Kill Team Tactica: Heretic Astartes

MaxB · August 27, 2018

I gotta preface this by saying that I have never played Chaos.... not officially anyway. I am Dark Angel player, after all ;D

In any case, I want to try a dip into chaos with Kill Team. I have a box of Veterans frommy chapter I think I could make as Fallen, and I'd like to build a command roster by adding a box of Chaos Space Marines and a box of Cultists, to paint as Alpha Legion. My plan is to play them as an Alpha Legion main list, with some Fallen Angels in there, thematically playing them as allies of the Alpha Legion.

But, I have no idea how to put together Chaos lists. Can anyone share some wisdom and advice on what Chaos lists should look like? Strenghts, weaknesses?

Welcome to the dark side! (Haha I'm doing the exact same thing!)

Looks like you're on the right track, I would only offer some thoughts on cultists based on my half dozen games (against IG and SM)...

Firstly the regular cultist is largely ineffective at killing stuff and dies/flesh wounds real easy. And to top it off low leadership leaves them vulnerable to nerve tests.

But they are cheap! So their value is more in swamping objectives and tying up opponents - especially good against elite shooty armies. So I'm having fun thinking a bit differently to usual SM tactics. Rather than making the most killy model, I'm forced to think about movement, board control, objectives, locking up opponent models, etc.

My lists have been 3 CSM specialists tooled up for killing, Cultists Champ leader to hide, 2 Flamer cultists for an initial rush (a bit hit and miss, but fun and forces the opponent to react), and the rest cultists (mostly close combat variety)

Orpheus108 · September 5, 2018

So, I've got a small pile of chaos marines and about 20 cultists, haven't played the heretics yet, and now that the game has been out for awhile, I'm imagining that teams/tactics have now changed from the beginning.

What are people running in teams now?

Fobzter · September 5, 2018

Well,

if you ask me the list..

All marked with Khorne.

Leader - Cultist champion

Demolitions - Cultist gunner with flamer

Sniper - Chaos space marine gunner with plasma gun

Zealot - Chaos space marine champion with power fist

Chaos space marine gunner with heavy bolter (Beseech the Dark Gods for +1 hit/wound)

Chaos space marine with Icon of Wrath

Cultist gunner with heavy stubber

4x Cultists

100 points.

I've seen lists with even less marines, but I think 11 drops is quite enough and just keep your guys tight..

DamnedProphet · September 10, 2018

Just had my first official 8th edition game yesterday. I gotta say, it was pretty fun, even though I lost! :tongue.: Oh well. I have to note that this was a 4-player game, so it was more chaotic than usual, especially with one other newbie player. Here's what I was running in that game:

Leader - Marine w/ Plasma p. & P. Sword

Specialist - Marine w/ Heavy Bolter (Heavy)

Specialist - Marine w/ Plasma (Sniper)

Specialist - Marine w/ Chainsword (zealot)

Marine w/ chainsword

Marine w/ Bolter

96 points

The three other opponents were Nids, Eldar, and Scions, but I was mainly slogging with the Nids player. Here's his (approx.) list:

Leader - Lictor

Specialist Warrior w/ swords and death-spitter (Comms)

Specialist Genestealer (Combat)

Specialist? Genestealer (Scout?)

Plus another Genestealer, two Hormagaunts and two Termigaunts

I was able to gun down one Genestealer and one Termi, and one Hormagaunt and then wounded the Warrior and the Lictor some. In return, he killed my Heavy Weapons Guy, as well as wounding one Bolter dude. Said Bolter dude and Sarge were locked in combat with the Lictor and the Genestealer, and the two melee marines were locked into combat with a Gaunt and third Genestealer. Apparently, you can do shenanigans with consolidation in the combat phase, which he used to position one Gaunt on top of an objective. Cunning :censored: ...

Oh, and a Scion wounded my Plasma marine. He returned the favor and made a nice hole in the puny human.

I think my main take-away from this match-up (other than learn the rules nice and proper) was that Chaos, especially marines, can afford to be more aggressive. I should have run my melee guys straight up into his dudes and deny giving him the objective. Positioning is something I need to really study on and figure out, especially in regards to taking objectives.

