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Steffo wrote:Doesn't he have a flamer?

Oh, I suppose he does. Khrone seems to be okay with flamers, though.

Now that you mention it, I wish I'd rememberd that huron had it. He could have pretty easily gotten a scary number of wounds on that cult blob at the end of the game, and the slaanesh lord would have been the closest model. Either he'd punt all the wounds (or, well, most of them), and basically loose his cultists before the close combat began (or certainly after the first round), or he could punt fewer of them to spare the cultists, but then he'd start racking up wounds himself, basically guaranteeing that he'd lose later challenges. With bad rolling, he could have even lost the lord to bolter, heavy flamer, and autocannon fire and watched as the cultists ran off the table.

Steffo wrote:A chaos space marine daemon prince with black mace.

I'm really not worried about this one, actually. The first turn of combat is going to be the prince chumping the champ (unless he rolls a 1 with the demon weapon, in which case there's a long shot that the champion could win, or at least seriously wound it). In the next turn, he'd get an average of 8.5 attacks which would kill 5 berzerkers, the 14 survivors then hitting with krak grenades on 4 (because WS5) and knocking off 1.5 wounds with krak grenades (1.3 with nurgle). Unless he rolled a 1 with the demon weapon, in which case he'd likely lose a wound, and those 18 berzerkers throw down 2.5 more with their grenades. The next turn is the same, where the demon prince either kills some more berzerkers and takes another wound, or his demon axe fumbles (3 attempts by now...) and he loses 2 or 3.

I'd actually put my money on the berzerkers here. Eventually the demon prince is going to fail a demon weapon roll and just die, or eventually they'll be bailed out by something else.

And if I manage even one wound (with the obliterators or terminators, say) before the close combat begins, then things look very favorable for the berzerkers.

Steffo wrote:A nid monstrous creature lineup, with a sea of little spawned termagants

I'm really, REALLY not worried about tyranid gribblies with this list. As for TMCs, many of them are pretty doughy. As mentioned before, 16 khorne berzerkers with krak grenades do 2 wounds with krak grenades on a single turn of combat, and tervigons really aren't that great here.

Now, that's not to say there aren't some pretty beaty TMCs. I guess I'm just not quite certain what I'd do against a swarmlord, for example, other than to hope to seriously wound it with some obliterators or combi-weapons first... and hope for bad it will not die rolls.

Steffo wrote:A daemon army with monstrous creatures.

I don't know what I'd do in this case, but mostly because I so poorly understand the demon codex. I know that their non-MCs are chainsword bait with their 5++, but I'm not quite keen enough on what their bigger ones do.

Steffo wrote:Big unit of nob bikers with a warboss.

I'm not too worried about this either.

Firstly, you've got to look at the points. What do you get for 430 points? I mean, the boss with basic gear costs about 140, and then, assuming a painboy and a few klaws, you're looking at... 4 bikes?

Ignoring the warboss for a moment, that's 8 wounds of Ws4 T4 with only a 4+ attacking after my berzerkers do. Assuming both units at full strength and nobz get the charge, and that the berzerkers fire overwatch and get countercharge, the nobz are suffering 9 or 10 unsaved wounds before they even get a chance to swing. Last I checked, 9 and 10 are both bigger than the 8 wounds they brought in the first place. Yes, the nobz get to shoot before they charge, but still, things look pretty ugly for the nobz. Meanwhile, in the challenge, both the boss and the champion swing at I1. Yeah, the boss krumps the champ, but the champ likely takes a wound or two.

On the next turn of close combat, an injured warboss and maybe a single nob are drowned out in an unimaginable orgy of WS5 chainsword attacks. Seriously, I'd lose the champ and a handful of berzerkers, and that's assuming I'm pretty unlucky.

Remember, WarpTalons with Shread just re-roll failed wounds. If they are Str 4, they are wounding T6 with 6s, and even a re-roll with that doesn't excite me for the points your spending on them. Now back to the subject of the Lord and the number of Berzerkers, I think play testing is the only route to go so you can figure out how many you actually need. Try 2 squads of 15 and see how that works for you. Then shoot for 3 squads at 15 vs two squads at 20.

Are the Reaper ACs on the Terminators doing the job? Would 2 more Combi-Plasmas do the same job for you? Would this mean you don't need 10 Terminators and instead maybe just one squad at 7 or 8?

Don't bother with a power sword on your Lord, because for the same points you could have a LC with Shread for those times you don't want to use the Axe. I still suggest Melta bombs, but that is just me.

Lord - 160pts
MoK, AoBF, SoC, LC, MB, VotLW

Huron

9x Terminators - 397pts
MoK, IoW, Champ with fist & c.melta, 2x c.meltas, 5x c.plasma, Chainfist,

15x Berzerkers - 335pts
IoW, Champ with Fist

15x Berzerkers - 335pts
IoW, Champ with Fist

3x Obliterators - 231pts
MoK, VotLW

3x Obliterators - 231pts
MoK, VotLW

1849pts

This is me dropping the Reapers and adding Plasma, the Zerkers down to 15 man squads and giving you two squads of 3 Oblits. I went with 8 Terminators, but ended up at 1815pts, so one more with a mark was added, At first I gave your Terminators Vets plus a Power Fist and a Lightining Claw, but that didn't feel sexy to me. Obviously if you trim down the Terminators some and drop a Oblit squad, you could get a 3rd Berzerker unit, but I figured that Deep Striking in with two hard units would give you more than enough firepower. Note I gave your Lord a Lightining Claw and a Melta bomb incase you ran into Land Raider spam or didn't want to use the Axe. This load out also allows you to Deep Strike the Terminators and Oblits, but I think this only works if Huron rolls a 2 for Infiltrating units (Lord+ 1 unit). If you rolled a 3 I would keep the Terminators on the table and throw Huron in them and put the Lord + both Zerker units up. On a 1, I would be tempted to Infiltrate the Terminators and run the Lord and Huron in each Zerker unit and run them up. That way the Terminators should be within 12" (at worse) after one move to a target for dual plasma and extra pen on melta fire... whatever is needed for whatever your firing on.

I know it doesn't add speed for your Lord, but I think your right about the bikes with Tau and Baleflamers (Oh nos! I have to wound on a 3+ instead of a 2+). I am also not a fan of spawn. You really are just better leaving him on foot, as all a mount does for you (besides a minor boost in stats), lets you jump from one unit to another. While there is merit in that, is that little bit worth a Jugger or Bike? If you do want to try it out in the list I made, that extra Terminator could be axed for one or the other.

Hope this helps...

Nice report. A few too many arrows, though. I quickly gave up on trying to make any sense of them.

What do you do when you play a mission without kill points in play? You so much as said it. Your opponent had very little chance from the start. It was as much as over once you got first blood. Any army with only 7KP can win like that, regardless of anything else. Only 1/6 missions include kill points.

