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I've been thinking about this for awhile, and am at a genuine loss. CSM has plenty of great offensive units, but plasma mechvets are a great defensive unit that is good against, well... all of them, and seem to be something rather tricky for me to get my head around.

The main problem, of course, is that they're in a wrapper - the chimera. You're not going to win with assault against a chimera that keeps backing up and shooting, because once you eat single tap, and then maybe single tap again, you're eating double-tap, and then overwatch, and then doubletap again, and then overwatch again. Trying to assault out of this problem just seems like an exercise in futility.

Meanwhile, the long-range options kind of stink. Forgefiends and lascannon havocs are roughly equally good at breaking open chimeras, and by good, I mean rather crummy. Especially if the chimeras get some cover saves, it could be several turns before you break open their ride. Turns where the vets are killing stuff. Once you do kill the transports, then they still get cover saves, and still have plasma guns.

And the piece trading scheme falls flat as well. What are you going to do, sacrifice over 100 points of terminators (and an elite slot to boot) just to blow up a chimera? Just so that the guys can then easily kill the terminators?

The best I can come up with is a hell of a stretch, involving a couple of forgefiends and a couple of helldrakes, but even then that's pretty shaky as forgefiends are only AV12, and the helldrakes are doing nothing to the mechvets until after their ride has been destroyed. And the helldrake can't even shoot at the vets until after it's moved, which means, with clever placement with bailing out of the chimera, the guard player in question could make sure that the plasma guns are the last casualties (and thus some will survive). And that assumes that the helldrakes survive long enough against the guard player who is likely bringing vendettas. And even in good circumstances, you're talking about spending 700 points just to blow up a 50 point chimera, and then a 115 point squad. And then another 50 point transport, etc. etc.

... and if they're bad circumstances, you're not even doing that. With most of your army.

Is this something that's just difficult for CSM, or is there a more elegant solution that I'm missing?

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440211a&prodId=prod1710094a

Vector strike to kill the Chimera, then remove the vets with the 360* flamer. And no, it isn't a 100% guaranteed auto-win, because that doesn't exist.

Honestly hellturkeys really are good against mech-vets. Their vector strike is excellent against the chimera and the template can usually hit a huge number of the squad. You have to remember that you don't have to fire the flamer at the unit/chimera you vector'd. It is fairly common to disembark two units of vets or to have enough bolters/long range AI/etc. that the vets cannot place their plasma completely out of your reach.

Oblits are quite good as well. Mech-vet lists either have to castle against them or suffer the turn they DS. These combined with something to help out should allow you to roll up a corner of the IG armoured column. Leaving the rest of the mechvets with poor line of sight and range. If nothing else 3 lascannons from 48" out is nothing to scoff at. A 2 man unit of oblits dropping down within 6" of the side or rear of a chimera will explode it 86% of the time. If they are 6.1-12" this drops to 65% of the time. DS ~6" from the back corner of a chimera and you should get a favorable result. If you take 3 of these units you can dismount almost half of the chimera or you can dismount 1-2 of them and TL-flamer the remaining Vets into ashes. Also don't forget that due to the base size you can often "gain" ~3" into melta range on the second oblit with good placement.

If you are using infiltrating marines then the first answer is to simply pin the chimera's into their own deployment zone and better yet make them show their backs to part of your army. Infiltrate in berserkers to their side and force them to either move forward toward your other guys or let the zerkers get a charge in the near future.

Then of course there are defilers, predators, and havoks.

ansacs wrote:Their vector strike is excellent against the chimera and the template can usually hit a huge number of the squad. You have to remember that you don't have to fire the flamer at the unit/chimera you vector'd.

I don't know if I'd call throwing a couple of S7 attacks at a chimera "excellent". You can do that kind of killing in other ways for cheaper. Plus, with good positioning, an opponent can make it so that the only way you can vector strike is to also fly off the board. And you're also flying into mechvets, which is a far from riskless maneuver. I've certainly shot down helldrakes with mechvets before (melta, but still).

I can see them as being nice for killing the guys once you've dismounted them, but they've got to have the setup just right (as in, is able to use the bale flamer before being shot down by interceptor, or a vendetta, or whatever, along with having them show up on time, and in the right place). I don't really see them as the single-handed solution, though.

ansacs wrote:Oblits are quite good as well. Mech-vet lists either have to castle against them or suffer the turn they DS.

