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How do small elite armies handle horde armies?

Flamers. Blast weaponry.

What about Nurgle?

If you're referring to Plague Marines, the best way to take them out is to deny them FNP.

If that option is not readily available, weight of dice is the other answer. They can only make so many armor and FNP saves.

At 23 pts a model, plaguers are not hordes. They are a small elite army. So, my guess is the OP means how to kill hordes with plague marines or Nurgle daemons.

If that is the question, my answer is take zerkers instead - they are cheaper, have more attacks, and have furious charge. If you must use plaguers, load up flamers and be sure you charge, rather than get charged. Orks and GEQ have lower initiative, so the marines will strike first.

Tactics, cunning and skill

Ok lets see, a hoarde army has at least 60+ figures there are ork forces, flamers and frag take care of them pretty much.

Necrons- Flamers are a great weapon as well as melta and plasma.

Eldar/Dark Eldar- Are not a hoarde force but lotsa auto cannons and missile launchers will hurt them bad.

IG- Well lotsa artillery and followed by close combat will finish them off well.

SM- Its a strait up fight in your face best weapon's las-cannon/missile launcher, wound them hard then finish off in close combat.

CSM- Ok they have a great firwe support unit Havocs that tend to use auto cannon/missile launcher, best bet is plasma or missile launcher frag. Finish them off with more artillery, they are close combat experts after all.

Nids-Shoot them at a distance (give em all you got) and finish in close combat.Flamers work well as well as plasma.

Tau- There long distance and have crappy close combat troops, run the gauntlet and hit hard and fast easy win.

Deamons- Shoot them at a distance very hard and dont let them into close combat, they are very nasty. This army has no ranged weapons to harm you much.

I had a squad of 5 Plague survive two rounds of 20 guys doing 1st Rank, Fire! 2nd Rank, Fire! and getting assaulted by them twice before finally dying. They're tuff, and, since I'm assuming you're asking about using them, generally well worth the points invested

Wait, is this about Plague Marine list versus horde or fighting a horde Plague Marine list (If there is such thing)?

No idea.

As to how to deal with plague marines with a horde, why doesn't your horde have armor ignoring weaponry?

Nurgle isn't usually very killy, but I would take flamers.

Plague Marines are a perfect anvil unit. Gaunts can hardly kill them. Orks with a Nob can do some damage if that guy fields a powerklaw.

wuestenfux wrote:Plague Marines are a perfect anvil unit. Gaunts can hardly kill them. Orks with a Nob can do some damage if that guy fields a powerklaw.

As if gaunts can really put up a ficht in close combat.

Jackster wrote:Wait, is this about Plague Marine list versus horde or fighting a horde Plague Marine list (If there is such thing)?

Its about plague marines taking on horde armies: eg: nurgle vs. ork green tide.

I would use flamers and missile launchers.

You main defence is actually having a Rhino or similar transport, horde lists usually struggle to catch you in the first place and then struggle to kill armour (mostly because its in assault, which is unreliable at the best of times). Taking Flamers means you can actually kill hordes, but Melta tends to be more useful in most cases and I'm assuming you aren't tailoring, so you use Havocs, Oblits or some other unit for template weapons. Actually putting combi flamers on the Rhinos isn't a bad option (rather than removing the double Meltas).

wuestenfux wrote:Plague Marines are a perfect anvil unit. Gaunts can hardly kill them. Orks with a Nob can do some damage if that guy fields a powerklaw.

Which is what an Ork player would do. The only time Id think heavily on it, is if I were playing a Kill Team mission, Or playing Ork vs. Ork horde, then Id take BC and add some extra bodies in the savings.


But yea, missile launchers and flamers would be a good idea for the Plague Marine player. And try if you can, to bottle them up in terrain before hand, that way your templates add some weight to your low numbers. And yea charging. But really, your going to be fighting an up hill battle against an Ork horde player. Yea your troops are tough as nails, but all those PK in there are going to mess you up badly. And you losing 2-3 models per PK is going to hurt, alot

Putting the plague marines into a rhino is almost essential, not only against hordes. Those few points (do not upgrade the rhino too much) make a big difference, especially against hordes. If they can't shoot your rhino with something big the horde unit willhave to assault the rhino for at least one turn. Anything with STR 4 will only get glancing hits, so next turn you can either disembark and shoot them or stay inside and shoot 2 flamers from the fire point.

And even something that can destroy the rhino will have to direct a lot of attacks against it for this. Let's say the rhino gets destroyed, then you wasted only a few points (definitely less than if your unit got attacked) and can fire back in your turn. Most likely with 2 flamers in optimal distance.

Slightly offtopic: best medicine against horde armies is a demon prince with lash, moving the horde into one blob and then shooting your vindicator's demolisher cannon into it.