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How do?

So I feel that the bang up job (models and background wise) GW did on GSC, means they’ve somewhat stolen the thunder of Chaos Cults.

See, both are the sleeping enemy the Imperium finds it hard to counter until they reach a certain, more noticeable size. Both are, largely, comprised of the general mass of humanity, with some trained soldiery amongst their ranks. Both seek to subvert whatever power structures exist on their world to their own aims.

Both armies use Imperial tech, including souped up civilian vehicles.

And Chaos Cults have massively fallen behind, being relegated to a single option in the CSM codex. Previously they had IA:13, which was a glorious hodge-podge of possibility. More an open source tool kit than a Codex as we understand them. You could field anything from a civilian rabble armed with sharp sticks and bad language to renegade AM Regiments, and everything in between. But that was what, for 6th Ed? Maybe 7th Ed.

Now I absolutely advocate for Chaos Cults to return as a fully playable force. Sure, they are often used as bullet catchers by CSM, but most are pretty much autonomous from the Traitor Marines. But I’m struggling to envision it beyond “spikier GSC”.

For sure, I could totally and very easily proxy suitable Chaos models and use the GSC Codex. And that does have an appeal. But it’s just not the same as Chaos Cults (who are, canonically, the vast majority of Chaos’ mortal pawns) getting their own, distinct Codex.

What are your thoughts, Dakka?

Make a supplement for IG, implement in that the specific modifications needed for IG to turn into a baseline IA13 dex, slap warlord traits, relics and stratagems on, leave the pts for arch demagogic upgrades in because that is better balanced then the nonsense gw pulls atm with subfaction traits. (including expansion into specific units depending upon what your demagogue was, a heretek magos should not just get lobotmized militia quasi servitor hordes but also get some dark mech specific units to unlock, like the great blackstone fortress electropriests...)


Watch a not salty Not Online for once gratulate GW in doing an ok job.

Though I understand the execution was a bit lacking, do you think Chaos Cults could go the 8th Ed Dark Eldar route, with lots of smaller forces, representing different cells coming together for a larger battle?

There are two main structural differences between a Genestealer Cult and a Chaos Cult.

#1 - A Genestealer Cult is directed by an instrinsic, unifying, collective urgency. This is given physical form in the Patriarch. A Chaos Cult is directed by strength of personality and beliefs, which require many individuals to want to work together instead of needing to.

#2 - A Genestealer Cult's primary goal is to expand by any means necessary. Breeding, hypnosis, poisoning, media, supplanting religious iconography. A Chaos Cult's primary goal is power and vindication of their beliefs. Expansion is a means to an end, rather than the goal itself.

How can this play out on the table top if they go in that direction? Well, I think Chaplain-style chants are a good start, psykers that are tools rather than leaders (like the Rogue Psykers from Blackstone Fortress), and more esoteric weapons. Summoning, mutants, and power as a method of rousing the rable, rather than meticulous planning. If they get Traitor Guard support, those Traitor Guard should be able to have some buff to them, like warp-charged weaponry, extra resilience from Nurgle, or other chaos-god aligned abilities.

The main problem is, GW's hyperspecificity when it comes to wargear and composition is already an anchor on the neck of GSC, it would be extremely onerous on a renegades and heretics army setup.

A RnH army should be CHAOTIC. it should be super irregular, contain crazy wargear and abilities, and super variable unit composition and in creation of characters.

Ulitmately this just doesn't work with GWs current design ethos. It doesnt work for chaos space marines (here are the five standard types of....daemon robot dinosaur....) it doesn't work for Dark Eldar (every pain engine is a one of a kind masterpiece of its sinister, mad creator! Here are the two kinds of those that there are.) and it wouldn't work for RnH.


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basically, GW created a wargame where everything was crazy, nothing was standardized, the most regimented and standardized factions in the game still fielded wild and crazy variable elements as magic wizards and enslaved star gods so you could well and truly create your own force of future space fantasy warriors...

and then they CRAMMED IT, blood spurting, limbs lost, bones snapping into a business model for selling hyperspecific monopose luxury priced models for wealthy collectors.

GW the business is designed to sole-source out the competition. It's designed to eek out a profit period of ~6 months where the hyperspecific unit and wargear designs they put out have not yet been replicated by other CAD artists who can undercut GW's prices by 50-70% haven't yet been able to reasonably replicate a proxy piece of similar quality that the same collectors will go for that one.

