The Genestealer/ Chaos Cult Collision Conundrum

With Genestealer Cults about to get their epic new update, I thought it was about time to address the elephant in the room* with them as far as I'm concerned. For the uninitiated (and why are you still uninitiated when the link is right there?) the Cults have all sorts of re-purposed civilian and mining gear and use guerrilla** tactics like ambushes and attacking from underground tunnels. Among the more notable recent examples are snipers dragooned on bikes:

Do we deliver? Yes we do!

Not to mention the Achilles Ridgerunner, a lightly-armed and armoured scout vehicle that somehow got named after a nigh-invulnerable Greek warrior hero:

Actually, looking at the preview, not all that lightly-armed

I think we can all agree that this is pretty damn cool. If your spider-sense is tingling at this point it means two things:
1: You'd be handy to have around during a Cult Uprising.
2: You should possibly turn yourself in for mandatory purging on the grounds of irredeemable mutation.
3: You can sense a 'but' coming.
4: I really can't count.

The 'but'.
Ah, there it is! The 'but' is that all this sounds very familiar. There's another faction that lurks beneath the surface of Imperial society, biding its time, before rising up to overthrow the oppressor and herald in a new golden age.*** They're called Chaos Cults, and somehow, with Chaos gnawing at the very roots of the Imperium and trying to break down the doors to Terra via Vigilus, they're not a thing as far as 40k is concerned at the moment. Right now, the only Chaos Cultists playable in 40k outside of a terrible Forge World list that I'm not going to complain about again**** are those in the Chaos Marine Codex, who are just terribly equipped Guardsmen who recently got more expensive, thank you very much tournament meta.

The label on the toybox
Chaos has always felt like a bit of a poor relation when it comes to available models and rules. Whilst most Marine Chapters get access to the full range of equipment, be it Primaris or previously Chapter-exclusive things like the Stormraven or Land Raider Crusader, Chaos Marines start with a very limited pool of kit and lose access to even more if they happen to belong to one of the Legions that has benefited from a specific Codex. When the Crimson Slaughter fell to Chaos, to give a notorious example, apparently every one of their Land Speeders, Stormravens, Land Raiders that weren't Godhammer-pattern, Thunderfire Cannons etc etc immediately fell to bits or got impounded. Likewise, if a planet's PDF rebels, they immediately forget all their training, kill all their Officers, and get led by some dimwit who doesn't even know how to shout 'Move move move!'. Alternatively, they just all start running about with Autoguns and let the Chaos Marines  do everything complicated.

What I'm saying here is that GW seems to have a big problem with Chaos Rebellions actually having rebellious Imperial elements in them. You'd expect that what would actually happen when a Chaos Cult rose up would be much like what happens when a Genestealer Cult does- key personnel would be revealed to be Traitors, PDF regiments would switch sides, and civilian Cultists would grab whatever equipment they could before trying to sow enough, well, chaos to keep the defenders off-balance until the Black Crusade turns up. But for some reason, rather than going with the rebels that are key to the whole Imperial storyline, they've gone with the ones that are key to an entirely different doomsday clock. Whether an actual Hive Fleet is going to turn up and eat Vigilus is anyone's guess, but we know damned well that Abaddon is.

Gear Envy
Now I'm not saying that Chaos players can't get inventive and use good-old 'counts-as' to sidestep some of these problems. My own Third Trojan Regiment have been using Imperial rules since 8th dropped, and here's my Taurox:

Hot Escher-on-Goliath action!

But that only goes so far. If I want my Emperor's Children to respond to my renegades' call for aid, either we need to do some keyword shenanigans or they have to pretend to be Sisters of Battle with odd dress-sense. Maybe the Achilles could  use the rules for a Tauros Venator? Maybe the bikes could possibly be Rough Riders? It all just seems very odd that Renegades are getting so little love at a time when they should be so important.

So every time I see a new Genestealer Cults release at the moment, I get this odd little twinge of knowing that this is stuff my Renegades could have got, but didn't. Some people think that they'll have their time in the sun and a bunch of conversion kits or reworked models, but at the moment I'm not optimistic. At least it gives my wallet a breather!


*Or 'purestrain in the creche', if you prefer.
** No matter how many times I spell it like that, I still imagine them using heavily-armed great apes in battle.
*** For two weeks before they all get murdered/ otherwise horribly abused by Daemons. Or Astartes, if they're lucky.
**** Except just then.