Also, you talk about how you controlled the board. Yet, at the end of the game, you consigned yourself to conceding objectives. It would seem that you really didn't control anything.

Your opponent would have fared better if he hadn't backed up his noise marines so much. Focusing down those units that were almost dead, instead of taking sporadic shots at full strength units, also would have helped. And why was that Heldrake letting you tank wounds on the Lord. He could have easily manuevered it for a better angle.

Regardless, it was a hard fought match and you managed to pull it out in the end. Well played.

I would definitely take a jugger regardless of his delivery unit. It adds plus 1W which can be used as justification in losing a KB as long as he is leading them, which to me means your gaining all that extra utility for just 20 points when you think about it.

hippesthippo wrote: A few too many arrows, though. I quickly gave up on trying to make any sense of them.

What would help you understand what was happening better?

hippesthippo wrote:What do you do when you play a mission without kill points in play?

The same I was doing here.

On Purge, obviously I'm set. On relic, I've got 40 fearless khorne berzerkers. If my opponent gets close to the khorne berzerkers, they're eaten by khorne berzerkers. If they don't, I just win. If they can manage to kill off all the berzerkers (which I should note wasn't even achieved in this game), then I've just got to prevent my opponent from having the objective (easy with 10 terminators and a khorne lord), and then I win on secondaries.

Likewise, Emperor's will is going to be not that tough. I take my army, and infiltrate it next to my opponent's objective. I take his objective. Even if he takes my completely undefended one, we still draw on primaries, and I win on secondaries.

With scouring, I can guarantee that there are 4 objectives next to each other, which means I've got a pretty good chance to nab the 4, and then I only need one other decent objective to force a draw. If my opponent brings any FA slots, then I'm guaranteed to win secondaries, even if I lose first blood...

With the rest of them, the story goes like this game. With 3 objectives, there will be two objectives 6" apart, and I'll just control that hunk of board and win. Really, the only serious concern is on two missions - crusade and big guns - and only when we roll 5 objectives. That only happens once in every 1 in 9 games. And even then, as this game shows, it's doable.

hippesthippo wrote:Yet, at the end of the game, you consigned yourself to conceding objectives. It would seem that you really didn't control anything.

I CHOSE not to go for the objectives because I didn't NEED to. Had it been only a 5-objective big-guns game, then I would have been playing the game with a more aggressive bent on taking the objectives (hiding the berzerkers more, for example), and even at the end of this game, I had a decent chance of winning the objectives game.

Being able to choose how I win the game on my own terms is the very definition of controlling things.

hippesthippo wrote:Your opponent would have fared better if he hadn't backed up his noise marines so much.

All he would have gotten were a couple of extra bolter hits, which against marines isn't much, and to do it he'd have to get into close combat range of my berzerkers. Plus, he did spend all of his time just attacking the berzerkers with blastmasters. They weren't spreading their fire around. The problem was that I displaced, so he didn't get a lot of hits.

I don't think the problem was that he was staying too far away, I think the problem was that the noise marines weren't good for much else than plinking in this case.

hippesthippo wrote:And why was that Heldrake letting you tank wounds on the Lord. He could have easily manuevered it for a better angle.

Firstly, that was only at the end of the game. By that point it was much easier to have the lord be the closest model to anything.

Secondly, he couldn't have maneuvered around. Fliers have to move 18", and can only turn 90 degrees. There was no way he could have fulfilled those rules and not had the lord be close to being the nearest model. The only way he could have gotten more hits was to drop to hover mode and back up, but then he'd be in hover mode, which means he would have been attacked by a lord with an axe of blind fury the turn after (to say nothing of being shot at by autocannons, etc.)

This was actually me exploiting the limited nature of flier mobility, not a stupid mistake on my opponent's part.

BlkTom wrote:Remember, WarpTalons with Shread just re-roll failed wounds. If they are Str 4, they are wounding T6 with 6s, and even a re-roll with that doesn't excite me for the points your spending on them.

Well... 5 MoK warp talons charging a T6 MC with a 3+/5++...

The champ gets in a challenge and puts down 1 wound, then we'll assume he gets chumped. The next turn, the remaining 4 of them put down another 1 or 2. That's not too bad. It's also possibly not how it would go, either, as the talon champ DOES have an invul save. They could be there for awhile, slowly grinding the MC down.

Not a perfect solution, of course, but it's not THAT bad, either. I suppose, the question is one of why bother. Why not just take more berzerkers. Or, in this case, possessed or terminators.

BlkTom wrote:Are the Reaper ACs on the Terminators doing the job? Would 2 more Combi-Plasmas do the same job for you?

I do wish I had brought a full compliment of combi-weapons this game. As for the autocannons, well, the point to them is so that they're not completely pointless outside of close combat (well, and that one round of combi-weapon fire). I guess it's a little silly, as I should always be trying to get into close combat with them, but I do like the idea of the flexibility it gives them.

I mean, it was a MoK terminator unit that had the option to hang back and get linebreaker, and then shot down a flier at range. That scenario is pretty much the reason I'm taking them.

That said, I'm not THAT attached to them. I guess if I come across a particularly compelling reason to drop them, then I will.

BlkTom wrote:Don't bother with a power sword on your Lord, because for the same points you could have a LC with Shread for those times you don't want to use the Axe.

Derp. That's what I meant. Thinking like a guard player again.

... I mean... they're the SAME PRICE...

BlkTom wrote:(list)

That's certainly a direction I could go in. I do feel a little bit uncomfortable with having only 30 models in the big wad, though.

I'll keep something like this in the back of my mind if what I feel I need more of is support units.

Red Corsair wrote:It adds plus 1W which can be used as justification in losing a KB as long as he is leading them, which to me means your gaining all that extra utility for just 20 points when you think about it.

Oh, hmm...

For 20 points I get W1 T4 3+ with a chainsword, or I get W1 T5 3+/4++ with an axe of blind fury. I suppose the berzerker has the higher damage output (4 chainsword attacks rather than nothing), but that is a compelling way to think about it in every other way.

Hmm...

The problem is the way he first maneuvered his fliers on turn 2, so that on turn 3 they were all way out of position. They should have started on the outside, so they could angle around and circle you the rest of the game.

Putting his Noise Marines out front as bait lets you assault them, murder them, and consolidate into a poor, bunched up position with regards to where his Drakes should have been. His game plan/manuevering from the beginning was poor. He played right into what you wanted him to do. Playing with 5 fliers requires a chess like attitude where you must have a game plan in place where you are thinking several turns ahead.

For instance, he should have placed some of his objectives in the far corner of your deployment zone. This way, he either a. Takes one of your Berserker units out of the game as they must hang back, or b. Leaves an open objective where only he can easily reach it with his Scythes.

