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Just a couple of hopefully fluffy rules for Cultists I thought of:

Chaos Cultists gain the Unholy Rage and Beneath the Gods’ Notice rules below.

Unholy rage – When the Cultist unit fails a Leadership test, the Chaos player may choose to remove one model per point the test is failed by (e.g. 3 models are removed if a 10 is rolled) as they suffer the brunt of the Champions unholy wrath. The unit is then treated as if it had passed the test. This ability is only active as long as the Champion is still alive.

Beneath the Gods’ Notice – Cultist Champions are not subject to the Champions of Chaos rule forcing them to issue and accept challenges and may never receive Chaos Boons. In addition, you may only have one Chaos Cultist unit for each Chaos Space Marine unit (including Cult Troops using the Master of Traitors rule) in your Troop selections.

If the Warlord of the army is a Dark Apostle, the restriction of Cultist units vs Chaos Space Marine units does not apply.

I'd like to see the option to add something like an Overseer, just a standard CSM in Power Armour. He could act as "motivation" for the Cultists, such as allowing you to remove D3 Cultists if you fail a Leadership test to allow you to automatically pass it.

lol - making this far more complicated than it needs to be, you should have the unholy rage for psychic tests from a sorc as well

"Unholy rage – When the Cultist unit fails a Leadership test, the Chaos player may choose to remove one model per point the test is failed by (e.g. 3 models are removed if a 10 is rolled) as they suffer the brunt of the Champions unholy wrath. The unit is then treated as if it had passed the test. This ability is only active as long as the Champion is still alive. "

Fail a psychic test or lose some cultists?
Hmmm...

 rohansoldier wrote:
Just a couple of hopefully fluffy rules for Cultists I thought of:

Chaos Cultists gain the Unholy Rage and Beneath the Gods’ Notice rules below.

Unholy rage – When the Cultist unit fails a Leadership test, the Chaos player may choose to remove one model per point the test is failed by (e.g. 3 models are removed if a 10 is rolled) as they suffer the brunt of the Champions unholy wrath. The unit is then treated as if it had passed the test. This ability is only active as long as the Champion is still alive.

Beneath the Gods’ Notice – Cultist Champions are not subject to the Champions of Chaos rule forcing them to issue and accept challenges and may never receive Chaos Boons. In addition, you may only have one Chaos Cultist unit for each Chaos Space Marine unit (including Cult Troops using the Master of Traitors rule) in your Troop selections.

If the Warlord of the army is a Dark Apostle, the restriction of Cultist units vs Chaos Space Marine units does not apply.

Unholy Rage, I can sorta, kinda see it. But you are assuming that every unit of cultists has some sort of unholy connection and then later say they are beneth the gods notice.

I dont understand Beneath the God's Notice. A champion of any walk of life devoted to chaos is of notice to the Gods. They can become more powerful. If anything they would be more likely to recieve the gods notice, as they are lower cost, potentially higher reward at this stage in their development.
I would instead give them more boons rather than none.

For irregular infantry like cultists, I want more options. I want more weapons, I want a bortherhood of sorcerers option, I want more randomness.

Now that I think about it, your argument makes a lot of sense.

How about these ideas then:

Overseer - Instead of a Cultist Champion, the unit may be led by a Chaos Space Marine Overseer for + 13pts. This model is armed with a Boltgun, Bolt pistol and frag/krak grenades and may either swap his Boltgun for a combat weapon at no cost or take a combat weapon in addition for + 1pt.

He also gains the Champion of Chaos rule.

Every time the unit fails a break test, the Overseer (if he is alive) may choose to execute D3 Cultists (these are removed from play with no saves). The test is then considered to be passed.

One model in the Cultist unit can be upgraded to one each of the following specialists:

Apostate Cardinal - The unit gains the Rage special rule + 15pts

Unsanctioned Psyker - + 25pts

The model gains the Psyker rule (Level 1) and may use the Pyromancy, Telepathy or Biomancy disciplines. If the Cultist unit has a Mark of Chaos, they may instead roll on that god's discipline. In the event the psyker is subject to the Perils of the Warp, he may choose to nominate a model in his unit to suffer the effects instead if he is able to pass a Leadership test.

The unit may not take an Unsanctioned Psyker if they have the mark of Khorne.

Bad Doc (needs a better name) - The unit gains the Feel No Pain rule.

Traitor PDF

The Traitor PDF may take a plasma gun +15pts, melta gun for + 10pts or grenade launcher for + 10pts.

The unit may also take one of the following 'Background Traits' at the points costs below.

Freedom Fighters - the unit gains the Crusader USR +10pts

Gutter Rats - The units gains the Move Through Cover and Stealth USR's + 10pts

Muties - Make one roll on the Chaos Boon table for the unit after deployment but before 1st turn and apply the effect. Re-roll Dark Apotheosis and Chaos Spawn results. + 25pts

Dark Acolytes - The unit gains the Adamantium Will USR.
+ 15pts

Sneaky Gits - The unit gains the Infiltrate USR. + 20pts

I can see a problem emerging with the Bad Doc. If I fail an FNP save, then another guy has to take an Armour Save, which he's likely to fail and then take FNP again. If this second guy fails FNP then a third one will have to take an Armour Save. If the third one fails...

You can see where I'm going with this.

That's the point! Never trust a dodgy doctor

I'd pay points to *not* include him - a 1/3 chance of saving a 5pt model or a 2/3 of killing an additional 5pt model and then even more models with a domino effect... nah man

Muties shouldn't re-roll multiple boons. Multiple boons is awesome and having them suddenly get multiple powers is what random 6th ed is all about.

I'd say roll on a random table, sort of like Penal Legion, to see what abilities they have. Muties can be part of that or an additional upgrade (I reckon people should always be able to opt in to muties)

I didn't think of that with the bad doc! Either limit the extra save to one guy per turn or just make it fnp.

As for the muties I didn't think multiple boons would be balanced. Would be fun though.

I was looking to use as many existing rules as poss but I guess a 2d6 table could work. Perhaps one result could be horned for +1 strength or bulky for +1 toughness.

Open to more ideas!

Its a 1 in 36 chance. The game is swarming with 2++ re-rolls and if they're too powerful, your opponent will just drop 1d3 S10 pie plates on them.

Go fething wild.

You DO understand the irony that on one hand they get punished when they fail, yet on the other you claim the gods don't even notice them.

Who would bother punishing someone he doesn't even notice?

Yeah that has been brought home to me now.

The Unholy Rage rule has been replaced by the CSM Overseer and the Beneath the God's Notice rule has been ditched.

What do you think of their new options?

 Valkyrie wrote:
I can see a problem emerging with the Bad Doc. If I fail an FNP save, then another guy has to take an Armour Save, which he's likely to fail and then take FNP again. If this second guy fails FNP then a third one will have to take an Armour Save. If the third one fails...

You can see where I'm going with this.

should be "gets hot" on FNP

5+ FNP, but if you roll a 1 on FNP, not only do you take lose that guy but you take a wound on another guy. Who then takes armor 6+ and then fnp 5+ and then can result in another wound if he rolls a 1.

Works out to be slightly better than 6+ FNP statistically, but infinity more cinematic(complex).

cinematic(complex).

Lol, that deserves to be exhalted

Something i never understood, is why there is no kamikaze style rule to Cultists.

Like once per Turn 1D3 models can ignite their explosif charge, you center the blast template on the models and each model under the blast takes a S5 Ap6 ignore covers hit, the model who triggered the explosion is taken out has casualty.