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I think it would have been cool to have some kind of Cultist HQ Champion or something, and surprised it isnt there considering they are a troop choice. I wouldnt expect much from one, but still think it would look pretty cool on the gaming table...

Discuss.

Dark Apostle? Still kind of a marine but he's the closest thing to it. If you really wanted to you could just play traitor guard to get a cultist HQ

It wouldn't be fluffy. If a cultist HQ could be taken to command your CSM army then it would mean 10,000 year old traitor marines would be following a cultists commands. The cultist HQ would be fragged by a CSM halfway through his first order.

Dark apostle on the other hand, this is the HQ that commands cultists (supported by the fluff).

Not necessarily. Some mortal leaders wield more power than CSM. There are mortal warmasters and those who lead warbands containing CSM. Admittedly the CSM could take over if they wanted (Unless the leader chappie got his men to blast them to pieces)

A Chaos Space Marine would never, ever listen to a mortal cult leader.

 gossipmeng wrote:
It wouldn't be fluffy. If a cultist HQ could be taken to command your CSM army then it would mean 10,000 year old traitor marines would be following a cultists commands. The cultist HQ would be fragged by a CSM halfway through his first order.

Dark apostle on the other hand, this is the HQ that commands cultists (supported by the fluff).

Ah... I really hadnt thought of that. I wasnt thinking he would 'lead' CSMs, but just really be a champion of sorts. Makes sense I couldnt see a cultist champion leading Mutilators and so on.

I hope GW spends enough time on 6th to release some codex supplements that would allow you to great more of a variety of creative armies made up of lesser units. I know I could just take an Imperial Guard army and paint it up in chaos colors and call it a renegade Imperial Guard force, but it doesnt feel twisted enough.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, still laughing about fragging halfway thru the first order lol

Actually, in The Traitor's Hands, it's pointed out that some Traitor Legions (such as the World Eaters) will loan/hire out their services to cult forces as advisers, so Chaos Marines serving "alongside" (best not to suggest that they're subordinate to the mortals) human, mortal cult leaders isn't impossible.

Edit: Although a human leader in command of an Astartes-heavy warband would be... difficult to pull off.

Also, in Eisenhorn there is a CSM following the orders of a very powerful psyker and his friends.

He is actually under orders from his CSM warlord to obey the psyker but you could do something in a similar vein. Maybe the warlord could make his presence known in a few games. As Bladed Crescent said, there couldn't be too many CSMs though. And they'd have to give the cultists a good touch up every now and again, just to remind them who they're messing with.

 Brother SRM wrote:
A Chaos Space Marine would never, ever listen to a mortal cult leader.

Actually it depends, if the cult leader is a mutated badass enough to keep forced rank amongst them.

Like some of the DP's were originally human mortals, so there has to be examples of powerful mortals in favor of the dark gods.

But in order to be powerful and badass enough to lead around CSM, they're going to pretty much have to have 4's in their statlines and other cool rules.

And if they're powerful enough to get CSM to do what they want, then they're certainly powerful enough to commandeer a suit of power armor.

And so cultists would be lead by a model with 4's in his statlines, a bunch of special rules, and is wearing power armor, and has to use his wits and powerful ability to command to make up for being more of a badass...

Like a dark apostle.

Well, maybe you could have one hq cultis for each chaos sm hq, like the master of the forge of the dark angels, that could be fluffly, because the hq cult leader is a mere puppet of his lord, sorcery or apostle

Or, you know, this could be a good case for allies. Take allied guard with a CCS and an infantry platoon. In this case, the "leader" still has 3's in the statline, but he also can command others around (orders), and the core of his cultist army is made up of his choice troops (the guardsmen). You could probably pull this off even more if you made it a lord commissar with some veterans.

Yes, the leader of your army would technically be in your secondary FO, but still, it's one of those many fluffy things that can be solved with allies.

Ailaros wrote: You could probably pull this off even more if you made it a lord commissar with some veterans.

I'd do this. This way you get a leader with a decent WS and LD whilst still being T3, can execute cultists if they want to flee and take a reasonable selection of wargear.