I was thinking about this as well, but it's still problematic. A squad of mechvets costs the same as a pair of obliterators. Assuming that your opponent doesn't castle, and assuming you get into side or rear armor, and assuming they don't scatter badly (so, already things are sounding a bit shaky), the two obliterators still aren't guaranteed to blow up the chimera by themselves. I mean, with twin-linked plasma, they're still looking at a usual result of only two HP stripped and only a better than half chance exploded. If they fail to kill the chimera (especially daunting if they have to face front armor), then they're just dead. Even if the blow up the transport, though, the vets get to disperse (against flamers) and then cause 2 or 3 wounds with just the plasma guns.

It feels like even in good circumstances, it's sort of a wash. I think part of the problem as well is one of force concentration with this. If you don't have a bunch of other stuff upfield next to the obliterators, then the end result is that the obliterators may or may not kill a chimera, and then they'll just be gunned down by everything the next turn. Like unsupported deepstriking units customarily are.

Still, I do like that they have both TL melta AND TL flamers, so they can, in theory, both break open transports and then flamer the guys inside. How much would the theory translate into reality, though?

ansacs wrote:If you are using infiltrating marines then the first answer is to simply pin the chimera's into their own deployment zone and better yet make them show their backs to part of your army. Infiltrate in berserkers to their side and force them to either move forward toward your other guys or let the zerkers get a charge in the near future.

Well, a unit can scoot away from berzerkers and still face front armor to everything.

The thing that's really problematic, though, is the killing power. Assume for a moment that you have two plasma mechvet squads and each sergeant has a plasma pistol. In a single volley, that's 8 berzerkers killed by plasma, and another 1.5 killed with lasguns and chimera weapons. Those aren't exactly sustainable casualties.

ansacs wrote:Then of course there are defilers, predators, and havoks.

Yeah, but... :-\

As mentioned, you're talking about a lot of points being spent just on focusing down cheap chimeras while you're NOT shooting at the entire rest of the guard army. Or worse, replace plasma mechvets with prescienced plasma henchmen and now you're talking about GK elite units getting crammed down your throat at the same time.

 Ailaros wrote:
I don't know if I'd call throwing a couple of S7 attacks at a chimera "excellent".

The point is that it's a couple STR 7 attacks that hit side armor and are in addition to the flamer.

I don't really see them as the single-handed solution, though.

That's because there isn't one. You're looking for a guaranteed 100% plasma vet remover that also costs less than the target you're killing. And that just isn't a realistic thing to expect.

Even if the blow up the transport, though, the vets get to disperse (against flamers)

So why not hit it with multiple units? A suicide oblit unit kills the Chimera, then the Helldrake flames the vets off the table. If you explode the Chimera the vets are packed into perfect flamer formation and probably wiped out entirely. And now that the plasma vets are gone your oblits aren't guaranteed to die anymore.

And let's not forget about the pinning test for losing a transport, stunned/shaken results applying to passengers, and vehicle explosions inflicting casualties.

As mentioned, you're talking about a lot of points being spent just on focusing down cheap chimeras while you're NOT shooting at the entire rest of the guard army.

But how much do they really have? You're talking about plasma vets in Chimeras, which means at least 3-4 squads (or CCS with the same), which is 500-750 points. Then you're assuming at least a couple Vendettas, so add at least another 250 to that. And since plasma vets want to be able to move up and get into rapid fire range they've probably got a basic platoon camping their objectives (and not doing much else). So you're talking about 1000-1250 points at least, potentially 1500 or more if they max out on troops (not a bad idea when you're depending on fragile vet squads). So that's what, a LRBT or two? A unit that your deep striking suicide melta really wants to see?

It sounds like what you're doing is making the common mistake of looking at all the things an army can do that scares you and assuming they're going to have all of them, regardless of point limits or needing to bring things that are effective against other army types.

I'm not sure what you're looking for - a S10 Armorbane weapon that automatically hits?

S7 on side armor, D3+1 attacks means 2-4 hits, half of which will penetrate a Chimera. You should get at least a single Penetrating hit in there. S9 on front armor is the same thing from the Havocs. The ability to Vector Strike one unit and flame another means that your Heldrake can VS one Chimera and the Havocs can shoot another. If the Heldrake is in the middle, it simply flames the one that cracks.

There's a CSM player in our meta who struggles to find a good all-around solution to AV12 spam and artillery. He's sworn off deep-strike because of a few bad scatters, but even if it hit 100% of the time, it's not the greatest solution anyway.

I've seen him go through a lot of iterations trying to find a balance. One of his best builds was cultist spam with forge fiends, and an alpha strike (spawn, bikes, or terminators). He painted the table with fearless cultists (from reserve), and put out volley after volley with the forge fiends, while the Guard deals with the bikes, or whatever is coming at them.

He has a decent spawn / biker alpha strike, and it's imperative that the enemy kill them, it's just a matter of how fast they can put them all down.