I use a lot of the BSF stuff to represent my Chaos Cult.The restrictions need to be kicked out in order for this to work- GW for some reason hard capped the size the Cult of the Abyss could be at the number of models that came in the box. Get rid of that, and it isn't a terrible list.

It needs more HQ options than the corrupt Commissar too- a corrupt General would be nice.

I really do think Traitor guard will be one of the new armies we see this edition. GW has laid too much groundwork to not proceed.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Though I understand the execution was a bit lacking, do you think Chaos Cults could go the 8th Ed Dark Eldar route, with lots of smaller forces, representing different cells coming together for a larger battle?

no.
it doesn't fit Chaos..

Chaos warbands, or even traitor guard, is dependant upon the "leader " figure.
A cult like system would not only break appart anything but also be contrary to the nature of chaos rallying around charismatic and powerfull.

This is why, in part, the arch demagogic system was that well recived. Because it allowed your army to represent the vision of your warlord, ergo you.


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PenitentJake wrote:
I use a lot of the BSF stuff to represent my Chaos Cult.The restrictions need to be kicked out in order for this to work- GW for some reason hard capped the size the Cult of the Abyss could be at the number of models that came in the box. Get rid of that, and it isn't a terrible list.

It needs more HQ options than the corrupt Commissar too- a corrupt General would be nice.

I really do think Traitor guard will be one of the new armies we see this edition. GW has laid too much groundwork to not proceed.

Yeah, GW could have curbed alot of the restrictions in these units, allowed for some guard vehicles and would have had an allready nice baseline..

I think I’d like to see cults combined with demons. I think I’d there was a straight up cult codex GW would make it a cannon fodder army which would require a huge amount of time to build and paint then be difficult to make effective on the board. I also think it would be in interesting to mix demon and cults to represent the planets that had fallen deepest in to chaos. Presumably there are many planets in the great that have turned into demon worlds.

I’d also be disappointed if it was just chaos IG. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if there was an element of cultists that had the same gear as IG but it could equally be a agricultural world that has fallen to chaos

I think Daemons are definitely in for me, if only because what better way to show your followers you’re 4 Reelzies?

mrFickle wrote:
I think I’d like to see cults combined with demons. I think I’d there was a straight up cult codex GW would make it a cannon fodder army which would require a huge amount of time to build and paint then be difficult to make effective on the board. I also think it would be in interesting to mix demon and cults to represent the planets that had fallen deepest in to chaos. Presumably there are many planets in the great that have turned into demon worlds.

I’d also be disappointed if it was just chaos IG. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if there was an element of cultists that had the same gear as IG but it could equally be a agricultural world that has fallen to chaos

I mean this is a given. It's going to be a massive cannon fodder army that requires a huge amount of time to build and paint because every army that is not marines in 8th is that.

You need to bring ~15 howling banshees if you want to overwhelm 1/2 of a tactical squad box of space marines in melee, 155$ MSRP to take down, what's 1/2 a tactical squad box run nowadays, 25$?

I'd hazard that the numbers are pretty similar for basically any level of less-than-marine-elite level troop. Assuming you build the box with a plasma gun and a plasma pistol and you take the good regimental doctrine, 3 squads of scions, MSRP 105$. Assuming you take a klaw on the nob and da jump them across the board and don't get overwatched, 20 boyz, seems like one of the cheaper ways to remove 25$ of space marines at only MSRP 70$.

A chaos cult army would probably be even more craptastic than GSC, and even higher priced. I'd guess it'd be at least 50$ per 1 single tactical marine you want to remove from the board. No less than a grand and a half for an army which - shocker - nobody would want to play, and then give it 6 months and you'd have the usual suspects complaining that it ought to be squatted because nobody plays it.

Removed, if you have nothing to add to the conversation then dont post - ingtær.

Ulitmately this just doesn't work with GWs current design ethos. It doesnt work for chaos space marines (here are the five standard types of....daemon robot dinosaur....) it doesn't work for Dark Eldar (every pain engine is a one of a kind masterpiece of its sinister, mad creator! Here are the two kinds of those that there are.) and it wouldn't work for RnH.

I legit lol'd at this. It's funny because it's true.

I think one of the issues is that GW can't even decide what they want CSM to be, so how are they going to know what the rabble should be?

Going strictly on the fluff you see everything from bands of cultists that are basically just ravening drifters with make-shift weapons, all the way up to full on traitor guard who'd only "connection" to chaos is a 8 point star on the side of a tank.

