Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

In the 8th edition Chaos tactics thread, someone asked me how a Chaos Gunline works.

Here is the basic list, with units strictly from the Codex. I included some notes at the end that deal with Forgeworld units.

++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Chaos - Chaos Space Marines) ++

+ HQ +

Warlord: Daemon Prince with Wings: 5. Lord of Terror, Malefic talon, MoS, Death Hex

Abaddon the Despoiler

+ Troops +

Chaos Cultists: 16x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun, No Chaos Mark
. Cultist Champion: Autogun

Chaos Cultists: 15x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun, No Chaos Mark
. Cultist Champion: Autogun

Chaos Space Marines: No Chaos Mark
. Aspiring Champion: Bolt pistol, Combi-bolter
. 7x Marine w/ Boltgun
. 2x Marine w/ heavy weapon: Lascannon

Chaos Space Marines: No Chaos Mark
. Aspiring Champion: Bolt pistol, Boltgun
. 7x Marine w/ Boltgun
. 2x Marine w/ heavy weapon: Lascannon

Chaos Space Marines: No Chaos Mark
. Aspiring Champion: Bolt pistol, Boltgun
. 7x Marine w/ Boltgun
. 2x Marine w/ heavy weapon: Lascannon

+ Elites +

Helbrute: No Chaos Mark, Power scourge, Twin lascannon

Helbrute: No Chaos Mark, Power scourge, Twin lascannon

+ Heavy Support +

Chaos Predator: Combi-bolter, No Chaos Mark, Twin lascannon
. Two lascannons: 2x Lascannon

Chaos Predator: Combi-bolter, No Chaos Mark, Twin lascannon
. Two lascannons: 2x Lascannon

Chaos Predator: Combi-bolter, No Chaos Mark, Twin lascannon
. Two lascannons: 2x Lascannon

The way this army works is counter-intuitive for Chaos. It has 22 lascannons that reroll all hits. You don't move turn one or turn two, you just shoot.

The shooting priority is tanks / long range units, then elite squads, then move forward to deal with the chaff. If something deep strikes, you make it the priority. You have the firepower to wipe out an alpha strike, and you have Abaddon and a Daemon Prince to kill anything that proves too tough.

Deployment matters. Deploy the Predators on your table edge, the Helbrutes in front of them, Abaddon in the middle, then conga line CSM / Cultist squads so they can take advantage of the reroll and morale bubbles. The army should look like a squid when it's placed on the table.

Deploy the Cultists in a line around the rest of your army, about 3 inches away from your CSMs. This will make it very hard for anyone to hit the lascannons and give you room for Cultists shennanigans. You want to spread them out so you can fall back easily, exposing chargers to bolter fire. It's also safe to spread them out so you can pull models from the front, removing the unit from combat. I've never consolidated with Cultists in this list, resist the urge.

A few other notes:

- I usually lose a Helbrute and Predator first turn. Most armies can do that, it's not a big deal. 14 lascannons is still a lot to deal with.

- I don't use many Stratagems with this list, except Tide of Traitors and rerolls to hit. Occasionally, I will use Veterans of the Long War, but that's rare.

- If you are playing a variant and need to make points, consider swapping the Daemon Prince with an Exalted Champion, but not a Warpsmith. There will be a temptation to want to repair vehicles, but the rerolls to wound in combat are important.

- If you are doing it right, you don't check for morale. Even when you use Tide of Traitors, you should be moving your Cultists onto objectives that are lightly defended.

- Be careful about moving forward, there's a tendency to keep Abaddon at the back because tanks move faster than him. I've had a couple games ruined because someone deep struck behind me and killed him. Move forward as a blob and keep characters in the middle.

- If you need to disrupt your opponent early, I sometimes swap out a Helbrute for a Helldrake. It can be effective, but I don't think it's optimal.

- This list performs better with certain Forgeworld units, I've been asked to tone it down for friendly games. If you want to mess someone up, replace the Predators with Hellforged Scorpiuses. If you are worried about alpha strikes, replace the Helbrutes with Decimators with Soulburner Petards. Reduce or eliminate Cultist units to make up the points difference. You can also get rid of the Daemon Prince if need be, the Decimators make up for the loss in combat efficiency by a wide margin.

- This list has a hard time with Orks. I've found it best to shoot up Lootas first, boys second, and trukks third. This may sound counter-intuitive, but you have the tools to deal with the contents of trukks when they get there. You don't want to be in a position where you are dealing with 100+ boys because you focused on transports. You have 60+ bolter shots and your screens can fall back, use that to your advantage.

