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Hey Dakka,

I was wondering if anyone else has used Chaos Rhinos like this:

Rhino/ dirge caster and destroyer blades loaded with 8 plague marines w/ icon of despair, powerfist, 3 plasma pistols

The tactics will be represented against a gunline:
send the rhino as fast as possible to the enemy. The rhino should release its smoke launchers of course as it heads in. When in range, it drops its cargo who can surely survive a round of shooting. Next turn the rhino flies forward tank shocking a unit in the middle of others. The blades kill a number of them and disrupts FOV to units behind it. Then the plague marines shoot into a unit and charge it. Does not matter if they are tau, their overwatch is denied by the rhino's dirge caster. The end result should be massacre. Future turns, if the rhino is still alive, see the marines charging other units as well. Rinse and repeat. Having trouble with Leman Russes or hammerheads? Well, you got a powerfist to take care of the buggers! Facing banshees or other close combat monsters? That is what fear is for!

Has anyone done similar? It is 273 points per unit, but it sounds and feels utterly awesome.

Thanks,
DaK

Tau will markerlight it, remove cover. Rhino is popped. Now your plague marines are walking across the board. Str 5 rapid firing shots will even bring down plague marines.

I do run a couple rhinos, but never like this. It does sound fun though.

 Green is Best! wrote:
Tau will markerlight it, remove cover. Rhino is popped. Now your plague marines are walking across the board. Str 5 rapid firing shots will even bring down plague marines.

Well, if you are playing against tau, you should already have basic anti-tau tactics anyways, so you should have plenty of other options for dealing with the fish 'eads if this unit gets stopped by massed fire. But also, all the fire that is going toward these plagues are not being spent on other things in the army like Helldrakes, hellbrutes, plague zombies, vindicators, land raiders.

To counter what you stated, I just have to dip into my usual ork-tactics: "Mess with their target priority to the point that their eyes bleed". So having some other "First Glance fears" or "Obviously scary" units should be enough to keep fire off of them, especially if your other units are of all sorts of packages in speed, durability, and raw intimidation. Besides, this appears to be merely a squad of marines in a rhino to the other player if they are not paying attention.

 Green is Best! wrote:
Tau will markerlight it, remove cover. Rhino is popped. Now your plague marines are walking across the board. Str 5 rapid firing shots will even bring down plague marines.

GiB, normally you have very good points, but I this seems a bit off.

Mass STR 5 rapid firing will kill any infantry unit. If that's your point, why bother bringing infantry at all? See the gap here?
Heck, even if the rhino gets the unit up 18" in turn one, then its more than earned its point back. (35 points to move your PMs to mid field is an solid investment)

Remember the idea of Resilience per Point? Grey hunters are at 60 RPP vs rail rifles, and plague marines are 74. Heck, even 13 point CSM are only a 70 RPP vs rail rifles. The reason is because the plague marines are wounded on 4s instead of 3s, and they get the 5++ FNP.

Simply put, point for point they are tougher than any other infantry to resist mass STR 5 shooting. Enough STR 5 will still kill them, just like anything else in the game.

My only point was that while the plagues might withstand one round of shooting, they are not going to march across the field and do anything significant. So, if that rhino gets popped and they have to walk, they are in trouble.

I wasn't trying to be condescending. I LOATHE the Tau and anything that the forces of CHAOS can do to wipe them out, I am all for.

I like the idea but I'm not sure if the points spent on destroyer blades is worth it. Against Tau, you're likely to get 3-4 hits, which will end up as 1-2 dead xenos. Not convinced that's that great.

Skip the d blade and you now pressure the enemy to chose shooting at the rhino to prevent overwatch denial or shoot at the pm. I wish rhinos can be rigged with explosive large blasts.

 minigun762 wrote:
I like the idea but I'm not sure if the points spent on destroyer blades is worth it. Against Tau, you're likely to get 3-4 hits, which will end up as 1-2 dead xenos. Not convinced that's that great.

Well it does not have to just be against tau, it is meant for any gunline be it Imps, Tau, or even necrons. Against imps, there would be a lot more dead. I see your point though, 15 points or so for a couple dead dudes does not seem all that great. But, killing just two of the models buys the upgrade back and will help when it comes to depleting resistance that the PMs will face. After looking back though, I agree. 15 points for 2 kills is not all that great. Well, with the new point total, it will drop to about 258 or something like that per squad/transport. A tad better and fits in more options for other units in the army.

