Jackal Alphus

Their leadership structure is as weird as an Assault Marine put in command of a Scout Squad.

Leaders of the Toyota-loving Atalan-loving Genestealer cultists. Jackal Alphus are born with a peculiarly sharp eyesight which makes them indispensable for the Genestealer Cult's fighting force. Seeing as how they are the only unit capable of hitting anything more than a mile away, this makes sense on why they are so dang important. Genestealers just have shitty eyesight.

Overview

Jackal Alphus are a type of Genestealer Hybrid sniper that ride rapid-assault dirtcycles to battle, leading groups of Atalan Jackals. As such, a Jackal Alphus is far from just the leader of a cult’s Jackal packs – they can coordinate targeted strikes on priority threats and even take matters into their own hands with well-placed shots from their high-powered Sniper Rifle.

In retrospective hindsight, it is kind of strange that the leader of a fast attack unit that specializes in close-range assaults and hit-and-run tactics would rely on long-range sniper fire. How she is meant to lead such a contradictory formation effectively is up in the air. Seriously it would be much cooler if GW gave her a powerful close-range weapon or at the very least, separate her from her bike and turn her into a specialist Genestealer sniper. Once again the Hive Mind proves its intelligence.

Alternative opinion - She's got a radio and is mentioned as a co-ordinator rather than a frontline leader; hence having a sniper rifle and a bike gives her the ability to provide some suppressive ranged overwatch whilst being mobile enough to avoid counterfire, all the while directing Atalan jackals from a safe distance. She can rocket around, telling her fast attack bunch where to strike, and pop troublesome officers and specialists from a distance to make her dudes' job easier. She's an orchestrator, not a brawler.

She's also a woman with a big gun and a fast ride - Mad Max Fury Road comes to mind.

Tabletop

On the tabletop, the Jackal Alphus is a HQ unit unsurprisingly. With a BS of 2+ the Alphus is going to get a lot of use wielding the Jackal Sniper Rifle which is a 36" Heavy 1, S4, AP-2, D3 boomstick. So a typical sniper rifle really. What makes the Jackal Alphus cool is that she has the Priority Target Sighted rules which, at the start of the Shooting Phase, allows you to select an enemy unit within the range of the sniper rifle and allows an additional +1 to hit rolls for attacks made by friendly Genestealer Cultists until the end of the phase. Do note that the friendly Genestealer Cultists must be within 6" of the Jackal Alphus (Or within 12" if they are friendly Atalan Jackals) for it to work.

For those who do not know, it means that this bastard over here can effectively call some significant fire support at her behest.