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I am considering starting to buy all the models in this list. i have been playing with other models to get it right. i just want to get some ideas about composition first. too much of anything, not enough. who will kill me. who will i waste. any tactics ideas to suggest? anything illegal? cheers

HQ1 Daemon Prince 110
Mark Khorne 10
wings 20

HQ2 Chaos Sorcerer 100
Mark Tzeentch 30
Termie Armour 15
Warp time 25 HQ total 410

HQ~ Greater Daemon 100

E1 Dreadnought 90
TL lascannon 35

E2 Dreadnought 90
TL lascannon 35

E3 7x Termies 210
icon of Tzeentch 35
1x power fist 10
2x Lightning claws 20
3x champ upgrade 30 Elites total 555

T1 6 plague marines 138
champ upgrade 15
power fist 25

T2 6 plague marines 138
champ upgrade 15
power fist 25

T3 6 plague marines 138
champ upgrade 15
power fist 25 Troops total 534

HS1 3x obliterators 225

HS2 Defiler 150
+1A upgrade 0
+1A upgrade 0

HS3 Vindicator 125 HS total 500


ARMY TOTAL 1999


What do you think.
oblits and dreads as distance vehicle and tough guy killers
Vindicator for ordnance horde killer
Termies hard as hell assault unit
Sorcerer seperate hard guy
Daemon prince fast assault killer
18 plague marines, tough troops
defiler shoots and 5 attacks in a fight
greater daemon a random worry

i put the termies in the middle with marines on either side and walk them towards the enemy.
vindicator on one side or covering objective
Defiler wandering up other side to flank and avoid scattering ordnance into my men
Khorne winged prince opposite hardest enemy target
Sorcerer lone allrounder
dreads in good position to shoot enemy armour
greater D comes when he comes but is a constant worry for opponent. they can close with my troops
but will get a Daemon.

Any ideas. hows my tactics. i play against marines players and a necron player.

i would like some comments from horde armies, marine ultra shooty armies and nidzilla players or oponents to see what they think.

cheers,
Tyrant

Dreadnoughts are worthless. Might as well drop them and take more termies. Might wanna switch the lords around. Make the Daemon Prince a Tzeentch, give him the psychic powers, and the khorne lord the Mark of Khorne, and if you can fit it, the daemon weapon. In my experience, that scares people a lot.

the dreads have been a weak link but the long range rerolled lascannons are good. i will playtest without them. any other tank killer suggestions. my opponents often take landraiders and monoliths. i cant remember tha least game i played without armour 14s on the field so this might make me want to go a bit LC heavy.
i might spend the points on more marines. Another of the same group and increase the groups to 7 maybe.
they are good for holding objectives

I don't want to make to many suggestions. You should keep you core army the way you want it and if your area has a lot of armor 14 vehicles, then that means your list should reflect that.

The Dreads are real tough to play with mostly because 33% of the time they will do whatever they want, not necessarily what you want. On the other hand their unpredictability could give you a huge advantage if they rage at the right time, etc.. I equate them to playing 9-7 suited in Poker. It usually doesn't work, but the few times it does work it's spectacular. I would tend to shy away from those low probability units. If you lose them both, that saves 250pts.

You still have the problem of armor 14. I see the plague marines are bear. Why not add 2 meltaguns into each squad? You could lose the Defiler or Vindicator and add in 3 more Oblits. Otherwise you could add in a 3 man termie squad with 3 combi-meltas for 105pts (add a lone chainfist for +15 and make it a 120pt unit). This can be a suicide deep strike unit to reach into the backfield and hit enemy armor. I don't want to change to much of your list, but I would consider it.

The sorcerer is a good idea, but he might have trouble getting around the battlefield. He might be better suited on a bike so he can zoom around and reach different ends of the board. Keep the warptime and give him a second psychic power, maybe bolt of change so he can help with anti-armor before he assaults on his bike.

I would remove the 2 dreads and save 250pts

Change the Sorcerer to ride a bike and give him bolt of change. (+40pts) - better mobility and anti-armor power

Add in 3 Terminators to the 7 man squad and add in 2 reaper autocannons. (+140pts) - more resilient unit since all have 2+/4+ saves and much more shooting power with 2 reaper autocannons.

Add in 2 meltaguns to each Plague Marine squad. (+60pts) - more anti-armor and anti-carnifex.


These are a few changes that should help your reliability against armor 14 and Godzilla while still retaining the core essence of your initial list.

I can't really comment on your list without knowing what you hope to do with it... How you hope to use each unit (it's purpose).

