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 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:
Maybe we're thinking about this all wrong. The fact that these are monopose and in the same style as the BSF cultists suggests that these might have started off as alternate sculpts for BSF but weren't included or released for whatever reason and got repurposed as cultists for CSM. If that's the case, then we may have come very close to not having a cultist kit at all. And we all know what happens to units with no models. So maybe we should consider ourselves lucky to have cultists at all, especially given everything else we lost.

'We should be grateful we weren't punished more' is a bad take for consumers.

Voss wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:
Maybe we're thinking about this all wrong. The fact that these are monopose and in the same style as the BSF cultists suggests that these might have started off as alternate sculpts for BSF but weren't included or released for whatever reason and got repurposed as cultists for CSM. If that's the case, then we may have come very close to not having a cultist kit at all. And we all know what happens to units with no models. So maybe we should consider ourselves lucky to have cultists at all, especially given everything else we lost.

'We should be grateful we weren't punished more' is a bad take for consumers.

Well, not for Slaanesh players

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:
Maybe we're thinking about this all wrong. The fact that these are monopose and in the same style as the BSF cultists suggests that these might have started off as alternate sculpts for BSF but weren't included or released for whatever reason and got repurposed as cultists for CSM. If that's the case, then we may have come very close to not having a cultist kit at all. And we all know what happens to units with no models. So maybe we should consider ourselves lucky to have cultists at all, especially given everything else we lost.

The main issue with this is that GW seems to have dug a hole that they don't know how to fill.

It started with 6th edition Dark Vengeance. They added Cultists as a troop option to the Chaos Space Marines Codex. The options were pretty straightforward and limited even back then, because even then it was based on the cultists that came in the Dark Vengeance box. That starter box lasted not only through 6th edition, but through 7th edition as well. When they finally took it down, the only replacement that the cultists got was a single miniscule box of 5 push-fit models, 3 melee, 2 autoguns, but the datasheet for the Cultists remained the same.

Enter 8th edition. By then, that piddly box of 5 models is still on sale for a little while. Eventually it disappears when Blackstone Fortress comes out. Now, BSF starts off with Traitor Guard, and then eventually they get a box of 8 cultist models, mostly with ranged weapons, but let's break that down. 1 of the 8 is a firebrand with an over-the-top flamer. Another is the cultist leader with chainsword and pistol. One is a grenade launcher, one is a heavy stubber. That leaves you with 4 autoguns.

Think about that for a moment. In order to satisfy the needs of a squad of 10 cultists with ranged weapons, you have to buy 2 boxes of 8 and leave many of the models aside. 8 become autoguns, 1 becomes the leader, and 1 is a special weapon. Don't want to pay the points for a special weapon? Gotta get another box to get a 9th autogun, and it'll be the same push-fit model that you already have 2 of. The other side of this is that we STILL do NOT have a proper melee loadout for the Cultists, and a LOT of the rest of the 40k model range doesn't supply enough pistols and melee weapons to convert it out of something else.

Genestealer Cult models don't have enough melee weapons and pistols. You could use Necromunda models, but then you're using something that's actually a slightly different scale (Necromunda models like Delaque and Escher look HUGE compared to 40k things). The next closest thing would maybe be Tzaangors, but you're buying a kit AND an upgrade pack to get the chainsword+pistol option.

What Chaos Marines needed to satisfy their Cultist troop option was pretty simple. A box of 10 cultists with pistols and melee weapons, and boy did GW give us that and NOTHING more, while having the gall to charge more for it.

Even setting price aside, you're getting a box of 10 models that gives you the bare minimum in terms of what GW's technology and design team can produce. There is one singular arm/head swap in the entire kit, with many heads molded to specific torsos and others you MIGHT be able to swap around a little bit. There's no ranged weapons, no special weapons, no way to make anything other than the bare-bones loadout.

What Chaos Marines NEEDED was a box of cultists that you could kit out either with pistol+ccw or with autoguns, along with a single flamer, heavy stubber, and grenade launcher, and maybe a couple of mask or head swaps. THEN you'd have options. You could go and add on the Cultists of the Abyss models for extra variety, be able to swap heads around to help models from being samey. It would have been 2 sprues in a box that they could have easily charged 55 dollars for, and because it had the options to kit out the squad how the codex determined, I doubt we'd be as livid. We'd probably still find complaint, but it'd be harder to do.

