Warhammer 40K: Why Does Khorne Get All The Cultists Units For Chaos
Warhammer 40,000 has a chaos cultist problem. There’s only two flavors of them: Generic or Khorne. This seems like an easy fix.
Games Workshop announced the new Kill Team box coming with Blood and Zeal. It’s got two new Kill Teams that basically focus on two different “cults” of 40k. You’ve got the God-Emperor’s Imperial Sanctifiers. And then you’ve got the Goremongers who are inspired by the actions of a Khornate Bloodletter.
That’s great and all — I’m glad to see more Kill Teams added. Mostly because Kill Team seems to be one way to get a splash of new minis for 40k…but that’s another topic. What I wanted to focus on today was the fact that it’s yet another Khorne-based cult release for 40k.
All The Khorne Your Skull Can Take
In 40k, it really does seem like there’s only two types of cultists for chaos. First there’s the “generic” chaos cult troops like your Chaos Cultists or the Dark Commune unit. These aren’t really dedicated to any particular chaos god.
Or you’ve got the more Khorne influenced ones like the Goremongers above. And they aren’t even the only “Khorne Cultists” units around.
If you go look at the World Eaters section for 40k there’s also the Jakhals who fit the “crazy dudes in no armor who follow Khorne” description of a chaos cultist:
If you don’t look too hard you could easily get the Jakhals and the Goremongers mixed up, too. The main difference is that the Goremongers have crazy leg modifications…but the Jakhals also have metal boots that look similar. I’m guessing that was on purpose. “Oh but that’s only two units, what’s the big deal?” Well, it’s not just for 40k proper. Another example is the Corpse Grinder Cult Gang from Necromunda.
I get that they could be “generic” Chaos Cultists. You can’t tell me that this gang doesn’t have more than a slight Khorne slant when it comes to flavors of chaos gods. That flavor likely being blood and bones.
And hey, that’s not a huge sample size. I get that. But those are really the only two flavors of chaos cults around: Generic or Khorne. That’s the problem.
Where’s The Other Chaos Cultist Love?
When you look at the other chaos gods they don’t get the same attention. The closest thing we have are units like Tzaangors for the Thousand Sons and Poxwalkers for the Death Guard. The Emperor’s Children aren’t exactly swimming in groupies.
I also understand that you can take those generic cultists and paint them up to be dedicated to whichever chaos god you’d like. I just find it odd that the other chaos gods don’t have human units joining their cause.
If you look over at the Age of Sigmar range they have a much better spread of dedicated chaos cultists. The Hedonites of Slaanesh have the Blissbarb Archers. Maggotkin of Nurgle have units like the Rotmire Creed. The Disciples of Tzeentch even have the Kairic Acolytes. They are all human-ish units that are dedicated to their respective chaos god.
I’m not looking for these exact same units to be transposed over to 40k. However, I do think there is some room for expansion for these various chaos books. Especially as the Daemon units are getting truncated and removed from their respective Chaos Space Marine Cult Codexes.
If Games Workshop was looking to slowly introduce these types of units they already have a way to do that. It’s Kill Team. If the Goremongers are any indication, Kill Team is still getting chaos cultists added to it. Why not add in some followers that aren’t Khorne-based.
It’s not a zero-sum game. All of these things can co-exist together. GW doesn’t need to remove one to make room for the other. I say bring on more “human” cult troop units dedicated to a specific chaos god!
I like Khorne but c’mon, GW. You’ve got other flavors of chaos to explore!
