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 kcwm wrote:
All in all, he landed a total of 31 hits (13 models will fit under a blast template)

Only if you're a bad general and keeping every zombie in base to base. That's just silly.

and Frag Missiles are AP5, so they remove my armor save. Now, our group doesn't use Frag Missiles often and we were excited to see how this would play out, so we forgot to roll wounds. I made 10 FNP rolls. I wasn't in cover, so I didn't get the cover save.

So literally the absolute best case scenario for the Frag missiles. Great testing methodology.

Even if we had rolled wounds, a 3+ would have done the job. He would have statistically landed 20 wounds, I would have saved 10, and I would have only lost 10 zombies, reducing my group to 25 instead of the 14 I had left after forgetting to roll wounds. As Zombies can't run, they are moving 6" a turn. I did have a unit of Plague Marines from an immobilized Rhino firing Plasma shots into the Devastators and took 1 of them out (hence the 3 frag missiles instead of 4. Even then, I'd have had maybe 2 turns before I got into assault range with the PM, three or more with the zombies. He would have easily killed them by then.

You're ignoring the purpose of the zombies. It isn't to get in their face and make you deal with them.
It's to be a kill point that is really really tough to kill in KP games, or a really tough objective holder in objective games.
Even in the absolute best case scenario you proved he needed at least two turns of his devestators firing at the zombie unit to kill it - meaning those Devs aren't popping tanks or Plague marines or anything else that are more deadly.

If you take a Tac Squad with NO upgrades and put them 24" from the zombies, perhaps while defending an objective, they are going to have 4 rounds of firing before the zombies can get close them, assuming that they don't move up to destroy them first. That's 60 shots at full BS (10 at 24", 10 at 18", 20 at 12", and 20" at less than 12, unless a miraculous charge roll is made on the third round) and 20 more snap shots for Overwatch. The zombies charge and get however many attacks are left at Strength and Initiative 3. The Marines are going to hit them first, hitting and wounding on 3+. Between the shots, overwatch, and going first in Assault, they are going to decimate the zombies, even with Fearless and FNP.

Yes, that would be dumb for the zombies to do. The smart Chaos player will shift the Tac squad off the objective with a different unit then let the zombies hold it.

You will tarpit units and nothing else. When you're wounding on a 5+ with a single attack, you're not going to win a lot of battles.

You act like that's a bad thing. A 35 man Fearless FNP unit is one of the best tarpits in the game - and dirt cheap to boot.

With all of that in mind, I do find it hard to believe that it will not be FAQ'd to allow a 35 man unit. If it's FAQ'd to show that RAI is a 10 man unit, no one will play zombies in any kind of remotely competitive game. Even in friendly games, I wouldn't play it as I don't want to waste 2 hours of my time.

Yeah, objective holders that are hard to kill suck. I'd never take them either.

With the way that the board was set up (city fighting), it worked out that way. We play terrain heavy boards. It has its good and bad points. Tight quarters without getting into difficult terrain is one of them. We were more or less testing out the codex. We weren't playing a highly strategic game.

Literally the absolute best case? That'd be every hit being a direct hit. So, no, not the absolutely best case. Lucky? Yeah, but not uncommon in our group.

A 35 man Fearless/FNP unit might one one the best tarpits in the game on paper, but in practice, I can tell you otherwise. It's definitely nothing to sneeze at, not at all. That was never my point. They still easily fall to shots. Few weapons are AP-, so you're getting FNP but no armor save. Against anything S6 and higher, you're not getting any saves. Templates are going to rock you. You can't spread out too far without inhibiting that units movement or the movement of your other units.

So you sit them on an objective and let your opponent come to you. You can't do anything to them until they get to you, but they can shoot at you the entire time that they are in range. Move up to attack them and they can still shoot AND overwatch you. Ork Boyz can run in squads of 30 and also have Fearless, but have better stats and can hold their own in CC. Zombies can't. In three rounds of CC, I rolled quite well for having to roll 5+ to hit and wound. A 3+ armor save is really good for a reason. Add to that that he also had FNP because of a Sanguinary Priest, and I didn't kill one guy.

Objective holders with those stats, that can't shoot back and can't overwatch and are only going to get a 5+ save while being limited to a 10 man force? You'd be wise to never take them because they aren't worth their cost, even if that cost is 50 points. That's why I'm not.