Bottom line, those fliers murdered you. With an understanding that he wouldn't beat you on KP (a rare mission anyway), as you had so few units, he needed to win through strategical placement of objectives, and better use of the movement phase to take full advantage of his fliers. He did neither.

So, can you ignore fliers on a KP mission where you only have seven units, against an opponent with a poor game plan? Absolutely, and you played it well taking advantage of his mistakes.

He DID circle the fliers, though. Every turn the helldrake was on the board, he shot a bale flamer at them. It was really my displacement that killed the effectiveness of the helldrakes, not the placement of them.

Likewise, just getting into assault with noise marines was far from a certainty to get me bunched up. With the displacement I was at, even a decent consolidation would have kept them relatively safe. Or worse for my opponent, if only a small numbers of the berzerkers made it into combat, I very well might not have killed him, which meant I'd be spared a turn of getting hit by a bale flamer at all.

And he did put one of the objectives up in a corner. He put the other one as far away from the other as he could without putting it in my deployment zone. Wanting the safety of being able to deploy on them makes sense. Plus, if he had deployed objectives differently, then I would have deployed them differently as well. And if the game were only about obejctives, I would have played a different game in the movement phase.

You can't just assume that my opponent did the dumbest things possible, and with a shred of intellect he would have soundly beaten me. Nor can you assume that there was things he could magically have done that I couldn't have countered.

Especially when the reason that the game was decided the way it was had nothing to do with objectives or how many units my opponent killed at all...

I don't have to assume. There are pictures. He should have put an objective in YOUR deployment zone, is what I said.

If he would have put an objective in my deployment zone, then I would have put my objectives near it, and then I could have castled against his fliers and won on objectives more easily. My berzerkers would have been out of range or LOS of more blastmaster shots and would never have been fired on by bolters.

And, in a more secure posiiton, I'd be able to have a squad of berzerkers or, more likely, the terminators go off and kill off the scoring unit on the one objective in his deployment zone, meaning that those noise marines would be wasted even more, and he'd be relying literally on two squads of warriors to do all his scoring. Against more berzerkers.

At least in the way he set up all of his noise marines got to do something, he had a guaranteed objective locked in, and it took me longer before I was able to do anything.

Yes, he could have placed them different, but, as it's an adversarial activity, I could always counter what he did by doing things differently myself.

Sweet battle report!

If you tried to castle against that shooty of a list, you would have lost. You won the objective roll, yet, you didn't take advantage of that to castle up on 3 obj., did you? And for good reason.

Your army needed to run forward to help avoid fliers and hide in combat when possible. Stuck in your side of the board, you would have been slaughtered.

darkeldarcrone wrote:Sweet battle report!

Thanks!

hippesthippo wrote:If you tried to castle against that shooty of a list, you would have lost.

Why? I can castle and displace at the same time.

And everything got to shoot every turn as well, and this was still the end result. I'd have lost the same number of models, but would have had an easier time with the objectives. Actually, I'd have been better off as there was an LOS-blocking piece of terrain I could have used.

hippesthippo wrote:You won the objective roll, yet, you didn't take advantage of that to castle up on 3 obj., did you? And for good reason.

Yes, and that reason was because I didn't want to be an ass.

The game would have been 5 turns of him plinking and me with 5 turns of more or less not moving, and then I'd have won.

Or, to put it another way, I wanted to play a game this game. It's why I'm playing a khorne army as a khorne army, not a game of yahtzee with ta or eldar models.

hippesthippo wrote:Your army needed to run forward to help avoid fliers and hide in combat when possible.

With one arguable exception, running forward didn't reduce casualties, and I never had a single turn hiding in close combat.

Oh, a Jugger is not 20pts, it is 35pts. Bit of a difference. Hummm... dropping the Terminators for another squad of Berzerkers might be interesting. All depends if you want that 2+/5++ save or not, though I think scoring gives them a bigger boost. Maybe got three squads of Berzerkers and two squads of Obilterators to make up for the firepower. You never know if you will roll big guns again, and there is nothing like that for Elites

Using the list I put up before as the base, three squads of sixteen Berzerkers with IoW and PF (354pts), Huron and 160pt Lord and two squads of three Oblits with MoK and Vets (231pts) totals out at 1844pts. If you ditched one squad of Oblits and maxed out the Berzerkers at 20, you would be at 1841pts... I would do a Gift of Mutation on your Lord if your opponents are cool with you being 1pt over, if not, Ichor Blood it is or a Melta bomb on a Champ it is.

And Hippesthippo... does it matter 'what if'? That is how his battle played out, with the mission and deployment rolled. Maybe he would have been slaughtered in a corner... maybe his opponent would have rolled a lot of ones too. Point is he is still Infiltrating something and attacking, that is what his list is designed to do. Whatever that is left hanging back is spread out just as well, but now flyers have to deal with a /very/ small table or drop down into hover to get all of the Berzerkers... Gah, now I am doing it to! Stop trolling 'what ifs!'

Well, so I'm finally starting to have something I can grab onto, list building wise. Clearly my list does what it does, so the one thing I REALLY need to worry about is hard counters. Some of them were mentioned on the previous page, but the more I'm thinking about it, there seem to be three categories.

MCs - Well, as mentioned, certain ones. Berzerkers have WS5, krak grenades, and fearless, so they will eventually grind most MCs down by attrition. That said... they won't do it with all of them. There's a chance they'll get tarpitted by a wraithknight, or there's the chance they'll be utterly butchered by a swarmlord.

Venom spam - Or things like it. Red corsair mentioned in a different thread the endlessly-retreating MSM eldar units, but it's even worse than that. Khorne works by applying an absurd number of attacks faster and better than other stuff, but it's possible to out-khorne khorne in this regard. A venom with splinterborne costs practically nothing, and a DE player could feed them one at a time into my army. Now, yes, I'm playing a power armor army now, so I just don't need to care about volume of fire nearly as much... Except it's possible to whittle an army down.

On a slightly different note, we have a local guard player who likes his punishers. I've seen him bring 5 at 1850 points before. That or his vulture. Even with just the tanks, that's 11 dead berzerkers in a single turn of firing, and that's before we start talking about sponson and hull weapons. If we're talking lascannons and multimeltas (the best loadout, and the one he takes), then that's another 6+ killed. That's 35 dead berzerkers in two turns. That's a WAY bigger threat than a couple of bale flamers.

Better CC - I know that's silly to say when talking about khorne berzerkers, but it's possible. I was talking with a friend who was thinking about going back to having a storm raven with his DCA blobs. The berzerkers would win, but the DCAs would win 2:1 on points killed. Likewise, there are units out there, rarely taken, but still, that are good at killing specifically marines in close combat, like lightning claw terminators or warp talons, or howling banshees, or blood talon dreads.

Basically I need some more optionally not in close combat kind of things.

