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Rules Conundrum – The Genestealer Ally Question

By Rob Baer | March 4th, 2016 | Categories: 40k News & Articles, Rules Conundrums

shrug

Come see the current argument for the just who the heck Genestealer cults can ally with an why.  This is turning into a circus..

First off I think we can all agree as reasonable hobbyists that the over all intent of the new Genestealers was that they can be part of a Tyranids army. If you can’t get behind that point, you may want to bail right now as this is not going to end well for you in the comments probably…

Larry over at BoLS poured gasoline on a fire with his take on the rules, and to be honest his reasoning isn’t half bad either. However it was more from the point of: “Hey if you come over to my house you can do this cause I’m not a dbag” kinda deal.

Now here some things to remember about “allies”:

  • They are detachments
  • They have objective secured
  • You can NOT ally the same faction with a CAD (hence the Cult vs Tyranids issue) – but you can ally it to a detachment that isn’t a CAD.
  • There are specific Force Org requirements for an Allied Detachment
  • An ally does NOT need a CAD to attach to.
  • They may not play nice with the rest of your army (see the allies martix chart)

Here’s some excerpts from Larry’s article:

Factions

First it’s time to familiarize ourselves with the rules on factions (p.118 40K rulebook)

40k-factions

Genestealer Cult Allies Rules

Now look at what the White Dwarf says about Genestealer Cult allies:

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Faction Symbols

Here is the faction symbols used in the game so far:

Genestealer Cult Faction Logo

This logo appears atop every Genestealer Cult unit and formation entry:

40k-faction-icons

The default Warhammer 40,000 Faction logos (p.118 40K rulebook)

So with all those main rulebook points of reference, the argument breaks down to two simple points:

Are the Genestealer Cult their own “faction” (similar to how Black Legion works with Chaos Space Marines) but ally in the same way as the Tyranid faction would (but they are not the Tyranid faction).

OR are they part of Tyranids wholly and the designers never wanted them to be part of the same army (even though the Deathwatch can be part of a Space Marine Chapter XYZ army, along with the other points above).

 Vote now for how you want it to work hobby world- oh wait is voting for how rules should work a good idea in the first place?

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About the Author: Rob Baer

Virginia Restless, Miniature Painter & Cat Dad. I blame LEGOs. There was something about those little-colored blocks that started it all... Twitter @catdaddymbg