My whole point is that a 35 man squad isn't overpowered. Not close to it. It might be one of the best tarpit units, but most other tarpit units can do more than simply stand around, looking pretty, with 1 attack and definitely get more than 10 models. People looking at them and calling them one of the best tarpit units aren't looking at the whole picture, rather, they are looking at the parts of the picture that fit their argument. Picking and choosing points doesn't make you right.

Concentrating on the individual unit and ignoring the rest of the army doesn't make you right either.

I'm not saying they're overpowered, but bringing up a situation where you gave blast weapons almost the absolute best case scenario and citing the unit as not overpowered is ... silly at best.

rigeld2 wrote:
Concentrating on the individual unit and ignoring the rest of the army doesn't make you right either.

I'm not saying they're overpowered, but bringing up a situation where you gave blast weapons almost the absolute best case scenario and citing the unit as not overpowered is ... silly at best.

that was one situation where I argued against OP. There are plenty of other situations, even with better placement. It's not silly at best, it's hardly silly at all. I'd counter that any argument saying that they are the best or even one of the best tarpit units in the game isn't looking at the whole picture and is silly at best.

I'm not talking whole picture as in the whole army. I'm talking about looking at the whole picture of how that unit works, it's pros and cons, and looking beyond seeing Fearless and FNP. You have to look at those special abilities in context, which includes unit size, but also what are their other features. People that aren't are the ones saying "A 35 man unit is way too strong, it's OP, it's unfair, it's this, it's that, it's the other.

Again, IMHO, there is absolute no question as to the rules as they are written, even as a proponent that there will be an FAQ that says otherwise, that a unit of zombies can't be more than 10, regardless of how you maneuver around the order of how things are applied. In a codex that I think is pretty balanced, against both itself and how it will perform against other codices, it's something that I feel is an oversight, very much how I feel that the Chaos Terminators' inability to upgrade both their weapon and gun is an oversight.

Rules are 10 zombies period. It would not surprise me if this was an error but the only thing that will change this is an errata, until then it's the rules.

I really don't see how he got 31 hits with 3 frag missiles. Did you let him him cultists on multiple floors of a ruin with each missile or something like that? Remember you can only target one floor.

If you have the models as close as possable, you can get quite alot of hits with templates.

A flamer can cover something like 25 bases, a small blast can get around 12.


Realistically, you won't get anything like that against even a poor opponent. You would have to be very bad to allow that many hits.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If you have the models as close as possable, you can get quite alot of hits with templates.

A flamer can cover something like 25 bases, a small blast can get around 12.


Realistically, you won't get anything like that against even a poor opponent. You would have to be very bad to allow that many hits.

I am not seeing a getting more than about 9 hits-10 hits on a small blast. Still even landing that takes hitting a seriously bunched up mob.

If they are on an objective, kill everything else and ignore them, they are doing nothing but holding an objective.

If they are not on an objective, don't let them get on one. Throw one T5 unit at them and they will at worst tie it up. (This shouldn't be till turn 3)

After you kill everything else, contest the objective. If you let everything else kill you, well you suck anyway as they are literally doing NOTHING to harm you. At least marines sitting back on an objective can take a few shots at you.

jegsar wrote:
If they are on an objective, kill everything else and ignore them, they are doing nothing but holding an objective.

If they are not on an objective, don't let them get on one. Throw one T5 unit at them and they will at worst tie it up. (This shouldn't be till turn 3)

After you kill everything else, contest the objective. If you let everything else kill you, well you suck anyway as they are literally doing NOTHING to harm you. At least marines sitting back on an objective can take a few shots at you.

I'd love to see you get something withing 3" of an objective when there's 35 models on it.

I'm supposed to play my first sixth edition game against a friend and we're both going to use 1850 point lists we're taking to a Tournament later this month. He bought my Dark Vengeance cultists off of me and told me he was taking a Typhus list. Should I be prepared for rules arguing?

 Oaka wrote:
I'm supposed to play my first sixth edition game against a friend and we're both going to use 1850 point lists we're taking to a Tournament later this month. He bought my Dark Vengeance cultists off of me and told me he was taking a Typhus list. Should I be prepared for rules arguing?