- This list has a hard time with Genestealer Cults. I've only played against them a few times but got wrecked due to Genestealer shennanigans. The only advice I have is to spread out with your Cultists, make it hard for them to charge.

- Against Eldar, it's best to kill Dark Reapers and Wave Serpents first, then move onto things like Wraithknights. It's the range and volume of shooting that matters.

- Against Blood Angels, you are going to see a Death Company squad, some Sanguinary Guard, or both. It is absolutely fine to turn all your lascannons on them to avoid losing your screens, even if they have a flyer. You don't want them reaching your tanks.

- Against Tyrannids, you may want to move your screens out a few more inches, and possibly use one of your CSM squads for additional screening. You don't want them getting close to your tanks, which will almost always survive longer than them. Also, the Daemon Prince has wings for a reason, keep him back and charge the thing you want dead.

- Against Death Guard, keep an eye out for Plague Marines with missile launchers. For whatever reason, I always forget these guys can damage my tanks, it's easy to forget.

- You can almost ignore indirect fire weapons with this list. Earthshaker Batteries give me some trouble, but you really only need your tanks to kill off things in the first couple rounds. Don't freak it you lose them all turn 4.

Most other scenarios should be obvious.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
... and I forgot to mention placement.

There's a tendency to want to deploy this list in the middle of your own table edge. That can work, but consider putting it to the left or the right of the middle.

You want to confirm line of site to as many objectives as possible. That's where your opponent will be headed, so you want to have clear lanes of fire for lascannons.

There's a lot of talk about using more LOS blocking terrain right now, and the thing I would encourage people to remember is that works both ways. Opponents always reveal themselves, and I've never played a game where there was a lack of targets. Maybe they are hiding their most gruesome unit behind a building, but that means you are going to have your pick of everything else for a turn or two. From that perspective, LOS is a benefit.

I'm playing Black Legion myself, I like this list. Lots of good ideas to try out. But why don't you play your units with Mark of Slaanesh? So, if really needed you can shoot twice. Even if you don't plan to use this strategem a lot, you lose nothing.

Would you mind making a picture of your deployment? It's always nice to have some visualisation

I like the list.

Have you thought about running a battalion with 3 units of cultists and leaving the marines at home.

IF you want Lascannon marines just take havocs or the preds in a spearhead with a cheap character.

The marine units are closing in on 200pts each.

Time of madness

Thank you for the comments. You have to be really careful with CPs with the gunline.

I don't like Endless Cacophony with this list, it burns command points that are better spent on rerolls and Tide of Traitors. Also, it can only be used on Infantry - meaning only 2 more lascannon shots.

Pre-FAQ, I would get 8 command points, 1 for the first 4 rounds of shooting and 4 for Tide of Traitors x 2. Now you get to use ToT once, but you get 10 CPs. So there's room to play with Stratagems, but I'm not sure Endless Cacophony is the right call. Maybe Killshot, but that only works when I don't go first (since I usually lose a Predator right away.)

Another Pre-FAQ note, I would use Tide of Traitors to walk 2 units of Cultists onto objectives turn 4. It made it very hard to beat this list, my army could cover more than half the board in one turn of movement.

The change means you need to start moving turn 3 and at least control the ones on your side of the board. It also means you may want to bring Warp Time on the DP or swap him with a Sorcerer to make sure you get where you need to go.

But yeah, I can set up the army and take some pictures. Deployment takes some getting used to, you don't want to space anything out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Time of madness wrote:
I like the list.

Have you thought about running a battalion with 3 units of cultists and leaving the marines at home.

IF you want Lascannon marines just take havocs or the preds in a spearhead with a cheap character.

The marine units are closing in on 200pts each.

Time of madness

I tinkered with this list a lot, played it in over 40 games. Before that, I tried Cultists, Cult Troops, all sorts of other combinations. Chaos Space Marines in a Battalion are the right choice for a few reasons.

One, they can take lascannons, Cultists can't.

Two, adding another detachment means you are trading one of your beatsticks for 2 cheap HQs. You need as many beatsticks as possible to deal with hordes and heavy infantry. The one extra CP is not worth it.

Three, the Cultists are there to stop charges on your lascannons. When they get charged, they fall back or you remove models to get them out of combat. This exposes the charging unit to 60+ bolter shots, you can charge the charger with your beatsticks, and can also put lascannon shots into them if need be. When the Cultist squads are too big, they can't get out of the way and your bolters / beatsticks can't do their job.

It got easier to run this list when I figured out I'm only running 3 kinds of units : beatsticks, lascannons, and chaff. They each have a job to do. As long as they stick with it, I have a good chance to win.

