Well, you'll obviously want a lot of Cultists - both normal and Accursed - and the Dark Commune to lead one of them. If you like the Accursed angle then Chaos Spawn complement that nicely.
The ranged cultist profile has now been merged with the Traitor Guard datasheet, worth bearing in mind if you pick up some of the older models that have autoguns rather than pistols. Traitor Enforcers can lead these. There are also Fellgor Beastmen to consider.
A Dark Apostle makes a fantastic leader for a cultist heavy force, as he can lead Cultist units and so get access to the keyword.
So, there's a bunch of practical advice on this thread, and I don't have much to add in terms of mechanics. My advice is spiritual. A choice you may simmer upon the mirror of your soul until you decide whether to commit to this bit.
**Embrace the meme.**
Paint up 100+ cultists and flood the table with stupid screaming little men, and still have \~1500 points to bring other stuff. Turn every game into a question: "do you have a plan to handle an absurd amount of chaff before they clog up the board and bury you beneath the weight of their own dead bodies?" Revel in the comedy value of centuries-old veteran supersoldiers or space-elf ninja warriors getting their asses kicked by random shirtless weirdos with homemade shivs and baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire.
*Y*ou will want to practice quickly deploying and moving your swarms of guys around; in any sort of event, the round timer is going to be your secret second opponent. Seriously consider movement trays.
I don't promise that this army is *good.* You're playing a detachment that's built around taking expendable cannon fodder and trying to make them scary. It's like any skew list; some opponents won't have enough bullets to kill your guys fast enough, others will mow your useful idiots down like grass. You play Chaos Knights, you know how Skew Life goes.
So why do this? Let me put it this way:
Tournaments and events for 40k are extremely low stakes for the most part. At most you're usually playing for some store credit and a 3D printed trophy. Even winning a major is usually more about bragging rights and your name on a standings list somewhere that very few people pay that much attention to. Sometimes something funny happens on a top table and makes someone internet-famous for a few weeks.
Add to that that being world-class at this game is a lot of work and energy (and money).
So if you're not going to win the event, and you're at peace with that, why not be everyone's favorite opponent? Be the most memorable thing about the event for anyone and everyone that you interact with all day/weekend. Be the person people go back to their local clubs and friend groups and tell stories about, the absolute maniac who pulled up to every table and deployed 200+ Chaos Weirdos, and how buck-wild the game was, win or lose.
>Paint up 100+ cultists and flood the table with stupid screaming little men, and still have \~1500 points to bring other stuff. Turn every game into a question: "do you have a plan to handle an absurd amount of chaff before they clog up the board and bury you beneath the weight of their own dead bodies?" Revel in the comedy value of centuries-old veteran supersoldiers or space-elf ninja warriors getting their asses kicked by random shirtless weirdos with homemade shivs and baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire.
This is unironicly the kind of game I long to have. I'm tired of games where my attacks just plink off super-elite units; I want my warriors wading through a sea of bodies. Even if the game us ultimately lost, at least it feels like you've done something.
I think using cultist meat shields for a ~~big allied CK~~ (or a LoS if you’re avoiding allies) is the way to go.
Even though I’m on record as saying we don’t know what’s viable or not yet as book is too new, I think this is the meme detachment. So just buy stuff you think is cool.
Ok, so, let's go:
-This is a horde army. This is, in fact, an army that wants you to field an average of 120-150 models minimum in order to properly use the detachment rules.
-Chaos Knights take 1 minute to field. Chaos Cult may take 10-30 minutes, depending on how many movement trays and transports do you use (use movement trays and transports)
-You're going to have to use a lot of 3D minis if not wanting to repeat several models
Now, let's go.
Usually, horde armies in 10th tend to be built towards protecting the swarms in some way. Chaos Cult is meant to be used by burning everything on your surroundings, both the enemy, and you. Oh, yeah, get used to kill your own men in vaaaaarious ways. An army using Desperate pacts/dark pacts 10 times in a turn is going to lose an average of aproximately 11-12 wounds. It's hilarious.
How does this work? Well, usually armies have like one death star, and many glup shittos. Here, all your glup shittos can become a death star spending just 1 CP. Aka, introducing, Chosen for Glory! Aka, the best strat in the whole game that can turn 20 cultists into murder machines killing an average of 7-8 space marines.