The obliterators are a huge pain to deal with. If they're sitting under a roof, they're going to sit there the whole game and collect kills. I usually end up cursing them more than any other unit, aside from the helldrake ...

Peregrine wrote:... kill the Chimera, then remove the vets with the 360* flamer. And no, it isn't a 100% guaranteed auto-win, because that doesn't exist.

The turkey is an auto-include, in my opinion. It's too good at killing GEQ and MEQ infantry. It makes me sick just to see that thing.

My conclusion is that maybe CSM have a lot of threat, but when they're only a few models at close range, they seem to drop fairly easily. Thinking back, I think I've lost more units to CSM ranged shooting than anything else, and all the while I'm dealing with stupidly tough and stupidly fast alpha strikes. When the alpha goes off successfully, they really make a mess of the Guard. When they're supported with volume of fire from oblits and forge fiends they can lock up the game by turn 3-4.

Finally, I'll say that this particular CSM player is still seeking an all-around solution to certain problems. I'm betting that forge fiends, obilts and 1-2 turkeys could really mess up a mech line, but I'm not a CSM player, so what do I know?

The problem with the helldrake here is one of practicality. I mean, turn 1, they're not on the table. Turn 2, they're probably on the table. Turn 3 or 4, they get their first vector strike, if they haven't been shot down already. Then the chimeras move to the other side of the helldrake, and now the flier can't vector strike them again as they can only turn 90 degrees, so turn 4 or 5, they're flying off the table, unable to achieve another vector strike before the game ends, or else they try and loop around, but still, they're not getting another vector strike and are just going to get shot down.

The havocs might do the same kind of damage from the front (though odds are, they'll do rather more), but they start doing damage from turn 1, and get to do damage every turn. I just don't see how, practically, you can think about vector striking helldrakes as being that serious of an anti-chimera weapon.

Bikes are something more interesting, though, I suppose, as they get to have a cover save against that plasma, and, unlike terminators or obliterators, plenty of extra wounds. That and they have the chance, however crummy, of blowing up the chimera with melta or plasma and then getting to assault the guys inside in the next turn.

Actually, yeah, you get a fair number of bikes for the price of a plasma mechvet squad. Even assuming you can't blow up the chimera with shooting, but have to assault it, that's the same two rounds of double tap and two rounds of overwatch, but with that jink save, you're probably hitting the vets with 3 or 4 bikes - easily enough to win close combat against the veterans. Moreover, it's a piece trade that actually works.

I might have to try this out.

 Ailaros wrote:
The problem with the helldrake here is one of practicality. I mean, turn 1, they're not on the table. Turn 2, they're probably on the table. Turn 3 or 4, they get their first vector strike, if they haven't been shot down already. Then the chimeras move to the other side of the helldrake, and now the flier can't vector strike them again as they can only turn 90 degrees, so turn 4 or 5, they're flying off the table, unable to achieve another vector strike before the game ends, or else they try and loop around, but still, they're not getting another vector strike and are just going to get shot down.

The havocs might do the same kind of damage from the front (though odds are, they'll do rather more), but they start doing damage from turn 1, and get to do damage every turn. I just don't see how, practically, you can think about vector striking helldrakes as being that serious of an anti-chimera weapon.

Bikes are something more interesting, though, I suppose, as they get to have a cover save against that plasma, and, unlike terminators or obliterators, plenty of extra wounds. That and they have the chance, however crummy, of blowing up the chimera with melta or plasma and then getting to assault the guys inside in the next turn.

Actually, yeah, you get a fair number of bikes for the price of a plasma mechvet squad. Even assuming you can't blow up the chimera with shooting, but have to assault it, that's the same two rounds of double tap and two rounds of overwatch, but with that jink save, you're probably hitting the vets with 3 or 4 bikes - easily enough to win close combat against the veterans. Moreover, it's a piece trade that actually works.

I might have to try this out.

Something that might appeal to you. Land raiders with a dirge caster. That way your melta-cide terminators can pop the tanks that threaten the land raiders and the land raider with their cargo then take care of the chimeras and vets.

If you're walking a sorcerer behind you can make the land raider invisible to shrug off the lascannons and deep striking melta.

Actually small bike squads are excellent and even more excellent with MoN.

Spawn are also very good because they will take a lot of shooting to kill and then S5 against rear armour is pretty good at cracking open chimeras.

