Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Genestealer Cults (section)

====Xenos====
*'''Eldar''' - Tough to beat with just a mono-GSC list. You're likely not going table them, so focus on board/objective control and area denial early before you start losing big chunks of your force, which you inevitably will. Craftworlds are one of the factions that can shoot at units coming in from reserve with the Forewarned stratagem, but they need a Farseer nearby to pull that off, which they'll surely have. Everything said about the anti-psyker relic Sanctus applies here, but beware of farseers. Ghosthelm allows the farseer to ignore regular MWs on 5+ and ignore Perils MWs on 2+. Craftworlds to beware of are as follows; Ulthwe gives their units an inherent 6+ FNP, making them a bit tougher to crack than the usual Eldar army (but not by much). Alaitoc is an infamous Craftworld with its -1 to hit against ranged attacks outside of 12", but you shouldn't have any problems closing that gap with cult ambush and using Acolytes instead of Neophytes for the obvious reasons. Also, you're in for a rough ride against flyers with there -2 to hit outside of 12", so if you're looking to down a few birds more easily look to your shooty Tyranid brethren: Exocrines and Hive Guard in a Kronos detachment. Saim-Hann specializes in lightning-fast assaults with its speedy jetbikes ignoring movement penalties with heavy weapons. Funnily enough, the two craftworlds that may give you the most trouble are Biel-Tan and Iyanden. Biel-Tan gives a re-roll of 1s to hit on shooting and overwatch attacks on all Shuriken weaponry (and Eldar can spam them like no tomorrow), making even humble Guardians an absolute terror against your units. A deep-striking unit of 20 with two Shuriken Cannon platforms can dish out 40 S4 shots and 6 S6 shots, re-rolling 1s to hit and being AP-3 on 6+ to wound. That WILL sting like a bitch. In addition, it confers +1Ld on all Aspect Warrior units, making leadership bombs a bit harder to pull off than usual. Iyanden's specialty is in near-morale immunity and with Vehicles that ignore the damage chart. Since their Psychic Awakening release, and CA 2019, the new hotness is to run the custom craftworld traits that deny cover to your whole army, and allow a single hit and wound re-roll for every unit in their shooting phase. This makes Eldar gun-lines more efficient at killing than ever. Luckily, they don't have a super high volume of shots, so your hordes of infantry aren't necessarily wiped in one swoop, and your best anti-tank units deep strike! Eldar tanks will die quite easily against five properly buffed Hammer-Aberrants, or an Acolyte-rock saw bomb, but you'll need to commit a little more to killing Wave Serpents due to their 6+ FnP stacked with reducing your attack dmg by 1. That said, go after the Wave Serpents early. No doubt they'll be ferrying around their objective-grabbing troops, which can be mopped up no prob once exposed. Lastly, Eldar vehicles are fast (no shit), so watch the placement of your characters and screen accordingly, or say goodbye to your aura buffs and your psykers.
*'''Dark Eldar''' - Can you vect a vect? Yes you can! A popular tactic Dark Eldar players like to do is use their flyers and flying transports to zone out their deployment zone and no man's land, preventing you from cult ambushing close to stuff that's important. This is why it's important to leave half of your army on the table armed with stuff that can pop their relatively fragile transports. Be aware though that Venoms are -1 to hit, so a Jackal Alphus will do you wonders there. Also, Heavy Flamers and Clearance Incinerators can do the same thing, auto-hitting at S5/6, and their Venoms and Raiders are T5.
*'''Harlequins''' -  Due to the fact that Harlequins are a speedy army, use Cult Ambush to pull a few tricks of your own such as blocking them out of the deployment zone with Ambush markers, or use APA to pop up 3" away with a unit full of flamers/Hand Flamers. Like all Eldar, the Harlequins love their -1 to hit modifiers, and your army's average ballistic skill is mediocre at best. Take as many auto-hitting as possible (but you were doing that in the first place like a good boy), and throw in a Kelemorph and Jackal Alphus to deny them their -1 to hit fuckery. An army with a universal 4++ seems like a daunting prospect at first, but they are an elite army after all, let's see them make a truckload of those saves. Their Death Jesters act like Snipers, if you can't tuck your characters out of LoS, Unquestioning Loyalty and taking Locuses to tank the hits make them a lot less threatening. Plus, you can easily fight fire with fire by throwing your own snipers at them. Shadowseers cast an aura of -1 to wound around themselves, but believe me they will hate you for taking a Magus with the Crouchling relic. Rule #1 of running a close ranged/melee army in 8th edition is if everything is a viable target, nothing is. Throw off their target priority using whatever means necessary.