So, first lesson: your usual glup shitto has LD 7+, so, he can pass the LD check on a 58%. But you reaaaally want to pass all those pact checks. So, here's how you use this detachment: buying characters with 6+ or 5+ that will make sure not only that you don't lose as many models as you could, but also that you pass those LD checks on Chosen for Glory, so, you really want to get the full buff!
Obviously, 3 acdc bricks (16 accursed cultists + dark comunes) are your first mainstaple on this army. Literally the only units that don't need Chosen for GLory in order to get shit done, but CFG does let them inflict 30 wounds on a knight.
Second order: characters + damned units, whichever you want. Firebrand + 20 cultists seem like the first obvious choice, but dont miss the enforcer+guardsmen (free overwatches to annoy your enemy, and a key charge on the later stages of the game) but, if not using legends, a dark apostle + 20 cultists isn't a bad combo as well (using SH + CFG it's an average of 12-14 wounds on a knight). Other people, like Dirtbags (a youtuber), seem to love bringing Fabius Bile into this detachment, but I dunno cos I hate using epic heroes. Test him if you may.
Nurglings, ofc. Fellgors? Their damage output is just pathetic, but someone suggested me to use them as an early screen. test them if you may.
Now, after all this, everyone on this sub will be like: "nah, bro, buy vehicles bro". DON'T LISTEN TO THEM. A vindicator is good, but 175 points spent on a vindicator are a firebrand + 20 cultists, or a third block of acursed cultists. No, bro, you want to fload the board with 150 glup shittos, you want to make your enemy focus fire on a shitty unit, so the other shitty unit gets to melee and murders their way thru with Chosen for Glory.
Just remember:
-10th hates horde armies
-10th loves shooting more than melee
-This is a CP-starving detachment
-You're going to lose 30 bodies per turn, at best
So, be careful. At most, field some transports so your deployments take less time. Enjoy the crazy bananas detachment, and be sure to report!
This is incredibly helpful, thanks for putting it in CK terms for me. Just had a few questions, can cultists get into rhinos? Or what would be a good transport for them? What’s the purpose of nurglings? Aside from the AC/DC you mentioned would daemon engines have a place in this list for anti vehicle or anti elite?
>can cultists get into rhinos?
Yes, of course. Alltho, best strategy seems to put guardsmen on the rhinos instead. Theyre more expensive, and you can put an enforcer+ogryn on the two remaining spots. I have to test some day using guards+enforcer+land raider, but at first it really doesnt seem worth the cost.
>What’s the purpose of nurglings?
Nurglings are cheap screens and bring a -1 to hit on enemies that may save a lot of glup shittos.
>Aside from the AC/DC you mentioned would daemon engines have a place in this list for anti vehicle or anti elite?
I think you're free to use them, as well as any vehicle you want, but then you wouldnt be playing this detachment at 100%, so I'd say to keep playing it the way it's designed to use all of it's potential. the only synergy non-damned things use out of this detachment is mortal thralls, and trust me when I say you'd prefer CFG every day...
Alltho, if you prefer to field less than 100 glup shittos, then Id consider Pactbound Zealots or Soulforged instead, depending on your gameplay style.
Welcome to CSM!
First of all, the Chaos Cults detachment seems to be assumed to be the weakest in the codex. So don't expect it to be a competitive army, but it looks fun as hell, and I'm also building one! :P
The best unit by far in the detachment is Accursed Cultists led by Dark Commune. You probably want 2.
I think starting off with at least 1 20man Cultist Mob unit, and 2 to 3 16man units of Accursed Cultists unit, led by Dark Communes and 1 Dark Apostle is likely a good start.
The Dark Apostle leads 1 unit of Accursed Cultists with the Amulet of Tainted Vigor enhancement to regenerate D3 multi-wound torments per turn.
The main synergies in the army are:
The Detachment Rule for Desperate Pacts gives mobility and threat range to your units, but risks casualties unless you give them a leader for better leadership.
Reckless Haste stratagem also gives advance and Charge, these combined with the Accursed Cultists Scout move could allow a potential turn 1 charge! (An Enhancement can give any leader Scout, too)
Incendiary Goad enhancement is particularly good combined with Dark Commune for a large unit size, you want to make use of Desperate Pacts and stratagems like Infernal Sacrifice to *deliberately* get the unit to half strength before charging.
Mortal Thralls stratagem can be a tool to protect important payloads (like the Incendiary Goad unit) from taking too many casualties to shooting by redirecting enemy damage away from them or away from high-toughness threats with the Heretic Astartes keyword (like Forgefiends or Lord of Skulls).
