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Hello, and thanks for taking the time to read my post!

I have come to seek the wise minds of Dakka Dakka to help show me the way to beat the Dark Angels...
Most games we play are around 1500 to 2000 points, and he ALWAYS brings a squad of Deathwing Knights with Belial, and another squad of shooty deathwing termies. AND one or 2 of them [/code]DA[code] flyers...
These are proving to be a VERY tough cookie to crack!

My army at my disposal at this moment in time is as follows:

Chaos Lord ([code]TA[/code])
Chaos Lord (on foot)
Daemon Prince (wings)
Sorcerer ([code]PA[/code])

11 Chaos Marines
10 Plaque Marines (or as regular Marines with [code]MoN[/code])
23 Chaos Cultists
12 Khorne Berzerkers
6 Chosen (from vengeance)
Helbrute
Defiler
2x Rhino Transports
6x Havocs (Lascannon, Heavy Bolter, Autocannon, Missile Launcher)

(Typhus, Oblits, and Juggernaut Khorne Lord coming next month)

I easily beat his backfield of Tacticals with fire from the Havocs and pie plates from the Defiler, and The Black Mace on the awesome Daemon Prince, but as soon as he Deepstrikes those Knights in, it all goes tits up. The only way I have discovered to grind them down is weight of fire, which I'm not packing, or by getting a Helbrute stuck in with the Power Scourge, but then he just smites it
My Lord can do a bit of Damage with the [/code]AoBF[code] but these dudes get T5 and 3+ invulns!
And as for the flyers he brings, I try to ignore them, simple as that, he likes to just shoot cultists with them anyway.

So, my question is, can anybody help me with a strategy to beat these overpowered, chaos-insta-rape units of the Dark Angels?
He is beating me 4 wins to my 2 at the moment, and is incredibly smug about it.

Thanks again, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

-Ant



What the Warp giveth, the Warp taketh away

Dont really know a safe way to deal with knights. I don't even think there is one. But a forgefiend with 3 echtoplasmas can force quiet a few invulnerable saves if you're in the right position..
And if you count luck in for a factor, I just ate my buddys whole squad with 9 zerkers with veterans and Kharn, though I do admit it was more a freak accident than a planned strategical move. Charged his knights, my Zerker Champ miraculously killed his Champ in a duel, survived, and turned into a deamon prince, Kharn did what he does a took down a few. Rolled horribly with the rest of the zerkers and only put a few wounds that were saved but he also rolled horribly and failed to do anything with his smite round. Round 2 was finished up by the deamon prince and kharn.
5 dead knights to no dead zerkers.

That is incredibly good going! Khorne must have been pleased.
The forgefiend sounds like a good idea but it could be vulnerable to his 2nd squad of termies packing cyclone missile launchers and ass. cannon deepstriking in and killing him turn 2. That's a lot of points gone down...

Chosen with plasma and melta could work sitting and waiting at the back...

You say you have Oblits on the way, thats would be my cheapest and first suggestion for the Knights. And with assault cannons i have had them take down a fair number of flyers, but ya plasma cannons then lascannons will decimate the tightly packed knights.

On a side note my Khorne Lord on Juggernaught is on the way cant way to kit him out for space.

Cool and yeh it was either the oblits or termies with fists and MoT or MoS to try and out last them...

Let me know how the juggernaut goes I need a bit of inspiration for my own conversion work lol

Ya i wouldnt try to termie versus termie him unless you tried something like Power axes Votlw and MoK that was you have more attacks, hatred and your squad costs about 210 and his costs about 235.
If you get the charge chances are that everyone dies.

Ya im gonna try my Khorne Lord with axe of blind fury bolt pistol and a SoC. Basically 170 pts base 5 attacks 7 on the charge with potentially 13 str 6 ap2 initiative 5 attacks.

Sounds like a strong build. I may go with a plasma pistol and the AoBF. Another build I think is amazing is a nurgle Lord on a bike. That's T6! Give him a PF and sigil of corruption and he can take pretty much anything they throw at him, then fist them. I'm not a fan of nurgle tho...

Weight of attacks is the way to go against Deathwing Knights, same as how you deal with TH/SS terminators. Don't focus on getting AP2 onto them unless you can get a lot of it. Their being I4 even on their smite turn makes I1 less attractive against them. If you want to melee them, Khorne Berserkers or Khorne Cultists are generally the way to go, they're still only 1W, and are only T5 if in their shieldwall, which doesn't really last when they get into CC.

Basically, when he DS's in, shoot him, and present a target that you're willing to lose, but is also threatening enough to get him to use his smite on. Then just pile on.

You're doing the right thing by ignoring his flyers as much as you can. You don't have any Heldrakes, so you can't really engage them. The DA flyers don't have too much firepower anyways, so don't waste your shots on them and focus on everything else.

In short, I'd actually try using Khorne cultists. A large mob of them with your foot Chaos Lord with AoBF will be fearless, and the Chaos Lord will either force an inefficient smite, or will be able to duel with the Knight Master. Yeah they're only S3; if you want better quality attacks, go with Berserkers with Vets for S5 on the charge.

As a side note, if you know you're facing DA all the time, it never hurts to put vets of the long war on everything you can, and try to engage in melee.

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense, definitely gonna try this next game.
I do give him a target to force a smite, with my helbrute, he even occasionally kills a couple of them, so maybe this followed by a cultist charge could do the job!
I'll let you know how it goes, got an 1800 vs a Nob heavy ork player tomorrow :(

Dp with mace isn't doing anything?