Anyways, what all of these have in common is that I need speed or range. This isn't new to me, of course, and I'm not the first khorne player to notice this, but there it stands none the less.

I guess at first blanche, what it looks like I need more of are more obliterators, I suppose, or more combi-plasma termies, but somehow I don't feel like that's quite comprehensively thinking enough.

Boy, now I'm really starting to notice that "I don't have enough HQ choices" effect...

Your army seems built for this custom mission. I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from it.

Well, I will point out that if you change your list to deal with those 'hard counters', your changing your list to not make it do what it is suppose to do. Also, I feel your current list already has units that can deal with those 'hard counters', Terminators, Power Fists, and Oblits.

MCs - Most MCs can't answer a challenge because they are not characters, so move your Fist after you have a bunch of Berzerkers in base to base to be within 2" of combat to get their licks in, while the MC hammers on the base to base guys. Your boys in Base to base ride that WS 5 and pray for 1s while tossing Krak nades at it (and probably doing nothing since they suck), while your champ has 4-5 attacks with a Fist. Sounds like you have two turns of combat to get the job done to me. Terminators and Obilts have Invuln saves to possibly survive as well, and Fists to do the damage so they can also deal with this, and your Lord is Str 7 on the Charge, but this is a reason why you need melta bombs on him, specially if he gets charged first.

Venom spam - Armor saves + infiltration + DSing 2+/5++ units means they get 1 turn of shooting then you go in. You take care of this problem by having your Terminators lead and absorb the fire and then charge in to eliminate them. They only have 12" back to run away from you, so you have to cover less than 30" most of the time. Get in melee with them, bolt pistol them. I can't speak on Dark Eldar that much, but Eldar have short range weapons (18" Guardians), they can't run from you for long while you Run at them in that situation, or bolt pistol the heck out of them. I am sure you will find that your hurting Dire Avengers or Guardians as much as they are hurting you if you actually exchange fire, but you should have more shots going in and still get your armor save against a lot of those shots.

Better CC - This is where your trusty bolt pistol comes in against lesser opponents who can still do damage in CC. You also ride that WS 5 for your Zerkers and you take your lumps and overwhelm them with numbers. Your biggest annoyance is getting charged first, so you lose that Furious Charge and the extra attack from Charge. You will probably make your Counter Charge roll, so they are not gaining attacks from Charging, and maybe you will drop a couple in over-watch. But this is where the IoW comes in.... you can do that little dance of 'I am not getting within 13" of you first', because you get 2 rolls on your charge and you can take advantage of them when they try to inch in past that 14" range... course the first failed charge gets charged, but that is the gamble. But LC Terminators? Banshees? Warp Talons? That is what Terminators are for... you will get a 2+ save and bolter overwatch against all of that. If it is your Berzerkers, hey, if you doing some clever movement with your boys and get your Champ in that 3-4" range where he can't challenge (or accept challenges) yet can 'pile in' to get his fist swings in on his Init, you can drop a 5 man LC Terminator squad in 1 round if your lucky.

But hey, the golden rule is 'You charge them first and you win.'

You have this covered, weather you use your Terminators or Oblits or more Berzerkers. You Pincer your Zerkers along the flanks and then roll towards the middle once your in their deployment zone, with your Terminators in the middle, they can't kill you fast enough before you get into CC because you Infiltrate them. Yes, a Venom spam list and you rolling a 1 on infiltrate will suck, but then you infiltrate up the Terminators and run your Lord + Zerkers and Huron + Zerkers up as fast as you can.

Even on a bad match up, any decent list played in a decent manner can win. You just have to be smart enough to give yourself a way to answer those problems before you face them, and your list can answer those problems. Sure, 5 Punishers will be rough, but they can't snipe out your fists. On a Charge (so Str 9), you have a shot to pen AV 14 with a Fist. So it is all about Placement of your Fists in their respective units. You make sure there is enough bodies up front to take the wounds. Besides, if he is fielding nearly 900+pts in Punishers, he is hurting in other places. You get in Melee with his blobs and you will destroy them... and if your lucky, it will take on his Turn for you to finish them off so he can't shoot you!

Nice report as usual!

How do you feel you'd have done if the game had gone to turn 6?

You know, as much as I'm surprised by the win, I'm not as surprised as I could have been.

One of my regular opponents runs a Noise Marine list and it is brutal. However, he has only two fliers (both Heldrakes) and uses three squads of 12 Noise Marines each. I would actually argue that Luke (my gaming buddy) has a stronger list than the one you played against.

Mostly because, as you've proven time and again in your Guard reports (and as I've seen often enough myself) there becomes a point where flier saturation just isn't efficient. It's very easy to ignore fliers if you have a high enough model count in your army. The simple fact that they spend so much time either off the board or getting in each others way (when field in sufficient numbers) strikes me as making them very points inefficient past fielding two or free.

You definitely had the right idea there, of grabbing his belt buckle as much as possible. Granted, it didn't quite work out that way since you didn't get all that much assaulting done, but it was still the right idea.

The closest I've come to beating Luke's list was with a Bike-heavy Khorne army with a Landraider and a Predator. The twin-linked lascannons (and a plasma gun armed csm squad) ate the fliers easily enough. Meanwhile, assaulting from the Landraider, from Bikes and from my Jugger load mean't that I was able to get stuck in from turn 2, minimising the number of AP3 hits I took.

I have to admit that when I saw your list, my first though was that you were really going to be in for it. But then I realised that you probably had the numbers to survive the AP3 attrition and get in close. And once you were in close, five NM weren't going to be able to take out even two or three bersekers. And every round you could last would be a round where you couldn't be shot at.

But I think the biggest factors contributing to your win were:

* Being experienced enough (and dogged enough) to know a situation is never hopeless.
* Your excellent grasp of the importance of position
* You're opponents over-reliance on fliers
* The disjointed nature of his army. Apart from giving him more fliers, the Necrons really didn't add anything to the list other than being able to place troops on objectives in the late game. He could have done that just easily with Guard vets in Vendetta's.

I apologise for the length of this post and I apologise if I've mentioned something that's already been covered in another post. I'm normally the first person to gripe and moan about posters who comment without reading the entire thread first, but I couldn't control my impatience to get these thoughts down on the screen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay. I've read through the other posts now:

I agree that a potential issue here is a lack of Heavy Support. I worry how would you would cope against most Eldar lists, especially a MSU Mechdar list.

The Obliterators are a good choice, but perhaps it might be wrothwhile changing the load out on your Terminators to multi-meltas? Then again, I deep-strike my Terminators in (which would violate the design principles behind your list) so the circumstances are very different.

Another alternative would be a nice, cheap Pred. But again I think that would violate one of your design principles. You seem to be trying to avoid vehicles in order to make your opponent waste the points he spends on anti-vehicle and anti-flier specialists.

