Cult Units as Elites

[Kol Saresk]

The title sort says it all, but I'll clarify just so I hopefully will not be misunderstood. Recently, I was told that Cult Units are not even an option as Elites. My question is, why? Most people use Elites as suicide squads anyway so it's not like there's any value to the slot. Math-hammer says they either suck or perform lackluster as Troops. Factual experience is mix-and-matched and seems to be a matter of how people used them. But I haven't really seen any discussion as to them being Elites. So my question is, why is it not an option? If they suck at Troops why not go ahead and use them in a slot reserved for worthless suicide squads? Why not make a suicide Elite-slot unit of Noise Marines with Sonic Blasters and a Doom Siren and throw them into the middle of an IG Blob is they're going to die anyway? At last there will be a Troops slot still open for a CSM or Cultist Blob right? So seriously, why not? Is the math-hammer really all that different? It's the same stats right? IIRC, if it is the same statline being used over and over, the probability rises proportionally so two squads of NM Troops are going to be twice as sucky as one squad of NM Elites, right? So why not just put them somewhere out of the way so "real" objective takers and campers can fill in the Troops slot? Why not put them into the slot that is reserved for suicide squads if all they are going to be is a suicide squad?

[Azekai]

Scoring is better. :unsure:

[Kol Saresk]

What good is scoring if the unit scoring can't keep it? The Cult Units are supposed to be sub-par in every way to our Chaos Marines, or at least that's what I'm hearing. So why not leave the valuable scoring slots for the cheaper units that can do a better job and put the suicide units somewhere else? You know, points management.

[Brother Amarel]

Plague Marines are very good as scoring units (T5, FNP & double plas on any unit size), the other three are too expensive and if they're not scoring are not worth their points compared to, say, combi-Plas Termies.

 

If you really want to use cult troops, then them being 'not worth their points' is entirely subjective, but if you're talking 'competitive builds' then value is everything.

[Wolf Guard Dan]

With the exception of Thousand Sons, I don't buy that cult units are inferior to CSM with marks (CSM w/ MoTz are crap too). They're different and it is up to the commander to use them well. Berserkers still do well in my games. I understand why people like the MoK CSM for the use of special weapons.

[Brother Amarel]

With the exception of Thousand Sons, I don't buy that cult units are inferior to CSM with marks (CSM w/ MoTz are crap too). They're different and it is up to the commander to use them well. Berserkers still do well in my games. I understand why people like the MoK CSM for the use of special weapons.

I think you have have to 'buy into' or 'accept' that 6th ed is a mid to close-range firing game with limited use for tanks / APC's with low armour that get destroyed very quickly. From there, the cost of Beserkers is very high for a unit without access to special weapons when you can get more MoK footsloggers with the specials for less (only giving up Fearless and +1WS), the cost of Noise Marines is very high for a unit with Salvo weapons (which are horrible) that they can only take if they don't take CCW's and only get one Blastmaster per 10 and the cost of Thousand Sons are very high for a unit with SaP and no heavies / specials.

 

If Beserkers could take hidden power weapons and had chain-axes included in their cost, they'd be okay. If Noise Marines could take SB's and CCW's, had more access to Blastmasters / Doom Sirens and / or SB's were Assault 2 (or similar), they'd be okay. If Thousand Sons were Relentless, could take Heavy Bolters with Inferno Bolts and Tzeentch magic was better, they'd be okay. And if MoT was still 5++ on models with no invulnerable it would be okay again.

 

But hey, they're not, so we work with what we have and take the odd 'power hit' for fun :).

[Nehekhare]

i don't think any CSM list has points to waste. and if you have, why not take another scoring troop/more effective FA or HS coices/allies instead?

[Zhukov]

If a unit isn't worth taking as troops, they're most of the time not worth taking as elites either. Now in this case it's slighltly more complicated because you have to take a specific HQ to make them troops too... however it goes the other way too: If they are worth bringing along as elites, they are surely worth taking as troops, if the cost of doing this isn't too high. (People took Purifiers as troops for example, even though Crowe sucked big time. Slaanesh Lord isn't nearly as bad)

 

Why not make a suicide Elite-slot unit of Noise Marines with Sonic Blasters and a Doom Siren and throw them into the middle of an IG Blob is they're going to die anyway?

Because they're too expensive and unreliable for a suicide role.

 

What good is scoring if the unit scoring can't keep it?

This question is faulty. 30 cultists and 10 marines is less scoring than 30 cultists and 15 marines isn't it?

