Magus
SWORD: what Magus kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 50 pts kill ~7 pts in one activation.Typical unit: 47 per 100
Best against hordes, weakest against heavy vehicles and monsters
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
Across the game· units
SHIELD: how hard Magus is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 50 pts take ~243 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical unit: 305 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
In Genestealer Cults
Across the game· units
What reviewers say
5 reviewers- Battle-shock cure matters more this edition 1 of 5
- Does little outside one detachment 2 of 5
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Magus50 pts | C | Bottom 4% | Top 7% | 6of 55 |
| Acolyte Iconward50 pts | B | Bottom 2% | Top 38% | 16of 55 |
| Biophagus50 pts | A | Bottom 4% | Bottom 1% | 38of 55 |
Leading a squad
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 14 | 42 |
| SHIELD | 486 | 348 |
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 14 | 48 |
| SHIELD | 486 | 301 |
Per 100 pts: on its own, then for it and the squad together.
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Magus, 50 pts, with its datasheet's weapons, in Xenocreed Congregation. On its own: no leader, no stratagems, no other units' auras. Counted as dice: the detachment's rule.
SWORD
Enemy points it kills in one activation, per 100 pts of its own, against a mix of targets weighted like top tournament lists.
50 pts → kills ~7 pts → 14 per 100SHIELD
Enemy points it takes to kill it, per 100 pts of its own: the points of the cheapest units from top lists that kill it 80% of the time. It's per point, so a costly unit has to be much tougher to score the same.
~243 pts → 486 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 930 units. How we score.
The letter
The average of 7 reviewers' newest Genestealer Cults tier lists: Nexos Floof (dataslate review, Las Vegas Open recap, Final Day tier list) (12 Oct), Goonhammer / tabletopbattles.com (Competitive Innovations: 5 full GSC lists and 8 summaries; September balance review) (30 Oct), 40k Rey (unit tier list) (11 Sep), 40k Vtuber: Christian Von Carmian (tier list stream, A to D) (27 Sep), 6 Plus Plus Gaming (London Open 4-1 with his own list; state of GSC) (28 Jul), Hero of Mathematical Wargaming (Brood Brothers Auxilia with Xenocult Masses, own list) (17 Jul), 1d6chan (community 11th-edition tactics wiki, text largely before the dataslate) (30 Oct). A reviewer who would rather not be counted: tell us.
Lists
55 public Genestealer Cults tournament lists, September – November 2026, from grimstat-corpus (CC BY 4.0). Also from Listhammer. Organisers and players: ask us and we'll take a list or an event down. Numbers run 2 Nov.