So my initial thought was, maybe they could do for cultists what they did for CSM in PA with the Legions - give them ways to customize. Maybe take Imperial Vehicles, a Cultist Priest of some sort etc, but THEN you run into the problem that Cultists are already more attractive than their CSM counterparts, so would that then just be the nail in the coffin and you'd never see actual CSM again? Certainly seemed like it was heading that way when RnH was at the height of its original glory.

I think maybe there's a middle ground where you can take Imperial things similar to how GSC can, and maybe also an additional character or two. Then, maybe a few additional strats depending on whether your cultist were just basic rabble, or a full on traitor guard unit (or just a unit that was raised from, say an Iron Warriors recruiting world and is well trained and equipped).

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think Daemons are definitely in for me, if only because what better way to show your followers you’re 4 Reelzies?

Would be a nice way to expand into copyright protection via use territory, hence stuff like aquish doesn't just get a warband for warcry.

the_scotsman wrote:

You need to bring ~15 howling banshees if you want to overwhelm 1/2 of a tactical squad box of space marines in melee

Yeah, assuming you don't use anything to beef them up; I don't have my Banshees yet, but my strategy is to use the Examplar of The Shrine so that they take Nerve Shredding Attack in addition to War Shout so that I get a 50% chance to do d3 MW before I fight; my Aspects fight in a detachment with the Custom Children of Khaine CW trait so that 6's to wound do 2 damage each, and I use the Supreme Disdain strat so that 6's to hit generate extra attacks.

It's a pile of hurt.

I do plan to run squads of 10 though- I'm not really an MSU kina guy.

What would be a low effort way for GW to expand on Chaos Cults? Main thing that comes to mind is simple upgrade sprue for Cadians like they did with Genestealers - include a bunch of heads, a banner arm, an icon, and a few chaos sigils to glue on top of the basic Cadian. In terms of models there is the old Dark Vengeance Cultists, of which most are available still at least, the Cult of Abyss guys, and the very specifically armed Traitor Guard squad. That is...a baseline at least. The most basic of Troops choices are done. Give them access to a couple of Imperial Guard vehicles and at least they have the most basic of basic setups for an army.

As someone else said, the cult is really in large part about the leader, so a good way to make the distinction between Chaos and Genestealer Cults is to flesh that area out. Is it an Imperial Guard Colonel gone rogue? A Planetary Governor? A Priest? Are they led by a Chaos Marine perhaps? On the plus side models exist for all of these options already, though since they'd require a tiny bit of converting in some cases don't quite hold your breath for GW to just say "use the priest model and call it Chaos".

I could see a setup where you end up with the leader being super customizable, and depending on how you build them you get certain boons or penalties. Like a generic "Cult Leader" that then has to pick between roles, purchase abilities and auras, etc. Maybe if you pick "Traitor Guard Commander" you get more access to Imperial Guard units, and access to a few Doctrines to pick from, while a Chaos Marine leader can bring along a squad of Chaos Marines to bolster the cult and gives morale and attack boosts to members of the cult due to their imposing presence and a feeling of superiority as such a paragon leads them. Perhaps a Rogue Planetary Governor gets boosts to Objective Secured, to signify the home field advantage they have, and can hire a small number of out of system mercenaries to aid their cause (Kroot mercs, Freebootas, etc).

Using existing kits that is main way I can think of doing it. If GW makes a bunch of new kits to go with Chaos Cults it could swing very differently of course.

PenitentJake wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

You need to bring ~15 howling banshees if you want to overwhelm 1/2 of a tactical squad box of space marines in melee

Yeah, assuming you don't use anything to beef them up; I don't have my Banshees yet, but my strategy is to use the Examplar of The Shrine so that they take Nerve Shredding Attack in addition to War Shout so that I get a 50% chance to do d3 MW before I fight; my Aspects fight in a detachment with the Custom Children of Khaine CW trait so that 6's to wound do 2 damage each, and I use the Supreme Disdain strat so that 6's to hit generate extra attacks.

It's a pile of hurt.

I do plan to run squads of 10 though- I'm not really an MSU kina guy.

Yeah, you just have to dedicate 2CP and half your detachment trait, and then you can kill a massive *checks notes* four tactical marines with your 110$ of howling banshees.

Point stands. Marines are now currently elite enough that the only units most armies have to compete with basic bitch space marine tactical troopers are the previously super-elite beast type units like wraithblades, bullgryns, meganobz, Lychguard etc. Regular elite stuff just don't cut it anymore, and marines carve a fething swathe through any kind of "slightly elite light infantry" like guardians scions necron warriors skitarii etc.