The other question people ask me when they see the small Cultist squads is: aren't there too many lascannons? Do you really need that many?

The answer is yes. I usually lose a Helbrute and a Predator first turn and I usually go second. That leaves 16 lascannons to quickly take out all the armor in my opponent's list, I've already lost first blood, and my entire army is going to sit still for 2 turns. I'm playing at a disadvantage.

So, let's say I'm playing against an IG army with 3 Baneblades - common in my local meta. I need to be able to kill off 2 Baneblades my first turn if I stand a chance at winning. Even with rerolls, it's only 10 lascannons shots that are going to hit and maybe 8 are going to wound. I have to count on losing at least 2 more lascannons the next turn before I kill that last Baneblade and whatever dropped out of the Valykrie my opponent also brought.

But once that armor is cleared, I have an overwhelming advantage. I can start using the lascannons on Infantry to kill 10 at a time and force morale checks that take out almost that many more - and they can't shoot back because I wiped out their ranged weapons. I can use Tide of Traitors to move onto an objective they are defending with light infantry and just wipe it from the board. If anything wants to charge me, I don't care because I have screens that fall back to leave units in an optimal spot for Abaddon, the DP, and a Helbrute with Lasher Tendrils. And my units advance and shoot, meaning they get up the board a lot quicker than regular footsloggers. And everything rerolls all failed misses, and everything rerolls all failed wounds in combat.

Would alpha legion and the -1 to hit be a better option for an army that is planning on sitting back?

Does abaddon add that much over a chaos lord to keep black legion over alpha? He’s giving units within 12” immunity to morale and gives you 2 extra CP.

Time of madness wrote:
Would alpha legion and the -1 to hit be a better option for an army that is planning on sitting back?

Does abaddon add that much over a chaos lord to keep black legion over alpha? He’s giving units within 12” immunity to morale and gives you 2 extra CP.

Well, I'm sure there's a way to run an Alpha Legion gunline and would love to hear about it. But I suspect it would work very differently from this list and doubt a change in legion traits would benefit the player.

Massed lascannons work because Abaddon lets you reroll all misses. If you every 6th shot suddenly becomes a miss, that means your opponent's tanks are staying on the board longer. Meaning they can kill off more of your Predators and Helbrutes, which you need to maintain an offensive advantage later on.

That's just my $0.02. Let me know if you try playing this as Alpha Legion and how that works out.

reroll all misses in a gunline like this is huge, so yes for me Abbadon is a must

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that Abbadon had to be the warlord in order to grant the +2 CP? Otherwise looks pretty scary.

You get hard countered by the mighty 3x10 TAU shield drone
Anyway interesting concept

 snykyninja wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that Abbadon had to be the warlord in order to grant the +2 CP? Otherwise looks pretty scary.

yes you right 100%


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 techsoldaten wrote:

Time of madness wrote:
Would alpha legion and the -1 to hit be a better option for an army that is planning on sitting back?

Does abaddon add that much over a chaos lord to keep black legion over alpha? He’s giving units within 12” immunity to morale and gives you 2 extra CP.

Well, I'm sure there's a way to run an Alpha Legion gunline and would love to hear about it. But I suspect it would work very differently from this list and doubt a change in legion traits would benefit the player.

Massed lascannons work because Abaddon lets you reroll all misses. If you every 6th shot suddenly becomes a miss, that means your opponent's tanks are staying on the board longer. Meaning they can kill off more of your Predators and Helbrutes, which you need to maintain an offensive advantage later on.

That's just my $0.02. Let me know if you try playing this as Alpha Legion and how that works out.

the alpha legion gunline i tried was based on 7+7 slaanesh havocs with 4 lascannon+full laser predator+Lord (ok not 22 lasers but just 12) for re roll 1s', supported by 9 BL oblys+abbadon
alpha legion havocs in cover are hard to dislodge, -1 to hit +1 to armor save, supported by psionic when/if needed (preiscence, delightful agonies and so on), i tried also 7 havocs marked nurgle for a juicy -2 to hit.

Great list! I would like to ask, how do you handle shooty armies with an assault element that packs a big punch. One example would be an imperial guard shooty army, but with a powerful blood angels assault element. Their strategems can actually give them a possible first turn charge.

I think my list could take yours, but I'd be interested to hear what you'd prioritize.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/756153.page

The issue is that my IG/Marine list has only 3 vehicles (not that the scout sentinel counts for much), and 2 of them outrange lascannons by a lot, and the mortar teams can stay out of sight.

