Source

Good day everyone! Zak here from Cape Town, South Africa and this is a Warhammer 40,000 post! Warhammer is a tabletop game where you bring the universe of the grimdark far future to life.

Today I shall be speaking about Genestealers as requested by @aussieninja:

So. In a nutshell. YES. Genestealers feature in 10th Edition Warhammer 40k.
Let's look at the lore and then at their appearance in the tabletop game and how you can field them!

Lore

The Genestealers are a specialist Tyranid bioform. Who are the Tyranids? Well, the briefest explanation is that they are a race of aliens that scour the universe, looking for food and they adapt and evolve biological life that will overcome any environment or enemy.

Genestealers are one of those weapons. A very specific and calculating weapon. The Genestealers form broods centered around a Brood Lord which can operate far from the consciousness of the Hive Mind of the Tyranids.

The purpose of a Genestealer is to infest a world or population with its progeny. Once a Pursestrain Genestealer has the opportunity, it will implant a parasite in a host human (or other alien) body.

This infected person will seek out others of its kind. It will be driven towards mating and having offspring. The mates are also infected and these pairs will then go out and try and procreate as much as possible.

There are four generations of Genestealers between Purestrain Genestealers and another group of Purestrain Genestealers. The first generation is quite mutated, the second have more stable mutations and the third look almost human! And then the Purestain Gene Stealers arrive!

While this is going on, the Genestealers form cults and bands that eventually begin fighting against local government. These are the Genestealer Cults and the reason for their existence is to make a planet's defenses weak before the invasion of the main Tyranid Fleets.

Source

The Purestrain Genestealers are stealthy but beyond that they get around by stowing away on Spacecraft. They might lie in hiding near something important to others and then strike to either kill or infect.

If you want to get into the lore, I recommend the following book:

In the Game

As I said above. These units are alive and well in the 10th edition of the game!

In the Tyranid Army

This is the Datasheet for Genestealers in a Tyranid army. You can see the Tyranid Faction Keyword and the bottom right hand side.

They also have the Faction ability Synapse, meaning that they should they take Battle Shock tests and are within range of Synapse.

These Genestealers have the Scouts 8" ability which means that they can make a free 8" move before the game starts. They can do this as long as they stay more than 9" from an enemy model.

Theirs stats are much improved in the new edition with a faster movement, 2 Wounds and a 5+ Invul save. They have a nifty re-roll to Wound built into them which becomes stronger when the enemy is holding an objective.

In Genestealer Cults army

You can use exactly the same models as in the Tyranid force. Their stats are the same and they have the same options and quantities.

These ones have the Cult Ambush Faction ability which allows destroyed units to come back into the game to represent the endless hordes of Genestealers and the cults.

These ones also have the Deep Strike and Infiltrators abilities instead of Scout. Both of these allow the Genestealers to be set up closer to the enemy.

They also have the ability to Advance and Charge in the same turn which is amazing.

Overall I feel that they are very strong and I cannot wait to blow some of them apart and hack them apart with my close combat weapons!

I hope you enjoyed the read!

Cheers for now!

@zakludick

Hive South Africa