Oblits would not use plasma against chimeras. They would melta so as to explode the chimera. This leaves the squad inside partially dead, probably pinned or panic'd, and like I gave you the math above they have a 80 or 60% chance of doing so with TL-melta or multimelta, respectively. DS as I said and you have above an 80% chance to DS in a position you will be able to kill the chimera with a 60% or better chance. This means you have above a 50% chance to destroy a chimera with this strategy. At worst you will have a 10% chance to mishap or a 10% chance to be forced to use lascannon shots into rear or side armour. If you are afraid to give away kill points you can always DS them ~36" away to the rear/side and use the LC (37% chance to explode a chimera). The meltas are better though.

The helldrake can clip a corner and vector strike side armour 1d3+1 (avg 3 hits) at S7 is pretty good for the price and survivability of the unit (AV12, flyer, 5++ inv, and IWND). If you have any other vehicle killers the drake will be a killer. If they just get a corner of a front chimera the other chimeras will almost assuredly not be able to get out of the way. Hellturkeys have limited mobility but so do a column of chimeras. If the turkey manages to pin you to your board edge to "limit" its ability to vector strike then it has won the chaos player the game.

Your berserkers and all melee is resolved against rear armour of a chimera. You just need to get into melee. Bikers and spawn are better at this.

If you put the zerkers at a right angle to your long range anti tank ie oblits/havoks/etc. the IG player has to expose side or rear armour to one of these. I will bet they will choose the front armour to go against the long range anti tank. Additionally if you get 2 infiltrating squads of zerkers then you can pin the chimeras into their parking lot. This will almost assure you melee.

 Ailaros wrote:
The problem with the helldrake here is one of practicality. I mean, turn 1, they're not on the table. Turn 2, they're probably on the table. Turn 3 or 4, they get their first vector strike, if they haven't been shot down already. Then the chimeras move to the other side of the helldrake, and now the flier can't vector strike them again as they can only turn 90 degrees, so turn 4 or 5, they're flying off the table, unable to achieve another vector strike before the game ends, or else they try and loop around, but still, they're not getting another vector strike and are just going to get shot down.

Your problem is that you're still in "must justify how bad flyers are so I don't have to feel bad about refusing to take them" mode and looking only at the drawbacks instead of giving it a fair evaluation. Which do you think is more likely, that you're the one person who realizes that Helldrakes are ineffective, or that you're just wrong?

(Not that I expect you'll ever use Helldrakes, since you're clearly just looking for excuses not to again.)

bogalubov wrote:

Something that might appeal to you. Land raiders with a dirge caster. That way your melta-cide terminators can pop the tanks that threaten the land raiders and the land raider with their cargo then take care of the chimeras and vets.

If you're walking a sorcerer behind you can make the land raider invisible to shrug off the lascannons and deep striking melta.

That is not a bad idea but why walk the libby? Invisibility can be cast upon a transport from within the transport. Invisibility is however not even remotely guaranteed.

BTW the new black legion supplement would allow you to detonate a blind bomb after you disembark with the wargear Last Memory of Yuranthos. This could be a pretty brutal strategy if you got in behind the chimera column with such a sorcerer.

The idea of land raiders is kind of funny. They shoot with lascannons and then ram open the chimeras, and then destroyer blades the goo inside. The problem, of course, is that the moment there are any meltaguns around, it completely falls apart (well, and it would take forever to kill stuff this way). When you start bringing back in terminators, though, you start bringing back in terminator problems.

I hadn't considered spawn either. Hmm... So, you get five spawn, and the plasma gauntlet throws down 10 wounds, leaving you with 2 spawn to handle the guys inside, and three, or maybe 4 spawn to handle the transport in the first place. The two spawn are probably good for the veterans, but 3 or 4 against the transport (actually, probably 3, because the chimera gets to shoot as well)? If they roll 3.5 for their attacks per model, that's over two HP stripped, but it rounds down, not up. And what happens if you roll a 1, 2, or 3 for attacks? Really, you've got to roll a 5 or a 6 on attacks to really feel secure.

I suppose they do do better than bikes, on the charge, though, but the spawn don't get to shoot melta or plasma guns before they charge in either.

Hmm...

For the oblits, I'd say that an 80% chance of doing 60% damage seems pretty optimistic. Yes, they have weapon options for if they scatter farther than you want (and so are better than terminators in this regard, I suppose), but it's not like you can't castle against them, and it's not like you'll never scatter in such a way where your choice target now has a cover save, or whatever. The best case scenario is, indeed, pretty neat.

For the helldrake, I'm not seeing how you have pirouetting helldrakes that arrive on time and never get shot down, completely shredding transports with a small number of autocannon hits.

 Ailaros wrote:
The idea of land raiders is kind of funny. They shoot with lascannons and then ram open the chimeras, and then destroyer blades the goo inside. The problem, of course, is that the moment there are any meltaguns around, it completely falls apart (well, and it would take forever to kill stuff this way). When you start bringing back in terminators, though, you start bringing back in terminator problems.

