If you have read any of my Genestealer Cults articles you know that I am big on the Pauper Princes and their Relic that gives Core units a 5+ Invulnerable Save. Making my squishy almost-bugs survive any enemy attacks 33% of the time seemed pretty good to me, and I have been having a great time playing my GSC as Pauper Princes. The new GSC brought a lot of cool things outside of Pauper Princes as well, but the one unit that seemed to get slightly left behind was the Abberants. These monstrous bio-horrors got some nice stat upgrades in a boost to Toughness 5 and 3 Wounds, but a squad of 10 comes in at a shocking 300 points. If you were like me when you got the new GSC book in your hands you looked at the Abberants datasheet, looked at their points cost and then erased them from your memory because you didn’t want the salt from your tears to stain a brand new Codex. After some more thought about some of my favorite models from this army there may be a way forward with these expensive muscle bound cult members.
The Benefits of Bladed Cog:
This is the Cult Creed I would take if I were looking to make an Abberant heavy GSC list. The benefits don’t come from the Creed itself, although re-rolling a Wound roll isn’t terrible, but they come from the other benefits from this Creed. First off, the stratagem Xenoform Bionics is spent pre-game to give a unit a 5+ Invulnerable save. Now I think I’ve made my feelings on giving GSC units a 33% to shrug off any damage pretty clear, but this buff isn’t going on T4 Acolytes. This stratagem is going directly on a unit of 10 Abberants that already have T5, 3 Wounds and a built in damage reduction. 2CP may seem steep, but there are other ways to buff the Abberants survivability. This is just the start.
The next part of the Bladed Cog puzzle is the Cult’s psychic power. Broodvolt Surge gives your psyker an Aura ability of granting unit’s within 3 inches +1 Armor Save against Damage 1 attacks. Note that this power only needs one model from the unit to be within 3 inches of the psyker for the whole unit to benefit from this power, and there is even the Alien Majesty Warlord Trait to increase Auras by 3 inches if you are looking to extend that Broodvolt. Getting to a 4+ Save isn’t very impressive, but there are more ways to buff this that will be covered below. Also keep in mind this power gives +1 Save against weapons “with a Damage Characteristic of 1”, so unfortunately the Abberants -1 Damage doesn’t make this power work with 2 Damage weapons.
The Rest of The Toughness:
Just giving Abberents a 5+ Invulnerable save isn’t going to make them a superstar unit on the table top, but adding in a cheap Biophagus will do wonders for the defensive stats of this 300 point brick of muscle. A Biophagus can choose the buff he places on an Abberant unit, and the buff you will be choosing first will be slapping on a 5+ ignore wounds save. Now your Bladed Cog Abberants have a 5+ Invulnerable Save, reduce damage by 1 and ignore any wounds getting through on a 5+. Ok, we are getting somewhere now…..
You can even spend 15 points to give a squad in your army a Biophagus Enhancement before the game. This can allow you to get two 5+ ignoring wound Abberant units on the table, or a single unit with exploding 6s to hit with the 5+ ignoring wounds, right from the start at Turn 1.
Abberants can also use the stratagem Monsterous Vigour to never be wounded on better than a 4+ during a phase. It is important to note that this Stratagem costs 1CP for a unit of 5 or fewer models, but it goes up to 2CP for units of more than 5 models. As you can start to see this army is spending CP at a quick rate between Xenoform Bionics and Monsterous Vigour, so make sure you have a solid plan for spending CP going into your games.
Also remember the stratagem One With The Shadows for Abberants in Cover. Now that +1 Save from Broodvolt Surge gets interesting with Damage 1 weapons. +1 Save from Cover, +1 from One With The Shadows and +1 from Broodvolt Surge gets your Abberants down to a 2+ Save. Some of you might be thinking, “ok, but my Abberants don’t care about Damage 1 guns!”, but I can tell you from playing Abberants from 8th Edition to now that massed Damage 1 firepower is an excellent way to deal with these monsters. In the past Abberant’s 5+ Armor was a huge liability against things like Bolt Rifles, Pulse Rifles and even the lowly Lasgun with First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire, but this is no longer the case!
A bonus toughness perk the Abberants bring to a GSC army is being able to act as that closer screening unit when using Lurk In The Shadows. Most games I tend to throw a Goliath Truck out on an objective to pop this Stratagem. I then hope my opponent doesn’t kill my truck in a single go with the hopes of protecting one of my more fragile units that are out in the open. With things like Hammerheads prevalent in the meta my Trucks seem to have a short life span, but 10 Abberants should stick around for at least one Tau Shooting Phase. Should.
Verdict:
Ok, full disclosure, none of these ideas are exactly tournament tested. The meta is a hot pile of mess right now and it is clear that GSC players need to start thinking outside the box. Tau indirect fire, along with their ability to still play a solid Secondary game while blasting their enemy off the table, is extremely bad news for the current GSC Twisted Helix builds. I plan to give running 2 units of 10 Bladed Cog Abberants with Xenoform Bionics and the 5+ ignoring wounds from a Biophagus a go. If nothing else it will be nice not hiding in Ruins all game…..