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I am new to 40k. I've played Fantasy, watched videos of 40k tactics and battle reports, etc. I want to start a Nurgle themed CSM army. I've heard/read that Cultists are great, but it seems they're only great if you take them in 20-35 man squads which would only be useful in bigger games, since they're so squishy and can't do much damage. Plague marines are a must (just to convert the models muhuahaha), and I'm thinking at least 10-20 CSM would be a good start along with a generic Lord model.

My question is: What should I buy to start the army, assuming I will spend $50-80 a month or so in models. I won't play with unpainted models, so I'm thinking I should get Plague Marines first? Any advice on purchasing order would be useful. I don't want to buy stuff I won't use, especially until I have everything I will use. I'm focusing on the first 500 pts, working towards a solid 1k point army within a year or so.

2ndary question: Since the Cultists box comes with guys with autocannons and other stuff, does that mean you have to buy 8 or 9 boxes to run something without that OR is it assumed they are just cultists until you deem otherwise. I understand what proxy means, but the way GW prices stuff and doesn't sell singles it seems stupid to not proxy the cultists as cultists with xyz weapons.

Cultist only have access to auto pistol standard with a ccw, can be upgraded to autogun, and per 10 a flamer or heavy stubber. They need big numbers to survive in any point level. 6+ saves only go so far. For playing nurgle theme, Typhus is fun with cultist when you make them plague zombies and more survivable. Nurgle bikers and nurgle chaos spawn are great higher T fast attack. Chaos lord of nurgle on a bike with a chaos spawn escort is great. That's 15 T5 wounds with the spawn alone. That's what I like to play. Have fun

Here is what I would buy/build, in order

Typhus
2 Squads of Plague Marines (can use them as CSM, who do have a +1 init to the PM)
30 cultists (to be Zombies, of course)
20 Bikes (T6 plasma platform)
5 Spawn (T6 with 15 wounds)
2 Vindicators (to roll with the bikes and hurt things)
10 Terminators (Forge world has both awesome Plague bodies and some sweat deathshroud termies)
ADL (for your havocs and the Vindicators if you need to hold something)
Havoc squad with ACx4
Generic Lord on a Bike, to ride with either spawn or bikes

The above list is a very solid start to a Nurgle themed army. Typhus and the Plague marines are a must, although I would use them as PM not CSM. 20 Bikers are alot and can be expensive to acquire, so maybe start with one squad, get some other things, and then go back and add some more Bikers later. The FW terminators, both Deathshroud and Nurgle, look beautiful and I would say atleast one squad is a must for a Nurgle Themed army just because they are so awesome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also, Cultist are very cheap so it is easy to get huge numbers of them in any army, even a 500pt one.

I think it was 540 points to make 6 35 man strong units. That's 210 cultist

Thanks! The list makes sense, although typhus at 230 pts in a 500 pt game seems insane.

A generic lord or lord on a bike seems a more sensible choice from the standpoint of getting to play sooner with my purchases. Typhus is a super awesome looking model though. I haven't seen a model of a chaos lord on a bike.

My only concern with a pure Nurgle army is that alot of the more basic choices seem to be geared for sitting on objectives, rather than killing stuff which is fine unless you're playing low point games. Maybe I'll see that's not true after I have a few actual games under my belt.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 conker249 wrote:
I think it was 540 points to make 6 35 man strong units. That's 210 cultist

50pts for 10 and then 25 x 4 pts each is 150 per 35 man unit without MoN or Flamers or anything else. That's cheap but I'd think they won't do much but tarpit without flamers. 165 with 3 flamers. With MoN and flamers that's 225 just so they don't die and break before touch anything. That's not bad for a 1k point game, but for 500 pt games that's ALOT for slow cannon fodder that might kill one unit before it dies a horrible death. That's my only concern with Cultist spam. Two 150pt squads is great, except they'll get butchered. If you make them so they don't get butchered or run, they're expensive for a low kill unit.

Regardless, I think Plague Marines are the way to go until I have points enough to bulk up a higher point cost army.

You want to keep Cultist cheap, no marks and at the most autoguns for weapons, but thats it. Zombies are great and can be taken in larger squads then 10

Bozobarnum wrote:
My question is: What should I buy to start the army, assuming I will spend $50-80 a month or so in models. I won't play with unpainted models, so I'm thinking I should get Plague Marines first? Any advice on purchasing order would be useful.

Start with some generic CSM and paint them as Plague Marines. While the PM set is nice, there are only 10 models so every squad will look identical. That's why I suggest generic CSM.

You can also get some more PGs for your army here. This helps greatly, as you generally want 2 PGs per PM squad.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440339a&prodId=prod1710022a

Get a rhino for them as well. CSM rhinos help a decent amount.

Build up 3 of those squads, and thats a base for any army.

If you're not planning to get the battle force (a good start btw. The possessed kit is really nice for conversions, the wings can count as jump packs for example), I wouldn't get Rhinos that early.
In low point games where you normally play on smaller tables you can nearly all the time reach every point per foot fast enough and as there will be no other tanks, the chances are high that your enemy blasts it up in turn 1 or 2 with a lucky shot and you have to run up the field anyway.

Also green stuff helps a lot to build PMs out of normal CSMs. It's not hard at all to make some pox or pustules and they will look fine. You can use this method on your other units as well to represent the MoN.

Excellent! Thanks all!