Yeh he is great, I fly him down a flank and fold up the back line of tacticals and devistators easily.
Not really a good idea to throw him against the DW knights as there maces are ap3 thanks to a rule called Bain of the Traiter. That's the thing that makes em so damn hard to beat with chaos units.

How about a large squad of Slaanesh marked Chaos Space Marines with an extra close combat weapon and Icon of Excess? Charge him and go first at I5. Hopefully force a bunch of saves and kill a few before he gets to swing at you. Baring that I'd say Plague marines. The plague knife is poison 4+ which is nice against T5 (while he has it) and once they separate you get rerolls to wound.

You could tarpit the knights with cultists, with a nice tough character attached. That will force your opponent to decide, "Do I want to smite to kill the character, and waste it on the cultists, or do I want to wait and have this character facepunch me for a turn?"

 BayneMor wrote:
How about a large squad of Slaanesh marked Chaos Space Marines with an extra close combat weapon and Icon of Excess?

I don't think this would work, could kill maybe 1 or 2 on the charge, 3 if very lucky, but then he hits back n kills loads, and as CSM are not fearless standard, that could end badly for me. Plus Belial is usually with them with his power sword.

As for tarpitting him, I tried this with a terminator sorcerer attached to them. Got 2 kills with the force weapon but then just slapped it out for the rest of the game. With the sorcerer in the squad, that's about the same amount of points committed as his unit costs anyway. I'm not a fan of wars of attrition.

Ton of cultists, or ton of AP2

In fact, the Knights are hard to deal with from what you have available.
Obliterators with twin linked plasma guns could bring them down quickly.

Where do I effectively get the ap2 tho? That's one of the problems... Chosen with plasma and melta is something I'm gonna try out.


What do you suggest I get next to help me to deal with them?

What is thier invul save?

3++ basically storm shields.

You could start building & painting plague zombies now, while you wait for Typhus to arrive. The DW knights would absolutely hate being tied down by a big unit of 35 fearless zombies. They don't have a large number of attacks, so even though they're S6 and ignore the zombies' FNP, it'll still take them a bunch of turns to get free and fight anything else.

Shoot them. Bog them down. Then shoot them again. The zombie idea is perfect, especially when the knights are only getting 2 attacks a turn. When they make their way out of the zombies, have something firing dedicated AP2 at them until they disappear.

Or ignore them. That works too.

Heldrake does as heldrake pleases?

 ChaosCrusader wrote:
They don't have a large number of attacks, so even though they're S6 and ignore the zombies' FNP

Actually when they are zombies they become T4 so they still get it


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Done it. I got the way to beat them.
I used a squad of 32 cultists with MoK, and an attached sorcerer with MoS. I got the charge, challenged his Belial with my sorcerer, went first, got a wound, activated the force weapon and killed him in 1
The cultists only lost 8 men to the terminators, but then got tons of attacks and wounds, and all those 1's came up on his saves! Result!
Safe to say I won this battle 8 kill points to 3. Go cultists!

Where does one find this rule? I cannot find anything that says otherwise in my codex...

35 Cultists led by Kharne, Huron, or anyone with the Axe of Blinding Fury. Locks in DW Knights and the charachter can chew them up.

 ChaosCrusader wrote:
Where does one find this rule? I cannot find anything that says otherwise in my codex...

Page 30 under Marks of Chaos

"An Independent Character with a Mark of Chaos may not join a unit with a different Mark of Chaos"

Unmark your cultists and you're good to go! Or alternatively unmark the Sorc, personally I find the Codex powers a little lackluster and tend to stick with unmarked sorcerors rolling from the BRB powers.

The best thing you can do is take Noise Marines against anything with a 3++ save. Take the same approach against Knights as you would Wraiths from the Codex Necrons. Volleys of fire and your opponent will eventually roll 1s

Another good bolster to prevent them from reaching you is keeping 2 small groups of terminators with Combi Plasmas in reserves. Thats only 110 points per squad of 3 and you get Rapid Fire AP2 Plasma shots. Walk them on if he is foolish enough to DS them onto your side of the board, and just open fire. Equip your Terminators with Power Axes and you're set.

Get a Sorcerer and make him Telepathy (IIRC) Psychic Screech and you remove his ability to make saves :O

As for the cultists, 2 problems I see. If you aren't running them in squads of 30, the shouldn't be taken at all.. If you want to take a small squad of them, stick to the base filler of Troop-point-cost (50 for 10 models) and keep them behind your ADL and go to ground wherever possible. (2+ Cover save) Stick them on an Objective and they can remain there almost the rest of the game.

My experience with Defilers is a tricky one... I love them, they have served me well in the past when shooting at targets out in the open... But aside from that mandatory situation to make them profitable, they are a giant "Kill me" sign and their Battle Cannon not having Barrage hinders their ability to kill things behind a simple ADL... Counter? Run 2 Vindicators instead. Shorter range, stronger shot, ID everything T5 and lower.

For HQs I would definitely take Abaddon, Hatred + Beatstick HQ for roadblocking stronger threats. Grab 2 squads of Havocs, 1 squad of ACs 1 with LCs, Champions manning Quadguns.

Chaos spawn should be able to keep em in place and force a lot of saves.

I tend to run a more mobile force, so every time I encounter deep striking knights I feed them one squad and move everything else away. Most of the time this results in the knights being stranded and taking 2+ more turns to get anywhere meaningful.