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No it's in there just as an even more bastarised version of the last one.

If they broaden the CSM as much as this thread had said so far I might finally get around to them. As they are Codex: "Marines, but spiky" is not appealing at all.

I think it would be fun if the cultist/heretics had a 'Waaagh!" type ability: i.e, a single-turn bonus declared during the game, such a stubborn, fearless, fleet, inflicting poisoned hits in CC when taking casualties, and so on. You could even vary the effect based on what mark they have.

I honestly wouldn't mind with they had something like a modified version of the O&G Animosity (not sure if the current had it, but I know the previous did and it made them sort of interesting). No as likely to happen of course, but I'd sort of expect the cultists to fight among themselves or even sacrifice members of the squads (like the boss pole or Commissar).

n0t_u wrote:I honestly wouldn't mind with they had something like a modified version of the O&G Animosity (not sure if the current had it, but I know the previous did and it made them sort of interesting). No as likely to happen of course, but I'd sort of expect the cultists to fight among themselves or even sacrifice members of the squads (like the boss pole or Commissar).

Yes because if theres one thing chaos needs, its more chaos dreadnoughts

Not saying its a bad idea per say but randomness is a harsh penalty to a unit. Though I think the LD4+D6 was an interesting idea from FW (you rolled at the beginning of the game per unit to see their LD)

kenshin620 wrote:

n0t_u wrote:I honestly wouldn't mind with they had something like a modified version of the O&G Animosity (not sure if the current had it, but I know the previous did and it made them sort of interesting). No as likely to happen of course, but I'd sort of expect the cultists to fight among themselves or even sacrifice members of the squads (like the boss pole or Commissar).

Yes because if theres one thing chaos needs, its more chaos dreadnoughts

Not saying its a bad idea per say but randomness is a harsh penalty to a unit. Though I think the LD4+D6 was an interesting idea from FW (you rolled at the beginning of the game per unit to see their LD)

The chaos dreadnought was bad was because it could hit your own units too. Nobody's gonna mind being able to shoot two missles and 4 AC shots when it goes right on a fire frenzy dread.

It was also cheap for its price, I don't mind random when it's cheap enough. If they had animosity and cost about 1-4 points, I could see them still being useful as potential cover save slaves. I'm honestly hoping they have the Astral Claws ability from the Siege of Vraks, where you get a 3+ cover save but they lose 1-3 legionnaires in the process

H.B.M.C. wrote:GW completely ignored the need for the Inquisition when they released the Grey Knight Codex. No... bad HBMC... get back on topic!

Different types of Cultists are a good idea, but then again we're playing with generic and sometimes interchangeable terms here:

1. Renegade.
2. Heretic.
3. Cultist.
4. Traitor.

And so on. None of these titles has one specific meaning, and many units can have multiple applied to them. To say X is only ever X and never anything else isn't correct. It's also one of the reasons why people annoy me when they say "Just play 'Counts As' Guard if you miss your LatD so much" because they're not the same thing.

I'd say the main distinction between Cultists and the rest is the persistence of their worship of Chaos, while for example traitors at some point asserted an alliegence or oath to the Imperium. Heretics are Cultists who actively prostolatize the masses. Renegades would be those guilty by association and covorting with Chaos... But without any necessarily direct allegiance to a larger Chaos power.

Plus were the Blood Pact 'cultists' in the traditional sense? Were they instead Traitor Guard?

They weren't part of any Imperial Guard formation prior to the Sabbat war. They come from a planet that changed hand several times prior to the Imperiums formal claim to the world and when a chaos warlord caim to reclaim these worlds he was able to raise the Khorne worshipping Blood Pact from the barabaric hoards on those planets.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

The chaos dreadnought was bad was because it could hit your own units too. Nobody's gonna mind being able to shoot two missles and 4 AC shots when it goes right on a fire frenzy dread.

