Genestealer Cults: Heroes of the Uprising Detachment Guide (11th Edition)

Killer Reputation names exactly four models. Not a keyword you can build toward, not a battlefield role: four specific datasheets. The detachment is worth precisely as much as the number of those four you field.

That cuts both ways and it is worth being blunt about it. A list with one Kelermorph in it gets a re-roll of 1s on one model's shooting for a Detachment Point. A list with all four, plus the enhancements, is running a genuine assassin package that deletes a character a turn.

The four are not interchangeable either. The Kelermorph and Reductus Saboteur are the ranged half and the only legal carriers of Contraband Munitions. The Locus and Sanctus are the melee and sniping half and the only legal carriers of Gene-tailored Toxins. If you take one from each pair, both enhancements are live.

One structural change worth knowing. Faction Pack v1.1 moved the Locus, along with the Biophagus, Clamavus and Nexos, out of Leader and into Support in its Core Abilities. That changes how it is deployed, and any list you copied from before 22 July 2026 may assume the old behaviour.

Three stratagems, all 1 CP, and one of them is not really an assassin stratagem at all.

Living Up to Legend fires in your Shooting phase or the Fight phase when a friendly KILLER unit has attacked and those attacks destroyed an enemy unit or an enemy CHARACTER model. The effect is that each visible friendly battle-shocked GENESTEALER CULTS unit within 12 inches of your unit is no longer battle-shocked.

Read that again, because it is the best stratagem on the page and it has nothing to do with killing things. Battle-shock is what actually loses Genestealer Cults games: a battle-shocked unit has Objective Control 0, so a horde standing on an objective while shocked is holding nothing. This un-shocks every one of them inside a 12 inch bubble for a single command point. The assassination is the trigger, not the payload.

Surging Broodworship gives [DEVASTATING WOUNDS] to attacks made by KILLER models in a unit selected to attack. Note the precise wording: attacks made by KILLER models in your unit, not by the whole unit. A Kelermorph leading a Neophyte squad gives devastating wounds to the Kelermorph's shots and nothing else.

Loyal to the End applies in the Fight phase when an enemy targets a friendly KILLER unit. When a KILLER model in your unit is destroyed, if the unit has not been selected to fight this phase, roll one D6. On a 1 that enemy unit suffers 1 mortal wound. On a 2+ you do not remove the model, and it is removed only once your unit has fought or at the end of the phase, whichever comes first. Every outcome is positive, which is genuinely rare: the 2+ buys your assassin its swing back, and the 1 still does damage.

Two enhancements, and one of them is much larger than its cost suggests.

Gene-tailored Toxins (35 pts) is LOCUS or SANCTUS model only and gives +1 Damage to that model's attacks. At 35 points it is the most expensive enhancement in the faction. It is priced for what it does to a Sanctus's sniping profile, where a single point of damage per shot changes which characters die, rather than for anything it does to the model's survivability.

Contraband Munitions (20 pts) is KELERMORPH or REDUCTUS SABOTEUR model only and gives +2 Strength to ranged attacks. Note the subject of that sentence carefully: it is this unit's ranged attacks, not this model's. A Kelermorph attached to a squad lifts the whole squad's shooting Strength by 2, which for 20 points is one of the best deals in the faction and is very easy to overlook.

Take as many of the four named characters as you can afford, and take at least one from each enhancement pair.

Kelermorph. The best Contraband Munitions carrier, because the enhancement lifts a whole unit's ranged Strength and the Kelermorph wants to be attached to one. Its Hypersensory Abilities were rewritten in this pack: once per turn, in your opponent's Movement phase, when an enemy unit ends a Normal, Advance or Fall Back move within 8 inches, it can shoot that unit as if it were your Shooting phase and then make a D6 inch Normal move.

Sanctus. The natural Gene-tailored Toxins carrier. The pack rewrote both of its abilities: Creeping Shadow now applies only if it is equipped with a Cult Sniper Rifle, and moves it 6 inches when an enemy ends a move within 8 inches; Cloaked Assassin now reads that enemy units cannot target it with snap shooting attacks.

Reductus Saboteur. The second Contraband Munitions carrier. The pack changed its demolition charges to Range 8 inches and its Planted Explosives ability from 9 inches to 8.

Locus. The second Gene-tailored Toxins carrier, and now a Support rather than a Leader.

We link no box for any of them. Our catalog holds no Genestealer Cults single-unit box at all, and there is a specific trap here: a box in our catalog called Warhammer 40,000: Sanctus is a 2019 Adepta Sororitas launch set with no Genestealer Cults content. The names collide exactly.

At 1 DP this pairs with any of the five 2 DP detachments for exactly 3 DP, and with either other 1 DP detachment. The standouts are Xenocreed Congregation, which pays out through a completely different set of characters so nothing is wasted, and Outlander Claw, which solves this detachment's real problem of four characters walking.