If everyone who isn't dedicated to long range shooting moves in and shoots at your chaff while anti-tank focuses on hellbrutes, I think my list just has too many bodies for your two beatsticks to handle. I'd recommend taking your marine squads and swapping at least one lascannon for a missile launcher.

And I agree with the person who said that Tau would be a tough matchup.

Celerior wrote:
I think my list could take yours, but I'd be interested to hear what you'd prioritize.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/756153.page

The issue is that my IG/Marine list has only 3 vehicles (not that the scout sentinel counts for much), and 2 of them outrange lascannons by a lot, and the mortar teams can stay out of sight.

If everyone who isn't dedicated to long range shooting moves in and shoots at your chaff while anti-tank focuses on hellbrutes, I think my list just has too many bodies for your two beatsticks to handle. I'd recommend taking your marine squads and swapping at least one lascannon for a missile launcher.

And I agree with the person who said that Tau would be a tough matchup.

Cool...story...bro????


Anyways, think a warpsmith might help if you end up taking a Spearhead detachment for havocs?

Well, what I mean is that the weak point of this list would be hordes. Anti-optimally, hordes with invul saves, like for example demons, especially the nurgle demon list going around.

infact that list cant win against hordes, the only BL gunline i ve seen perfrom good had 9 oblys in it, they give you some mass shooting you really need, you can have 22 lasers but when you face 100+ bodies with invul save and FNP good luck remove them quickly enough.

Make that Batallion a Brigade, use 1 unit of 40 slaanesh cultist and 5 units of 10. Those 90 cultist with abbadon, slaanesh strat to fire twice and prescience should eliminate any mass troop from your oponent. If you feel that you still need more get 9 heretics mortars.

Celerior wrote:
I think my list could take yours, but I'd be interested to hear what you'd prioritize.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/756153.page

The issue is that my IG/Marine list has only 3 vehicles (not that the scout sentinel counts for much), and 2 of them outrange lascannons by a lot, and the mortar teams can stay out of sight.

If everyone who isn't dedicated to long range shooting moves in and shoots at your chaff while anti-tank focuses on hellbrutes, I think my list just has too many bodies for your two beatsticks to handle. I'd recommend taking your marine squads and swapping at least one lascannon for a missile launcher.

And I agree with the person who said that Tau would be a tough matchup.

I'd be interested in more details about the army (like number of troops per unit,) but this is very similar to other lists I've faced. While it would be a challenge, I'm not terribly concerned about the outcome.

What concerns me about your list is the lack of armor and the dependence on snipers / mortars to get things done early. The units you do have will be gone the first round, and most other things will be footslogging.

I mean, do the Devastators have some Stratagem that lets them deep strike? Are those Elysians coming in from a Valkyrie or something? They would need to be able to harass very early, and (while I see the 2 lascannons) it's unlikely they would be dropping a lot of shots on me.

Love the concept - I’d be curious if it’s possible to downsize this to 1000 pts? I imagine it will be a struggle without abaddon re rolls.

Have a question.

Since you said you don't use much command points. Then have you considered going with spearhead detachment instead of batallion detachment?

You can still have your two squads of cultists, but now you have have up to 6 heavy support. So, all of those chaos space marines can now be havoc squads instead. They can still be ten men, but now you can pack 3 or 4 lascannons per squad instead of just 2. Seems to be like an overall increase in firepower in return for giving up some command points.

Furthermore, they will remain immune to morale due to Abaddon. I don't know how important despoilers of the galaxy is to your list, but I reckon that in a gun line army, if he has that many troops up in the face of your gun line, you would have lost already. So, its only the cultists that need to be troops.

You can save on the Daemon prince in return for even more shooty fire power. If you want to keep the daemon prince you can run two spearheads instead of one batallion. Same thing, most of your list the same just replace CSM squads with havoc squads.

I mean, if you could run CSM squads with 3 or even 4 lascannons, why wouldn't you? Maybe it makes them more of a target. But you also have all those predator tanks as a juicy target as well.

Actually, once you have havocs with 4 lascannon inside, they can be slanaash and use the shoot twice strategem. Now the initial shooting phase will be even more overwhelming.

How about something like this:

Black Legion Spearhead detachment (6 cp in total)

HQ: Abaddon

Troops:

2 x 20 cultists

Elites:

2 x Helbrutes (power scourge and twin lascannon)

Heavy support:

3 x Tri lascannon predators (2 with combi bolters)

3 x 10 havocs, combi bolter and 4 lascannons.


Total : 2000 points.


You have almost as many bolters, plus now have 28 lascannons, with the option to use the slanaash strategem to make one havoc squad shoot twice for a first turn strike of 32 lascannon shots!!!