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im making a cultist army and I am trying to figure out how may cultists i need and what I should put with them. What im thinking is 80-100 cultists and then maybe one or two forgefiends? or perhaps some laspreds? I want to stay mostly cultist oriented and the highest i want to go is 1000pts so i just wanted some feedback

Run Renegades and Heretics from IA13.

You're doing cultists? So do you want a fluff list or a comp list? If fluff, just go with two sorcerers decked to the halls. If comp, better look into IA13. Actually, look into some dark apostles if you are going fluff.

this is just for fluff and fun and i will be running it from the CSM codex for this list

If you have the Helbrute dataslate, you can also take advantage of the Helbrute Helcult formation. Fearless cultists are better and the helbrute tax is reasonable.

the helbrute would also bring some anti tank that the cultists lack, what about the helbrute with a lascannon and missle launcher or a multi melta and missle launcher

the helbrute would also bring some anti tank that the cultists lack, what about the helbrute with a lascannon and missle launcher or a multi melta and missle launcher

Most of the time I lean away from pure gun Helbrutes just because of that 1 in 3 chance it'll go crazy and charge instead of shooting like it should. That being said, With the helcult formation, The cultist can throw themselves in front of the helbrute anytime its shot to give it a 3+ cover save. Since the Helbrute only goes crazy on glancing and penetrating hits, There's a good chance it'll be shooting every round. So a LC/ML setup is viable here.

Considering that Helbrute guarantees those two squads of cultists attached won't be running away either (Fearless while its alive and Zealot if it does die), You can take advantage of a minimal 50pt 10 man squad as a screen for the helbrute and run a full 150 pt 35 man fearless blob somewhere else its needed.

Hmm i diddnt think about the 10 and 35 man squad doing different things, that sounds good, i have 2 helbrutes at the moment

Something else to look into would be chaos spawn. They're fast, durable and cheap. They can also tie up units for a turn or two while the cultist catch up. 5 spawn with the MoN are T6 3W each and all that for only 180 pts.

do you know a good way to make your own spawn? they are pretty pricey

Before the Chaos Spawn got a model kit, I put CSMs with mutation sprue bitz on a 40mm round base for some cheap spawns.

hmm sounds good

The great thing about chaos spawn is that they have no real design. So they can look however you want them to look as long as their on the right base size. What I did for my spawn was buy a single box of two spawn, a lot of greenstuff, and then I went to my local dollar store and bought a few cases of children's plastic toys. The cheap ones that you get in a tube for like 2 dollars. Particularly dinosaurs and sea creatures since their the most "alien" thing they really had.

From there, I built the two spawn from the box and then went to work on the cheap toys. Cutting up a ankylosaurus body for one, a seashell for another, etc. Mixed up a generous portion of greenstuff and started molding and making it up these custom spawn as I go. The trick is not to be too serious about it, They can look like anything, so just have fun with it.

The upside of the spawn box is it comes with a lot of extra arms, legs, tentacles, spikes, eyes, you name it. Enough to comfortably make 4 spawn. (I made five, but it used the whole box plus my bitz box to make that happen). I'll post some pictures of my spawn later when I have a chance to give you some rough ideas.

does anyone know how many of the same formations in a single army you can have?

As far as I know, Only one formation per CAD. I may be wrong though since i only bring one formation and CAD most of the time.

Here are some of the spawn I use. Two are from the kit, the rest are scratch built. Sorry ahead of time for the crappy photo quality and crappy paint job. They're on my "repaint and renew" list and I just haven't gotten around to them yet. I hope they give you some ideas for making your own spawn.

they llok really good for scratchbuilt spawn

It's not hard to scratchbuild them, as I said earlier, They don't really need to look like anything specifically, So I suggest just picking up some cheap dollar store toys and cut them up and glue them back together in different ways. Then add copious amounts of greenstuff and assorted heads, claws, tentacles, eyes, etc. (You'll have plenty left over if you buy a spawn box). From there all you need to do is, prime, paint, and base.

