Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team (HoR)/Tactics/Genestealer Cults(8E)

Your common keywords are Tyranid, Genestealer Cults

Rules

• Brood Brothers: Up to half of your core models may be taken from the Astra Militarum opus, but this prevents you from using cult ambush. The only reason you might want to do this is to take veterans for the medi-pack or regimental standard, or if you wanted plasma guns.
• Cult Ambush: This rule seems to be an amendment for the index version of the cult ambush rule. It is unclear if the newer codex version of cult ambush takes precedence or not.
• Cult Icon: Now affects models in a 3" radius instead of the unit.

Armoury

• Patriarch Ichor: A single use item which added +2 to charge distances and +1A. A 8 points, it's not amazing.
• Refractor field: A 5 point upgrade which gives a 5+ invulnerable save. Worth taking on your leader, to keep them alive a bit longer.
• Acid Blood: Each time this model loses a wound in the fight phase roll a D6. On a 6 an enemy model within 6" take a mortal wound. Not bad for 5 points.
• Neuro Paralytics: Primus only. When this model inflicts a wound on a non-vehicle model that models movement is reduced to 0" for the next movement phase. This could prevent a unit from closing in with a short ranged weapon like a melta of flamer, but it's worth noting that it doesn't prevent the model from attempting a charge.
• Chem-inhaler: Bionics by any other name would smell as sweet. You get them 2 points cheaper though.
• Staff of the Claw: A 17 pt weapon that replaces the magus's force stave. Gives 1 extra strength in melee, and also works as a heavy flamer. When you consider the fact that a heavy flamer on its on costs 19 points, this is a bargain.
• Ichor injectors: When attacking with rending claws re-roll to wound rolls of 1. Only 3 points, a decent upgrade for purestrains.
• Smoke Grenade: Instead of shooting you can throw a smoke grenade, giving -1 to hit to enemy ranged attacks. Not great, because unlike other teams smoke grenades, this only affects the model which threw the grenade.
• Born in the Tunnels: 4 point upgrade that lets you reveal hiding models within 9"
• Where Did it Go?: A 7pt upgrade which lets you spend a tactical point top use the return to shadows stratagem from the codex, affecting this model and friendly models within 3".
• Sacred Cult Icon: Add 1 to unquestioning loyalty tolls affecting characters within 12". Unquestioning loyalty is how you keep your characters alive, and genestealer cults have access to more characters in HOR than any other faction. A decent free upgrade, but it replaces the cult icon, so maybe only worth it if you are running a lot of characters.
• Ground-Penetrating Surveyor: Instead of shooting, you can designate a model within 18", and that model and models within 3" of it lose cover bonus. Give it to a model which you don't expect to do much shooting anyway(Clamavus, biophagus, locus, magus)
• Military optics: A 5pt upgrade that lets you re-roll to-hit rolls of 1 on one of the models ranged weapons. The only models which benefit from this are the Jackal Alphus, the Sanctus and the Kelamorph. Everything else either can't take armoury items, or isn't geared up for ranged combat.

Additional Cult Creeds

• Scions of Marekatskal: Wound rolls of 1 or 2 fail automatically. Most of your units have a toughness of 3, so nothing below S6 will be wounding on a 2+ anyway. It can offer some level of protection against heavy weapons though.
• The Warriors: Lets you ignore vertical distance when moving, which is good, and lets you move, charge and shoot through friendly models, which is great, especially if you are playing a horde list.

Unit Analysis

Your FOC is as follows:

• 1 Leader
• 1-25 Core
• 0-5 Special

Leaders

• Magus: Your only Psyker, it's basically unchanged from the codex. A lot more expensive that similar psykers from other opuses, but you don't get much for it other better defence against enemy psykers.
• Primus: Again unchanged from the codex. Slightly more survivable than the magus with an extra wound, and with some good support rules.
• Acolyte leader: An acolyte hybrid with an extra attack and leadership, and two extra wounds. It can take a bonesword or lashwhip, but the reason you take it is because its's cheap.
• Metamorph leader: Same deal as the acolyte leader, and has access to all the normal weapons a metamorph has access to.
• Kelermorph: These guys have some serious close range firepower, slightly better durability with a 5++ save, and it's character hunting ability will get some good utility as well, but it's also your most expensive leader at 75pts
• Jackal Alphus: Great for sitting at the back of the field sniping characters, but if you want to get value out of priority target sighted you will have to get a bit closer. Still, its slightly cheaper than a lot of your other leaders, and a solid choice especially in bike heavy teams.
• Abberent Hypermorph: Same as the codex, but with one more leadership.