The vets would also offer you a large number of different weapons, with potential for extra cultist characters (e.g. Cultist Harker with a Modified Heavy Stubber).

Or, you know, scrap it altogether. Now that I think of it, what the OP wants is traitor guard. A human tide that can crash over stuff. That's what the guard codex does.

Cultists are just a throwaway unit in a book devoted to space marines and demons. Honestly, it's probably the entirely wrong codex for what's being attempted here.

Well cultists don't only fulfil the role of meat shield. They can be infiltrators/scouts/saboteurs, roles which vets could fill. I think codex IG has more freedom, though requires a little more creativity.

They'd still be throw away though (small units of t3 models), in which you'd be wasting some points. Depends on how much you value a fluffy army OP.

 Ailaros wrote:
Or, you know, scrap it altogether. Now that I think of it, what the OP wants is traitor guard. A human tide that can crash over stuff. That's what the guard codex does.

Cultists are just a throwaway unit in a book devoted to space marines and demons. Honestly, it's probably the entirely wrong codex for what's being attempted here.

That's one way to see it. Another way to see it is that cultists provide cheap scoring options in an edition where you want to spend the majority of your points on things that kill your opponent. Heldrakes, Fiends, Spawn, your HQs, etc...these things kill your opponent's models. Cultists keep it cheap so you can maximize the points you spend on those things.

Well, sure, but the OP's complaint is that you can't take a horde of 3s-in-stats goobers and have them lead by a 3s-in-stats badass.

The CSM codex is devoted to 4s-in-stats units. Cultists are a second thought support unit in a codex full of marines and demon engines and things that kill your opponent and do the real work while the cultists hide on objectives.

If you want to take units like cultists, lead by a unit like cultists, however, the CSM codex is just a bad way to do it. Just make traitor guard instead.

Who, I should note, have great options for what the OP is looking for. The steely, smart commander of a group of traitors (senior officer), the gritty, brutal petty warlord (lord commissar), the mutant psyker who rises from the darkness (primaris psyker), and the revolutionary firebrand who instills his hatred into all those around him (priest). All of them are just regular T3 humans who are using little more than determination and prayer to overwhelm their enemies.

Which is what guard do. They pray to a different entity, but otherwise...

Well there IS a codex already made to do everything people want here (hint: its renegades and heretics from IA7)

When cultists get enough gifts of Chaos, they become Chaos Warriors and then Champions, which are functionally identical to the CSM equivalent (they would be granted or scavenge power armour or Chaos Armour); then they can progress onto becoming a Chaos Lord or other type of HQ.

Just take Traitor Imperial Guard allies, and run Evil Colonel Straken as your allied HQ. Now there's a chaos cultist who can kick space marines in half.

Fluff-wise, I've always thought it would be a great idea to have a Daemon Prince leading a horde of cultists.

No Chaos Space Marines at all, just an ascended mortal (No armour, he's a former cultist!) leading a massive band of rabble, tanks and Daemon Engines.

Well, the reason why not is right there in the title. It's a codex about Chaos Space Marines, so of course they're going to be the focus.

But yeah, as said above, you can get what you're after with the Forgeworld books. Apparently the traitor guard are quite a challenging army, though.

Take a Daemon Prince, don't give him Power Armour.

Cultist leader.

You could use the Dark Apostle HQ and model him as a human, but with sufficient mutations to justify his enhanced stats and abilities.

 gossipmeng wrote:
It wouldn't be fluffy. If a cultist HQ could be taken to command your CSM army then it would mean 10,000 year old traitor marines would be following a cultists commands. The cultist HQ would be fragged by a CSM halfway through his first order.

Dark apostle on the other hand, this is the HQ that commands cultists (supported by the fluff).

I think a very powerful human psyker might be able to lead around some chaos marines in some circumstances. But a regular chump, no chance

In the black dragons space marine battles book 'The Death of Antagonis' I'm sure I remember the chaos marines in that book being led by a religious leader - not a csm.

From the Amazon review
Some features are somewhat original, such as the ability of the heretic Cardinal to manipulate minds, or the Cardinal himself and the Swords of Epiphany, the renegade Chapter who are his Space Marine disciples...