Well you could always load them with chosen or CSM. They don't have to be particularly survivable just able to dish some serious pain. Not that this is the way I would necessarily go.

 Ailaros wrote:
I hadn't considered spawn either. Hmm... So, you get five spawn, and the plasma gauntlet throws down 10 wounds, leaving you with 2 spawn to handle the guys inside, and three, or maybe 4 spawn to handle the transport in the first place. The two spawn are probably good for the veterans, but 3 or 4 against the transport (actually, probably 3, because the chimera gets to shoot as well)? If they roll 3.5 for their attacks per model, that's over two HP stripped, but it rounds down, not up. And what happens if you roll a 1, 2, or 3 for attacks? Really, you've got to roll a 5 or a 6 on attacks to really feel secure.

I suppose they do do better than bikes, on the charge, though, but the spawn don't get to shoot melta or plasma guns before they charge in either.

Hmm...

You are comparing a 150 pts unit to ~510+ pts of mechvets. This is a crazy comparison and anything will suffer from it. It is similar to me saying 1 chimera w/vets will get stomped by 9 oblits...

Still it is pretty impressive that if you were to add in a cover save (which is fairly likely to happen as beasts are not slowed by terrain) those 150 pts of spawn do pretty well against that 500+ pts of plasma-vets.

 Ailaros wrote:

For the oblits, I'd say that an 80% chance of doing 60% damage seems pretty optimistic. Yes, they have weapon options for if they scatter farther than you want (and so are better than terminators in this regard, I suppose), but it's not like you can't castle against them, and it's not like you'll never scatter in such a way where your choice target now has a cover save, or whatever. The best case scenario is, indeed, pretty neat.

No, there is 33% chance alone that you will DS on target. The total chance to land within 6" is just a bit under 50% (it is actually 44% chance to be within 6" and 6% chance to land on the chimera). So there is a 44% chance to have an 88% chance to explode the chimera. There is then only a 20% chance to end up beyond 12". So your total chance to destroy a chimera is 35(TL-melta)+18(MM)+7(LC)=60% to destroy the chimera, my estimate was 48% chance. So I was actually being extremely conservative. Keep in mind that this is for a single 120pts unit. This same unit will actually survive return fire from 170pts of plasma vets with better probabilities (average ~2.5 wounds within 12" and ~1.2 wounds 24"). The oblits are winning this price comparison if you look at the math at all. You need to stop looking at 1 unit of less than 200 pts vs ~500 pts of 3 units. That isn't a comparison that will get you anywhere.

Not that conservative, you're still ignoring the fact that chimeras can get cover saves. In lots of ways. Including parking lots behind ADLs. It's kind of nit-picky, but oblits do also have to deal with interceptor fire as well.

And I'm not comparing the spawn to 500 points of mechvets. The thing I think you're missing is time. The mechvets get to double-tap, and then they get to overwatch as the spawn charge the transport (that they may or may not kill), and then the vets get to double-tap the spawn again, now that they're out of their transport, and then the spawn eat overwatch again charging the vets. Actually, it's probably going to be worse than I said, as there's a decent chance that the plasma vets get to single tap the spawn as well before all the double-tapping.

It's a problem with using close combat to handle mechvets, not a problem with spawn. It's only worse with non-fast units, as there's a pretty serious risk of three double-taps and three overwatches before they get to feast on the vets inside.

Again, you're assuming the worst possible situation. What if you have a nearby vehicle with that upgrade that prevents overwatch? What if the vets get pinned when they lose their transport? Or, worse, suffer too many casualties and fall back? What if you shake/stun the Chimera without destroying it (remember that damage results stay on passengers even if they disembark)? What if they lose a plasma gun or two to 'gets hot' early in your assumed sequence of fire? What if a random lascannon shot from another unit kills the Chimera so your first charge hits the vets and wipes them off the table? Etc.

Again anything with a better than 50% chance to kill a target worth more than them and the resiliency to survive return fire is a good investment. If the vets castle then the oblits get to engage them with lascannons with 0% chance to even get shot at by the mechvets.

The spawn will take at most a single tap and double tap coming in (we'll compare 150 pts of spawn with 170 pts of plasma vets). (6.2 wounds after 5+++ cover, ie 2 spawn if you were foolish and didn't rotate an unwounded one forward) Overwatch; 1.2 wounds. They then charge the chimera and kill it (3 spawn 3.5+1 attacks each is 3 glances average) then overwatch(1.2 wounds) and a double tap(4.7 wounds) (assuming they are not pinned), we'll assume no cover. This leaves (13.3 wounds dealt to spawn or 1 spawn with 2 wounds left) at least 1 spawn left in melee with the vets. Admittedly this may have not been destroying the IG squad but it is typing them up and if you add in anything to give them a save they will stop loosing casualties and get say a jugger or bike lord into the thick of the chimeras. They also absorbed all that attention for ~3 turns.

