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Sure you can tool your list specifically to counter KDA but be honest... No one runs three dreads or three landraiders. It's just pure conjecture really. I played against a BA army with TWO Venerable DC Furisio dreadnaughts and won handily. It is a fallacy to say that a dread can stroll up and charge crushers.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote: No one runs three dreads

G

I always run 2 in almost any marine list I play. They are there to hold up 8-man squads of bloodcrushers, DE Wyches, Eldar Harlies and Banshees (basically anything soft, fast and CC killy that my troops don't want to see in HtH) and they have succeeded much more often than not. The dreads will also give a close combat oriented marine list the needed long range firepower to take down skimmers.

I'm not sure what you are asking here. The best 'close combat oriented' marine lists always have an element of shooting in them. I almost never see an all over the top HtH marine list, at least anywhere near the top tables. The Wolves still take Long fangs, BA still take Baal's and the BT still take lots of LR"s or Vindicaters. That being said, I can only envision a marine army that you speak of, HtH oriented above all else, to field several dreads as mobile heavy weapons and roadblocks for the troops.

I have messed around with a 6 Ironclad list. Each Ironclad has 2 HK missiles which gives me a 12 krak missile alpha strike on turn 1 as the Ironclads begin their march across the board. It's the 40k version of LotR's March of the Ents. It can be very powerful, but sufferes against heavy MC lists. I think reducing the Clads to 3-4 and tossing in some anti-MC units would make the list better, but lose that special flavor that only 6 Ironclads can bring.

I'm surprised noone has mentioned legion of the damned.
They are the perfect counter to bloodletters (not so much against crushers but they do ok).

And with a legion post just half a page down too...

I am only interested in armies that good players would take to a competitive event. Night Lords has admitted he can only win if he relies heavily upon shooting. I realize that shooting is integral to any SM build. You can build both BA or BT to actually be more shooty than cc. That is nothing new, many of us have seen these armies.

I think that if you plan to beat down daemons via shooting (1) you feel you can't beat them in close combat overall for hte win, (2) you will get in one round of solid shooting then you will be multi charged.

I tol you I had no problem whatsoever with two uber BA dreadnaughts... They really don't get any better than that when it comes to what you would want to bring to bare against KDA. why should two vanilla dreads fare any better?

G

Without shooting or some other strategy, the daemons will munch marines simple as that. I used to play daemons in 40k and fantasy(now just fantasy since they aren't part of the WoC anymore) and I have had bloodletters have their way with almost any troops that didn't do a good job of shooting.

Again, I dont understand this. I didnt admit I can only win with shooting, I said I use both. Shooting will not win you games, it will help put you in position to win games.

You are asking how to beat an army using no shooting against an army that will tear you apart in close combat if left at full strength. There is no answer to this question until you accept that shooting can be integrated, even with the blood angels.

Night Lords wrote:Shooting will not win you games, it will help put you in position to win games.

Agreed, even if its just heavy bolters you have to lay into the buggers or death is certain. There is no sm troop in the game that with a 10 man squad could charge a full unit of bloodletters and not be ashed.

So Night Lords what are your typical assault units you run in an 1850 point CSM list?

G

40 CSM, 9 Raptors, Warptime Prince, 2 DCCW Dreadnoughts w/ heavy flamer.

This is a list (my CC oriented units) I use against any army. If I knew I was playing daemons, I could take a few of those extra meltas/fists/champs off and probably get another 10 marines in the end.

Again, its not exactly the same because CSM are assault marines without jump packs and regular tactical marines in one. However, I dont have dante boosting me, nor do I have scoring jumppacks. You have benefits I dont, and vice versa.

Wouldn't the obvious solution be to use a Grey Knight SM army? (You know, one actually tooled against daemons.....) You often see 3 LR/LRC armies, they're designed for fighting the bastards, They have shrouding to help with the soulgrinders, anti-daemon equipment, etc. etc. etc. A Grand Master's NFW could down a 'thirster in one charge, the terminators could easily sit and shoot while waiting for them to show up, holocaust them, then charge in. A Daemonhunters army played the way it's supposed to would destroy KDA. You can't say it isn't assault oriented, all PAGK, GKTs and HQs have CCWs, almost everyone can deepstrike.... The only problem is no one plays pure GK the way they were intended.

Why didn't I think of this before? It's almost too obvious.

It is indeed much too obvious.