I'll try to get more games in before the Kill Team league starts, but so far I like my composition. Having marines only puts you at a numbers disadvantage, but they can take on hits pretty well and dish them out. If anything, I might subtract one to take cultists so that they, too, can be cheeky and take objectives when no one else is looking.

Machinepriest · September 12, 2018

I made a thread for this, but I thought it would perhaps be better to ask for advice here.

So while I've yet to try Kill Team I think it's one of the most exciting releases to come out in a long time and I would love to combine it with my passion for the Horus Heresy and run a World Eaters themed Kill Team.

I've only glanced the rulebook, but I noticed that there are no rules for Berzerkers or chain axes so I was wondering if it would be possible to build a thematic Kill Team with a focus on close combat.

I'm guessing I would have to proxy my Tacticals with chainaxes for regular Chaos Space Marines with chainswords, but as I'm new to the game I'm not sure what works, so any help with a list would be greatly appreciated!

hushrong · September 12, 2018

@Machinepriest: You can totally build a thematic team. Just let your opponent know what is what before the game starts, as usual for gaming. I wanted to do HH WE as a team when this was coming out but was a bit bummed when it was revealed what units CSM would get as there was no Berzerker or Noise Marine for that matter. I proxied a game and ran a team of mostly CSM with chainswords (one was a Zealot specialist), two gunners with a heavy bolter (heavy specialist) and a flamer (demolition specialist) and a leader with a plasma pistol and power fist. It did alright but lacked the punch a true WE would have.

I am honestly hoping when a WE codex comes out they will get their own unique team a'la Death Guard and Thousand Sons.

Lightbox · September 13, 2018

Hey folks,

I'm yet to get some proper games of killteam but I'm really looking forward to having it help ween me back into doing 40k stuff. So whilst I have the Elucidian starstriders on preorder to play around with I'm also considering putting together a fun little chaos killteam since I have loads of slaneshi chaos marines sitting around from when I used to play them.

I'm actually considering converting up a SoB model to have as Miriael Sabathiel for my leader and have it as a small slanneshi warband led by her since it could be pretty characterful and unique at my club. I already know how I'm going to convert up the model but now I'm wondering what to have as my kill team. I'll probably run her as a aspiring champion for the power sword and 3+ armour save and the str/toughness 4 can be explained by chaos blessings making her better than she was as a human.

For the rest of the band I'm thinking it might make sense to go with lots of cultists and only a few marines to represent the idea that many chaos marines may not wish to follow someone who is 'just a human'. Though alternative point could be made that she might get followers through strength and showing them she's better etc (lore wise I believe her warband/followers were supposed to be able to more or less go toe to toe with some of the emperors children) A heavily cultist force could be interesting though, have my elite specialist marines and then lots of cannon fodder to swamp objectives or die in the name of chaos to secure victory.

Model wise I'm debating whether to use regular cultists or make some conversions/kitbashes for something a bit more slaaneshy? Though the regular cultists do look nice, just may be difficult to convert some of them into characterful models due to the way they're put together.

Any thoughts or advice on fun ways I could go with this, model or list wise would be appreciated. I might look at mocking up a list soon for it to get rough ideas of where I could go with it.

Midnight Brotherhood · September 17, 2018

I've dropped down to running just 3-4 Chaos Marines now (including leader) and the rest cultists, as the campaign continues the cultists continue to surprise me and get better as the the fireteam levels up. At the moment my level 1 cultist fire team got 'die hards' on the table roll so it takes a 6 on the injury roll to kill a cultist in cover when they are not flesh wounded, bad ass!

