40K – For the Brood!
Sigh.. I’m often an idiot… Hell, I named this blog ‘random Idiot’ cause.. I’m a random idiot.
A little while bit, I made my own sculpt of a Genestealer Patriarch based on the classic guy on a throne which is.. bloody pricey. Not the best work in the world but came out really well.
So I decided I might as well make up a little Genestealer warband. I’m mostly a 2ed player (more form back in the day) but I personally felt they had made a HUGE mistake with genestealers by this point.. So more then going into the warband and stuff, I’m gonna talk about my take for the Genestealers and how I’m aiming to do this band.
There are kinda two species we need to talk about. The Genestealers themselves, and the Tyranids.. Lets look at the Tyranids first.
Tyranids are described in the oringal first edition (rogue trader) rule books as the inhabitants of the Hive Fleets. They are the amongst the most strange, enigmatic and dangerous of all creatures known to the Xenobiologers of the administatum. No-one knows how many Hive fleets are buried deep within the darkness of interstellar space but so far, thirteen have been found. Each fleet is made of millions upon millions of craft, resembling a huge cloud of cosmic locusts. The Tyranids, together with their numerous biologically cultured slave races, have no use for the worlds they ravage and make no permanent settlements. A world is nothing but Biological material. The Tyranid threat to the universe is impossible to measure but is potentially very great indeed. Their whole attitude to other races can only result in war wherever they are met, a war which only the tyranids can win.
Basically, they are a large group who travel and ravage planets purely for their biologically material to add to the hive. They are said to use EVERYTHING biological from the planet, even the atmosphere, and the only races which survive, are turned into slaves (like the zoats). They are kinda stated as being evil really. The stated ‘tactics’ does kinda come the best for defining there goals: “Tyranids prefer to use shock tactics to quickly subdue their enemy, ensuring as high a surrender rate as possible. Wars are fought for prisoners who will go to form the raw material for the fleets and further equipment”
Now, lets look at Genestealers. Genestealers come from one of the moons of Ymgarl but has spread throughout space and is threatening to become a real menace. In it’s native state it is blue, has two pairs of clawed arms, a long muscular tail and a tough leech-like body. What makes the Genestealer truly unique is its deadly and extermely rapid reproductive cycle. Genestealers are single gender and are incapable of reproducing amongst themselves. To reproduce they require another creature, any creature will suffice, of any gender. For all the Genestealers requires is the basic genetic material, which is contained in every living cell of the mate. Since I’m sure most of people have watch the film ‘Alien’, I’ll just skip a bit. just know it takes genetic material from the host and the child is a mixture and not a ‘pure form’. then, … Remember – Genestealers are not necessarily evil or stupid, cross-humans will have many human traits, may socialise with humans and may even help humans in some circumstances.
Genestealers were later expanded in the ‘1.5’ rules (some of rogue trader was a bit.. erm.. rough.. so alot of WD articles were done, related in 2 or 3 collections as they were getting ready for version 2. Genestealers went from non-army monsters, like random animals or scenario based creatures, to a full army, as written in a 2 part article by Paul Murphy. Not a great change from what was already stated lore wise, but now more states and information, introducing The Genestealers Cult and Genestealers Coven. There is kinda one major change. “Genestealers are a race of aliens from another galaxy who seek to conquer the Imperium from within”. this … kinda isn’t backed up but no-more do they claim they are from one of the moons of Ymgarl but from another galaxy. And well.. Originally, they were just a creature who wants to reproduce to keep the race alive. This is pretty true to the original Alien film (for information, the first Alien Film was great. Second I don’t like at all. Or more, It’s a good sci-fi war film.. it is NOT anything to do with the Alien film, or more the race from that. The Aliens went from dangerous and cleaver, to cannon fodder.. and the fact they have more weapons to attack them with, doesn’t do too much to change that) where the original Alien was just doing everything to keep the race alive. At the end, the alien doesn’t attack Ripley as it’s at the end of it’s life, can’t do anything more so just wants to find a place to die.
Well, if you just ignore the ‘taking over the Imperium’ but as what Imperiums view (which the original Rogue Trader was written FROM the Imperium point of view), then they basically want to infect the citizens of a planet to cause there children to be born as Genestealer hybrids in order to keep the species alive. They even point out that the Patriarch is more then willing to kill itself if that will protect it’s own brood. They also say about how the brood has to move on because of it’s breeding cycle. A purestrain is the first stage who then infect the original host. this offspring is a first generation Hybrid. they infect others to make second generation, then third generation then fouth. After fourth (taking less than a century), there first born will be a purestrain. Purestrains are immortal and hybrids only live normal human lifespans. in the end, the humans will die out and only purestrains are left, so they can’t reproduce. They need new genetic material, so they will move to another place and start again. The group which attacks another planet to create a new source is the Genestealer Invasion Force. The Brood itself is very close knit family The ones which are building up as the brood, often likes to create a religion, or atleast takes over another one, creating the Genestealer Cult. Inside this cult, the Patriarch is behind the scenes, in the Genestealer Coven, often having given up itself to a Chaos Power in order to help the brood.
So we clearly have two different groups here. Tyranids which travel from world to world, using them as genetic material to go into there fleets, slaves or stuff, where as the Genestealers are all about keeping the species alive, mostly be taking over a world and when the humans (or technically others species.. but the info on that is.. sketchy at this stage but does happen) all die out, they need to move to another planet to get more material to reproduce. As the Genestealers are immortal, they don’t really just increase to keep the species alive, but they clearly want to become a dominate species, wither it’s just cause ‘In the future, there is only war’ or because they kinda want to take over all the universe.. which would mean an end to their species really but.. oh well. Clearly, these two species aren’t the same.. well.. then they put them into being the same species.. Genestealers became Tyranids. I don’t have the Tyranid codex to see just how the hell they try to justify this but.. oh well.
I don’t like it. they are clearly two different groups with different methods and characteristics. My take on Genestealers is more closely like the original ones. Also.. with a pile of Dan O’Bannon’s Alien Script. I think I’ll have the backstory and stuff for MY take of the Genestealers in a later post (probably the next one). Will also include plenty of ‘designer notes’ I think.. or atleast some.