Recently Frontline Gaming teamed up with some great Kill Team players, YouTube creators and even the Tournament Organizer for big events like LVO and the SoCal Open to bring you The Killzone Podcast — a podcast about competitive Kill Team! Today we’ve got Beeranid, one of the hosts of the new podcast, here to talk about what he LOVES about the new Wyrmblade Genestealer Cults, and why he thinks you should play them!
Guest Writer: Beeranid40k
Thanks for having me! When I started playing Kill Team almost 4 years ago, Genestealer Cults were my bread and butter. The hive teams are my favorite thing in the 40k universe. Now that the new edition of Kill Team is here, it feels like GW really did a great job of making the factions feel like they should in the lore if you read the books and want to reenact that on the tabletop, so I was super excited to see what they would do when the GSC got their expansion! I’ve got to say, I was not disappointed! So here’s the information I think you need to know to get started playing (and winning) games with the newest Kill Team army to hit the tables.
The Wyrmblade Cults iteration is a predominantly shooting faction. We’ve got a few great melee models we can take but, in my opinion, these aren’t guys you want to just charge in ASAP and risk losing. They’re probably best used here to support your big guns!
Speaking of guns, the Mining Laser is back and it is absolutely glorious here in the new edition of Kill Team. It has 5 attacks hitting on 4s, doing 5 damage (or 6 on crits!), and it’s AP-1. And this is just one of your four Gunner slots that you can put on the board! I would be shocked if a player didn’t take this every game. Don’t forget that you can change your order from Conceal to Engage in turn 1. If you do: you can reroll any dice facing of your choice. This stacks beautifully on the Mining Laser: Rolled all 3’s? Choose that for your Ambush buff and roll them all again!
The new GSC also has a really cool mechanic available via the “Hiding” strategic ploy. It costs 1CP but it lets you put two models to the side when you deploy your Kill Team. Whenever you want to, during one of your activations in the first turning point, those models can come in one at a time anywhere on the Killzone within 6” of your DZ, and more than 3” from enemy models. So 1 cp gets you two drops! This can help the mining laser we discussed earlier get into the perfect position for turn 2, though remember if you do this he can’t shoot the first turn because his gun is Heavy and the tactic counts as a move. Or better yet: the Hiding ploy can be used to create an Alpha Strike situation with your Grenade Launcher!
The Grenade Launcher can shoot Frag OR Krak Grenades, so he can hurt tougher models by shooting Krak at a single individual, or if the opponent has a bunch of squishy guys blobbed up — you shoot the Frag profile and hurt every model within 2” of the original target because it has the new edition’s Blast Keyword!
But that’s not all! One of the biggest things that blew me away when I first saw the rules was the models you can take now — The Kellermorph, Locus, and two varieties of Sanctus are available for you to have in your Kill Team! They are called “Agents” and you can take any two of these in a single game.
The Kellermorph is an exciting mid-board threat in my opinion. Yes he can shoot guys across the board but his close-range profile is basically the best Flamer in the game! I’m talking 5 shots, hitting on 2s, doing 3/4 damage. And if you crit? It has P1 and Rending. He’s got 3 APL like all the other agents and he can shoot twice. So with 3 APL that could be move + dash + shoot to hit a enemy in deep cover, or move + shoot + shoot, which lets him get the target in range and absolutely melt it. You can even stack No Cover and Indirect special rules on his shots if you want to see what happens when Flamer and Grenade rules have a baby. Our favorite GSC Gunslinger, aka “Cult Eastwood”, is back! I expect to see him used as a mid-board firefighter zipping around to handle threats and add pressure.
The two varieties of Sanctus are something I’m really excited for in upcoming tournaments. The Sanctus Sniper is your ranged version — he has the Silent special rule to shoot while concealed. This basically means if you get him onto a vantage point, the opponent has a problem. He can shoot them but they cannot shoot him if you can manage some basic finesse in positioning. The melee variety Sanctus, the Sanctus Talon, is a little monster. He has 4 attacks hitting on 2s in melee. That dagger may look like he took a knife to a gunfight but it does 6 damage on a crit! And he has the Lethal 4+ rule so 50% of any dice rolled is expected to crit when everything averages out! There’s so much more I could say on these guys but the article would get too long!
And then there’s the Locus. A bodyguard to the Patriarch in the lore, he has apparently left his side to become one of the nastiest melee options in Kill Team! He’s got a ton of attacks, each one hurts, he’s deadly accurate with those swords, and he’s got a bucket of special rules to lean on. Quicksilver Strike is one such ability. You can activate him, charge + fight, activate Quicksilver and end your turn. Once you’ve done this, if an enemy model comes within 3” of him using a normal move or dash — he suddenly springs into action again! He gets to charge and fights again on the opponent’s move! And combined with his native ability to fight twice, that means there is actually the potential for him to fight three times in a single battle round, perhaps even more if Quicksilver Strike goes off multiple times!
There’s just so much that could be said on this team but not enough time! There’s the native rerolls from Cult Ambush that happen when you change your orders from Concealed to Engaged, the unique Tac Ops secondary objectives that only they have access to, more options to leverage the “Hiding” ploy, a tactic that makes light terrain into Obscuring, and much, much more!
So I hope this quick overview piques your interest in the new Wyrmblade team and perhaps plants a seed in your DNA to consider joining the ranks of Genestealer Cults. We’ll also be covering this faction (and other great Kill Team topics) on the Killzone Podcast, too! So come on over and find us any place you listen to your favorite podcasts. Thank you to Frontline Gaming for letting me come talk about the coolest army in the 40k universe!
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
