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My friend and I recently switched from modellers to players with small point armies to get used to the rules. I am using Night Lords and him Primaris Ultramarines. The problem is, I am getting obliterated most of the time. Even at 500 points (moving to 750) he can bring characters that buff his already powerful shooting. Trying to engage him in melee seems the right thing to do but his overwatch is pretty brutal due to all the rapid fire guns re rolling misses and wounds and then his ability to withdraw and still shoot really puts a damper on charging as well. My only real success has been sorcery, but he also has scout snipers he sometimes uses and can often pluck my sorcerer off...

On a related note, I am building up a hellbrute now. What weapons should I equip it with to specifically counter Primaris. I was thinking autocannons with a power scourge but maybe something with a little more punch to get around his pretty good saves.

Autocannons are good, plasma is good if you're going to have a Lord nearby to reroll his ones. A missile/plasma brute with a lord nearby would be great vs primaris because odds are the closest unit is high value and you can pop two shots at them.

Spawn are also highly legit against primaris Marines, pretty much anything D2 will do great.

the_scotsman wrote:
Autocannons are good, plasma is good if you're going to have a Lord nearby to reroll his ones. A missile/plasma brute with a lord nearby would be great vs primaris because odds are the closest unit is high value and you can pop two shots at them.

Spawn are also highly legit against primaris Marines, pretty much anything D2 will do great.

I second this. As a primaris player, I can tell you that their weaknesses are mobility and 2 damage weaponry. They are very good at sitting in a reroll bubble and just out-statting you, and they aren't terrible in melee either. But they can't get anywhere quickly, and they have to deploy together to get the most out of their auras. You should be able to cap objectives while you shoot them down, then engage on your terms. I would probably go with the plasma cannon for your hellbrute. The reaper autocannon is D1, so it wouldn't be as efficient. The power scourge is perfect for killing them in melee, but I think the missile launcher is a better option. Obliterators would also work very well.

You'll have to take the approach similar to fighting Necrons. Focus on units one at a time. If you shoot at a unit, you charge that unit later that turn. The combination of shooting and assaulting will result in a higher number of Morale losses. Even against a unit of 5 marines, knocking out 3 will likely cause the other 2 to flee during Morale with the modifiers you should be stacking on them.

Take for instance Raptors. With a unit of Raptors and Icon of Despair, you are forcing a -3 Ld modifier. An 8 Ld Space Marine goes down in essence to a 5 Ld. With 3 losses, he's having to roll a 1 or 2 to take no losses. Even with the reroll, he will fail it more than he will succeed. Use that to your advantage.

With Night Lords, playing the Morale game is learning how low you can take units without necessarily having to focus enough firepower to completely wipe them before Morale. Then you have freed up enough firepower to focus on other units.

Primaris marines struggle with having a relatively low damage output, especially vs tough targets. They also do not fair well defensively vs 2D weapons.

I'd suggest using long range firepower or precision shooting drops (like Oblits or Plasma Raptors/Terminators + Lord) to focus their high damage units (Hellblasters normally, occasionally a Dread or Repulsor). After their heavy hitters are down, you essentially have free reign to park something T7 on an objective and basically know you can hold it.

5 Ints vs a Hellbrute will put out about 1.11 Wounds on it from Rapid Fire, so even less than 2 with reroll buffs.

Melee is probably one of the worst ways to attempt to fight UM Primaris for Chaos, which explains why you're having such issues.

Some general suggestions for playing Chaos as you're building up your army.

1) Warptime is amazing, plan for a unit to make use of it such as a large squad of Raptors, Warp Talons or Terminators.

2) Use Cultists for your troops. CSMs really don't give much bang for your buck, you'd be better served with specialists elsewhere.

3) Take note of the different god specific stratagems when assigning units their mark, Slaanesh is a particularly common choice to allow a unit to shoot twice.

I don't think melee is that bad against UM. If you take into account their tactic, it allows them to fallback and fire with a -1 to hit. So at best for them, they are getting a -1 to hit and a -2 to hit with Heavy Weapons. Allowing them to stand still and fire is probably one of the worst ways to combat them. Dealing with overwatch isn't a major issue as they are still only hitting on a 6 so at best it pretty much evens out.

They have a low model count so every model they lose is a bigger loss than standard Marines. Forcing the Morale losses with your modifiers is a major boon in your favor. Ultimately you need some fire support to soften targets up before you go in melee range. Don't go charging headfirst into a full strength unit.

Also, Warptiming Warp Talons the turn they DS in is a great way to assault units like Hellblasters who put out deadly overwatch.

Ooo, I like the warptiming Warp Talons idea... It is true that if I avoid melee, I lose the advantage of being Night Lords. However, UM's also get a +1 to leadership in addition to re-rolling morale (it does seem they have a few more buffs than do my night lords...)

Overwatch still seems brutal, despite needing 6's, if you have rapid fire and re-rolls, which his leaders give him. Ditto the fall back tactic. If I want to melee, it seems to me I need to lead in with the Warp Talons and hope for a brutal initial onslaught...

Don't forget that any to hit roll of 6+ in meele gives you an extra attack for "Death to the False Emperor" agaisnt "Imperium" models. (That extra attack can't generate more attacks".
That rule is much better than rerolling morale.

poachninja wrote:
Ooo, I like the warptiming Warp Talons idea... It is true that if I avoid melee, I lose the advantage of being Night Lords.

This isn't necessarily true, but shooting wise you are sitting in range of every ranged weapon in the game to deliver it's A-game. Being in Melee ensures that you are getting the advantage of the night lords legion tactic due to the 6" range and that your opponent is forced to destroy the unit in order to get out of that range. Plus if you have multiple units bunched up and charge multiple units in, it's that much easier to get the full debuff on the opponent