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I'm making a cultist army for CSM and I was wondering what some good tactics would be for them, I was thinking 2 forge fiends and 2 heldrakes would be good and then just dark apostles to give them fearless or maybe typhus to make them zombies so they are all fearless? Or use the helbrute formations to make lots of them fearless and also get some helbeutes into CC

Or Kharn to make them a fearless running screaming tarpit murderising stuff and carrying an even more murderous scull-collecting death-machine.

What about using kharn and the daemonkin thingy but I don't know exactly how that works

In Khorne Daemonkin the Cultists are there to die -- You actually don't want big cultist blobs there. While you do get MoK Cultists with easy fearless characters (except for Kharn cause he's not in KDK) there are no real regular benefits for Cultists. The only benefits to your army come from the Blood Tithe, which gives you buffs in particular when your units kill or are killed, or the core formation of their "Decurion," which allows you to auto-kill your cultists when they fail morale.

In other words, Cultists in KDK should be taken as minimum squads and thrown away the turn before you want to do something with the Blood Tithe.

A potential alternative to CSM cultists for a horde army is to actually go for the Forgeworld Renegades and Heretics List, you get a lot of flavor for your Chaos human horde if you opponents are fine with FW.

Helcult, always helcult, if not in a khorne demonkin army. Fearless cultists that become zealots if the helbrute dies, makes them quite a nasty threat.

Daemonkin cultists can suddenly obliterate stuf in mellee when you pop furious charge. 4 s4 attacks - like vanguard vets.

Not a centerpiece tactics but very handy when someone gets too close to them.

 koooaei wrote:
Daemonkin cultists can suddenly obliterate stuf in mellee when you pop furious charge. 4 s4 attacks - like vanguard vets.

Not a centerpiece tactics but very handy when someone gets too close to them.

You could also get this in the basic CSM codex. Just give them MoK. You pay for it in Daemonkin anyway. If you're basing an army entirely on cultists, you may prefer the extra options in Codex: CSM over Daemonkin. Large MoN cultist squads could be useful for holding objectives too. Not as good as plague marines, but I'm not sure how far you want to go with this "Cultist army" theme.

 fallinq wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Daemonkin cultists can suddenly obliterate stuf in mellee when you pop furious charge. 4 s4 attacks - like vanguard vets.

Not a centerpiece tactics but very handy when someone gets too close to them.

You could also get this in the basic CSM codex. Just give them MoK. You pay for it in Daemonkin anyway. If you're basing an army entirely on cultists, you may prefer the extra options in Codex: CSM over Daemonkin. Large MoN cultist squads could be useful for holding objectives too. Not as good as plague marines, but I'm not sure how far you want to go with this "Cultist army" theme.

MoK gives Rage/Counter-Attack. Khorne Demonkin can give Army-Wide Furious Charge via the Blood Tithe for 4 S4 attacks on the charge from each Autopistol/CCW Cultist. Throw a Khorne Herald with the Exalted Locus of Wrath in there, and they are Fearless with Hatred now too.

I plan on having the main troop detail as cultists with as little CSM as possible, the HQ will be CSM but for the most part the troops will be cultists. Thats why i was thinking of the Forge fiends to use as the firepower on the ground to advance with cultists

Typhus or IA13 Necrosis dude to git Xombies!

Indeed, there are several versions you could look at.

The Helcult makes for fearless cultists with supporting walkers.
The size of units depends on how many helbrutes you have access to - you need one per two units, so scale squads appropriately.

Daemonkin wants to take many small squads and lose individual units and champions quickly. Once the tithe gets up and running, they can pull their weight better than you might imagine.

Renegades and heretics (Forge World) use cultists models, but they're not as good by default. On the other hand, they are arguably the ultimate "send in the next wave" army, with one formation recycling destroyed infantry squads on a 2+....

 GoonBandito wrote:

 fallinq wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Daemonkin cultists can suddenly obliterate stuf in mellee when you pop furious charge. 4 s4 attacks - like vanguard vets.

Not a centerpiece tactics but very handy when someone gets too close to them.

You could also get this in the basic CSM codex. Just give them MoK. You pay for it in Daemonkin anyway. If you're basing an army entirely on cultists, you may prefer the extra options in Codex: CSM over Daemonkin. Large MoN cultist squads could be useful for holding objectives too. Not as good as plague marines, but I'm not sure how far you want to go with this "Cultist army" theme.

MoK gives Rage/Counter-Attack. Khorne Demonkin can give Army-Wide Furious Charge via the Blood Tithe for 4 S4 attacks on the charge from each Autopistol/CCW Cultist. Throw a Khorne Herald with the Exalted Locus of Wrath in there, and they are Fearless with Hatred now too.

The banner gives them furious charge all the time though, no need to rely on bloodtithes. It also lets them reroll the charge. It's pretty costly considering the unit you get, but more reliable too.A dark apostle again is more expensive but it gives them aoe LD10. Add in the crimson slaughter relic and that one guy can buff multiple cultist squads with zealot too. With enough units to buff he probably ends up cheaper than the equivalent number of heralds too. He doesn't quite have the same punch though. Probably fluffier than a bunch of heralds too. And well, I suppose the cultists also get fear, which could be nice.

The daemonkin route is good, but csm can do it too.

The renegades army list in the new Vraks has an option to target artillery on your OWN infantry when they are locked in combat with the enemy.

Roknar wrote:
The banner gives them furious charge all the time though, no need to rely on bloodtithes. It also lets them reroll the charge. It's pretty costly considering the unit you get, but more reliable too.

Cultists can't take the Chaos Icons though. I don't think there's any way to give them Furious Charge from the Chaos Space Marine codex.

They can't. If they could, people would be queueing up for Icon of Vengeance first (Fearlessness), rather than messing around with Apostles, Helbrutes, etc.

The Crimson Slaughter Apostle is a nice one - forgot about him. Yes, you can probably make 3 big units fearless with him, which is quite a tidal wave of bodies.

 GoonBandito wrote:

Roknar wrote:
The banner gives them furious charge all the time though, no need to rely on bloodtithes. It also lets them reroll the charge. It's pretty costly considering the unit you get, but more reliable too.

Cultists can't take the Chaos Icons though. I don't think there's any way to give them Furious Charge from the Chaos Space Marine codex.

oops...I guess that shows you just how much I use cultists XD