What's with all the genestealer cults?

>>51645016
those things are fucking everywhere on the eastern fringe, they're like cockroaches. Just one infected refugee has to make it on an evac ship and in a couple gens a whole world is rife with them.

>>51645053
>those things are fucking everywhere on the eastern fringe
They are on Terra already.

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>>51645016
Kinda of topic but one thing always bothered me
> Caiphas Cain
Heretics are almost always undisciplied, screaming lunatics and you only have to worry about them in the rare cases they train and fight with strategy
> Gaunt's Ghosts
Heretics are uniformly decently trained and fight like a proper army.

Which one is more true?

>>51645016
I know the Russians love jeans, but this is the first time hearing of a cult dedicated to stealing them.

>>51645646
Yes.

>>51645646
Chaos is chaos, it does what it will. Though perhaps certain chaos powers are more amicable to being a proper army than others.

>>51645646
>underground cultists vs standing army

>>51645016
How do the hybrids pass unnoticed? everyone of them is bald

>>51645646
The former. Even if heretics start as a proper fighting force it will be reduced to few mumbling mutants and madmen after infighting, backstabbing and Chaos gifts.

>>51645646
Aren't the Blood Pact from Gaunt explicitly said to be a rare exception of a Chaos force who have their shit together and adopt Guard tactics?

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>>51646184
Yes, but in every other story they are also well trained. Cain runs into screaming lunatic cultists on the regular while Gaunt only seems to encounter trained soldiers. Eg, even the elderly and children of Verunhive where well trained by the time they fought him.

Granted I have not read every Gaunt book so there may be exceptions.

>>51645016
Sororitas aren't gonna to breed themselves

>>51647119
>Sororitas aren't gonna to breed themselves
That's why we have genestealers cults.

>>51647043
The Gaunt books tend to focus on long campaigns with two forces who fight in the manner of armies - tanks, infantry, air support, etc. The only semi-exception I can think of in the Gaunt series is the Infardi, who use guerrilla and terror tactics. It is worth noting that both the Blood Pact and the Sons of Sek are explicitly modelled on the Imperial Guard and often use looted Guard guns, tanks and uniforms.

The Cain series on the other hand is generally portrayed on a much smaller level. If Gaunt's Ghosts was a game, it would be 40K. If Cain was a game it would be Inquisitor. It stands to reason that the more underground, esoteric chaos cults are full of delusional maniacs, especially when you consider that they're almost always on Imperial planets, whereas the Gaunt series is about a Crusade to take back a sector.

>>51647043
Ciaphas is encountering underground cults within Imperial territory. Gaunt is dealing with a sector-sized Chaos empire. Of course the two are going to look massively different.

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>>51645016
Can't find epub of this book anywhere. Help anyone?

>>51648091
https://mega.nz/#F!wx4BiKhD!YhnAf1BqSmAB8dO6xDM56Q!9gohRJrT

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>>51648177
Thanks brother. That helps a lot. May the emperor gift you with a multitude of blessings.

>>51645016
Amberley pulls some strings so Cain gets assigned to sectors where she's already operating so she can get some of that hot commissar dick.

>>51645646
It highly depends on leadership & where the heretic is from. In Cain's Last Stand, he fights an army of Traitor Guardsmen who are decently sane & trained by heretic standards. The average heretic is a bubbling moron who is barely decent cannon fodder.

>>51645016
your mother

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>>51645016
It's actually Slannesh's Fault. You see she's actually been sending a lot of her Cultists into the claws of Genestealer Cults as sleeper agents so that she can spread her influence among them, and help them spring their influence among others. Apparently the idea of Interspecies couplings producing Hybrid offspring just tickles her fancy, emotionally and sexually.

She's already convinced like, half of the existing Patriarchs that their grand purpose is to prepare the Galaxy for their masters to engage in a giant Orgy. Her plan is to build up enough Psychic influence amongst the Tyranids here to fuck with the rest of the Hive mind when they arrive (which I find fucking hilariously awesome). She figures it'll either result in a giant, Galaxy-wide, Vore Orgy, or with the 'Nids changing their ways in the name of luvvvv.

Either way, she's schlick to it. In fact, she's probably masturbating about the outcome right now. It's actually one of her top fetishes next to Holding hands with Khorne.

