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Depending on the mission objectives (5 loot counters) and the deployment (Dawn of War) an infantry ork horde can shut down all of your squads in a hopelessly long melee, leaving you with few turns to react to scramble to retake or contest objectives endgame.

30 orks to 20 plague marines will not be over in 1, or even 2 rounds of CC.

ferrous:

No, no psychic defenses for Chaos Space Marines.

ferrous wrote:Can CSM get a psychic hood?

No.

whitedragon wrote:Depending on the mission objectives (5 loot counters) and the deployment (Dawn of War) an infantry ork horde can shut down all of your squads in a hopelessly long melee, leaving you with few turns to react to scramble to retake or contest objectives endgame.

30 orks to 20 plague marines will not be over in 1, or even 2 rounds of CC.

The same can be said of infantry ork horde and most lists though couldn't it? He has a lot of firepower to thin those orks down before the assault, I think it will give them a tough time.

I'm actually more surprised someone needed help figuring out the viable build from CSM is 2 Lashes, Oblits, and Plague Marines.

Stelek's army can only engage eight units at a time, six if the Sorcerers are not acting independently. Only a few big juicy gimmicky targets, easy to concentrate fire on, and comparatively vulnerable to high powered weaponry S6+ AP3-, and dependent on gimmicky and easily shut down psychic power.

It shouldn't be surprising that someone needed 'help' figuring out the received wisdom that Chaos Space Marines are about the Lash of Submission, Obliterators, and Plague Marines.

It's a 'Gotcha' army, that'll do well against people who are still playing the game and composing armies like they're still playing 4th edition.

Take a look at the Sternguard army that Stelek has posted elsewhere in this forum: it would mince this army in short order, and in turn be demolished by Ork armies with Nob Bikers (who, incidentally, would also massacre this army, ceteris paribus).

30 orks with a nob are killed by 20 plague marines with a plague champion in two turns of combat. Assuming you deploy forward enough it's not going to keep you away from the loot counters that you should be moving to pretty much immediately anyway. Some rough numbers:

Orks charge, 90 attacks (defensive grenades).
45 hits
13 wounds, 2 power klaw wounds
4.5 unsaved, 2.25 after FNP
roughly 4 or 5 dead plague marines

PMs fight back - 40 attacks, 20 hits, 10 wounds, 8 or 9 dead orks.

Orks lose by 4, and are down to 18 guys. Next round is more of the same for the orks, killing about 3 marines, losing by 4, and ending up at 7. Either at this point another mob of orks charges in, or the orks get wiped having held up the plague marines for less than two turns (they will get to move on their turn). Three rounds of combat.

Obviously you should expect this - the marine squad costs a lot more than the orks do. And maybe you'll be able to get situations where you have multiple mobs of orks charging one squad of marines. The last thing you want though is to have say two squads of marines against two squads of orks - if the combat ends up really large you end up losing combat badly and taking huge ork fearless causalties.

Bottom line, single squads of slugga boys cannot tie up plague marines long enough in close combat to stop them.

Single mobs of Boyz aren't the only units in the Ork arsenal. A Dred or two, or a mob of Meganobz, or the aforementioned mob of Burnas, are all available sources of Plague Marine popping power weapons.

PM attack Orks first, btw.

You might wanna redo those numbers.

Nurglitch, what's your point? Concise ftw.

Stelek:

Orks Boyz that are charging have I3 as a result of their basic I2 and Furious Charge. They strike at the same time as the Plague Marines, with their I3. The second round is fought with the Plague Marines going first.

30 attacks at S9 AP2 on the charge will put a much bigger dent in the Plague Marines. That's the Meganobz, by the way.

nice list once again, Stelek.

I was only responding to the idea that an infantry ork horde would shut the squads down in a hopelessly long melee. It would have to be an exceedingly large, well organized horde.

obviously burna boyz, nobs with a lot of klaws, and meganobz would hurt the plague marines a lot worse in CC. But those units have to be able to get into CC, and they also have to exist in the army.

I'm not trying to defend this army as being unbeatable by orks or something. But I will admit I'm trying to push a friend of mine who is already playing chaos in round 2 in this direction - he's already got 40 plague marines, why not 20 more?!

Hmmm so 30 orks walk into lash, and survive the PM bolter fire plus the obliterator plasma spam.

Yet somehow they get a charge off intact.

Amazing!

Oh, no army is unbeatable, particularly with the right strategy. This is definitely an effective army against anyone who's both strategically unprepared (army selection) and tactically unprepared (not a very good player). The problem with be when either this rock runs up against paper, an army with the goodies that cover its weanesses, or scissors, a player who knows where to cut, or both.

That's why I'm calling it a rock - it's direct, single-purpose, and beatable by scissors and paper.

That could work, if it wasn't for the fact that it's been around and people know what sort of paper to bring, and what sorts of cuts to make. But it's lost the element of surprise (yet, 'fool me five or more times...'), and it isn't flexible.

Take the Ork units which may not be included in an Ork player's strategy. Sure, they may not be taken, but people have adapted to Loota spam (Land Raiders, Plague Marines, etc), have adapted to Boyz spam (Berzerkers, Plague Marines, etc), are have innoculated themselves against Battlewagon spam thanks to Land Raiders (Melta Guns). They're starting to wrap their heads around how to make less obvious units Burnas, Meganobz, and Dreds work, and that gaping strategic gap in the popular imagination that this army exploits is closing fast.

I ran similar list in round one but replace plague marines with berzerkers.

Nurglitch wrote:This is definitely an effective army against anyone who's both strategically unprepared (army selection) and tactically unprepared (not a very good player).

Sooo...everyone I play then.

Excellent.