@ Night Lords - ideally I would wall up with my Crushers and advance towards your line railgunning the dreads with my Grinders. The Bloodthirster could be used either as a backup to destroying the dreads or popping your rhinos to expose the crunchy bits inside.

G

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:
I think that if you plan to beat down daemons via shooting (1) you feel you can't beat them in close combat overall for hte win, (2) you will get in one round of solid shooting then you will be multi charged.

Why in the world does beating Daemons via shooting mean "you feel you can't beat them in close combat overall for the win"? Beating them in the shooting phase simply means you capitalized on a major weakness in the list, and shot them to death.

Here's a general Space Wolves list I've been playing with that would be quite effective against KDA:

HQ: Rune Priest with Jaws/Tempest
Canis Wolfborn
Cannoness with Book of St. Lucius

Troop: 3x 15 Fenrisian Wolves
2x5 GH, flamer, HB Razorbacks

Elite: 2 Dreadnought, MM/HF
3x Wolf Guard, 2 with fists and combi flamers. Attach kitted guys to razor squads and extra goes on long fangs

Heavy: 3x6 Long Fangs with 5 missiles each

Fast: 2x2 Speeders MM/HF

Deploy Fangs into terrain. Flank terrain with 1 dread/razor each with terrain behind. Make concentric rings of Wolves. This is the Castle, it's impossible to deep strike into due to space for units. Priest attaches to a wolf unit, Canis attaches to a wolf unit, Cannoness sits in the middle with book of Ld10 covering everyone.

If I get turn 1, I cast tempest and wait.

If opponent gets turn 1 with preferred wave (presumably bloodcrushers, heralds, soulgrinders) I advance a screen of one wolf unit and the dreadnoughts, run to get them into position so that it's impossible for crushers (slow, stupid crushers) to get past a 30 inch conga line of wolves without assaulting them. Once they do, put the Dreads in. With no Furious Charge a squad of crushers will never kill two dreadnoughts and be totally locked for the entire game. Speeders go for any Soul Grinders. Fangs and Razorbacks shoot dead any 'thirsters or fire on a second crusher squad; even with cover they'll lose 4+ models. Priest keeps casting Tempest, razorback squads wait for bloodletters with dual flamer goodness and counterattack to mulch their charge when they try to move through terrain.

If opponent gets turn 1 with non-preferred wave (presumably bloodletters) I frag them with 15 missile launchers and assault any squads not in cover with my wolves (and their minimum 19" charge range). Speeders can blow Grinders piecemeal and corral crushers, and Canis can suicide a large bloodletter squad or the remnants of a crusher squad after missiles knock them down. Dreads go for crushers again.

And although I posted this before, it's worth doing so again:

Herald plus Fury Crusher: 9 attacks on the charge, hit 6 times, average a single penetrating hit, 2/3 of a chance to be locked in combat forever.
7 attacks when charged, hit less than 5 times, average one pen and one glancing hit every three assault phases, 2/3 chance to be locked in combat forever.

Green Blow Fly wrote:It is indeed much too obvious.

@ Night Lords - ideally I would wall up with my Crushers and advance towards your line railgunning the dreads with my Grinders. The Bloodthirster could be used either as a backup to destroying the dreads or popping your rhinos to expose the crunchy bits inside.

G

G

Ok...I hate when discussions turn to this imaginary scenario. Well, my guys will be in cover, your soul grinder will get meltad next turn, and the bloodthirster would be shot down before he could move...plus I have a nuke that lets me automatically win...?

If you can do that easily, Daemons would be the best army in the game. Much different when you are actually on the table. My list, while unit-by-unit a pretty big variation of the standard chaos list, is based off of it and most of my changes would only benefit me in this scenario (more guns, dreadnought, no termicide which would be near useless, etc).

So no point in play "this is what would happen" card.

There is nothing imaginary about the tactics I described and I have used this formation many times.

sourclams wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:
I think that if you plan to beat down daemons via shooting (1) you feel you can't beat them in close combat overall for hte win, (2) you will get in one round of solid shooting then you will be multi charged.

Why in the world does beating Daemons via shooting mean "you feel you can't beat them in close combat overall for the win"? Beating them in the shooting phase simply means you capitalized on a major weakness in the list, and shot them to death.

Go back and read the title of the thread. I understand you came in late to the discussion.

Your list is very light on scoring troop choices. I would lob them with pie plates and deploy other units to keep your speeders' MMs out of 1/2 range. Your biggest threat are the`two LF packs. I have to think on it a bit how I would counter them. I will repeat again that there is no guarantee the dreads will get the charge off on the Crushers, its siutational and dependent on drops and ensuing daemonic deployment.

