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Hey all, I'm looking to build a small force of Chaos Cultists or Renegade Imperial Guardsmen from a fluff nurgle standpoint. Also, haven't played the game in over fifteen years, so the lists are probably going to be mega noob sauce. But again, doing that story based army.

I'm not overly concerned with competitiveness as most of my time will be converting and painting (being somewhat viable is still important, haha), but tweaks to make the army better are defs appreciated friendos. Whenever I complete them I'll probably take them into the local hobby shop or GW for a game or two.

The fluff for this army is that a small force of HQ and two infantry units from an imperial heavy industrial hive world (feel free to suggest backstory alternatives) rampant with pollution and diseases start a chaos cult with the help of a dark apostle. Or, a company command squad from the same world goes renegade with the help of an astropath who fell under the sway of Nurgle. They take what weapons they can find and foment a full blown nurglite chaos rebellion.

I'm leaning more towards the astra militarum renegades and I might pick up the astra militarum. Already have the latest CSM codex and forge world V13, but I think I prefer taking a core rulebook army.

Chaos space marine army list:

HQ:
Dark Apostle (warlord) 125 points
Mark of nurgle
Ichor blood

Troops:
Chaos Cultists: 178 points
Champion with shotgun
Mark of Nurgle
2 flamers
23 cultists with auto pistol and CCW

Chaos Cultists: 193 points
Champion with auto gun
Mark of Nurgle
2 heavy stubbers
22 cultists with auto gun upgrades.
Total: 496 points

Imperial Guard Renegades:

HQ: Company Command Squad: 139 points
Carapace armour for vets + commander
krak grenades for commander
Astropath
1 with medi pack
1 with regimental standard
1 with vox caster
1 with lasgun

Troops:
Infantry Platoon: 190 points
PCS: Krak grenades
1 guardsmen heavy flamer
1 platoon standard
1 vox caster
1 flamer

Infantry squad 65 points
Krak grenades for squad
1 flamer

Infantry squad 55 pts
1 flamer

Infantry Platoon: 170 pts
PCS:
1 autocannon team
1 vox caster
1 grenade launcher

Infantry Squad: 60 points
1 grenade launcher
1 mortar team

Infantry squad (same as above) 60 points

Total: 499 points

Sorry for the big post, did two lists in one.

I would like to keep the model count high and to match the fluff not put in any vehicles or veteran squads yet (my army is going to have to work for those first )

Which one would perform better?

Like the back story?

Thanks all, have a good night!

Nice fluff indeed!
If you want to play Nurgle Renegades, you can also look for the Vraks Militia lists from IA Siege of Vraks latest reedition (perhaps they're the same as IA13, never could compare).

Regarding your list, you should precise if you want to play casually against people you know in a specific context (like, your opponent is actually playing counter-insurgency force with no tanks or artillery), because you have a clear lack of AT weapons.

IMO, maybe you should not mix heavy weapons like AC and mortars with GL, you will not be able to use them efficiently at the same time. Your list can be dreadful at short range but your guys are footslogged and with no support.
Remember a Wyvern Artillery tank is only 65pts!

Thanks M8!

Ahh true true. To be honest none of my friends play and I would be taking some chances finding some random person to play some 500 pts with. So hopefully I can get in some AT weps. I guess that kinda seals the deal for going Astra Militarum? Because I wont get AT weps with straight cultists

Cool! I haven't read too much into Vraks but I've seen some pictures and seen it mentioned pretty frequently. Again I'll probably stick to core books instead of IA books but I'd defs check it out

Ahh okay. What would suggest instead of the Nade launchers? Just wondering, it might be translation but do you mean dreadful in close range as in deadly at close range or bad? Haha.

And yeah I'll peep the wyvern too but I just want to try and keep it to two infantry units! Melta gun or plasma gun better against tanks?









Automatically Appended Next Post:
I looked at my Astra Militarum list and made some changes

From the first Infantry Platoon:
Took out 2 flamers and krak grenades for the regular infantry for 2 melta guns (1 for PCS 1 for 1 squad)

From second infantry platoons:
Changed auto cannon in PCS to Flak missile launcher (Lascannon better?)
took out the two grenade launchers and kept mortars.
Although since the lasguns are 24 inch range the synergy isnt quite that good eh?

Ok, so you want to play against random opponents. It's gonna be pretty difficult to handle it, even though there's a lot of bodies in your list. I'm not a expert but I'm going to help you anyway.