I also feel you're correct on the bikes. They're expensive and with the amount of heldrakes in your local meta they're probably not worth the cost. Personally, I find the bikes in my list invaluable, both as a juggerlord delivery system and in their own right. That said, I encounter a lot less cover-ignoring AP3 in my local meta (Luke is the only regular opponent I face who has it) so fielding bikes is a TAC list is less of an issue for me.

Given what I know (or rather what I THINK I know) about your character as a player from other bat reps, I don't think that simply hoping that your opponents heldraks didn't turn up until after your bikes are in an assault is something you would consider.

Really, when all is said and done, I don't really know what advice to offer you on your list. It's too early to tell after two games, but I really think that your list six or seven games from now won't have changed much from it's previous incarnation.

It already seems to do almost exactly what you want it too. It hasn't broken yet, so why try to fit it?

Good to see that you've finally come to realize there is more to the game than pulling the trigger. Ten terms is a natural counter to Hell Turkeys .

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Good to see that you've finally come to realize there is more to the game than pulling the trigger. Ten terms is a natural counter to Hell Turkeys .

Man, you're talking to the same guy that was playing melee 'guard blobs in 5th!

 Talore wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Good to see that you've finally come to realize there is more to the game than pulling the trigger. Ten terms is a natural counter to Hell Turkeys .

Man, you're talking to the same guy that was playing melee 'guard blobs in 5th!

And doing very well with them too, if I remember correctly.

BlkTom wrote: Most MCs can't answer a challenge because they are not characters,

I'm going through the rulebook and finding the opposite to be true. Are riptides or wraithknights characters?

Because I'm only seeing a couple of TMCs that AREN'T characters, everything else, from mephiston to dreadknights to broodlords all seem to be characters.

This leaves me with shooting it, grinding it down with krak grenades over several turns, or having character of my own that can beat monstrous creatures. Unfortunately, unless I start playing tzeentch, I'm already at my limit for characters that can beat up MCs in close combat...

The question, then, is if a combination of a few combi-weapons and a few obliterators be able to handle, say, a 3x dreadknight list, or riptide spam, or whatever.

BlkTom wrote:I am sure you will find that your hurting Dire Avengers or Guardians as much as they are hurting you if you actually exchange fire, but you should have more shots going in and still get your armor save against a lot of those shots.

Right, but the problem here is MSM, my long-time arch-nemesis and winner of the "Ailarian worst rule of the game" award. That I happen to be weak against it is just that much more irritating.

Because what I'm looking at is units moving 6", firing 12", and then moving 6", which always leaves me with a 6" move and a 12" charge. But that's not the worst of it. The worst is that things can move back and forth around cover, which means its long charges on 3D6, or they move behind LOS-blocking terrain and then I can't assault them at all.

Now, being able to deepstrike terminators and obliterators will rather help, but are those two units going to be enough?

I mean, if we were talking about static firepower (except for those really bad examples, like punisher spam), then the regular song and dance of me taking a bunch of casualties but still get into close combat and thus win would play out. Without that, though, well... I suppose it would be a bit like this game where I couldn't get into close combat either.

Except there are things out there that can do more damage to berzerkers than bale flamers.

One possible answer, as you say, is go take big squads of marked CSM and make them khorne berzerkers, but with bolters and a couple of plasma guns. But...

BlkTom wrote: You will probably make your Counter Charge roll, so they are not gaining attacks from Charging, and maybe you will drop a couple in over-watch.

Countercharge doesn't do that.

I suppose there is more nuance than I was giving credit, but there are just some things that are just going to get the charge on the berzerkers. Flying MCs, anything with a jump pack, and anything in a vehicle with an assault ramp come to mind.

BlkTom wrote:Even on a bad match up, any decent list played in a decent manner can win. You just have to be smart enough to give yourself a way to answer those problems before you face them, and your list can answer those problems.

But perhaps you're right. Maybe I'm just overthinking this. I mean, this game was a case of common sense table skills beating a tricksy list. Perhaps any list built out of hard counters is going to overspend on hard counters, and thus be weak somewhere else.

I guess what I'm worried about is that that might not always be true. What if my opponent just gets one or two hard counters and then has a solid list otherwise?

Hedgehog wrote:How do you feel you'd have done if the game had gone to turn 6?

In the absolute best case scenario for my opponent, he'd have been able to force a draw on turn 6 by killing my obliterators. Well, actually, there was an extremely long-odds chance for my opponent to win, but he'd have to both kill Huron AND my khorne lord would have had to have killed himself with his demon weapon.

However, him killing my obliterators was far from certain. Yes, there were only two wounds of them, but it was W2 T5 2+/5++. And it was only going to get plinked at. Meanwhile, my opponent's warlord was more in danger of getting killed than mine was, as he'd have to beat a terminator champion with an ID weapon, and then beat Huron who had +2S over him.

Meanwhile, favoring things towards me, his cultists would have been easily wiped out by terminators, berzerkers, and obliterators and, in one way or another, his lord would have been killed by SOMETHING in that pile of units, which means I would have swept secondaries. Also, the top of 6 would have seen me kill the noise marines I was working on, and the bottom of 6 would have seen me charging the warriors nearby and wiping them out, leaving us with a draw on objectives and a win for me on KP, not even needing to rely on secondaries.

LeadLegion wrote:The closest I've come to beating Luke's list was with a Bike-heavy Khorne army with a Landraider and a Predator. The twin-linked lascannons (and a plasma gun armed csm squad) ate the fliers easily enough. Meanwhile, assaulting from the Landraider, from Bikes and from my Jugger load mean't that I was able to get stuck in from turn 2, minimising the number of AP3 hits I took.

Firstly, I have very seriously considered land raiders, and if I had the models, I'd be running some right now. Loltastically, Huron can make terminators in a land raider infiltrate.

As for bikes, though, it seems like there's just too much Ap3, and of that, which ignores cover. I mean, in this game my bikes would have gotten to attack once before being helldraked to death in a single shot...

Because, I mean, we're talking about khorne here. How much time are they really going to be spending hiding in combat? They tend to just plain win it on the charge, after all.

LeadLegion wrote:But I think the biggest factors contributing to your win were:

* Being experienced enough (and dogged enough) to know a situation is never hopeless.
* Your excellent grasp of the importance of position
* You're opponents over-reliance on fliers

Yeah, pretty much.

LeadLegion wrote:but perhaps it might be wrothwhile changing the load out on your Terminators to multi-meltas? Then again, I deep-strike my Terminators in (which would violate the design principles behind your list) so the circumstances are very different.

You mean combi-meltas?

And I'm not aversed to that either. I could use some of my ogryn to cobble up some more termies and replace 3 obliterators with 5 MoK termies with combi-meltas. -1W, and no powerfists, but I'd have more of them and a lot more CC attacks over all. Would the loss of shooting be worth it?