It was also cheap for its price, I don't mind random when it's cheap enough. If they had animosity and cost about 1-4 points, I could see them still being useful as potential cover save slaves. I'm honestly hoping they have the Astral Claws ability from the Siege of Vraks, where you get a 3+ cover save but they lose 1-3 legionnaires in the process

The chaos dreadnought is one of the most flawed units... 2:6 chance getting a benefit but closer to 1:9 of it being beneficial in a given turn and that's at best since your own proximity can reduce that. So we're paying 15 or so points for something useful less than 1/9th of the time. If you were to try a derive a fair cost of the ability it'd be 1/9th what you'd pay to give a unit fleet, an extra attack, and 1/9th the cost of a duplicate weapon. I'd say ~3pts. At that cost it's low enough to say the negatives should counter balance the small gain enough to negate any cost. Yet we pay as if it's beneficial all the time.

The Chaos dreadnought is the quintessential representation of the codex's flaws. Whether we get possessed or obliterator infected dreadnoughts or something else... GW needs to fix the Chaos dreadnought and give it special rules to make it representative of chaos and not just a flawed version of what's standard for the Loyalists.

woops

aka_mythos wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:GW completely ignored the need for the Inquisition when they released the Grey Knight Codex. No... bad HBMC... get back on topic!

Different types of Cultists are a good idea, but then again we're playing with generic and sometimes interchangeable terms here:

1. Renegade.
2. Heretic.
3. Cultist.
4. Traitor.

And so on. None of these titles has one specific meaning, and many units can have multiple applied to them. To say X is only ever X and never anything else isn't correct. It's also one of the reasons why people annoy me when they say "Just play 'Counts As' Guard if you miss your LatD so much" because they're not the same thing.

I'd say the main distinction between Cultists and the rest is the persistence of their worship of Chaos, while for example traitors at some point asserted an allegiance or oath to the Imperium. Heretics are Cultists who actively prostolatize the masses. Renegades would be those guilty by association and covorting with Chaos... But without any necessarily direct allegiance to a larger Chaos power.

Just a minor point:
Heretics, cultists, and traitors tend to blur the lines. Most cultists do tend towards doing the same stuff that the heretics do, and the traitors tend towards being the militant arm of the forces of the Archenemy.

Renegades are basically their own thing.

Plus were the Blood Pact 'cultists' in the traditional sense? Were they instead Traitor Guard?

They weren't part of any Imperial Guard formation prior to the Sabbat war. They come from a planet that changed hand several times prior to the Imperiums formal claim to the world and when a chaos warlord came to reclaim these worlds he was able to raise the Khorne worshipping Blood Pact from the barabaric hoards on those planets.

Minor correction.
The Blood Pact's original Archon, Nadzybar, was a "creature" with the Imperium knowing little of his origins or background. After his death, the Blood Pact continued on and was adopted by the forces of the Archenemy. The majority of Blood Pact soldiery are just that: traitor Guardsmen, swearing a blood pact(hence the name) to the Archon Urlock Gaur by cutting themselves upon his armor. We get a little smidge more detailing on it from the novel "Blood Pact" and it was touched upon prior in "Honor Guard" with the Blood Pact marksman Saul.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

The chaos dreadnought was bad was because it could hit your own units too. Nobody's gonna mind being able to shoot two missles and 4 AC shots when it goes right on a fire frenzy dread.

It was also cheap for its price, I don't mind random when it's cheap enough. If they had animosity and cost about 1-4 points, I could see them still being useful as potential cover save slaves. I'm honestly hoping they have the Astral Claws ability from the Siege of Vraks, where you get a 3+ cover save but they lose 1-3 legionnaires in the process

The chaos dreadnought is one of the most flawed units... 2:6 chance getting a benefit but closer to 1:9 of it being beneficial in a given turn and that's at best since your own proximity can reduce that. So we're paying 15 or so points for something useful less than 1/9th of the time. If you were to try a derive a fair cost of the ability it'd be 1/9th what you'd pay to give a unit fleet, an extra attack, and 1/9th the cost of a duplicate weapon. I'd say ~3pts. At that cost it's low enough to say the negatives should counter balance the small gain enough to negate any cost. Yet we pay as if it's beneficial all the time.