*'''Ynnari'''
*'''Tau Empire''' - Casting Mass Hypnosis on a unit does not stop it from getting help via For the Greater Good, so you will have to choose wisely what will get it. Cast it on a big squad of Fire Warriors to decrease the insane amount of overwatch they can put out, or gun drones for the same reason, or on a Riptide so it doesn't light you up with burst cannons, these are all decent choices. More than likely, whatever charges first is going to get waxed. If you are smart (or lucky) however, you chose something that will survive in good enough condition to run in and allow the rest of your ambush to flood in. Alternate take: The Amulet of the Voidwyrm explicitly states that overwatch cannot be fired at the bearer, so safely charge a patriarch using his fairly bigger base into two packed units and tag them, and then send in the rest of your army.
*'''Tyranids''' - Kraken Bomb Genestealers hurt us as much as we love them. Thankfully, they cannot move within 9" of our deployment zone, and if you do some tricky deployment blip things, you can have your entire army more than 12" away [deny a charge attempt all-together]. You can also just Vect the Opportunistic Advance stratagem that Kraken Genestealers get to deny the charge attempt and buy your units another turn, as well. If you're feeling extra saucy, the mining drill fortification can shorten charge ranges by 2" as well. They also like to field big monsters such as Carnifexes, but Aberrants or a single Abominant will wreck them and look cost effective while doing it. A Clamavus hidden in between your ranged units will prevent units such as Trygons, Raveners, and Winged Hive Tyrants from getting too close. Incidentally, Shadow in the Warp does not affect us since all of our psykers have the {{W40kKeyword|Tyranid}} keyword so you won't suffer from their anti-psyker abilities as badly as other armies do.
*'''Genestealer Cults''' - Let the mind games commence! Clamavus' anti-deepstrike bubble is your friend. Can you vect a vect? Yes you can!
*'''Necrons''' - The lynchpin of a necron force is its reanimation protocols. If even a single Necron is left standing in a unit there is a 33% chance for each slain model to stand back up. Play for keeps and don't let up on a squad until it's 100% wiped, otherwise the Necron player will likely stack crypteks and resurrection orbs to ensure most of his slow-moving tin men stand back up. Use your superior strength and/in numbers!!!
*'''Orks''' - If you face Melee orks, your opponent may get fairly annoyed to hear you can bring S5, 3 attacks, 5+ save models for 7pts each, with an option to add hand flamers. And with a psychic power can boost them to S6, 4 attacks each. I know my local Ork player lost his mind reading that. You can rush down the orks in melee, where they will actually lose to your significant strength advantage, and attacks advantage. They will still wound us on 3s and 2s and can have up to 6 attacks each with exploding 6s for more attacks and they have bolt pistols at just 7 points a model as well. Just make sure you have handflamers for overwatching IF you messed up and let them charge you! and more importantly make sure you attack first! You have to attack them first or atleast kill enough of them so you have that attack advantage and get rid of their mob rule LD bonus. Orks can be a tough matchup). Your Snipers can deny significant character use from Weirdboys and Warbosses even with the obligatory 5++ Force shield aura. Lootas are a shooty unit, but they need significant babysitting in a competitive list. Finally, a poorly designed gretchin wall may become useless if your Cult units ambush from behind [making the grot stratagem ineffective]. Even if it's decently strategically deployed you can just up and rinse them using 20 hand flamers Acolytes and the Perfect Ambush stratagem.


[[Category:Warhammer 40000 Tactics(8E)]]
[[Category:Genestealer Cults]]

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