>>51645646

Isn't there a planetary governor who is a hybrid with the third arm so he shoots an ambassador or something without arousing suspicion?

>>51645947
Not every bald man is a Genestealer Cultist and Genestealers can be good at hiding. Also lax inspections or border controls can cause problems

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>>51647043
The reason Gaunt's Ghosts always encounter competent opponents is because "the elite soldiers absolutely wreck the disorganized partisans" gets boring fast.

Meanwhile incompetent cultists fit right into Cain's comedy skit where he has a Benny Hill chase scene where he attempts to run away but accidentally saves the day.

>>51653021
>Meanwhile incompetent cultists fit right into Cain's comedy skit where he has a Benny Hill chase scene where he attempts to run away but accidentally saves the day.

>fights a marine on almost equal grounds
>kills orks and tyranids in melee
>sneaks through a necron base unharmed

>accidentally

>>51653073
He's good with a sword. That doesn't change the fact that he didn't do any of those things willingly.

>>51645016
Where is cain during the fall of Cadia?

>>51653148
Or so the records would have you believe, by telling you the fake story behind the fake story behind the true story.

>>51653188
Busy watching out for his own ass and trying to beat James Bond's high score.

>>51653188
Wait ...cain happens in 42k and cadia isn't destroyed

>>51653358
I mean gaunt

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>>51645646
Varies from place to place. Gaunt is in a warzone where, iirc, Chaos has been in control for a little while. Long enough to have a semi-stable and standardized form of recruitment and training.
Cain is probably in an area where Imperial control is a little more secure. The uprisings are going to be made up of dissidents and political fanatics, supported by small numbers of professional troops who switch sides, but in general they don't have the resources or the stability to train a standing force of warriors.
Alpha Legion is particularly well known for training their cultists very well so that they can be relied on as actual operators, while the Word Bearers usually just have big mobs of fanatics that they herd forward.

Generally, every chaos army is going to have a certain amount of dregs/human cannon fodder in it though.

>>51645947
and in the fluff, a lot of the mutations are really weird. there's a prostitute in one of the Cain short stories who has scales that look like a tattoo that are strong enough to briefly repel his chainsword. the one governor fakes being a fat ass so he can hid his third arm. stuff like that.

>>51653189
headache now.

>>51645016
That's kind of the point of Genestealers, OP, is to spread that shit fucking everywhere.

The GSC Codex even says something to the effect of "even the High Lords of Terra have no comprehension of just how many Cults there are, but if they did they would shit themselves" - and - "for every cult uncovered, there are a dozen yet to be thrust into the light".

The Tyranid Codex also says that no less than 200 Exterminatus have been issued to cleanse worlds overrun by Genestealer Cults in the past few centuries. 200. Fucking. Complete planetary exterminations. And that's only for the less than 10% they actually know about.

>>51653189
>kills an ork warboss in single close combat
>kills purestrain genestealers in close combat
>kills a genestealer patriarch in close combat
>wounds hive tyrants in close combat
>holds off a traitor marine of Khorne in close combat
>throws off a slaaneshi witch's mind control for long enough to shoot her without even knowing who slaanesh is
>i-i was just lucky i swear

>>51651926
Yes but that was a genestealer hybrid, not chaos.

i'd be funny if ciaphas cain throws a wrench in abbadon's plans

>>51653754
>>throws off a slaaneshi witch's mind control for long enough to shoot her without even knowing who slaanesh is
To be fair, Jurgen helped there and with a lot of the others. But one that was directly a result of his presence.

>>51653754
Read Amberly Vail's writeups on Cain in his omnibus. He's not a quarter as stupid as he wishes everyone would think he is.

Ciaphas exaggerates his own incompetence and persona because being a "Hero of the Imperium" means you get sent on continual suicide missions with the expectation your glorious reputation will carry the day, or you will die valiantly in service to the emperor.

It's stated at least once per book that Cain was the best swordsman of his classat the Schola Progenium, which would normally be a rather useless skill for someone in command of artillery and ranged focused armoes: except his poor schmuck ass is unlucky enough to continually end up in melee range with tyranids, orks, cultists and every fucking miserable thing in between.

If he got statted he'd be WS 4 or 5 with his preferred chainsword.