[Sception]

Berzerkers are khorne maked chaos marines that pay a premium in points to trade their bolters and special weapons for fearless and +1 weapon skill. Don't get me wrong, fearless is pretty significant, but in 6e that wouldn't be a good trade if it were free, let alone costing a bunch of points. Running them as elites only makes the comparison worse.

 

Slots isn't an issue. Chaos stuff is very expensive, points-wise. By the time we've filled up our troops slots, we're playing a big enough game that we have a separate force org. running cults as elites doesn't 'free up' slots for more CSMs, all it does is eat up points that could have been spent on CSMs instead.

 

For Plague Marines, assuming they're scoring, that's a reasonable deal. If they aren't scoring, they aren't worth the CSM unit you had to give up to fit them in your points budget.

 

The problem with cult units as elites, is that none of them are specialists in an area that warrants running an expensive, non-scoring unit in a Chaos Marine army. Berzerkers are slow, expensive, infantry assault guys with minimal shooting. They aren't appreciably better in close combat than regular chaos marines, and they can't tackle hard units like terminators. Thousand Sons are specialists at shooting power armored enemies, but that isn't a gap that we need to spend terminator-level points to fill. Our basic dudes fight marines well enough already, and thousand sons aren't even all that great at their job, and are particularly vulnerable to small arms fire, exactly the kinds of weaponry their preferred targets carry around by default. Noise marines specialize in anti light infantry shooting, but again our basic marines are fine at dealing with such targets with their bolters and chainswords. We don't need near terminator-cost models that are no more durable than generic marines to perform these jobs. Even as troops, they're overshadowed by CSMs that are just better than them by virtue of doing the same things cheaper. As elites they don't even begin to compare with plasma-armed terminators, and those aren't even all that great.

 

 

20+ point models that walk like CSMs and die like CSMs are bad to begin with. They either need to be tougher, or faster, or cheaper, or they have to be pretty awesome at a job that the rest of our army does poorly to be worth considering. Plagues are tougher, so they get the pass. The rest? If Noise Marines specialized in, say, shooting down fliers; or if Thousand Sons had AP2 bolters, making them effective anti-terminator units (something our basic CSMs actually have trouble with); or if berzerkers moved like beasts or had affordable assault transports not available to CSMs; well then maybe we'd have something to talk about. As it is, we just don't need any of these units, certainly not to the point where they're worth their very high cost to vulnerability ratio.

 

If you're running a cult army, you run the cult units, and you try to make the most of them. Taking a hit to follow your fluff is par for the course with themed armies. If you're not doing a themed army, then you don't bother with them, because they just aren't worth bothering with.

[Kol Saresk]

What good is scoring if the unit scoring can't keep it?

This question is faulty. 30 cultists and 10 marines is less scoring than 30 cultists and 15 marines isn't it?

A misunderstanding that is on my part. By "it" I meant the objective. So it should actually read "What good is a scoring unit if the unit scoring cannot keep the objective that it is going after?" I guess I was thinking the context would be enough for that.

 

The viability or survivability of the unit is in question. The Cult Units are supposed to be subpar to our Chaos Marines, including in survivability. Since 5/6 games are objective based, that means we have to worry about two things: taking objectives, and then keeping them, or objective camping. There are three ways to deal with this.

 

1.) Fast Mobile Army that is good at taking objectives and keeps moving around the board to either constantly take and re-take objectives or take objectives and try to keep the opponent away from them. Doesn't exactly sound efficient.

 

2.) Have an army made up of takers and keepers(campers). Usually means bigger army which requires each unit be as cheap as possible and still have a chance to survive. Also means some sort of variation of the taker goes after the objective with a camper bringing up the rear so it can sit on the objective without doing any work for it and the takers can move on to hopefully score another objective before the game is over.

 

3.) Make up an army of objective camping scorers. Units that can score and are made to both take and then keep the objectives. Means having a Troop-slot heavy army. Something most people want anyway. It would require at least five of these units(one for each objective) and maybe one or two more for redundancy. Or just have three so you can take the majority and build the rest of the army to keep the opponent from reaching the objectives.

 

Now, number 3 is the fan-favorite nowadays. Troop units built to be Campers(CSM Plasma squads) with the rest of army being built to keep the opponent away(Plasmacide Termies, Plasma Bikers and Cannon-spam Havocs).

 

Now, you are saying that since something isn't good for Troops, it's not good for Elites when all Elites are used for nowadays are suicide squads. Apparently there is a reliability issue with the squad being given a target that it can kill, although I always thought this is where target selection came into play.

 

My general point is this, if Troops are for scoring, and scoring is better, then why do we want and actively encourage suicide units as Troops? If we had the option of scoring Termies, either we wouldn't take them or we would find a build other than the Plasmacide suicide build. Can't exactly do that with most Cult Units. The NM, KSons and Zerkers are supposed to be subpar.