Right, and the spawn aren't bad at the job. They'll still probably win (if just). I guess I question if they're necessarily better than bikers, though, who you can give upgrades to, and can utilize the shooting phase.

Likewise, the obliterators aren't BAD here. The problem is that you're once again looking at winning by roughly one wound, which is a pretty thin margin. When you've only got a somewhat better than 50% chance of barely winning, well, that puts them in the same category as spawn and bikes, really. A big enough chance that they'll loose, and when they don't, it kind of winds up being an even piece trade.

I mean, it's going to be better than things like havocs, I guess, but it feels like we're sort of grasping at straws for mere adequacy.


---

You know, something else to think about this is scaling. For example, let's say that we're talking about three, well-concentrated squads of veterans. In the case of obliterators, this is going to create problems as the tanks give cover saves to each other, and help deny side armor. More importantly, only two of your three squads of obliterators are showing up on turn 2. This means that turn 2, the oblits show up and blow up two chimeras, and then, say, 21 plasma blasts put down 8 wounds on the oblits, wiping them out. Then, the next turn, the third obliterators show up and maybe fry some vets with flamers (if they don't scatter), or maybe blow up the third chimera, before they're gunned down the next turn. In this case, the obliterators loose badly, and that's assuming good circumstances of cover and scatter, etc., which you're not actually that likely to get.

And this is a problem for other things as well. Hitting a squad of mechvets with spawn is possible. Hitting three units of mechvets with three units of spawn? Simultaneously? Same for bikes. Same for anything, really. I guess except for havocs/forgefiends, perhaps.

Spawn are not bad at the job but they are being used for something that is their auxiliary ability. They are better if they can charge infantry or escort something scary.

Oblits did their job by destroying the chimera. If you even the points they win by 4 wounds to no mechvets left (ie 170 vs 180 pts). Additionally, the turn after DS when they get to charge they can really start killing stuff.

Tzeentch terminators buffed with the grimoire for a 2++.

bogalubov wrote:
Tzeentch terminators buffed with the grimoire for a 2++.

And how are you buffing Tzeentch Terminators?

 Ailaros wrote:
This means that turn 2, the oblits show up and blow up two chimeras, and then, say, 21 plasma blasts put down 8 wounds on the oblits, wiping them out.

Why do you keep neglecting the chances of pinning/falling back and vehicle results?

If the Chimera takes a "shaken" result the plasma guns are snap firing and only doing 1/4 the damage, which means the obliterators probably survive.

If the Chimera takes a "stunned" result the plasma guns don't get to shoot at all.

If the Chimera is destroyed the vets have about a 25% chance of being pinned and losing 3/4 of their damage.

If the Chimera explodes (and remember, we're talking about AP 1 weapons) the vets have a 90% chance of taking enough casualties to force a morale test, with a 25% chance of falling back if they do. And even if they pass it they still have the 25% chance of being pinned.


Add it all up and there's a very high chance that those plasma vets will not be shooting at full effectiveness, even before they start losing models to 'gets hot'.

 Happyjew wrote:

bogalubov wrote:
Tzeentch terminators buffed with the grimoire for a 2++.

And how are you buffing Tzeentch Terminators?

Crap. That's what I get for typing on my phone. I meant obliterators. I was joking mostly. Mech vets are a solid opponent, but they're honestly so far down on the power scale of things I'm worried about that I hardly think of it. Psychic powers have a lot of answers like invisibilty and puppet master. Oblits on the other side of the wall will get a cover save too. Parking lots are so unwieldy that it's hard to bring all the guns to bear at once.

I'm curious as to why you think that mechvets are "way down the power scale". Given their low cost for some AV12 and up to 8 BS4 plasma shots with an 18" threat range, it hardly seems bad to me. Especially when there's an entire codex that's struggling with it.

Invisibility is nice, but you don't always get it, and it's only going to work well here with a sorc on a bike with either bikes (2+ cover save!) or spawn. And then you have to add his cost in as well. I don't see how puppet master is much of a to-do, though, as you can't cast it on guys inside of a chimera, which requires finicky setup.

And how did the oblits do their job just by destroying the chimera? That's 140 points for a 50 point transport.


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So, a few other things to think about.