LeadLegion wrote:Another alternative would be a nice, cheap Pred. But again I think that would violate one of your design principles. You seem to be trying to avoid vehicles in order to make your opponent waste the points he spends on anti-vehicle and anti-flier specialists.

I'm not actually against vehicles. So long as I'm not offering first blood bait, I should be fine. Plus, I could always just leave them in reserves if I was really worried about it.

I'd just need a reason to take a predator over something else. The most particular vehicular else being a maulerfiend...

LeadLegion wrote: It hasn't broken yet, so why try to fit it?

Lol. If only...

LeadLegion wrote:

Talore wrote:

Dozer Blades wrote:Good to see that you've finally come to realize there is more to the game than pulling the trigger. Ten terms is a natural counter to Hell Turkeys .

Man, you're talking to the same guy that was playing melee 'guard blobs in 5th!

And doing very well with them too, if I remember correctly.

So, there's a slight whiff of irony here. I originally wanted to start playing CSM, khorne in particular, because I wanted an army that did what power blobs did, but better. Then that plan got repeatedly explosive diarrhead on, and so I switched over to go with the flow, abandoning both khorne marines and power blobs in favor of something that went with the grain of the new rules edition better.

But, then, a khorne army was chosen because it was better than power blobs. Power blobs may have become unplayable, but khorne are better, therefore not guaranteed to be unplayable. In a way, I got what I wanted, while in a world of not getting what I wanted, while my new guard army didn't get me what I new wanted.

Or, in other words, while the world changed, I should have stayed more the same, not less...

Firstly, I have very seriously considered land raiders, and if I had the models, I'd be running some right now. Loltastically, Huron can make terminators in a land raider infiltrate.

As for bikes, though, it seems like there's just too much Ap3, and of that, which ignores cover. I mean, in this game my bikes would have gotten to attack once before being helldraked to death in a single shot...

A Landraider's not something to be sneered at. It's pretty much the only assault troop delivery vehicle in the entire codex. The dirge caster is a must buy and although you're capped at ten zerkers, that ten zerkers you're almost guaranteed to be able to deliver into an assault without taking a single casualty on the way. The twin-linked lascannon are nothing to sneer at either. You hear a lot of moaning about it's schizophrenic weapon load for a transport vehicle, but it's really the best (and only option) we have unless you're willing to fork out £90 for a Forgeworld Storm Eagle. Or at least, until FW release the new dreadclaw model they've been promising us for ages.

I also agree 100% with your comments on the bikes. They work well enough in my local meta, but wouldn't last past turn 2 in yours. That being said, I keep my bike units small (no more than 5 or 6 bikers) to ensure they still have something to kill in my opponents assault phase. Well, try to ensure anyway.

LeadLegion wrote:
but perhaps it might be wrothwhile changing the load out on your Terminators to multi-meltas? Then again, I deep-strike my Terminators in (which would violate the design principles behind your list) so the circumstances are very different.

You mean combi-meltas?

And I'm not aversed to that either. I could use some of my ogryn to cobble up some more termies and replace 3 obliterators with 5 MoK termies with combi-meltas. -1W, and no powerfists, but I'd have more of them and a lot more CC attacks over all. Would the loss of shooting be worth it?

Yes I did. Sorry, it was about 2am over here when I typed that post. The thing is, as much as my combi-melta/lightning claw terminators work for me, they work as an adjunct to my main anti-tank rather than being my main anti-tank, if you see what I mean. I wouldn't suggest swapping out your obliterators in favour of Combi-Melta terminators for that reason. They work for me because the main anti-tank role is already covered by the Land Raider and the Predator in my list.

I'm not actually against vehicles. So long as I'm not offering first blood bait, I should be fine. Plus, I could always just leave them in reserves if I was really worried about it.

I'd just need a reason to take a predator over something else. The most particular vehicular else being a maulerfiend...

I've been considering swapping out my Predator for a Maulerfiend or Forgefiend. Most of the lists I've seen that have Maulerfiends take two however, because from the bat-reps I've seen they always seem to lose at least one before it can make an assault. I've also thought about a Hades Autocannon Forgefiend. But people seem to either love them or hate them. I've been reluctant to fork out cash for a miniature that might permanently replace my Pred, but on the other hand, might never see use beyond a few "test games".

I can't give you a solid reason for taking a Pred beyond the reason I take one myself: they're a very good general purpose tank for popping transports and light vehicles (I use the autocannon and twin lascannon varient) and it gives my opponent something to think about when I'm charging my Landraider across the board as fast as it will go. I've even considered adding a second one, but that would mean parting with my Axe Daemon Prince, a model that's turned the tide for me so many times I'd be mad to even think about parting with him.

So, there's a slight whiff of irony here. I originally wanted to start playing CSM, khorne in particular, because I wanted an army that did what power blobs did, but better. Then that plan got repeatedly explosive diarrhead on, and so I switched over to go with the flow, abandoning both khorne marines and power blobs in favor of something that went with the grain of the new rules edition better.

But, then, a khorne army was chosen because it was better than power blobs. Power blobs may have become unplayable, but khorne are better, therefore not guaranteed to be unplayable. In a way, I got what I wanted, while in a world of not getting what I wanted, while my new guard army didn't get me what I new wanted.

Or, in other words, while the world changed, I should have stayed more the same, not less...

I get you. Sixth ed rules changed the way your favorite army played, but it didn't change your playing style. That's why you've moved from IG to CSM. It's also why I've moved from IG to CSM, but in my case it was because I felt my Mech Guard didn't work anymore. So now I use the same play style with what is essentially a Mechanised Assault Khorne list, with bikes and a landraider replacing the chimera's.

I ended up buying some dark angels so I would have an excuse to use my IG again, but after just a few games I've realised that gunlines, even DA/IG gunlines backed up with Terminator Assault squads, aren't doing it for me. Fortunately, I always use my own home-brew colour schemes, so it's easy for me to flit between marine codices. I'm now going against the current meta and adding assault squads with jump packs. The current meta seems to suggest that Jump-based BA armies are a thing of the past, but I like to try to prove "meta-theorists" wrong. One reason (the main reason) why there are STILL NO FRIKKING HELLDRAKES in my CSM collection.

BlkTom wrote:Most MCs can't answer a challenge because they are not characters,

I'm going through the rulebook and finding the opposite to be true. Are riptides or wraithknights characters?

I see what you mean... Wraithlords are Unit type: Monstrous Creature (Character), but Wraithknights are Unit type: Jump Monstrous Creature. If you fight someone with the Iyanden Supplement who uses a Wraithknight as a Warlord, it does not say it changes type to Character. I can not answer the Riptide question.