Core

• Acolyte Hybrids: Your basic melee unit hasn't changed much. In the denser terrain of kill team it should be easier to get them into combat before they die. The rock saw is probably the most useful heavy weapon here, with far less large, multi-wound models to deal with.
• Neophyte Hybrids: Expendable meat shields with some actually pretty good weapon options. For special weapons, the flamer is always a good choice, especially if you go for the shotguns, the grenade launcher is versatile and cheap. The webbers special rule is situational, and other than that its a flamer which trades half its shots for double the range, but it could be worth it as it only costs 1 point to the flamers 6. For heavy weapons, the mining laser has less usefulness here, but it's still good against things like crisis battlesuits and killa kans, the seismic cannon is quite versatile, and since it got an upgrade, it's short wave mode is consistently better than the mining laser against anything you will encounter in kill team, albeit with shorter range.
• Atalan Jackal: Blindingly fast and quite a bit tougher than your other units. Unfortunately only one in every 4 can take a demolition charge. Good for carrying objectives.
• Neophyte weapons team: Limited to 1 plus another for every 10 neophyte/acolyte hybrids. Give them whatever weapons seems most appropriate.

Special

• Hybrid Metamorph: Still similar to the acolytes with different weapon options and an extra attack. With special choices limited these can often be skipped over for other units.
• Aberrant: A solid melee unit with slightly better defensive potential than most of your units. It can take a power hammer, but the power pick is cheaper, and good enough against most things in kill team. Be careful with them though, they are not as tough as they look, and tend to draw a lot of fire. Unless that was your plan all along.
• Locus: A spectacular melee unit, which can go toe to toe with pretty much any unit your opponent can bring. This, and the ability to reliably intercept wounds meant for your leader makes this a solid choice.
• Purestrain Genestealer: For all their damage output, this units biggest weakness is its durability. A single wound and 5++ save mean that if you play them recklessly, they could easily get shot to pieces before they have a chance to do anything. Make sure there is always something to break line of sight, advance every turn (usually no reason not to), try to pick off high value, vulnerable units, like heavy weapon teams, and they should have no problems earning their points back.
  • It's worth noting, 3 of these only take up a single special slot, so you can take a few even if you want to keep slots open for other special units.
• Biophagus: Only really useful for buffing your aberrants, and despite the fact that it only buffs 1 aberrant instead of a unit, it costs the same as it does in the codex. Skip this one.
• Clamavus: Has some usefulness for holding objectives, as enemy units will be hesitant to get too close because of scrambler array, and the deep strike denial can be good against teams which use a lot of that. Expensive for what you get though at 55pts.
• Sanctus: Slightly less reliable as a sniper than the Jackal Alphus, unless you are hunting psykers, but unlike the Jackal Alphus, it only takes up a special slot. If you go for the bio-dagger instead you get an absurd damage output , with 5 attacks hitting and wounding on a 2+. The trade off is that apart from unquestioning loyalty, there isn't much to keep him alive, so make sure you have disposable infantry around to take hits for him.
• Cult Scout Sentinel: With the reduced number of high damage weapons, these things are a lot more useful in kill team.
  • The heavy flamer generally pretty good but requires you to get up close, and your are probably better off taking a wolfquad with an incinerator for the extra range and speed if that's your plan.
  • The lascannon is generally too expensive to be worth it. If you need anti-armour, a krak missile is going to wound as reliably against most things you will encounter.
  • The multi-laser isn't really good against anything, but it's dirt cheap.
  • The missile launcher is versatile, and with a 48' range, you will be able to hit a vast majority, if not all of, a standard sized board with it.
  • The autocannon is in a weird place with high strength and low ap, but like the missile launcher, it can hit most of the board, and it can be good against two wound infantry like primaris marines or necron immortals. If you have weird friends, this weapon is the bane of Feral Ork players.
• Atalan Wolfquad: Relatively cheap, tough and terrifyingly fast, these are great for delivering heavy weapons where they are needed. The heavy stubber is garbage, so take the mining laser or incinerator. The incinerator is great and its limited range is offset by the wolfquads 14" movement. The mining laser has good damage potential against hard targets, but at BS4+ and only one shot you can only expect to hit half the time (1/3 if you moved).
  • Statistical analysis reveals that the incinerator is consistently better than the mining laser against a vast majority of targets, so only take the mining laser if you need it to fill a particular vulnerability.