Genestealer Cults: Host of Ascension Detachment Guide (11th Edition)

Compare the shape of this rule with the rest of the faction's menu. Xenocult Masses names NEOPHYTE HYBRIDS. Purestrain Broodswarm names PURESTRAIN GENESTEALERS. Biosanctic Broodsurge names three datasheets. Heroes of the Uprising names four models.

A Perfect Ambush names GENESTEALER CULTS. Everything.

And the trigger is not a rare one. Between the army rule's ingress moves, the army rule's returned units, ordinary Strategic Reserves arrivals and the detachment's own Return to the Shadows, a Host of Ascension list is setting units up as Reinforcements almost every turn, several at a time. Each of those units then carries [SUSTAINED HITS 1] and [IGNORES COVER] through your next Fight phase, which covers a full round of shooting and a full round of melee.

[IGNORES COVER] is the underrated half. This faction's units are cheap and individually weak, and the thing that most blunts their volume of fire is an opponent sitting in ruins. A whole-army answer to cover, applied automatically to whatever just arrived, is worth more in practice than the sustained hits.

The discipline it demands is that arriving has to be worth doing. A unit in reserves holds no objectives, and this is a Take and Hold detachment. The rule rewards a cycle of arrive, shoot, fight, leave, arrive again, and it punishes a list that keeps half its army off the table because the rule made leaving feel free.

Six stratagems, and the most important thing on this page is a price change.

Primed and Readied now costs 2 CP. Faction Pack v1.1 raised it from 1 CP. It scores Critical Hits on unmodified 5+ instead of only 6 for one unit that has not shot or fought. At 1 CP it was a stratagem you could spend every turn; at 2 CP it is a stratagem you spend once or twice a game. Any list you copied from before 22 July 2026 that leans on spamming it no longer works.

Coordinated Trap also costs 2 CP: two Genestealer Cults units that have not yet shot or fought both lock onto one enemy unit and add 1 to Wound rolls against it. In the Fight phase that enemy must be within Engagement Range of both. Expensive and decisive, and it is how a horde army concentrates enough damage to remove something that matters.

Tunnel Crawlers costs 1 CP and lets a unit arriving by Deep Strike be set up anywhere more than 6 inches horizontally from all enemy units, at the price of not being eligible to charge that turn. The Effect section was rewritten in this pack, and the pack's own FAQ confirms that you can target a unit that was set up using Cult Ambush without a marker.

Lying in Wait costs 1 CP and lets one GENESTEALER CULTS BATTLELINE unit in Cult Ambush be set up wholly within 6 inches of its marker rather than in base contact with it, and not within Engagement Range of any enemy. It converts a marker from a precise pin into a 6 inch landing zone, which is what makes an ambush survive an opponent screening the exact spot.

Return to the Shadows costs 1 CP and removes one GENESTEALER CULTS INFANTRY unit not within Engagement Range of any enemy, placing it into Strategic Reserves. Its When and Target sections were rewritten in this pack. When it comes back it is set up as Reinforcements, which turns the detachment rule on again, so this is the cycle stratagem.

A Deadly Snare costs 1 CP and fires just after an enemy declares a charge against one of your GENESTEALER CULTS INFANTRY units: roll a D6, on a 2-4 that enemy suffers D3 mortal wounds, on a 5+ it suffers 3. Note the 1 does nothing, so it is a gamble rather than a tax.

Four enhancements, all GENESTEALER CULTS model only, and one of them stacks with the detachment rule on exactly the same trigger.

A Chink In Their Armour (20 pts) gives ranged weapons in the bearer's unit [LETHAL HITS] each time the bearer is set up as Reinforcements, until the end of your next Fight phase. That is the same trigger and the same duration as A Perfect Ambush, so a unit arriving with this character has [SUSTAINED HITS 1], [IGNORES COVER] and [LETHAL HITS] at once. Take this first.

Our Time is Nigh (20 pts) adds 2 to a Charge roll, once per battle, when the bearer's unit declares a charge. Once per battle rather than once per turn, so save it for the charge the game turns on.

Assassination Edict (15 pts) adds 1 to Hit rolls against CHARACTER units for models in the bearer's unit. Narrow, but this detachment arrives from reserves next to whatever it likes, which is how you get to enemy characters in the first place.

Prowling Agitant (15 pts) was rewritten in this pack, with its trigger moving from 9 inches to 8: in your opponent's Movement phase, if an enemy unit ends a move within 8 inches of this unit and this unit is not within Engagement Range of any enemy, it can make a Normal move of up to D6 inches.

Because the detachment rule names the whole faction, the list-building question is not which units benefit. It is which units you can afford to keep arriving.

Neophyte Hybrids are Battleline, so they are what Lying in Wait names, and they are the cheapest unit in the faction to return with the army rule at 3 Resurgence points for ten models. In a detachment whose rule fires on every arrival, the unit you can afford to have arrive most often is the unit the detachment is really about.

Acolyte Hybrids are the other Battleline option for Lying in Wait, at 2 Resurgence points for five and 4 for ten. The pack changed the hand flamer variant's demolition charges to Range 8 inches.

Nexos. Its Battlefield Analysis ability was rewritten in this pack: once per battle round, one model from your army with the ability can use it when its unit is targeted with a stratagem, reducing that use by 1 CP. In a detachment carrying two 2 CP stratagems that is a direct discount on the expensive half of your list, and it partly offsets the Primed and Readied price rise. It also moved from Leader to Support in the same pass.

Clamavus. Also moved from Leader to Support in this pack's Core Abilities change, which alters how you deploy it alongside squads that keep cycling in and out of reserves.

We link no box for any of them. Our catalog holds no Genestealer Cults single-unit box at all.

No pairings. At 3 DP this detachment fills a Strike Force budget on its own. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing on this site points at it as a partner.