Jump to content

Why cultist blobs and infiltrate are awesome


Mr.darkness

Recommended Posts

Some of you might have noticed the pressure list I posted in the army list section. It was an attempt to make the maulerfiends work. I wanted them to work so much. I love the background, I love the models, I love The rules, but it wasn't to be. The aim of the list was to provide so many targets that the opponent either couldn't kill them all before they hit, or he would panic because they were all on him quickly, so wouldn't really kill anything, and I would still hit.

The list as a whole is actually pretty good. The idea works, and as long as you get the balance between support and the threats right ( I.e. enough stuff is running at them,and you also have enough firepower to neutralize some key threats, and take down flyers ), then you should be fine.

The problem was the maulerfiends. They didn't hard anything to the list. They either got one shotted by some S8 weapon, or just glanced by a bucket of S7 stuff. Their 5+ invun is rarely helpful, as most of the time you should be able to keep 25% covered, especially with 12 inch move. It will not die is also pretty useless, and I think I rolled for it only once in 6 games, because most of the time people focus fire on it, because there is not point leaving it on 1 HP, the same as any other vehicle. Don't however, go saying that this is good, that it is a good distraction, because it's not tough enough to be a good distraction. As far as I can see, over a single turn, It is as tough as a single chimaera in cover. I.e. not very tough at all.

 

So,I'm going to try forge fiends next...

 

 

On to the positive aspect of the post. Cultist blobs are awesome.

A first I thought, great, it's our equivalent of guard blob squads. Then I realized hat they don't have commissars and they don't get 5 power axes, so that failed.

Then I thought, great, they are 30, cheap,ablative wounds for my lords! So i took 30 guys with no upgrades, and this one was alright. They were fearless, and they were ablative wounds. But, I did feel like I was spending a lot of points for guys that just die for no real reason, them lord could hide anywhere.

So then I thought, Ill give them a mark, and some flamers, and arrange them in 3 ranks of 10, so that all of the, will attack when I charge. And this one was VERY good. On paper then I though meh, they are just rubbish khorne berserkers, but when I played them them found them to be much more. They block up the field, they pressure the opponent, they have more wounds, they aren't a target for plasma and wotnot. They are cheap to lose to a couple of massive blasts. And even better, when you get it right, then they have a bucket of attacks is the charge, and when they get charged!! The one problem I have found is that when you take two then it is quite difficult to put them where you want in yor deployment zone. You either have to squash and become a target for blasts, or deploy too far back for them to work as the multiple threat that I wanted.

So THEN I thought, replace a lord with Huron, and give them infiltrate!! By taking two Blobs, one with Huron and one with lord, then at least one will infiltrate, and one will be in your deployment. This adds an extra vector of attack, and also puts the, closer to the enemy, thereby putting him under more pressure. When you combine this with rhino squads, spawn, bikers, anything fast, then not becomes quite potent.

What's great is that there are so many options. Outside of the obligatory 2 blobs and a third infantry squad, you can get basically anything. Termies in LR, chosen I rhinos, spawn, bikers, warp talons, raptors, havocs in rhinos, etc... Obviously some will be more effective than others, as I found with the maulerfiends but this is a valid list.

 

So, to sum up:

Maulerfiends are bad ( I tried, I really did...)

cultist blobs with Huron are awesome, try them out

This 'pressure list' is actually competitive, not just a way to get maulerfiends into a list.

 

Congrats for reading this far, comments?

How does this deal with flamers and armies with a lot of blast weapons? It looks like they're good at absorbing a lot of incoming fire and drawing attention away from other targets, while keeping your characters safe, but they would go down quickly to anyone hitting you with them templates.
Well that's the thing they are not ment to survive...losing them to some template weapons isn't terrible. As long as they divert some fire or charge something and do some damage to it (which they certainly can with MoK), then they have done their job.

Not sure on the infiltrate thing. I thought that it passed on to the character, and none of my opponents have noted anything so far.

 

Yeah, on the blasts then you just have to target them with the support I was talking about, and use the full 2 inch spacing. If you use spawn like I did then you can also try to tie them up with them or use a deep striking unit, just take it on the chin and win it back elsewhere, or try to present a different target to them.

