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Hey,
my next match up is against Kharn with CSM Warband at 1250 points. Kharn seems a beast and I'd like some feedback on how to counter the meanie.

Should I just ignore the whole model in maelstorm mission or try to kit out my BA to have a go against it.

My first idea how to counter it is drop pod a dread and try to destroy the possible transport or escort unit on T1. On later turns drop pod a sternguard with meltagun to finish Kharn. I wonder if my enemy would take a go at charging my dreadnought. Would he take chances in melee against 5 attack instakilling dreadnought or rather try to sustain the podding sternguard's 5 melta shots. Podding a tac squad for better chance of popping the transport might be too risky for me to be stuck in a combat during the turn stern arrives.

For another approach I could throw a mini-star at Kharn, but I find BA struggling against Kharn and his escort. Possible mini-star could be made of Dante, Astorath, san priest, Dc chaplain, san guard, death company or even with captain with terminator/artificer armour. Dante, DC chap and big blob of DC seems way too big point cost for 1250p maelstorm mission.

So skip or engage?

Kharn dies to anything as he's just a t4 3+/5++ footslogging dude without eternal warrior. When i play against him with my orks, he usually dies to some random rokkit or pk. He's really good in melee and will likely kill anything short of 3++ 3-wound characters before they have a chance to strike back.

BA isn't shooty and my tactics been with BA more of an in to the face, but no I'm struggling whether or not to stay back before Kharn dies or just ignore it. Changing BA tactic to more shooty takes the edge from my army wide special rules. Dunno if that's an issue or not.

You have to still shoot some because there's too many things in the game BA can't beat up. Or try to shoot in our case. I still feel like we should forfeit vs TWC/Wulfen.

To the thread's question, how should I counter Kharn and his escort (rhino/footslogging). Is my orginal idea of tactics anyway valid?

The following list I'm planning on fielding.. feel free to tweak it towards greatness.

Literally anything S8 and above will suffice.

Immobilize the raider he usually comes in with grav, then wound spam his body guard (wither with fragiosos or even boltguns fire) and hit Kharn with a few missles lascannons. Granted the missles that kills him will likely be from a Landspeeder or something and you'll almost certainly have to sacrifice all unit to get this to work but it's better than trying to out-Khorne Khorne with the crappies the assault army out there...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or you could iron arm/quicken Mephy and stick him with a unit of DC for an epic character and bodyguard battle. 50 dollars US says Mephy still gets whooped though.

You don't punch Kharn. You shoot Kharn. Now that BA get grav cannons, this guy should not be a problem. Also, tank hunting preds can mess up a LR pretty bad too. All you need is a stun, immobilize or explode from a lascannon.

I would not engage Kharn in close combat with a Furioso dreadnought. Kharn will be striking first, hitting it on a 2+, and his axe has Armorbane. It's basically a Melta axe. He will tear it apart before it can swing.

However, Dante can defeat him. Dante is even quicker than Kharn and has much better defenses.

Or mow him down with a Baal pred. Which he can never catch.

Hmm,
at 1250points if you go Dante, you have to sacrifice almost all the shootiness.. but somehow Dante vs. Kharn sounds more fun..

List would look something like this me thinks.. Somehow I prefer fragiosos over devastators.. decent for killing enemy deva/havocs unit.



Which list would be your choosing against a CSM warband? I think that only way to get sanguinary priest attached to either SG is to DS it solely and join, seems too risky.

slobulous wrote:
I would not engage Kharn in close combat with a Furioso dreadnought. Kharn will be striking first, hitting it on a 2+, and his axe has Armorbane. It's basically a Melta axe. He will tear it apart before it can swing.

However, Dante can defeat him. Dante is even quicker than Kharn and has much better defenses.

Even Azrael can beat Kharn. It isn't that impressive outside the fact Kharn does pretty good damage for 165 points.

I discussed about the upcoming game with my enemy while discussing what to paint and such This is what my espionage learned..

I will be up against something like this.. that has atleast 114 points worth of marks/icons/upgrades..



So that "deathstar" looks more terrifying than it was when I started this threat. You guys still think that just normal S8 fire is sufficient to counter the blob or go the ignore route. I've got few models more to paint before the clash so was adjusting in a more assaulty approach. We are still playing the maelstorm so unit count matters. Here's my reforged BSF list:



Any of the list above a decent ground base for kicking the chaos butt once more? I still have a clean record against chaos. Only once I've lost to the upcoming enemy and it was our first game over 1,5 years ago at 500points or something. I killed everything he had and then his "assault on black reach" ork warlord killed the rest Weirdest game ever, even with dice rolling..

How bout getting a vindicator or two and deleting unit a turn? That list makes no sense to me. Why would you ever want to stick kharn into a non relentless unit with a heavy weapon, that is also footslogging to boot.

Don't Blood angels get flamestorm cannons? You're leaning heavily towards close range from what I understand, so maybe a few of those. Kharn doesn't even have a 2+ anymore, so even just piling on the ap3 is enough to kill him. No matter the source.

They all have 3+ saves, sans-serif the Terminators. Fragiosos, Baal preds, heavy bolters... Pretty much anything that easily dumps wounds on the "deathstar ". If you want easy mode, point grav devestators on their direction and click delete.

