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All basic troops with the exception of thousand sons, suck it down when firing at plague marines.

And TS don't do that hot either.

*sigh*

Stelek is partially right, but I guess I did a failure in holding winterman responsible for unsupported claims

math

8 Plague Marines ~ 184 pts

30 boyz ~ 180 pts

PM can't walk & shoot at 24, so orcs will likely choose their run move to begin in < 24 inches (note: you'd choose not to run into 18 like with the NM example, silly thing but evident from the following). PM get the first shot off.

a) PM stay at > 18 so they can shoot at all:

8 shots, 16/3 hits, 8/3 wounds = 2.66 dead orcs, no cover, bigmek or anything, round to your favour: 27 remaining. Orcs move into < 18 to shoot back
54 shots, 18 hits, 6 wounds, 2 failed saves, 1 failed fnp = 1 dead PM

Orcs lost ~ 8.8% (expectancy values, variance better for the orcs like almost always)
PM lost ~ 12.5% -> PM loose the first turn of shootout(!)

Knowing the average outcome of a), the PM player then most likely proceeds to

b) move up to < 12 inches, double the shooting.

7 PM, 14 shots, 28/3 hits, 14/3 wounds for 4.66, say 5 dead boyz, 22 left (~73 %)
22 boyz, 44 shots, 14.66 hits, 4.88 wounds, 1.62 unsaved thats 0.81 dead PM. Let's round this one up, too, for fairness ;-): 6 PM left (~75 %)
Almost on par, orcs had to decide beforehand:

b1) Orcs moved backward to < 18 but > 12 inches:

Same game as b) from now on, PM win out small for numbers but big accounting leadership at some point.

b2) Orcs moved forward to now charge:

6 PM, 12 attacks, 6 hits, 3 wounds ~ 2.5 dead boyz for a total of 19.5 boyz left (hesitant to round here...)
19 Boyz, 38 attacks (def. grenades), 19 hits, 6.33 wounds, 2.11 unsaved, 1.05 dead PM. More gain for the boyz percentag-wise, though from now on they'd be on the decreasing branch of the hth. Given time they'd eventually lose.

math ceased

So talking plain boyz, Stelek is actually right.
However, this is where 'target widening' as discussed beforehand would apply. Winterman noted that boyz would be bought as 26 shootas, 3 rockits, 1 claw nob (and still win out compared to Noise Marines given I didn't mess up the math).

30 boyz, 3 rockits, claw nob, bosspole = 250 pts
11 PM = 253 pts (can't find a worthy weapon upgrade that'd excel vs. orcs, though o.c. chances are that an all-comers list would feature maybe 10 PM 2 plas instead, diluting their anti-light inf. shooting)

Numbers change in that the boyz get the first shot and drop ~ 1 PM (5/6 actually) at 24 inches while losing ~ 4 boyz afterwards (roughly the same points wise).
At 18 inches they'd drop ~ 1.65 PM, now the PM are in a pinch. I'll count 1.5 dead PM to have workable numbers at all, with half a PM rapid firing like 1 bolter shot...
Three possibilitys:

1. 8.5 rapid firing PM either kill 5.66 ~ 6 boyz, worth roughly one and a half PM. Still same strength for both partys left, talking percentages. But now the remaining orcs charge and the claw wins the fight, PM lose

2. Or they choose to run and won't fire at all, PM lose because of assault 1 or 2 weapons on the boyz.

3. Or they choose not to move up but stay at < 18 but > 12 to shoot once and PM lose the shootout since killing only ~ 3 boyz.

Bottom line:

Pure shoota boyz lose in a firefight with PM
Pure shoota boyz lose in a hth with PM

'Real' shoota boyz win in a firefight with PM
'Real' shoota boyz win in hth with PM
(while still beeing able to beat Noise Marines, or take a luckshot at that random vehicle once in a while)

Noteworthy things:

1. The above is all about expectancy values. Variance favours large numbers even more. Doesn't bring much of a diff if 3 out of 3 bolter shots hit the boyz once in a while instead of 2. It does however change things quite a bit if the rockits got lucky and hit 2 out of 3 once in a while!