Now, you know what I see? I see another option that's about to be stripped. Come 10th edition Chaos Marines, I foresee the Cultist datasheet being stripped down to ONLY pistol and ccw, with no options for anything else, whenever they finally decide to retire the Cultist of the Abyss box that they've tried to hobble along.

The legacy of the Chaos Cultists is something that could have been resolved at ANY point along this path, and GW kept refusing to do that extra little bit of work. If the original Cultist of the Abyss models had been a box of 11, with 3 more autoguns and the Firebrand as a separate character... if they had reprinted the Dark Vengeance cultists and just kept them going ad infinitum like they seem content to do with things like Chaos Bikers... if the cultist kit we just got had a few more options in the box (even if they weren't autoguns, just having a few more heads/arm swaps would have been amazing)... But in every way, GW seem content to give Chaos Marines a hodgepodge of attention, missing out on details, stripping us of options, and in the case of the cultists, doing the bare minimum.

I would have rather not had Chaos Cultists in the codex at all.

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:
Maybe we're thinking about this all wrong. The fact that these are monopose and in the same style as the BSF cultists suggests that these might have started off as alternate sculpts for BSF but weren't included or released for whatever reason and got repurposed as cultists for CSM. If that's the case, then we may have come very close to not having a cultist kit at all. And we all know what happens to units with no models. So maybe we should consider ourselves lucky to have cultists at all, especially given everything else we lost.

All the BSF miniatures were 'easy-to-build', requiring no glue to assemble, and also had slottabase tabs. These new cultists lack those features, and so must have always been intended as pure 40k miniatures.

And while we're all still reeling from the audacity of that cultist sprue, the Possessed, which are almost certainly going to receive a similar treatment, STILL aren't in the preview for next week's preorders.

 RazakelXIII wrote:
And while we're all still reeling from the audacity of that cultist sprue, the Possessed, which are almost certainly going to receive a similar treatment, STILL aren't in the preview for next week's preorders.

lmao yeah.

People complaining that we have 180+ pages of... people complaining, don't seem to understand that this saga has been LONG. Everything from picking apart early playtest rumors to the leaks finally being confirmed to the reveals of the models to the release of the Codex (which was back in June) and now to the release of the Cultists (end of July) and now we're seeing that the Possessed, Master of Possession, and Accursed Cultists might not even be available until early-mid August... this has been a VERY LONG RIDE and I'm ready to move on to the next faction.

drbored wrote:

 RazakelXIII wrote:
And while we're all still reeling from the audacity of that cultist sprue, the Possessed, which are almost certainly going to receive a similar treatment, STILL aren't in the preview for next week's preorders.

lmao yeah.

People complaining that we have 180+ pages of... people complaining, don't seem to understand that this saga has been LONG. Everything from picking apart early playtest rumors to the leaks finally being confirmed to the reveals of the models to the release of the Codex (which was back in June) and now to the release of the Cultists (end of July) and now we're seeing that the Possessed, Master of Possession, and Accursed Cultists might not even be available until early-mid August... this has been a VERY LONG RIDE and I'm ready to move on to the next faction.

It's not over yet, we still have the entire arc of the Daemon Prince datasheet with an expiration date and the new Daemon Prince model.

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

drbored wrote:

 RazakelXIII wrote:
And while we're all still reeling from the audacity of that cultist sprue, the Possessed, which are almost certainly going to receive a similar treatment, STILL aren't in the preview for next week's preorders.

lmao yeah.

People complaining that we have 180+ pages of... people complaining, don't seem to understand that this saga has been LONG. Everything from picking apart early playtest rumors to the leaks finally being confirmed to the reveals of the models to the release of the Codex (which was back in June) and now to the release of the Cultists (end of July) and now we're seeing that the Possessed, Master of Possession, and Accursed Cultists might not even be available until early-mid August... this has been a VERY LONG RIDE and I'm ready to move on to the next faction.

It's not over yet, we still have the entire arc of the Daemon Prince datasheet with an expiration date and the new Daemon Prince model.

lol yep, and we still don't know if the traitor guard are going to get their datasheet in the Chaos Marine codex or something else.

Or if the leaks for a new bike kit will come out this edition or be reserved as something to be released in the next edition.

Part of the endless self-fufilling prophecy where space marines get the highest quality and highest quantity of releases then lo and behold they sell better.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Or if the leaks for a new bike kit will come out this edition or be reserved as something to be released in the next edition.

