Perfecting CSM Assault Units

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**Kevlar**

Exergy wrote:
Crimson-King2120 wrote:
how about a nice meaty 25 man cultist squad with a DA for leadership just march the zerkers up behind them

35 cultists with hatred and fearless scares a lot of people. Assuming they can all get into base they hit with over a hundred attacks of which 75 will hit. so what if you need 5s to wound and dont ignore armor.

Well, they have crappy initiative too, so the chances of 35 of them ever getting to attack is pretty slim. I'd imagine they would struggle to beat a bone stock tactical squad.

**Kevlar**

Exergy wrote:

having low init means that some will die, but the enemy will have to move up to meet the cultists first. I think 35 of them would easily handle a tactical squad, but im not sure about anything else.

I guess that depends on what the tac squad does on the two turns before the cultists get there with their free missile launcher and flamer. I'd imagine they could be combat squadded as well, take the charge with the first group, and have the flamer sweep in after the first group dies to wreak some havok on the bunched up cultists then counter assault.

**Kevlar**

Dr. Delorean wrote:
Welp, let's see, tac squad overwatches first, resulting in approx. 2 dead cultists, cultists make it in, tac squad attacks first w. 12 attacks (9+3 from the sergeant), 8 hit, about 5-6 more cultists dead. Now there are 28 or 27 cultists left, they attack back with 3 attacks each, so 84 attacks (including champion), 56 hit w. re-rolls, and of them, about 18 wound, marines make their saves and 6 die.

Pretty rough maths there, I'll admit, but it seems like the cultists lose the engagement slightly, not that it matters much, they can afford to lose more than the tac squad. Still, that cultist unit is pretty expensive, I'm assuming you put a Dark Apostle in there to give them hatred and fearless, which puts them a fair way ahead of the tac squad in points. Still, I didn't account for th DA in that combat, maybe he killed the sergeant and became a daemon prince.

Yeah to be fair even though it would be a silly waste of an hq slot you have to throw a SM captain in with the tac squad, and possibly give him a storm shield and artificer armor or something to equal out points. He'd probably kick the DA's ass in a challenge.

Personally I can't ever see running a DA. Yeah they make a crappy cultist unit alsmost as good as a tactical sqaud, assuming the cultists get the charge. But what a waste of an HQ slot. I'd rather take Huron and get some infiltrators, or take a marked lord and make some of my cult troops scoring.