Genestealer

Genestealers are alien creatures in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. They have undergone many fluff revisions since their inception, but they have always been lethal in melee (so Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus non erat hendrerit, adipiscing lectus vel, commodo nisl. Duis non malesuada magna. Quisque rhoncus, odio id malesuada gravida, nibh ligula accumsan diam, vel blandit nulla magna eu risus. Praesent vel pellentesque nisi. Suspendisse potenti. Etiam condimentum faucibus mauris, a tincidunt quam tempor et. Curabitur mauris quam, euismod a sagittis bibendum, pellentesque vitae libero. Donec venenatis rutrum libero at gravida. Sed in lorem iaculis, dictum diam sed, condimentum leo. Mauris nisi nisi, sodales vel ultrices quis, placerat nec diam. Sed et aliquam augue.

Proin sem augue, pharetra ut turpis eu, aliquet euismod massa. Proin tempus, nisi sit amet ultrices bibendum, risus orci sodales tortor, nec iaculis orci elit in eros. Fusce ullamcorper vel nisl non aliquam. Sed id cursus libero, fringilla consectetur mauris. Proin vitae eros vehicula, eleifend libero quis, dignissim enim. Donec eleifend felis non leo porta, vel semper purus condimentum. Donec in tempus sem, dictum vehicula arcu. Sed nec dapibus leo. Morbi ullamcorper elit vel sagittis lacinia. Donec elit odio, commodo eget libero vitae, porttitor accumsan lectus.

Duis ac tincidunt tortor. Donec feugiat odio nec orci adipiscing condimentum. Mauris quis mauris ac nibh consectetur convallis et sed diam. Proin sapien dolor, porttitor vitae were not connected with the Tyranids at all. Indeed, the core rulebook noted that Genestealers with human ancestry could be intelligent, and even friendly! Their natural form had an almost leech-like head, and they were specifically described as "vampirish."

Space Hulk

Genestealers received a significant bump in their threat level with the release of the Space Hulk board game. The game made it clear that the Genestealers were a much more virulent and widespread menace than their initial description, and their head was changed to have a much toothier mouth. In keeping with their "totally-not-Xenomorphs" theme, Genestealers would use stealth to approach the Marine player's Terminators as "blips" of some unknown number of Genestealers, and then come out of hiding once they had a good ambush prepared. They achieved a super-human level of coordination via a hive-mind, represented by the Genestealer player having unlimited time to move his pieces.

Later Editions

In lLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus non erat hendrerit, adipiscing lectus vel, commodo nisl. Duis non malesuada magna. Quisque rhoncus, odio id malesuada gravida, nibh ligula accumsan diam, vel blandit nulla magna eu risus. Praesent vel pellentesque nisi. Suspendisse potenti. Etiam condimentum faucibus mauris, a tincidunt quam tempor et. Curabitur mauris quam, euismod a sagittis bibendum, pellentesque vitae libero. Donec venenatis rutrum libero at gravida. Sed in lorem iaculis, dictum diam sed, condimentum leo. Mauris nisi nisi, sodales vel ultrices quis, placerat nec diam. Sed et aliquam augue.

Proin sem augue, pharetra ut turpis eu, aliquet euismod massa. Proin tempus, nisi sit amet ultrices bibendum, risus orci sodales tortor, nec iaculis orci elit in eros. Fusce ullamcorper vel nisl non aliquam. Sed id cursus libero, fringilla consectetur mauris. Proin vitae eros vehicula, eleifend libero quis, dignissim enim. Donec eleifend felis non leo porta, vel semper purus condimentum. Donec in tempus sem, dictum vehicula arcu. Sed nec dapibus leo. Morbi ullamcorper elit vel sagittis lacinia. Donec elit odio, commodo eget libero vitae, porttitor accumsan lectus.

Duis ac tincidunt tortor. Donec feugiat odio nec orci adipiscing condimentum. Mauris quis mauris ac nibh consectetur convallis et sed diam. Proin sapien dolor, porttitor vitae the host species' genome with the greater Tyranid genome (hence the name Gene-stealer). The seed alters the host both physically and psychologically so that it loses all memory of the infection and becomes helplessly subservient to the Purestrain's brood. The host is also driven to have children and infest the gene pool with this alien STD; the brood's psychic network will enforce a slavish devotion on the host's part.

As the family grows, they will isolate themselves as a Genestealer Cult from the normal humans so as to avoid discovery, while the intelligent and "human" members infiltrate and spy in almost every sector of society. Their psychic network lets them communicate with one another, even though some of the less-human hybrids (and the Purestrains) are incapable of speech, and when it becomes large enough, it will act as a beacon to Tyranid Hive Fleets. These fleets travel at sub-light speeds, which means it is impractical for them to travel blindly, so they home in on the signal created by a large Genestealer Cult. When their arrival is imminent, they will directly contact the Cult, which will then engage in a full rebellion, sabotaging their planet's defences in preparation for the fleet. The fleet will consume the Cult along with everything else on the planet, but the Genestealers (and their hybrid servants) are just fine with that.

It's like they attempted to make the already grimdark-as-fuck Xenomorphs even more grimdark by crossing it over with The Shadow over Innsmouth.

