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Hey guys, first post, long time lurker, looking for some tips where my buddy keeps slaughtering me in games.

We generally play somewhere between 1250 and 1750 points, him as Dark Angels and I field Chaos Space Marines. He generally fields a very heavy terminator force with Belial as his HQ, and deathwing assaults most of the termies (depending on his army setup, he might have a single termie squad deployed, if he doesn't take any tactical or scout squads). Sometimes he will field a 10 man deathwing knight squad as well with belial, deepstriking them in turn 1 or turn 2 with no scatter.

What I'm finding is generally turns 1 through 3 go pretty neutrally, I might take out a couple terminators, I'll deploy very clumped together so he can't pick me apart to bad with the deep striking, and i'll move out on a couple objectives during those turns. Come turn 4 and 5, and sometimes as early as 3, we start getting into close combat engagements and I just get slaughtered. I'm bringing a chaos lord with the black mace, 10 man marine squads with no marks and 2 meltaguns and rhinos, 10 man berserker squad with 2 plasma pistols and a rhino, a helbrute with a multi-melta, 2 or 3 man obliterator squad, and sometimes I'll point in a land raider. My army list is very fluid and keeps changing, but I haven't found anything that is working at all...

Any tips? It is a very frustrating game to play, he is constantly re-rolling 1s on hits and wounds from his inner circle special rule, all of his weapons are twin linked on the turn he deepstrikes in, and his deathwing knights have a 3++ invul save that just destroys me. The Black mace worked well the one game, until the chaos lord got one-shotted by a power fist and missed the invul save. I'm thinking about a Daemon Prince with the black mace, but if his deathwing knights use there smite on him they can probably finish him off in one turn.

Plague Marines loaded with plasmas. Roughly 5 - 7 man strong. My friend ran a 20 man termi list 15 died the turn they came in.


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Black mace isn't great on the chaos lord if you wanna use it def go with DP. with the DP you should be the one picking assaults not him avoid those death knights / w.e.

If hes running Plasma cannons on his termis dont bunch up because itll hurt alot. Id reccomend maybe not taking rhinos for the bezerkers and using them as a counter assault unit maybe?

and for the spacemarine sqauds use plasmas on them or proxy as plague marines if your buddy lets you.

Thanks for the Tip, we got a game scheduled for tonight at 2000 points, we will see how it goes.

I have yet to pick up a DP model, so I'm trying the lord again with the mace, going mark of nurgle this time to prevent the instant death from the fists. Its going to be a different game tonight then normal, trying out the Vengeance Batteries!

As a Deathwing player, there are two things that really scare me:
1) AP2. Anything with AP2 or 1 is lethal, with even one shot killing 40 points of terminators. As mentioned above, Plague marines are neat for this, and you might want to try a chosen squad loaded up on plasma. If you have the models, plasma cannon Havocs will wreck Deathwing on the turn they drop (although they will be a huge target, so make sure to protect them). The Deathwing will either be ripped apart by the plasma blasts, or will they will run to spread out and therefore sacrifice their alpha strike.

If Chaos have any AP2 CC units that are reasonably costed they might be worth looking at (I'm not overly familiar with the Chaos codex). As said above, you want to be picking your fights as much as possible. Avoid the Knights if possible, and shoot them. More on this below.

2) Massed small arms fire. For units that rely on invuln saves, like knights or TH/SS termies. the best way to take them down is to spam any guns you have on them. Bolters, Autocannons, Heavy Bolters, even cultist Autoguns. Enough shots will bring them down, and make the points they spent on better invulns useless. Against a bolter, 1 in 6 wounds will kill, so just put as many wounds down as possible. Forcing saves from anything that can shoot is something certain to take down termies.

Here's a few other things to bear in mind.

The Deathwing will want to attack your army in small portions, so try deploying a surrendered flank (ie nothing on one side) so that he can't pick you apart piecemeal.

