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I am starting a chaos army and i like the idea of having lots of cultists with some smaller group of elite chaos marines.
I have 2 copies of dark vengeance box set which i will use as a base.

But what legion/warband fits in this theme? Crimson slaughter i guess but what more?

Does black legion have lots of cultists? Could they fit? I dont know much about their lore. But i like their colors and it could be nice in case they get 8th edition releases with a new Abaddon i that happens for example.

But what other options do i have?

alpha legion comes to mind.

Word Bearers are another possibility. They are the most devout of the Chaos Legions so big crowds of devout followers could fit.

There was fluff about Iron Warriors driving cultists or prisoners ahead of them to clear mine fields.

Legions of a specific godate may also have cultists fighting with them - folks who were secretly worshippers before the Legion arrived.

Word bearers sounds nice, i read a bit about them and having Dark apostles following the cultist in the battle sounds awesome.

If you want to field a lot of cultist, you just gotta get a Dark Apostle. Firstly because its special ability buffs the morale of all cultist close to it, which is great. Secondly, because it unlocks the CSM special formation: Lost and Damned.

In 8e, the formation abilities are scrapped, but you will still get stratagem points. All good.

The only 2 armies that can completely integrate cultist into the play style, rather than a handy unit to have, is Alpha Legion, and Khorne Daemonkin.

Alpha Legion has a special Legion formation called Alpha Legion Insurrection Force. Its super cool, and so fun to play. I'm going to bet that this will just rain down stratagem points in 8e. Very handy to have.

World Eater has special rule that every time a unit is killed, Khorne Daemonkin player(s) get 1 blood tithe. You can spend blood tithes to get cool stuff. So just go around sacrificing those 6 cheap as chips cultist units and summon a daemon prince. Hell, the cultist can even do something useful in the meantime.

Thanks for that information. I think i will paint the cultist in a generic manner so i can use them for whatever legion i choose. Choosing between Black legion, World Eaters, Word Bearers and Alpha legion is going to be hard.

Any Legion/Warband can have mortal followers/soldiers. Be it cultists, militia, traitor/renegade guard, or a mix of all of them. It only follows that any Chaos army/forces will have a large backbone of human combatants that are merely complimented with elite Marine elements.

My own fluff/army idea is for Iron Warriors, for example. A militia force raised and trained on Medrengard (called the Black Suns, because I'm very inventive, lol), inspired by the Blood Pact/Sons of Sek. Basically a force that mixes the fanatical loyalty of cultists with the tactical dicipline and professional soldiery of Guard.