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So yea, i played against some plague marines + typhus today (using a crap list myself though) but i was still completely shaken by the resilience of these guys, i hardly put a scratch on his army. So I was wondering, are there any tips, tactics, particular units etc. that are effective against these guys. Also, how does one deal with typhus?

Thanks in advance,
Soladrin

Nurgle marines are tough, but you have ways of dealing with them.

The hands down best way of getting them off the board is by dropping a burna template on them from a wagon. Since when they get out of a transport they are lined up for the perfect template hit, you can typically wipe most of them in one hit.

10 marines x 16 burna hits = 160 auto hits
53.333 wounds
17.777 failed saves
8.888 dead after feel no pain

That unit doesn't have enough steam left to survive an assault, and that assault can be brought in by just about anything to put the remainder of the group down. Just the klaw in a regular boyz group should be enough to plant 1 or 2 wounds, leaving the boyz to contribute the remaining 1 or 2 wounds if the dice didn't quite roll up to averages.

That method has a close to 100% chance of eliminating a group in a single shooting + assault phase. You can use the same method to move along and peg more each turn, as long as they aren't in their transports. In fact, if you are playing an opponent that has no idea how bad an open topped wagon full of burnas is for them, you might even luck out and find that he deploys more than one group within range of the 8" template. If you take advantage of that and drop it on two groups, prepare to feel that wave of accomplishment that only a well placed flamer template can provide.

Do you mean BattleWagon, or looted wagon? Also, would a skorcha equipped looted wagon be any good for this? (cause i have no BW lying around )

A looted wagon could perform the same task, but it would do so with considerably less success. Since it caries 25% less burnas than the 15+mek w/ burna that the battle wagon can sport, it doesn't measure up to the same numbers. Knock a quarter off of the damage estimate above.

Aside from that, it's more easily destroyed and less reliable as 1/6 of the time it won't be shooting, but it is a cheaper alternative in both dollars and points. I would personally go with a battle wagon. 16 shots is overkill for most things, but it does mean that you can barely clip most units and turn them into cinders. I also prefer the relative invulnerability of the AV14 with 4+ cover save everywhere it goes, which makes it hard even for heavy anti-tank to make the burnas stop doing what they do best.

fair enough... so.. whot about typhus?

You'll have to remind me of what makes Typhus tough. When I see chaos, I typically see:

- 2 Nurgle marine groups
- 2 Khorne marine groups
- 3 groups of 9 obliterators
- dual lash

I don't have my CSM codex available to give a suggestion, and don't remember him off hand. You can also read that to mean that whatever I suggest about taking down Typhus is purely theory, as I've never had him fielded against me.

Soladrin wrote:fair enough... so.. whot about typhus?

Nob with Powerclaw should instakill him easily; he's T4(5) and does not have Eternal Warrior. Typhus is an independent character and can be singled out, whereas the Nob is an upgrade character and cannot be singled out: so just base Typhus with the PK. As long as you have enough Boyz that they're not *all* killed by the Manreaper + Plague Marines, you'll get two PK attacks, which is a 2/3 chance of getting through his invulnerable save each turn.

If Typhus charges you, just make sure that you keep your Nob in the middle of your mob - so he can reaction-move to within 2" of whoever Typhus bases (after all the other Boyz do their own reaction moves).

well today he charged my nob squad + warboss, insta'd my warboss, while all my shots and attacks kept plinking of him... didn't land a single wound.

But i guess a PK is the way the go for him, though that only works on the charge... hes T5.

Soladrin wrote:well today he charged my nob squad + warboss, insta'd my warboss, while all my shots and attacks kept plinking of him... didn't land a single wound.

But i guess a PK is the way the go for him, though that only works on the charge... hes T5.

No, he's T4(5), which means he is susceptible to any klaw you field on nobs or warbosses, be it str 8 on the defense, str 9 on the assault, or str 10 on the boss. If you want to avoid manreaper, you must learn to chant "Thraka" in the rhythmic tone that everyone on Dakka uses, and he will come to you. Eternal Warrior is an amazingly useful tool to have on your boss in pretty much any list.

The nurgle bonus of +1 T doesn't provide him with a T5 for the purposes of instant death.

I'd go ahead and add that he dies pretty well to burnas when they are used on the assault, too, as that gets rid of all of his armor saves and FNP. But I wouldn't typically assault with burnas until they have done their duty for Thraka and country by eliminating every target in their template range, first.