Being a master swordsman and being rather cowardly, lazy, and opportunistic in matters ofbear are not mutually exclusive. Ciaphas doesn't WANT to gloriously hack away at xenos on the front line, racking up an impressive kill count before inevitably dying horribly due to friendly-fire artillery or space AIDS or just plain bad luck and overwhelming odds.

Now, the only person who definitively knows he's a craven lazybones at heart also happens to be his inquisitor fuckbuddy, so it's not like anyone can call him on it when he's congratulated for his service by the high lords of terra and peacefully retires

>>51649608
This needs more fapfics.

>>51653711
Funny how the better genestealer codex is actually suppsed to be subservient to the Tyranids.

I kind of want to see a fluff expansion where the genestealers become powerful and spread literally on every planet...but have magnuses and patriarchs starting to become influenced by their human societies whethere imperial/chaos/ or independent human worlds. And have some even form a council that decides they would prefer to stay alive and amass power. Maybe if they are spurred on by a surviving genestealer cult that saw their gods killing most of the cult, and create a seed in doubt in some of the most...deviant cult masters.

Tyranid civil war when?

>>51645016
THICK
TYRANID
COCK

>>51654195
Never happen. The Cults are fanatically loyal to the Patriarchs and the Patriarchs are entirely enthralled by the Hive Mind when the fleets approach.

Tyranids are too intelligent to genetically engineer a scout that would turn on them, and they've been doing this for a very, very, very long time.

>>51645947
What are hats/wigs

>>51653188
Defending Perlia for the 2nd time. Book 6 literally takes place during the 13th Black crusade

>>51655822
It's interesting how much credit Cain gets for heroism on Perlia, since it was only happenstance that he was the only one in the area with the authority to order all the scattered PDF holdouts to link up and head in one direction.

>>51647043
Gaunt is fighting in a crusade to retake Chaos held space. All the idiot cultists would have died early into the crusade, leaving only the competent.

>>51653754
In one of the audio dramas Cain comments that he think's the Emperor is messing with him because He finds Cain amusing.

>>51654061
>It's stated at least once per book that Cain was the best swordsman of his classat the Schola Progenium,

Then, in one of the books, he gets further training from a Space Marine chapter.

Sure, he doesn't want to get into melee range of the enemy. Or visual range. Or be on the same planet as the enemy. But he knows that isn't always an option, so he does what he can to prepare himself for when he does have to fight.

>>51656325
Cain getting more credit than he deserves is a common occurrence. Partly due to him being in the right place at the right time, partly due to the Imperium inflating his contribution, while ignoring Jurgen, for propaganda reasons.

>>51656751
>Then, in one of the books, he gets further training from a Space Marine chapter.
You mean, he gets to be toyed with a few times by a techmarine as a change of pace from cyberskulls.

>>51656894
For a regular human, he goes great & the scratch he makes on his armor the techmarine kept help remind himself to not underestimate his enemies.

>>51656751
I just want to know the story of the kid Cain tormented back in the school days.

>>51657101
Why did Cain even go to commissar school?

>>51658166
His parents died.

>>51658224
Surely though the commissariat being the kind of job where both the enemy and your own troops want you dead is a poor fit for his survivalist mentality, let alone any kind of military career at all.

>>51654061
1d4chan has him at WS 6.

>>51659049
Do you really think that Cain had any choice about how the Scholar trained him ?

Lets assume he did have a choice and consider his options:
- A scholarly role. His grades, other than combat skill, were rather bad. So I doubt he would be accepted into scholarly training.
- Stormtrooper. Guaranteed to be placed in high risk situations.
- Medicare. Likely to be assigned to a guard regiment that needs one. Meaning front lines. Also, see his grades.

Commissar at least has the chance of placing him a long way from the front. Especially when the people who can get him placed in an artillery regiment owe Cain money due to gambling.

> poor fit for his survivalist mentality
He tried to hide that from everyone. Likely including his teachers.
Or maybe they did see through him and realized that his survivalist mentality would lead to him being a decent Commissar.

Also, your own troops only want you dead if you're a terrible Commissar. A decent Commissar at least has his troops tolerating him because, while they might not like him, they don't want to risk him being replaced with a stereotypical trigger-happy Commissar.

>>51657101
Gets stuck with an Arab regiment for his career.