I'll refrain from making actual suggestions until I know more.

There are a few weaknesses to point out.


Dreads are weak. Forget that they have a Tl Lascannon. A third of the time, they go nuts & shoot at you. the other two-thirds they're dead, as they're Armor 12 is so weak that they die swiftly.
Last night, I played my first game EVER where a dread made it to the end of the game... Of course, I HID him the whole time and he was in cover/concealed... Plus, I got lucky that most of the opponents die rolls to hit were 1's.

The same goes for Defilers. It seems that GW wants them to be CCW beasts AND Ordnance shots at the same time but, with an Armor 12 and no "Indirect Fire," they aren't properly equipped to do either.

DP with Mark of Khorne won't make it into combat very often. He's too slow.
If you insist on keeping him Khorne (IMO, the weakest mark in the game, now), he'll need wings, at least.

The Vindicator is nice, but the 24" range means that everything the enemy has will be aimed at it until he gets within range (IF he makes it) and it'll be assaulted by Power Fists if it manages not to die before getting close. IMO a Predator with all las is a better option.

Those are my opinions on some of your unit choices. I'm eager to get more info on how you'd play the army to know what to actually suggest, though.

Eric

@Magic

I agree with you about Dreads. If at the very least they would have retained their fire frenzy from the last codex, where they shoot twice at the enemy they see, they might have been a consideration at chaos elite, but now that the fire frenzy has gone back to 3rd edition they are not very good.

His Daemon Prince does have wings.

I agree with you that the Defiler is suffering from a split personality and weak armor at 12, but he might stick a few turns if all those heavy weapons are aimed at the Vindicator, Oblits and DP. Personally I would take a 6 man Havoc squad with 4 heavy bolters for the same price, but if he likes Defilers then he could still use it. I have a wonderfully painted Defiler that I struggle in taking out of my list just because it looks so nice.

I also have a predator with all lascannons, but at 165pts it is almost priced out of the game. He did say he faces a lot of armor 14 where he plays so I understand str 9 weapons are a premium for him more than other locations.

Drop the sorc in termie armor and the vehicles. They're really just no good in a chaos army.

Khorne has nothing but +1 attack. How many times do you need to kill your deathzone in an assault phase? Try a different mark, all of the others really give you something good.

Your plague marines should have plasmaguns.

More oblits, and a 2nd DP are IMO required for viable chaos armies.

I don't think Termies are good because now they run away and need TEN of the buggers for 2 weapons (which aren't AC, so it's a stupid rule).

You don't have to cookie cutter your army, but if you want to be effective you just can't bring all that junk and expect to win.

Upping those plague marine squads to 10+ makes them really hard to shift.

Butterfly_Tyrant wrote:
E1 Dreadnought 90
TL lascannon 35

E2 Dreadnought 90
TL lascannon 35

oblits and dreads as distance vehicle and tough guy killers

dreads in good position to shoot enemy armour

Double Dreads? High five to that, brother! I'm taking the plunge and running two dreads in my 2000 list too, except I'm doing it with full knowledge that even one dread is a dicey proposition, and I'm also being a bit cagey with the second dread and running missile launcher / ccw - if he gets pissed and wants to shoot his buddies, then he can unload all the frags he never gets to shoot when I'm in control of him ...

Another thing about 2x dread action, I think you'd be remiss to put them together or with the oblits. Since they're packing re-rollable S9 AP2 guns, one fire frenzy has a good chance of gutting the oblits or zzaping the other dread. And there's the incredibly unfortunate Double Fire Frenzy, where the dreads either embrace in a double suicide or go apesh!t and destroy 4 of anything else near them!

So if you want the dreads for flavor and cause they're cool, then right on. If you want them for reliable fire support, reliable counter-attak, or any kind of reliability, then I suppose listen to the other voices in this thread

DarthDiggler wrote:The Dreads are real tough to play with mostly because 33% of the time they will do whatever they want, not necessarily what you want. On the other hand their unpredictability could give you a huge advantage if they rage at the right time, etc.. I equate them to playing 9-7 suited in Poker. It usually doesn't work, but the few times it does work it's spectacular. I would tend to shy away from those low probability units.

