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Okay I am using the Be'Lakor and landraider combo to deliver units into melee. They run alongside other fast melee threats so this method has become very reliable. I am however still not convinced of what I want to deliver. I was hoping you good folks could help me decide or give new suggestions. The idea is to have a unit that can roll out and kill what it hits. If there are weak units only then the IC and the unit can split and go after both.

Option 1 (366 pts)
Kharn (160 pts)
Berzerkers (206 pts) 8 Zerkers and Champ w/ PF
Positives:
+Cheapest Option
+Scoring
+Fearless
+Good Anti Horde from Zerkers with good anything from Kharn
+Their Zerkers, so it is a unique snowflake list
Cons:
-Low damage output compared to other options
-Vulnerable to tarpitting if they get charged
-Do nothing versus high T or good Sv
-Will get steamrolled against most other deathstar type units, mitigated somewhat by Be'Lakor
-Vulnerable to early overkill against shooty lists
-Challenges can be problematic

Option 2 (510 pts)
Abadon (265 pts)
Chosen (285 pts) MoK, Icon Wrath, 7 Chosen 4 w/ Meltaguns and 1 w/ PF, and Champ
Positives:
+Scoring
+Great damage against anything and everything
+Abadon is a challenge monster
+Chosen Champ can be a challenge monkey to keep the killing where I want it.
+Can be given different marks depending on meta changes
Cons:
-Vulnerable to early overkill against shooty lists but they should be able to do something with melta before hand
-Make the landraider a huge target
-Vulnerable to leadership gimmicks and morale if split

Option 3 (483 pts)
Abadon (265 pts)
Possessed (218 pts) MoK, Icon Wrath, 7 Possessed and Champ
Positives:
+Decent damage and have a chance to do something interesting
+Champ challenge monkey
+Somewhat survivable so have a better chance to stay around, also a valid target for grimoire
+S6 on charge which is a nice tipping point
+Abadon
+Can be given different marks depending on meta changes
+A use for possessed! The dark gods have finally relented.
Cons:
-Not Scoring
-Vulnerable to early overkill against shooty lists
-Make the landraider a huge target
-Do nothing versus good Sv
-Other deathstars will grind them down unless I get lucky


Thanks for the input.

Honestly plague marines are probably the best

Kharn plus berzerkers.

That being said, I've got no tactical experience with CSM, and this is just a 'what would be my first response' response.

Shouldn't even be a question, Kharn and Berserkers.

Just realize it is a tactical nuke unit where you really only get one chance to use it as once launched it will kill most anything in the game, but after it will die to incoming fire. Choose your target well.

Wow a solid response for Zerkers. There is definitely love there. I agree it is a nice unit and combos better than the others as it needs less support, is less of a priority target, and frees up more points.Certainly solid, but it will unfortunately bounces off any deathstar or even TH/SS termies it meets. I do have some control over whether the encounter happens though so it is not always that big of a deal.

herpguy wrote:Honestly plague marines are probably the best

Why? I am honestly curious as I play plague marine lists and have a number of them. They are tough to kill but their damage is a pittance. It seems unnecessary to go this far to deliver a unit that will just survive when it gets there and adds nothing to the MTO nature of the strategy.

I've found that if Kharn isn't your Warlord and doesn't get his "Hatred" trait, he's a little underwhelming. For this reason a Dark Apostle leading regular CSM's can be just as good for less points, and you can even give him the Axe of Blind fury for the AP2 to match up with Kharn. Also, don't forget the Icon of Wrath for that ever important Charge Distance re-roll. Even out of a land raider its pretty important.

Plague marines or just regular marines with melta+combi-melta (sometimes with MoS and FNP icon, but not really necessary) as a retinue to your indep.
I've seen how good plague marines in a landraider are and personally used regular marines with a generic sorc in a landraider. And they actually worked good vs tau gunline. But that's mostly cause of a landraider that just got 2 glances and no pens in the first 2 turns. Plague marines are still better than anything.

Don't forget - a landraider is not only a good transport - but it's a solid moving losblocker. U might also want to use small squads of bikers, rhino marines or even raptors hiding behind a raider while they approach. And don't forget nurgle spawns.

Just use 10 CSM w/ CC/BP, 2 x Flm, Champ w/ PF/Combi Melta/MB and call it a day. Won't kill everything, but will hurt most things.

Regular CSMs with bolters swapped for CCWs. Add melta/flamers to your taste, equip the champion with a PF and maybe a combi melta. Icon, if you can spare the points.
Cheap and effective.

Don't forget dirge caster on the LR!