>>51659271
I wouldn't say "stuck with". He seemed a good fit for that regiment.

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>>51645947
probably not unusual being bald in toxic mine colonies, just sulfur exposure can cause it and a myriad of other things like malnutrition.

>>51645016
Bitches love the tentacle

>>51653073
>Meanwhile incompetent cultists fit right into Cain's comedy skit where he has a Benny Hill chase scene where he attempts to run away but accidentally saves the day.
That's nyd's not cultists.

>fights a marine on almost equal grounds
No he doesn't. He's with a squad fighting a lone traitor marine and he wins when his squad member shoots the marine with a multi-melta.

>kills orks and tyranids in melee
Yes, and?

>sneaks through a necron base unharmed
Getting your hand blown off and being saved by space marines isn't exactly unharmed.

>>51660098
>Getting your hand blown off and being saved by space marines isn't exactly unharmed.

That was the first time. The second time was in Caves of Ice where he goes into a necron tomb with a squad of storm troopers to try and blow up the portal, they all die but he and Jurgen survive. That was back when Pariahs existed though, and it's implied that Jurgen's blank-field somehow hid the two of them from the Pariahs searching for them.

As off Gathering of the Storm, the Cain books are not canon.

>>51660147
And? Why would you even care about canon in WH40k at this point?

>>51660147
I don't think GW cares about Canon. So why should we ?

>>51660206
If they don't care about canon, then why did they order Guy Haley to lower the Black Templar numbers? Checkmate.

>>51660157
Stop discussing Cain. He is fanfiction tier now. Scholas wouldn't produce people like Cain.

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>>51660308
>Stop discussing Cain
Never!

>>51660308
Oh, you're autistic. Okay.

>>51660147
Why not?

>>51660539
Amberly and other historical records 42K doesn't match up with Gathering Storm events.

The Scion codex schola lore makes it impossible for someone as freethinking and disloyal as Cain to survive.

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>>51660308
>Taking the shitty 40k setting seriously

>>51660604
>The Scion codex schola lore makes it impossible for someone as freethinking and disloyal as Cain to survive.
But what if he pretended really, really hard?

>>51660604
Is that the Codex with Commissars having to kill their best friend ?

How do Commissars produced in that method not get shot by their own regiment ?

>>51660604
>scion codex lore

dropped

Will we ever get a book about Cain's time with the Dark Eldar? It's mentioned every novel.

>>51660604
>codex

How often has a Codex stated that the Cadian Gate is important because any major Chaos force has to go through it ?
Yet the Black Crusades kept bypassing it.

What else does a Codex get wrong ?

>>51645016

They wanted something more hard-wearing than khakis.

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>>51661667
>How often has a Codex stated that the Cadian Gate is important because any major Chaos force has to go through it ?

They do have to pass through it. After running the gauntlet of Cadian defences, they warp jump out of there.

>>51661765

Numbers 4, 8 and 10 there manage to ignore it completely.

>>51661514
Will we ever get another book about Cain at all?

>>51662946
Read the lore about them. These ones are the ones that Abaddon used secret passages out the Eye.

>>51660604
It's a big galaxy. Different Scholas obviously do things differently, the one Cain went to was more of strict boarding/military school than full indoctrination and brainwashing.

Inquisitors have essentially unlimited leeway to operate how they see fit. Compared to eisenhorn and ravenor, amberly is a fucking SAINT.

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>>51660098
>killing genestealers in melee
>while those shits eat fucking terminators

sound a bit overpowered

>>51654136
I'm actually writing a Cain/Amberly smutfic. I'll post it to the write-fag thread when it's done. Also does anybody know of something like pastebin but with formatting support for page annotations/italics/color?

>>51666098
Google docs?

>>51666127
I don't have a google account. Can I share without pasting all my vital info?

>>51645947
In the fluff they're insanely productive working to death for the pat- Emperor! So the Administratum never worries about them and the arbites never get sent in to enforce quotas. So nobody notices the guys with three arms swinging pickaxes, or the heretical iconography or the weapons stockpiles.

That is, until theyre ready.

>>51666261
If you have a YouTube or gmail account, you have a google docs account. They're also free.

If it's utterly out of the question, Pastebin does have some formatting options buried in the paste window.