 

 

Okay, this is my point. Why waste making a unit just because it can score when it sucks? Why not just leave it where it is instead of saying to put it somewhere that it's no good or use the points to buy something at all? If it sucks in both slots, then why be picky about which slot it is in?

 

And Mali, that's my point. If They aren't worth bothering with, then why do we say "take them in a place they perform sub-par if you take them at all?" For themed lists, yeah sure I guess although two out of those four Cult Units are supposed to be rare.

[the jeske]

What good is scoring if the unit scoring can't keep it? The Cult Units are supposed to be sub-par in every way to our Chaos Marines, or at least that's what I'm hearing. So why not leave the valuable scoring slots for the cheaper units that can do a better job and put the suicide units somewhere else? You know, points management.

 

because your taking 4-5 units of those in big blobs with fearless and FnP with demon ally giving you flamers and oblits for hvy support and make them zombis . making zombis out of elite cultists would have made no sense at all. they wouldnt score and there would be not enough of them to survive a 6 turn game .

 

also puting them in to elite would mean that new players who are lured in to buy elites at shops would buy less . all those who bought mutilators or terminators would automaticly not buy cultists because those are in the same slots as the models they wanted to buy[foolish as it may have been in some cases] .

[Sception]

The one that is good, plague marines, are good in the infantry speed, mid range, shooty, toughy kind of job that is great for scoring units, but not so hot otherwise. Plague marines are good troops and not so good elites.

 

The rest? They're bad troops and worse elites. Thousand sons are bad altogether, but if they're scoring on an objective, the opponent at least has to deal with them.

 

Yeah, we generally only use elites for suicide units (well, sometimes larger terminator plasma squads). But the cult units are terrible MSU/suicide type units as well. The hallmark of a good suicide unit is being cheap, and combining that cheapness with either the ability to do considerable damage before the opponent has time to respond, or to force the opponent into a response in excess of the investment you put into them.

 

Take the single nurgle mutilator some like. I'm not so convinced by them, but those who like them say that while they're easy to deal with, they're hard to deal with efficiently. The same just isn't the case for Noise Marines, Berzerkers, or Thousand sons. They don't do the disruption thing, they don't do the hunter/killer assassin thing, they don't fill any significant gaps in our usual unit selections, they cost a lot of points.

 

If you have to take them anyway, then you want them to be scoring, so you can at least have that extra bit of threat to them. Noise Marines sit and shoot, and they do that a lot worse than havocs, but at least they can actually be scoring while siting behind that ADL. Berzerkers... I just can't justify berzerkers for any reason other than pure fluff right now, and if you're running a WE fluff army then they're probably troops anyway. Thousand Sons... you're going to use them like plasma chosen, trying to infiltrate or rhino them into a central position for some early low AP firepower. Chosen have better firepower, but at least the sons can threaten a claim on that central objective you threw them on. The chosen, wiped down to a single guy, can be ignored, the Thousand sons, wiped down to a single guy, still need to be finished off. If they're scoring.

 

All of them are better if they're scoring. They're just not good either way. Again, excepting plagues.

[Kol Saresk]

The one that is good, plague marines, are good in the infantry speed, mid range, shooty, toughy kind of job that is great for scoring units, but not so hot otherwise. Plague marines are good troops and not so good elites.

 

The rest? They're bad troops and worse elites. Thousand sons are bad altogether, but if they're scoring on an objective, the opponent at least has to deal with them.

 

*snip

 

All of them are better if they're scoring. They're just not good either way. Again, excepting plagues.

Okay, first and last sentences are my points. If they suck, why bother taking them? You're second sentence answers that question. Not really a case of "being able to score is better" so much as "being able to score makes them a mandatory target to soak up damage that could go elsewhere." Thanks. Well, after this point every post is either going to be redundant or useless.

[Zhukov]

A misunderstanding that is on my part. By "it" I meant the objective. So it should actually read "What good is a scoring unit if the unit scoring cannot keep the objective that it is going after?" I guess I was thinking the context would be enough for that.

No, I got that you mean that. But that thought is also wrong in itself. Why? Because:

1. It assumes that 5 man can't hold an objective. This isn't necessarily true.

2. If it is, what about sending another 5 man towards it?

 

And there we arrive to why I said (Apparantly I had to explain it better): 5 more marines who can score cannot be worse pure from a scoring perspective.

It's like you view the whole thing in an absolute vacuüm with assumptions, a wrong one to boot: The one that you can only send those 5 marines to an objective and that they will not hold it. That's not how the game works, you should make decisions ingame based on ingame variables, not on pre-defined thoughts about how you should play.

