Generally, any ability that allows you to ignore damage (colloquially Feel No Pain, or FNP) is very strong, since it essentially improves your Operatives' wounds characteristic.
On average an FNP 5+ decreases incoming damage by 33% - effectively increasing an Operative's Wounds by 50%; on Operatives with lots of wounds this is massive. Additionally, since it is very random, it makes planning moves more difficult for your opponent, because even an easy kill can turn into an absolute roadblock if you roll well on your FNP.
What made Cult very strong, among other things, is copious amounts of FNP 5+ in addition to full heals on mutation; if you don't manage to kill the basic operatives before they mutate they become very, very difficult to stop.
Against which teams and in which ways did you struggle? Kill Team has a lot of moving parts and even a very strong team can lose if terrain etc. are set against it.
A 5+ FNP will effectively increase an operative's wounds by 1/2, not 1/3.
To kill a 10-wound operative with 5+ FNP, on average you'll need to deal 15 wounds of which one third (five) are then ignored.
Last night I played against intercessors with the new nerfs, and he somehow managed to get sightlines on all my leaders despite doing my best to hide them. He mopped up half my cultists by the start of turn 3 and I had only gotten mutations off from the start of the turning points because he managed to kill my demogogue turn 1 because he gets 2 attacks and I can only use the faithful follower strat once per turning point.
I had trouble against drukhari but that was a different reason. We played gallowdark and he threw a blast weapon into my drop zone which killed 6 of my cultists and my iconarch with one attack.
Played against pathfinders and a similar thing happened. He ran up and fusion grenaded my demogogue turn 1. But that was also my first game as Chaos cults. I held in there best I could but I just couldn't stick with it.
and I also lost to kroot farstalkers. But that might have been due to some bad luck. I charged his kroot several times and each time, my guys died in the fight even thought I charged. A single kroot killed 2 cultists and both of my blessed blades in melee after I charged.
TL;DR: Analyse those games and check if you and your opponents played the rules wrong, what you are describing sounds like a combination of both bad positioning and truly apocalyptically bad dice rolls.
The loss against Intercession is understandable, they are a very strong team, especially against newer players; losing your important Operatives so early is tough, you basically had no chance from that point on. How did he manage to shoot at them, was there not enough (Heavy) Terrain? In TP1 nobody should die if you don't really position them very badly.
Similar against the Drukhari, how did he manage to do that? That should be basically impossible.
Pathfinders are strong at range, probably one of your worse matchups; generally, those grenade attacks in TP1 are only possible on a few teams (Pathfinders, Corsairs, Kommandos...) and they still require good rolls, so you must have gotten really, really, unlucky to lose 7 Operatives - honestly, if they didn't sit together in a circle touching bases I do not even know how a single grenade could hit and kill 7 Operatives did he roll all hits/crits on all those attacks? Perhaps he got a rule wrong, it seems wildly unlikely...
Kroot have some good melee options, if you roll badly you can easily lose a charge against some their operatives, but even here losing 4 operatives against a single Kroot sounds weird.
we played the rules correctly unless I can use the same strategem more than once.
I honestly didn't know that Intercession was that strong. there definitely wasn't enough heavy terrain on the field, but we had too many other people playing kill team so there wasn't a lot of terrain to go around.
He managed to do that because I opened the door which opened him up to line of sight to a blast weapon that I didn't know existed. It was the final gallowdark mission where you're trying to escape the exploding ship and your deployment zones basically start right next to each other.
Pathfinders wasn't the match I where I lost the 7 operatives. The drukhari one was. and yes, they were all basically next to each other because gallowdark was not designed for a 15 model kill team.
The kroot one was absolutely bad rolls but I don't wanna be the one to say that because I don't wanna be that guy that says "I only lost to bad rolls".
It's alright, Kill Team is a dice game and sometimes you absolutely lose because of bad rolls xD
Gallowdark and dangerous Blast weapons makes sense, them having Lethal 5+ is a menace...
Also, the narrative missions from the various expansions are notoriously badly balanced for some matchups, so that checks out I guess.
All in all, I'd still blame bad luck and a less than fair starting position, with some big mistakes mixed in - try to keep your important operatives alive and you should see yourself doing much better even after these nerfs.
Thanks for your explanations, and have fun - try to play against some more forgiving teams, perhaps someone would be willing to play a Compendium team to let you get a better feel for how Cult can work <3
Why are chaos cult nerf ? I lost all the time
Proceed to explain that he mispositioned and get blasted by grenades on turn 1
Perharps it's not the nerf but learning to play?
I know its not the nerf because 3 of those 4 games were pre-nerf.
My question was what are people doing that's making them such a problem. Because currently I don't see it.
The nerfs were reasonable and Chaos Cult is still one of the strongest teams in the game.
Maybe your board is too open? It can be hard for a newer player to hide 15 bodies. Do you want to post a terrain pic?
No worries. CYRAC posted a terrain pack in this subreddit a couple days ago. Also Turning Point Tactics has a nice pack.
Just make sure you properly understand obscuring (intercession can ignore it with their Auspex but that’s it) and that you’re playing with enough terrain.