 Brother SRM wrote:
A Chaos Space Marine would never, ever listen to a mortal cult leader.

So I guess we also need to scrap all of the Vraks renegades lists that include chaos space marine units as elite choices supporting the efforts of the cult forces?

That is a pretty final statement for something that is likely so convoluted that it could happen in any permutation. Heck a direct representative of khorne could be sent to a chaos marine warband and tell them that khorne says the have to follow that cult leader over there as he is chosen by khorne to do amazing things and that the marines should go along and cause as much havoc and mayhem as possible. Are they going to say, no thanks? Not likely.

There are numerous reasons as to why chaos marines would ally with and/or swear allegiance to a powerful cult leader and force. Why limit yourself by saying silly things like a chaos psace marine would *never* listen to a mortal cult leader?

Skriker

 Skriker wrote:

 Brother SRM wrote:
A Chaos Space Marine would never, ever listen to a mortal cult leader.

So I guess we also need to scrap all of the Vraks renegades lists that include chaos space marine units as elite choices supporting the efforts of the cult forces?

That is a pretty final statement for something that is likely so convoluted that it could happen in any permutation. Heck a direct representative of khorne could be sent to a chaos marine warband and tell them that khorne says the have to follow that cult leader over there as he is chosen by khorne to do amazing things and that the marines should go along and cause as much havoc and mayhem as possible. Are they going to say, no thanks? Not likely.

There are numerous reasons as to why chaos marines would ally with and/or swear allegiance to a powerful cult leader and force. Why limit yourself by saying silly things like a chaos psace marine would *never* listen to a mortal cult leader?

Skriker

I can see a regular human/damned/daemon army being rules by a regular human and that army including CSM. The regular guy had a large army, that gives him power, and the CSM are perhaps more than happy to join up with him.
I dont see an entire host of CSM, purely CSM being ruled over by a human general.

In much the same way I can see an inquisitional warband with lots of daemon hunters including a few grey knights. I have trouble believing an entire Company of Grey Knights and only grey knights being led around by a inquistor.

Of course, maybe the Chaos warband is large, ruled over by a CSM daemon prince with several CSM lords in there at various levels. The host has hundreds of CSM and thousands of traitor guard and hundredthousands of cultists. Perhaps in the leadership there is a cultist leader or traitor guard general, a truly exceptional individual indeed. At some point part of the warband goes off on a mission to raid some planet, while the DP does his own DP type things and the rest of the CSM lords go off and attack other planets(multi pronged attack). This leaves said regular human in charge of a bunch of CSM.
Is he in charge of them permenently? No, the CSM follow him because they follow their CL or DP who told them to follow the regular human

WOW! I wasnt expecting such a debate.... all is very appreciative.

What I was really imagining is this: I do like having multiple HQ characters in my army, much like the Dark Vengeance set has for the Dark Angels. So looking at the Crimson Slaughterers... the cultist almost seem out of place to me. I mean, here is a Chaos Champion, his Chosen, and this Helbrute. Then there are these filler guys standing around.

Being creative, I can come up with ways why and why this doesnt seem very plausible, but I thought if you are going to have these groups of cultists, maybe there is character within them that is head above the squad leaders. A cultist champion, but not really an HQ leader I guess. I couldnt see Chosen giving a rats ass what some Cultist Champion wearing rags and all is going to think either, but at the same time, the Cultists having someone they identify as the guy who takes the orders from Krannon and makes it happen with the Cultists, but not the Chosen.

Of course, I wouldnt try to make rules governing all that. I dont know, maybe if he was just an elite choice. Then again, you might ask, who would waste that slot on that guy, and my answer would be, even as a Cultist Champion, he shouldnt cost much, and might do well to fill in some points, and add some flavor to the army.

That being said, I would prefer to have the chaos rewards, and other Chaos bits to go with it, which is why I didnt want to use an Imperial Guard army. Granted I love the idea of renegade Imperial Guards, but they are too organized for what I was imagining. Cultists look like they have been living in the sewers and wouldnt have an organized force structure like a military unit to me.

"This cultist is a bad ass. He talks to Krannon. Then talks to us. None of us really talk to Krannon personally." That kind of thing.