Herald with Unholy Might & Fury (no furious charge):
S6 + 6 (rend) + d3 => all rends are penetrating

4 attacks, 3 hit -> 50% chance to rend, 33% chance to wreck or destroy = 16.5%

Now add in the Crusher with rending
S5 + 6 (rend) + d3 => 67% pen, 33% glance

3 attacks, 2 hit -> 33% chance to rend, 33% chance to wreck or destroy = 11%

16.5% + 33% = roughly 50%

G

I play assault heavy blood angels (30+ jump marines) and Khorne daemons are usually one of my easier match ups.

Blood Angels have better mobility so they can ensure they get the charge, and as long as you have Corbulo nearby they all swing before Khorne daemons. Dante giving them rerolls just makes it a one-sided fight. Bloodletters usually go down before they get to swing thanks to that 5+ save. Bloodcrushers aren't a whole lot different. Bloodthirsters are nothing special either. You can kill them with some big guns or powerfists like any other MC.

I'm somewhat afraid of soul grinders (which you may not consider khorney enough for your khorne army), but the daemon units that really scare me are not Khorne (flamers, kugath, fateweaver).

It's important not to let Khorne units get the charge, but other than that it's an easy game.

I consider myself a good BA player. I can beat KDA but not by en masse assault. I fought an all jump BA army with two super dreads this weekend and it was an easy win for my daemons.

G

My friend plays DA and BT, and I play Khorne Daemons, so this scenario comes up often.

While I won't go into tactics, there are several units that as a Khorne Daemon Player I hate going up against:

Lots of transports: its an extra assault before you kill the guys inside

Venerable dreadnoughts: Just when you lucked out and wrecked one, it makes you re-roll and its still alive.

Land Speeders: They are really fast, and unless you are using soulgrinders to shoot them, they are hard to run down and kill.

Just some observations I have made. However, ingeneral, the fact that every unit in the Khorne list has a power weapon gives the Daemons a HUGE advantage versus marnies, and even more of one versus terminators. Its an uphill battle.

I agree! Like I said I have played my BA versus KDA, one mistake is all it takes to lose. My tactic versus KDA in general is what I call the Spread. First your army must be all mech and/or jump infantry... foot sloggers will be overrun. Deploy everything together then when the first wave drops you move away from them at full speed. Its pretty much what mechdar does so often... your biggest advantage is speed versus KDA. The hard part is coming back in to grab objectives and with variable turns it is dangerous but you really dont have a choice in my opinion. If KDA pursues then their units will start to spread apart and you can focus your whole army against smaller blocks of theirs. On the flip side when I am playing KDA versus mech SM I keep my army together so that if they assault I can counter charge. SM units in general do not have armor saves and they fall fast... its just the way it is.

G

Seriously? Vs. most marine players I'm facing, most are taking multiple LRs or multiple dreads...or both depending on point size of games.

Green Blow Fly wrote:Sure you can tool your list specifically to counter KDA but be honest... No one runs three dreads or three landraiders. It's just pure conjecture really. I played against a BA army with TWO Venerable DC Furisio dreadnaughts and won handily. It is a fallacy to say that a dread can stroll up and charge crushers.

G

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I agree with Night Lords. Part of the marine strategy in any game is to use shooting. You seem to be coming from the position of "if you can't out assault me, I win." I don't need to completely out assault you. I just need to beat you in several key assaults over the course of the game...and BT have the units to do that easily. I don't need to win every assault. Shooting has to be factored in on some level, because you are also taking shooting units in your army knowing full well you need the shooting to make your list more effective as well. The door swings both ways GBF.

Night Lords wrote:Again, I dont understand this. I didnt admit I can only win with shooting, I said I use both. Shooting will not win you games, it will help put you in position to win games.

You are asking how to beat an army using no shooting against an army that will tear you apart in close combat if left at full strength. There is no answer to this question until you accept that shooting can be integrated, even with the blood angels.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Go back and read the title of the thread. I understand you came in late to the discussion.

Your list is very light on scoring troop choices. I would lob them with pie plates and deploy other units to keep your speeders' MMs out of 1/2 range.

