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It's turned 6th ed, and still I cannot kill this combo.
My friend plays a vanilla marine army, and likes to use the following unit...

Darnath Lysander, with 10 terminators with thunder hammer and storm shield. It has never lost.

To back this up, he has a lascannon + heavy bolter filled army, including razorbacks, predators of various combinations, tactical squads with specialist weapons, and several combinations of devastator squads (He can field three units when he wants, but usually just goes for the preds).

Considering I'm using a CSM army, this really hurts. I've tried just about every tactic I can think of, but I have never managed to win here...

So, here's my question: If I were able to get my hands on any combination of units from the CSM codex, what would you recommend fielding, and what tactics would you recommend trying?

Get the big Chaos wizard (whats his name..?).. and get all the powers from "telepathy". try to cast hallucination every turn on the big terminator group until the start hitting themselves in the face. meanwhile shoot the crap out of his army with obliterators!

Or wait for the new codex...

Double Lash-princes and Obliterators. Move him into nice circles and let the Plasma Cannonification commence. Also lets you delay them by moving them back. Normally I'd hate myself for suggesting Lashblits, but it should counter this just fine.

Another thing you could do is to just avoid them. They're 600 points on foot; shoot the rest of his army while keeping away from the Terminators and then deal with them later.

As for Lysander, there's always that mutation thingamajig Psychic Power.

Ignore it.

It's something like 600 points in a single unit. Well over a quarter of his army in a 2,000 point game. It can't score. It has, at best, a 18 inch assault range, more likely something like 13 inches.

If he deploys in the center, stick to the edges. If he deploys it to a flank, stick to the other flank. Ignore it. Focus down the rest of his army, and then focus on the objectives. Staying 14-16 inches away is your best bet, and easy to do with premeasuring. It has no shooting potential whatsoever, he's traded that for extreme close combat prowess, but that means diddly squat when you provide him with no targets for it.

Honestly, your army composition matters very little. As long as you avoid his 600 point death star, you are fighting with a 600 point handicap in your favor. Unless your army list is a total mess, you can totally win with a 600 point handicap.

You can beat this simply by usage of a few obliterators, a smattering of melta guns on your troops and charging the unit with a squad of something, overloading his saves, and challenging lysander so he can't own the whole squad on his own.

Seriously, just pull back and think about it. Granted if all you're doing is spamming berzerkers, we can't help you.

Dual lash and 9 obliterators. Granted that has been chaos answer to most things for the last 3 years.

Take 3 small units of reaper terminators to deal with the razorbacks.

1. Use plague marines as troops. T5, FNP works against them this time. That should occupy them a bit. In squad of 5 with 2 PG in each.
2. TS. 4++ will tarpit them a bit.
3. The best advice so far : ignore them and play the mission.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I just remembered : Lysander does not have EW. He would be killed by a lucky TS sorcerer and his force weapon. Or a MoS lord /w a DW that challenges him. Or a regular sorcerer. That uses lash. And is backed by 9 oblis.

I'm pretty sure Lysander has EW

Do CSM have access to divination? If so I might suggest using Misfortune to force them to reroll their saves, and then hammering them with ALL the plasma. If he gets wise though, and starts taking a librarian into the unit, youre looking at him taking a 3+ deny the witch, unless his librarian is higher mastery than your sorcerer, then its a 2+ deny the witch.. That will stop lash princes too, or any psychic based strategy really...

Falconlance wrote:Do CSM have access to divination? If so I might suggest using Misfortune to force them to reroll their saves, and then hammering them with ALL the plasma. If he gets wise though, and starts taking a librarian into the unit, youre looking at him taking a 3+ deny the witch, unless his librarian is higher mastery than your sorcerer, then its a 2+ deny the witch.. That will stop lash princes too, or any psychic based strategy really...

Don't all armies have access to all powers?
But yes, I could use misfortune. If I get a lucky roll...
Thankfully, he has never used psykers, because he hates the chance of perils, even though he could take an Ld10 librarian with a 4+ invuln...
Though, he has been known to dump a chaplain in there too, as if he needed that boost too...

Wrakkar wrote:Don't all armies have access to all powers?

No. There's a list of which codecies get which powers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wrakkar wrote:Don't all armies have access to all powers?

No. There's a list of which codecies get which powers.

Volume of fire + Keep Away is the answer to 11 terminators.

kronk wrote:

Wrakkar wrote:Don't all armies have access to all powers?

No. There's a list of which codecies get which powers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wrakkar wrote:Don't all armies have access to all powers?

No. There's a list of which codecies get which powers.