 

The viability or survivability of the unit is in question. The Cult Units are supposed to be subpar to our Chaos Marines, including in survivability. Since 5/6 games are objective based, that means we have to worry about two things: taking objectives, and then keeping them, or objective camping. There are three ways to deal with this.

 

1.) Fast Mobile Army that is good at taking objectives and keeps moving around the board to either constantly take and re-take objectives or take objectives and try to keep the opponent away from them. Doesn't exactly sound efficient.

 

2.) Have an army made up of takers and keepers(campers). Usually means bigger army which requires each unit be as cheap as possible and still have a chance to survive. Also means some sort of variation of the taker goes after the objective with a camper bringing up the rear so it can sit on the objective without doing any work for it and the takers can move on to hopefully score another objective before the game is over.

 

3.) Make up an army of objective camping scorers. Units that can score and are made to both take and then keep the objectives. Means having a Troop-slot heavy army. Something most people want anyway. It would require at least five of these units(one for each objective) and maybe one or two more for redundancy. Or just have three so you can take the majority and build the rest of the army to keep the opponent from reaching the objectives.

 

Now, number 3 is the fan-favorite nowadays. Troop units built to be Campers(CSM Plasma squads) with the rest of army being built to keep the opponent away(Plasmacide Termies, Plasma Bikers and Cannon-spam Havocs).

Sorry, but is purely theoratical again, with conclusions while you forget 1 very important basic:

What you kill can't kill you.

 

Explaination in case it's not clear what this implies:

Plague Marines have the best defense point for point, compared to CSM and the other Cult troops. But they have less damage output. Hence they will kill less, so you will get more fire towards you for a longer period of time.

 

I agree that you need a certain amount of bodies if you plan on using your troops offensively. But one could run 2x 10 CSM and 4x 5 Noise Marines, just to give an example. The Noise Marines units individually seem incapable of claiming objectives, but overall you are still looking at 40 MeQ bodies, which is a good amount up to 1850 at least.

 

 

Now, you are saying that since something isn't good for Troops, it's not good for Elites when all Elites are used for nowadays are suicide squads. Apparently there is a reliability issue with the squad being given a target that it can kill, although I always thought this is where target selection came into play.

The reliability issue comes not forth from being to kill (or inflict enough damage) to the target or not. It comes forth from being able to get there. Termies deepstrike usually with a 12" rapidfire range, making them fairly reliable in getting their damage off. This is way harder with Noise Marines with Doom Siren (I assume this is what you take?).

 

If I took Noise Marines as an elite choice, I'd actually take a squad of 10 full with Sonic Blasters and Icon of Excess. When would I do that? Not sure, probably when my list lacks small arms fire heavily.

 

My general point is this, if Troops are for scoring, and scoring is better, then why do we want and actively encourage suicide units as Troops?

Who are we? Be carefull when speaking for a whole group of people. This isn't a circlejerk here as far as I know.

 

And suicide units is a loose term. Be carefull when applying this too. On paper 5 Noise Marines with a Doom Siren in a Rhino might seem like a suicide unit. However on the board when there are more units, they might not function as one because they actually work along with others and/or survive. The old Termicide from 5th edition was more a pure suicidie unit, they often deepstriked somewhere in the middle of the opposing army trying to take out a tank, without any support. They usually just died next turn or ended up doing nothing anymore after using their combies. (in which case they were useless too, useless or dead is the same almost)

 

If we had the option of scoring Termies, either we wouldn't take them or we would find a build other than the Plasmacide suicide build. Can't exactly do that with most Cult Units. The NM, KSons and Zerkers are supposed to be subpar.

Another assumption. Just because 3 Termies die, doesn't mean 4x3 Terminators do too. If they were troops maybe I would actually take 4x3 Terminators and 2x 7 Plague Marines as troops. Seems legit. Maybe ally some more, depending on the amount of points.

 

Okay, this is my point. Why waste making a unit just because it can score when it sucks? Why not just leave it where it is instead of saying to put it somewhere that it's no good or use the points to buy something at all? If it sucks in both slots, then why be picky about which slot it is in?

Who's being picky? Who's saying you can only use them as troops? Who says they're bad as troops? Does it even matter? Who was first, the chicken or the egg?

 

Hehe huehue.

 

Cult units I'd probably never use as elites:

-Thousand Sons. I don't see what they can add to an army when they don't even score, what a different unit can't do better.

-Plague Marines. Their damage output isn't big enough to justify their price, and their defensive capabilities matter way less when they're not scoring.