If your going AM, you should know that heavy weapons teams, espacially mixed with regular infantry, are widely disregarded: they are cheap but BS3 T3 W2 5+ is bad and can be insta-killed by S6, which is quite common among 40k armies. Plus if you stick them to an infantry squad, 8 guys out of ten would have to stay idle to actually allow their HWT to fire. If you really want them, spam many 3x2 teams with Divination psykers for rerolls and get them a cover save.

I personally prefer Armoured Sentinels: for 50ppm, you'll have a AV12 LC walker which is both more mobile and more resilient than heavy weapons teams. I know you want a riot/infantry army but perhaps you'll have to trade some fluff for more chances to win ! (You don't have to, but nobody likes dying in droves every weekend).

Perhaps some priests/commissars or their converted chaotic equivalents would be good to boost your poor Ld7 and resist anti-infantry fire.

When I said dreadful, I wanted to say deadly ^^. I think your list can do well in close quarters/cities environments where their flamers and barrage weapons like mortars will murder infantry.

A couple of meltas is always good to add some anti- Tank/MC firepower to your build but don't hope to get too close to your targets if your opponent knows what you have in your squad. Your footslogged guys will probably be gunned down before they get in range. Usually, AM players give meltas to their Veterans (BS4) or SWS and load them in Chimeras/Valkyries to actually threaten armored targets. DS with Scions is also interesting but this is quite far away from your original theme.

Hope it will help ya!

Not that I particularly want to play against random opponents, it's just I have no friends who play who could be my opponents - so I'll take what I can get Maybe I can make some buddies on here and play with them!

No worries about being a pro, I appreciate it, and I'll take all the help I can get!

Hmm, that makes. I was just tossing out ideas for how to make it work and incorporate AT/HWT weapons but you're right, the synergy just isn't there. Even taking the div psykers sounds like a hassle. (But still could be sweet) A bunch of traitor psykers sounds tasty indeed

Yeah I'm sure I can change my fluff a bit to work it in. I shouldn't be so rigid with it. Even though the story may be cool I won't build or increase the army if I lose every game
(We'll just say there've been a lot of riots so they run sentinels around to patrol the districts, but they never expected a commander to rebel, haha)

Yeah Priests/Commissars would fit the theme regardless, and they would look super cool tons of opportunities to make crazy cool conversions. WIth Sergeants/ Platoon commanders they're leadership 8? I haven't read/picked the AM codex yet so I'm not sure you have to have a platoon command squad for each infantry platoon? I made my lists with the BattleScribe app, don't know if you know it, or how correct it is in relation the codex rules but I have the latest edition of it downloaded.

Aha with all those flamers, definitely. That's what I thought when you said dreadful but I just wanted to make sure.

Yeah that too. I haven't thought about it enough from a tactical standpoint, just that awesome fluff, Walking guardsmen with meltas down the middle of the enemy firing line to get some pot shots at BS3 at their armour is a brilliant tactical maneuver, right? Like you said "Your footslogged guys will probably be gunned down before they get in range."

Yeah down the line I want to include scions. Plague bearer torsos (maybe) with lots of tubes and rebreather helmets and icons here and there is a nice image. Suit them up with grenadier and that sounds pretty cool.

I'll have to do some more planning and see all what I can fit into 500 points lol

Trust me, this has already helped a lot! I want get it all planned out before I commit to buying any minis. Seems like the smart play




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah, forgot to mention I read a bit of Vraks. The story is pretty awesome.

It's a toss up between Vraks and IA 13 renegades and heretics but I think IA 13 wins.
Vraks has a super cool HQ option, apostate preachers. Forgeworld has some already looks converted models specifically for them. You can also take alpha legion marines without being an allied list I think. I respect the alpha legion, but they aren't deathguards, or nurgle of course lol.
It has worker rabble, which IA 13 doesnt have, but IA 13 has plague zombies (they suck in general but are pretty hilarious)

IA 13 has more specific options for chaos customization, while incorporating most of the Vraks list., apart from those apostate preachers :/. What I was thinking of doing was collecting and painting a couple extra models (like maybe some plague zombies, a nurgle Dark Apostate and use the models as cultists or guardsmen interchangeably) and then being able to field a 500 list of either straight cultists, or the more competitive AM list or if my opponent is easy going then use the IA renegades and heretics list. Not that I'm going to cart around three codexes lol.

Thanks again for the help!