Primus
SWORD: what Primus kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 60 pts kill ~18 pts in one activation.Typical melee unit: 55 per 100
Best against hordes, weakest against heavy vehicles and monsters
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
Across the game· melee units
SHIELD: how hard Primus is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 60 pts take ~243 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical melee unit: 307 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
Across the game· melee units
What reviewers say
5 reviewers- Gives a joined unit a hit bonus 2 of 5
- Can redeploy up to three units 1 of 5
- Used to be better, now niche 1 of 5
- Does little in practice 1 of 5
- No armour piercing against marines 1 of 5
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primus60 pts | B | Bottom 6% | Top 15% | 15of 55 |
| Sanctus60 pts | C | Top 25% | Bottom 19% | 19of 55 |
| Parasite of Mortrex65 pts | B | Bottom 6% | Bottom 42% | 2of 55 |
Leading a squad
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 30 | 54 |
| SHIELD | 405 | 270 |
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 30 | 54 |
| SHIELD | 405 | 242 |
Per 100 pts: on its own, then for it and the squad together.
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Primus, 60 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.
60 pts → kills ~18 pts → 30 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 → 405 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 572 melee 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.