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Ive won some of my games as DIY marines the only problems i have are against chaos armies and harliquins. I dont know how to counter them and any advice would be nice to know

Well it may seem obvious but harlies only have a 5+ save. Even though they are hard to see flamers work great. I am an Eldar player and I only have to worry about those people who realize that moving as close to harlies as possible is the way to go. A single squad in a razorback or rhino is enough to take the teeth out of harlequins. Charge with your vehicle, dump the rapid fire, rinse and repeat.

Orion

First you need a solid army list. The points you are using for traits could be spent on more Marines and guns, but if it is working for you then stick with it. Chaos is about to change so you will probably have a leg up as those players will need time to adjust to the changes. Harlequins are nasty. I would try to use a bait unit to draw them out then either bum rush them with every unit you can get into close combat or get up close and blaze them away.

- G

Whirlwinds with Castellan mines against the Harlies. Mine your own positions and dare them to charge.

As said before,
Chaos is changing so the existing problems you are facing is bound to change.

Harlequins are scary!
but they are really fragile (hence they seem to nicely be in transports all the time!)

Using mines is a good defensive stance (as tegeus) has said.
But lots of small arms fire (preferable rapid firing), heavy bolters and frag missiles tend to work well enough.

Another option that you can use is a typhoon, it's one of the really good uses for that weapon type (and they are fast enough to not really be bother by the fact that the quins are also in a transport)

But marines are going to get munched by quins and banshee pretty much no matter what if they get the charge.
You could try and shoot the transports (but if that was easy then we wouldn't be having this conversation)

;-)

Specifically, what Chaos armies are giving you trouble? Given your trouble with Harlies I'm assuming it's the close combat Chaos armies that are giving you grief, but I want to make sure.

Quins are fairly easy to deal with. All you need to do is get close and shoot them with multi shot weapons. This can be done with a lot of different things. Heavy bolter + auto cannon speeders work great. Tac squads in rhinos also work well, just zoom up, jump out, and fire 20 bolter shot into them. They drop like flys. Flamers work well too. You can also use things like drop pods to land on/near them and then have whatever squad is inside shoot them to bits. The key is to just get some troops close to them and shoot them before they can charge you.

If they are hiding in a falcon, the transport has to stand still for a round before they quins get out. All you have to do is move a sacrificial unit towards the falcon and every other unit in the area away from the falcon. This will minimize the damage you take and give you a chance to move back and lay waste once they get caught in the open. If they zoom up really close to you, you can just block the back door and force the falcon to move again the next turn.

Scenario 1 should never happen against a decent Eldar player. Harlies on foot are FTL.

Scenario 2 can work but is hardly an easy solution. All the Eldar player needs to do is have the basic self-control to not take the bait. Sure, you can then try and block the rear hatch when he pursues your juicy units, but all it takes is a second grav tank to tank shock your guys off.

I agree with tC, Eldar players can see this coming because they expect it. A better tactic is to keep a counter assault unit in reserve about 12" away from where you expect the harlies to engage that can rapid fire/flame the victorious harlies.

If I see this happen to me and know if I win the combat I initiate I am going to be bullet ridden I will often use the hit and run tactic. This has the benefit of leaving some of your unit left alive and they are usually the ones that can realistically persue and do something.

I actually recommend leaving a flamer alive in a unit that you can force this on instead of removing that model first as I often see.

Orion

Orion, you are a truely a wise man. Few see how good flamers are. In my BT armies, i usually have flamers go in with my CC squads. Against harlies, its just easy. Flamer can get in at least 3 wounds on a smart enemy with spaced out haliguins. thats usually enough to kill at least one. And 9 pistol shots, that will kill more. Then just get the charge, and overwhelm them with the number of attacks. 3 pt attacks+26 normal attacks can kill alot, no matter what it is.

Posted By tegeus-Cromis on 09/26/2007 10:09 PM
... all it takes is a second grav tank to tank shock your guys off.

Maybe a dumb question, but how does this work?  Assuming the enemy squad doesn't break - pretty rare occurence when I've tank shocked - don't they just go back to where they were after the tank shocks through?  Or can you park the falcon there, push the enemy to the other side of the shocking falcon and then let the clowns jump out below / to the side of the shocking falcon?

Or are the tank shock rules different now?

- Salvage

If the unit passes it just moves out of the way but must stay 1" away from enemy models. If this is done right you can create that bubble of about 2" for your harlies to disembark into without having to move your original model (falcon).

Orion

Basically the latter. Since the enemy needs to stay 1" away from both Falcons, but your Harlies don't need to, it's easy to place your second Falcon in such a way that the Harlies have space to disembark. Pretty much what Orion says.