Killteam and Chaos

[Xeonic]

Right, so among my group of gaming friends killteam has been something of a fad since it came out in the battle mission book. I haven't had the battle missions book so I haven't played. Taking a glance at the rules it looked really neat, so I want to get into it.

That in mind, I had a couple questions on the viability of chaos lists in killteams, namely who and how?

 

That is to say, of the strong chaos choices, what would make up a relatively competitive chaos list?

 

I've been considering the following:

7 Chaos Raptors, champion with twin lightning claws, 2x meltaguns

8 Khorne Berserkers, Skull Champion with Power Weapon

10 chaos marines, Aspiring Champion with Power Weapon, 1x meltagun, 1x autocannon

 

I like the looks of the first option as it gives the models mobility that other may lack, and not many solo models can stand up to a pair of lightning claws at that level...On the other hand the berserkers are more killy in CC... I wouldn't be using actual berserker or raptor models, they'd be "enraged khornite iron warrior assault marines on foot" and "iron warrior assault marines with pre heresy jumppacks" respectively. Basically I want an excuse to do some models for my IW that aren't more csm or oblits(I hate the oblit models). Any weaponry options will be magnetized for sure, of course.

 

Do those killteam squads look reasonable? Is chaos fun and fluffy to play within the confines of killteams? Is chaos competitive in a killteam environment?

[BlackRaptor93]

Hello,

 

Oh definately! If you play Iron Warriors then yes, because it is known (from the Previous Codex) that the Iron Warriors send Veterans to probe and widen a breach in the enemies lines for the main assault - so definately, its fluffy.

 

Its also very cinematic, so your bound to have fun playing it and as for comepetive? Very. Your list is not only well balanced but you have enough firepower and close combat to deal with most things and still have power left to get to the main objective - the Autocannon will be a very big help :D

 

Thanks,

BlackRaptor93

[Hellios]

I've been considering the following:

7 Chaos Raptors, champion with twin lightning claws, 2x meltaguns

8 Khorne Berserkers, Skull Champion with Power Weapon

10 chaos marines, Aspiring Champion with Power Weapon, 1x meltagun, 1x autocannon

 

I would stay away from the Khorne list, if someone takes a vehicle you will have serious trouble. I played in a KT tourny and someone had a raptor list (all I know is the champ had LC) and I think it did alright but I can't say much however I will say that list might have problems with a list like mine. I took a raider with a squad of warriors (Dark Eldar) and all I did was fly around hide in cover popping off threats to my raider (AKA long range weapons with high strength although 4+ can effect me) with dark lances and once I was safe I would fly around killing everyone. I played a guy who had 5 scouts with 5 assault marines and I think all his assault marines = XD by turn 2 and then I went after the scouts.

 

Also watch out for veteran squads in Chimeras... you will be able to get to them and pop them as they are not as fast as my raider but you should probably expect 4 or so shots that ignore 3+ armour a turn and even more shots of between S7-3 so be careful where you position your guys.

[Wolfbiter]

Though it may not be the most optimal, I'm strongly tempted to try playing a 200 pt. squad of Chaos Terminators in Kill Team, just to see how it works. :)

[Hellios]

Though it may not be the most optimal, I'm strongly tempted to try playing a 200 pt. squad of Chaos Terminators in Kill Team, just to see how it works. :P

 

Reaper Auto-cannon + tank hunter!?!?! or FNP? but be ready to cry is blood letters come near by XD

[Xeonic]

I thought the autocannon csm list looked most balanced as well(I have to buy an autocannon toting model now!), though I think the raptors would also be fun. You're right about the berserkers and not being able to handle vehicles, there is that one SM list with the ven. dread, and nothing else and that would be no fun to play against without a meltagun or two.

 

As far as chaos termies goes, that sounds incredibly silly, but pretty neat.

Something like...

4x chaos terminators, 2 champions with twin lightning claws, reaper autocannon, chainfist.

Give the chainfist fleet, the reaper stealth, and one of the claws furious charge.

 

Or, you know, slap in some combis and use relentless to it's fullest. Debatable, really.

[the jeske]

you take chosen . 2 with plasma [and one get relentless] two with flamers and one with LC[champion] depending against what you play you either give fleet to the LC[meq , armies without i5 units in them] or flamer guy[if you play against IG].

but to be honest , there is absolutly nothing you can do against a well played IG build at 300 pts.

