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I take chaos and my friend takes guard but he takes a lot of morters which wreck my cultists in the first-second turn.
How do I defend against this?
In almost every game he gets first blood and a kill point, leaving me 2-0 down going into turn two.
Halp pls

Start your cultists in cover?

*edit* Or indeed in reserve

Intercessor wrote:
Start your cultists in cover?

*edit* Or indeed in reserve

That ignores cover and I don't feel comfortable with only having 1 unit left on the table
(I already take a helldrake and terminators in reserve, this would leave my lord alone)

I'm guessing he's using Wyverns. The best advice I have is MSU and spreading your guys out. Wyverns are really good, probably the best unit in the codex.

 mrhappyface wrote:
I take chaos and my friend takes guard but he takes a lot of morters which wreck my cultists in the first-second turn.
How do I defend against this?
In almost every game he gets first blood and a kill point, leaving me 2-0 down going into turn two.
Halp pls

Not sure if cultists can take transports, but those help midigate some damage from weapons like that.

Also, I wouldn't recommend kill point games. At least not all the time. If you think you might be playing kill points, you really have to look at the list you're bringing and make sure that your units aren't too easy to wipe out, be they too small or too squishy.

First problem, Kill point games. Coming from a dude who could only play two cheesy cron players for 6 months, you should really play objectives. Requires some strategy and planning but you shouldnt be getting tabled in a single turn by mortar teams.

I agree play objectives if you can. If they are playing arty guard then they are not mobile. Also bringing some faster troops to run up and get into combat can work. Or run armor heavy and the mortars and wyverns wont be able to touch you.

 cranect wrote:
I agree play objectives if you can. If they are playing arty guard then they are not mobile. Also bringing some faster troops to run up and get into combat can work. Or run armor heavy and the mortars and wyverns wont be able to touch you.

This and distract him with a well placed deep struck Mutilator, cus they arent awful at being distractions

Im not up on Chaos to be honest but could you attach a sorcerer to your big cultist blob and roll invisability?

 Ratius wrote:
Im not up on Chaos to be honest but could you attach a sorcerer to your big cultist blob and roll invisability?

kind of a waste of an invisibility psyker isnt it?

Suppose but if the OP really wants to protect his cultists its an ok option.
It also would force the mortars to pick a different target, of which, there maybe few.
Hence they're essentially neutralised.

 Ratius wrote:
Suppose but if the OP really wants to protect his cultists its an ok option.
It also would force the mortars to pick a different target, of which, there maybe few.
Hence they're essentially neutralised.

MoN spawn work wonders for becoming targets as well as deep striking mutilators

But they wont get in until turn 2 earliest and by that stage the OPs cultists will have eaten a round of mortars :(
More if reserve rolls go bad.

 Ratius wrote:
But they wont get in until turn 2 earliest and by that stage the OPs cultists will have eaten a round of mortars :(
More if reserve rolls go bad.

so dont run cultists?

Tactical_Spam wrote:
so dont run cultists?

I run them because they're so cheap and I need troops to contest objectives

 mrhappyface wrote:

Tactical_Spam wrote:
so dont run cultists?

I run them because they're so cheap and I need troops to contest objectives

cant contest anything if they get mortar'd turn 1

Tactical_Spam wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

Tactical_Spam wrote:
so dont run cultists?

I run them because they're so cheap and I need troops to contest objectives

cant contest anything if they get mortar'd turn 1

Can't contest anything if they aren't there either

 mrhappyface wrote:

Tactical_Spam wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

Tactical_Spam wrote:
so dont run cultists?

I run them because they're so cheap and I need troops to contest objectives

cant contest anything if they get mortar'd turn 1

Can't contest anything if they aren't there either

CSM in rhinos. Mortars cant touch a rhino

Tactical_Spam wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

Tactical_Spam wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

Tactical_Spam wrote:
so dont run cultists?

I run them because they're so cheap and I need troops to contest objectives

cant contest anything if they get mortar'd turn 1

Can't contest anything if they aren't there either

CSM in rhinos. Mortars cant touch a rhino

Minimum of 110pts for one of two required troops without any upgrades as apposed to just 50pts

What else are you running? More info would help.

 Ratius wrote:
What else are you running? More info would help.

The list I am running at the moment (until the next codex comes out I don't think I will change it massively) is:

Chaos lord
-terminator armour
-sigil of corruption
-khorne
-axe of blind fury
-gift of mutation
-veteran

Terminator squad (4)
-Tzeentch
-chainfists
-flamer

Helldrake
-flamer

Cultists x2

This may look awful but it has a 5:2 win loss ratio (which isn't bad for me)

 mrhappyface wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
What else are you running? More info would help.

