Genestealer Cults Codex Review- Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor

Hi everyone, Michael here to take a look at one the best Cult Creeds in the codex, the Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor. For more reviews and analyses, check out the Tactics Corner.

The Genestealer Cults have access to some great Cult Creeds to boost the army. With the Nephilim changes to CP, the Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor has some great tricks to maximise your CP and hurt your opponent’s CP level.

Cult Creed

This Creed gives you two benefits. You can re-roll charges made for units with this creed. In addition, each time a ranged attack is made from an attacking unit over 12″ away, the unit is treated as having the benefits of Light Cover.

Genestealer Cults are an army that lives and dies in the fight phase. The ability to re-roll charges makes their chances of getting in to combat even better. This is especially important from units that are deploying from Underground. If you fail the 8″ charge from Underground, odds are a unit will be left standing in the open to be destroyed next turn. This is the reason for taking the Cult, as it gives them a very powerful ability to get into combat more reliably.

The bonus to your save against ranged attacks is a nice boost, which can help with the durability of your army. However, with a lot of high AP firepower in the game to combat Armour of Contempt, as well as a larger access to Ignores Cover in some armies, it’s not a bonus you can rely on too often. It’s a nice additional measure, but not the reason you are taking this Cult Creed.

Stratagem

The Four-Armed Emperor stratagem is A Plan Generations in the Making. This is the Cult version of Vect. It costs you 0 CP, but can only be used once per game. You use this after your opponent uses a Stratagem (excluding CP re-roll) and the cost of that stratagem increases by 1 CP for the rest of the battle.

In the CP-restricted economy of Nephilim, this is a great stratagem to use. You can pop this on one of your opponent’s key stratagems, or even on Counter Offensive. It will then cost your opponent 3CP to interrupt combat, which is a big boost for a combat-heavy army such as GSC. This is a great stratagem which disrupt your opponent’s gameplan and force them to either ignore a key stratagem and go without valuable resources, or force them to spend all their CP on the key stratagem and not get to use other useful ones during the game.

Warlord Trait

The trait for this creed is Inscrutable Cunning. Once per battle round, when you use a GSC Strategic Ploy stratagem or Battle Tactic Stratagem within 12″ of the warlord, you can reduce the cost of the stratagem by 1 CP (to a minimum of 0). You can only use this on each stratagem once.

Looking back at the Key Stratagems for GSC, there are a few that fit the Strategic Ploy or Battle Tactic type, as well as several other useful stratagems.

Lurk in the Shadows normally costs 2CP and means that an Infantry unit cannot be targeted by enemy firepower unless they are within 12″ or the closest eligible unit to be fired at. This can keep a key unit holding an objective safe from indirect firepower, a key weakness of GSC, even with the boost to defence from indirect fire. Getting to use this for only 1CP for one turn makes it much more useful in a CP-hungry army.

This again pairs well with their stratagem for maximising CP usage throughout the game, essentially allowing you to save up to 5 CP throughout the game.

Psychic Power

The Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor power is Undermine (WC7). This targets one non-Fly enemy unit within 18″ and visible to the psyker. If manifest, until the start of your next psychic phase, the targeted unit suffers -3″ to their move, halves any advance rolls and subtracts 2 from charge rolls.

This is obviously a great power for seriously disrupting the movement of an enemy unit, and will be particularly potent on a unit that wants to get into assault. Does not work on Fly units, so will be more limited against some armies, but still a very useful power to have.

The fact that GSC psykers get this power in addition to their chosen powers means that you always have it in your hand to use without sacrificing more valuable choices of powers.

Overall

The Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor is one of the most powerful Creeds that the GSC can take. With the changes to CP generation in Nephilim missions, their ability to manipulate your and your opponent’s CP usage makes them a very strong choice in the new meta. They also have a fantastic psychic power, and a great Cult Creed that makes your charges much more reliable without having to use your precious CP.

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