Genestealer in modern day America

Thinking about running a mystery/horror campaign set in a small midwestern American town where the Protagonists are teenagers and the local police, and the monster is a genestealer. Think IT or stranger things but the kids are a little older. Would a single genestealer pose enough of a threat or would it be better to have a small group/cult of them?

Just one would definitely be enough of a challenge. Hell even then combat to kill it would require ramming a car into it several tines then blowing it up

Unless it takes place right when the Genestealer is first arriving, there will be a cult. I'd suggest asking in /40krpg/ once there's a new thread made, and possibly take some hints from something Call of Cthulhu-esque for the midwestern cult aspects

IMO that kind of game is best done with a more socially-oriented game, rather than a combat-oriented one.

Stranger Things - most of the show isn't about getting into physical contact with monsters. It's about investigating the mysterious and anomalous things, and the mood of encroaching horror, and the relationships and personal journeys of the characters. So it's best to use a system that foregrounds that stuff.

A Genestealer would be extremely effective in America. The midwest is a cultists dream land. Plenty of isolated, under educated, individuals. Once they've got a strong foundation they can just do that mormon thing where the young people get to go into the city and fuck around for a weak before coming back.

>Stranger Things - most of the show isn't about getting into physical contact with monsters. It's about investigating the mysterious and anomalous things, and the mood of encroaching horror, and the relationships and personal journeys of the characters. So it's best to use a system that foregrounds that stuff.
I concur with this user. OP a lot of IT and stranger things was about the mystery and puzzle collecting to find the root of a problem. So your campaign would heavily revolve around that.

Of course, short encounters like insane genestealer cultists and random events (teens running into bullies, bullies get killed off by genestealer) kind of events are great, but the atmosphere and ambiance is what makes these kinds of campaigns great.

A single genestealer (especially a Ymargl genestealer) would be a significant challenge. Just one would easily be able to take a police unit.
If going straight from the lore though, the genestealer needs to generate a significant local population before attaining a pseudo hive mind, and be smart enough to be dangerous aside from its natural weaponry.
Mentioning Ymargl genestealers because they are my favourite, basically like you took a genestealer and lictor and combined the two to make something terrible.

Remember, a genestealer among a human population is not a single monster. The goal of an individual genestealer on a populated planet is to infect members of its population (which only requires a short period of contact) and start a cult, at which point the original genestealer becomes the Patriarch of the cult.

Without that particular aspect a genestealer is just a regular horror movie monster with typical superhuman strength, durability and speed.

I think you might be underestimating how powerful just one genestealer is. Even if it wasn’t trying to start a cult, it’s sheer speed and physicality would make it a very difficult opponent for even a squadron of modern Spec OPs unless caught out in the open. They’re extremely fast, extremely agile and have better reflexes than a space marine. In terms of raw strength they can tear a man limb from limb, overpower a space marine in armor, and tear through terminator armor and rip open tank hatches with their claws. They’re far more durable than a human and could probably survive several rounds from a military grade assault weapon before even slowing down. They’re smart enough to operate operate machinery, and I recall in one story a genestealer pinned down a space marine captain and switched off his power sword. Your average genestealer is a very formidable horror movie monster, and I don’t really see teenagers being able to take one out. A local police force with some luck, maybe, but even that is a tall order.

the end-goal is to convince the government to use the nuclear option.

>government nukes town
>threat seemingly ended
>civil unrest due to government not telling the public why they nuked their own people
>the government and several sects of protest groups are actually all genestealer cultists
>the earth is already lost

I mean, even in actual 40k, there's genestealers on Terra.

>genestealers on terra
>harlequins made it to terra
>orks straight up invaded terra and sent a fucking ambassador
>Dark eldar went assassins to terra
>khorne launches full scale invasion of terra
What ever happened to terra being this impregnable fortress world that no one has been able to invade since the heresy?

This is what happens when your setting is based on a magazine generally starring fascist organizations that are comically incompetent.

>Holy Terra being the friggin' Grand Central Station of space
I like this. It lends credence to the idea that Chaos doesn't actually want to win the war, they just want to drag it out for as long as possible.

Remember, orks had Terra completely at their mercy, the only reason they didn’t destroy it right away is because the Beast of Beasts wanted to teleport Ullanor next to it and conquer it along with the other beasts as a symbolic mockery of the emperors triumph at Ullanor 2000 years prior. And orks only lost that war because of a really shitty and contrived plot device involving the sisters of silence. Before that, nothing could stop the beast, not even a primarch

>Incompetent
>Three countries gave the rest of the world a run for their money

Pick one

He means that Terra (And the Imperium as a whole.) is based on Megacity One. A fairly goofy fascist organization.

How can one post be so wrong?

>craftworlds blow up left and right
>commorragh is unintentionally fucked up
>maccrage get Nid’d and Honsou’d
Terra is inevitable tbqh

Lmao no, Axis was literally never going to win as long as Russia was there, it was only a matter of time before Japan and Germany both got buttfucked. Both were already suffering from over extension by the end of the war. bet you also think the confederate states actually stood a chance of winning the civil war

Well some agency had programs of home made terrorism for some reason.
Like make terrorist attacks in case the USA didn't had enough to justify a war.

Then again the USA and USSR had a dick waving contest about who could fuck over countries more with their shenanigans

To be fair, it was the Primarch who's schtick is to be nice and come back from the dead.

>Ymargl genestealers
Do they still have shape shifting ability?

Retarded writers who can't read between the lines and realize that 40K 's storyline is all about humanity being the only thing that can destroy itself.
The two times Terra was under siege used to be the reign of blood and the motherfucking HH, both times because of humanity's deep-rooted flaws, not some rando alien that "could totally destroy the imperium whenever they want".
Like, wtf, is it too fucking hard to follow the lore ? It makes me think of that fucking retarded part in WFB demon's codex where demons assraped Karak A Karaz, regardless of how many times we had beeen told how impregnable it was.

TLDR : Black Library is fanfiction-tier, and more often than not, shit fanfic. Treat it as such.

>Three countries

Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, Slovak Republic, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Finland, Iraq, Thailand, Albania, Burma, Montenegro, as well as plenty of puppet regimes.

Just do a Dark Heresy campaign.

Bonus points if the player characters are genre and 40k savvy.

So much ignorance. The Axis very nearly won WW2. The Russians could not have sustained their counter offensives without the logistical support of the USA. The fascist regimes which stayed out of the war (in the Hispanic world) endured for decades.

Tales from the loop is literally built for this.

Alternatively gumshoe would work really well.

Educate yourself. The axis had zero chance in ww2.

Isn't this the plot of AVP: Requiem?

>Thinking about running a mystery/horror campaign set in a small midwestern American town where the Protagonists are teenagers and the local police, and the monster is a genestealer.
Have you ever read the Aliens: Earth Angel comic? It's a one-shot where a xenomorph gets loose in small-town 1950s USA.

I can storytime it later if you want.