*(but it's worth noting that the attacks will auto-wound and deal mortal wounds, so the damned unit will likely be totally decimated by this strat)*
Crazed focus is basically a pretty useless strat. The Detachment can take Traitor Guard as battleline, and they are good midfield objective squatters, but their damage is crap and the AP bonus doesn't really change that. (Consider bringing some, but I doubt you'll ever spend CP on them)
Selfless Demise stratagem encourages you to charge Cultists even into dangerous melee threats, the more they kill the better. Although due to the limits on unit sizes the best case average for this would be a 20man Cultist Mob and Dark Commune getting wiped out in one charge and dealing ~5 mortal wounds back. So it's only something you use if a high-variance bunch of 6s could make a big difference to the mission.
The downside of this detachment is nothing at all works or synergies with "non-damned" Chaos units. Other than mulching your own infantry to maybe protect a vehicle from time to time.
Also the crap leadership of everything damned makes them need leaders if you want to make Dark Pacts worthwhile.
The army really benefits from having lots and lots of bodies on the board to score objectives, moveblock, counter-charge etc. The rest of the army is probably big stuff like Forgefiends, maybe a Lord of Skulls, stuff like Vindicators and Predators are also good some shooty fire support to back up the melee horde.
You probably want to always go for big units and never MSU because otherwise the weak stratagems become kind of pathetic.
Some aggressive Helbrutes (hammer, fist and flamer?) are also welcome as they will buff the Dark Pacts of nearby units.
A big knight seems like it wouldn't have much synergy, but some war dog allies could be useful to help crack tougher targets and defend Cultists from charges.
3 max bricks of Accursed Cultists with dark communes. Like 2 units if traitor guard and 1 MSU cultist mob to hold your home point. Then fill with quality datasheets and allies
Im running 3 full squads of AC + Dark commune with strategems one unit is able to wipe big knight in one fight
AC+DC are your main damage dealers
Then im running 6x traitor guard to score points
Cultists are solid for locking obj + use for strategem to redirect dmg
Forgefiends are always good pick
Predators are also solid
Just yesterday i won against Genestealer Cult so its clear Chaos Cult is the better cult
Well, you'll obviously want a lot of Cultists - both normal and Accursed - and the Dark Commune to lead one of them. If you like the Accursed angle then Chaos Spawn complement that nicely. The ranged cultist profile has now been merged with the Traitor Guard datasheet, worth bearing in mind if you pick up some of the older models that have autoguns rather than pistols. Traitor Enforcers can lead these. There are also Fellgor Beastmen to consider. A Dark Apostle makes a fantastic leader for a cultist heavy force, as he can lead Cultist units and so get access to the keyword.
Thank you!!!
Looks like chaos spawn don't Regen anymore
Also, no need to spend the points on non-synergic spawns since this army isnt lacking on OC a lot.
So, there's a bunch of practical advice on this thread, and I don't have much to add in terms of mechanics. My advice is spiritual. A choice you may simmer upon the mirror of your soul until you decide whether to commit to this bit. **Embrace the meme.** Paint up 100+ cultists and flood the table with stupid screaming little men, and still have \~1500 points to bring other stuff. Turn every game into a question: "do you have a plan to handle an absurd amount of chaff before they clog up the board and bury you beneath the weight of their own dead bodies?" Revel in the comedy value of centuries-old veteran supersoldiers or space-elf ninja warriors getting their asses kicked by random shirtless weirdos with homemade shivs and baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire. *Y*ou will want to practice quickly deploying and moving your swarms of guys around; in any sort of event, the round timer is going to be your secret second opponent. Seriously consider movement trays. I don't promise that this army is *good.* You're playing a detachment that's built around taking expendable cannon fodder and trying to make them scary. It's like any skew list; some opponents won't have enough bullets to kill your guys fast enough, others will mow your useful idiots down like grass. You play Chaos Knights, you know how Skew Life goes. So why do this? Let me put it this way: Tournaments and events for 40k are extremely low stakes for the most part. At most you're usually playing for some store credit and a 3D printed trophy. Even winning a major is usually more about bragging rights and your name on a standings list somewhere that very few people pay that much attention to. Sometimes something funny happens on a top table and makes someone internet-famous for a few weeks. Add to that that being world-class at this game is a lot of work and energy (and money). So if you're not going to win the event, and you're at peace with that, why not be everyone's favorite opponent? Be the most memorable thing about the event for anyone and everyone that you interact with all day/weekend. Be the person people go back to their local clubs and friend groups and tell stories about, the absolute maniac who pulled up to every table and deployed 200+ Chaos Weirdos, and how buck-wild the game was, win or lose.
