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90 points buys you 20 naked cultists or 10 naked plaguebearers.

I'm more tempted by the PB thanks to superior save and demi-fearless. However more bodies is a plus too.

 minigun762 wrote:
90 points buys you 20 naked cultists or 10 naked plaguebearers.

I'm more tempted by the PB thanks to superior save and demi-fearless. However more bodies is a plus too.

At least loin cloths either way or I am marking you down for painting at the tourney.

Hmmm tough one, well I'm sure the plague bearers have some sort of std...

Lol on a serious note, I'd say cultists cause that's what they are there for is mass bodies, and they do really well at bogging things down if need be. Run cultists if its mid field objective unless the pb have a herald with them.

Plague bearers if its home field obj

Cultists give you more bodies to fill the space with and prevent the opponent getting within 3" to deny it (unless they can pull off some assault/pile-in maneouvres, that is). However, as they're not Fearless you really need to add a Dark Apostle or something similar which of course bumps the price up.

So, in MOST circumstances, I would say go with the Plaguebearers.

Exergy wrote:At least loin cloths either way or I am marking you down for painting at the tourney.

But Plaguebearers ARE naked.

Plaguebearers are the better choice. Cultists cost 4 pts for a 6+ save or 5 for an autogun. Guardsmen have 5+ for 5 pts and have frag grenades. If you give the cultists MON they still are bad.

Plaguebearers have shrouded so they have a great save in cover, have poised weapons, are S 4 and T 4 by default and fearless. Not to mention they will always geta 5+ invulv save no matter what.

Ive tried many of times to utilize the cultisits but have always done nothing and are disappointing. On a side note since you will need an HQ you take a cheap nurgle herald and give the locust for a FNP roll.

You can deepstrike them as well for linebreaker or to take heat off something.

^ truth

Sort of depends on the rest of your list, but I would also lean towards the PB for the reasons Kasrkin52 stated.

Exergy: very nice! I'll keep them PG-13.

Kasrkin52 et al: I was already leaning towards PB but the potential options that deep strike open up clinches it.

PBs are much better than cultists.

IMHO its the lack of fearless than really does it. I've seen a squad of cultists flee off the table the first time they take 25% casualities. That's something you really don't want happening.

The footprint on 20 cultists also is quite large, which means its hard for them to all get in cover. A smart player will focus fire on the ones out in the open to cause the break test.

Place the cultists with a fearless lord behind an ADL. Ample space to cover everyone. And now your lord gets to shoot a proper long ranged weapon with his BS 5.

Really difficult to kill by shooting they probably have to assault it.

Its a good way to protect your warlord as well. Because this unit is in the backfield sitting on an objective. They would have to go through your entire army before reaching this unit in assault. Even in a pinch, a mass of 20 cultists backed up by a Lord isn't too bad at fighitng. Can probably hold up for a few phases until help arrives.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Place the cultists with a fearless lord behind an ADL. Ample space to cover everyone. And now your lord gets to shoot a proper long ranged weapon with his BS 5.

Really difficult to kill by shooting they probably have to assault it.

Its a good way to protect your warlord as well. Because this unit is in the backfield sitting on an objective. They would have to go through your entire army before reaching this unit in assault. Even in a pinch, a mass of 20 cultists backed up by a Lord isn't too bad at fighitng. Can probably hold up for a few phases until help arrives.

20 cultists = 90 points
Lord w/PS, PA, Termie = 117 (you want him to not crumple in assault, right?)
ADL with quad gun = 100
Total cost = 307 points.

Your objective holder will be very hard to shift, and is pumping out 4 STR 7 skyfire hits per turn.
The question is -- could you have found a better use for those 307 points? Everyones army will be slightly different and your answer will not be the same as someone else.

I'm a huge fan of cultists for many reasons but would run PB to hold objectives over them any day.

I run both. I keep the cultists in reserve for late game backfield objectives, and the PB's deepstrike with a herald for linebreaker and contesting/controlling opponent's objectives.

I would actually recommend Pink Horrors over either Plaguebearers or Cultists. Pink Horrors going to ground on the base of a ruin (while protected by the walls) or behind an Aegis Defense Line get a 2+ rerollable cover save, which is as good as it gets.

 Kingsley wrote:
I would actually recommend Pink Horrors over either Plaguebearers or Cultists. Pink Horrors going to ground on the base of a ruin (while protected by the walls) or behind an Aegis Defense Line get a 2+ rerollable cover save, which is as good as it gets.

How does this work? 4+ from the ADL, increased to 3+ from going to ground, where does the other +1 come from?
If you're thinking of the Tzeentch +1, that's invulnerable saves not cover, unless I'm forgetting some other bonus or gift...

