In this episode of our Warhammer 40K Kill Team Diaries it's time to check in with Aidan, who is building up the Genestealer Cultists from the Kill Team Starter Set.

Assembling the Genestealer Cult

Kill teams are a great way to start a new army, In this article I am going to walk you through how I have gone about assembling my team of Neophyte Hybrids.

First off I must commend you on your enlightened choice of the Genestealer Cult. ‘Cult’ has such negative connotations these days so let’s just welcome you to the Genestealer ‘Family’.

It’s worth noting that the Neophyte kit is not the easy-to-build, push-fit models that you usually see in starter sets, but has many options, upgrades, alternative heads etc, that are perfect for being able to customise your Kill Team.

After immediately discarding the instructions (#Protip1: you need these – go get them back) I took a minute to look at the kit and decide what sections to assemble and which to leave separate. I like to assemble as much as I can so the paint job is uniform across parts, but where things like weapons overlap other details I will often leave them off.

or this set I started by assembling the torsos and legs. I chose not to glue them to bases yet because I will be dry-brushing the bases and trying to drybrush between legs without ruining you’re nice paint job is a pain.

Each torso is designed to fit with a specific set of legs. I wouldn’t recommend trying to get creative with these – they are designed to each sit in a specific way such as grenades on the torso which fit into indents on the legs – these are unique for each pair.

#Protip2: I recommend gluing the legs to torso’s as you clip them off the sprue’s. If you clip everything off and then start assembling you’ve lost the numbering on the sprue’s to show you which parts match.

#Protip3: For a long time I would cut components off of sprues with a craft knife, but after getting the GW clippers last Christmas I highly recommend them. Not only will they save you the many scars that are on my fingers, but they get a really close cut so there’s less clean-up work.

I still use a craft knife to clean off mould lines, but have heard that the Citadel mouldline remover is worth the investment.

When assembling your legs/torsos you will need to decide on your weapon options. I chose to make sure the squad is equipped in a way that can be fielded in both Killteam and Warhammer 40k. In Warhammer 40k Neophyte squads can use up to 2 heavy weapons and 2 special weapons.

The 3 special weapons are all great so I decided to magnetise them with 2mm neodymium magnets to give me a choice of which 2 to use in any battle.

In the past I have tried to drill 2mm holes in models with a power drill. Doing that will ruin your models and your fingers, #Protip4: don’t do that. Get a proper hobby drill if you are planning to magnetise models. They are awesome.

#Protip5: When magnetising it’s important to consider keeping the +/- polarity of the magnets consistent between bodies and weapons.

Magnets generally aren’t marked with the polarity, so I usually have an existing magnetised model from my army close by to make sure I’m consistent across all my models and can swap weapons between anything I want.

I also wanted to be able to add the ‘cult icon’ upgrade to one of the special weapons models – this is because when removing casualties you’ll want to leave your special weapons models until last so giving the cult icon to one of them will make sure you can use its benefits for longer. To do this however I needed to add a 3rd arm onto the torso so I used a spare torso from the Acolyte Hybrid kit.

I also magnetised up a spare dynamite arm for times when I didn’t want to use the banner upgrade. The left handed cult icon and dynamite I used were also spare parts from the Acolyte Hybrid kit.

The Acolyte torso’s are a bit larger then the Neophyte one’s, so a little bit of clipping and greenstuff was required to make it fit.

For the heavy weapons I went with the seismic cannon and mining laser. Because these guns connect to the backpacks there’s no simple way to magnetise them, so the heavy stubber won’t be used.

Note: the heavy weapons do have specific bodies as noted in the instructions.

The Neophyte leader has lots of options for pistols and close combat weapons. I wanted to be able to mix and match these so again I magnetised them.

I then chose autoguns over shotguns for the remaining models. Admittedly shotguns have the coolness factor, but I like to keep Neophytes as medium range objective grabbers so autoguns it is.

I assembled these, but will glue them on after painting because they cross over the torso’s which make painting both parts after assembly difficult.

Lastly I left the heads off and will paint these separately. This is just because I’m not sure if the collars on the torso’s might make painting the heads difficult and also want to position the heads once the guns are attached so they make sense with the poses.

Bases:

I always enjoy making my own bases. I’m building the bases for my Kill Team to match my existing Tyranid and Genestealer Cult Family army.

This is a fairly standard grey/industrial theme which is neutral enough to let models stand out, but also suitable for adding interesting details.

First off I assembled interesting bits from the bits box: Some alien skulls from the Acolyte Hybrid kit, some space marine weapons and pouches.

Then I get my go-to scrap material:

#Ghettobasingtip1 Steal some thick solder from your dads shed. This makes awesome pipes and is easily bendable.

#Ghettobasingtip2: Steal an old roll of wallpaper from your dad’s shed. I found this roll of wallpaper years ago and still have plenty left – it’s got a great texture for industrial basing.

#Ghettobasingtip3: I use the box from Healtheries wildberry tea to cut out shapes for pavement sections. This tea can be enjoyed both hot or cold. I use it cold in my drink bottle when going to the gym to add flavour without the calories.

#Ghettobasingtip4: Gather sand from the beach in the cover of darkness to avoid the shame of people seeing you, or pick from the wide selection at Mighty Ape.

Once I put together the bases I used Citadels Stirland Mud texture paint as a filler and to add extra texture to places.

My last step before breaking out the paintbrush was to undercoat everything. I’ll be painting with a lot of lighter colours including white so I went with Army Painter’s Grey primer.