[SquirrelKing]

I played a few games with 7 chosen

 

twin lightning claws with fleet

Heavy bolter with relentless

Plasma gun with FNP (or slow and purposeful, depends)

4 guys with twinlinked bolters

 

Infiltrate was killer, gave me a very big edge.

[Lord Tharand]

I've been playing on a local GW weekly kill team event and I've discovered that shooty units are what typically wins. I've been running the following:

 

5 Terminators

2 Combi-Melta

Combi-Flamer

Power Fist

Reaper Autocannon

 

Normally I give FNP to the Reaper guy to keep him alive since he's dealing death at long range and providing much of my killing power. I give Power Fist guy FC and then one of the combi guys gets either Fleet or Move Through Cover..

 

I also messed with a list of 3 terminators with a mark of Chaos Glory and 5 lesser daemons but because you have to roll for each daemon individually it didn't work out so well.

 

I run up against a lot of IG kill teams and do pretty well soaking up the flashlight shots. Orks were causing me problems because I just seem to get mobbed by a ton of dudes. One of the more fun armies I've faced is a C:SM scout kill team.

[Xeonic]

I'm not sure why you'd take a power fist over a furious charge paired lightning claws set.

I don't think there was any point in the game I played where I would have needed a flamer template over some other combi. I'd tend to use meltas and plasma since they are killy vs most targets you should encounter, including vehicles and tougher infantry.

 

I played my first killteam game today, unfortunately using loyalist scum(don't have an autocannon model yet, and I'd just painted up the models so I had to play them :wallbash: ). I took a power weapon, plasma gun and heavy bolter, prearranged vs orks(though we didn't share lists). We decided to do a roll to see if the game ended rather than a LD test given that it's orks.

 

Story is that the marines were tasked with holding the comms relay vs ork raiders looking to loot it's dark age technologry, they were to fight to the last and hold out until backup arrived.

 

He took a boy squad with a bunch of slugga boys, 2 big shootas and a nob along with 3x deffkoptas(TL-rokkits I think? Not sure on ork stuff). It was hardly an optimized list, but it was pretty effective.

I put furious charge on sarge, stealth on my plasmagun, and feel no pain on my heavy bolter.

He put preferred enemy on the nob, stealth on one big shoota, and feel no pain on the second.

Orks deploy as far forward as possible, the big shootas in cover with good LOS and the deffkoptas on the flanks, marines deployed with heavy bolter and plasmagun on the roof of a building(Which we agreed was just scenery this game) along with 1 bolter marine. I deployed bolter marines 3 on a flank in front of the building and the sergeant on the corner nearest the orks.

 

Turn 1, orks move up and run, koptas turbo boost. Marines all move into a staggered skirmish line. Heavy bolter kills 2 boyz out in the open. Plasma gun manages to do nothing.

Turn 2, orks move up, big shootas both fire and do nothing, deffkoptas both shoot at heavy bolter and do nothing. boyz and nob all run up taking cover where possible. Heavy bolter sows a reaping, killing two boyz in the open easily, plasma manages to wound the nob once, bolter marines do a whole lot of nothing, and cause another single casualty. Sarge charges two ork boyz and kills one, but dies to a lucky return strike. owch.

Turn 3, 2 deffkoptas fail to do anything to plasma gunner(cover saves...) the third kills one bolter marine, big shootas fail to do anything. 4 boys charge marine skirmish line, killing one and tying the rest up. Nob runs towards bunker but fails his terrain roll to get onto the building. Heavy bolter shoots nob to death, and also manages to kill one boy out in the open too. Plasma gunner kills one kopta. One marine dies in melee, the others remain locked.

Turn 4, deffkoptas kill heavy bolter, big shootas fail to do anything, one flank of marines kills the boy holding them in melee and advance up, shooting at koptas, managing to kill one, other flank marine holding on in CC. Plasma gunner kills kopta. We roll for game end, game ends. Marine victory by points killed, reinforcements have arrived!

 

My impression? Kill Teams is FUN, the game took barely half an hour, close combat was fast brutal and generally decisive. A power weapon over a fist is a given, and furious charge makes it really nice. Special and heavy weapon layout was okay, the heavy bolter did pretty well and feel no pain along with a 4+ cover kept it alive for most of the game to cause a reliable amount of casualties. The plasma gun wasn't a bad choice either, well worth the points. If he'd taken some armor I would have been in a bad way though.

