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Hey all,

Curious how to employ these guys properly. Working on a foot-sloggers list. thought I might add a squad or two of these cultists as meat shields. My initial thought was "Hey! Perfect for holding objectives!". Looking at their upgrade options, I'm curious what, if any, upgrades are most useful.

Also, do they pair well with any HQs? I thought MAYBE a Sorcerer, he can break off if needbe or go somewhere else if he gets crappy rolls for powers.

Thoughts?

I have yet to use them.

I do not believe small units work, so I'd take 20 guys units. Then you'd have to chose : walking or holding ground. For the former, common sense would dictate flamers + MoK, the later, autoguns + flamers for counter charge and that's it.

I read here that putting Kharne in a gigantic walking blob is very efficient.

Kharn or Typhus

I wouldn't part any mark on them, not worth it
They are just there to die anyway, wasting points to add marks

I am going to run 2x 20man units of cultists with 3x flamers and thats it, mostly for charging in

Possibly 1x 35man unit for objective holding with all autoguns and 3x heavy stubbers

If anything, a character with fearless to keep a big unit around. I hadnt thought about Kharn, but definitely worth looking into.

 ZakFaire wrote:
Hey all,

Curious how to employ these guys properly. Working on a foot-sloggers list. thought I might add a squad or two of these cultists as meat shields. My initial thought was "Hey! Perfect for holding objectives!". Looking at their upgrade options, I'm curious what, if any, upgrades are most useful.

Also, do they pair well with any HQs? I thought MAYBE a Sorcerer, he can break off if needbe or go somewhere else if he gets crappy rolls for powers.

Thoughts?

Min-sized behind an ADL with quadgun is good.

20+ sized with someone like Kharn and MoK with flamers is actually a decent idea

...or 3 35 man squads of plague zombies

30 man blob with autoguns and a sorceror this unit shot an 8 man nurgle biker unit off the field in 2 turns

But is that anecdote or mathhammerable?

If you are using cultists just to screen, you still want some flavor of Chaos IC in with the lot, or a Dark Apostle moving nearby. Their leadership is alright, but a wave of cannon fodder isn't very good if it eats only one round of fire and then breaks, and you can always have your IC drop back to your main forces if you think the Cultists are about to eat enough wounds to threaten your Lord or whatever. The Sorcerer actually isn't the best choice for this, since he's not Fearless. In this case, I wouldn't bother on any upgrades, except perhaps flamers. Flamers are cheap and do decent damage even if the unit gets charged, so they have an alright chance of making back their points.

If you plan on sitting on objectives, autoguns and heavy stubbers can be an alright investment. They're cheap enough, and it gives your cultists a chance to do something productive. You won't be killing Marines left and right, but you can at least thing pick off Orks and Gaunts fairly easily. They're not at all mandatory, however - you're not missing out by leaving the autoguns at home, and the saved points could squeeze in a meltagun elsewhere.

Marks aren't really useful in either situation. Slaanesh and Khorne give extra boosts for close combat - good ones at that - but you're typically better with more bodies for defense or screening, since you want enough men to continue to hold your ground or provide cover against incoming plasma. Tzeentch's is not so great, since you'd be much better served with several more bodies that saving the ones you have on 6s. Nurgle is much the same, since while it does give you an increased measure of protection against some shots, it does nothing against others (bolters compared to plasma, for instance) and you could just take extra men.

In fact, in my experience, Marks aren't really worth it unless you either have more points than you have cultists, in which case, have at it and mark them in, or if you want to do a fluffy list. The marks are far from bad, but you just hit the point where, typically, more bodies are worth more than more stats. One exception to this is if you decide to make the unit a key part of your list and actually invest in it. Kharn with a blob marked by Khorne is something I have personally done, and it's a ton of attacks. However, it's also a lot of points, and you need to build with it in your list - I did Rhinos to help screen the blob - or else you have a big, expensive group of guys that keel over when a lasgun looks at them funny.