Dr_Ruminahui · September 17, 2018

I recently played a game with my AM against heretic astartes, and thought you guys might be interested in the battle report, which is here: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/349390-kill-team-•-battle-reports/?p=5168271

Given that Chaos space marines (emperor's children) is my 40K army in 8th ed., it was interesting for me to see its Kill Team equivalent in action. I would have been playing it in this campaign, except I would have wanted to build and paint some of the models, so I instead went with my AM as except for a pistol swap on the sergeant they were good to go - I was (and still am) painting terrain at the time and not in the mood for doing individual models at this time. Given how my AM faired against my opponent's nicely painted alpha legion killteam, I may not have made the right choice. :)

MaxB · September 17, 2018

@Dr_Ruminahui - good write-up. Very risky of your opponent to Beseech his leader and charge him up the board! But it does pay off. And a good reminder to always check your VPs/mission objectives (though killng stuff is always fun!).

@Midnight Brotherhood - Yep I've only been running 3 marines, the rest cultists. If I want to go marine heavy I'd rather run normal Astartes as they get so many more options.

Dr_Ruminahui · September 17, 2018

Thanks, MaxB. Glad you liked it. To be fair to my opponent, the game was unlikely to end on turn 4 - but yes, that one error did cost him the game. Thematically appropriate, though - if AM is beating marines, is should be because of because of their own divisions and hubris. :)

Midnight Brotherhood · October 14, 2018

So our new Commanders are looking pretty strong. Death hex, prescience and diabolic strength are skme great offensive powers and the exalted champion dishing out reroll 1s to wound sounds good in a heavy gun list. What are peoples thoughts?

Prot · October 15, 2018

Sounds potent but I wonder if the points will make those buffs truly worthwhile?

Trevak Dal · October 27, 2018

Can we give the aspiring champion two plasma pistols or a plasma pistol and a bolt pistol?

DamnedProphet · January 30, 2019

Sorry if I'm performing necrothreadancy here, but wanted to get some input.

Has anyone used a flamer cultist as a Demolitions specialist before? The idea would be for a cheap threat to harass the enemy by advancing torwards them and then unloading with a flamer. Sure he can be easily torn apart like a wet tissue, but it will force them to displace out of flamer range and focus on the cultist, or risk a crispy death. You can even take a risk and use the Beseech tactic on him and give a slight edge against MEQ's.

Now, you could use a Marine Gunner for this, instead, which would make him more likely to survive any suicide runs. You might prefer to run this on a more open field. However, that requires 16 points in your roster versus 8 for the cultist. 8 more points for +1 T, a 3+ save, and grenades is nice, but wasteful for the purpose of throwing a time bomb at the opponent, especially if you're in narrow corridors (arena maps, Rogue Trader, etc.)

Can we give the aspiring champion two plasma pistols or a plasma pistol and a bolt pistol?

Pretty sure you can only have one bolt pistol or one plasma pistol, not both. I'll double-check RAW.

firestorm40k · February 20, 2019

Sorry if I'm performing necrothreadancy here, but wanted to get some input.

Has anyone used a flamer cultist as a Demolitions specialist before? The idea would be for a cheap threat to harass the enemy by advancing torwards them and then unloading with a flamer.

(EDIT)

Now, you could use a Marine Gunner for this, instead, which would make him more likely to survive any suicide runs. You might prefer to run this on a more open field. However, that requires 16 points in your roster versus 8 for the cultist.

I have been pondering this myself, as one of the Kill Teams I want to do is a Cultist heavy one. What I've been wrestling with is the survivability of the Cultist; at one point I was considering including a Flamer wielding one, and a Heavy Stubber wielding one.

But then I thought, why put a mini with virtually no armour save in a role where they've got to get forward to engage the enemy (e.g. burning them off an objective).

Similarly, why spend the points on giving a cultist a Heavy Stubber, that's going to need 5's or even 6's to hit over long range (and taking in to account cover). And a weapon, at that, which only has a 50/50 chance of wounding MEQ, with no modifier to armour saves.

Yes, Chaos Marine gunners are more expensive, but tougher, better armour, and better at fighting and shooting.

So what I've decided is to still base the Kill Team around cultists (it'll have 10), but leave the spearheading of attacks - whether through close or long range fire, or combat - to a handful of Chaos Marines.

I guess in this scenario a cultist gunner with a flamer (or two) could hold back and defend any objectives on the Chaos player's side.