I'm all about the easy mode although my devs are two grav two heavy bolter in a rhino.

I agree with the other posters here.. just hit him with str 8 or higher weapons. The last time I fought Kharn with my guard, I tied him up in a blob of infantry and then miraculously managed to deviate a manticore missile (str 10 ap4 large blast ordnance) right ontop of the meelee. Kharn failed his save and died.. along with most of my blob but it was sure epic! DANGER CLOSE

Looking at his list, i really dont think you'll have any problems anyways.

I revealed my list to my enemy today which is also displayed in this army list thread. Only sources for S8 shots are sternguard and devastators, but maybe I can still sacrifice one of the dreads fe. fragioso for clearing out the 10man escort for later S8 shooting. In a single clash maybe it's better not to minmax too much.. My personality just don't like losing.. ever..

Martels suggestion about double GC & double HB in a rhino is a bit like 2x lascannon 2x plasma cannon in a rhino. Fun while it lasts. Rhino's with dakka inside tends to get blown away too easily. Grav still looks so tempting as a BA player, I don't even have an grav bikes.

They're shooting at a rhino. You win that exchange.

What you need to be concerned about is that sorcerer. If he runs biomancy and gets endurance your looking at a Kharne with eternal warrior and fnp. Which will be much harder to kill.

Plus it will give his unit relentless which means that missle launcher will fire on the move. On the bright side he can't fit 11 models into a rhino so you can rule that 10 man squad out of his possible attachments, but then he's chaos so everything he told you might be misinformation.

Could find yourself fighting berserkers and preds

Whirlwind squadrons are pretty good at barrage sniping out libbies and sorcerers now. S5 shred wound spam for the win.

throw a quickened libby dread (possibly with unleash rage as well if you roll it and if you can the rampage wt) at him. if the champion takes the challenge instead you can still chew through most of the squad. if you get lucky you can go up to 12 attacks on the charge

 chrispy1991 wrote:
I agree with the other posters here.. just hit him with str 8 or higher weapons. The last time I fought Kharn with my guard, I tied him up in a blob of infantry and then miraculously managed to deviate a manticore missile (str 10 ap4 large blast ordnance) right ontop of the meelee. Kharn failed his save and died.. along with most of my blob but it was sure epic! DANGER CLOSE

He is in a unit, so you have to kill the unit first or he can LOS them back and you are wasting shots.

Once he is alone, can be taken out by 1 Str8+ or 3 str7 or less. 3 low strength wounds is not hard to get against a 3+ save dude.

If you have str8, great, but I would focus on just shooting whatever you have at him.

I remember invisible Kharn being fairly useful, but fishing for invisibility as CSM is a fairly painful and unreliable process.

From experience by playing as Kharn, he does nice damage and can surprise a foe, but against any serious opposition he dies incredibly quickly as he is no tankier than 3 CSM.

Martel732 wrote:
Whirlwind squadrons are pretty good at barrage sniping out libbies and sorcerers now. S5 shred wound spam for the win.

Unsell they get invisibility. In which case blasts are useless against that unit.

You can't just shoot the ground with a missile. I mean, you can shoot the ground with a missile ofcourse. For example when you don't see the target but have a barrage weapon that's designed to shoot at the ground. But you still can't shoot at the ground with an invisible unit standing there cause when it's invisible you can't see it way harder than when you just can't see it without invisibility. It's kinda makes you completely unsee the unit. But only with blast and template weapons. If your marine would decide to shoot a bolter at it, he knows they're there and shoots in their general direction but when he's just seen them and they go invis and he decides to shoot a blast weapon at them, poof, he forgets anything about that unit. ©What invisibility description in brb should look like.

 Ashiraya wrote:
I remember invisible Kharn being fairly useful, but fishing for invisibility as CSM is a fairly painful and unreliable process.

From experience by playing as Kharn, he does nice damage and can surprise a foe, but against any serious opposition he dies incredibly quickly as he is no tankier than 3 CSM.

You don't need to fish for Invis, you just take Be'lakor who gets it automatically

Kharn is great because he is cheap, he can punch out an imperial knight with a bit of luck, the only guy better at knocking over dreadnoughts/IK is bel'kor (who also handily punches out wraith knights too) but he is double the points.

The last thing you want to do is walk a dreadnought into him.

Also watch out for your uber combat wombat IC being challenged by a cultist champion while Kharn murders his entire honour guard.

Best way to deploy Kharn is in a blob of cultists, spawn or flesh hounds (via kdk allies)

Today got my enemy full list:

It looks really deadly against my "fun list" that I've also published.. Dunno if I even can give him decent game with better tactics?

Here's the Black crusade detachment:




What do you think, need for panicing? All the rerolling wich the army wide hatred against SM seems fierce, also the double chaos boons every round.. Don't forget the army wide obsec.

I still wouldn't be scared at all if i were you. Just play to your army's strengths and you'll pull off a win, barring some amazing tactics from your opponent. Alot of his list is nothing more than a marine, and will die. Just don't shove your whole list in kharn's face for him to chop up. Deal with him when it's necessary, and if it isnt necessary just weaken his squad as much as is practical at the time. Once those rhinos pop, he's going to be slow and predictable for most of the game.