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I picked up the Dark Vengeance box set this past weekend, and we've only been able to play it twice. So far, I've played Dark Angels both times and cleaned house. Now, I'm assuming Games Workshop would make two armies that are just about equivalent.

What tactics should I give my opponent the next time we play?

With no additional upgrades aside from what weapons they have, someone figured out the Dark Angels have about a 200pt advantage. That helps a lot.

Doesn't the starter have a series of scenarios? Those should be well matched. The models included aren't really meant for all out play without additions to the Chaos at least.

The thing with GW starters is, they don't particularly want to put in 2 evenly matched armies, but 2 armies that showcase a wide variety of unit types and scenarios to use select units from each side. Dark Vengeance showcases a lot - elite infantry (Chosen), heavy infantry (terminators), medium/heavy infantry (tactical marines), light infantry (cultists), vehicles (hellbrute), bikes (bikes) and a variety of characters.

If you're cleaning house, and it's not fun for the other person, try sticking to the scenarios. If you want to bulk them up to be even, grab Codex Chaos and add a Chaos Space Marine squad (basically a Chaos tactical squad) and you'll have a more even match.

Your assumption is wildly inaccurate. Pointswise, if the Interrogator Chaplain is around, the Dark Angels have about twice as much as the Chaos elements.

It's not so much tactics that you'll need to give the chaos player, it's more like a few plasma-toting Plague Marine squads.

The DA have 840 points, using their current codex, without the Chaplain. Assuming the Helbrute is basically a Chaos Dread and the cultists are basically guardsmen, Chaos has about 500.

How can the points not be even?

Especially since that box "contains everything you need to play games of warhammer 40k".

You hear that?! EVERYTHING!

/sarcasm

Well, technically, it does, because it has a set of scenarios to follow. Those scenarios pit different combinations of the units against each other with different objectives.

The last two missions use every model. One of those is Kill Points, which favors the strongest army by a lot, and the other is basically The Relic, which also favors the strongest army with a single point of contention. 60% more stuff is hardly balanced out by symmetrical objectives that reward killing things.

The 3rd and 4th missions are actually pretty even in terms of points used.

I would say he has to keep the chosen and the hellbrute alive as long as possible, and try even the odds quickly. Maybe have the lord try and charge in to kill off the tactical squad, the chosen go after the termies, and the hellbrute try and snipe some of those 2W special characters and crush the bikes, since once they're in assault they're toast.

Other than that, it looks really one sided. The cultists will die extremely quickly, but if you could get them to focus on a single target, they might do well. The melee specialists in particular could mess up the termies just through sheer weight of attacks. The autogun ones though are essentially guardsmen and won't be able to do much. Hide them in cover and hope for the best is all I can say. Chaos really needs some sort of boost to tip the scale back in it's favor, or at least take something out of the Dark angels list. Didn't AoBR have this problem too, with the orks being less than the SM?

The Chaos forces are handi-capped out of the 4 games I have played, Chaos has lost all but one of those, Ambush was the only mission they won.

Alright, thanks everyone. I'll let my opponent know. lol. He was getting demoralized and I was feeling guilty. Its good to know they're not even.

We'll stick to the scenarios until the new codices come out.

In assault on black reach the Space marines had a big point advantage too.

Space Marines: 585 points.
Orks: 450 points.

lazencantm wrote:
I picked up the Dark Vengeance box set this past weekend, and we've only been able to play it twice. So far, I've played Dark Angels both times and cleaned house. Now, I'm assuming Games Workshop would make two armies that are just about equivalent.

Well that was a silly assumption, lol.

I don't know if I can remember an "even" boxed set. All the way back to 2nd Edition, one side was usually significantly more powerful. And usually that was the Space Marines simply because when you attempt to give both sides a roughly equal number of models, Space Marines typically come out ahead. Plus, well, they're the heroes right?