Seeing as the two major kits that are still stuck in 3rd ed are Bikers and Huron Blackheart, I'm predicting a Renegade Chapters supplement that'll have expanded rules for all that other stuff (the Purge, Flawless Host, etc) as well as those updated models.

We may just not see it for a while. GW's got a lot to release, including tons more 30k kits, 4 battletomes in the Fall for AoS, and we're still waiting on Leagues of Votann, Chaos Daemons, Astra Militarum, and World Eaters for 40k.

drbored wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Or if the leaks for a new bike kit will come out this edition or be reserved as something to be released in the next edition.

Seeing as the two major kits that are still stuck in 3rd ed are Bikers and Huron Blackheart, I'm predicting a Renegade Chapters supplement that'll have expanded rules for all that other stuff (the Purge, Flawless Host, etc) as well as those updated models.

We may just not see it for a while. GW's got a lot to release, including tons more 30k kits, 4 battletomes in the Fall for AoS, and we're still waiting on Leagues of Votann, Chaos Daemons, Astra Militarum, and World Eaters for 40k.

Don't forget that they'll need to update the Daemon Prince datasheet. Rather than a proper supplement, I predict that expanded rules for Renegades would arrive via campaign book, which would also update the Daemon Prince and include the Traitor Guard.

It is strange how they can release so much and have it feel insufficient.

drbored wrote:

 RazakelXIII wrote:
And while we're all still reeling from the audacity of that cultist sprue, the Possessed, which are almost certainly going to receive a similar treatment, STILL aren't in the preview for next week's preorders.

lmao yeah.

People complaining that we have 180+ pages of... people complaining, don't seem to understand that this saga has been LONG. Everything from picking apart early playtest rumors to the leaks finally being confirmed to the reveals of the models to the release of the Codex (which was back in June) and now to the release of the Cultists (end of July) and now we're seeing that the Possessed, Master of Possession, and Accursed Cultists might not even be available until early-mid August... this has been a VERY LONG RIDE and I'm ready to move on to the next faction.

There's a good chance you should make that late August. Warcry is a two week pre-order and while not impossible, it seems out of character for GW to have a pre-order for the missing Chaos models on August 6 to coincide with the Warcry release on the 13th. We're most likely to see anything new on August 13 for a release on the 20th.

Also considering Kill Team has been reasonably on time so far, that's another August release that may take precedence over the remaining Chaos stuff if it doesn't release alongside it.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It is strange how they can release so much and have it feel insufficient.

Life GW finds a way. Chaos(-istency) theory!

EightFoldPath wrote:
Did I miss the price on the venomcrawler + 2 oblits box coming out on pre-order tomorrow?

Also, CSM Kratos still not out yet, it came out for the lapdogs on 07 June?

Gw is clearly sticking with their "no spikes, no Chaos" stance on the Kratos. You want one in a Traitor Legion? Play 30k. You can get two in one HS slot (Squadrons!). With Flare Shields! And it can actually get a cover save!

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It is strange how they can release so much and have it feel insufficient.

Too many static kits that don't do what they should out of the box.
Chosen used to be a customizer's dream unit, rather than 'squishy terminators.' Cultists and cultist command offer little, and do so without any options or personalization. None of these kits provide a rationale for buying more than one, and several involve making an intensive, convoluted rationalization for buying any at all.

A real obliterator kit would've flown off the shelves. I think a venomcrawler-style reimagining of the older demon engines would've too.
Even cultists would've sold if they'd had parts enough to build a squad with options and the command squad was part of the box. Instead we've got the nazgul and some generic freaks in a completely different style that doesn't match anything.
Also bikes.

A Chaos update could've easily been a slam dunk. This is just a mess.
Missing out on things like a kratos datasheet feels like spite. All that's involved is swapping some keywords around.

drbored wrote:

Spoiler:

The main issue with this is that GW seems to have dug a hole that they don't know how to fill.

It started with 6th edition Dark Vengeance. They added Cultists as a troop option to the Chaos Space Marines Codex. The options were pretty straightforward and limited even back then, because even then it was based on the cultists that came in the Dark Vengeance box. That starter box lasted not only through 6th edition, but through 7th edition as well. When they finally took it down, the only replacement that the cultists got was a single miniscule box of 5 push-fit models, 3 melee, 2 autoguns, but the datasheet for the Cultists remained the same.