Not really if you are going to a Tourney.

The TO will make the call and thats it.

Just make sure to ask before it starts so you can plan your games accordingly.

This thread is not about the effectiveness of zombies/cultists, it is about a rule that states you cannot take options for a squad if you nominate a squad as zombies.

You build your list before you do anything, it is assumed you nominate your units at that point rather due to the fact that you cannot purchase options for zombies. It stands to reason that you can make a 35 strong cultist unit, but as soon as you nominate them as zombies, they revert to 10 guys, since you can't have options.

Plague Zombies can be 35 models strong.

First of all, any unit of Chaos Cultists can be nominated as Plague Zombies in an army that contains Typhus. No limitation on size or quantity.

Note that they are not upgraded to Plague Zombies, but can be nominated as Plague Zombies. Important piece of vernacular there because this means that a player with Typhus has a great amount of flexibilty as he is able to nominate or not nominate a Chaos Cultist to be Plague Zombies at will. This leads into the next point.

When the player builds his list, he chooses his options for a unit of Chaos Cultists and Chaos Cultists alone which in this case would include making the perfectly legal choice of making them 35 models strong.

Nomination of a Chaos Cultist unit into Plague Zombies is not part of building a list as some are trying to equate. It is more akin to declaring what units are being held in Reserves and how they will be deployed. That means in a tournament setting, a player with Typhus in his army could nominate a Chaos Cultist unit to be Plague Zombies in one game and not nominate them in the next to play them as Chaos Cultists.

Lastly, the rule specifies what happens to the Chaos Cultists ranged weapons and/or close combat weapons when they are nominated to become Plague Zombies. This is in direct correlation to them also not being able to purchase options and thus not being able to rearm themselves once nominated as Plague Zombies.

As it stands, a unit of Chaos Cultist has the perfectly legal and valid option to purchase the option to increase the unit size to 35 models. If the army includes Typhus, any Chaos Cultist unit can be nominated to be Plague Zombies, any including said 35 model strong Chaos Cultist unit. At no time did the Plague Zombies ever purchase the option to increase the unit size to 35 models.

You first purchase a unit of up to 35 cultists then convert them to zombies - so there is no limit. That is how we are playing it... not one complaint so far.

So an "implied" order of operations and a semantics over when an option is taken is your argument?

If a zombie unit has 35 men then it has taken additional options simple as. Options include taking more men. Cannot purchase options means no options can be taken.

There are no semantics involved. That is how it works.

Can i have some rules to back that up?

Look at it this way... you think you have come up with a RAW answer when in fact it is wrong and not the RAW. There are also people incorrectly stating the RAI is that zombies were intended to be max of 10 - how can they know this?

All you have to do is read what is already written and that is a very simple thing to do.

Yep, a group of cultists can be nominated to be zombies, gain all the buffs and cannot purchase any options.

RAW that means that anything in the options of chaos cultists is not allowed. That includes adding members to the squad.
While nomination is not the same as taking the choice at point of writing the army list the typhus rules overrule the free ability to have 35 dudes with all the important upgrades.


RAI is whatever GW were thinking, I don't claim to know it.

 liturgies of blood wrote:
So an "implied" order of operations and a semantics over when an option is taken is your argument?

If a zombie unit has 35 men then it has taken additional options simple as. Options include taking more men. Cannot purchase options means no options can be taken.

Actually no LoB.

A Plague Zombie unit of 35 was a Chaos Cultist unit that legally purchased the option to increase the unit size to 35 and then was nominated to become Plague Zombies. At no time did the Plague Zombie unit purchase anything.

 liturgies of blood wrote:
Yep, a group of cultists can be nominated to be zombies, gain all the buffs and cannot purchase any options.

RAW that means that anything in the options of chaos cultists is not allowed. That includes adding members to the squad.

RAI is whatever GW were thinking, I don't claim to know it.

You nominate them as zombies after list building, if you wish. There is no requirement to nominate at a specific point, not in the rules in the book.

Ah wrong. Plague zombies are still cultists "Plague Zombies are Chaos Cultists that have the Fearless, Feel No Pain and Slow and Purposeful special rules, and cannot purchase options." Emphasis mine.