The Chaos dreadnought is the quintessential representation of the codex's flaws. Whether we get possessed or obliterator infected dreadnoughts or something else... GW needs to fix the Chaos dreadnought and give it special rules to make it representative of chaos and not just a flawed version of what's standard for the Loyalists.

I know I'm in the minority, but I've always liked the craziness of the Dreadnought. It might be a "flawed version of what's standard for the Loyalists"...but it's something characterful.

That said, you can be pretty certain the characterfulness will be dead.

Not only would I NOT be "pretty certain" the "characterfulness" will be dead, but I think the majority of chaos players will be glad to see it gone or reduced. A dreadnought 6" from the enemy that decides to double-fire storm bolters is not "fun" or "characterful", it's un-fluffy and slowed.

I think what it boils down to on the dreadnought is that is we shouldn't pay for something that at best is a breakeven rule, but who's flaw greatly narrows how you have to use it. That flaw is arguably great enough that if anything we should pay fewer points than a version without.

If they want to retain the "randomness" of that rule, they could always bake it into the Mark of Khorne.

On a D6 roll of 2-5, the Dread does whatever you want it to with no special bits.
On a 1 it goes Berserk! and starts firing/beating up anything within sight.
On a 6, it gains Furious Charge and some other nifty rule letting it fire/CC more?

Kanluwen wrote:
Just a minor point:
Heretics, cultists, and traitors tend to blur the lines. Most cultists do tend towards doing the same stuff that the heretics do, and the traitors tend towards being the militant arm of the forces of the Archenemy.

I understand there are strong similarities, I was just attributing where I'd draw the lines if I were making the distinction.

Minor correction.
The Blood Pact's original Archon, Nadzybar, was a "creature" with the Imperium knowing little of his origins or background. After his death, the Blood Pact continued on and was adopted by the forces of the Archenemy. The majority of Blood Pact soldiery are just that: traitor Guardsmen, swearing a blood pact(hence the name) to the Archon Urlock Gaur by cutting themselves upon his armor. We get a little smidge more detailing on it from the novel "Blood Pact" and it was touched upon prior in "Honor Guard" with the Blood Pact marksman Saul.

I was under the impression that the Blood Pact existed prior to the recruitment of traitors. By my distinction I'd call then a cult that expanded their power and role through traitors.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kanluwen wrote:If they want to retain the "randomness" of that rule, they could always bake it into the Mark of Khorne.

On a D6 roll of 2-5, the Dread does whatever you want it to with no special bits.
On a 1 it goes Berserk! and starts firing/beating up anything within sight.
On a 6, it gains Furious Charge and some other nifty rule letting it fire/CC more?

If they want to retain randomness it should be a case of varying degrees of benefit rather than being sometimes hurtful.

Where things get a bit sketchy, Mythos, is the history of the Blood Pact.

We know that their first Archon was not human....but we don't know whether or not he had a Blood Pact before the current incarnation. The Sabbat Worlds Crusade book doesn't go too hefty into the details.

There's nothing wrong with it sometimes being hurtful (look at Ork weaponry), but Kan is right that there needs to be a beneficial one as well as a bad one.

If 1 is the 'bad one' and 2-5 are the 'do what you want' ones, then 6 needs to be the 'good' one. That said, if the Dread simple fire frenzied at the nearest enemy unit within range and LOS, and only fired at your own units if there were no enemy it could hit, then that would improve things...

...but still not by much, since it still takes control of the unit away from you and makes it unreliable.

No more than failing a Morale or Pinning Test would.

All I ask is for psychic Tzeentch dreadnoughts.

And Ahriman to not suck.

And for Thousand Sons to not suck.

Sigh.

odorofdeath wrote:All I ask is for psychic Tzeentch dreadnoughts.

And Ahriman to not suck.

And for Thousand Sons to not suck.

Sigh.

Agreed.
Plastic TS would be nice too. Then I will actually splurge on Games Workshop.

Swordwind wrote:

odorofdeath wrote:All I ask is for psychic Tzeentch dreadnoughts.

And Ahriman to not suck.

And for Thousand Sons to not suck.

Sigh.

