Chaos Marine Analysis - Troops Part 2

Churning these out at an increased pace now. I've just realised that in total there are 37 units in this book. I've done one of them. So, moving on to Cultists.

To start with, each cultist is really cheap (as you'd expect). They cost less than a third of a Chaos Space Marine. This then means that I probably wouldn't bother giving them a Mark of Chaos, simply because doing so is increasing the cost of each cultist by a decent percentage per model.

However, one list idea that I really like the idea of with these guys (as an Ork player) is running what I like to call, 'the heretical tide'. Simply, I can take 210 cultists including 6 champions for 900pts. That's not a bad swarm at all, and I reckon that it could be quite enjoyable to play. Not for my wallet due to the cultists being stuck in Dark Vengeance and this relies on them not taking Autoguns, so I'd need 21 boxes of Dark Vengeance to make this without converting Guardsmen and what have you, and then you need to remember that you only get 9 that you need from the set as you don't want a Flamer or a Heavy Stubber. It's almost certainly not a fun list for my back either.

Still not a bad deckchair unit either. 165pts for 35 bodies in cover with 3 Flamers or Heavy Stubbers, the former making it even more intimidating to charge that unit on the overwatch, 64 shots and 3 Flamers is going to do something, plus 68 close combat attacks at worst.

I'm not really sure what else I can say about Cultists. I'm definitely going to be taking some, fitting in nicely with my Word Bearers, probably a squad of 20 with close combat weapons and a squad of 20 with Autoguns.

Are they more optimal than the Chaos Space Marines. It depends what you are wanting to use them for, and how much cover you have in your local area. Lots of terrain? I would say that these guys are probably better for camping objectives, they're a cheap squad which you can go to ground with in cover with lots of bodies and you can make good advantage of, 'out of sight' to keep at least a couple alive if the worst comes to the worst, although as not the most threatening unit in the world I would be surprised if the majority of your opponents firepower came at them.

I think that we'll leave this one here, a short post for the Cultists, I'll be back with the Rhino in the next post. That one will be up either later today or sometime tomorrow.