No. He is *not* T5. He is toughness 4(5). There is a big difference. He does have toughness 5 to all extents, except you use the T4 for purposes of insta-death.
Just like bikers, deffkoptas, and other people with mark of nurgle, etc. Therefore, a PK wound, even if you got charged will still insta-kill him.

If he was actually T5, a nob with PK could never insta-death him because you double your strength for PK (4 goes to 8), and *then* add the +1 for charging for a total of 9.

Also, to strangle: do you mean you'll hit with 2 PK attacks on the charge? (4 attacks, 50% hit rate) or do you mean you're getting charged and only get 2 attacks?
Because you would have 3 attacks from a PK nob as it is 3 in the profile and typhus is not able to lower your number of attacks.

But ya, for typhus and plague marines pretty much boyz w/ PK nob, Nobs with PKs, Warboss with PK, Ghazghkull (who has a PK), burnas on the charge (yay power weapons cause they take away FnP as well), or anything with rokkits.
Also for your average boyz it's key to get the assault, if a squad of Plague marines assaults 30 boyz, they have a pretty decent chance of winning. Especially if you have shootas.

*edit* Meh, took too long getting distracted so stuff was already said. W/e

As has been said, powerklaws, you should have them in every mob that can take them. Killa kans also work well with a squad of 3 killing 3.75 plague marines on the charge. Rokkits also deny the plague marines FNP and armor save.

Carnuss wrote:Nurgle marines are tough, but you have ways of dealing with them.

The hands down best way of getting them off the board is by dropping a burna template on them from a wagon. Since when they get out of a transport they are lined up for the perfect template hit, you can typically wipe most of them in one hit.

10 marines x 16 burna hits = 160 auto hits
53.333 wounds
17.777 failed saves
8.888 dead after feel no pain

In large squads you may not quite be able to finish them off, which may get your BW melta'd to death. To properly scrape them from the face of the battlefield charge them with the power weapons instead of using the templates. If you can line up a good multicharge you also stand a good chance of wrecking both units due to the hideous combat resolution you'll be racking up.

Regwon wrote:In large squads you may not quite be able to finish them off, which may get your BW melta'd to death. To properly scrape them from the face of the battlefield charge them with the power weapons instead of using the templates. If you can line up a good multicharge you also stand a good chance of wrecking both units due to the hideous combat resolution you'll be racking up.

If they are getting out of transports, they are always in a clump, and no matter how many they bring, you should be able to fit a template on them since they have to be wtithin 2" of the door they get out of. So the number could be 2 or 2000, and as long as they fit under the template, 88.888% of them will be dead. Since the template kills them without risking any damage to you whatsoever, it makes more sense to burn them, then allow another group that wouldn't normally have that level of effectiveness to assault and finish off the group.

Thanks for the tips guys, im still pretty new to the game, so not a 100% sure about all the rules. How do rokkits negate FNP?

Because they invoke instant death, and instant death negates FNP. Anything double the base toughness of the model (which is 4 for Nurgle marines) will provoke instant death, and thereby eliminate their FNP check. So you can produce the same with power klaws, DCCW, rokkits, or some of your artillery options.

All will equally cut through the 3+ armor save as well as the FNP, and since they are minimum Str 8, they all wound on a 2+ roll as well. Any of those options will eat a Nurgle Marine squad, but they don't tend to come in massive numbers unless you are spending quite a bit on them. For any of the shooting options, you'll more often than not have to deal with you BS 2 as well, which will significantly cut the number of wounds you actually land when you lob them into the marines.

I'd still say stick with the burnas. They don't fail.

This also explains a lot of why i failed so miserably, i was not aware of the Base T thing for instant death and that it negates FNP nor that power weapons do so. (We'r both pretty new to 40k ) time to make me a new list soon...

Rule of thumb with Orks. ALL boyz squads take nob with PK. ALWAYS! If you EVER think about writing a list where a boyz mob nob, has something other then a PK, slap yourself.
You should be able, with a small list change, to crush typhus and his boyz. Yes they are tough, but with all those PKs swinging around, they will die fast. And as said before, take as many rokkits as you can. Sure the boyz suck at shooting, but any lucky enough to land, have a good chance of taking out those plague marines.

Seriously, listen to the advice on this thread, and your friend will be posting, asking us how to beat Orks with his plague marines