I didn't know Mephiston was a MC? Broodlord makes sense and it is safe to say most HQ type MCs would probably be Characters, but being a MC doesn't automaticly make them a Character. Dreadknights are characters, eh? I am surprised, since I would have thought it is a Walker. Ahh.. Grey Knights... (shakes head).

Still, if you fight one, you can use the tactic I mentioned. It is a /must know/ for Green Tide players, btw. You follow the 'Pile In' rules on page 23 BRB. Combine that with how Challenge range works (pg 64 BRB, characters that can not fight or strike blows can not issue or accept challenges). If your 3" to 4" with your character from another model in base to base contact with a foe, you can not strike blows, but your close enough to 'Pile in' on your Init of 1 (for Fists) and you can then strike blows then. Since the Challenge has to be issued or accepted at the Start of the Sub-phase, you by-pass it and thus ignore it for the current close combat. This also means if your foe blows out your Zerkers up front, your Fist will quickly be taking blows, so you should figure you have only one phase of combat to get your shots in. Also make use of the rule of where you can't move through friendly figs. You do not have an order on how you move your unit (it doesn't say move the closest first for example), but all models that move have to take the most direct route. You have enough Berzerkers that you can make sure you have 3 rows of guys between your fist and the enemy. Can you do this all the time with just 20 guys? No, but you take whatever advantage you can get.

Right, but the problem here is MSM, my long-time arch-nemesis and winner of the "Ailarian worst rule of the game" award. That I happen to be weak against it is just that much more irritating.

Because what I'm looking at is units moving 6", firing 12", and then moving 6", which always leaves me with a 6" move and a 12" charge. But that's not the worst of it. The worst is that things can move back and forth around cover, which means its long charges on 3D6, or they move behind LOS-blocking terrain and then I can't assault them at all.

Now, being able to deepstrike terminators and obliterators will rather help, but are those two units going to be enough?

Maybe I am misunderstanding by what you mean by MSM, sorry.

As for the movement your talking about, Eldar Battle Focus only allows them to Shoot and then Run or Run and then Shoot. They have to roll for Run like everyone else (and can't do heavy weapons without Relentless). Sure, most Eldar units have Fleet, so get to re-roll, but their average is still 3-4". Jetpack troops get 2d6" in the Assault phase and that is the rough one. As for dealing with them, yes, I think DSing units can deal with them, as it allows you to potentally get close enough to them to fire on them and take them out or flushes them from cover. I feel Oblits fit this role better than Terminators because you just hope you don't scatter out of LoS with your target, as even Lascannon fire may be good enough to do the job, and 2 units gives you two shots at this.

And I would rather take two 3 man squads or three 2 man squads of Oblits over CSM at that point. I actually feel Berzerkers are better for you than CSM because of the inherent Fearless that the CSM do not have.

Countercharge doesn't do that. I suppose there is more nuance than I was giving credit, but there are just some things that are just going to get the charge on the berzerkers. Flying MCs, anything with a jump pack, and anything in a vehicle with an assault ramp come to mind.

Thanks for the correction. And yeah, there are things that can charge you, but it is really the flying MC as the biggest threat. Jump packs still have to roll and thus have to get close enough to make it dangerous for them, and Vehicles have to survive and get close enough to use the Assault ramp. That is where taking advantage of pre-measuring and positioning is still important. You can still position yourself to make it hard for them and give you an advantage.

But perhaps you're right. Maybe I'm just overthinking this. I mean, this game was a case of common sense table skills beating a tricksy list. Perhaps any list built out of hard counters is going to overspend on hard counters, and thus be weak somewhere else. I guess what I'm worried about is that that might not always be true. What if my opponent just gets one or two hard counters and then has a solid list otherwise?

Then it comes down to better skill of the player and not making mistakes. Placement, routes, level of aggressiveness, and target selection make the difference. You are overthinking it to a degree and you shouldn't worry about what you can't control. You have to keep the mentality of your list's purpose and keep the Initiative mentally. Let them second guess and go on the defensive, your attacking.

Besides, even if your equal skill to your opponent, dice are the wild card that neither can control. If you have bad dice, you have a good chance to lose even if you do everything else perfect. A bad list with a bad player with amazing dice can still beat you. You can't control the dice, but you can control on putting yourself in position to roll them, and that is all you can do.



I remember you were asking before about heavy slot selection on a different thread, probably when you were putting this list together and I mentioned then two AC/LC Sponson Preds and a single unit of Oblits as the best heavy selection for CSM and I still stand by it. Will this work for your list? No, probably not. First off, it will cost you Berzerkers for field them, and I think that might be to steep of a price. Second, you still risk losing First Blood to masses LC fire. I feel your list shouldn't have vehicles because of how you run it.

You thought about a Land Raider, but at the points it will cost you to field one is still more than the 10-11 Zerkers your sacking to put the remaining 9-10 in it. Those points have to come from somewhere. And since it isn't a Dedicated transport for the Zerkers, do you have to spend 2 Infiltrates to move it and the unit in it? What if you do run 9 and you put your Lord in there as well? Your really painting yourself in a corner there, IMO.

I am starting to think DSing Oblits are the route you should take with this list. First off, they are hard to kill, but I would put MoN on them over MoK. Your choice and I can understand for fluff reasons, but insta jibbed because of the T 4 is a killer. Secondly, even though they have the new rule of not being able to fire the same weapon two turns in a row, they give you more firepower than Combi Terminators /after/ that first turn they DS in and they come with Fists. Third reason is that they DS in, fitting with the theme of your list. They put themselves in a position to shoot instead of starting at the other side of the board and having a lot more issues with LoS and Cover. Either way, Oblits are costing you Berzerkers (and maybe a Terminator or two)... either you could have a 3rd unit or your rocking less than 20 on the two units you use.

Big Mek said: Those points have to come from somewhere. And since it isn't a Dedicated transport for the Zerkers, do you have to spend 2 Infiltrates to move it and the unit in it? What if you do run 9 and you put your Lord in there as well? Your really painting yourself in a corner there, IMO.

That's a very good point if you plan on infiltrating the Landraider. However, that being said, you're infiltrating in order to get more zerkers into combat that you could normally. With a Landraider to protect them, you wouldn't need the infiltrate unless you were going up against a very las-cannon heavy list.

LeadLegion wrote:You hear a lot of moaning about it's schizophrenic weapon load for a transport vehicle, but it's really the best (and only option) we have

You're preaching to the choir here on this one.

It really is simply a matter of me not having 4 land raiders to put on the table.

LeadLegion wrote:I get you. Sixth ed rules changed the way your favorite army played, but it didn't change your playing style.

Well, I did really try and make a go of it. I switched from foot to mech (which is much better in 6th - at least for horde armies), and from chopping to shooting. I even played more gunlines that I wish I did.

I rather did make an effort to play 6th ed like how it was apparently meant to be played.