So what you are saying is that you'd use shooting to soften up his forces before assaulting? LOL. How come you criticize that strategy when marines are attempting the same damn thing vs. KDA? Keeping speeders out of 1/2 range is extremely difficult you don't have enough models on the table to cover the various shooting angles to do that and if you spent your time doing that...that means your opponent controls the tempo of the game.

Your biggest threat are the`two LF packs. I have to think on it a bit how I would counter them.

Unless you go for broke, I don't see how you'd get to them with enough left.

I will repeat again that there is no guarantee the dreads will get the charge off on the Crushers, its siutational and dependent on drops and ensuing daemonic deployment.

You are correct there is no guarantee, however, the likelihood of you charging them first is not as high as them charging you. Look at it this way, to gain a charge with crushers, you are going to have to place them within 12" of something...you then sit a turn. Now whatever was there is probably moving to assault you if it's a dread...or moving away if it is not. If you deploy them farther way, that plays to my advantage since I can use my mobility to corral, avoid, or otherwise maneuver around them. Crushers are slow as hell.

So it sounds like you are also going the go shooty Marine camp. It looks good on ya mate!

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:
Herald with Unholy Might & Fury (no furious charge):
S6 + 6 (rend) + d3 => all rends are penetrating

4 attacks, 3 hit -> 50% chance to rend, 33% chance to wreck or destroy = 16.5%

Now add in the Crusher with rending
S5 + 6 (rend) + d3 => 67% pen, 33% glance

3 attacks, 2 hit -> 33% chance to rend, 33% chance to wreck or destroy = 11%

16.5% + 33% = roughly 50%

G

Your math is still off.

Here's the rolling distribution you'd need with the Herald: 3, 6, 5 with four chances to get it. That's a probability of .148

With the Fury Crusher it's 3, 6, 3, 5 with three chances to get it. That's a probability of 0.074

So your odds of destroying a Dreadnought in any one turn is basically 22.2%, which is a far cry from "roughly 50%". Two Dreads can tie up a squad of crushers for eight turns, and if they squash the Herald in turns 2 or 3 then it's pretty much guaranteed that combat won't end until all the Crushers are dead.

GBF, so your argument is that because Space Marine can't out assault you they loose by default.

Any assault based Space Marine army has elements of shooting in it, just like your particular version of KDA has shooty elements to it. Just because you dominate one aspect of the game doesn't mean a good Space Marine army will have trouble fighting you on their terms.

The weakness of the KDA armies is apparent:

1. They might not get their preferred wave.
2. They have to sit a turn.
3. Few of their models move over 6"
4. Their troops only have a 5++ save, and can only improve that by going to ground which stops them from doing anything the following turn.
5. They only have limited shooting, and most of their anti-tank is in assault.

Keeping that in mind, the Space Marine player can use good target priority with the shooting they do have, and use good target priority with their assaults to be able to handle the KDA.

KDA is a mid tier army at best.

Green Blow Fly wrote:So it sounds like you are also going the go shooty Marine camp. It looks good on ya mate!

G

I dont understand your stubbornness at all. Marines have guns, every single one does. I have never seen a marine player who does not shoot.

Marines therefore shoot. BA have the units available to shoot, so it's no excuse. If you made your BA list too CC oriented, youll pay for it against armies that outperform you in CC.

Not in the shooty camp as much as I am in the careful target selection camp+bring the right units to the table camp. BT aren't that shooty, but the shooting they have is very effective to set up their assaults.

Green Blow Fly wrote:So it sounds like you are also going the go shooty Marine camp. It looks good on ya mate!

G

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Your math is still off.

Here's the rolling distribution you'd need with the Herald: 3, 6, 5 with four chances to get it. That's a probability of .148

With the Fury Crusher it's 3, 6, 3, 5 with three chances to get it. That's a probability of 0.074

So your odds of destroying a Dreadnought in any one turn is basically 22.2%, which is a far cry from "roughly 50%". Two Dreads can tie up a squad of crushers for eight turns, and if they squash the Herald in turns 2 or 3 then it's pretty much guaranteed that combat won't end until all the Crushers are dead.

Finally, someone is using the hard math to illustrate my original point. Wanna run the numbers for 8 BT assault terminators with 4 LC's 4 TH/SS and furious charge/preferred vs. a thirster? or vs. 12 Bloodletters? Or how about a BT command squad of 10 with Marshall with a pair of LC's, termie honors and a powerfist on the vet sgt in the squad...all of them have furious charge/ preferred?

I have a degree in mathematics. My numbers are rock solid and my gaming results reflect them. The numbers shown by sour clams are not an even distribution.