Next thing you know, you'll have 4 to 5 spawn for about $50. Since you need a spawn for the boon table anyway, may as well make a full squad while your at it.

how many would you say you run normally in a squad

I run full squads of 5 nurgle spawn. They have a 12 inch move, move through cover, fleet, rage, fearless, WS3 T6 S5 W3 I3 and no Save. All for 180 pts.

They have random attacks, so you can get some crazy attacks one turn and absolutely awful another. I've had them charge and roll a 6 on their random attacks to have a whopping 40 attacks on the charge.

Where they excel is their speed and durability, you can pretty much guarantee a turn 2 assault with them and being T6 means they won't be instagibbed by a demolisher cannon. Just keep them in cover and use them as expendable 3 wound meatshields.

Typhus also provides some nice rules for cultists ! Check it out ! also kharn is a beast In a blob of cultists put him in a squad of 30 and run this blob of death to youre enemy

Only problem is Kharn lacks eternal warrior, and can never refuse a challenge. Though it's not like many characters can handle him 1V1 anyways.

Related to cultists, rolling huge 35 man blobs down the field is really fun and can be super effective. Just had a great game against Skiitari with cultist blobs by giving them pistols and sticking a Dark Apostle in the mix. Essentially gives them fearless and a hurty CSM character to handle challenges with ease (get an AoBF on the Dark Apostle for extra damage).

I agree with darkflame182 on this.

Kharn is good with cultists by making them fearless (giving them both fearless and hatred if he's the warlord). Cultists eat up the fire while Kharn gets nice safe delivery into RIP and TEAR range. You can also use the cultist champion to eat up a challenge and let Kharn at the gooey bits of the squad.

Typhus is also a beast with cultists by making them plague zombies. They lose their ranged weapons, gain FNP, Slow and Purposeful, and Fearless. You can't upgrade them in anyway besides taking more cultists. What you end up with is a 35 man fearless blob with FNP for 150 pts. That's not a bad deal. Great at objective camping, or if your like me, make a constantly moving wall off 100+ bodies ready to eat anything they can reach.

The reason I didn't bring them up was because the OP mentioned a cultist themed army limited to a 1000 pts. Typhus is 230 pts, making him about a 4th of the army. He also lends himself better to a Nurgle based army with plague marines, nurgle bikers, and other power armored bodies to back him up. Kharn is viable at 160 pts, He just feels out of place in a cultist based army. I agree with clamclaw that Dark Apostles would be the way to go for fluff reasons.

hmm ok i think i would do dark apostles mixed with helcult formations so all the cultists are fearless and i would put a drake in it to use as anti tank or anti infantry along with the helbrutes so the cultists are not the main thing to shoot at all the time, looking forward to this army ill get a list written up in the next few days when i get the chance

a drake as your anti tank...? Light av if anything with that s7 ap2 vector strike.

Psshh, who needs anit-tank? More cultists! Too many bodies for his bullets! Drown his engines in blood!

if you clog the cylinders with cultists it cant move! and what would you use instead of the drake? im trying to stay away from space marine models as much as possible

If you can find super efficient anti tank, id totally take it. Daemon allies with screamers are worth thinking about. Make sure that if you take anti-tank, its in the form of non-infantry. Saturation is key in a list like this. Make their anti-tank weapons useless. Nothing quite like using a multi-melta or a lascannon to kill a 4 pt cultist.

hmm any suggestions? the only thing about daemon allies is id have to purchase an HQ and a troops for it to be battle forged

For a alternate thought, maybe take a Decimator Siege Engine?
Model Looks great, and would be a pretty awesome sight moving up behind a wall of a hundred screaming bodies! Ive written lists that are basically decent Sorcerers with large amounts of cultists supported by 2 Decimators. Though this maybe a no-go area if your worried about the $$$