And now I'm not.

LeadLegion wrote:but I like to try to prove "meta-theorists" wrong.

As do I. Thankfully, this is pretty easy to do. Popular opinion, by definition, appeals to the least common denominator. Groupthink is the average stupidity level of everyone echoed loudly enough to shout down anyone smarter or dumber.

Even if ad populum wasn't a logical fallacy, it would still be a terrible way to go about determining truth.

BlkTom wrote:I didn't know Mephiston was a MC?

Well, he PRACTICALLY is. I mean, he's got the statline of an MC with S10 attacks and isn't an independent character...

BlkTom wrote: Since the Challenge has to be issued or accepted at the Start of the Sub-phase, you by-pass it and thus ignore it for the current close combat.

I forgot to make a note on this earlier. It doesn't work that way, I hate to say, you can't avoid challenges without declining them. That whole "I'm too far away so I can't be challenged thing" just doesn't work.

I've got to have something real to handle monstrous creatures, other than interpretations of the rules that destroy the whole challenge system.

BlkTom wrote:

What if my opponent just gets one or two hard counters and then has a solid list otherwise?

Then it comes down to better skill of the player and not making mistakes. Besides, even if your equal skill to your opponent, dice are the wild card that neither can control.

I suppose at some point "be lucky" is the only answer. I'd like to think I can play better odds, though, but perhaps that's just grasping at the breeze.

BlkTom wrote:And since it isn't a Dedicated transport for the Zerkers, do you have to spend 2 Infiltrates to move it and the unit in it?

You can't at all. Huron can't give infiltration to vehicles, so it would only work with a LR filled with terminators, as they're dedicated transports.

In this case, I'd take 2 MoK CSM (or, let's be honest, cultists), and 2 units of terminators with dedicated land raiders and then have half my army infiltrate forwards. That or, more likely, I wouldn't bother with huron at all, and I'd just take abaddon, or something.

I am a member of a scratch build group that has printable files to make mk1 (my favorite) and mk2 land raiders out of plastic card. I could email you the attached file if you pm me your info.

My bro muilt one and EVRY single player at are local beat thought it was a forge world protius.

 Ailaros wrote:

Steffo wrote:A chaos space marine daemon prince with black mace.

I'm really not worried about this one, actually. The first turn of combat is going to be the prince chumping the champ (unless he rolls a 1 with the demon weapon, in which case there's a long shot that the champion could win, or at least seriously wound it). In the next turn, he'd get an average of 8.5 attacks which would kill 5 berzerkers, the 14 survivors then hitting with krak grenades on 4 (because WS5) and knocking off 1.5 wounds with krak grenades (1.3 with nurgle). Unless he rolled a 1 with the demon weapon, in which case he'd likely lose a wound, and those 18 berzerkers throw down 2.5 more with their grenades. The next turn is the same, where the demon prince either kills some more berzerkers and takes another wound, or his demon axe fumbles (3 attempts by now...) and he loses 2 or 3.

I'd actually put my money on the berzerkers here. Eventually the demon prince is going to fail a demon weapon roll and just die, or eventually they'll be bailed out by something else.

You are forgetting about the curse of black mace.

The Daemon Prince flattens your champion then you take 19 toughness tests and you are down another 6 with an average roll, next turn you are at 13, and the daemon prince attacks again and with the daemon weapon roll between 1 and 6 with average hit wound and armour save rolls you lose another 2-7, things are looking remote for your bezerkers, its even worse if you also have huron in the unit as i get another turn of flattening a lord and toughness tests.

Its just as bad with your terminators and chaos lord, kill the champion, force toughness tests, kill the lord, force toughness tests, your only hope would be if the DP rolls a 1 for the daemon weapon on the turn he fights your lord as his chance of killing the lord with a smash attack is reduced but not impossible.

Apologies but are MCs really not usually characters? I'm probably wrong but I'm used to nids and daemons. Both of these are character heavy for MC (all MC in daemons are FMC (Character) or MC (character). THe DP is a character in the CSM codex, and, as mentioned, nid mc are primarily MC (character).

Anyways I'd like to give some warnings about MC for daemons. A LoC can, if 305 points, have S8 naturally with a special rule that any character or MC killed causes a S5 Ap- d6 explosion that wounds all under the blast, theoretically have a 4+ FNP and It will Not Die/+1 wound, and ML3 for divination and some psyker spells. It's actually a deceptively scary model that has twice beaten the enemy simply because everybody forgets LoC are actually good in CC. Along with that, daemons have some scary tactics by employing a grimoire that gives +2 to invuln on a 3+. Granted daemons are a hard one to put down exactly. The Warp Storm and randomness of the rewards system can really throw an enemy off as well as the player forcing the gamer to employ weapons as they see fit. I could try and detail them more (granted you probably wouldn't care about it as I've only seen a few daemon armies play against you) but it is a difficult army to counter simply because they are bye their nature unpredictable. (also one turn I got a 2++ invuln daemons of tzeentch re-rolling failed saves of 1 and then still got 4+ fnp).

In terms of CSM DP, I agree with the above. It isn't as easy as you'd expect. Two rounds of Toughness tests will likely drastically whittle down the unit before he even has to worry about your berzerkers and the popular DP of Tzeentch still gets to re-roll all failed saves of 1 (3+ armour save plus re-rolling failed saves)

BlkTom wrote:Since the Challenge has to be issued or accepted at the Start of the Sub-phase, you by-pass it and thus ignore it for the current close combat.

I forgot to make a note on this earlier. It doesn't work that way, I hate to say, you can't avoid challenges without declining them. That whole "I'm too far away so I can't be challenged thing" just doesn't work.

I've got to have something real to handle monstrous creatures, other than interpretations of the rules that destroy the whole challenge system.

Yeah, I read that and I read through the rule book. I am not going to side track your thread debating it, you do it that way and that is all that matters. I think their wrong, but that is for me an my opponents to decide. As long as everyone in your meta plays it that way, it doesn't matter.

In this case, I'd take 2 MoK CSM (or, let's be honest, cultists), and 2 units of terminators with dedicated land raiders and then have half my army infiltrate forwards. That or, more likely, I wouldn't bother with huron at all, and I'd just take abaddon, or something.

To be honest, I think if you did two Land Raiders with 4-5 man Terminator squads and maybe throw a Lord in Terminator armor to ride with them you would not be satisfied, specially without the infiltrate. I don't think you would be satisfied with Cultists holding your rear. Chaos LRs do not have POTMS, so at full BS you move 6" and fire one weapon (snap shooting the rest) or move 12" and fire only snap shots. If they were a Heavy Vehicle, it would be better, but it is not. LR+Terminators+Lord is probably rocking around 500-600pts per unit. To many points for to few figs. I am sure at 1850 it is possible to rock 6 Land Raiders, but is it worth it?