But in the end I've settled for this:

Aspiring Champion (Leader; Powersword)

4x Cultists (autipistol, brutal cc weapon)

5x Cultists (autoguns)

Cultist Champ (Zealot; brutal cc weapon, autopistol)

Chaos Marine (Combat; Chainsword, Bolt Pistol)

Chaos Marine Gunner (Heavy; Heavy Bolter)

Chaos Marine Gunner (Plasmagun)

I could swap the Plasmagun for a Flamer, if I wanted to make the push the Marines forward to contest objectives, or go straight to combat. Having the cultists means I've got a good spread of minis to absorb casualties whether I press forward or want to hold objectives. It should also give any opponents something to worry about - take down the Astartes charging towards them, or the mob of Cultists that's about to swamp them.

Well, that's how I can see it working - I look forward to seeing the frater on here pulling this list apart :lol:

MaxB · February 21, 2019

But in the end I've settled for this:

Aspiring Champion (Leader; Powersword)

4x Cultists (autipistol, brutal cc weapon)

5x Cultists (autoguns)

Cultist Champ (Zealot; brutal cc weapon, autopistol)

Chaos Marine (Combat; Chainsword, Bolt Pistol)

Chaos Marine Gunner (Heavy; Heavy Bolter)

Chaos Marine Gunner (Plasmagun)

I could swap the Plasmagun for a Flamer, if I wanted to make the push the Marines forward to contest objectives, or go straight to combat. Having the cultists means I've got a good spread of minis to absorb casualties whether I press forward or want to hold objectives. It should also give any opponents something to worry about - take down the Astartes charging towards them, or the mob of Cultists that's about to swamp them.

Well, that's how I can see it working - I look forward to seeing the frater on here pulling this list apart

I haven't played in a little while but here's my thoughts. I think the list is good but I would switch around the specialists a bit.

- Leader: Cultist Champ (he can just hide up the back as you want to maintain the 2CP's each turn)

- Zealot or combat: Aspiring Champ with sword

- Sniper: Plasma gunner (re-roll those ones when you overcharge as 2 damage makes killing more reliable, also some good sniper tactics to add one to hit rolls)

- Heavy: Heavy bolter gunner, or you could go zealot/combat on you chainsword marine depending on opponent.

In my experience the Zealot Asp champ and Plasma sniper got 90% of the kills, while the cultists capped objectives and bogged down enemies.

Midnight Brotherhood · April 12, 2019

So is anyone giving the Heretic Astartes more love and table time now with the new sculpts? Hopefully in the next big FAQ we'll see more weapon options open up for us based on the new kits? Missile Launcher, power maul and power axe would certainly be most welcome.

Maschinenpriester · April 12, 2019

Autocannon and chain axe would be amazing too, as these are in the shadowspear loadout.

Disruptor_fe404 · May 8, 2019

I recently considered starting a new Kill Team for Arena play (Adeptus Astartes don't do well in Arena), and Heretic Astartes has the numbers to compete (via Cultists) while also being a faction I can easily (and cheaply) get models for.

With that in mind, how have people been doing in Arena with the forces of Chaos? What works and doesn't work? Or should I be looking into using Servants of the Abyss instead?

Midnight Brotherhood · May 10, 2019

I don't play arena with but with legion traits coming in Elites I'm thinking of running a much more melee focused Night Lords warband now with ranged support to really capitalise on that negative leadership. There is no limit to the leadership only going to -3 like in 40k, it's limitless.

gaurdian31 · May 10, 2019

I recently considered starting a new Kill Team for Arena play (Adeptus Astartes don't do well in Arena), and Heretic Astartes has the numbers to compete (via Cultists) while also being a faction I can easily (and cheaply) get models for.

With that in mind, how have people been doing in Arena with the forces of Chaos? What works and doesn't work? Or should I be looking into using Servants of the Abyss instead?