So they are chaos cultists that cannot purchase options. If you can show they are no longer cultists and that having more men is not taking an option then you win.

 Tyr Grimtooth wrote:

 liturgies of blood wrote:
So an "implied" order of operations and a semantics over when an option is taken is your argument?

If a zombie unit has 35 men then it has taken additional options simple as. Options include taking more men. Cannot purchase options means no options can be taken.

Actually no LoB.

A Plague Zombie unit of 35 was a Chaos Cultist unit that legally purchased the option to increase the unit size to 35 and then was nominated to become Plague Zombies. At no time did the Plague Zombie unit purchase anything.

It's an option, it's not legal, and it's clear as day by RAW. You nominate them to be plague zombies, they can't purchase any options, additional dudes are the first thing under the heading "Options". Give it up.

You've inserted a step in between purchasing the option (bolded even in your statement above) for a unit to include more guys, which is done during list creation simultaneous with buying them guns and everything else, then nominating them as plague zombies, then buying them random "option" upgrades.

Your logic would also allow any gun upgrade or mark as well - after all, those were bought legally while the unit was chaos cultists, before you nominated them. Now that they're nominated, you just can't buy anymore?

 Grey Templar wrote:
If you have the models as close as possable, you can get quite alot of hits with templates.

A flamer can cover something like 25 bases, a small blast can get around 12.

Realistically, you won't get anything like that against even a poor opponent. You would have to be very bad to allow that many hits.

attomsk wrote:
I really don't see how he got 31 hits with 3 frag missiles. Did you let him him cultists on multiple floors of a ruin with each missile or something like that? Remember you can only target one floor.

It was due to how the board was set up.

My group typically plays city fighting, so we have lots of ruins on MDF boards to represent the blasted out cities and big rock formations to represent impassable ruins. I didn't want them moving through difficult terrain and having to potentially roll poorly, so I stuck to the streets so I could move the full 6". So, yes, they were bunched up. We weren't playing an objective game, so leaving them sitting in the corner wasn't going to do me any good. A blast marker CAN hit 13 models if they are base to base.

It was my first game with a horde unit. My sister-in-law was arriving from out of town, so due to a time constraint, I wasn't looking to squeeze every bit of strategy out of the unit. I wasn't concerned about high generalship. I'm not going to cheese out and spread 35 models 1" or 2" apart in a casual game with my friends. We wanted to see how the zombies worked, especially with in a 35 man unit and we got to do that against a variety of weapons.

The point is that once you look at the big picture, zombies aren't what some people are cracking them up to be. People are getting caught up in the whole "ZOMG, 35 zombies with FNP and Fearless! OP!" but they fail to look at the stat line and what can and does hurt zombies with incredible efficiency. Looking at something from a balanced perspective doesn't help them argue their point, but looking at the small picture certainly does.

I'm not denying that it's a great tarpit unit or that it's a great unit to sit on an objective in your deployment zone, especially in ruins or cover, at least until a unit with even decent firepower comes knocking. Then, it doesn't matter how spread out you are, you're going to take wounds and plenty of them, whether it's from small arms fire, blasts, or close combat. Most other tarpit units have better stats, better saves, better attacks. Ork Boyz might not have FNP, but they have Fearless in a mob setting, can shoot at you, and can more than hold their own with a MEQ in CC after overwatching them. Zombies? Not so much.

Could I have played it differently? Sure. Will I play it differently? Sure, as long as the board allows it.

Target wrote:

 Tyr Grimtooth wrote:

 liturgies of blood wrote:
So an "implied" order of operations and a semantics over when an option is taken is your argument?

If a zombie unit has 35 men then it has taken additional options simple as. Options include taking more men. Cannot purchase options means no options can be taken.

Actually no LoB.

A Plague Zombie unit of 35 was a Chaos Cultist unit that legally purchased the option to increase the unit size to 35 and then was nominated to become Plague Zombies. At no time did the Plague Zombie unit purchase anything.

It's an option, it's not legal, and it's clear as day by RAW. You nominate them to be plague zombies, they can't purchase any options, additional dudes are the first thing under the heading "Options". Give it up.