Generally, any ability that allows you to ignore damage (colloquially Feel No Pain, or FNP) is very strong, since it essentially improves your Operatives' wounds characteristic. On average an FNP 5+ decreases incoming damage by 33% - effectively increasing an Operative's Wounds by 50%; on Operatives with lots of wounds this is massive. Additionally, since it is very random, it makes planning moves more difficult for your opponent, because even an easy kill can turn into an absolute roadblock if you roll well on your FNP. What made Cult very strong, among other things, is copious amounts of FNP 5+ in addition to full heals on mutation; if you don't manage to kill the basic operatives before they mutate they become very, very difficult to stop. Against which teams and in which ways did you struggle? Kill Team has a lot of moving parts and even a very strong team can lose if terrain etc. are set against it.
A 5+ FNP will effectively increase an operative's wounds by 1/2, not 1/3. To kill a 10-wound operative with 5+ FNP, on average you'll need to deal 15 wounds of which one third (five) are then ignored.
Good point, thank you, I adjusted the original post <3
Last night I played against intercessors with the new nerfs, and he somehow managed to get sightlines on all my leaders despite doing my best to hide them. He mopped up half my cultists by the start of turn 3 and I had only gotten mutations off from the start of the turning points because he managed to kill my demogogue turn 1 because he gets 2 attacks and I can only use the faithful follower strat once per turning point. I had trouble against drukhari but that was a different reason. We played gallowdark and he threw a blast weapon into my drop zone which killed 6 of my cultists and my iconarch with one attack. Played against pathfinders and a similar thing happened. He ran up and fusion grenaded my demogogue turn 1. But that was also my first game as Chaos cults. I held in there best I could but I just couldn't stick with it. and I also lost to kroot farstalkers. But that might have been due to some bad luck. I charged his kroot several times and each time, my guys died in the fight even thought I charged. A single kroot killed 2 cultists and both of my blessed blades in melee after I charged.
Your friend needs to teach you and not just style on you by blowing up all your dudes turn one
well its not one friend and these were 4 different people and that was my third game as chaos cults.
Sounds like you guys need more terrain/better layouts if you’re getting wrecked that early in the game.
I agree with the guy above. You can find some terrains setups for Matched Plays. For example https://linktr.ee/turningpointtactics
TL;DR: Analyse those games and check if you and your opponents played the rules wrong, what you are describing sounds like a combination of both bad positioning and truly apocalyptically bad dice rolls. The loss against Intercession is understandable, they are a very strong team, especially against newer players; losing your important Operatives so early is tough, you basically had no chance from that point on. How did he manage to shoot at them, was there not enough (Heavy) Terrain? In TP1 nobody should die if you don't really position them very badly. Similar against the Drukhari, how did he manage to do that? That should be basically impossible. Pathfinders are strong at range, probably one of your worse matchups; generally, those grenade attacks in TP1 are only possible on a few teams (Pathfinders, Corsairs, Kommandos...) and they still require good rolls, so you must have gotten really, really, unlucky to lose 7 Operatives - honestly, if they didn't sit together in a circle touching bases I do not even know how a single grenade could hit and kill 7 Operatives did he roll all hits/crits on all those attacks? Perhaps he got a rule wrong, it seems wildly unlikely... Kroot have some good melee options, if you roll badly you can easily lose a charge against some their operatives, but even here losing 4 operatives against a single Kroot sounds weird.
we played the rules correctly unless I can use the same strategem more than once. I honestly didn't know that Intercession was that strong. there definitely wasn't enough heavy terrain on the field, but we had too many other people playing kill team so there wasn't a lot of terrain to go around. He managed to do that because I opened the door which opened him up to line of sight to a blast weapon that I didn't know existed. It was the final gallowdark mission where you're trying to escape the exploding ship and your deployment zones basically start right next to each other. Pathfinders wasn't the match I where I lost the 7 operatives. The drukhari one was. and yes, they were all basically next to each other because gallowdark was not designed for a 15 model kill team. The kroot one was absolutely bad rolls but I don't wanna be the one to say that because I don't wanna be that guy that says "I only lost to bad rolls".
It's alright, Kill Team is a dice game and sometimes you absolutely lose because of bad rolls xD Gallowdark and dangerous Blast weapons makes sense, them having Lethal 5+ is a menace... Also, the narrative missions from the various expansions are notoriously badly balanced for some matchups, so that checks out I guess. All in all, I'd still blame bad luck and a less than fair starting position, with some big mistakes mixed in - try to keep your important operatives alive and you should see yourself doing much better even after these nerfs. Thanks for your explanations, and have fun - try to play against some more forgiving teams, perhaps someone would be willing to play a Compendium team to let you get a better feel for how Cult can work <3
You need to play with the correct amount of terrain. I would say that is the #1 factor here.
Why are chaos cult nerf ? I lost all the time Proceed to explain that he mispositioned and get blasted by grenades on turn 1 Perharps it's not the nerf but learning to play?
I know its not the nerf because 3 of those 4 games were pre-nerf. My question was what are people doing that's making them such a problem. Because currently I don't see it.
kill team is a tricky game, learning it require some time! :)
The nerfs were reasonable and Chaos Cult is still one of the strongest teams in the game. Maybe your board is too open? It can be hard for a newer player to hide 15 bodies. Do you want to post a terrain pic?
I mean it was last night. I don't have pics of the terrain. sorry.
No worries. CYRAC posted a terrain pack in this subreddit a couple days ago. Also Turning Point Tactics has a nice pack. Just make sure you properly understand obscuring (intercession can ignore it with their Auspex but that’s it) and that you’re playing with enough terrain.
Ask an experienced player to do a faction swap for a game! Gives a whole new perspective on the game and your faction.