2. Boyz are pretty much good-to-go with 3 rockits & claw, while plasma or a fist would again reduce those PM's chances.

3. In absence of a more resilent unit and regarding 5th Ed as a KP-saving / troops preserving game I for one tend to agree with Stelek that Plague Marines are still by far the best unit for the job, anytime. Though sad that shoota boyz seem to be the better infantry no matter which unit I try to compare...

Over and out,

Khorneflakes


P.S.: 1 Big Shoota boy ~ 2 normal boyz.
3 shots, 1 hit, 2/3 wounds, 2/9 failed saves on a marine
4 shots, 4/3 hits, 2/3 wounds, 2/9 failed saves on a marine with double the number of boyz for unit size, hth etc.

So no, big shootas do not excel at killing Meq, maybe they do vs. expensive T 3/4 Save 5+ troops (are there any?), but shoota boyz shouldn't have any problems with those at first, so I guess the only benefit would be + 12 inches range. Since rockits have an effective range of 24 + 6 inches movement for a total of 30 (which isn't bad at all) I'd tend to call them the better upgrade for most, if not all, cases

I think the thing you are missing (Khorneflakes) is Chaos is usually a very small army.

Orks in 30 boyz size are often in 90-120 boyz size.

Which makes manuever difficult for the orks.

Toss in smaller squad sizes for Chaos and move n'shoot oblits and you'll often find the orks able to cripple or eliminate a squad per turn, but the Chaos players are eliminating 30+ boyz per turn.

Orks need to get into HTH with everything Chaos has, except Nurgle units. T5 just cripples S3 units. The nob pretty much has to do everything. Toss in blight grenades, nurgle's rot, and FNP...it's not a pleasant place to be and you really have a hell of a time as a ork player getting all of your boyz into a chaos army without trukk boyz. That said, trukk boyz bounce off plague marines in a really bad way--so is it worth sacrificing the units in question to try and tie up the plague marines long enough to get your regular boyz across the board?

While I don't think much of lash, big ork squads really take it in the ass when it's a footslogging army with 120 models. Chaos can move you away, which really only needs to happen on 'average' rolls in a double lash army to toss most ork horde armies in the bin.

Given how useful the ork trukks are, I favor the 4t/2b model but I'm going to give 6 t a try.

You should run some numbers with shoota boyz (1 rokkit, 1 pk nob, 1 trukk rokkit) and see what you come up with. Remember, the trukk boyz won't disembark vs chaos until blown out of their vehicle. Not that I'd expect it to take long, but 6 trukks does stretch a Chaos armies ability to knock them all out in one turn if there's anything else on the board.

Battlewagons + deff rolla + plague marines = priority target for oblits. Not just because of the S10 hits, but because of the nobs or 20 orks sitting inside them.

20 vs 12 really does make all the difference vs marines.

heh, not that I didn't know that I constantly feel like getting too few models for my points ;-)

Your statment about maneuverability is QFT in the current ruleset. One has a hard time to move around 120+ models.
My primary concern though is the way in which 5th Ed changes handling of big units. IIRC from what I've read about here it will become waaay easier to use those large units (drawing casualtys from the back of the unit which would have been out of reach to gain ground, killzones disappering and so on).
120 Boyz, a bigmek/kff and a warphead come in at about 1150 pts, leaving usually 600+ pts for targets like battlewagons with da boomstick and the like which you'd have to kill off first, before you could concentrate on whiping out 30+ boyz a turn. Plus they get across the board roughly 50% faster with run than in 4th.

Guess I do have to play a bunch of 5th games to attest my fears, but from what I can make up with pure theory the matchup would hurt me.

To contribute to the thread at hand from time to time, I think in the current ruleset orcs are a PITA. In 5th chaos gets a bit more speed and doesn't lose much but orcs'll gain a lot more momentum between screening, better cover saves and run.

Khorneflakes

Ofc all of this comes under the assumption that you can have nob with claw in shoota squads. But orcs are probably one of the nastiest armies under the pdf 5ed, with heavy troop choices and low kp value while still killing off as never before.