 Green is Best! wrote:
My only point was that while the plagues might withstand one round of shooting, they are not going to march across the field and do anything significant. So, if that rhino gets popped and they have to walk, they are in trouble.

I wasn't trying to be condescending. I LOATHE the Tau and anything that the forces of CHAOS can do to wipe them out, I am all for.

As far as PM effectiveness, they are full of plasma pistols, plague knives, and a powerfist. To add to that they are all T5 and FnP. They are not going anywhere anytime soon while they deliver their attacks. If you want them to do something blatantly great beyond destroying all kinds of infantry and capturing objectives, then make them cheaper in points by dropping down into meltaguns. Shaves 10 points off and you can destroy enemy armour. Besides, these guys are troop choices, not tanks. They are not meant to do anything super fancy. The upgrades they are given are to help them at their battlefield role when they are NIB, short-range firefights. Adding the powerfist and having plasmapistols instead of plasmaguns gears them to lean to the close combat side of their spectrum.

I like the idea. Because you can send more than one in. Cant kill em all. may not even be able to see them all.

Nurgle are a rare bird in their ability to rhino rush and assault. and if the enemy wont cross midboard, how do they reach objectives?

This is an interesting idea.

Is it true I can have my rhino move sideways?

Try to Tank shock past the enemy blob with many rhinod to create a wall behind them closest to their board edge. try to cut off their escape route and if you charge them with troops n surround them. Force them to make a leadership test & if they fail they have nowhere to run.

Why not 2 meltas and a combi melta?

 Filch wrote:
Is it true I can have my rhino move sideways?

Try to Tank shock past the enemy blob with many rhinod to create a wall behind them closest to their board edge. try to cut off their escape route and if you charge them with troops n surround them. Force them to make a leadership test & if they fail they have nowhere to run.

As far as I am concerned, yes. It just saves time from pivoting, moving, and pivoting back again. Plus, by just moving sideways, it is easier to get a more accurate measurement of distance.

However, if I was tank shocking or ramming, I would turn the vehicle to go in the correct direction just because it seems like the right thing to do (and it helps forge a narrative /sarc off). I am sure there are rules semi-supporting this somewhere.

 Jancoran wrote:
I like the idea. Because you can send more than one in. Cant kill em all. may not even be able to see them all.

Nurgle are a rare bird in their ability to rhino rush and assault. and if the enemy wont cross midboard, how do they reach objectives?

This is an interesting idea.

Tau can kill them all.

killerpenguin wrote:
Why not 2 meltas and a combi melta?

Nothing wrong with melta. Still a valuable tool.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
I like the idea. Because you can send more than one in. Cant kill em all. may not even be able to see them all.

Nurgle are a rare bird in their ability to rhino rush and assault. and if the enemy wont cross midboard, how do they reach objectives?

This is an interesting idea.

Tau can kill them all.

Well, buddy? I got news for you. Tau have always been able to kill them all. That is what Tau is, an army of really big guns. No surprises to the world that Tau (one army) can hurt this.

Just reinforcing your highlighting of the obvious.

Another thing to help this, as I said before, is mess with the enemy's target priority. The player will probably not shoot at a handful of marines in a rhino in comparison to some defilers or helldrakes unless he knows what is coming.

 minigun762 wrote:

killerpenguin wrote:
Why not 2 meltas and a combi melta?

Nothing wrong with melta. Still a valuable tool.

Aye, the melta-variant is cheaper and fleshes the unit toward a different role of taking out tanks instead of infantry. If you can spare the points, you could run a squadron of Battering Rams. 2 Plasma, 1 Melta. They attack their targets together and create a hole in the enemy army. Also, the anti-overwatch also works on vehicles that have al these nasty guns!

I always get at least one rhino shot down first turn if I dont win the roll-of. Damn drop pods. Such a pain running the plagues up.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
I like the idea. Because you can send more than one in. Cant kill em all. may not even be able to see them all.

Nurgle are a rare bird in their ability to rhino rush and assault. and if the enemy wont cross midboard, how do they reach objectives?

This is an interesting idea.

Tau can kill them all.