Enter 8th edition. By then, that piddly box of 5 models is still on sale for a little while. Eventually it disappears when Blackstone Fortress comes out. Now, BSF starts off with Traitor Guard, and then eventually they get a box of 8 cultist models, mostly with ranged weapons, but let's break that down. 1 of the 8 is a firebrand with an over-the-top flamer. Another is the cultist leader with chainsword and pistol. One is a grenade launcher, one is a heavy stubber. That leaves you with 4 autoguns.

Think about that for a moment. In order to satisfy the needs of a squad of 10 cultists with ranged weapons, you have to buy 2 boxes of 8 and leave many of the models aside. 8 become autoguns, 1 becomes the leader, and 1 is a special weapon. Don't want to pay the points for a special weapon? Gotta get another box to get a 9th autogun, and it'll be the same push-fit model that you already have 2 of. The other side of this is that we STILL do NOT have a proper melee loadout for the Cultists, and a LOT of the rest of the 40k model range doesn't supply enough pistols and melee weapons to convert it out of something else.

Genestealer Cult models don't have enough melee weapons and pistols. You could use Necromunda models, but then you're using something that's actually a slightly different scale (Necromunda models like Delaque and Escher look HUGE compared to 40k things). The next closest thing would maybe be Tzaangors, but you're buying a kit AND an upgrade pack to get the chainsword+pistol option.

What Chaos Marines needed to satisfy their Cultist troop option was pretty simple. A box of 10 cultists with pistols and melee weapons, and boy did GW give us that and NOTHING more, while having the gall to charge more for it.

Even setting price aside, you're getting a box of 10 models that gives you the bare minimum in terms of what GW's technology and design team can produce. There is one singular arm/head swap in the entire kit, with many heads molded to specific torsos and others you MIGHT be able to swap around a little bit. There's no ranged weapons, no special weapons, no way to make anything other than the bare-bones loadout.

What Chaos Marines NEEDED was a box of cultists that you could kit out either with pistol+ccw or with autoguns, along with a single flamer, heavy stubber, and grenade launcher, and maybe a couple of mask or head swaps. THEN you'd have options. You could go and add on the Cultists of the Abyss models for extra variety, be able to swap heads around to help models from being samey. It would have been 2 sprues in a box that they could have easily charged 55 dollars for, and because it had the options to kit out the squad how the codex determined, I doubt we'd be as livid. We'd probably still find complaint, but it'd be harder to do.

Now, you know what I see? I see another option that's about to be stripped. Come 10th edition Chaos Marines, I foresee the Cultist datasheet being stripped down to ONLY pistol and ccw, with no options for anything else, whenever they finally decide to retire the Cultist of the Abyss box that they've tried to hobble along.

The legacy of the Chaos Cultists is something that could have been resolved at ANY point along this path, and GW kept refusing to do that extra little bit of work. If the original Cultist of the Abyss models had been a box of 11, with 3 more autoguns and the Firebrand as a separate character... if they had reprinted the Dark Vengeance cultists and just kept them going ad infinitum like they seem content to do with things like Chaos Bikers... if the cultist kit we just got had a few more options in the box (even if they weren't autoguns, just having a few more heads/arm swaps would have been amazing)... But in every way, GW seem content to give Chaos Marines a hodgepodge of attention, missing out on details, stripping us of options, and in the case of the cultists, doing the bare minimum.

I would have rather not had Chaos Cultists in the codex at all.

I empathize with this feeling so much. It just ticks me off that they could have fixed this at any point in the last decade and simply refuse to be bothered putting an ounce of effort in.

I'm glad that we waited to see how bad the cultists are.

 RazakelXIII wrote:
And while we're all still reeling from the audacity of that cultist sprue, the Possessed, which are almost certainly going to receive a similar treatment, STILL aren't in the preview for next week's preorders.

Wasn't there something someone posted that said the gribbly chaos part of the release was pushed back to the end of August? :(

Also, apparently the possessed do have some options, although probably nothing super special. Anyone with the codex able to confirm with some pics?

 Lord Damocles wrote:
I'm glad that we waited to see how bad the cultists are.

Was it worth the wait?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 GaroRobe wrote:

 RazakelXIII wrote:
And while we're all still reeling from the audacity of that cultist sprue, the Possessed, which are almost certainly going to receive a similar treatment, STILL aren't in the preview for next week's preorders.

Wasn't there something someone posted that said the gribbly chaos part of the release was pushed back to the end of August? :(

Also, apparently the possessed do have some options, although probably nothing super special. Anyone with the codex able to confirm with some pics?

