Editing Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Genestealer Cults (section)

===Cult Ambush and You===

While the idea of getting a Turn 1 charge with your Patriarch and a pile of Purestrain Genestealers is insanely good on paper, in practice, the Cult Ambush table is not reliable enough [42% chance for warlord trait + reroll + rolling actually that 6] for you to really base your entire strategy around a few key units getting the results you want. There are definitely methods to give you more control, like the Ambush Leader warlord trait or the Subterranean Uprising, but Cult Ambush lacks the precision and reliability of things like Space Marine drop pods. You can't rely on the bulk of your army coming in exactly where you want them to, because a few crummy rolls can have parts of your force coming in from your friendly table edge, or the wrong side of the board. If you aren't smart and careful about how you use Cult Ambush, you'll end up scattering your army piecemeal and your T3 5+ dudes are going to get smeared. 

Cult Ambush really shines in two big places. The first is getting hordes of dudes into the fight. Both of your basic troops can be taken in squads up to 20, but common wisdom for most armies would advise against it, as you can't fit 20 dudes in a transport. Footslogging hordes in the current state of the game is just asking to have your loyal goons be re-purposed as fleshy confetti the first time a Thunderfire Cannon sneezes in your general direction, and most horde armies have to spend a turn or two getting into position before they can really start being effective. Cult Ambush solves the transport issues that these blobs struggle with, allowing you to teleport into rapid fire range in deployment. Naturally, Neophytes take the best advantage of this, as they can immediately be useful without having to roll a 6. Acolytes can also present a nice [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|'''DISTRACTION CARNIFEX''']], with a barebones squad of 20 costing a bit more than a Leman Russ. Even if they don't get the Turn 1 charge, you can often deploy them in such a way that your opponent will need to deal with them or risk losing some of his shiny toys.

The second place Cult Ambush rocks is helping to make badly mangled squads useful. After your hordes take a vigorous pounding, they can Return to the Shadows for some soothing balms and a cigarette before returning to the fray. Use these mangled squads to grab an objective, or to help gang up on a key enemy unit elsewhere on the board, or to leave your opponent impotently stomping on his hat as the flank he was crushing suddenly disappears and reappears to reinforce the other side of the board.

If you're playing with the Cult Insurrection Detachment (and why wouldn't you?) this becomes even more useful as you can return ''any'' d6 models to the unit. This means that if your power weapon wielding sergeant got killed in a challenge or your heavy/special weapons were sniped out of the unit by cheeky ratlings, you can return them to the unit and redeploy their firepower elsewhere. This helps your horde of gribblies stay useful over the course of the game, where a lot of other units would stay neutered.

All in all, it's a powerful tool, but it's better utilized opportunistically rather than as a key element of your tactical planning.