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Ok, I can never beat my buddy playing SM against his CSM army. The best I can do is a draw and he usually wins by KP in the end. :(

Here is his armylist for today:
Deamon Prince with WarpTime
Plague marines sqd
Noise marines in Rhino with Blastermaster and sonic somethingerother
Possessed LR with Berserkers (never left the LR)
Abbadon and Termie sqd
3 Obliterators
Walker with battlecannon

I had:
Kor'sarro Khan + Command sqd
2x Tac sqd in Rhino's flamers/ML, PowerFist
4-man Bike sqd + Attack Bike with Multi-melta
2x Ironclad Dreadnoughts
LR + 5-Man assault termie sqd (also didn't leave the LR)

Mission: Capture the Objective
Deployment: Dawn of War

What kind of tactics do I need to use against this armylist? Unfortunately, I think I should have let him come to me instead of going after his deamon prince. I was also trying to take out his troop units so they could not hold his objective, but I rolled horribly and could only immobilize his rhino holding his noise marines.
We both had a lot of cover and crunched on the same side of the board.
I could not start with Khan on the board because his command sqd is not a troop choice and they are not a retinue. So all I could field to start was a Rhino + Tactical squad (two troop choices).
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Is it me, or does the CSM seem like SM with extra powers for less points?

pavonis wrote:Is it me, or does the CSM seem like SM with extra powers for less points?

More often than not I see chaos players whining about what marines have but I'll tell you the same thing I tell them: they're different armies. They have different stuff. They do different things.

As for tactics, dawn of war is tricky, especially if you have to go second. I must say it is my least favorite method of deployment. If I have to go second I usually leave everything off the board and just move it on first turn with everything else so I don't risk isolating my units and I leave them nothing to target on their turn one. This would work well for you, you seem to have a mobile army. If you have first turn then there's no real harm in starting with a few units out.

I would drop the land raider, I find them more often than not to be a points sink. For the price of the land raider you could make that assault termy squad ten man and still have 50 points left over. They don't really need transportation, they can deep strike right in front of the enemy. Granted, they can't assault that turn but they're more than resilient enough to take a few hits and, if you placed them right, they will definitely assault the next turn. If you have worries about scatter invest in a teleport homer or two with those 50 points you saved. I have also seen them used effectively with a librarian with gate of infinity.

Take out his transports, kill his mobility. Once his units are on foot your more mobile army can dance around them. Also, if I remember correctly, posessed vehicles can't transport anybody, but I could be thinking of the last codex. I'm not sure. Plague marines are tough to take out but short ranged, pop their transport and then ignore them unless they're holding an important objective.

The ten assault termies or just massed small arms fire can usually handle a demon prince. And if you did invest in a librarian for your termies you would have a psychic hood to maybe cancel a warp time or two.

Good luck.

Also, ties don't go to kill points. The only thing that uses kill points is the annihilation mission.

I think your list is too shortranged.

I play chaos and most of my victories against loyalist are against those who close in too much and doesn't abuse combat tactics enough. Don't do this mistake!!!
Keep your distance.

When facing chaos you will shoot better but be poorer in close combat. (Some chaos players are confident that they are hot gak in C&C and sometimes you can suprise them your hth choices).

What you want to do is combat squad your tacticools so that the missile can get the most bang for the buck and use the 5man flamer squad to fire the template & get charged and then leave close combat.

The deamon prince is great ( I personally use it a lot) but the trick with it is that if you drop three wounds from in shooting (you don't have to kill it) the chaos player will get a bit reluctant to send it into close combat.

His army looks much more expensive than yours btw

his list does looks higher than yours.

This is NOT an atempt at a flame, and isn't meant to be rude.
I'm just pointing out the main reason you lose.

Your list is substandard.

Eric

P.S. I'd have made suggestions on WHAT to play... but I don't know what you have or what points level it is.

Oh... and, with this list, start with NOTHING on the board. bring everything on at once. Shoot everything possible at the Daemon Prince. DO NOT ENGAGE unless necessary.

Get rid of the command squad, get rid of the bikes.

If that list is what he truly fields, you have fewer points than him, unless you have a ridiculously kitted out command squad (get rid of it).

Take one unit of Sternguard with meltaguns. Drop pod next to Abby's Land Raider, and rename him Slowpoke Stupidhead as he's forced to slog by foot.

Dump the Power Fists in your tactical squads. Spend the extra 10 points for a lascannon and watch his Obliterators die at range.

With the points you saved from dumping your command squad, the power fists, and Kor'sarro Khan (I did mention him, didn't I?) take another Ironclad, a Master of the Forge, upgrade the Land Raider to a Crusader, and bring another 3 Assault Terminators (they all have Thunder Hammer and Storm Shields).

Unfortunately I've completely changed the nature of your list, but a small elite bike army just doesn't work against Abaddon and Friends.

Also I'd like to point out that you don't HAVE to field Khan with his command squad; They are not a retinue. This means that you can deploy him in DoW, and leave the Command Squad off board. Also remember that you can leave the rhinos in reserve and field the Tac Squads without them.

They were 1850pt lists. My command sqd had 3x pairs of lightning claws. I think it was 500pts for Khan + Command sqd.
Hmm, I never thought to look at his list for points. But seeing that he is a friend, I don't think he would try to cheat. He didn't have a full sqd of termies with Abbadon, maybe 6.

pavonis wrote:They were 1850pt lists. My command sqd had 3x pairs of lightning claws. I think it was 500pts for Khan + Command sqd.
Hmm, I never thought to look at his list for points. But seeing that he is a friend, I don't think he would try to cheat. He didn't have a full sqd of termies with Abbadon, maybe 6.

Hmm, yeah, it's Possible his list was 1850 points, but only if most of his units weren't tooled out.

Until you can post an actual army list we can assume his was fair.

Yours with upgrades also seems to be 1850.

Chaos units which are stronger than SM ones also cost more points.

Then there are also chaos units which are just plain weaker. SM Assault Terminators are so much better than Chaos assault terminators. That 3+ invulnerable w/ thunder hammer for Free is amazing. SM also have better shooting and maneuverability than chaos generally.

Combat tactics lets you shoot, shoot, get assaulted, and then run away to regroup while your army shoots people dead.

Chaos dudes with guns cannot do these fall-back manuevers at all.

As for why you lost, if you can't even blow up an Armor 10 rhino because bad dice, of course you're going to lose.

Buy a few lascannons and things in your army, shoot chaos transports dead, and then fallback while shooting his stuff down. You having a large number of lascannons cannot be overrated. Lascannons take out Obliterators and Daemon Princes at long range and you can split a unit into 5 w/ cheap lascannon + 5 w/ flamer.

Yeah, after looking over your list again, it's pretty clear. You're not focusing on anything. Half your guys are "shooty" and half are "melee." You won't have enough shooters to slow down a melee onslaught. You won't have enough melee fighters to win a melee battle.

SM is not too much melee army. A unit of 8 Lightning Hammer termies w/ a Landraider Crusader transport costs 570 points.
Or at least 490 points for a 6-man squad in a Landraider.

I guess it's possible to have a melee-heavy army. Chaplain + 7 Terms in a Crusader. 6 Terms in a Landraider. 6 Terms in a Landraider. 7-man naked tactical squad. 6-man naked tactical squad at 1850 points. Not many people will go this melee heavy, so unless you can blow up transports and run away, you're going to lose in melee.