Firstly, if you are thinking about obliterators, why not take raptors? You lose the 5++, but you have 7 wounds instead of 4. And they can take a combi-melta for only 10 more points, rather than another 70 for another twin-linked melta from the obliterators. I mean, for the price of 3 oblits, you can have the same number of meltagun shots (though not twin-linked), and you get 10 wounds compared to 6, and they can't suffer from instant death to boot. Plus, a single obliterator stands the chance to get bogged down in veterans if fewer than desired were killed in the wreck of their vehicle, while raptors are going to be better against vets here.

Secondly, another strange one to thing about is maulerfiends. Running the plasma gauntlet, they look at losing 2.5 HP, but they can also use cover somewhat better, thanks to the not having to worry about making it into charge range if you use cover, and you also get two chances to recover a lost HP. Plus, unlike only a couple of meltagun shots, and maybe some krak grenades or spawn slapping, a maulerfiend is going to kill that damn chimera when it arrives between its powerfists and magma cutters and the possibility of demonforge.

I suppose the problem with this is the same one we're seeing with the other options. 2.5 lost HP means you've got a decent chance of losing 3, and just losing. It's sort of right on the edge of pulling it off.

 Ailaros wrote:
Firstly, if you are thinking about obliterators, why not take raptors? You lose the 5++, but you have 7 wounds instead of 4. And they can take a combi-melta for only 10 more points, rather than another 70 for another twin-linked melta from the obliterators. I mean, for the price of 3 oblits, you can have the same number of meltagun shots (though not twin-linked), and you get 10 wounds compared to 6, and they can't suffer from instant death to boot. Plus, a single obliterator stands the chance to get bogged down in veterans if fewer than desired were killed in the wreck of their vehicle, while raptors are going to be better against vets here.

Because the raptors are ONLY viable as suicide melta, while the obliterators can do other things when you don't have plasma vets to kill. You're getting so focused on the plasma vet problem that you're forgetting about the rest of the game.

PS: this is why Helldrakes are such a good solution. They may not be perfect against plasma vets, but they're a reasonable option while also being extremely powerful against other armies.

The oblits do their job in 3 ways;
1) They trade 60 pts of oblits for 55 pts of chimera. You keep saying the oblits die but 6 plasma guns only kills 1 oblit on average. If you take 2 oblits that leaves one to flame and then charge the ~7 vets that should survive an explosion result. All of this for only 70% the cost of the target unit. If you take 3 which is about equal points then you have 2 oblits left and the vets will be wiped immediately (you can always fire flamers through the vets at a vehicle behind them and then charge it).
2) They tie up the armoured column that is mechvets. Notice that people seriously castle against these guys. Mechvets are a defensive force and if you made them castle in their deployment zone then you probably just won the game. If not you can always drop behind and tackle a mechanized force from two sides. For IG tanks this means half your army suddenly gets to shoot at AV10 instead of AV12 or 14.
3) They are good or great against pretty much anything. They are terminators in CC, HF/TL-Flamers vs hordes, plasma against MEQ/TEQ, and melta against tanks, and even lascannons when they get stranded.

I like the raptor model but you are looking at a less than 28% chance to kill the chimera in the first place (actually probably a bit lower as the footprint for the squad is a bit larger with less control in model placement). All of your complaints about unreliability in killing the chimera plus even more vulnerability to return fire (~4 dead) not to mention that the meltaguns will now be the first casualties.

Termicide units would be really good as well. Take combi-meltas and you can reliably put down any tank. The problem being they become useless if they get stranded away from the fight.

I like mauler fiends and have seen them used to some decent effect a few times. They are however something you build the list around. If you take mauler fiends you are locked into a MTO type list and you need to take a significant number of AV12 or T6 units so the opponent lacks anti-tank weapons.

1.) it's 80% the cost for two oblits. Three oblits is way more expensive. And it's one obliterator dead, but the other one more likely than not looses a wound.

And if we scale up from a one on one to a three on three, the oblits lose badly.

2.) If a defensive unit is being defensive, then they're doing their job. Rather than losing your opponent the game, you're playing right into their hands.

3.) Sure, they've got a lot of versatility. That versatility doesn't make them good against mechvets, though.

For raptors, two twin-linked meltaguns have a 60% chance to wreck a chimera, but two non-twin-linked meltaguns have a 28% chance? Even counting that the oblits can swap for multimeltas at longer range, this is more than a little fishy. And if raptors are unreliable in this role, then so are obliterators for the exact same reasons.

For termicide, the problem is the one-two punch nature of mechvets. The terminators drop, and kill the chimera (though apparently they have a low chance of achieving this, given how allegedly poorly two meltaguns achieve this), and then the plasma dudes inside murder the terminators on the next turn.

