Hi everyone, Michael here to look at one of the Genestealer Cults support characters, the Nexos. For more reviews and analyses, check out the Tactics Corner.
The Genestealer Cults have a number of support characters that can boost the effectiveness of the army. Today, I am going to look at a cheap character that provides a lot of useful buffs to the army, especially in an era of low CP in games, the Nexos.
The Nexos is the strategic co-ordinator of the GSC army, and has a couple of special rules that will help with your army’s attacks. First up, we have Battlefield Analysis. In your command phase, this allows you to select one enemy unit on the battlefield. That unit gains a Crossfire marker.
For me, this is the best reason to take a Nexos and it is this ability that makes him a key addition to my army. The Crossfire marker sets up a lot of key stratagems for the GSC, such as fights last, no overwatch and no heroic intervention.
The placement of the Nexos’ Crossfire marker does not follow the normal rules for shooting that regular Crossfire markers do. This means you can directly target characters with it, allowing you to put a Crossfire marker on a unit that could not normally be targetable through regular firepower, therefore, cannot receive a marker in the shooting phase. This tactic is key for shutting down the heroic intervention of powerful characters into your weak Objective Secured units. I have frequently used this tactic to flip an objective that my opponent thought was safe thanks to having a character planted on it.
This gives you much more agency about where and when to use stratagems with a Crossfire marker, rather than having to rely on your firepower and risk failing to place one during your shooting phase.
The Nexos’ second ability is Strategic Coordination. This essentially allows you to pick a Core unit on the battlefield and give it the aura ability of a Primus, Jackal Alphus or Clamavus that is within 6″ of the Nexos, or to be selected for any of the Characters’ abilities.
This is an ability of the Nexos’ that I rarely use. The biggest issue is that the Core unit has to be on the battlefield to gain the benefit. This means that in general, units coming in from Underground cannot be selected to benefit from the abilities of a GSC character, which means the units you would like to use it on most will not be able to be selected. The only time you could use this on an Underground unit is if the Nexos and Character come in from Underground on the same turn, as you can use their Command phase abilities after deployment. If you wished, you could use it on turn 2 to boost one of your deploying units.
Another reason for taking the Nexos is to access the Cranial Inlay relic. This allows you to roll a D6 every time you spend a command point, and on a 5+ you will regain the CP. This also allows you to use the Strategic Coordination one additional time, if this is something that is going to buff your army.
With the changes to Nephilim giving you fewer CP, any way to regain your CP is going to be useful, as GSC are a CP-hungry army. As the relic now costs a CP, you need to regain at least two during the course of the game in order to get a net benefit for the Relic. Gaining 2CP a turn should hopefully give you more opportunities to roll the 5+ to refund CP over the course of the game and make taking the relic more worthwhile.
The Nexos really exists only as an army buffer. He has the statline you would expect for a Guard-level character with no real armour save and no invulnerable save. He also has little to no combat or shooting offensive potential, so you are free to hide the Nexos for most of the game. Be sure to have a squad to protect him if your opponent has any indirect fire, as even with the de-buffs to indirect fire, it will still probably be able to kill off the Nexos with ease.
Overall
For only 50 pts, I think the Nexos is a great addition to the GSC army. The Crossfire ability and access to CP regeneration makes him a great choice in the current meta. Try him out and I think he will add value to your Genestealer Cults force if used correctly.
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I think the Nexos and Kelermorph are the only appropriately costed characters in the GSC range. Even then, there are FAR too many games where the Cranial Inlay never works, so I’d rather just not spend the CP on buying one to begin with. The ability to throw down a Crossfire Marker is what you are paying for here, and in that he’s not bad. If you don’t need the Cranial Inlay, definitely consider deep striking him in on the same turn as your Primus and an Acolyte squad. This allows you to put the Nexos and Primus in your main lines, while sending the Nexos Radio signal to a faraway unit. Giving this buff to a unit of bikers is also rather nifty.
Now your Acolyte squad just has to be able to kill the thing it charged, which can be very challenging at times.
Yeah, the GSC characters are ridiculously expensive for how fragile they are, but do give good buffs to the units. I am torn with Cranial Inlay. In some games it gives back a CP almost every turn, in others it does nothing. As you now have to pay a CP, you really need at least 2 back to get any use, so it is sometimes asking a lot.
Deep striking the Nexos and Primus together is a great idea to synergise their abilities. You just need to wathc out for putting them in the main battle lines, as they will die very easy and potentially give up a lot of assassinate points if your opponent has taken that secondary.