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Disclaimer: I don't want this to turn into another "assault is bad" thread. I'm not complaining about loosing because I don't run a gun line and I don't want to be told to play a gun line army if I want to win.

I play an assault- heavy Khorne chaos army and I think one of the reasons I loose a lot is because I haven't put a lot of thought into deployment tactics. The first thought that comes to mind for a list with lots of berzerkers is to line up on the edge of my deployment zone and run forward, but that doesn't do much good because against a shooty army, I'm just feeding my key units to the other side. the alternative is not lining up on the edge of my deployment zone but that presents another problem because I won't get anywhere near something to assault fast enough to make a difference.

Am I missing something really obvious with this? I play chaos marines and assaulty ones at that, so I don't think I should win every game. I just am new(ish) and thought I had overlooked something important.

 Powerfisting wrote:
Disclaimer: I don't want this to turn into another "assault is bad" thread. I'm not complaining about loosing because I don't run a gun line and I don't want to be told to play a gun line army if I want to win.

I play an assault- heavy Khorne chaos army and I think one of the reasons I loose a lot is because I haven't put a lot of thought into deployment tactics. The first thought that comes to mind for a list with lots of berzerkers is to line up on the edge of my deployment zone and run forward, but that doesn't do much good because against a shooty army, I'm just feeding my key units to the other side. the alternative is not lining up on the edge of my deployment zone but that presents another problem because I won't get anywhere near something to assault fast enough to make a difference.

Am I missing something really obvious with this? I play chaos marines and assaulty ones at that, so I don't think I should win every game. I just am new(ish) and thought I had overlooked something important.

Depends on what list you are running. If your army is indeed KB heavy I'd wouldn't say your deployment is bad, they just need a quicker route to HtH...

Which involves transports...

35 points gets you a Rhino, cheap but no assault vehicle so they have to weather a turn of shooting before they charge
100 points & IA 13 gets you a Dreadclaw Assault Pod, which is a Drop Pod that can move like a flyer (and doesn't have to disembark its squad after it lands) and its an Assault Vehicle.
250 points nets you a Land Raider, which its AV14 and 4 HP gives a big tank, and can transport 10 Bezerkers, as an Assault vehicle, but is expensive.

That's my $0.02, if you do run transports always put dirge casters on them to cancel overwatch. Or you can get Maulerfiends which are very killy (2 powerfist plus either an extra melta attack or two or reduce enemy initiative), are daemon engines (IWND, 5++, Ignores Crew Shaken/stun on 2+) and move very quickly.

Would need to see the list you most often run to make a better judgement.

Your probably not missing anything assuming you know the basics of a successful (relatively) assault army. But there are some subtleties. For example when running an assault list more cheap targets will usually fair better than less higher cost targets, i.e. msu but more important here. Also coordinating your impact and concentrating your force. This plays into going second which is feared by assault armies. However it can actually be better for you. The reason is most armies still dont do significant damage at range (long range that is) compared to half range where things get more deadly. And more importantly you get to react to his deployment allowing you to bring all the above together (limit his firepower concentrate your force to a portion of his, saturate targets and take last turn). Try this some time. Also what is your list?

On my phone all I got for now.

A few things:

Concentrate your force. Preferrably, you want him to deploy first, so you can then put all or most of your guys directly facing his weakest flank. That way, you should be able to limit the amount of incoming fire enough to hit one side, then roll up the enemy from there. This is called a surrenderd flank, can be very hgelpful, especially if the opponent isn't expecting it.

Anthing you can do to get Infiltrate or Scout is worth doing. The best way is probably running a counts-as Huron, but I don't know, there might be some other tricks I'm not aware off. Infiltrate even a pair of Beserker squads and either they are hitting CC turn 2 or are taking fire for the rest of your army to move up; the enemy must kill them or they are losing units.

Play the terrain and the mission. If you get to place objectives, place some that he will need to move out of position to claim, thus disrupting his battle line. As for the terrain, try and deploy your main units with LOS-blockers between them and their biggest threats in his army. Out of interest, how much terrain do you play with? A lot of people that suffer with Assualt Armies really aren't using enough, especially LOS-blocking stuff (you want 3-4 pieces of that minimum)

Peregrine's Tactica For Deploying Assault - Heavy Armies:
Bunch up and run around screaming and waving chainswords. Make sure you have no fearless or atsknf assaulters so they can get wiped out by sweeping advances to allow you shoot the enemy. Even though you got nothing to shoot cause you're running around screaming and waving chainswords.


Back on topic. I find assault pretty viable playing orkses. Sometimes you'll win with assault armies without having engaged in a single mellee fight. Remember that positioning, area denial and threat saturation are super-important for assaulters.

There's no 'single right way' of deploying your forces. It all depends on the map, your and your opponent's forces.

An assault-oriented Khorne army can be brutal. But you need to stick to the theme not to come in waves. Basically, like orks work. Your best bet with CSM are 2 general directions:
- Speedy - Maulerfiends, bikers, spawns, raptors, landraiders and some khornate rhino marines with meltas.
- Cunning but Brutal - Infiltrating blobs. Man, they can be devastating. Take 20 khornates with Cypher and infiltrate them with Huron. Support with whatever you have. If you get Be'Lakor, he'd make them unkillable with invisibility. If you buff them with Fabius Bile, they'll rock a ton of s6 attacks on the charge. If you go balls out insane and add in a sanctic sorc with hammerhand and fabius bile, they'll rock s8 (!) attacks on the charge. That's freaking frightening. However, i'd advocate from doing this cause it's a hell lot of points in one blob that wholly depends on invisibility as EVERYTHING is gona shoot at guyz with 4 s8 attacks on the charge. And you will invest so much, you won't be able to controle the board. So, i'd just stick to 20 khornates with meltas, gift of mutation champ with combi-melta and probably some weapon or melta bommz + Cypher. Infiltrate them with Huron and watch how they murderise stuff. Support them with something and they're good to go.

Don't forget about an escape hatch. Can do basically the same thing but without Huron. Or together with them.

Another interesting thing is a Dreadclaw. Don't treat it as a droppod. Treat it as a deepstriking av12 assault vehicle that can also fly around.

Berzerkers really took a hard nerf.

CSM armies that focus on assault generally incorporate lots of spawn, characters on bikes, Juggerlords, bikers, maulerfiends...things that can move 12" ignoring terrain without relying on a transport to do so.

If you're dead set on using Berzerkers, then maybe using large blocks of them infiltrated with Huron would give you decent synergy with the aforementioned spawn and maulerfiends. A Chaos Lord on a Juggernaut with a unit of spawn, then some more spawn, would make the KBs troops and provide decent synergy as a second HQ choice.