The list I am running at the moment (until the next codex comes out I don't think I will change it massively) is:

Chaos lord
-terminator armour
-sigil of corruption
-khorne
-axe of blind fury
-gift of mutation
-veteran

Terminator squad (4)
-Tzeentch
-chainfists
-flamer

Helldrake
-flamer

Cultists x2

This may look awful but it has a 5:2 win loss ratio (which isn't bad for me)

I am genuinely surprised you dont get tabled with that low model count

 mrhappyface wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
What else are you running? More info would help.

The list I am running at the moment (until the next codex comes out I don't think I will change it massively) is:

Chaos lord
-terminator armour
-sigil of corruption
-khorne
-axe of blind fury
-gift of mutation
-veteran

Terminator squad (4)
-Tzeentch
-chainfists
-flamer

Helldrake
-flamer

Cultists x2

This may look awful but it has a 5:2 win loss ratio (which isn't bad for me)

So the Chaos Lord either deep strikes by himself and hopes he gets into CC or just footslogs it? You know he can't be in a terminator squad with a different mark than him right? If you are going to take a Khorne Lord with the AoBF you almost always have to take a juggernaut, or at the very least a bike. Congrats on the...win ratio but honestly that's more reflective of your local meta than your own abilities. If you want to improve you're really going to have to overhaul that list.

It is really quite simple, stay at the back and force them to move forward for the kill. The Lord is in a squad with the cultists he tanks the wounds or the cultists make a look out sir. The terminators ds and wreck any vehicle, the helldrake uses its flamer on any soft things.
Unless the enemy has artillery they are generally screwed.

 mrhappyface wrote:
It is really quite simple, stay at the back and force them to move forward for the kill. The Lord is in a squad with the cultists he tanks the wounds or the cultists make a look out sir. The terminators ds and wreck any vehicle, the helldrake uses its flamer on any soft things.
Unless the enemy has artillery they are generally screwed.

You dont really have the staying power though. Cultists, as we all know, are garbage no matter how the cake is sliced. You should run marines along with Cultists so you dont have a massive chink in your armour

Put the cultists in a building

 Tactical_Spam wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:
It is really quite simple, stay at the back and force them to move forward for the kill. The Lord is in a squad with the cultists he tanks the wounds or the cultists make a look out sir. The terminators ds and wreck any vehicle, the helldrake uses its flamer on any soft things.
Unless the enemy has artillery they are generally screwed.

You dont really have the staying power though. Cultists, as we all know, are garbage no matter how the cake is sliced. You should run marines along with Cultists so you dont have a massive chink in your armour

My predicament isn't with the cultists abiltiy to fight (as this army has shown 5 times), they should be garbage I know but sticking in cover pretty much negates any large amount of weaponary the enemy has.
My friend took the morters/artilery especially for me because he has seen how deadly this seemingly weak army is.

Yoyoyo wrote:
Put the cultists in a building

This. Put them in a Bunker or Bastion with an Escape Hatch, and you can disembark them 18" up the field turn two when your Drake and Termies come in. You can also attach a Comms to the building to make sure you get your reserves in when you want them.

I know some of these points have already been said, but as a guard player I can back these points up.

- Keep your cultists spread out. Sounds simple, but really makes a difference.

- Remember that guard is one the least mobile factions (generally anyway, you could have vendetta spams) so try and pop up behind them and shoot 'em.

- Mortar teams (which I assume are the source of these mortars) are very squishy (t3 w2 sv5+) and there's a reason guard players hide them!

- Try to force them to move or something. They are heavy 1, so this will render them unable to fire for a small time, which could mean you can have time to get your cultists into assault or into a building!

You get what you pay for. Any 50-point unit is going to be fairly easy to kill on its own. On the bright side, if he's focusing his wyverns on your cultists then they aren't pounding your warlord with them. With four TL shots with shred, some wounds are eventually going to get through the terminator armor.

As others have suggested, the best way to take out barrage artillery is to either deepstrike some melta next to it or send some bikes or something fast into the backfield to get it. Nothing else is going to make them go away.

The other thing is that IG is really a ranged-shooting army. They're best turn is typically going to be their first when all our their firepower is on the board. If all you consistently lose in that first game turn is a unit of cultists (50 points of your overall force) then that's a positive IMO.

More broadly, I know lots of CSM players that run similar lists and I haven't seen any of them functioning well. They pay a cultist troops tax to put the things they really want on the board, but mix of things they stack in there frequently don't work together well and the low model count is their undoing. As others have said, marine squads give you some tough flexibility as units that can hit but also survive a fair amount of punishment. There's really no way to fully replace troops on the battlefield with a 20 schmos with tattoos and knives.