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I've been contemplating the effectiveness of swarming with Cultists lately.. doing some numbers I've recently come up with a 1k army

Typhus - 230pts
Cultists x 30 - 130pts
Cultists x 30 - 130pts
Heldrake x 3 - 170pts per Drake

I was also contemplating making a 2500 point game where using 2 FOCs I would bring 8 sets of 30 cultists Typhus a 200 point lord and 6 Drakes..

Has anyone tried or seen any videos, on how these types of armies do?

Tanks, of any sort would bum you really...

Its brilliant if you had another 1850 worth of stuff to back that up imo... but alone... your struggling....

For 1k If you like Typhus, which I kind do. For his 2/5+ alone.

I'd run

Typhus-230
20xCultist
20xCultist
20xCultist

2xHeldrake

With the pts left from the 2nd Heldrake take something that can get some melta/ranged str 8 possibly. IMO

Forgefiend ?

Defiler

I've tried zombie cultists a few times. They are really great at absorbing some kinds of fire, but fall apart when attacked by massive amounts of low strength attacks.
For example, a squad of boys assaulting just tears them to pieces in a round or two. Space wolves can do the same thing.

For few squads, their awesome objective holders. For killyness their just lacking.

 Solomongrundy wrote:
Defiler

This.

You need something for AT. Even at 1000 I usually bring a razorback and you wouldnt be able to pop it

As an Imperial Guard player who's tried plenty of variations of "bring more bodies than they have bullets", you will never have enough bodies. You'll get ripped to shred in close combat and horrifically gunned down by most armies who will laugh at your peashooters.

...Wait...you say you want to build a 'horde', then you spend 260pts on 'horde' units and 740pts on four models? This doesn't make much sense. If you want a 'horde', play a 'horde', not an "I want to take cheap Troops units so I can spend half my points on Heldrakes" army. Fewer Heldrakes, more power-armored bodies.

Unless you are intentionally taking cheap troops just to unlock maxxed Heldrakes, in which case I cannot help.

That is actually the plan XD Maximize amount of drake, and hope your Vector Strikes pop your enemies tanks.

The only thing that I cannot pop in that sens, is AV14 Tanks (LRs)

As Vector Strike hits everything else on Side Armor automatically..

I understand that running into armored vehicles will be a pain, but I simple cant see how having 3-6 torrent weapons would ever be a bad thing XD

I tried a game at 1k points and had a friend Psudo sub a LR in his SM army.. I won, losing only 30 cultists (Roughly 20 from one squad and about 10 from another)

The drakes managed to deal a considerable amount of wounds with little dmg done to them (I actually managed to gain 2 wounds back with their "IT will not die!" special rules, YAY!)

All in all, it was pretty fun, but I was very lucky with terrain and keeping my Cultists hidden for that 1 turn where they could not be seen..

I think the cultists would be more of a hindrance than a help. They can't beat anything in close combat, and all he has to do is get his units into combat with your cultists and they are then immune to your helldrakes. Your own units would be shielding his while they get their butts kicked.

Are we talking cultists or Plague Zombies??

I assume the latter due to the prescence of Typhus in the list...

Indeed, plague zombies


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They are simply there as a means to guarantee I have something on the board while the drakes fly on and off the board

GoliothOnline wrote:
Indeed, plague zombies


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They are simply there as a means to guarantee I have something on the board while the drakes fly on and off the board

but what happens when the cultists die and your helturkey's leave the board?

I agree that the zombies are a great niche unit, but they will certainly die quickly! The list that I run has one unit of zombies that sit in the back on an objective (hopefully in cover) and three units of marines that can go out and take other objectives.

IMO, when you only take one kind of unit, you set yourself up to not have enough tools to win games

I have to agree, this army would probably struggle mightily at 1k, especially since most people attempt to "break" 1k. What do you do against 2 Land Raiders? Curl up into a ball and cry until its over? What do you do against, jesus, a Hellhound? A single Hellhound. I mean, A SINGLE HELLHOUND!!!!??!
Anyways, I would recommend you add either a squad of Oblits or a squad of HAvocs.
Adding in 1 defiler or 1 forgefiend would be folly as whatever antitank the opponent brings will likely blast them off the board t1 or t2. If you have all infantry, stay all infantry and add havocs or oblits.

 Brymm wrote:
I have to agree, this army would probably struggle mightily at 1k, especially since most people attempt to "break" 1k. What do you do against 2 Land Raiders? Curl up into a ball and cry until its over? What do you do against, jesus, a Hellhound? A single Hellhound. I mean, A SINGLE HELLHOUND!!!!??!
Anyways, I would recommend you add either a squad of Oblits or a squad of HAvocs.
Adding in 1 defiler or 1 forgefiend would be folly as whatever antitank the opponent brings will likely blast them off the board t1 or t2. If you have all infantry, stay all infantry and add havocs or oblits.

I am actually unfamiliar with the AV of a Hellhound, but I'd imagine it's somewhere in the 12-13 range? lol

either way the Drakes are hitting them D3+1 on side armor automatically.. I found that makes a great difference.