G


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mahu wrote:
The weakness of the KDA armies is apparent:

1. They might not get their preferred wave.
Why is that a weakness? You can design your waves such that it doesn't really matter.

2. They have to sit a turn.
On the other hand they can land wherever they want are immune to deployment restrictions. It is actually one of the army's biggest advantages.

3. Few of their models move over 6"
Thirster has wings and grinders can fleet. Crushers have a HUGE footprint.

4. Their troops only have a 5++ save, and can only improve that by going to ground which stops them from doing anything the following turn.
4+ for very obvious reasons which you should be able to grasp.
5. They only have limited shooting, and most of their anti-tank is in assault.

Keeping that in mind, the Space Marine player can use good target priority with the shooting they do have, and use good target priority with their assaults to be able to handle the KDA.

KDA is a mid tier army at best.

if you really believe come to Tampa and prove your theory hammer. And by the way address me as Mr. Thirster from now on shooty boy.

G

Actually GBF, your math is off.

Three mistakes:

For the Herald, 2.68 hit.

For the FC, you didnt take your 67% chance to pen after rending.

Then I have no idea where you came up with 33% in the equation to add up to 50%.

Go back and work through it again. It's all right there. Now I have to give you a hard time... 2.68 hits??? I have never seen anyone roll 2.68 hits. Have you? I'd like to see that.

G

I did, and provided they hit on 3's, sourclam's math is right.


There are obvious mistakes in your math, even without doing any complicated math. There is no way using D6 that 3 out of 4 dice hit, unless its WS4 with Rerolls. If this is the case (I have no idea, I dont have the daemon book on me), this isnt a mistake (well, the final % I got would be 15.87)- otherwise sourclams is right.

The Crusher is 0.67 to hit, 0.1 to rend, 0.07 to pen (and because its 1/3 of this, we leave it due to 3 attacks). So 7% here.

And again, no idea how you came up with 50%.


EDIT to your EDIT: 2.68 is part of the percentage. You cant simply round up (or down) to 3, otherwise the odds will end up the same provided you land on 2.5-3.49 for hits. Thats a huge difference....you said you graduated with math but you dont know how to apply it??

Green Blow Fly wrote:Sure you can tool your list specifically to counter KDA but be honest... No one runs three dreads or three landraiders. It's just pure conjecture really. I played against a BA army with TWO Venerable DC Furisio dreadnaughts and won handily. It is a fallacy to say that a dread can stroll up and charge crushers.

G

For real, arguements like "yeah I can beat your army I just take a full FOC of this obscure model that is worthless against most other armies" is total BS. If you are tweaking your list that hardcore you probably are a garbage player anyway, and this vets tactics will prevail.

Dakkatactics don't work when they hit the table vs. a veteran.

Night Lords wrote:And again, no idea how you came up with 50%.

Looking at the way his equation is set up, I think he multiplies his Crusher 11% chance to destroy outright (which is wrong due to the Rending variable, that you already mentioned) by three attacks to get the 33% that he then adds to his Herald's 16.5%.

So either he's taking 3 Fury crusher models per squad, or he's double-dipping with his Attacks constant. To my knowledge, it's not possible to get 3 Fury models per squad.

Wanna run the numbers for 8 BT assault terminators with 4 LC's 4 TH/SS and furious charge/preferred vs. a thirster? or vs. 12 Bloodletters?

I'm not familiar enough with the stat lines of BT models to get a hard number, but assuming they get rerolls to hit due to Preferred Enemy and are S4, they will kill the Bloodthirster at I1 of the second assault phase, but lose about 4 Terminators in the process. The Bloodletters on the other hand will kill about 3 of the LC Terminators and 2 of the TH/SS Terminators while losing about 8-9 models, then another 2 or so models due to Fearless wounds. The Terminators will then kill off the last two, who will also get between 1-2 Terminators, leaving 1-2 Terminators alive in the squad when all the BLs are dead. Overall BT Termies are better off going after the big pointsink targets like the Thirster, but are at a loss against the lower point models due to power weapons and elite stats.

PanamaG wrote:If you are tweaking your list that hardcore you probably are a garbage player anyway, and this vets tactics will prevail.

"This vets tactics" against AV12 walkers basically amounts to rolling a bunch of 6's. Being a vet player doesn't make you immune to probability, and in truth good vet players have an intuitive understanding of mathematical odds when building an all-comers list.