Cult marine strats and tactics

[Ezekyle_Abaddon]

With 3 out of the 4 cult marines no longer being in our codex I wanted to discuss how best to utilize them. Them not gaining legion traits sucks, but I still think cult marines are still pretty useful. Here's what I have so far:

Berserkers:

-Still hit very hard in melee, getting exploding 6s is a very good boost

-Fury of Khorne for tough units

-Veterans of the long war still really good

-+1 Str from mark

-Run with a khorne priest to get wanton massacre early

 

Rubric Marines:

-+2 shots with flamers make the now 3pt warpflamers threatening

-Another cheap psyker on the board

-Surprisingly tough with mark of tzeench + all is dust + AoC

-Demon shells for -3 bolters

-Can be a good backfield unit with warp-born foresight

 

Plague Marines:

-The free wargear is very good (3 Plasma guns for free with a 10 man squad)

-Pretty tough with Mark of Nurgle + AoC

 

Noise Marines:

-Lots of support with EC

-+1 Dmg within half range + veterans on sonic weapons is powerful

 

Side note: While not the main topic of this thread I wanted to bring up Confluence of Traitors and cult marines. Because of the wording on the stratagem saying "Until your next command phase, models in that unit have that legion trait" I think it is actually possible to give a cult marine unit a legion trait. My argument for this is that the word "gains/gain"  is used when talking about abilities that a unit gets both the before game begins, and last all battle. Where has, "have" is used for when a unit is temporarily given an ability for a turn. I don't actually believe this would work in a real game, and is a case of extremely rules lawyering but I thought it would be interesting to bring up.

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by Ezekyle_Abaddon

[Gilbertus1]

Just a couple of things.

The warpflamers went down from 6 points to 3, they aren't free. Though the flame pistol on the AS and the icon of flame is free, (does it "count as" an icon?)

Also the Daemonbolts strat will give the Rubrics AP-3 bolters as they have -2 naturally.

Plague Marines lose all their armies inherent bonuses, only the rules in their datasheet is carried over. Rubrics still get all is dust because its in their datasheet.

 

 

EDIT:

I do wonder why Noise Marines get the option of an icon and all the other cult marines miss out (apparently).

AP3 warpflamers will be very nasty, so I can kinda see why Rubrics will miss out though IMHO if one cult misses out then all should for fairness.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Gilbertus1

[Iron Father Ferrum]

3 hours ago, Gilbertus1 said:

I do wonder why Noise Marines get the option of an icon and all the other cult marines miss out (apparently).

 

 

I'm looking at the WD datasheet for Berzerkers and it quite clearly shows a wargear option for an icon, so they get it too.

[Gilbertus1]

3 hours ago, Iron Father Ferrum said:

 

I'm looking at the WD datasheet for Berzerkers and it quite clearly shows a wargear option for an icon, so they get it too.

No worries, I wonder if plague marines and rubrics get theirs?

Rubrics can take an "icon of flame" but it says nothing about giving the unit the icon keyword which the ability seems to predicate from.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Until we have an FAQ stating such, the icon of flame isn't an icon of tzeench.  Likewise for Death Guard having icons of nurgle.

That said, its something I would expect to be added by FAQ, as that's what makes the most sense - GW's practice isn't to include the wargear options for one codex in the codex for a different army.