How to equip Cultists

[Kaspar]

I start building 30 Cultists for allround use. To use them as a big blob or slit them into MSU

 

How do you equip them???

 

Shooty? CC? With heavy weapon or flamer?

[Commissar K.]

Which Legion do you want to use them for? In even larger context, what are your army plans with them?

In any case, most of the time autoguns are the best choice, heavy stubber or flamer is really a toss up. Adding it doesn't make them suddenly fantastic either.

For me the cultists are handy to fill Troop slots for cheap and hang around on Objectives basically not doing anything but being obnoxious ;) 

[norngahl]

To be honest, rifles. Earlier chance to attack due to range, in CC not every model can attack, even if they have 2 attacks instead of 1.. It won't do as much damaged as rifle shooting and 1 attack combined.

[Stross]

Depends on situation, but mostly avtoguns without any specials (because flamers are not that cheep). They can shoot something, when they are in big numbers. 

[Backslide]

I like 17 with autoguns 2 heavy stubbers and champion with whatever at 88 points they are very annoying

[Panzer]

Definitely Autoguns. The amount of damage you maybe do in melee with the CCW is not better than the amount of damage you do with the Autoguns but in return is more unreliable to make happen.

I'm no fan of Heavy Stubbers, but I like adding Flamer since they are cheap, don't require any to-hit roll and it makes people think twice before charging them if they are a bit more squishy (like Genestealer for example). ^^

[Warpmiss]

In my short experience against armies like Astra Militarum, aka armies that focus on shooting, having cultists being able to shoot back is desirable. It's not very likely that they'll be able to get close enough to attack with their melee weapons or guns with a shorter range.

[ChazSexington]

Here's my review: https://creativetwilight.com/chaos-cultists-review/

 

What role do you want them to have?

[Marshlands]

40 World Eaters cultists + Brutal assault weapons + tide of traitors + Precience + warp time + VoTLW = 121 attacks hitting on 3+ with +1 to wound rolls.

 

For another 3cp they can do that twice. That's averaging 21 wounds off a knight.

[Panzer]

Or you just do that as random Legion Slaanesh unit and shooting which is much safer and easier to apply lol

[Flipl8]

Here's my review: https://creativetwilight.com/chaos-cultists-review/

Thanks Chaz. Great writeup; it confirmed some of my ideas and gave me a few new ones as well. I'm greedily reading through your articles now.

Edited January 3, 2018 by Maelstrom48

[Khalan]

40 World Eaters cultists + Brutal assault weapons + tide of traitors + Precience + warp time + VoTLW = 121 attacks hitting on 3+ with +1 to wound rolls.

 

For another 3cp they can do that twice. That's averaging 21 wounds off a knight.

 

I am doing that but Alpha Legion and slannesh and autoguns, for 160 points, totally worth it. I pair them with a CL on jump pack with PF/Melta gun. They use the infiltrate strat to start the game, double tap 80 shots that hit on 4+ or 3+ with prescience with rerolls from the CL. Then VOTL to wound most things on 4/5, doing it twice with Endless makes it even more broke, 160 autogun shots with all the rerolls is quite deadly.

Edited January 3, 2018 by Khalan

[Trevak Dal]

40 World Eaters cultists + Brutal assault weapons + tide of traitors + Precience + warp time + VoTLW = 121 attacks hitting on 3+ with +1 to wound rolls.

 

For another 3cp they can do that twice. That's averaging 21 wounds off a knight.

That's a lot of command points in a ghetto death star, I guess tide of traitors brings them back from whatever losses they accrued getting up to the knight?

 

In any case, what I intend to do for my world eaters, is have 10 man cultist squads with rifles in front of a dispersed horde (5 man khorne Berserker teams), back them up with helbrutes.

Edited January 3, 2018 by Trevak Dal

[Marshlands]

 

40 World Eaters cultists + Brutal assault weapons + tide of traitors + Precience + warp time + VoTLW = 121 attacks hitting on 3+ with +1 to wound rolls.

 

For another 3cp they can do that twice. That's averaging 21 wounds off a knight.

