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I have yet to use my Obliterators, just finishing up with painting. I was thinking of deepstriking them in, but I guess it all depends on the terrain possibly.
How does everyone else use them? Shuffle them up the board? Deepstrike?

I've been getting decent results with attaching a Sorcerer with Terminator Armour and spell familiar , then going for Malefic to try and get cursed earth and just blasting away with them.

I use them as Deepstrike generally, and play a mix of Chaos Daemons and Obliterators to get those combos going.

Yea, I do have a Sorcerer in Terminator armor with spell familiar ready for this situation as well.

Yeah the general train of thought is to either keep them at 36" range and rotate between the assault cannon, plasma cannon, and lascannons, or deep strike them in and melta/flamer stuff up. If you decide to deep strike them you might want to consider a sorcerer to protect them with something, depending on how aggressive the deep strike is going to be.

I've had great success with starting them on the board and marching them up. Lascannons can get you 1st blood pretty easily and 2-3 plasma cannons are going to hurt something.

It is entirely dependent on how many threats you put into your opponent's deployment zone though you should always keep your options open depending on the game. If you have relatively few or non threatening units that will be close to the opponent then the oblits will die fast if you DS them in near the opponent. Therefore whatever you shoot better be worth the obliterators or more. I often use this with a black legion sorcerer in Terminator armour so he can use his big Nova power. I also play aggressive threatening lists though so it is usually 75% of my list in the opponent's face turn 2.

You can also DS them in a side or rear arc of a vehicle but at a significant distance. This is safe and effective but looses you 1+ turns of time they could have shot.

Deploying on the board can be great either if you can infiltrate the obliterators and some other nasties or the opponent lacks the long range weapons to easily kill the oblits.

I used to march them up the board for first turn lascannon fire, but now I generally deepstrike them in. If you are slogging them, then half of their weapon choices are useless because they are out of range.

I've never used them, but play against them regularly. It seems like they Do Work every single game.

They seem to do well either deep striking, or just camping in ruins for a cover save. Against some armies, you can just march them straight up the board. The guy I play against always uses Mark of Nurgle, which prevents me from instakilling them with lascannons. Don't expect that 5++ to save them.

When shooting, try to choose weapons with the current and the next turn in mind. Remember that you have TWO choices each from melta and flamers. Also remember that they have power fists, and so are great in close combat.

Obliterators are a Swiss Army Knife for me due to their versatility. As such I always keep them in reserve, so I can deep strike them in, wherever they are needed. If I walk them in in the first turn it happens too often that they are not where they are needed.

Obliterators are VERY inefficient when shooting long range. They just do not have nearly enough dakka to justify their points cost until you get within 24" and preferably 12". I have played Obliterators many many many times and trust me, do not make the mistake of having them shoot from long range while slowly plodding up.

Deepstrike them (and break them up into as many squads as you have points for) every time. Even a lone Obliterator can do a number on enemy lines when deepstruck and can cause major havoc.

MON is necesary.

Divination on sorcerers with spell familiars can really help.

They get significantly better as you take more, so consider 2 force, orgs.

 herpguy wrote:
Obliterators are VERY inefficient when shooting long range. They just do not have nearly enough dakka to justify their points cost until you get within 24" and preferably 12". I have played Obliterators many many many times and trust me, do not make the mistake of having them shoot from long range while slowly plodding up.

Deepstrike them (and break them up into as many squads as you have points for) every time. Even a lone Obliterator can do a number on enemy lines when deepstruck and can cause major havoc.

I do agree that in a blind situation where you do not know what you are fighting DSing (or infiltrating if you can) is probably the best bet. The oblits do vastly more damage with their melta, flamer, and plasmagun weapons than with lascannons and plasmacannons. The qualifier to that being against a melee based or 18" or less based list where you can count on the opponent always closing with you and lacking sufficient firepower to easily deal with the oblits, in that case 1-3 extra turns of lascannon/plasmacannon extra fire is worth a small positional deficit. There are major advantages to both methods but it mostly revolves around what your opponent will do. IMO blanket statements about what you "should" do with oblits detracts from their most powerful advantage, ie they are a tool box unit that can accomplish a variety of different tasks and should be applied in specific ways to specific challenges not in the same way to any situation.


MoN is definitely the best mark without any synergistic effects.

MoT can also be pretty good if you have something to throw cursed earth or grimoire on them. Remember they are daemons so they gain benefits from daemon buffs.

BTW cursed earth is just a great power to have when using oblits. No scatter DS and +1 to invulnerable are not something to joke about.

Yea I am definitely running them with MoN and VotLW. I plan one running 2 squads of 2, since I have 4. But I may try a squad of 3 first to see how they go. Also attaching my unmarked Sorcerer.

I like DSing squads of 2. It can also be fun to run a squad of 3 with a divination sorceror, in which case you probably don't want to DS because of how expensive the unit is, and the fact that you cant cast spells after DSing ( or can you? I haven't read the 7th book yet and have yet to get a clear answer on this point )

GorillaWarfare wrote:
I like DSing squads of 2. It can also be fun to run a squad of 3 with a divination sorceror, in which case you probably don't want to DS because of how expensive the unit is, and the fact that you cant cast spells after DSing ( or can you? I haven't read the 7th book yet and have yet to get a clear answer on this point )

I would say yes (without looking at my book) because conjuration specifically says that newly summoned units deep strike in, but cannot conjure more units themselves the turn they deep strike in

this would make me think any other kind of psychic power is good to go!

Yeah Cursed Earth is particularly good for them and they work well as a solid ally for Chaos Daemons, plus you can get Daemons in all slots in Chaos Now with Crimson Slaughter.

It comes out to like 500 to 600 points for a Allied Detachment of Chaos Space Marines who are Crimson Slaughter and all models in the army can be Daemons.

Chaos Sorcerer w/ Spell Familiar , Term Armour, Prophet
Possessed Troops
Heldrake
Obliterators

Or go Obliterator Heavy and go with Chaos Daemons as Allies, remember musicians work on these guys..