 

I can't wait to try out my chaos marines hopefully vs some loyalists, should be interesting. With all the models acting independently taking a heavy weapons isn't a drawback at all.

 

I'm a little tempted to see how plague marines would do now.

[Hellios]

I really want to take 5 bare-bones CSMs and a Nurgle blight drone :'( buy you need plague marines to take a blight drone and you can't fit a unit of them in... only normal CSMs.

[Nehekhare]

5 Terminators + 3x combimelter or -plasma (1xFC), Reaper (FnP), dual LC (prefE or fleet) [use...terminators^^]

 

7 chosen + 2x melter, plasmagun (FnP), HB (Relentless), dual LC (FC/PrefE/fleet) [getting to it...]

-->more characterful version: 5 chosen + the above weapon options, 1 spawn (infiltrate) [recon team + daemon possessed servitor]

 

Dreadnought (Fleet) + 2nd DCCW/2x HF, 5 CSM + Plasmagun (FnP) [use ...]

 

10 CSM + Champion (PW, FC), Plasmagun (FnP), Flamer (Infiltrate) or AC (relentless), Melter (Infiltrate) [well...]

 

6 Plague Marines + 2x plasma (relentless, s&p), champ (PW, FC) [use heavily bionic IW siege veterans]

 

5 Thousand sons (fall back, PrefE) + Sorcerer (bolt of tzeentch, FnP) [use a techmarine and robots/old oblit models]

 

6 noise marines + champion (PW, shockbooster, melterbombs, FC), 5x sonic blaster [use the old oblits]

 

5 Possessed, 5 lesser Daemons [go crazy with slaughterfiends, unfleshed and mutants]

 

5 spawn (haha) [use whatever you find in the vacuum cleaner after cleaning under your working table]

 

or, using the IA7 servants of decay list: 2 plague ogryns (infiltrate/scout), 20 plague zombies (1 with FC, called "tank") [fun with hazardous chemicals]

[Hellios]

or, using the IA7 servants of decay list: 2 plague ogryns (infiltrate/scout), 20 plague zombies (1 with FC, called "tank") [fun with hazardous chemicals]

 

I looked at doing a plague list like that for fun.

[Lord Tharand]

I was originally using dual LC but it was hard to get him into combat without getting turned into paste. I also started using the combi-flamer because these games are played with a lot of cover and it helped root people out.

[Xeonic]

I don't like the combi flamer because it takes 2 hits to make it effective, even vs orks with a 4+ cover and nothing else.

That is, just shooting the combi at 2 boys in cover with a 50% save is as effective as shooting your flamer in there and getting two hits with no save, right?

Add in armor saves and the bolter doubletap starts to look good, most armies will use their armor save instead, and armor ignoring shots reducing them to a cover save look even better, though yes, vs orks or nids where your flamer will ignore all saves I could see it.

 

In the game I played the orks were bunched up maybe for the first turn.

Thing is in killteam models are only as bunched up as the controlling player wishes them to be, so I just don't see most templates as that useful.

Even if I'd taken a plasma cannon I would have had one good round of shooting with it...

 

Still, I suppose it makes sense. The termie list is weak to mass of bodies, so it just makes sense to take a counter.

[Lord Tharand]

I don't like the combi flamer because it takes 2 hits to make it effective, even vs orks with a 4+ cover and nothing else.

That is, just shooting the combi at 2 boys in cover with a 50% save is as effective as shooting your flamer in there and getting two hits with no save, right?

Add in armor saves and the bolter doubletap starts to look good, most armies will use their armor save instead, and armor ignoring shots reducing them to a cover save look even better, though yes, vs orks or nids where your flamer will ignore all saves I could see it.

 

In the game I played the orks were bunched up maybe for the first turn.

Thing is in killteam models are only as bunched up as the controlling player wishes them to be, so I just don't see most templates as that useful.

Even if I'd taken a plasma cannon I would have had one good round of shooting with it...

 

Still, I suppose it makes sense. The termie list is weak to mass of bodies, so it just makes sense to take a counter.

 

I agree with everything you're saying but in practice I face a lot of orc and IG kill teams and I've found most of the players have tended to run their models close together. The flamer template has come in handy for me when I had a bunch of IG held up in a bunker and torched them. Is it the perfect weapon...no, but it can be useful. And you're only going to have so many targets to shoot your melta at in a kill team game.

 

Now, the reaper autocanon has been the king of the battlefield for me.