Genestealer Cult - Xenos Worshippers: From the dark depths and shadowy streets emerge the Genestealer Cultists, malformed figures united by a sinister worship of inscrutable star-born entities. Secretive, stealthy and utterly malignant, they are the cankers growing unseen in the hidden spaces of the Imperium.Humanity is beset on all fronts by xenos raiders and the nightmarish forces of Chaos. Billions of lives are sacrificed upon the altar of war every day to keep the enemy at bay. Yet the most insidious threat to Mankind's survival may already have seeped into the bloodstream of the Imperium. Embedded into the infrastructure of countless seemingly loyal worlds, the Genestealer Cults bide their time, spreading tendrils of corruption through the native population until they are ready to begin their bloody insurrections. Once unleashed, they rise up in a surging tide, armed with stolen Imperial weaponry and crude industrial tools turned to horrific purposes.When the Imperium first encountered Genestealers upon the moons of Ymgarl, they thought them to be a unique alien species. In fact, as the Ordo Xenos discovered after a harrowing series of investigations, they are the vanguard organisms that the Tyranid Hive Fleets seed before them to create disunity and fear in their path. Resilient and possessed of razor-sharp claws that can carve through even Adeptus Astartes war-plate, Genestealers are used in open battle by the Hive Fleets as shock troops.When infiltrating Imperial space, however, the Genestealers instead show their capacity for stealth and cunning. Slinking and creeping, stalking and murdering in silence, solitary Genestealers stow away on Imperial spacecraft and spread along space lanes like a virus. In theory it only takes one Genestealer successfully slipping aboard a cargo freighter and reaching a populated world to spell the doom of an entire sector. There are legends in the Imperium of titanic space hulks infested with tens of thousands of these creatures -- such a nest could bring utter catastrophe to swathes of the Imperium.Should a Genestealer reach a suitable world, its dark work begins in earnest. In the space of a few Terran years, hundreds of civilians will have been abducted by the creature and infected with Tyranid genetic structures. In time, the infected give birth to vile hybrids of xenos and human -- those descended from the first victims are unmistakably alien, with large, domed heads and razor-sharp talons.As the genetic corruption continues to spread, subsequent generations are born who can pass as Human, and are able to blend in with the wider population -- and even Imperial organisations such as the Adeptus Arbites, the Departmento Munitorum and the Astra Militarum.As the cult's numbers grow, more specialised hybrids are created to serve the Genestealer, now worshipped as the Patriarch. Maguses are psychically gifted individuals tainted by the Patriarch's will, tasked with converting key targets within the planet's government and military leadership. The hybrid masses are organised and led by Primuses, generals and ambush specialists responsible for coordinating the eventual uprising.Nexoses provide tactical support to their Primus' strategic plans, their command of detail and contingency second to none. Sanctuses act as assassins, and Locuses as bodyguards, even as Clamavuses preach the word of the cult and foil enemy communications. Atalan Jackals speed into battle upon Dirtcycles and Wolfquads, harrying the enemy flanks whilst Purestrain Genestealers and Aberrant monstrosities -- sometimes bolstered by the gene-alchemists known as Biophaguses -- act as shock troops.Whether it takes a handful of solar months or many standard years, eventually the cult will go on the warpath. Only then will the Patriarch send the synaptic order to rise up and drown the planet in blood. When the creature's minions receive the psychic command to begin the insurrection, the hybrids arm themselves with purloined military gear and mining tools, and surge forth from their hidden lairs in massed tides.Guided by the cunning will of their war leaders, they strike first at key tactical locations like communications outposts, spaceports and munition yards. Stripped of its defences and ability to call for help, the planet is left ripe for conquest.In a frenzy of brutal violence, the cultist uprising falls upon those enemies who pose the greatest threat to the cult's agenda. Bones are shattered by ear-bursting blasts from Seismic Cannons, weaponised rock drills are thrust into vulnerable flesh in a horrifying eruption of gore, and mining charges are used as makeshift grenades. The banners and sigils of the cult are unveiled at last, standards and wyrm-form totems held high by Acolyte Iconwards whose presence inspires the broodkin to new heights of savage fervour.During the many long years of preparation for this moment, the cult will have stolen and sequestered many vehicles to aid it in its murderous campaign. Rugged Goliath Trucks and Goliath Rockgrinders, a common sight in mines and manufactoria all across the Imperium, are turned to violent purpose. Mounted with a range of heavy armaments, Goliath Trucks rush broods of Acolytes to the front lines, carving a path across even the most rugged of terrain and releasing an unceasing hail of bullets to tear through enemy infantry. Rockgrinders simply crash into the centre of the foe's formations, reaping a hideous toll as their saw-toothed Drilldozer Blades grind screaming bodies into bloody paste.Should the threat of enemy armour emerge, the cult will respond by deploying stolen Leman Russ tanks and Sentinel walkers, piloted by Neophyte Hybrids who laid hidden in the ranks of human armies for solar decades. Utterly loyal to the Patriarch, they turn their guns on their former comrades without a second thought. The psychological impact of this sudden betrayal is a weapon in itself.All too often the stimulus for this uprising is the approach of a Tyranid bio-fleet -- those the cult in their delusions see as saviours from above. As the Hive Fleet vomits its swarms of warrior-organisms into the stricken world's atmosphere, the cultists sing rapturous prayers to their deliverers.Even as the Tyranids exterminate and devour every source of biomass on the planet, still the cultists hold faith in their corrupted hearts that these voracious aliens will elevate the faithful, helping them to transcend their mortal weaknesses.Eagerly they await the blessed oneness of form and purpose they have been promised. For a while at least, the Tyranids and the Patriarch's brood fight as one, the Hive Mind's psychic control ensuring that the cult is not preyed upon. Maguses hurl illusions that warp and tear at the minds of the enemy, turning them upon each other with sadistic pleasure.The Patriarch's generals marshal their forces with consummate skill, spending their warriors' lives by the thousands to open a path for the Tyranid assault. In this final, exalted hour the Patriarch himself enters the fray, and his faithful are sent into a zealous frenzy as their prophet rips the unworthy apart with razored claws and shredding fangs.As soon as the last of the defenders is overrun by this tide of chitin and scything claws, the Hive Mind subsumes the Patriarch into its greater consciousness. It becomes merely another organism in the Tyranid swarm, the psychic Broodmind that once united its cult severed in an instant. In an awful moment of realisation, the cultists at last understand the fell truth.Those same creatures from beyond the stars that they once worshipped as gods are revealed as their doom incarnate -- for to the Tyranids, all flesh is much the same.