 

EDIT

Ok, so looking at the rules, it specifically says that ICs without the infiltrate rule cannot join units infiltrating during deployment. On a side note,it also says that of a single model has it then they can infiltrate, when would that occur, without ICs, does it mean that I can give it to Huron, who is also infantry, and therefore he can gie it to the cultists?

Cultists aren't "infiltrating" units, they don't have the infiltration rule. Who have it is the character with the trait, it have the power to infiltrate D3 units. The rule don't say that he transform the unit in a infiltrating unit. He just infiltrates D3 infatry units, that's all.

 

Before deployment you join the IC to the unit, then roll D3 and infiltrate it.

I might run with this (uses DV sets nicely too).

 

35 Cultists

Champion

16 w/CCW

15 w/Autoguns

3 w/Flamers

MoK

 

Yes, the unit comes in at over 235 points but not a nice unit to charge. 3 x D3 S4 hits, 32 x S3 overwatch shots then 87 x S3 attacks. All for around 6.6 points a model.

 

Then stick a Dark Apostle with the Black Mace in that unit for lolz @ 2k points.

 

Dallas

The IC can give himself infiltrate and join a unit pre-deployment thus passing infiltrate to that unit and any designated transport they have. Works out well.

 

Shame to hear about the Maulers, I have a list I was going to play with this weekend with two Maulers and you have me doubting it now :*(

So far I've only used my DV cultists twice. I took them as a unit of 20 with pistols + hand weapons and 2 flamers, in both games they sat on an objective at the back and went to ground whenever anything so much as sneezed at them. My opponents seemed fairly reluctant to actually shoot at them at all when all the scarier stuff in my army was actually attacking them, I suppose its easy to forget about the 20 guys with no long range guns sitting in a ruin (in my 2nd game tonight, they were actually crucial in winning it; they sat on my objective in the 1-each mission while my assault units killed anything that dared come near my opponent's objective). All that for only 100 points. :)

I tried a variety of army lists, with the common factor being 2 maulerfiends, and the cultists, also they were what I really wanted to test out. Some had only the maulerfiends, and some had 2 LRs, 2 fiends, 2 hellbrutes and lots of rhinos! So no, I don't think it was saturation. I think the prob was that they a too big of a target. Maybe you could play the, at 2k where you can get more fiends and or defilers, because they all absorb the same type of shots.

 

Interesting idea to do a 50/50 split on auto guns and pistols. That makes them better at over watch, and adds another dimension to the unit. They only lose one attack, so why not? I'll give it, a go.

 

The warlord trait allows to give 3 units the infiltrate special rule. That would mean nth at if he gave it to the cultists then he wouldn't be ale to join them. What we can do though, I believe, is give Huron the lord infiltrate, because they are also infantry units, and then they will join the cultists at deployment, allowing them to infiltrate.

 

Spawns I have found to be very good. They did actually he the fiends a little, because they were traveling at the exact same speed. And for some reason, they panic the opponent more bikers do. So, if you do want to run fiends, thei believe that spawns are the way. To go.

Good to read that cultist blobs are a pain in the ass for the false emperor his minions.

Because I wanna do the same!

What do I find rather sad it that no one works with the number of the chaos gods.

Like mok is 32 cultists. Or Mon 28 for example.

Still a big bunch of cultist to defeat ;) . I'm also considering Huron & sorceror on bike!

Incorrect. Infiltrate passes on to the unit or character.

 

An Independent Character without the Infiltrate special rule cannot join a unit of Infiltrators during deployment.

 

So if an IC can deploy with a unit but Master of Deception is done before deployment, is it possible to join the IC with the unit, give the whole thing Infiltrate and deploy them all together? Or will you need to give them Infiltrate as two separate units?

Incorrect. Infiltrate passes on to the unit or character.

 

An Independent Character without the Infiltrate special rule cannot join a unit of Infiltrators during deployment.

 

So if an IC can deploy with a unit but Master of Deception is done before deployment, is it possible to join the IC with the unit, give the whole thing Infiltrate and deploy them all together? Or will you need to give them Infiltrate as two separate units?

 

At work so do not have the rulebook in front of me, but from what I remember an IC with infiltrate passes it to a unit he joins just before deployment. A unit with infiltrate and an IC who does NOT have it, then he can join them but the unit then CANNOT use any of the infiltrating rules.

 

That is what I remember it, but agian I do not have my BRB with me to double check.