 

Cult units I'd probably only use as troops:

-Berzerkers. They're already a bit subpar. If I'd take them it would be in a Land Raider, in which case I want them to be able to actually hold objectives once they're done killing things. The investment would be so high that you can't afford them to be not scoring.

 

Noise Marines are the only unit in the codex which I trouble rating. With Sonic Blasters they torrent well overall, but CSM might be able to do this just as well. Doom Siren has potential, but Helldrake and the Brand of Skalathrax do it more efficiently, but sometimes more is better or you want more bodies or potential scoring. Rawr.

 

 

Oke there you go, not gonna do this every time!

[the jeske]

well technicly you could take a big firebase NM unit like 10-12 with sonics to counter teq units , but not DW style armies , more like those that run one unit as a death start . The problem with NM is that they just cost too much and without sonics , we are going in to an area where we ponder what is better one low ap flamer template and fearless or two special weapons and lower cost or ultrgrit . I was in the camp which always wanted cheaper stuff. death stars or even high points units have to realy be awesome [like a storm raven for example or falcon in the 4th] and even if they are they still suffer a lot from random factors . bad scaters above avarge rolling [on under avarge rolling] and you can be losing 1/5 of your army .

 

But the realy sad part about NM is how little synergy they have with rest of our army . They have one spell that makes sonics better [and that has to be cast , go through psychic protection etc] . Stuff like huron or to be more precise infiltration works so much better with terminators or any other unit with plasma .

[Zhukov]

Hmm maybe I'll fiddle around with Noise Marines a bit tonight and see what I can make. I think you gotta go for an 'ignore fliers' list. (you don't want helldrakes when taking so much anti-infantry already and without helldrakes you wont cover anti-air properly)

[the jeske]

Probably , I did that with 1ksons .10cultists 3x5 1ksons 2x7 termis 3x3 oblits ahriman . Works a lot smoother then lists that try to run 8-10 sized 1ksons squads.

[Kol Saresk]

Zhukov, I think I like you. That is a rather different than I've seen some people take when responding. Thanks for that.

[Bat33.1]

I thought it had been math hammered that Berserkers were worth the extra points v csm with MoK and IoV?

 

I don't have enough experience to know the answer here so will happily listen to the views of the forum on this. Just playing devils advocate...

 

Something I've not seen mentioned is the possible problem of sniping icons out of marked csm squads, is this not regarded as a problem now? Is there any way to negate the risk of this?

[Jacinda]

The problem is the cost for marks and icon give a beter return if spent on adding more models to a basic CSM squad.

[the jeske]

I thought it had been math hammered that Berserkers were worth the extra points v csm with MoK and IoV?

 

I don't have enough experience to know the answer here so will happily listen to the views of the forum on this. Just playing devils advocate...

 

Something I've not seen mentioned is the possible problem of sniping icons out of marked csm squads, is this not regarded as a problem now? Is there any way to negate the risk of this?

 

they arent . csm are plain better because of rapid fire changes and 2 plasma guns . a zerker unit would have to get untouched in to hth and never face teq or FnP models to be better then a unit of csm . Ah and of course never fail a to charge roll.

as the icons go . they arent run in general . there are few moments when icon could be considered for very specific units [FnP for bikers for example] . most of the time they are not used at all .

[Agent Purple]

I like how people on release were talking about how CSM squads were so verstabile due to marks and icons and weapon options.

 

A bunch of bad options is basically like having no options at all...

 

None of the basic chaos MEQ infantry (except for havocs) is really any good. Best bet is to just buy a couple plasma VOTLW squads, and some cultists to hold objectives, and just spend the better part of your points on things that don't suck. Like bikers, or helldrakes, or obliterators, lords, etc...

 

If you want to build an army based around marine infantry, you basically picked the wrong codex.

 

I like how noise marines get a cumulative buff spell, but if you want to take advantage of this you need to take double sorc, which means no lord with MoS for noise marine troops.... wonderful. Thanks Phil...

[the jeske]

ok am missing you here . how are csm bad or worse then cult . taking zerkers or pms forces you to run specific HQs , that is never good . csm survive more then zerkers for same points and have more offensive power then pms .

 

now am not going to argue that SW make better slogger armies . it is true , but A it is not just because of how bad/good csm are, but because of other options SW have[drop pods for example]. B it is not our foult that SW combo better with IG then we do .

[Agent Purple]

I'm not arguing that cult are better than CSM. I'm saying they're all bad. CSM are better than cult by virtue of costing less points for a useable unit.

[the jeske]

yeah but then you may as well be saying that it aint worth to play chaos .And true or not , I doubt people around here will like such ideas. Just saying.