You've inserted a step in between purchasing the option (bolded even in your statement above) for a unit to include more guys, which is done during list creation simultaneous with buying them guns and everything else, then nominating them as plague zombies, then buying them random "option" upgrades.

Your logic would also allow any gun upgrade or mark as well - after all, those were bought legally while the unit was chaos cultists, before you nominated them. Now that they're nominated, you just can't buy anymore?

And no again.

You purchase a unit of Chaos Cultists. You do not purchase a unit of Plague Zombies. The Chaos Cultists have a list of options. Increasing the Chaos Cultist unit to 35 is a legal option as is buying guns and or marks. You can nominate ANY Chaos Cultist unit to become Plague Zombies.

Again, at no time did Plague Zombies purchase anything. Your premise that because the Chaos Cultists purchased the option to increase the unit size to 35, the Plague Zombies purchased the option to increase the unit size is flawed as Plague Zombies specifically have no options and are prohibited from purchasing options.

Timing issues regardless, the unit consists of ten models when purchased and yes as an option you can bring the total up to thirty-five models.

Making the unit Plague Zombies goes without question when the unit has ten models, however declaring them as Plague Zombies when the unit has 10+ models is not possible because the unit has been given options... an oversight perhaps ? sure but the rule is clearly RAW at the moment.

Adding weapon upgrades is an option
Buffing the champion is an option
Adding models to the unit is an option


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Player 1: this is my unit of 35 plague zombies.
Player 2: did you take any options ?

Player 1: no
Player 2: isn't adding models an option ?

Player 1: ...
Player 2: ...

 toxic_wisdom wrote:
Timing issues regardless, the unit consists of ten models when purchased and yes as an option you can bring the total up to thirty-five models.

Making the unit Plague Zombies goes without question when the unit has ten models, however declaring them as Plague Zombies when the unit has 10+ models is not possible because the unit has been given options... an oversight perhaps ? sure but the rule is clearly RAW at the moment.

Adding weapon upgrades is an option
Buffing the champion is an option
Adding models to the unit is an option

Wrong yet again.

There is no restriction on a Chaos Cultist unit purchasing the option to increase the unit size to 35. That is a legal and valid option. Any Chaos Cultist unit can be nominated to become Plague Zombies. There is no restriction on that either. Prior to nomination the Chaos Cultist unit did, however they are not restricted from doing so. After nomination, at no time did the Plague Zombies purchase an option because;

1. They are no longer Chaos Cultists and thus allowed to purchase options.
2. They do not have any options to purchase.

Yeah, the only restriction is that the Zombies can't purchase Options.

They were not Zombies at the time they purchased options. And as Zombies they have purchased no options at all. No restriction that they automatically lose any options they purchased prior to being zombies.

 Tyr Grimtooth wrote:

 toxic_wisdom wrote:
Timing issues regardless, the unit consists of ten models when purchased and yes as an option you can bring the total up to thirty-five models.

Making the unit Plague Zombies goes without question when the unit has ten models, however declaring them as Plague Zombies when the unit has 10+ models is not possible because the unit has been given options... an oversight perhaps ? sure but the rule is clearly RAW at the moment.

Adding weapon upgrades is an option
Buffing the champion is an option
Adding models to the unit is an option

Wrong yet again.

There is no restriction on a Chaos Cultist unit purchasing the option to increase the unit size to 35. That is a legal and valid option. Any Chaos Cultist unit can be nominated to become Plague Zombies. There is no restriction on that either. Prior to nomination the Chaos Cultist unit did, however they are not restricted from doing so. After nomination, at no time did the Plague Zombies purchase an option because;

1. They are no longer Chaos Cultists and thus allowed to purchase options.
2. They do not have any options to purchase.

You're making a distinction that isn't in the rules because you want it to be one way for personal reasons, and I get that, but it has put blinders on you. There is 0 difference between purchasing a weapon option, and purchasing additional models option. They're in the same list of options. You can't say one option is legal but the others aren't, because you have absolutely nothing to support that.

Under your logic, it is perfectly legal to buy marks and anything you want for chaos cultists, because at the time you purchased, they were chaos cultists. Then you nominated them as zombies. The zombies don't purchase options, the chaos cultists did.

Except that logic is clearly flawed, and would make the entire line of text "cannot purchase options" under the plague zombie rule moot.