Abaddon and noise marines, give them the icon of excess and he gets FNP too. Plus they strike first against anything which isn't Eldar.

 ansacs wrote:
Why? I am honestly curious as I play plague marine lists and have a number of them. They are tough to kill but their damage is a pittance. It seems unnecessary to go this far to deliver a unit that will just survive when it gets there and adds nothing to the MTO nature of the strategy.

I'm sad to say that plague marines have a higher damage output than the berzerkers. The berzerkers will look good for their initial charge, but after that the plague marines outshine them in every way. I hate plague marines with a passion, and it's quite upsetting that they've become the shining elite/troop choice in the codex.

I don't have the numbers saved up anymore, so I can't give you specifics, but I calculated the outcome for 10 man squads of MoS, Khorne Berzerkers and Plague Marines assaulting and being assaulted by a "stock tactical marine squad" to see the results. Feel free to crunch the numbers for yourself and you'll quickly see how the Plague Marines take the gold medal.

GreyChaos wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
Why? I am honestly curious as I play plague marine lists and have a number of them. They are tough to kill but their damage is a pittance. It seems unnecessary to go this far to deliver a unit that will just survive when it gets there and adds nothing to the MTO nature of the strategy.

I'm sad to say that plague marines have a higher damage output than the berzerkers. The berzerkers will look good for their initial charge, but after that the plague marines outshine them in every way. I hate plague marines with a passion, and it's quite upsetting that they've become the shining elite/troop choice in the codex.

I don't have the numbers saved up anymore, so I can't give you specifics, but I calculated the outcome for 10 man squads of MoS, Khorne Berzerkers and Plague Marines assaulting and being assaulted by a "stock tactical marine squad" to see the results. Feel free to crunch the numbers for yourself and you'll quickly see how the Plague Marines take the gold medal.

It's true, against T4 and lower, PM get to re-roll failed wounds because of poisoned.

Abaddon, 3 Obliterators (MoN) and Lord/Dark Apostle/warpsmith (All your eggs!)

Jump out of land raider and split up as needed to kill up to 3 units at once. Don't forget if you are fighting a blob you can have the da/lord/warpsmith charge separately and he can do sweeping advances on his own (but he has to survive obviously).

 welshhoppo wrote:

GreyChaos wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
Why? I am honestly curious as I play plague marine lists and have a number of them. They are tough to kill but their damage is a pittance. It seems unnecessary to go this far to deliver a unit that will just survive when it gets there and adds nothing to the MTO nature of the strategy.

I'm sad to say that plague marines have a higher damage output than the berzerkers. The berzerkers will look good for their initial charge, but after that the plague marines outshine them in every way. I hate plague marines with a passion, and it's quite upsetting that they've become the shining elite/troop choice in the codex.

I don't have the numbers saved up anymore, so I can't give you specifics, but I calculated the outcome for 10 man squads of MoS, Khorne Berzerkers and Plague Marines assaulting and being assaulted by a "stock tactical marine squad" to see the results. Feel free to crunch the numbers for yourself and you'll quickly see how the Plague Marines take the gold medal.

It's true, against T4 and lower, PM get to re-roll failed wounds because of poisoned.

Hmm I’m curious. Let’s say you took plague marines in a raider, what kind of HQ should accompany them? I guess one could pick Typhus, but he just seems way too expensive for what he does.

Anyone got advice?

Unmarked sorcerer or Nurgle Lord I would suggest. Typhus is an absolute beast in close combat though (But then you are looking at 460 points for him and the LR alone) and then the PM are 214 naked.


Long story short, all your eggs in one basket, but if you hit them with the basket it will knock them out.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Unmarked sorcerer or Nurgle Lord I would suggest. Typhus is an absolute beast in close combat though (But then you are looking at 460 points for him and the LR alone) and then the PM are 214 naked.

Nurgle lords have a lot of potential, but a sorcerer? I don’t know man. With so few attacks and a poor WS sorcerers won’t help much in a melee focused unit. They don’t even have access to divination powers, which is extremely sad since prescience would have been a huge boon to a cc oriented unit.

Going to second the Plague Marine option as it has been working very well for me of late.

All of your other options suffer from the same fragility once the LR gets popped, it will be easy to whittle down and instagib most of them beside Abby.

On the other hand, if someone pops your LR and out hops Typhus and 8 Plagues, you've still got an extremely tough Deathstar unit making its way across the board (and cheaper than tooled up Chosen).

They'll for the most part be immune to instant death from shooting, still have their FNP when lit up with Plasmas and other AP2, and are nothing at all to sneeze at in Melee. Poisoned will do well vs MCs and other baddies, and the re-rolls to wound for T4 and under will be huge at forcing TEQ armor saves and simply will wear down just about everything else. If you're playing Black legion or give them VOTLW anyways (negligible benefit since they're already Fearless), they will Re-roll to hit in 1st round of combat vs Marines, and then re-roll to wound... It's not a Berzerker charge exactly but with 3 attacks each on the charge and those re-rolls they will do some damage and take plenty of punishment back in return.