Volume of fire + Keep Away is the answer to 11 terminators.

Where is this list? It's not in the rulebook as far as I or my friends can tell...

FAQ for each Codex.

I get Pyromancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy.

The FAQ's here.

Also, there is a list in the most recent WD.

Edit: Ninja'd!

kronk wrote:The FAQ's here.

Also, there is a list in the most recent WD.

Thanks

Bummer.. divination is out of the question then... well you can always follow shogun's advice and try for Hallucination.. even if you cant get them to beat on each other very often, the other two results keep them stuck, either pinned or zoned out someplace doing nothing. Actually I'd say those are the better results; if they are standing in a puddle of drool picking their noses, they arent hitting you in the face with thunderhammers.

Lash of submission+avoidance lets you negate 600 points for a minimal investment. If you really want to kill them, use mass plasma spam from Obliterators, chosen and havocs.

I have a better idea using CSM-YOU bring the table, and make sure you're fighting on a Chaos world. Use the deadly terrain (swirls of warp energy, lava rivers, etc) and lash the terminators into it. It kills them automatically. The rules for the deadly terrain say that models can't move into it voluntarily, but if they are forced into it for whatever reason, they die outright. Bring it and lash away.

timetowaste85 wrote:I have a better idea using CSM-YOU bring the table, and make sure you're fighting on a Chaos world. Use the deadly terrain (swirls of warp energy, lava rivers, etc) and lash the terminators into it. It kills them automatically. The rules for the deadly terrain say that models can't move into it voluntarily, but if they are forced into it for whatever reason, they die outright. Bring it and lash away.

I don't know if that will work since lash has to follow all the rules for a normal move. If he can't move into it voluntarily, you shouldn't be able to lash them into it voluntarily.

Yeah, you wouldn't be able to lash them in.

Seems to me like the only way to end up in murderface terrain is to screw up a deep strike scatter.

With lash, I could just drag them through various peices of dangerous terrain and pray for luck, but I guess the move would be better spent on just chucking them back to their table edge.

So, what I have learned from this: Bring obliterators x9, Use lash of submission or just stay mobile to keep away from the termies, and then just sit on the objectives with the rest of my points.

Thanks for the help!

Wrakkar wrote:I get Pyromancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy.

For what army?

Lethal Terrain and Lash.

It's not impassable so you can (i believe) use lash to move the whole unit onto Lethal Terrain - once they are on there they die - no saves allowed.

Lethal terrain is impassable as per page 91.

looks like a large point game. Take mass marines. Try to fit something like 100 into a list at 2000pts.
He will fail saves. Now that you can move 6" and shoot 24 you can kite him all day long. Once down to a manageble 4 models or so charge with a ton of marine bodies. You will strike first with a ton of attacks. He will again fail saves and lose.

A lash prince would be nice, provided you can keep him away from the devistators but still in LOS of the terminators.

Chances are his devistators are not kitted to kill meq, but are instead AT. Make sure you point out to him how overkill it is to fire a 50 point lascannon at your 15 point marines.

wuestenfux wrote:

Wrakkar wrote:I get Pyromancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy.

For what army?

Chaos Space Marines.


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Exergy wrote:looks like a large point game. Take mass marines. Try to fit something like 100 into a list at 2000pts.
He will fail saves. Now that you can move 6" and shoot 24 you can kite him all day long. Once down to a manageble 4 models or so charge with a ton of marine bodies. You will strike first with a ton of attacks. He will again fail saves and lose.

A lash prince would be nice, provided you can keep him away from the devistators but still in LOS of the terminators.

Chances are his devistators are not kitted to kill meq, but are instead AT. Make sure you point out to him how overkill it is to fire a 50 point lascannon at your 15 point marines.

Good point

Vindicators. Lash then vindicators work as well. Add in obliterators for extra power. The rest of the advice avoidance.

600 points wasted for your opponent, for the first 2-3 turns if you play well. Get some Terminators with reaper-autocannons to deal with Razorbacks, have some Nurgle + Epidemus, maybe a Prince with lash (or 2 if you are EVIL!), and some obliterators. Hammer down his army for the first 2-3 turns, then feed one or two 3-man squads of terminators, or even a Prince (not the Warmaster!!) to that deathstar. They will occupy 4th and 5th turn, and hopefully now they are alone. Run for the last turn or simply fire them with the whole army.

I'm used to deal with a 7 Terminators + ChaplainTerminator in a 1500 points environment, 99% of the time they start embarked on a LRC. They die by the 4th turn at WORST. Because they are an expensive unit, that doesn't pay itself in that environment.