Chaos Cultists

[Lord Tarkin]

Hey all! So, I've decided to change up my Chaos Marine army, finally. In previous editions, I used my Chaos Marines to rather devastating effect, amassing several units of regular Chaos Marines, as well as a few terminator units and daemon engines. Depending on the army I was playing against, I would sometimes use Rhinos for mobility, so I always had them at 10 strong, each squad armed to perform a specific job. 5th edition, great success. 6th and 7th edition, some success, but significantly less. Now, in 8th edition, I haven't won a single game. The losses have been devastating. Terminators are useless with 2 wounds when you take into account the amount of multi damage weapons that armies have access to. My Chaos squads can't stand up to anybody the way they used to. Daemon engines are alright but as it pertains to forgefiends....well they're also incredibly useless. The one unit I can rely on to do some damage are Khorne Berzerkers. They've always been melee monsters, but I hardly used them in 6th and 7th because of the massive nerfs. They are easily a top tier unit in 8th edition if you can fool your enemy, no unit can survive a Berzerker charge it seems, so that's nice, but they have no help....from anybody.

 

So in desperation, I am withdrawing my hatred for Cultists, as it seems I need them to soak up damage. I have little experience playing weaker units such as these, and even though they are meant to die, I would like to know what kind of tactics the community uses with them to maximize their potential. Anything you guys got for me, I'll take it.

[WarriorFish]

You may want to take this discussion to the CSM section for more in depth help? Let me know or file a Report if so. The game has changed much and 8th has some issues with the fate of Marines but with 9th on the horizon we should be looking at improvement there So this advice has a bit of a shelf life on it

 

Cultists are not a damage dealing unit by any stretch, anything they do here is a nice bonus. Their main role is to block opponent's actions and selflessly jump on bullets so your more valuable units are safer. This is why I like an upgrade weapon on them, not expensive and helps give them a degree of threat. So from helping to push back deep strike arrivals, to obstructing charges or generally being a wall of flesh to your opponent's plans anything they can do to hamper your opponent is a job well done.

 

Yes, like any weedy unit they can be easily removed but that's guns not shooting your Marines. They get charged? Now your opponent has set themselves up for your counter charge (don't forget your Tzeentchian "just as planned" face). I've found they work best when straddling this line for your opponent. There's the easy kills they want, but then they're also aware that this is exactly what you want so next turn you can do X, Y, and/or Z

 

I have had a few games where this has worked almost too well, and Cultists survived to move around and be considered wasted effort by my opponent - but capturing objectives and being useful for me as they constantly skirted the line of being worth effort I think this is the best way to use them, as a support element to the rest of your army and never the "main dish". They're more of a force multiplier than a unit in a way, but this expendable role suits the lore too

 

This is likely to all change in 9th though, so if you don't have some Cultists already I'd consider holding off to see the lay of the land when it arrives