Shadowsword
SWORD: what Shadowsword kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 375 pts kill ~165 pts in one activation.Typical shooter: 44 per 100
Best against heavy vehicles and monsters, weakest against hordes
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
In Genestealer Cults
Across the game· shooters
SHIELD: how hard Shadowsword is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 375 pts take ~1141 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical shooter: 298 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
Across the game· shooters
What reviewers say
1 reviewer- One big gun that fills a gap 1 of 1
- Takes up a quarter of the army 1 of 1
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shadowsword375 pts | B | Top 50% | Top 48% | 0of 55 |
| Leman Russ Battle Tank160 pts | S | Top 39% | Top 18% | 1of 55 |
| Hellhound115 pts | S | Bottom 20% | Top 3% | 1of 55 |
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Shadowsword, 375 pts, with 1 Armoured tracks, 4 Lascannon, 1 Twin heavy bolter, 4 Twin heavy flamer, 1 Volcano cannon, in Host of Ascension. On its own: no leader, no stratagems, no other units' auras. Counted as dice: its own abilities and 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.
375 pts → kills ~165 pts → 44 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.
~1141 pts → 304 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 407 shooters. 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.