Bravado aside, I can see a way to make this work. but first: Tau are one of 16 codex's. Keep in mind that this isn't his ENTIRE army. This is just one unit. As has been pointed out, there is also a way to draw frie on a less useful unit.

Now the way that this might work is if you cut off line of Sight. You cannot shoot what you cannot see. Two offset rhinos blocks a LOT of LOS. Now there's a delicate balance there, because you need enough Nurgle to see enough of the target and survive the fire, but thats not too difficult given that they are hitting on 6's.

I have a friend who plays Tau as well as I do. And he stacks his lines such that vey few times will his ENTIRE army not be able to fire down on a charger. Good tactic. But the Rhinos would make a lot of that irrelevant if displaced at an angle to the firers. In subsequent rounds the rhinos become less important targets if First blood is already gotten. but they remain important to LOS. So the enemuy now has tough choices.

I think that a land Raider would be a great unit to add to such a force. Here again more for LOS than actual firepower OR tank shocking...though ti can do both.

I'd be interested in seeing what the rest of this army would look like. It requires a pretty slow and deliberate approach to the battle BUT... workable? quite possibly.

 Jancoran wrote:

I'd be interested in seeing what the rest of this army would look like. It requires a pretty slow and deliberate approach to the battle BUT... workable? quite possibly.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/536153.page#5780662

Here ye are. Part Two of the Battering Ram process. (Still figuring out Chaos though)

 Da Kommizzar wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

I'd be interested in seeing what the rest of this army would look like. It requires a pretty slow and deliberate approach to the battle BUT... workable? quite possibly.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/536153.page#5780662

Here ye are. Part Two of the Battering Ram process. (Still figuring out Chaos though)

AAAAAH. 1500 points. that makes this MUCH scarier.

Just played against a Defiler for the first time. It was pretty effective. It maybe didn't kill as much as one would hope but... it REALLY pushed the field and cut off a lot of real estate,

I feel like the Land Raider might be the way to go over the Defiler, though since your base tactic is the angles of attack wit hthe Plague Marines. The nagles themselves are important and losing one rhino really limits the tactic without a "backup" in the early going.

Typhus can't ride in a Rhino so that gives you more reason to use a land raider.

I can't help but feel that all those points spent on PP could be better spent buying more bodies and rhinos.

 minigun762 wrote:
Typhus can't ride in a Rhino so that gives you more reason to use a land raider.

I can't help but feel that all those points spent on PP could be better spent buying more bodies and rhinos.

Oh well, I guess a LR would be a good investment then. And in higher points I can upgrade all of my battering rams into Battering-Raiders with the same upgrades. This will also help the unit, because then they can assault out of their vehicle.

The plasma pistols were for slamming wounds onto TEQs and MCs if they ever decided to charge those units. They still get fnp against those units, so they are not half-bad compared to other options in the codex. Though it is better to shoot the MCs like crazy. I could take the PPs off and put the 90 points into some more ranged support or to add to LR fund. (And LRs come with their own TEQ/Tank-killers

Are the units on the side sufficient for drawing fire and fulfilling their own roles as well?

I'll post on your army list.

I must say I liked the rhinos better. You dont have to base you're entire army towards the original tactic. But I still dont understand why you would buy plasma pistols, when you can get 2 meltas and a combi-melta for 15 points less.

The main value of a land Raider is to give the added LOS protection to the tactic. Doesn't hurt that they rock i suppose, but...

Do you think you'll report back to us here if you try this or proxy it?

Hey yall,

 killerpenguin wrote:
I must say I liked the rhinos better. You dont have to base you're entire army towards the original tactic. But I still dont understand why you would buy plasma pistols, when you can get 2 meltas and a combi-melta for 15 points less.

I do like the rhinos alot, but then I figured it would be hilarious to do a Battlewagon rush with Chaos and it transports Tyhpus which is the main reason.

Yeah, I noticed yesterday that the meltas were waaay better for a lot less. If you check the army list you can see the update on the build.

 Jancoran wrote:
The main value of a land Raider is to give the added LOS protection to the tactic. Doesn't hurt that they rock i suppose, but...

Do you think you'll report back to us here if you try this or proxy it?

Yeah I will definitely post back after I playtest, sadly I will not get a game for about 4 days to a week. (Tight around here) I want to test it with rhinos, but battlewagon rush seems fun too..... first world problems

I probably will play it Land Raider style, but I shall see.

-DaK