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Hi All,
Looking for advice from those that know best.

I am starting a small CSM army to play with friends. I want to include some Cultists, but, it seems there are 2 ways of buying cultists - Dark Vengeance box, of 5 at a time in the £5 mini box.

As there can be up to 40 in a squad (Required for maximum fodder capacity), I don't really want to buy 8 boxes and have the same 5 minis, or the dark vengeance box, which is proving hard to find (Unless I want to buy them in small bits and pieces on ebay!).

So!

I am looking to do some conversions ideas, but don't know the best place to start.

I want my CSM army to be black legion/Undivided. So, I thought maybe try and make some Traitor guard to proxy as cultists.

Has anyone done this before? Any picutres for inspiration?

What did you use as a base? I'm thinking maybe cadians, and augment them with left over spikey bits?

Advice would be appreciated

Thanks,
Ryutek.

Aside from scouring eBay for DV Cultists or even Black Stone Fortress Traitor Guard, the only real way to get them is the 5 per box kit.

Alternative may involve conversion work. But using Genestealer Cult Cadians is a decent alternative that might just require the right paint scheme. They already have something "off" about them compared to regular Cadians, which you can say is their Chaos mutations (rather the GSC infection)

I keep wanting to use Beastmen Gors with pistols and chainswords, but that project keeps getting pushed back by other things.

Check out the Age of Sigmar range too. There are plenty of Chaos human sets that might work. Axes and knives can be "counts as" pistols when thrown

I have a bunch of genestealer cult neophytes I want rid of if you're interested? They would make decent cultists with a little work. Send me a pm if you're interested.

There are endless kit bashing options. I've built about 40 cultists by combining Neophyte Hybrids, WFB Empire Flagellants and Skitarii Rangers.

Necromunda gangers, genestealer cultists, renegade guardsmen from one of the existing Guard regiment kits, Blackstone fortress, DV, or something crom a 3rd party like Pig iron productions

If you don't mind hybrid metal-plastic kits, Northstar sells conversion kits for the Frostgrave Cultists.

Where can you buy Cultist boxes for £5???

If you don't care about the 50% GW rule, I recommend Tox Troopers:
http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Tox-Trooper-Squad

They are very versatile for all your shabby infantry needs. They are also quite affordable. £20.00 per set of 10, free shipping if you buy 2 sets.

I personally kitbash Skitarii heads and arms with Anvil Industry torsos and legs for my Guardsmen. There are also robed cultist and bionic lines.

Anything can be a cultist! Chaos doesn’t discriminate.

True, but Tox Troopers look really good next to some Nurgle CSMs:



(Not mine, but a good example.)

You can also do violet robes with metallic black armor for Slaanesh, red and bronze for Khorne, or sky blue and gold for Tzeentch.

Thats pretty good next to the Plauge marine.

Honestly Chaos cultists can be just about any human scaled model. from Canadians converted with extra spiky stuff to all the necromunda gangs with the right paint job or all of the 3rd party manufacture or other game systems with ragtag guys with guns or melee weapons if you dont mind 3rd party.

you could even go crazy with blood bowl guys in pads and make em all mad max.

one thing i wanted to do personally was to use GSC models to do a potential chaos,imperial worker,gsc group by removing icons and green stuff most of the nid off of them and giving them helmets. kinda works but it could be fine for a space based cultist group. (paint up the hazard suits as space suits, give them helmets from skittari range.)


(Could be cool for a fleet based force)

personally i think Cawdor could be pretty cool at least as word bearers cultists, but f or black legion.. i think your best bet is is mix in a bunch of blackstone fortress traitor guards, the beast men, and throw in a bunch of imperial guard boys with the aquilla shaved off, throw some spikes some spiky banners and more spikes. also some mutations and haggered look. perhaps some jean stealer heads and bits.

I would suggest you get the dark vengeance chaos cultists as they come with many poses and include 2 sgts and 2 heavies. Then perhaps get the new Blackstone Fortress boxset or just the traitor guard through eBay.

For 3rd party options, I’d highly recommend mad robot miniatures for their crimson pak chaos cultists kit.

 Suzuteo wrote:
True, but Tox Troopers look really good next to some Nurgle CSMs:

Spoiler:

(Not mine, but a good example.)

You can also do violet robes with metallic black armor for Slaanesh, red and bronze for Khorne, or sky blue and gold for Tzeentch.

Never seen those before ...

And never knew I need them so badly ...

I hate this place ...

Skitarii, gsc acolytes, imperial guardsdudes with some modification, many necromunda gangs...

It's a bit on the expensive side, but I kitbashed 20 cultists using Catachan and Ungor bits. They don't look perfect, but I'm pretty sure I can just say "hey, these bows are actually primitive autoguns" and be fine in most games. However, I'd really recommend Gor bits over Ungor because using Ungor arms on Catachan bodies requires a good bit of greenstuffing/milliputting. I ended up just doing some head-swaps and only putting a few of each kits arms on the others where they fit.

Mad Robot makes some Blood Pact style heads
https://madrobotminiatures.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=9_10&sort=20a&page=6

Or if you prefer a robed look, Anvil recently introduced a cultist line
http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Regiments/regiments-robed-cultists

Both companies are good; I’ve bought stuff from both and the quality was fantastic.

For a base, it’s hard to go wrong with Cadians. My Guard are basically just head swapped Cadians, but they still pull off a nice Valhallan theme.
Stock cultists can work too; it’s surprising what a different paint job and a head swap with a slight change of direction can achieve.
As others have mentioned, genestealer cults and necromunda gangs can also add some variety.