I also wonder what it is that at 1k points someone would be bringing 2 land raiders =/ What points does one have left over to bring an HQ and 2 troop choices if half your points are dedicated to 2 Xports? =/

Hellhounds are 13-12-10 I believe, but the thing is they're fast vehicles with a torrent weapon (str 6 ap 4 I believe) and if I recall correctly they get inflitrate or a scout move or something, so Brymm was right, one hellhound will put a huge hurt on your list even if it just gets your zombies on turn one then dies on turn two (assuming your drakes come in right away, and you can take out the hellhound), and more likely a good guard player will maneuver his hellhound out of the way of your helldrakes (I've done it before, fast vehicles are great for getting around fliers' very limited mobility), and additionally will probably have a Officer of the fleet in his list, meaning your are even less assured to have your heldrakes come in right at turn two.

TL;DR - Brymm was absolutely right, a hellhound WILL ruin your day

Disclaimer - luckily, hellhounds aren't very common in IG lists these days

Drop the drakes take a few squads of havocs then take some blobs of nurgle CSM make it a true horde i would consider taking Huron for his master of deception and a sorceror with biomancy powers and just make the blobs FNP


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Low str shooting even en masse has such a hard time against T5 use endurance abd then you have T5 3+ FNP Marines if you take a blob of 20:along with your zombies that will be nasty

If you're running plauge zombies, go big or go home. Put out 4x 30 man squads.

lizardwolf19 wrote:
Hellhounds are 13-12-10 I believe, but the thing is they're fast vehicles with a torrent weapon (str 6 ap 4 I believe) and if I recall correctly they get inflitrate or a scout move or something, so Brymm was right, one hellhound will put a huge hurt on your list even if it just gets your zombies on turn one then dies on turn two (assuming your drakes come in right away, and you can take out the hellhound), and more likely a good guard player will maneuver his hellhound out of the way of your helldrakes (I've done it before, fast vehicles are great for getting around fliers' very limited mobility), and additionally will probably have a Officer of the fleet in his list, meaning your are even less assured to have your heldrakes come in right at turn two.

TL;DR - Brymm was absolutely right, a hellhound WILL ruin your day

Disclaimer - luckily, hellhounds aren't very common in IG lists these days

hellhounds are 12, 10, 10 so helturkeys can make short work of them.



The problem with this swarm is that the swarm just isnt very good. IG will mop it up quickly with lasguns. 60 T3 FNP wounds will fall very quickly.

Ork boys will similarly make a mockery ok them. WS4 T4 str4 on the charge str4 guns. FNP and T3 wont save you.

 Exergy wrote:

Ork boys will similarly make a mockery ok them. WS4 T4 str4 on the charge str4 guns. FNP and T3 wont save you.

My point exactly. Just about anything can beat them in assault, so all the zombies are doing is providing immunity to the bale flamers to your opponent while he mops the floor with you.

If you want to field a great big tarpit army you better take some stuff that can smash face in close combat while your units are tarpitting. I think a daemon prince with black mace or tooled up jugger lord or something proficient in killing lots of stuff would make the list work better than a couple hell turkeys that aren't allowed to shoot at anything.

Zombies are only half the reason to take Typhus; the other half is Plague Marines become Troops; and the other half is he's a nasty beast in combat, if he can get into combat.

For that reason, I do like the idea of taking Typhus, 2 big units of zombies, 2 units of Plague Marines, and Huron Blackheart, and Havocs or maybe some Oblits if they'll fit. The Infiltrating zombie blob with Typhus means he will hopefully not have to spend 4 turns marching across the field to fight. But if you roll 1 unit to Infiltrate then it sucks.

If you took Oblits, at least Typhus could join the Oblits and deepstrike in, pretty much nuking anything they fire at with his psychic powers ( plague wind eats infantry). Then instead of Huron you could take a Sorcerer of something else cool.

Ive been running mass cultists and have had decent success, I run a word bearer theme army thus I dont use tyhpus but anyways heres what i learned.

Cultists are great for objective denial and tarpitting, Instead of maxing out at 35 I run about 3 units of about 20-25each, keep them in cover and they are tough to deal with, This works great in a game of attrition where the enemy ignored them until all their big guns are destroyed.

The problem youll face is being able to deal damage to hqs and armor, rather than relying on 3 hellturkeys, id consider running maybe one for mobility and then loading up on obliterators (the hellturkeys just dont ever land enough shots for my liking). Tzeentch Daemon allies are another good response to big guns/termies. As would be a daemons MC or csm Dp if your not worried about them getting one shotted.

Ultimately, The big question is where do you intend your damage to come from?

 Exergy wrote:


hellhounds are 12, 10, 10 so helturkeys can make short work of them.



The problem with this swarm is that the swarm just isnt very good. IG will mop it up quickly with lasguns. 60 T3 FNP wounds will fall very quickly.

Ork boys will similarly make a mockery ok them. WS4 T4 str4 on the charge str4 guns. FNP and T3 wont save you.

My apologies, teach me to try and post from memory!