I haven’t written actual Genestealer Cult content in quite some time, and with a name like BugProletariat
I thought it was about time to actually produce some content for my favorite 40k faction. While it is
awesome to see so many of my four-armed brethren being so successful at 40k events, I am also a little
sad that I haven’t played my GSC at an event in months. If I can’t put my GSC on the table I can at least write about one of the best aspects of the GSC Codex; their psychic powers.
The GSC have some incredible psychic powers at their disposal, and one of their psychic characters is a
giant Genestealer that is an absolute blender in close combat. You are absolutely going to want at least
one psyker in your list if you are playing GSC, and you are going to want to know what powers to look
out for if you are playing against the coolest faction in 40k.
Might From Beyond Warp Charge 6- A simple +1 Attack for a Cult unit within 18 inches of the psyker.
This is a staple power that you are going to want in basically all GSC army lists. Whether you are using
this to give those Purestrain Genestealers 50 attacks instead of 40 or getting your mining weapons even
more chances to do devastating damage to your opponent’s models, you cannot go wrong by casting
Might From Beyond.
My favorite combo to pull off using Might From Beyond is adding in the Biophagus’ upgrade to allow
one unit to receive exploding 6s to hit for the entire game. This is excellent on a unit of Metamorphs who
will be getting 40 attacks with exploding 6s at S5 AP3! Giving them the Our Time Is Nigh Proficient Planning can make their first attack of the game go up to 50 attacks with exploding 6s too!
Psychic Stimulus Warp Charge 6- A Cult unit within 18 inches of the psyker can shoot or charge in a turn
that unit Fell Back or Advanced, and the unit does not suffer the penalty for advancing and firing their
Assault Weapons.
This is not the only way to get advance and charge in this Codex, but it sure is nice not to have to spend
1CP to get those Acolytes advancing and charging up the table. This power also lets you Fall Back and
charge, so if you manage to survive a combat phase with your opponent you can leverage this power to
Fall Back and charge into an unexpected location.
Don’t forget about the second part of this power as it can be pretty useful on Neophytes with Shotguns.
Not only will they be able to move across the board quickly by advancing and charging, but they will be
able to pepper your opponent with Shotgun fire before charging onto an Objective to steal it from your
opponent.
Mass Hypnosis Warp Charge 7- One enemy unit visible to and within 18 inches of the caster subtracts one
from their Attacks characteristic and the targeted unit fights last.
Fights last is extremely important for the fragile GSC. Without the use of this power, or a Stratagem
involving Crossfire tokens, your flimsy little GSC are going to have a tough time charging two different
enemy units. If your opponent has the CP to interrupt, their counter attack can destroy an entire unit of
GSC before they are able to strike. This power saves you from that sad fate.
Mental Onslaught Warp Charge 5- This is the first of the GSC mortal wound powers and it is my favorite
of the options available in the Codex. This power has a range of 24 inches and lets you rolls 4d6 with 5+
causing mortal wounds. The cool part is you then get to roll 3 dice, 2 dice, and then 1 dice for those 5+
until you do not meet one of the criteria below:
– You get to 0 dice
– You don’t roll any 5+
– No enemy models are destroyed
This power is excellent at throwing out mortal wounds into so many different opponent’s. Guard,
Sisters, Orks, AdMech, and Necrons all don’t love taking single mortal wounds.
Psionic Blast War Charge 5- The next mortal wound power is the weaker of the two options in my
opinion. This power only has a range of 18 inches, and cannot be used to target Characters if they are benefiting from Look Out Sir. On a successful cast the target suffers D3 mortal wounds, or 3 mortal
wounds if your psychic test is equal to or greater than your targets leadership. I’ll take the upside of
Mental Onslaught everyday over this one.
Mind Control Warp Charge 6- Oh, old Mind Control how I miss you. This power is by far the worst in an
otherwise perfect psychic tree. With a successful cast you give your target -1 to hit, and if you roll equal
to or over the target’s Leadership they get -1 Leadership AND -1 to their Combat Attrition tests. Hard
pass.
The GSC psychic tree is one of the best in the game, and the army absolutely needs to utilize these
powers to their maximum efficiency to get those wins at the table. If you have some awesome combos
using these psychic powers, or you think some of the specific Cult powers are worth mentioning let me
know in the comments!
Also, don’t forget, FLG has a ton of 40k product at a great discount over in their webstore. So if you are
looking to start that new army, or pick up that cool newer Magus model head on over and take a look!