to charge, strats to kill a deep striking unit, and strats to fall back from charges, the Marines alone were single-handedly keeping GSC in check. Of course, the big hit began with codex Space Marines, a codex that impacted the meta at every level and came with every tool you could imagine to cut down GSC. When looking at how GSC needs to change, we first need to understand what has been stacked against them because it’s a fairly long list, and it didn’t start in 9th. Hey everyone, I’m Alex Macdougal from Art of War, and I want to talk to you about my Four Armed Friends Of all the factions that have to change going into 9th edition, the Genestealer Cult may be the most extreme.Īn army that excelled at denial, board control, and absolutely crushing charges now has to alter how it achieves any of those things effectively.