Stelek wrote:Hmmm so 30 orks walk into lash, and survive the PM bolter fire plus the obliterator plasma spam.

Yet somehow they get a charge off intact.

Amazing!

I played the ork horde in 'Ard Boyz first round. It was the final mission, with Dawn of War deployment and the Orks took it. My army was very similar to this list, almost a carbon copy. The orks were on the line, forcing me back to the table edge. They went first, so I had one turn of shooting, and then second turn Waaaagh put them right in my face, for 5 more turns of CC. Remember, 180 boyz with powerklaw nobz is only 1300 points. That leaves 1200 pts left of nastiness that the ork player is going to have.

derek wrote:I'm actually more surprised someone needed help figuring out the viable build from CSM is 2 Lashes, Oblits, and Plague Marines.

I don't think that many people needed help. Apparently, several of the first round qualifiers featured armies very similar to this. I know I did, as well as theblklotus.

whitedragon wrote:

Stelek wrote:Hmmm so 30 orks walk into lash, and survive the PM bolter fire plus the obliterator plasma spam.

Yet somehow they get a charge off intact.

Amazing!

I played the ork horde in 'Ard Boyz first round. It was the final mission, with Dawn of War deployment and the Orks took it. My army was very similar to this list, almost a carbon copy. The orks were on the line, forcing me back to the table edge. They went first, so I had one turn of shooting, and then second turn Waaaagh put them right in my face, for 5 more turns of CC. Remember, 180 boyz with powerklaw nobz is only 1300 points. That leaves 1200 pts left of nastiness that the ork player is going to have.

Which is usually biker nobs x1 or x2. lootas x3, or stormboyz x3 in some combination.

Stelek wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:This is definitely an effective army against anyone who's both strategically unprepared (army selection) and tactically unprepared (not a very good player).

Sooo...everyone I play then.

Excellent.

We should put this on a billboard beside the shop where Stelek plays.

How utterly rude.

G

I wear it on a t-shirt when I go.

Update: Trial Run 1

I ran this list to see what it does, I did make a few mistakes in play. I managed a tie, if we had gone to turn 6, we estimated I would have 90% likely taken the win. My main complaint was that I couldn't punk 7 vehicles and deal with 10 foot units quick enough. I just needed more guns and the ability to shoot more targets.

My earlier suggestion to take rhino's to block LOS (which I did not do) I don't think it would have altered the game signifcantly. In fact I think they would have gotten in the way more than anything else.

So now I'm thinking, 4 units of plaguemarines, armed as before. 3 less models, 3 more melta weapons, yet allows target that can be nuetralized each turn.

The jump pack sorcerors were amazing, in fact jump packs are a requirement.

Tactically, its better to use the plaguemarines to open up the vehicles and let the obliterators plasma cannon the tasty morsels inside. That and don't lead assaults with the sorcerors if the target unit has a powerfist.

Anti Landraider list for sure. Again welcome to 5th it's either LR wars or anti LR lists that will rise to the top.

I can't condone this list, why is everyone cheering it? Isn't "two lash characters, lots of oblits and lots of plaguemarines" THE gimmick list for chaos? EVERYONE knows about it, EVERYONE knows it's good, and the higher the points go the list still stays effective.

I don't really see the point of this post. Is it e-peen measuring? Another way to boost your ego, Stelek? Every poster that's offered a suggestion you've belittled and smacked aside, even the rhino suggestions. Two plaguemarines for a vehicle that's worth nothing in kill points but can still contest objectives, and can carry a combi-weapon? That's an amazing deal, screw LOS blocking and all that. You mentioned how a space marine rhino with two storm bolters is better, and that really just seems very short-sighted to me. Combi-flamer? Combi-melta? Combi-plasma? The ability for a little "useless" tank to utterly toast a squad of guardians, gaunts, guardsmen, genestealers who don't take carapace, etc. just seems so worth it. Anyone with a horde army now MUST identify those rhinos as threats and spend guns that would otherwise be killing plaguemarines to kill these tanks.

You made a list that's able to take a licking from your own Landraider spam list, but you did it doing the one obviously effective chaos build that EVERYONE knows, and I'm curious why anyone on this board has the gall to pretend to be surprised. It's in a white dwarf for pete's sake - 2 lashes, plaguemarines, oblits. Ooooo! Who'da thunk.

I made a list from what the guy offered as his models.

No more, no less.

Thanks for the vitriol.

Just curious btw, but what does this army do against 180 orks, with biker nobz, and mega-armoured nobz....and 9 ork buggies with skorchas?

I mean you might laugh at 9 ork buggies, but think about it. That's a lot of flame, and they can alllll make a nice wall for the orks to advance behind.

And they might take that Weirdboy special character! He can pop your sorcerors easily! Roll a d6 - you're a squig!

Beats the Orks in CC.

Biker nobs are tougher, but what can ya do about them besides hit them with obliterators and lash them around?

Mass lascannons hurts last I checked.

Buggies I could care less about. They die easily enough to oblits.

no

ignore that since i started reading the thread like gained 12 posts lol

Stelek wrote:I made a list from what the guy offered as his models.

No more, no less.

Thanks for the vitriol.

So Stelek, lets say the guy has more models, maybe not able to field the LR Spam, what else would you add or take away assuming he had other stuff.

I still wouldn't recommend Rhinos.

If you want to make a vehicle spammy Chaos army, go ahead and make one--but don't think for a minute that 2 or 3 Rhinos is anything but dead at 2500 points.

12 vehicles, now that's the way to go at this points level.

Don't agree? Play more games at 2500 points against players who can bring the optimized lists with tons of shooting.

You don't really want to face 20 autocannons, 12 lascannons, and 12 drop meltaguns with 2 rhinos. It's a joke.