Other then that I have to agree on the fact that both daemons and zerkers are pretty bad choices.. not unusable but beaten by the most. If you really want the zerkers combat options the basic marine(you get 12 instead of 10 with mark of khorne and 2x flamers + bolters for the time you need it) do the work alot better.

Personally I see the plaguemarines as kings with their resilience, denying points and still beeing able to do some serious damage. I also see the incresing value in the "humble chaos space marine" that actually is pure crap in 4th edition, when terminators and the other really hard stuff beats them over the hills and back.

I'm about as handy with tactics as I am with calculus problems (droppped out halfway through the sememster & that was 14 years ago) so I have to present my ideas as questions for you all to shoot down.

I really like the idea of undivided marines. Is there any hope at all for regular chaos marine squads? They're not exactly firebase units anymore but they still get A2 and two special weapons in a cheap rhino. I'd say raptors do it better but then you're giving up more kill points.

Would lists with say two three rhino melta/flamer/PF squads and two or three 10 man las/plas squads be possible? It's a waste to put ten guys in a las/plas squad but it's going to be hard for your opponent to get those dudes off an objective in your zone.

While beeing better armed than a codex marine the common chaos marine suffers hugely (and this is in contrast to the corresponding blessed marines of the four which compete for the same force org. chart) from not beeing anyway near fearless.

This is imho why people tend to include rather expensive min/max NM squads (read: 5 and a blastmaster) for minimum troops in the current ed. over undivided marines.

The main disadvantage you have to overcome in general will be ld in addition to getting a meager single S9 AP2 shot for like 170 pts (10 strong, lascannon). If you equipped the aforementioned squd with an IoCG and a champ you'd have just spent 25 pts to make them stay with some certainty that won't get you killing power in return. So I'd still use plague marines if I intended to hold that table quarter. 7 PMs, 2 plasmagun net 191 pts (c.f 195 for 10 marines), stay around waaaay longer and have to be killed to the last man following the leaked pdf.

In case you consider other icons to be 'undivided' as well:
I for one will at least give a couple squads of chaos marines + IoK, 20 strong, fist champ a try come next Ed. I feel like this beeing more 'play to your strengths rather than your weaknesses' in hope that the numbers plus run plus ld 10 will bring me close to the enemy (even without a rhino) where one can use all those krak grenades and bolt pistols you pay the points for.

Since large numbers will be easier to deliver due to run and minimize the cost of the icon in the process:
We are talking 16.5 pts for a marine with 4 attacks on the charge rather than 21 you'd pay for a khorne berzerker. Saves you 90 pts in a 20 strong squad to buy some special weapons the zerkers can't buy and maybe even the rhino as well given it won't give away KP for the common 'bring your own terrain' joke.

So a/my (5th Ed) variant of your list could look like

20 marines, 2x melter, PF champ, combimelter, IoK ~ 400 pts times two for run goodness
10 NM, 2x plasma ~ 206 times two for surefire objectives

which is ~ 1200, fill with oblits/lash princes to fit, sparepoints become screening rhinos
just my 2 cents (which btw should implie that I'm not much of a good tactician as well)

Khorneflakes

I think that Plague Marines are just so much better than CSM if you're using them as Rhino squads.

Remember that for something like a S4 (AP4 or worse) hit, a Plague has a 1/18 chance of dying. Assuming BS4 that's 1/27. The only time it's more worthwhile hitting a Plague Marine instead of a CSM is when you have
S8 or better or Power Weapons higher than S3 but even then blight grenades reduce attacks by 1 if they are charged .

At the moment I struggle to think of a better troops choice than Plague Marines other than Ork Boyz. The only way to beat an Ork Horde imo will be double lash on 30-man squads, put them in funny patterns and block the opponent's advance. Hey I think I could write words with 60 lashed Ork Boyz.

I've found the plague marines to be rock solid, and I don't see it changing. If anything, the lessening in powerfist attacks will make them even better.

Hmm looks like the UK GT FAQed that shootas can't take the PK nob. Good news for Plagues I think.

Agreed, wich really is just what it is written in the codex.

Still, the nurgle marines die in CC vs slugga boys, as does almost everything else. Hopefully you can shoot them down before that happens.