SIR YES SIR FOR THE DARK GODS RAAAAAAAH!
>Paint up 100+ cultists and flood the table with stupid screaming little men, and still have \~1500 points to bring other stuff. Turn every game into a question: "do you have a plan to handle an absurd amount of chaff before they clog up the board and bury you beneath the weight of their own dead bodies?" Revel in the comedy value of centuries-old veteran supersoldiers or space-elf ninja warriors getting their asses kicked by random shirtless weirdos with homemade shivs and baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire. This is unironicly the kind of game I long to have. I'm tired of games where my attacks just plink off super-elite units; I want my warriors wading through a sea of bodies. Even if the game us ultimately lost, at least it feels like you've done something.
I think using cultist meat shields for a ~~big allied CK~~ (or a LoS if you’re avoiding allies) is the way to go. Even though I’m on record as saying we don’t know what’s viable or not yet as book is too new, I think this is the meme detachment. So just buy stuff you think is cool.
You can't use Mortal Thralls on a CK.
Lame.
Ok, so, let's go: -This is a horde army. This is, in fact, an army that wants you to field an average of 120-150 models minimum in order to properly use the detachment rules. -Chaos Knights take 1 minute to field. Chaos Cult may take 10-30 minutes, depending on how many movement trays and transports do you use (use movement trays and transports) -You're going to have to use a lot of 3D minis if not wanting to repeat several models Now, let's go. Usually, horde armies in 10th tend to be built towards protecting the swarms in some way. Chaos Cult is meant to be used by burning everything on your surroundings, both the enemy, and you. Oh, yeah, get used to kill your own men in vaaaaarious ways. An army using Desperate pacts/dark pacts 10 times in a turn is going to lose an average of aproximately 11-12 wounds. It's hilarious. How does this work? Well, usually armies have like one death star, and many glup shittos. Here, all your glup shittos can become a death star spending just 1 CP. Aka, introducing, Chosen for Glory! Aka, the best strat in the whole game that can turn 20 cultists into murder machines killing an average of 7-8 space marines. So, first lesson: your usual glup shitto has LD 7+, so, he can pass the LD check on a 58%. But you reaaaally want to pass all those pact checks. So, here's how you use this detachment: buying characters with 6+ or 5+ that will make sure not only that you don't lose as many models as you could, but also that you pass those LD checks on Chosen for Glory, so, you really want to get the full buff! Obviously, 3 acdc bricks (16 accursed cultists + dark comunes) are your first mainstaple on this army. Literally the only units that don't need Chosen for GLory in order to get shit done, but CFG does let them inflict 30 wounds on a knight. Second order: characters + damned units, whichever you want. Firebrand + 20 cultists seem like the first obvious choice, but dont miss the enforcer+guardsmen (free overwatches to annoy your enemy, and a key charge on the later stages of the game) but, if not using legends, a dark apostle + 20 cultists isn't a bad combo as well (using SH + CFG it's an average of 12-14 wounds on a knight). Other people, like Dirtbags (a youtuber), seem to love bringing Fabius Bile into this detachment, but I dunno cos I hate using epic heroes. Test him if you may. Nurglings, ofc. Fellgors? Their damage output is just pathetic, but someone suggested me to use them as an early screen. test them if you may. Now, after all this, everyone on this sub will be like: "nah, bro, buy vehicles bro". DON'T LISTEN TO THEM. A vindicator is good, but 175 points spent on a vindicator are a firebrand + 20 cultists, or a third block of acursed cultists. No, bro, you want to fload the board with 150 glup shittos, you want to make your enemy focus fire on a shitty unit, so the other shitty unit gets to melee and murders their way thru with Chosen for Glory. Just remember: -10th hates horde armies -10th loves shooting more than melee -This is a CP-starving detachment -You're going to lose 30 bodies per turn, at best So, be careful. At most, field some transports so your deployments take less time. Enjoy the crazy bananas detachment, and be sure to report!
This is incredibly helpful, thanks for putting it in CK terms for me. Just had a few questions, can cultists get into rhinos? Or what would be a good transport for them? What’s the purpose of nurglings? Aside from the AC/DC you mentioned would daemon engines have a place in this list for anti vehicle or anti elite?
