The Imperium had known about Genestealers for a long time but the threat of cults wasn’t really on their radar until a cult was discovered on Ghosar Quintus by Chaplain Cassius and his Deathwatch Kill Team. While investigating the disappearance of Inquisitor Chaegryn the kill team came across the Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor, a sect of Genestealer Cultists whose jam is increasing their world’s industrial output to the point where they get recruited by organizations all over the place – then they use their new power to move cultists and genestealers around. The Genestealer Cults sprue includes enough parts to construct 10 Neohpyte Hybrids with a variation of weapons, including heavy weapons, a cult icon, and several weapon combinations for the leader. The Cult Hybrids aren't as durable as the Skitarii, and while they have access to some solid heavy weapons, their standard loadout is limited in comparison. Each warrior is around half the points of the Skitarii and also much more deadly in close combat, so closing the distance to take advantage of this is key. They can also take up to four heavier weapons than their standard loadout, so can be pretty diverse in their weapon selections. Fortune favours the bold (and the bald, in the case of the Genestealer Cults!), and if you can get Starn in amongst the enemy, he can cause absolute carnage with his Blaze of Glory Tactic:

The Locus comes with Barbed Tail, a 3-inch ranged bolt pistol, and locus blades, a 5 dice, 2+ to hit power sword. 5 dice with Lethal 5+ means you’ll hopefully have multiple criticals to play with. These are uncontroversial and straightforward, but the abilities and unique action are what make the Locus a monster. The Wyrmblade Cults iteration is a predominantly shooting faction. We’ve got a few great melee models we can take but, in my opinion, these aren’t guys you want to just charge in ASAP and risk losing. They’re probably best used here to support your big guns!From there what you’ll actually take into your missions will depend on what you need. I really like the idea of having the Kelermorph running around up front with support from the Locus, so I tend to think about bringing the following to most games:

The last major change for Genestealer Cults is the change to Secondaries. Cults players were spoilt for choice in Nephilim with the powerful generic in Broodswarm which you could take into almost any circumstance and bank points. Ambush now joins its older brother in the scoresheet with much more consistent scoring options due to “Kill a unit with a Crossfire Token” moving to a 2VP criteria and the points per turn changing to 5. With 3 very doable criteria, expect to score 12-15 points on this in most games just by playing naturally, which is a very very good thing to have access to.The Wyrmblade Kill Team has the Infiltration and Seek and Destroy archetypes for the purposes of determining which Tac Ops it can use from the Core Book. It also has access to the following Faction Tac Ops: Nowhere Unreachable Nexos – You know how every spy or crime film has that guy, you know the one, a genius, never leaves his room/command centre, and is always on the computer? The Nexos is a bit like that but instead of leading a raid in World of Warcraft, he’s directing the cult’s armies around the battlefield like the world’s best Total War afficionado. Nexoses (Nexii?) have an incredible ability bestowed upon them by their Patriarch’s gifts, if they lay hands upon another member of the cult, they can absorb every single memory of their lives, curating a mental database so incredibly vast the CIA would bite of your hand to get their paws on.