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Meatshields play an important role in most of my lists: screening the rest of the army, falling back from combat, and dying. Here are the two configurations I typically use:

R&H - for 209 points, I get 2 Renegade Commanders and 3 Militia Squads with a mortar each. 38 models total.

Cultists - for 200 points. I get 2 20 man Cultist squads, 40 models total.

Each costs about the same. The Cultists would seem better, mostly because they usually appear with Abaddon and get immunity from morale along with Stratagems.

However... I'm finding I don't get much from the Stratagems. Endless Cacophony and Tide of Traitors are all I really consider using on Cultists and it feels like a waste on a 20-man squad. There's always something better with MoS and regenerating 20 models seems like a waste for the command points. Rerolling all missed hits seems is the main reason I stick with them, which is absolutely valuable as long as they stay near Abaddon.

OTOH, R&H gives me 2 characters who can dish a moderate amount of damage in combat. The mortars have proved useful in a couple games, people seem to fixate on killing them even when there are things like Laspreds on the table. The extra CPs are a big bonus, going from 10 CPs to 15 changes some of the choices I make during the game. There's also games where my opponents mostly ignore militia squads, I've often been able to use them to get linebreaker and grab objectives on the far side of the table because of an opponent's indifference. It's not the same for Cultists, they are just perceived as having a higher value.

Which do you think is better? How do you run your Chaos meatshields?