Just to toss a few anecdotes in here:

1) Only once have I had fire frenzy work in my favor in the new rules. I had thoroughly restricted LOS from my dread to the rest of my army, partially by deploying everything hard right flank and leaving Mr. Stompy almost half of my DZ to himself. Across from him were 3 sniper drone teams and 12 fire warriors hunkered into 4+ cover. First turn, snipers do nothing against the dread, and the dread fire frenzies ... into the fire warriors! 2 very solid plasma cannon shots later and 10 blue guys were vaporized. Over the game the dread went on to destroy all 3 sniper teams and claim the quarter.

2) The time before, the above Tau player brought his railhead to the game, with the only purpose of killing the dread. Sir Stomp died to a S10 shot first turn, never given the chance to be angry to my men. The End.

3) In last Friday's game, my dread deployed hard left, but within inches of 10 CSM in 4+ cover. They were facing off against dark reapers high in a 4+ building and then pathfinders in some trees close by (3+ save ). My first turn, the dread fire frenzied as he usually does, vaporizing fully half of the CSM squad. But then over the next 5 turns he mashed some warp spiders in assault and plasma'd the reapers out of the building, again claiming the quarter for Chaos.

So sometimes things work, and sometimes they don't, and sometimes it's kinda a mixed bag.

MagickalMemories wrote:
Last night, I played my first game EVER where a dread made it to the end of the game... Of course, I HID him the whole time and he was in cover/concealed... Plus, I got lucky that most of the opponents die rolls to hit were 1's.

I find my dread either bites it early without doing anything, kills some of my guys then survives to do painful things to the enemy, or (particularly against necrons) is slowly stripped of weapons and forced to kick things in combat until the game ends. Very rarely is there not carnage caused to somebody :S

- Salvage

I'm not in love with the Greater Daemon, given this particular setup. Each of your champs is toting a powerfist, except for the Terminators. Since the Terminators are melee-nators I presume they are showing up via DeepStrike, which raises the uncomfortable possibility that the GD shows up simultaneously or before the Terminators. If he does, you are going to lose a plague champ with powerfist. I'd drop the Greater Daemon and spend those points gussying up your army (possess the Vindicator, put special weapons on the plague squads, etc.)

DarthDiggler wrote:@Magic

His Daemon Prince does have wings.

Umm... Yeah... That's what I said.... Umm... I said, "It's a good thing you gave him wings!"


You...uhhhh.... must've just read my post wrong....


Yeah.... Umm... That's... That's probably what it was.


: )

Eric

Right now we are beating up on the chaos dread because of fire frenzy and rage, but what happens if chaos gets their own drop pod in the planetfall codex? Well now the dread is looking pretty strong as it drops into the middle of the enemy. With none of your guys around it, fire frenzy and rage would be awesome to get each turn.

I'm telling you I have a sneaky suspicion the chaos dreads will be one of the most popular choices if/when they get their own drop pods.

thanks for all the advice.
I am taking a combo of my original list and the stuff i love and mixing your ideas. my termies wont be dropping in. they have been very succesful at absorbing a great deal of fire. The same goes for the sorcerer.
i will be losing my dreads and spending the points on more marines and plasma guns in their squads.
I have to have my DP as khorne as i want to build a two headed, bloodthirsty, killing machine out of chaos, beastmen and nid bits.
i just like the defiler, cant help it. and i can fleet it when i need to move it. with lots of hard targets on the field, he survives sometimes. so basically i will have 250 points more of Plague marines with plasma guns and no dreads. i may change the army by taking out the two remaining vehicles altogether and buying more infantry.
cheers
guys.

by the way, magickalmemories, DarthDigglers comment about my DP having wings was after you posted this.

DP with Mark of Khorne won't make it into combat very often. He's too slow.
If you insist on keeping him Khorne (IMO, the weakest mark in the game, now), he'll need wings, at least.

i had to point that out after your recent smart arse post.

Butterfly_Tyrant wrote:i had to point that out after your recent smart arse post.

Pretty sure MM was trying to cover up for his brain fart (of DOOOM), not cracking wise

Looking at your termies, if you want to walk them wouldn't it be so worth it to give one a reaper autocannon? And in fact, I'd suggest boosting the squad to 10 and giving them 2 reapers, for some real ranged fire power. With the loss of the dreads you've got some points to play with, and the more termies you take the better deal that ikon becomes

- Salvage

EDIT:

10 Terminators - IoT, 2 reaper autocannons, 4 powerfists = 425

Something like that, in fact. Reapers + 8 twin-bolters for dakka, then the fists to capitilize on the tizz termi toughness.

fair enough,
sorry about the misinterpretation MM.

i dont like putting so many of my eggs in one basket. that one unit with one quarter of my points. it can only hold one objective or quarter.