I see one alternate arm for one model and 6 different heads.

Such lovely minis but the cultist box price is ridiculous. We'll see similar with guard infantry. I love all the new minis barring a few from the coven but the prices are now pretty insane

 Lord Damocles wrote:
I'm glad that we waited to see how bad the cultists are.

This whole release has been a big rebuttal of the "wait and see" argument. We waited, we saw, and everything was either as bad as expected, or worse.

No no no. We need to wait for the Renegades supplement which will have extra Red Corsair rules, build-a-warband traits, and traitor guardsmen.
That'll surely fix it...

 Lord Damocles wrote:
No no no. We need to wait for the Renegades supplement which will have extra Red Corsair rules, build-a-warband traits, and traitor guardsmen.
That'll surely fix it...

"It's still good! It's still good!"

Meh, as someone who was playing Iron Warriors with the chaos codex, shadowspear supplement, Vigilus ablaze and Psychic awakening Faith and Fury, this new codex is a godsend. That’s four books I can put away and replace with one. Don’t need new units so the book is a win for me, and probably a few others. I may get the possessed if they don’t turn out to be priced ridiculous but certainly don’t need them.

 bullyboy wrote:
Meh, as someone who was playing Iron Warriors with the chaos codex, shadowspear supplement, Vigilus ablaze and Psychic awakening Faith and Fury, this new codex is a godsend. That’s four books I can put away and replace with one. Don’t need new units so the book is a win for me, and probably a few others. I may get the possessed if they don’t turn out to be priced ridiculous but certainly don’t need them.

I love how you come in, ignore all the issues that people have been talking about the *model* side of the faction, or how the rules relate to many of the models in the case of stripped options, and just barrel in with being pleased with yourself about the book.

Rules change often. Watch, we'll have that many books that we'll "need" shortly enough, as the next campaign happens, supplements come out again, and probably some White Dwarf stuff as well.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
I'm glad that we waited to see how bad the cultists are.

This whole release has been a big rebuttal of the "wait and see" argument. We waited, we saw, and everything was either as bad as expected, or worse.

You are forgetting the corollary to Wait And See though. Now it's time for You've Complained Long Enough Already.

drbored wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
Meh, as someone who was playing Iron Warriors with the chaos codex, shadowspear supplement, Vigilus ablaze and Psychic awakening Faith and Fury, this new codex is a godsend. That’s four books I can put away and replace with one. Don’t need new units so the book is a win for me, and probably a few others. I may get the possessed if they don’t turn out to be priced ridiculous but certainly don’t need them.

I love how you come in, ignore all the issues that people have been talking about the *model* side of the faction, or how the rules relate to many of the models in the case of stripped options, and just barrel in with being pleased with yourself about the book.

Rules change often. Watch, we'll have that many books that we'll "need" shortly enough, as the next campaign happens, supplements come out again, and probably some White Dwarf stuff as well.

Not everybody has same issues. If his collection isn't affected the loss of options is less concern for him.

Shock horror different people different opinions. Guess you think dakka should be just echo chamber with one truth only allowed.

tneva82 wrote:

Not everybody has same issues. If his collection isn't affected the loss of options is less concern for him.

Shock horror different people different opinions. Guess you think dakka should be just echo chamber with one truth only allowed.

No, but a little empathy for people who do feel bad as a result of this book would not go amiss.

tneva82 wrote:

drbored wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
Meh, as someone who was playing Iron Warriors with the chaos codex, shadowspear supplement, Vigilus ablaze and Psychic awakening Faith and Fury, this new codex is a godsend. That’s four books I can put away and replace with one. Don’t need new units so the book is a win for me, and probably a few others. I may get the possessed if they don’t turn out to be priced ridiculous but certainly don’t need them.

I love how you come in, ignore all the issues that people have been talking about the *model* side of the faction, or how the rules relate to many of the models in the case of stripped options, and just barrel in with being pleased with yourself about the book.

Rules change often. Watch, we'll have that many books that we'll "need" shortly enough, as the next campaign happens, supplements come out again, and probably some White Dwarf stuff as well.

Not everybody has same issues. If his collection isn't affected the loss of options is less concern for him.

Shock horror different people different opinions. Guess you think dakka should be just echo chamber with one truth only allowed.

It's shocking horror when said poster ignores said problems and goes "nah you're a bad consoomer"