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Hey all,

Played some proxies with my brother and it looks like he will be putting together a Black Templar list and I'm wanting to build a CSM list, 1500 pts. The problem is that his list has 2 LR's and I'm finding it difficult to take out.

Here is his list roughly, not exact details (I can't remember it all and apologize for mistakes).

HQ
Grand Marshal
Another HQ that benefits all his units by giving leadership 10.

Elite
5x Terminator Assault Squad
4x Terminator Squad

Troops
9x Crusaders, made of Neophyte and Intiates
9x Crusaders, made of Neophyte and Intiates

Heavy Support
Land Raider
Land Raider Crusader

***

Now I know he is low on troops but the games we have been playing are just against each other as we are still pretty new and learning the rules. We just set up on the table and have a deathmatch, havn't really rolled any mission based games following the book.

He usually puts his HQ's and termies in the LR and shoots whatever I got with the LRs and Machine spirit.

I've tailored my army to try and take out his LRs, here is the list I'm planning.

HQ
Chaos Lord, terminator armor, Mark of Khorne, Personal Icon, Daemon Weapon (160 pts)

Elite
5x Chosen, Icon of Glory, 5x meltaguns (150)
5x Chosen, Icon of Glory, 5x meltaguns (150)
Rhino (35)
Rhino (35)

Troops
8x Berzerkers, Skull Champ /w PF (208)
10x Chaos Space Marines, Icon of Glory, 2x Plasma Guns (190)
Rhino (35)

Heavy Support
2x Obliterator (150)
2x Obliterator (150)
Land Raider, Extra Armor (235)

Here's my plan. Lord goes into LR with Zerkers. Now I think I might have a chance if I can outflank with the Chosen and pop his LR's. I also have icons on Lord to Deep Strike Oblits off of if they arrive before the Chosen do. Main focus is using melta and multi-melta to kill his LR's and then try to kill off the rest of his army.

The reason for this army is that I can't think of any reliable way to take down LR's. Lascannon shots do not seem very effective and if my oblits can shoot his LR's, then he can shoot my oblits with Twin-Linked lascanons which usually die before the oblits even get a glancing hit on the LR.

If there is a better way to take out LRs, please let me know.

Would this work and for future purposes and against other players and armies, should I consider building this Chaos list?

Thanks!

Hello. A couple of things before we start,

1) You really shouldn’t tailor to beat your friend’s list. It’s considered pretty rude if not outright cheating. He doesn’t seem to really have tailored against chaos, and so you should probably just build a take-all-comers type army and work with that.
2) I know you said you couldn’t remember his list, but if he really has everything you say he does he’s got to be over 1500 pts. The lands raiders and 2 20 man squads are almost 1100 pts themselves. Then you’ve listed easily another 400 pts in terminators and he still has two HQs on top of that. You may have just exaggerated what he has but I don’t think it would be bad to go over how he made his list; it would be good for both of you.

Onto some tactics. Very few chaos players run chosen. Generally it’s thought there are better cheaper options than what is basically a tooled up chaos marine. Outflanking with them is also not such a great idea because you miss at least the first turn of shooting, and unless he is silly and hangs along the table edge it will be more turns after you eventually come in before you are close enough to shoot. You’re looking at turn 3-4 at the earliest to meltagun the raiders, and they have long delivered their payload before that. Land raiders are also AV14 on all sides so you get no bonus for being in the side or rear. If you want to use melta squads, have them on the table first turn. As those land raiders blitz straight at your army (and BT raiders will) counterpunch with melta drive bys out of the top of your rhinos. It will probably take more than one squad to hurt a raider if he has blown smoke, so deploy so you can focus your fire on the biggest threat.

You also IMO have too many meltaguns in the chosen squads. You can only shoot two out the top of a rhino so you either have to bail out (which I would not recommend) or waste 60pts. Also, on the first casualty you take you will lose the cost of the chosen and the meltagun. And most units in most games take a casualty or two before they get to do anything. You have no buffer wounds before you start eating into special weapons pts, and the ratio of buffer pts and pts meant for killing is extremely important in army building.

Lascannons aren’t great against AV 14, but those oblits can also deepstrike and do also have meltaguns. They will get charged like crazy next turn so I don’t know if suicide oblits is in this case the best idea, but it is an option.

In general I’m surprised you are having trouble with the LRs. But between your LR, 4 oblits, and all the melta guns you should have more than enough to take out 2 tanks. In fact I think you have over invested in anti tank and your army would really suffer against other opponents.

Some other really handy units you might think about trying to make the army a little more rounded.

Lash Daemon Prince – All sorts of topics on them in the forums. They aren’t quite what they used to be for many reasons, but still very useful.

