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Alright, played my 1st game of 6th edition today. I didnt know the rules, got most of my knowledge from these forums, and cant afford the new rulebook. So I charged in blind against my most hated army, Plague marines. here is the list I had for the battle:

Vulkan-190pts
Elite 1: 8 Sternguard vet (x3 combi-meltas, one meltagun and one heavy flamer, power axe, teleport homer, Rhino)-295p
Elite 2: Tactical Terminator squad (5 man, assault cannon, chainfist)-235p
Troop1: Tactical squad (10 man, combi-flamer, meltagun, power sword, melta bomb, multi-melta, rhino)-240pts
Troop 2: Tactical squad (10 man, melta gun, combi-flamer, power sword, melta bomb, multi-melta rhino)-240pts
F/A1: StormTalon w/ lascannons-150p
F/A 2: Land speeder typhoon-90p
F/A 3: Attack bike-50p
H/S 1: Vindicator (Dozer blade, hunter killer missile)-120p
H/S 2: Vindicator (Dozer blade, hunter killer missile)-120p

He had (approximately):

Demon prince with wings and mark of nurgle
3 troops of plauge marines in rhinos with assorted heavy weapons
2 squads of 2 obliterators
a fortification (bastion?)
Epidemius
2 squads of plaguebearers

alright, I know my sternguard squad is optimal, that the heavy flamer isnt the best choice, and "why waste special ammo" stuff, but it's the unit I like and I kinda dont want to change it. and they died due to mass woundage from a squad of plague marines due to poor positioning.
My vindicators where a lot more than lascannon magnets and actually stayed around to blow some crap up.
I would have used a mm/hf speeder in place of the attack bike, but I dont have one.


I had to forfeit around turn 3 because i had to catch my ride, but the next turn I would have been decimated, being only 3 deaths away from no armor saves at all.

dont mean to join the butthurt, but crud on a bun, i got desolated. is there any way you can beat this list with the same codex? (TH/SS terminators are a given) it seems unstoppable.

Plaguebearers are pretty poor without Epidemius' boosts. I'd say load up on as much high strength dakka as you can -lascannons, missile launchers, etc. Those termies also look like a waste to me.
Against an army like this, it may seem strong in shooting but against dedicated assault units it'll crumble pretty easy. TH/SS termies assaulting plague marines won't leave much in their wake, question is how you get them up there.
I'm also not entirely sure what those Sternguard are supposed to be doing. If they're supplying long range fire support (remember you can move and still shoot @ 24"), why do they have melta guns and flamers!?!?

Testify wrote:
I'm also not entirely sure what those Sternguard are supposed to be doing. If they're supplying long range fire support (remember you can move and still shoot @ 24"), why do they have melta guns and flamers!?!?

mostly because in all other games before this one i had fun with them

Null Zone and massed fire on the unit with Epidemius. Take him off the board ASAP. This means you need more long range firepower rather than midfield firepower.

It was worth noting he was attached to about 20 plague bearers.

Then it's a 400 point unit that's a great tarpit but actually can't do that much damage.
Epidemius himself only has a plague sword, if you can challenge him with a PF sargent you'll probably win, though vulvan would be pretty much instant win.
Honestly though thy'r slow and purposeful so I'd just ignore them for as long as you can and blow up the rest of his army (you seem to have much more dakka than he does so that shouldn't be a problem).

Well,challenging Epidemius would logically only result in a refusal. Why would his opponent so willingly send the lynchpin of his army to his death?

magodedisco wrote:Well,challenging Epidemius would logically only result in a refusal. Why would his opponent so willingly send the lynchpin of his army to his death?

Then those 20 plaguebearers are going to be ripped apart by any close combat unit.
Have you considered allying with BA and taking a blendernaught?

Vindicator is S10, yes? So no FNP and large blasts should have been a headache for him. The only ranged he was packing is oblits, and lascannons should see them off pretty quick. The lone flying DP is not so scary since a volley of fire should get enough hits to ground him- then he's in trouble.