Agreed.
Plastic TS would be nice too. Then I will actually splurge on Games Workshop.

I think we should keep our tzeentch marines at a 162 point minimum.


Either that, or make them not suck...

Please be the second one GW...

If the 6e rumors are true, then Thousand Sons are already on the way to greatness.

I agree on the argument about the dreadnought but heres the thing. You can't take away the crazed rule because it's the only thing that seperates it from the loyalist dread. Plus it was characterful for the chaos dread. In 3.5 it was 1 blood frenzy and 6 trigger happy. Not only did they swap them around they made trigger happy even more unreliable in that it shoots the nearest target friend or foe when last time it only shot up your guys if it couldn't see the enemy. They need to do something about tgat because so far i'm the only one in the county that takes a chaos dread.

Also about cultists i wanna see them again :-)

GentlemanGuy wrote:I agree on the argument about the dreadnought but heres the thing. You can't take away the crazed rule because it's the only thing that seperates it from the loyalist dread. Plus it was characterful for the chaos dread. In 3.5 it was 1 blood frenzy and 6 trigger happy. Not only did they swap them around they made trigger happy even more unreliable in that it shoots the nearest target friend or foe when last time it only shot up your guys if it couldn't see the enemy. They need to do something about tgat because so far i'm the only one in the county that takes a chaos dread.

Also about cultists i wanna see them again :-)

Actually, the FAQ changed that bit. They now shoot the closest visible target.

odorofdeath wrote:All I ask is for psychic Tzeentch dreadnoughts.

And Ahriman to not suck.

And for Thousand Sons to not suck.

Sigh.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^THIS x 100 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Also.....Psyker Dreadnoughts, Obliterator Dreadnoughts, Bezerker Dreadnoughts, Sonic Dreadnoughts and Possesed Dreadnoughts as mentioned...

Also Cultists, Alpha Legion, Night Lords and other cool stuff.... Keeping my fingers crossed

Lovepug13 wrote:

odorofdeath wrote:All I ask is for psychic Tzeentch dreadnoughts.

And Ahriman to not suck.

And for Thousand Sons to not suck.

Sigh.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^THIS x 100 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Also.....Psyker Dreadnoughts, Obliterator Dreadnoughts, Bezerker Dreadnoughts, Sonic Dreadnoughts and Possesed Dreadnoughts as mentioned...

Also Cultists, Alpha Legion, Night Lords and other cool stuff.... Keeping my fingers crossed

Bloody hell. You don't want much do ya? While we're at it can we have Primarch Deamon princes and useable rules for Orbital strikes from Blackstone Fortresses.

I want Psyker Obliterator Dreadnought Cultists.

Yes. All combined!

If I had wished for Deep Striking Land Raiders and Psychic Dreadnoughts that can fly or 2 x Str8 Twin Linked Auto-Cannons on a dreadnought platform would I also be asking for too much.....lol

Don't forget covered in:
Khorne: A mountain of blood and guts
Slaanesh: A mountain of genitals
Nurgle: A mountain of slime and guts
Tzeentch: A mountain of eyes and blue fire

And of course, skulls for everyone!

Oh god what have i done.......

DarkStarSabre wrote:

GentlemanGuy wrote:I agree on the argument about the dreadnought but heres the thing. You can't take away the crazed rule because it's the only thing that seperates it from the loyalist dread. Plus it was characterful for the chaos dread. In 3.5 it was 1 blood frenzy and 6 trigger happy. Not only did they swap them around they made trigger happy even more unreliable in that it shoots the nearest target friend or foe when last time it only shot up your guys if it couldn't see the enemy. They need to do something about tgat because so far i'm the only one in the county that takes a chaos dread.

Also about cultists i wanna see them again :-)

Actually, the FAQ changed that bit. They now shoot the closest visible target.

They always did. The FAQ just finally wrote what was in the rules since 5th ed started, and reminded you that LOS for walkers is along the guns. Not 180 (that was 4th) and not 360 (never)

ph34r wrote:If the 6e rumors are true, then Thousand Sons are already on the way to greatness.

What rumors are these?

Not the recently debunked ones, right?