Warptime Daemon Prince – Good for at least 4-5 dead things a turn. He will also go before the termies so if you charge you may only have 1 or 2 fight back. The next turn you would finish the squad in a most points efficient way.

Plague marines- Instead of 10 vanilla marines with plasma guns, try and find points for 10 plague marines with plasma guns. If you can keep them away from the terminators they will soak up most of what the foot squads can put out. But if you match them up against the terminators you’ve just wasted all those extra points you spent. The terminators will hit and wound you just as easily and blow through the FNP. But they are also a really solid unit against most armies.

Chaos terminators – Very cheap and can be given combi weapons. A lot of people like to deepstrike aggressively and shoot the combi weapons. They would last longer I think than oblits which won’t stand up as well in the CCs you’ll face.

Daemonically Possessed Vindicator – Kind of expensive but man is it annoying to play against. Your opponent will need to blow the battle cannon off or destroy it which means it will on average take twice the firepower to silence it. And S10 AP2 large blast with 2D6 pick the highest against vehicles is good against just about anything.

Hope that helps.

Thank you for the descriptive reply ArtfcllyFlvrd.

I'm not looking at it as that I'm tailoring a list to beat my opponent but more of a list to kill Land Raiders.

My brother's Black Templars have fairly cheap troop options and I should have clarified that they are 2 squads of 9, made up of both Initiates and Neophytes (I just remembered they are not at 10).

The LR and LRC are basically stock with the HQs. Whatever points left over are put in to make the 5 termie assault squad and 4 termie squad.

I was hoping I could outflank with the Chosen, 12 inches in, then dismount 2 inches out from the Rhino and fire the same turn they came in. The Chosen squad is 150 points + 35 points, which is less than a LR or LRC so I wanted to maximize melta damage for those squads.

I'm not to sure with Warptime Daemon Princes, unless I was using him wrong, he got into a fight with terminators and all the wounds he inflicted were saved due to the 2+ armor saves the termies had and they PF'd him.

I thought about deep striking terminators vs oblits too but effective range of the melta is within 6in of the Land Raider vs a multi-melta and if you don't have an icon close enough, you'd have to deal with scatter.

I will pick at this more.. Thank you

It’s no problem. Couple more things…

Your demon prince is a monstrous creature so he ignores all armor saves in CC. So your brother’s terminators should have been taking a 5+ invulnerable save not a 2+ armor save.

Outflanking and then bailing out is possible, but I don’t like that so much because you are still getting landraiders after they have delivered their passanger’s and you have to get out to do it. Really after the landraiders have dropped their guys they aren’t nearly as threatening to you. They can’t score, they aren’t particularly fast for vehicles, they don’t have many shots, and if you get into cover you can reduce the effectiveness of most of their shots by half. And I personally don’t like suicide squads as much as I used to because a 185pt slot might blow up the 255pt land raider, but when they and their transport get squashed you have given up 2 kill points to get one. It’s not always a bad move but it adds another dimension that doesn’t favor suicide.

If you are going to suicide terminators are the cheapest and probably best. 3 combi melta termies are cheaper than 2 oblits. You get an extra melta shot and they will be more useful when they get charged (because they are of course just sitting in the middle of a BT army). And scattering stinks, but you’ll hit some of the time and it can be worth the chance to kill more than double your pts before the other guy can do anything about it.

Another thing is, if you haven't yet play more objective missions. Really about 2/3rds of your missions should be objective based. With so few troops just target them, wipe them out and then he can't claim anything. The best he could do is table you (which you can avoid easily is you play evasively) or tie. It might start encouraging him to build his army differently.

Demon Princes are CSM's answer to an awful lot of problems. There's a reason they're so popular in lists - they're just that freakin' good. DP's will pop the LR with minimal trouble, regardless of the flavor. Warptime makes it a bit more of a sure thing.

With the list you have, you could fairly easily handle what he's throwing at you.

Popping a Land Raider and plasma cannoning the Terminators inside with your Oblits, it isn't exactly rocket science.


But FWIW, list-tailoring is pretty lame, so you should probably consider dropping the Chosen for a more dispersed pattern of Meltagunning. You also aren't taking advantage of Chaos' best HQ choices: Lash sorcerors, Princes of all breeds, and some special characters (ie: Kharn). Kharn has a life expectancy similar to that of your Chaos lord, hits on 2's with as many attacks as your Khorne lord can hope to inflict on average (if he doesn't hurt himself), at a higher strength and hitting vehicles as a monstrous creature, he packs a plasma pistol, and he's only 5 points more.

You can build a more balanced, much nastier list. Any balanced list should be able to handle multiple Raiders, either though melta weapons or monstrous creatures. Once you take out 2 Raiders, a third of his army is gone.

I would personally get rid of the Chaos Lord and take a Daemon Prince with Mark of Slaanesh, Wings, and Lash of Submission.