Really, it's just about target priority. If he gets the Tally up high, you have lost already anyway. Get rid of the big threats ASAP.

alright, so shoot He Who Sh*ts Himself Regularly with vindicators, getting rid of the crowd of plague bearers and then trying to snipe him with my typhoon missile launcher and stormtalon's lascannons.

and dont die I guess, but riddle me this, is this army really broken? I heard it was a top tier army.


unrelated note: does a typhoon missile launcher have the skyfire rule?

The terminators are actually ok, until he gets ignore armor saves. Epiditimus procs off of those slain so having less models is good. Try and kill as much as you can turn 1 or 2 before Epiditumus DSes and then I would just try and kill Epi.

If built right, Tally Death Guard are going to be horrific for a little while. I can't wait to see two of them run into each other.

how else would I have been able to counter it? blast the marines with vindicators, take a missile launcher instead of an MM, and maybe get some gray knight allies? any other ideas?

Tiger9gamer wrote:how else would I have been able to counter it? blast the marines with vindicators, take a missile launcher instead of an MM, and maybe get some gray knight allies? any other ideas?

You just need to out range him. His troops are poor until the tally gets big, 10+. So you just need to kill more of him than he does of you early on, so that even when he does eventually get buffs he won't have enough guys left to matter. I wouldn't try to snipe epidemus early on, that will most likely just expose you and let him run up the tally even faster.

Kevlar wrote:

Tiger9gamer wrote:how else would I have been able to counter it? blast the marines with vindicators, take a missile launcher instead of an MM, and maybe get some gray knight allies? any other ideas?

You just need to out range him. His troops are poor until the tally gets big, 10+. So you just need to kill more of him than he does of you early on, so that even when he does eventually get buffs he won't have enough guys left to matter. I wouldn't try to snipe epidemus early on, that will most likely just expose you and let him run up the tally even faster.

yeah you cant snipe him. He gets a 2+ look out sir. You can try to white his retinue with shooting but it might be better to take out the troops that actually do damage. It really depends.

Kevlar wrote:

Tiger9gamer wrote:how else would I have been able to counter it? blast the marines with vindicators, take a missile launcher instead of an MM, and maybe get some gray knight allies? any other ideas?

You just need to out range him. His troops are poor until the tally gets big, 10+. So you just need to kill more of him than he does of you early on, so that even when he does eventually get buffs he won't have enough guys left to matter. I wouldn't try to snipe epidemus early on, that will most likely just expose you and let him run up the tally even faster.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh. So i should have blasted the rhinos his plague marines rode in on, say both vindicators and my typhoon on one to try and at least break it open, and my sternguard, troop 1 and two on the other to use melta on it. the twin linked multi-melta I had in it would have helped a lot for snap fire.

something like that?

Tiger9gamer wrote:

Kevlar wrote:

Tiger9gamer wrote:how else would I have been able to counter it? blast the marines with vindicators, take a missile launcher instead of an MM, and maybe get some gray knight allies? any other ideas?

You just need to out range him. His troops are poor until the tally gets big, 10+. So you just need to kill more of him than he does of you early on, so that even when he does eventually get buffs he won't have enough guys left to matter. I wouldn't try to snipe epidemus early on, that will most likely just expose you and let him run up the tally even faster.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh. So i should have blasted the rhinos his plague marines rode in on, say both vindicators and my typhoon on one to try and at least break it open, and my sternguard, troop 1 and two on the other to use melta on it. the twin linked multi-melta I had in it would have helped a lot for snap fire.

something like that?

you should have tried to use your vindicators, storm talon, and landspeeders to crack open a rhino and blast his plauge bearers. Your vehicles do not give up tally points. His oblitorators do not gain tally points.

But I thought a flyer cant be in turn one

Tiger9gamer wrote:But I thought a flyer cant be in turn one

right, well turn two. remember if he kills the storm talon his tally does not go up right, so blast away at maximum effect.

Also, going first helps! try to go first.

Keep in mind that the Tally doesn't affect Plague Marines, until reaches 15. They don't have Plagueswords, and can't benefit from Noxious touch.