Genestealer Variants

After the Purestrain infects a host, a Genestealer Cult will end up with members with various levels of Genestealer ancestry. In general, Genestealer Hybrids will breed with their non-Genestealer parent species, and their descendants will resemble that species, until (for some un-explained reason) the fourth hybrid generation, whose children will be Purestrain Genestealers capable of "founding" new Genestealer Cults.

The Rogue Trader-era Genestealers also get a special mention, in the form of "Ymgarl Genestealers," a strain that supposedly comes from a population of Genestealers that got isolated on the moons of Ymgarl. They have tentacular, lamprey-like mouths and the ability to partially transform themselves depending on the circumstances, at the cost of being genetically unstable and only being able to feed on blood.

On the Tabletop

You're already dead.

In battle, both Ymgarl and Purestrain genestealers are ridiculously deadly in melee, both in fluff and on the tabletop. On the tabletop, when a brood of genestealers charges something, it's very unlikely to survive to the next turn unless it's a Land Raider due to their massive number of good strength attacks, rending, and high weapon skill that means they hit most things on 3s (seriously, these guys have higher weapons skill than a lot things made out to close-combat experts), not to mention that they are fast little fuckers. In the fluff, their claws are so damned sharp that they might as well be power weapons, slicing through armor and walls like a chainsaw going through a rice paper wall. Their hypnotic eye powers show up irregularly in the fluff, showing up in the Dark Disciples Novel but not Ciaphas Cain; Hero of the Imperium for example. The genestealers' potency in melee is compensated, at least when they could cheese through infiltrate and outflank, by their lack of any shooting ability, weaker armor save, and their cost that meant that a tyranid player couldn't let them die like flies like they could other troop choices The fact they are faster than Eldars lets them laugh at any unit they charge/charging them, and they are usually deployed a-la Kroot Carnivores (parking them behind a windowless wall 12-18" from the enemy). Unlike Kroots though, they are not there to slow the enemy, they provide a hazardous area for the frist turns and then, when the main force has reached their position, they jump out to help OMNOMMing.

Genestealers have a squad leader upgrade, which the 5th edition changed from an HQ to a troop choice, called a broodlord, which formerly had a major role due to the biomorphs it could use, but being reduced to a troop choice basically made it just adding an extra punch, though it still has a better statline than any non Special-Character Space Marine HQs (except the CSM's daemon prince). Sixth edition turned broodlord into rape machine in challenges, as he able to bring down almost any independent character in the game without eternal warrior, while costing much, MUCH less.

Non-human Hybrids

As a final note, Warhammer 40,000 fiction is very human-centric, and so most Genestealer infestations depicted have occurred among human populations, but the Ciaphas Cain novels have suggested that Tau and Orks are also susceptible to Genestealer infection. What, exactly, an Ork Genestealer Hybrid or a Tau Genestealer Hybrid would look like is the subject of much speculation. It should be noted that Tau might be rarer as kroot can sniff out genestealer (or at least taste it). Also, the highly controlled police state dictated by their "Greater Good" system makes hiding Genestealer cults much more difficult.

While it probably is possible for Genestealers to infect the Eldar, it's unlikely that they'd really get anywhere with any of the three varieties due to their highly advanced medical technology (all three, yes even the Exodites), universal empathic abilities (mainly the Craftworld Eldar, but the Dark and Exodite varieties have it to some extent), very regimented lifestyles (Craftworld), and the fact that irregular psychic activity amongst them gets located and dealt with very quickly (all three, heck mind bulletry is pretty much the only thing the Dark Eldar ban). Thus it's going to stay as pretty much just a possibility for fa/tg/uys to wild mass guess over.

As for the Necrons, if you even consider this possibility you're fucking retarded.

Genestealer Army list

For those of you who wish to field these in their entirety rather than through a Tyranid army, wellLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus non erat hendrerit, adipiscing lectus vel, commodo nisl. Duis non malesuada magna. Quisque rhoncus, odio id malesuada gravida, nibh ligula accumsan diam, vel blandit nulla magna eu risus. Praesent vel pellentesque nisi. Suspendisse potenti. Etiam condimentum faucibus mauris, a tincidunt quam tempor et. Curabitur mauris quam, euismod a sagittis bibendum, pellentesque vitae libero. Donec venenatis rutrum libero at gravida. Sed in lorem iaculis, dictum diam sed, condimentum leo. Mauris nisi nisi, sodales vel ultrices quis, placerat nec diam. Sed et aliquam augue.

Proin sem augue, pharetra ut turpis eu, aliquet euismod massa. Proin tempus, nisi sit amet ultrices bibendum, risus orci sodales tortor, nec iaculis orci elit in eros. Fusce ullamcorper vel nisl non aliquam. Sed id cursus libero, fringilla consectetur mauris. Proin vitae eros vehicula, eleifend libero quis, dignissim enim. Donec eleifend felis non leo porta, vel semper purus condimentum. Donec in tempus sem, dictum vehicula arcu. Sed nec dapibus leo. Morbi ullamcorper elit vel sagittis lacinia. Donec elit odio, commodo eget libero vitae, porttitor accumsan lectus.

Duis ac tincidunt tortor. Donec feugiat odio nec orci adipiscing condimentum. Mauris quis mauris ac nibh consectetur convallis et sed diam. Proin sapien dolor, porttitor vitae then you are in luck. The Fly Lords of Terra have come up with a list that can be used in Apocalypse games. But since this army has an underdog feel to it, you could get away with using it in standard games as well. Not only that but the file provides the reader with a