They'll also help Typhus get to his initiative step vs bigger baddies and you gotta love the look on your opponents face when you explain that he has a Poisoned, Force, Daemon weapon...

So many votes for Kharn. He's a chump compared to Abbadon.

The sorc and the apostle aren't choppy enough for me to pay land raider points for. I prefer a lord instead, tooled up for whatever you want him to kill. Fearless units don't even necessarily need an IC. Run your juggerlord along with the raider for example.

Bzerks gain more from a raider than most since they benefit so much for the charge. PM won't devastate anything like Bzerk charge does but they'll stick around for awhile longer. Marines won't do as much damage as either and should have a lord for fearless. However, they are considerably cheaper and plenty threatening to many infantry.

I choose zerkers. But, instead of kharn I use a warpsmith with the burning brand of skalthrax and mark of khorne. If I expect ID wounds in the challenge then ill keep them together and try to multicharge, otherwise I split and charge seperate units with the warpsmith and the zerkers.

Zerkers certainly are popular. Though it may be because I forgot to add an other option.

I see what you mean about the plague marines. They are somewhat similar to the chosen in combat power as abadon is the majority of melee threat there anyways.

In someways I am starting to think of Khorn marks as an upgrade to give squads that will transport an axe of blind fury...er, lord/etc. with axe. Kind of like a flamer.

I may have to retry the poll at some point with plague marines in it. I would be curious how they stack up.

I was also thinking about mutilators but the models are not great and on paper I am not impressed.

 Redcruisair wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
Unmarked sorcerer or Nurgle Lord I would suggest. Typhus is an absolute beast in close combat though (But then you are looking at 460 points for him and the LR alone) and then the PM are 214 naked.

Nurgle lords have a lot of potential, but a sorcerer? I don’t know man. With so few attacks and a poor WS sorcerers won’t help much in a melee focused unit. They don’t even have access to divination powers, which is extremely sad since prescience would have been a huge boon to a cc oriented unit.

3 rolls on Biomancy. The things you get on that table are totally awesome for a squad of PM's, from giving them relentless to all sorts of nonsense. They might seem weak, but you have 9 Plague Marines keeping him warm.

cbteom wrote:
Don't forget dirge caster on the LR!

^^this

Overkill is bad o nthe charge. You want just the RIGHT amount of kill.

So... take that and ponder.

If you are worried about overkill, challenge with your scrub champ and hope he whiffs and/or dies. Striking with an unwieldly weapon makes this pretty likely. Then in round two have Abaddon take over the challenge.

Edit: Scratch that if the enemy runs you will not be able to keep them from running.
Edit #2: If using abaddon. No such problem with kharn.

wtnind wrote:
Abaddon, 3 Obliterators (MoN) and Lord/Dark Apostle/warpsmith (All your eggs!)

Jump out of land raider and split up as needed to kill up to 3 units at once. Don't forget if you are fighting a blob you can have the da/lord/warpsmith charge separately and he can do sweeping advances on his own (but he has to survive obviously).

I thought you can't separate the units the turn they disembark

My vote is not put an expensive hq in the land raider.

Put typhus/abbadon/kharn inside a big unit of cultists.
If you want to run the LR plague marines or CSM all the way.

Kharn + 7 Chosen, MoK, IoW,Champ with Dual LC, 2 Meltas and 2 Power weapons.

5 S5 A per dudes, in wich 15 Ap 3 A, and of course Kharn.

Other advantage is the true grit, you get assaulted? melta and rapid fire bolts in your face.

And ALWAYS, ALWAYS a Dirge caster on the LR, darn if i could i would put Dirge casters on every single model in the book!

Can also Add Cypher in the mix, to give Hit & Run and Shrouded to the squad, with 2 BS 10 Plasma shots, and Overwatch on 2's.

 koooaei wrote:

I thought you can't separate the units the turn they disembark

No such constraint as far as I am aware, have googled and not found any restrictions on such a thing either, other than the characters having to stand 2" away from the rest of the squad at the end of the movement phase.

I am going to second the Noise Marines actually. Feel No Pain banner on them makes them only slightly less hard to kill than Plague Marines, and the fact you're less killy on the charge is frequently a good thing because ideally you don't want to charge and win the assault completely on your turn so you don't get shot to death on the enemy turn.

If you give any of them sonic weapons, should you win that assault, you can usually consolidate them somewhere you'll be able to not have to move them and benefit from the full sonic barrage, but that is overkill I admit, and defeats the purpose of going cheaper with NM than you would with PM.