If you can't beat them in combat, then play the mission. Deathwing are not the best at capturing or holding multiple objectives, so spread out any objectives you can to split his forces or give you something to hold undisputed.

Deathwing are very powerful in CC, but also very slow with no SA possible. Feed a squad a blob of 20+ cultists and watch as 250 points of termies take ages to kill 100 points of grunts.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the tips Paradigm.

I've typically done alot of my army builds favouring initiative to ap in regards to close combat weapons, which I think has been penalizing me more often then not against heavy infantry in power armor and terminator armor. Something I'll have to take a look into here for sure.

My 2000 points tonight will be a Lord with the Black Mace, Sigil, and Mark of Nurgle, and Sorcerer, 4 Plague Marine Squads (3x 7 man and 1x 6 man) with plasma guns, 3 nurgle obliterators, 3 rhinos with dirge casters, 1 land raider, 7 man havoc squad with 4 autocannons, ADL for the havoc squad, and the Vengeance Batteries to try em out. We mostly play for fun, I'm just getting a bit tired of getting my stuff pushed in every game.

As a Deathwing player, their weakness is that their terminators are really expensive. What I personally hate is loads and loads of attacks - either shooting or close combat. Ork Boyz for example are pretty good at killing Terminators. Just bury them under lots of dakka or lots of CC attacks.

Deathwing doesn't have the firepower to take down large numbers of enemy models. Depending on the type of attack, their ability to threaten a unit changes significantly.

In terms of ranged attacks, their utility is very weak. A 1,500 point army is bringing ~5 heavy weapons and the rest is Storm Bolters. Weak, even if it's Twin-Linked on T1.

In terms of H2H attacks, they're strong but lack sufficient volume of attacks to tear down hordes. Furthermore, they mostly attack at I1. Plenty of things punk DWT squads, especially Boyz. You could always bring Typhus for Plague Zombies. Zombies really don't care at all about anything the DWTs can throw at them: in H2H they'll tar pit a unit very easily. Ranged, they'll be getting their FNP against the bolters and 8 SB shots isn't really sufficient to hurt 20 or 30 Plague Zombies.

Another option is Spawn. Spawn generate a lot of attacks, can't be doubled out by the Terminators' attacks, and are fearless.


The one thing I would NOT do, playing CSM against Deathwing, is charge in with valuable Power Armored infantry. Deathwing LOVE to mulch through units of Power Armored joes, especially Plague Marines since their higher Toughness doesn't count for crap. Obliterators will also do a number on Deathwing since the DW don't have any real way of hurting them too badly, and if they shoot when they drop, they'll be bunched up for Plasma Cannon shots.

You have a lot more mobility then him. Try and go second, deploy far from whatever he puts on the board and huddle up with your rear armor where he can't hit it.

Shoot at whatever he has on the board until he deep strikes in. If you feel like you can put them down, go crazy and put all your fire into them, but stay in your vehicles because they can only do so much with one heavy per squad. If your vehicles syurvibe and you want, flat out all your vehicles away from him and set up a new spot to start working from.

Deathwing suffer from poor mobility once they are on board and low damage output, especially against vehicles. Your army should actually be a pretty effective counter with a few tweaks in strategy.

Plasma in all shapes and sizes. Plasma blasts for the snail shaped deep strike deployments. Weight of fire, supporting units well dug in and deployed. Your looking to build a counter strike list. One that he doesnt want to deep strike into.

Chosen plasma spam is my preferred method. Helbrute plasma cannons and oblit's work well too. Mob them in cultists with a CL and the AOBF will rapidly deplete the terminators numbers.

A vindicator would work wonders here against DW. Especially if they are still clumped up after deepstriking.

Make your lord a khorne lord on a juggernaught (don't worry, he can still join other units even though he is cavalry). Give him the Axe of Blind Fury and Sigil of Corruption. He will punch out 3-4 terminators every time he swings his axe and at Initiative step 5.