 Ailaros wrote:
For termicide, the problem is the one-two punch nature of mechvets. The terminators drop, and kill the chimera (though apparently they have a low chance of achieving this, given how allegedly poorly two meltaguns achieve this), and then the plasma dudes inside murder the terminators on the next turn.

Sigh. I believe someone already answered this:

A wise old bird wrote:Why do you keep neglecting the chances of pinning/falling back and vehicle results?

If the Chimera takes a "shaken" result the plasma guns are snap firing and only doing 1/4 the damage, which means the obliterators probably survive.

If the Chimera takes a "stunned" result the plasma guns don't get to shoot at all.

If the Chimera is destroyed the vets have about a 25% chance of being pinned and losing 3/4 of their damage.

If the Chimera explodes (and remember, we're talking about AP 1 weapons) the vets have a 90% chance of taking enough casualties to force a morale test, with a 25% chance of falling back if they do. And even if they pass it they still have the 25% chance of being pinned.


Add it all up and there's a very high chance that those plasma vets will not be shooting at full effectiveness, even before they start losing models to 'gets hot'.

2.) It is if the IG player sits back in a corner when you can just DS down ~48" away and still average 1 pen a turn. You have to move out to claim objectives and they have to get out if they want to claim them. For a zerker force like yours them castling up probably means you get to charge 3-4 chimeras with at least one squad of zerkers. That or stay on objectives and autowin.

3.) Except where they really are good. You just don't want to accept the math or facts.

For raptors, two twin-linked meltaguns have a 60% chance to wreck a chimera, but two non-twin-linked meltaguns have a 28% chance? Even counting that the oblits can swap for multimeltas at longer range, this is more than a little fishy. And if raptors are unreliable in this role, then so are obliterators for the exact same reasons.

This is getting tiring. TL-meltaguns has an 86% chance of killing a chimera if they DS where they need to be. Multimeltas are 65% which is equal to meltaguns if they are each within melta range...except you just spent this entire thread saying that DS would not let you get melta shots. So with DS probabilities factored in the oblits kill the chimera ~60% of the time and the raptors do so ~30% of the time. For the pleasure of HALVING your chances to do what you wanted to do you take about the same % casualties(4/7 wounds versus 2.7/4 wounds), loose your meltaguns as first casualties, and be nearly useless afterwords as you don't have meltaguns so you will probably have to assault the chimera you were probably not in melta range to destroy before. The big difference between these units is you can DS in the safe >6" distance range and still get a 60% chance to destroy the tank versus the raptors who DS >6" and go down to ~44% chance to destroy the tank. Additionally you have to DS closer which increase the probability of a mishap as 6" away DS has ~75% chance to leave you more than 6" away and a real if not huge chance (a bit less than 8%) to leave you >12" away and twiddling your thumbs.

For termicide, the problem is the one-two punch nature of mechvets. The terminators drop, and kill the chimera (though apparently they have a low chance of achieving this, given how allegedly poorly two meltaguns achieve this), and then the plasma dudes inside murder the terminators on the next turn.

The only nice thing about termicide is that for 184 pts you get 5 termies with 5 combi meltas. If the initial attack does work out you are left with termies right next to the opponent all of whom have power weapons. The initial chimera kill is less impressive than the reaction it will provoke. Which is every gun in the opponent's army turned to kill them leaving you free to act with something else. Mark of Tzeentch raises them to 209 pts but also makes them 4++ inv save termies. That means it suddenly takes 18 plasma shots to kill them. That can be a real pain and is probably most of your opponents plasma vets (ie if you dropped 2-3 of them one will probably make it into combat with a multicharge). I agree though I really prefer oblits or spawn, in my case usually escorting something mean that took an HQ slot.

There are also some really impressive things you can drop with these oblits and termie units which their saves help to protect. The HQ section of the dex is probably its best section.

There is also the forgefiend with 2x hades autocannon (8 S8 shots is 2 glances a turn) not bad considering it is 175 pts. It is basically an even trade over the course of the game.

Triple Las Predators are a standard answer to this problem.

Suicide biker units with 2x melta could also be good. You give up reliability on getting the job done for reliability of possibly attempting it sooner. Additionally they make a good escort for a chaos lord.

Not sure if you will ever take allies but CD has some interesting options to add with flesh hounds, soul grinders, and their MC. Or you could always take some IG allies. I know for a fact you know what works there. I even have the models you should use

In my experience all those plasma shots would quickly reduce the number of plasma guns due to Get's Hot. Snapfiring in particular as the chance of hitting yourself is equal to hitting your target. Mine sure seems to melt away way too fast...

Are you factoring this in? If not you might be overestimating the killing power of the plasmavets.