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Hi all,

I'm currently playing a fun Heretics and Renegades 1k list with khorne daemons as a support. My problem is that my current meta is heavy shooting armies (tau / necrons) with some durable units (3++ save wraiths) that come directly in my face and I cannot ignore. We usually play in a very heavy terrain environment, so my khorne units cannot even charge units who are camping on the 3rd floor of buildings).

I'm starting to feel like there is an arms race that I'm not part of, so I'm here to ask you for help: how do you absolutely wreck faces in this context (preferably with a chaos army)?

Edit: I'm willing to look an another army completely.

Well you're playing two very weak armies vs two very strong armies. Not much else you can do except go with the meta and go Destroyers or Riptides. If you want to lose your friends, bring 3 riptides, 3 Ionheads and Longstrike.

I am afraid R&H, despite being my favourite army, are possibly one of the worst armies out there at the moment. Prior to the FAQ way back I would have said take as many Malefic Lords as possible and drown them in mortal wounds. Not an option now though.

You might want to look into Death Guard and Thousand Sons, not super competitive but a damn sight better than R&H.

Ermmm I'd rather not go into Tau. We've already got a Tau player (who brings a Riptide).

I was considering building the few mk3 marines I have on sprue and play them as Tsons with ahriman, a chaos daemon of tzeentch and possibly a leviathan dread, but I wonder if I'll get rekt the same way...

Id say ditch the renegades and go into khorne daemons morr, and get into CSM as well. The Skull Cannons are great for cover campers, and Khorne Berzerkers in rhinos can absolutely positively ruin just about anyone's day if their toughness is 6 or less.

Also, Warp Talons with rerolling charges from daemon HQs can just end any form of super overwatch from tau.

Tsons are really good.

 vaklor4 wrote:
Id say ditch the renegades and go into khorne daemons morr, and get into CSM as well. The Skull Cannons are great for cover campers, and Khorne Berzerkers in rhinos can absolutely positively ruin just about anyone's day if their toughness is 6 or less.

Also, Warp Talons with rerolling charges from daemon HQs can just end any form of super overwatch from tau.

Good point, if you play against a lot of Tau Warp Talons are a great investment.

Go into Guard, and treat the renegades as Guardsmen. They're a top tier codex, and you wont find a single person unwilling to play you as a "Chaossy" Guard.

By dropping the daemons, you create space in your list for the loyalist elements you need.

Thousand Sons are good, but I don't think they'd stand up too well to very a strong shooting army. They're expensive and you end up with very few models on the board.

This is my wreck face Black Legion gunline.

The variant I play with against tough opponents is to replace the Helbrutes with Decimators and the Predators with Scorpius'. It's probably not going to stand up to the Tau list described by BaconCatBug, but it does very well against Necrons.

Were I to optimize against your meta, I would drop the Helbrutes and some of the CSMs (probably go down to 5-man squads,) put the Scorpius' behind LOS-blocking terrain, and take a Khorne Daemons detachment featuring 2 30x Bloodletters and a Bloodmaster (of whatever they are calling the Herald these days.) I would take Banner of Blood on both Bloodletter squads and use Denizens of the Warp to deepstrike on turn 3 (after they spread out a little.) I would be very careful to make the most out of the 3d6-inch charges and circle as many Tau units as possible.

If the deepstriking Daemons happen to overwhelm your opponent, great, but that's not going to happen most games. They will give you time to move up the board / claim objectives with anything else you bring.

If you're willing to change your army, use your Renegades as Cultists and build up a World Eaters Force to complement your Khorne Daemons. With that MK3 armor you can make some nice looking Khorne-Berserkers I'm sure, just get some axes from 3rd party.
That way you can stay fluffy, still use Models you already have and you can also use a stronger codex (CSM).

Also, if you want to make it really ugly buy a Lord of Skulls or a brass scorpion.

Yeah, I thought about World Eaters too, but I worry that I'll never get to charge anything, because my opponents are using multi-floor buildings to hide.

Consider pumping up your Renegades and Heretics with some artillery. Mortar Teams are dirt cheap and put out a *lot* of inaccurate shooting, you also have access to IG equipment like Basilisks or Earth-shaker Batteries. Remember, you don't actually have to kill all of the models on that multi floor ruin, just kill enough of em to fit a few zerkers / a Prince / a Blood Thirster up there. Mortars and Basilisks have good range and don't need line of sight, which makes them somewhat easier to protect- especially with the amount of screens available to R&H.

Also look into Soul Grinder / Defiler. These are older kits who don't come with giant bases. As such their hull counts as their base, and their hull includes their hulking claws. This means that they can often get their 'hull' within one inch of an enemy's base even if they are on a higher floor of a ruin- especially with a dynamically posed dumpster claw. If your opponent is cheesing a ruin by taking up the whole floor, they deserve to get a Defiler or Soul Grinder to the face, abuse the rules right back at them!

I cant believe only 1 person has said "Use Count-As Guard".

Imperial Guard are top tier, mainly due to the cheap/effective infantry squads and artillery. You can easily build a gunline that out-shoots even Tau.

