Goatboy’s 40K: Meet the Cultist Virus Bomb
Goatboy has a stubborn list that is built to take on the 40K Meta – and win – with Cultists!
Goatboy here and as I play more and more ITC missions I look towards an army that can survive the alpha, control the middle, and kill anything that shows up. This leads me to building some kind of large armies that have don’t need any one part to officially win. If you are betting on something big to survive, do damage, and finish off your opponents army – then expect to lose some games when the dice poops the bed. I won’t go into how many times I have lost Magnus to a plethora of 2’s – or killed an opponents Magnus with an angry Lord of Skulls.
Thought my Death Guard play testing I have found that while the army is ok – it really needs the ally friends to make it sing. In fact it feels like the Chaos Space Marine glue is needed throughout the army. This leads me to looking at some Alpha Legion to Iron Warrior combos to help get them all settled in. It all revolves around a central blob of Cultists/Pox Walkers – utilizing some stratagems to helpfully increase the Pox Walkers size, and then drop in some killing units with Obliterators or Blightlord Terminators. Then I sit in the center, have a donut of Pox Walkers and hopefully stretch out to control and contest any objective I feel like. Mix in some fast moving units and you get the jist of what I am planning. I forgo the use of a Fire Raptor as I don’t own one. I also don’t want to fly with one either so that choice is a moot point.
Let’s look at the initial build of it all. Will start with the Death Guard portion as it stays pretty much the same – beyond adding the Terminators or relying on Obliterators to do your shooting damage.
Cultist Donut of DOOM!
HQ: Typhus
HQ: Daemon Prince, Wings, Malefic Talon X 2, Suppurating Plate
Troops: Pox Walkers X 20
Troops: Cultists X 10
Troops: Cultists X 10
This sits at 555 points and 3 Command Points. Now from here I usually add in 3 Foetid Bloat Drones. These guys are fast, can be a pain, and help keep opponents honest with their Auto hitting weapons. Plus I think the model looks pretty sweet on the table top and I got 3 painted.
FA: Foetid Bloat Drone, Plague Probe, Plague Spitters X 2
FA: Foetid Bloat Drone, Plague Probe, Plague Spitters X 2
FA: Foetid Bloat Drone, Plague Probe, Plague Spitters X 2
This adds another 474 points to the army. I don’t know if it is worth it beyond my enjoyment with playing those guys. From here we have to look at the ways we can bubble wrap and feed the pox walkers. We have two options – fearless Cultists with either Iron Warriors of Abbadon – or Alpha Legion for some trickery and -1 to hit. I am not really sure which can be better – as while the enjoyment of not having to utilize Leadership roles makes the Iron Warriors of Abbadon an interesting thing. We could also look at having two bruiser Daemon Princes in Iron Warriors with the Fleshmetal Exoskeleton by burning a Command Point for the one Nurgle Daemon Prince. The Iron Warriors one means you will have Command Points for more things like Tide of Traitors and maybe Double Shooting Obliterators. But again – I think most of the time the burning question will be using Cloud of Flies to protect something and then Tide of Traitors to regrow and move a unit. So let’s look at Iron Warriors.
Iron Warrior Battaltion
HQ: Daemon Prince, Wings, Malefic Talons X 2, Mark of Slaanesh, Flesh Metal Exoskeleton – Warlord “Cold and Bitter” Trait
HQ: Sorcerer, Force Sword
Troops: Cultists X 40, Mark of Slaanesh
Troops: Cultists X 10
Troops: Cultists X 10
This sits at 515 points – gives you a ton of bodies to mess with and feed to the Pox Walkers as needed. All that is left is some kind of central damage unit – could be Obliterators or Terminators. It feels like you could do two units of Oblits for the cost of a unit of 10 Terminators. The Blight Lords are not terrible as they hit pretty decently with a ton of Combi Options, can counter assault pretty rough and seem pretty tough.
7 Blight Lord Terminators, Buboitic Axe X 7, Combi-Plasma X 7 – 406
2 units of 3 Obliterators – 390
The 7 Blightlords spits out 14 Plasma Shots at 18″. It is a single unit so things like Veterans of the Long War and Prescience is extremely powerful for them. They do not get to double shoot but they are extremely tough to deal with. The Obliterators shoots out more shots – but at a random set of strength etc. They do not overheat and take up less foot print. You do also get a chance to have 3 sets of shooting with them as one unit can double shoot. That gets into some extreme Command point usage and the only way to generate that back would be to start looking at another HQ to take the Foetid Bloat drones into a detachment for a net gain of one Command point. The hunger of Cloud of Flies mixed with the Dead Walk again means at least 2-3 turns of min 2 points used. This has me looking at some random things like how to fit in a Tallyman in hopes to gain a point or two as well as utilize his reroll hits option on the big fat unit of Pox Walkers. Which again has me rethinking this entire list as I build it as well to try and fit in some extra points here and there.
Putting it all Together
Let’s just go with the Blight Lord Terminators as no one uses them – they are set at the sacred number 7 and it just seems cool to have them in an army.
Death Guard Battalion
HQ: Typhus
HQ: Daemon Prince, Wings, Malefic Talon X 2, Suppurating Plate (-1CP)
Elite: The Tallyman
Elite: Blightlord Terminators X 7, Combi-Plasma X 6, Blight Launcher, Bubonic Axes X 7
Troops: Pox Walkers X 20
Troops: Cultists X 10
Troops: Cultists X 10
FA: Foetid Bloat Drone
FA: Foetid Bloat Drone
FA: Foetid Bloat Drone
Iron Warrior Battalion
HQ: Daemon Prince, Wings, Malefic Talons X 2, Mark of Slaanesh, Flesh Metal Exoskeleton – Warlord “Cold and Bitter” Trait
HQ: Sorcerer, Force Sword
Troops: Cultists X 37, Mark of Slaanesh
Troops: Cultists X 10
Troops: Cultists X 10
CP – 8 and sits at 1998 points.
Is the List Good?
I have played it a few times – it can win games and doesn’t feel like you are cheating. It shoots a decent amount and has a ton of bodies so from an ITC and scoring stand point it can win games. It gives up the Reaper pretty easily based on its combo but sometimes you have to give that up to gain the board control you need. Plus it is a majority Death Guard army with a non Alpha Legion Chaos Space Marine ally to help things out. Of course – when the Daemon book comes out will see how much the Death Guard army will change and move towards a more “daemon” based approach.
Welp that is the first article written for the new year. I expect a ton of Daemon stuff to come out as well as fun new Xenos stuff. I want to really dabble in Shadespire right now as well as look at the expensive Blight Lords for AOS. Fun times indeed for me. Will lock in my LVO list soon as I have to decide on having more fun and just trying to win more then I lose.
~Happy New Year and let me know what you think of the list!
