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I play IG tank spam, and I have a friend who plays a close combat heavy CSM army. His main troops choice is Khorne Berserkers, and I generally lose against him. I have a Basilisk, 2 LRs (one executioner and one regular), and an infantry platoon, and vets. Every single game, he just charges at my infantry with the Berserkers. I can generally wipe out a fair few of them with my basilisk and LRs, as well as a few lucky lasgun shots, but if even half of his troops survive by the time they get to my guardsmen, I get murdered. I need something that is good at countering assaults, (or just a new strategy) but I have no ideas. Any help?

As a chaos player who favors Khorne Berzerkers all I can say is, Blood for the Blood God!

You're playing hybrid guard. Go all mech or all foot. I'd say mech because it's far more effective than foot.
Have 3-4 veteran squads with plasma guns, stick them in chimeras, I would keep the Russes you have since they're pretty effective, preferably a third Russ but the Bassy isn't bad.
Anyway, you can shimmy around in chimeras and plasma gun/pie plate him to death and there's not a lot he can do about it.
What points level is this? I'm guessing around 1,000.

Ok here is a little hint. Berzerkers are kinda slow. So you can drive 6" away from him and still shoot. If he gets close to assault range just drive 12" away and don't shoot. Shoot with something else.

Yeah I want to keep the basilisk because keeping it behind cover and firing indirectly all game can be very effective. And I like the Chimera idea very much. So use them more as a tank then a transport?

GalacticDefender wrote:Yeah I want to keep the basilisk because keeping it behind cover and firing indirectly all game can be very effective. And I like the Chimera idea very much. So use them more as a tank then a transport?

Use them to utilise your vets effectively. Basically their greater mobility means you can put those plasma guns where and when you want them, rather than relying on the enemy wandering into your field of fire.
Also as long as they always move, they'll need 4s to hit by the enemy. Even against a unit with grenades/PF, chimeras can and do withstand being assaulted. Even if they get popped, the vet squad will leap out and blast away, and you can manevour your other chimeras around to blast the enemy squad that popped you.
If the Bassy works for you then fair enough. It's not a bad unit at all, just very vulnerable. If you don't have a problem keeping it alive, stick with it.

The easiest way to deal with troops as guard is to take the hell hounds with chem cannons. Simply pop open enemy vehicles and then flame them to hell.

Also, just the standard anti infantry works, helps if you make a wall of stuff. Also the plasma cannon russ is great against marines.

Why does no one like the 5p guardsmen?
He's in the codex for a REASON, after all!

10 man squad- 50p

10 man squad, maybe a squad of 2 stretch out in a line in front of your forces.
Then the bezerkers will charge your 10/maybe 20 naked guardsmen
Then, they will gut them. Your opponent will have to do a consolidate move. Then its your turn!
And your opponents 200+ point unit of CC death is sitting right in front of your gunline pointing all those AP1, 2 and 3 weapons at the bezerkers out of cover.
Then, your opponent goes "oh " before you blast them back to the stoneage.

The simplest way to deal with a zerker rush is 10 man guard speedbumps. Having a vet squad with 3 plasmas is utterly useless in CC against bezerkers. using 10 guard to shield them from combat so when it finishes they can rapid fire the plasmaguns into the bezerkers when they have no cover- that is how a plasma vet squad is useful vs bezerkers.

This also works with chimera's. Use the naked guardsmen to protect the chimeras from assaults against zerkers are win. afterwards moving up with a chimera or two and heavy flaming/plasma lasgun hatch volley should toast most of the bezerkers.

My Guard come up against SpaceWolves alot (close combat heavy), so I feel your pain.
Road-block units work well. Something small and easily killed. Stick them in the way and let your opponent charge them (don't charge in your turn!). Berserkers should easily kill them in 1 turn of combat, leaving the squad exposed to your guns.
Basilisk can work great, stick with it if it works. Personally I found the min-range on indirect fire to be too much so I cut the barrel off and made a Medusa.

grendel083 wrote:Road-block units work well. Something small and easily killed. Stick them in the way and let your opponent charge them (don't charge in your turn!). Berserkers should easily kill them in 1 turn of combat, leaving the squad exposed to your guns.

naked guardsmen. Cheap, stretchy and effective. All you have to do is maneuver them into place. If they get a chance to shoot and kill something, its a bonus

I agree that switching away from hybrid to a foot or mech list would be better.

Having a speedbump is a great idea. If you want stuff that's good in its own right, take power blobs. In your case, the best unit here is probably rough riders.

Start them off the board in reserve and just when your opponent's stuff gets close, they show up anywhere off of your half of the board with a 24" maximum threat range (half the board). You're basically guaranteed to get the charge in on your opponent here, which means his berzerkers die just like really expensive regular marines with a bunch of fearless saves to pick off any survivors. The best part is that a squad of 10 RR's costs less than HALF the price of 8 berzerkers with a fist, and the RRs can easily win a combat against the berzerkers if they get the charge in.

Ailaros wrote:I agree that switching away from hybrid to a foot or mech list would be better.

Having a speedbump is a great idea. If you want stuff that's good in its own right, take power blobs. In your case, the best unit here is probably rough riders.

Start them off the board in reserve and just when your opponent's stuff gets close, they show up anywhere off of your half of the board with a 24" maximum threat range (half the board). You're basically guaranteed to get the charge in on your opponent here, which means his berzerkers die just like really expensive regular marines with a bunch of fearless saves to pick off any survivors. The best part is that a squad of 10 RR's costs less than HALF the price of 8 berzerkers with a fist, and the RRs can easily win a combat against the berzerkers if they get the charge in.

I 5 Str 5 Ignores armour, I would use them too if the models weren't so ugly and I wasn't too lazy to convert bretonnians.

Bret.....bretonnians? That had honestly never occurred to me. I've wanted to use them for a while, but the models and the price always kept me away. And I have a whole mess of those hoighty toighty horse boys left over from one of my younger brother's impulse buys...

Thank you buttons, you have opened my eyes.

Foot guard all the way. Let him melt your first line, and blow him away with the other 2 lines behind that!

Hm its strange that half his Khorne Force is able to murder your whole infantry. I would suggest either some mech vets or some power blobs to deal with this problem. Khorne berserkers are nasty in the turn they assault, but if they are not able to wipe you out immediately, you will win in the long run with commissar and pw sergeants On the other hand, if you have mech vets, he is unable to charge your infantry. Let him charge the chimera and blast away when they are bunched up with your templates and whats inside the chimeras. They can only count their dead then.

I would btw not recommend mech only. You need stubborn foot elements to work as tarpit or counter charge unit even in a mech list. One blob or even 2 single commissar suppported squads (or penal legions) are enough.

foot only is ok if you have al rahem, but it is not wrong to have 1 or 2 chimeras to add a bit concentrated firepower and quick objective grabbers and a tank shock element.