For example, 10 guardsmen with 1 Heavy Bolter and 1 Plasmagun is about 60 pts. 3-6 squads like that along with 2-3 Company Commanders is a great backbone for a gunline. Throw in 2-3 squads of 3 Mortar Heavy Weapon Teams, and your looking at a cheap gunline that will give any other gunline a run for its money

Quick question: do you think Heldrakes could help?

Lazaris wrote:
Quick question: do you think Heldrakes could help?

Not really, against Necrons they've usually got enough warrior bubble wrap that you can't hold down what you want to and against Tau they've got fly on everything that's important so they can just jump out of combat (Heldrakes are good at holding something down turn 1 and nothing else).

I'd go Khorne Daemonkin: lots of Zerkers on the board plus 1 or 2 Bloodletter bombs for some late game shenanigans, maybe even grab a Lord of Skulls/Brass Scorpion if there's a lot of LoS blocking terrain.

 akaean wrote:
Consider pumping up your Renegades and Heretics with some artillery. Mortar Teams are dirt cheap and put out a *lot* of inaccurate shooting, you also have access to IG equipment like Basilisks or Earth-shaker Batteries. Remember, you don't actually have to kill all of the models on that multi floor ruin, just kill enough of em to fit a few zerkers / a Prince / a Blood Thirster up there. Mortars and Basilisks have good range and don't need line of sight, which makes them somewhat easier to protect- especially with the amount of screens available to R&H.

I brought a Basilisk in my last game and screened it with 20 cultists. The cultists got charged and killed by 6 Wraiths in 1 turn, and the Basilisk was ready for Necron harvest on the next one.

I threw every dakka I had into the Wraiths to try and cripple them before they reached the Basilisk, but the 3++ was too good.

Fisheyes wrote:
I cant believe only 1 person has said "Use Count-As Guard".

Imperial Guard are top tier, mainly due to the cheap/effective infantry squads and artillery. You can easily build a gunline that out-shoots even Tau

Guard is best as part ofsoup to provide screen, cp and mortars. Pure guard isn't that hot these days. Especially progressive scoring scenarios that hurt gunlines

There is always Eldar. Every one hates CWE.

Riptides aren't even all that. They got a buff in the Codex, but they needed it. I'm surprised people are moaning about them.

Lazaris wrote:
Yeah, I thought about World Eaters too, but I worry that I'll never get to charge anything, because my opponents are using multi-floor buildings to hide.

Bring a defiler. It doesn't have a base, so it can just punch them out of the ruin.

Want to get rid of your friends? Guard and Tau?

Azrael, 10 assault hellblasters, Lietenant, Ancient, Dark Shroud.

You won't have many CP's if only at 1K but you'll shred through them 20 plasma shots at 24" -4AP.

Lazaris wrote:
Hi all,

I'm currently playing a fun Heretics and Renegades 1k list with khorne daemons as a support. My problem is that my current meta is heavy shooting armies (tau / necrons) with some durable units (3++ save wraiths) that come directly in my face and I cannot ignore. We usually play in a very heavy terrain environment, so my khorne units cannot even charge units who are camping on the 3rd floor of buildings).

I'm starting to feel like there is an arms race that I'm not part of, so I'm here to ask you for help: how do you absolutely wreck faces in this context (preferably with a chaos army)?

Edit: I'm willing to look an another army completely.

Ally in Ahriman. Bring Death Hex for the wraiths. -1 to hit to neuter the Tau against your important units among other useful buffs.

If you really want to lose all your friends - show up with 3 Yavarh

Dark Eldar will give those armies fits.

Nurgle Daemons are the most competitive chaos option right now. Using some of the death guard daemon engines, maybe CSM daemons (oblits) and 1Ksons HQs for good psychic assault.

Excuse me but multi floor buidlings in a super terrain heavy table?

sounds like a job for jump packs charging out of LOS for all the fun times.

edit: also the fly keyword so drones, fdp, jump packs, hell drakes, other flying things.

 vaklor4 wrote:
Also, Warp Talons with rerolling charges from daemon HQs can just end any form of super overwatch from tau.

Wait, does this work?
I thought they FAQed it when they released this whole DEAMON mess, that DEAMON (faction) and DEAMON (keyword) in the CSM codex are not the same thing? Though I still not understand how we are supposed to tell what works for what...


EDIT:
Oh, I see now they only FAQed it for stratagems. Awesome.

 Desubot wrote:
Excuse me but multi floor buidlings in a super terrain heavy table?

sounds like a job for jump packs charging out of LOS for all the fun times.

edit: also the fly keyword so drones, fdp, jump packs, hell drakes, other flying things.

Unless you have no where to place the model on the ruin.

 mrhappyface wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Excuse me but multi floor buidlings in a super terrain heavy table?

sounds like a job for jump packs charging out of LOS for all the fun times.

edit: also the fly keyword so drones, fdp, jump packs, hell drakes, other flying things.

Unless you have no where to place the model on the ruin.

Hide underneat them so they cannot shoot or leave. usually the objectives have to be on the bottom floor no?