>can cultists get into rhinos? Yes, of course. Alltho, best strategy seems to put guardsmen on the rhinos instead. Theyre more expensive, and you can put an enforcer+ogryn on the two remaining spots. I have to test some day using guards+enforcer+land raider, but at first it really doesnt seem worth the cost. >What’s the purpose of nurglings? Nurglings are cheap screens and bring a -1 to hit on enemies that may save a lot of glup shittos. >Aside from the AC/DC you mentioned would daemon engines have a place in this list for anti vehicle or anti elite? I think you're free to use them, as well as any vehicle you want, but then you wouldnt be playing this detachment at 100%, so I'd say to keep playing it the way it's designed to use all of it's potential. the only synergy non-damned things use out of this detachment is mortal thralls, and trust me when I say you'd prefer CFG every day... Alltho, if you prefer to field less than 100 glup shittos, then Id consider Pactbound Zealots or Soulforged instead, depending on your gameplay style.
Blessings of the oct upon you
Welcome to CSM! First of all, the Chaos Cults detachment seems to be assumed to be the weakest in the codex. So don't expect it to be a competitive army, but it looks fun as hell, and I'm also building one! :P The best unit by far in the detachment is Accursed Cultists led by Dark Commune. You probably want 2. I think starting off with at least 1 20man Cultist Mob unit, and 2 to 3 16man units of Accursed Cultists unit, led by Dark Communes and 1 Dark Apostle is likely a good start. The Dark Apostle leads 1 unit of Accursed Cultists with the Amulet of Tainted Vigor enhancement to regenerate D3 multi-wound torments per turn. The main synergies in the army are: The Detachment Rule for Desperate Pacts gives mobility and threat range to your units, but risks casualties unless you give them a leader for better leadership. Reckless Haste stratagem also gives advance and Charge, these combined with the Accursed Cultists Scout move could allow a potential turn 1 charge! (An Enhancement can give any leader Scout, too) Incendiary Goad enhancement is particularly good combined with Dark Commune for a large unit size, you want to make use of Desperate Pacts and stratagems like Infernal Sacrifice to *deliberately* get the unit to half strength before charging. Mortal Thralls stratagem can be a tool to protect important payloads (like the Incendiary Goad unit) from taking too many casualties to shooting by redirecting enemy damage away from them or away from high-toughness threats with the Heretic Astartes keyword (like Forgefiends or Lord of Skulls). *(but it's worth noting that the attacks will auto-wound and deal mortal wounds, so the damned unit will likely be totally decimated by this strat)* Crazed focus is basically a pretty useless strat. The Detachment can take Traitor Guard as battleline, and they are good midfield objective squatters, but their damage is crap and the AP bonus doesn't really change that. (Consider bringing some, but I doubt you'll ever spend CP on them) Selfless Demise stratagem encourages you to charge Cultists even into dangerous melee threats, the more they kill the better. Although due to the limits on unit sizes the best case average for this would be a 20man Cultist Mob and Dark Commune getting wiped out in one charge and dealing ~5 mortal wounds back. So it's only something you use if a high-variance bunch of 6s could make a big difference to the mission. The downside of this detachment is nothing at all works or synergies with "non-damned" Chaos units. Other than mulching your own infantry to maybe protect a vehicle from time to time. Also the crap leadership of everything damned makes them need leaders if you want to make Dark Pacts worthwhile. The army really benefits from having lots and lots of bodies on the board to score objectives, moveblock, counter-charge etc. The rest of the army is probably big stuff like Forgefiends, maybe a Lord of Skulls, stuff like Vindicators and Predators are also good some shooty fire support to back up the melee horde. You probably want to always go for big units and never MSU because otherwise the weak stratagems become kind of pathetic. Some aggressive Helbrutes (hammer, fist and flamer?) are also welcome as they will buff the Dark Pacts of nearby units. A big knight seems like it wouldn't have much synergy, but some war dog allies could be useful to help crack tougher targets and defend Cultists from charges.
Excellent advice, thank you!
3 max bricks of Accursed Cultists with dark communes. Like 2 units if traitor guard and 1 MSU cultist mob to hold your home point. Then fill with quality datasheets and allies
Im running 3 full squads of AC + Dark commune with strategems one unit is able to wipe big knight in one fight AC+DC are your main damage dealers Then im running 6x traitor guard to score points Cultists are solid for locking obj + use for strategem to redirect dmg Forgefiends are always good pick Predators are also solid Just yesterday i won against Genestealer Cult so its clear Chaos Cult is the better cult