Veteran Cultist

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**M138**

I was thinking that since there are veteran squads in pretty much every IG/AM regiment and the bulk of the cultists are traitor guardsmen there should be veteran cultists. For modelling purposes I would assume that we'd just have to chaos up some guard or use other models from a 3rd party. I like the idea of making the cultists less squishy (which in some ways goes against their role) but I'm not too sure what to add to them other than maybe a better 5+ save, +1 to their ballistic skill and weapon skill, and/or some better rules like being able to give them something akin to veterans of the long war. Not sure how many points they would end up each being to keep them fair for both sides.
Any ideas you can throw in what be appreciated as I'm not much of a imaginative person

**Filch**

Thiss veteran cultists squad gets to field 3 special guns per team.

**Roknar**

Look no further than renegades and heretics IA 13.
GW will not be giving renegades as much as a dirty look for years to come as far as I'm considered.

But feel free to prove me wrong GW....or actually...don't, the forgeworld army is just fine.

**Valkyrie**

Vet Cultists could be represented with allied IG, but I can't see this being much of an idea: I doubt Cultists would live long enough or receive sufficient training/equipment to gain Veteran status. They're not thoroughly-trained regiments of toughened soldiers, they're decrepid/brainwashed humans of varying skills that have taken up the nearest weapon and hope they'll live long enough to put it down again.

**Yarium**

I always figured that Cultists should work like in Dawn of War. The squad leader's a Chaos Space Marine Aspiring Champion.

**Kain**

Point of clarification; it is actually considered noteworthy for a band of heretics and cultists to be considered merely equal to the Imperial Guard man for man or when functioning as a cohesive unit (hence why the Blood Pack is so renown). Most Cultists and Heretics are religious fanatics, madmen, and press gangees hurled into battle with a bare minimum of training. They're basically glorified cannon fodder and bullet catchers expended for rituals or used to absorb damage that would otherwise harm much more precious assets like traitor guardsmen, truly trained formations like the blood pact, mercenaries, corrupted xenos and chaos space marines.

The cultists shown in the CSM list are basically representative of that mass of rabble; hence why their special weapons options are all simple and cheap things like grenade launchers and flamers and why they're incapable of dividing their mobs into more mobile squads like the Guard can do with their platoons.

However, a dawn of war style aspiring champion would be a welcome upgrade.

**Valkyrie**

How's this for a couple of ideas?

Cultist Squad - 30pts
Type: Infantry
10 Cultists

Cultist - WS2 BS2 S3 T3 W1 I3 A1 Ld5 Sv6+
Brute - WS3 BS2 S4 T3 W1 I2 A2 Ld5 Sv6+
Overseer - WS4 BS4 S4 T4 W1 I4 A1 Ld9 Sv3+
Mercenaries - WS3 BS3 S3 T3 W1 I4 A1 Ld7 Sv5+

Wargear
Lascarbine - Range 12", S3 Ap-, Assault 1
Sub-Flak Armour (6+ save)
Bolter (Brutes only)

Overseer has Power Armour, Bolter, Bolt Pistol and Close Combat Weapon.

Options
May take up to 40 additional Cultists - 3pts/model
May take up to 2 Brutes for every 10 Cultists - 9pts/model

For every 15 models in the unit, one model may take a single Special Weapon from the Armoury.

May take an Overseer - 13pts. The Overseer has access to the Ranged and Melee Weapons section of the Armoury.

Any model may take any of the following options.
- Upgrade their Lascarbines to Lasguns - 2pts/model
- Replace their Lascarbines with 2 Close Combat Weapons - free
- Upgrade Sub-Flak Armour to Flak Armour - 2pts/model

The unit may be upgraded to Mercenaries for 50pts

Special Rules
Restore Order - If an Overseer is present in the unit then he will execute models to restore order. If a unit of Cultists fails a Leadership Test, the Oveseer inflicts D6 automatic wounds on the unit, ignoring the failed test. Wounds caused in this manner cannot be allocated to the Overseer or any attached characters.

**Ashiraya**

Why would mercs have I4?

**Valkyrie**

I was thinking of something to make them stand a little bit out from standard Guardsmen.

**M138**

Valkyrie wrote:
How's this for a couple of ideas?

Cultist Squad - 30pts
Type: Infantry
10 Cultists

Cultist - WS2 BS2 S3 T3 W1 I3 A1 Ld5 Sv6+
Brute - WS3 BS2 S4 T3 W1 I2 A2 Ld5 Sv6+
Overseer - WS4 BS4 S4 T4 W1 I4 A1 Ld9 Sv3+
Mercenaries - WS3 BS3 S3 T3 W1 I4 A1 Ld7 Sv5+

Wargear
Lascarbine - Range 12", S3 Ap-, Assault 1
Sub-Flak Armour (6+ save)
Bolter (Brutes only)

Overseer has Power Armour, Bolter, Bolt Pistol and Close Combat Weapon.

Options
May take up to 40 additional Cultists - 3pts/model
May take up to 2 Brutes for every 10 Cultists - 9pts/model

For every 15 models in the unit, one model may take a single Special Weapon from the Armoury.

May take an Overseer - 13pts. The Overseer has access to the Ranged and Melee Weapons section of the Armoury.

Any model may take any of the following options.
- Upgrade their Lascarbines to Lasguns - 2pts/model
- Replace their Lascarbines with 2 Close Combat Weapons - free
- Upgrade Sub-Flak Armour to Flak Armour - 2pts/model

The unit may be upgraded to Mercenaries for 50pts

Special Rules
Restore Order - If an Overseer is present in the unit then he will execute models to restore order. If a unit of Cultists fails a Leadership Test, the Oveseer inflicts D6 automatic wounds on the unit, ignoring the failed test. Wounds caused in this manner cannot be allocated to the Overseer or any attached characters.

I like this, the restore order rule seems fun and the overseer seems a more fitting leader of a horde of madmen than another human madman.

**Roknar**

There's really no point in adding the various renegades and heretics into CSM. They are so diverse that they have to be an army in their own right. They are traitor guardsman as well as religious rabble and mutants.

Cultists in CSM is a nice touch, but they really need their own codex. Sharing the same faction as CSM, and nowadays with their own formations too, so you can ally with them easily.

IA13 does this except for the formations. They have rules to represent both the untrained and the trained.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
And you can lead them with an overseer by joining a dark apostle to the unit if you want to. Fluffy and actually not half bad.
But if GW is going to keep them, then an Overseer type of leader would be a better choice for the current CSM version. But like I said, they already exist as an army thanks to FW.

**Bobthehero**

Valkyrie wrote:
I was thinking of something to make them stand a little bit out from standard Guardsmen.

The only human with I4 are either the elite Elysians or the even-more-elite Scion Primes.

**Valkyrie**

Bobthehero wrote:
Valkyrie wrote:
I was thinking of something to make them stand a little bit out from standard Guardsmen.

The only human with I4 are either the elite Elysians or the even-more-elite Scion Primes.

Fair enough, upping the Initiative was the first thing that came into mind, although changing something else would work.

**koooaei**

Veteran cultist is like veteran grot.