That's a lot of command points in a ghetto death star, I guess tide of traitors brings them back from whatever losses they accrued getting up to the knight?

Its pretty cheap to take multiple units of cultists that can do that and tide of traitors heals whatever losses they've suffered but you can only do it to one unit per turn and it's expensive at 2cp. It tends to be even more expensive as the stratagem is best used on a weakened unit, but a weakened unit will run away so you need to spend 2cp to ignore morale as well. I tend to use Abaddon in those kind of lists for the fearless bubble and extra CP and then save CP for ToT and VoTLW.

 

I also quite like taking poxwalkers and fabius bile. Poxwalkers use the dead walk again stratagem, fabius buffs a unit of cultists, any cultists that die add to the poxwalkers unit then the cultists can be healed up using tide of traitors and deployed near an enemy for a warptime charge. It's pretty hard for an opponent to deal with massed fearless cultists when one unit will fully heal each turn and the objective secured board control is fantastic.

[Marshlands]

 

 

40 World Eaters cultists + Brutal assault weapons + tide of traitors + Precience + warp time + VoTLW = 121 attacks hitting on 3+ with +1 to wound rolls.

 

For another 3cp they can do that twice. That's averaging 21 wounds off a knight.

I am doing that but Alpha Legion and slannesh and autoguns, for 160 points, totally worth it. I pair them with a CL on jump pack with PF/Melta gun. They use the infiltrate strat to start the game, double tap 80 shots that hit on 4+ or 3+ with prescience with rerolls from the CL. Then VOTL to wound most things on 4/5, doing it twice with Endless makes it even more broke, 160 autogun shots with all the rerolls is quite deadly.

I quite like doing this too but often struggle to get in rapid fire of what i want - I prefer noise marines for that tactic because of the extra range and ignores cover, although they're a much bigger point sink and can't be healed with tide of traitors.

 

I did have quite good results with 2 infiltrating units of close combat cultists with a dark apostle and EC.

 

Costs 4cp to infiltrate but with reroll to all hit and wounds can be pretty effective and can still use prescience, VoTLW and the fight twice stratagem in a pinch.

Edited January 3, 2018 by Marshlands

[Galron]

In my IW, when I use them, I simply use a few squads of 10 dudes with a flamer to fill slots. In the few times I have used them they have done really well and took out far more than their points in bugs both in melee and in long range opportunity sniping.

[Kaspar]

Many thanks for your replies!!!

 

I get a lot more Information than I expected. I'll equip my 30 cultits with autoguns and then I see if i want to do smoe more...

[Maschinenpriester]

You cant go wrong with that. That is the loadout i always use. In addition i sometimes use smaller cc cultist units as deepstrike repellant. :p

[Mekhitar]

Guns > ccw, and that’s saying something from me, as o prefer to use cultists to lock things in cc. Enemy tanks, for example, or devastators if they are coming back from ToT or have infiltrated.

 

I prefer to run small squads to max the cps I get from a list. It is hard to squeeze a useful brigade in 2k (though I have done), but for non-god legions they are good ways to fill our battalion troops. In my experience chaos has some of the best stratagems but also is one of few armies without ways to recoup Command points.

 

I usually don’t bother wth tide unless the cultist unit is 20+ strong; I will spend a few points to infiltrate AL cultists, though. They are a nice distraction, and not completely useless / ignorable due to their ability to lock things up, even wth no outside buffs.

 

I prefer to save VotLW and prescience for other units, since taking many small squads of cultists frees up the points to splurge elsewhere - a 20 man black legion csm squad, or a large pack of noise marines or rubrics with their AP-2 bolters.

[KhorneHunter57x]

I prefer to save VotLW and prescience for other units, since taking many small squads of cultists frees up the points to splurge elsewhere - a 20 man black legion csm squad, or a large pack of noise marines or rubrics with their AP-2 bolters.

Plus it just feels wrong to have Cultist Joe and his buddies gain the benefits from Veterans of the Long War just because they joined the right party, especially when Renegade Astartes specifically don't.