BRB pg 38 (small book) Infiltrate: …“Units that contain at least one model with this special rule are deployed last,…”

 

Later: “…An Independent Character without the infiltrate special rule cannot join a unit of infiltrators during deployment”

 

I would say give the infiltrate to the IC and attach him to the unit, and they gain infiltrate.

 

By this I would assume I could give infiltrate to Huron and then infiltrate raptors or warp talons because Huron is and “infantry unit” but the IC would convey the infiltrate rule to whatever squad I attached him to.

Just had a battle against a 1500 pt Draigowing. He took 10 upgraded pallies, a 5 man squad of strike guys, a SR with mm and las cannon, and a psyfleman. I took Huron, lord, 60 cultists, 10 CSM, 9 spawn and 2 squads of autocannon havocs. I only got one squad of infiltrators,so I gave it to Huron and his company of cultists. The mission was emperors will, and diagonal deployment.

 

He wins the roll and gives me first turn, saying that he likes to see the deployment of his opponent. I take it gladly, as I know that I cannot kill the pallies, so I just want to delay the, as far as possible from my objective, which I stick right a the back of my deployment zone. And sit my CSM on it, and the surround them with the havocs. Te cultists with lord go on the edge, and the ones with Huron go above him, in the no mans land. He just deploys on the line knowing that he needs to get to my objective with the pallies.

 

I won't gie you a turn by turn, but the gist was that I ran at the pallies with one unit of cultists, and the other unit and spawn sort of cut around him to deal with the strike squad on the objective and the psyfleman. The highlights are as follows:

 

The unit of thirty cultists and a nurgle lord hold up a the pallies for like, 4 turns ( game turns),due to a combo of numbers and challenges. What's more, they do it without giving away first blood,which I eventually gain on turn three. The lord even survives two rounds with draigo.

Huron goes up to the dread and smacks him in the face. 5 attacks, with hatred, s6, ini 5 and armourbane is awesome!!!

 

The spawn didn't really do much. One squad got massacred but he pallies, ( denying him the charge against the cultists ) , and one got line breaker, so they did help a lot I guess, they just didn't kill them much.

 

In the end he called it, because he ended up having to turn back with the pallies because he couldnt reach my objective, and my warlord, line breaker and is objective was behind him. Unfortunately for him, due to the cultist tarpit, he just ran out of time to get rid of them all.

 

I think this is a perfect example of why death star based armies, especially those without much support, aren't very good. They are too easy to tarpit whilst you gain a board advantage, and by the time they break free, there isn't enough time for them to do enough to justify their points.

Grats !

 

Sounds like a tight and fun game :D

 

Sad to hear your spawns got hammered, but as you say, this delayed the deathstar, correct? And getting linebreaker with a second squad is not too shabby. I guess part of the reason why they didn`t kill much as you say, is that you played against a quite special kind of army, with very few, but truly tough, units.

I played a game yesterday, using 50 cultists (30 with autoguns and 3 h.stubbers and 20 with pistols and 2 flamers. No marks).

The pistol armed cultists were lead by a Dark Apostle, and the shooty ones lead by a Sorcerer.

 

The close combat ones took the charge of a bunch of Gargoyes and Termagants and a Carnifex, slaughtering almost all the little ones thanks to some lucky rolls and being Zealots. Sadly I had some trouble dealing with the Carnifex, who held them up long enough for a Hive Tyrant with Warp Speed to show up and kill my dudes. They did their job protecting my Pred, Oblits and CSM with lasplas for long enough for the rest of my army to kill most of his other stuff at least.

 

My 30-man squad killed lots and lots of termagant, hormagaunts and gargoyles, and were really nice to have around in my backfield, as they are scoring, and freed my CSM units up for advancing on the enemy.

 

All in all the cultists did great, especially the cheap 100 pts squad lead by the not-so-cheap DA. Zealots makes a world of difference, as you get to reroll to hit in the first round of CC, not just when you assault.

 

Ok, I faced Nids, and they have it rough, but the cultists fulfil the roll of meatshields and objective huggers equally well. Most of my shooty units would have been swamped in cc turn two if they didn't have a bunch of cultists to bubble-wrap them.

 

And when I needed to advance, leaving the remnants to guard objectives worked great and allowed me to use my units optimally.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.