 Super Ready wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
I would actually recommend Pink Horrors over either Plaguebearers or Cultists. Pink Horrors going to ground on the base of a ruin (while protected by the walls) or behind an Aegis Defense Line get a 2+ rerollable cover save, which is as good as it gets.

How does this work? 4+ from the ADL, increased to 3+ from going to ground, where does the other +1 come from?
If you're thinking of the Tzeentch +1, that's invulnerable saves not cover, unless I'm forgetting some other bonus or gift...

Going to ground behind ADL or in area terrain gives +2 to cover saves instead of +1

Oh, of course it does. So Plaguebearers or whatever else would get the 2+ too... BUT NOT REROLLABLE. Now I see the point.

that is true, i forgot all about the reroll, may have to try that out. plus they can shoot.

If you have the points to also give them an ADL the horrors are great at holding objectives. As an added bonus, a herald in them can even toss out blessings. You can also shoot the squad as snap firing.

Its a good tool, and a great way to run horrors and grow dramatically in value with more points added.

For cheap, durable units, plaguebearers are still a great buy. The horrors are a different tool -- they are a STR 6 threat with a huge threat range.

Horrors are an interesting option honestly.
Biggest issue I see is that as allies, I won't be bringing a Herald so much of the extra shooting buffs go away.

Cultists save you 40pts on the basic unit of 10, can still go to ground for 2+ behind an aegis or 3+ in area or behind a ruin or hill crest, and are able to Run to get to objectives mid/late game if you need them to. Cultists also don't require you to be running Daemon allies; you could be running Necrons or something instead, or playing pure CSM and just saving the points rather than having to buy a second allied HQ.

PBs and Horrors are excellent; but Cultists are quite good for the points. Whether or not I'm using Daemons as allies, I still usually run at least two units of cultists, and I never regret it.

Previous posts were great advice.

But, if you take Typhus you can upgrade the Cultists to Plague Zombies at no extra cost. They then get Fearless, Feel No Pain and SnP. They are still cheap, don't run away and (depending on your dice rolls) they might stand a chance to survive.

Just a suggestion.

Cultists are super cheap, I like a few squads of them in reserves to run on capture backfield objectives. In a well-built CSM or CD list your opponent should have more pressing threats to deal with than your cultists. Good saturation will protect them, at least in my experience.

 brotherskeeper74 wrote:
Previous posts were great advice.

But, if you take Typhus you can upgrade the Cultists to Plague Zombies at no extra cost. They then get Fearless, Feel No Pain and SnP. They are still cheap, don't run away and (depending on your dice rolls) they might stand a chance to survive.

Just a suggestion.

I'd agree with zombies being a very good choice outside of the Typhus tax. For the most part they combine the best elements of both cultists and plaguebearers when it comes to holding an objective.

The problem with Zombies is that they cannot GTG. GTG makes the cultists very, very durable. The only army i'd be super stressed about is Tau due to SMS and ignore cover.

LValx wrote:
The problem with Zombies is that they cannot GTG. GTG makes the cultists very, very durable. The only army i'd be super stressed about is Tau due to SMS and ignore cover.

Cover saves are nice, but you're still only LD8 and my biggest worry with basic cultists is taking a few wounds and running off the board.

Yes you can drop an HQ unit in there but that's a fair amount of points spend just to hold a single objective.

Zombies, daemons and cult marines all give you that important fearless (or equivalent).

 minigun762 wrote:

LValx wrote:
The problem with Zombies is that they cannot GTG. GTG makes the cultists very, very durable. The only army i'd be super stressed about is Tau due to SMS and ignore cover.

Cover saves are nice, but you're still only LD8 and my biggest worry with basic cultists is taking a few wounds and running off the board.

Yes you can drop an HQ unit in there but that's a fair amount of points spend just to hold a single objective.

Zombies, daemons and cult marines all give you that important fearless (or equivalent).

Meh, 10 Cultists need to take 3W for a LD check. If you GTG in Ruins thats a 2+, or you can simply hide behind hills and what not. It can be tough to kill Cultists. Just like in 5th people would spam the cheap Henchmen for GK that would simply hide out of LoS. It's a pretty viable tactic. I'm not saying Cultists are great troops, but 50 for 10 scoring models is a good deal. Even IG can't really get scoring squads that cheap because Vets are more expensive and platoons have a PCS tax.

If the measure of a good objective holder is going to ground and manning the quad gun, I'd be happy with bloodletters. Still get a 2+ save, still fearless and BS5 for shooting.

But 2x the point. I'd rather have more scoring models.