I only have 2 matches under my belt with Heretic Astartes but they seem to do pretty good. My list was 2 flamer cultists, cultist leader with pistol and melee weapon, combat Aspiring champ with powerfist and plasma pistol, heavy chaos marine gunner with heavy bolter, sniper chaos marine gunner with plasma pistol, a chaos marine with bolt pistol and chainsword and another with pistol/chainsword and icon of wrath. Everyone had mark of khorne. 8 bodies is a lot, flamers are just great in Arena and so is melee. Won both matches, 1 against Mechanicus and 1 against loyal Astartes.

Squike · May 14, 2019

So I'm looking for some list help, my local meta is 200pt games, below is the list I use the most as I feel its the most effective of the ones I have come up with. The 7 basic marines are interchangeable between boltguns and chainswords as they are the same cost.

I don't like the idea of cultists and would rather stay away from them, I realize I'm loosing out on an extra heavy weapon or 2 but i dont think cultists fit with kill teams main theme of crack squads send on high value missions. (I also dont use cultists in my regular 40k army.)

The only change i can see myself to make to this list is to make the Heavy Bolter Gunner a Demo Specialist as he is rarely running around with his range capability and targets are almost always obscured in KT. so this should make him wound on 2's for anything strength 4.

I'm hoping the new Elites expansion will bring some much needed extra content to Vanilla Chaos KT as right now I feel compared to Adeptus Astartes and related factions chaos are getting a raw deal, as far as options and war gear go. 1 player at my regular KT evening runs deathwatch, and in a 200pt game he takes 1 less model than me, but every model has either a heavy weapon, or a CC weapon and a special weapon or fancy CC weapon.

I know I sink nearly 50pts into a commander but even at this model level i start to get horde related moral problems, he is my best CC model with his 5 attacks, but when he then gets flattened by a deathwatch model with a thunderhammer that costs half as much its not really worth it.

anyway any advice would be great.

+++ Chaos KT Commander 4 (Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team (2018)) [195pts] +++

++ Kill Team List (Heretic Astartes) [195pts] ++

+ Configuration +

List Configuration: Matched Play: Kill Team

. Categories: Configuration, Style: Matched, List: Kill Team, List: Battle-Forged Kill Team

+ Commander [44pts] +

Exalted Champion [44pts]: Boltgun, Frag and krak grenades, Khorne, Plasma pistol [4pts], Power axe [5pts]

. Categories: Faction: Heretic Astartes, Chaos, Commander, Infantry, Exalted Champion, Khorne

. Melee: Level 1: Expert Fighter, Level 2: Warrior Born

. . Categories: Level 1, Level 2

+ Leader [18pts] +

Aspiring Champion [18pts]: Frag and krak grenades, Khorne, Plasma pistol [1pts], Power fist [4pts]

. Categories: Faction: Heretic Astartes, Chaos, Infantry, Chaos Space Marine, Model, Leader, Khorne

. Leader: Level 1: Resourceful

. . Categories: Level 1

+ Specialists [49pts] +

Chaos Space Marine [17pts]: Bolt pistol, Chainsword, Frag and krak grenades, Icon of Wrath [5pts], Khorne

. Categories: Faction: Heretic Astartes, Chaos, Infantry, Chaos Space Marine, Model, Specialist, Khorne

. Zealot: Level 1: Frenzied

. . Categories: Level 1

Chaos Space Marine Gunner [16pts]: Bolt pistol, Frag and krak grenades, Heavy bolter [3pts], Slaanesh

. Categories: Faction: Heretic Astartes, Chaos, Infantry, Chaos Space Marine, Model, Specialist, Slaanesh

. Heavy: Level 1: Relentless

. . Categories: Level 1

Chaos Space Marine Gunner [16pts]: Bolt pistol, Frag and krak grenades, Plasma gun [3pts], Slaanesh

. Categories: Faction: Heretic Astartes, Chaos, Infantry, Chaos Space Marine, Model, Specialist, Slaanesh

. Sniper: Level 1: Marksman

. . Categories: Level 1

+ Non-specialists [84pts] +

Chaos Space Marine [12pts]: Bolt pistol, Chainsword, Frag and krak grenades, Khorne