Trial Chaos BFG fleet [1000]

[minigun762]

I think I'll leave the escorts to the Imperials and Loyalists, just doesn't fit my plan of cruiser-spamming.

 

Speaking of cruisers, is there something I'm missing with the various grand cruisers? They feel like a poor-man's battleship but when we have a cheap 300 point battleship as an option, I'm not entirely sure why I'd go with the grand cruisers. I had considered replacing my Styx with a Retaliator but the loss of weapon range, weapon arcs, speed and launch bays for more shields/hits doesn't seem worth it. The Executor looks interesting, basically a super sized Gothic. I could see it working with a few Carnages, they provide the range and shield stripping firepower and the Exectuor knocks ships out.

[Vaaish]

Outside of the Repulsive, the chaos CG's really aren't that good when you look at the other options you have available. And you are right, the desolator is king. Speed to keep up with the fleet and durability win. The weapons are just a bonus as are the torpedoes.

[minigun762]

Coming back to this, I am looking at the Slaughters again just because its unique as its a fast moving cruiser.

 

If I wanted to incorporate Slaughters, how would I go about doing it?

 

 

With attack craft, fighters make sense as torpedo protection and assault boats seem best for busting escorts but when exactly should I be using bombers?

The rules are slightly confusing and it seems that they're only really useful on turret 1 and maybe turret 2 ships, anything beyond that and the combination of lost ships and decreased quantity of attacks neuters their killing power too much.

[Grey Mage]

Slaughterers work best in pairs I find. Rush up, hit a flanking ship and obliterate it with a heavy broadside. 28 weapon battery and 4 lances? Yes please!

 

Then using superior speed and turns get in behind the enemy fleet and straif their butts. Pull their escorts out of position or wipe them off the map.

 

Thats how I see slaughterers used to good effect.

 

In smaller battles theyre a mobile reserve. They do nothing for half the game and then they become invaluable.

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

As I mentioned before, there's a specific Retaliator GC, the Foebane that's a bit speedier than the others if you're looking to fling yourself all-out using Slaughters and want a bigger battlewagon to come along for the ride. As awesomely powerful as Repulsive and Desolation are, they just aren't going to be able to keep up with Slaughters if you're looking to get in close with the most. Personally, I got sick of even trying to build fleets around Slaughters and changed them out for other cruiser classes. On the other hand, a pair of Slaughters backed up by a pair of Devastations' ordnance was something I never actually tried out, so there might be something to that tactic.

[Iron Lord]

With attack craft, fighters make sense as torpedo protection and assault boats seem best for busting escorts but when exactly should I be using bombers?

The rules are slightly confusing and it seems that they're only really useful on turret 1 and maybe turret 2 ships, anything beyond that and the combination of lost ships and decreased quantity of attacks neuters their killing power too much.

 

I think there's a rule allowing one to mix fighters and bombers in a wave- enabling the bombers to overcome ships with many turrets.

 

It was in the BFG annual, as I recall- along with other rules, like torpedo bombers.

[minigun762]

On the other hand, a pair of Slaughters backed up by a pair of Devastations' ordnance was something I never actually tried out, so there might be something to that tactic.

 

I'm tossing around the idea of using the Devs and either a Styx and/or Hades to put out a lot of long range lance fire and ordnance, which hopefully will force my opponent to close with me so I can then counter attack with the Slaughters. However I'm not sure if I couldn't do the same thing with Murders and actually have some added long range firepower instead of waiting entirely until I'm within 30cm.

 

Slaughterers work best in pairs I find. Rush up, hit a flanking ship and obliterate it with a heavy broadside. 28 weapon battery and 4 lances? Yes please!

 

Then using superior speed and turns get in behind the enemy fleet and straif their butts. Pull their escorts out of position or wipe them off the map.

 

Thats how I see slaughterers used to good effect.

 

In smaller battles theyre a mobile reserve. They do nothing for half the game and then they become invaluable.

 

Exactly my thinking Grey Mage, keeping a pair of Slaughters in my rear to punch out when something gets close is similar to keeping a land raider full of terminators ready to counter assault anything nasty that gets within range.

 

Iron Lord: I think I remember hearing about using fighters to suppress enemy turrets but I wasn't sure if those rules were official or not.

[Vaaish]

The rule is as official as you can get but it was changed with the 2010 faq. Now fighters only provide the extra attacks based on how many bombers are in the wave rather than on how many turrets the ship has. So a wave of 2 bombers and 2 fighters would get two extra attack runs while a wave of one bomber and three fighters would only get two attack runs as well.

 

Slaughters really have to be an all or nothing thing. If you only bring one or two you'll find them getting separated or tagged easily while three or four can cause far more damage.

[Iron Lord]

Problem is- turrets reduce the amount of damage an attack run can inflict.

 

So- even if 6 bombers attacked a deactivated Blackstone- and none of its turrets actually shot down a bomber- all 6 would each inflict D6-6 damage.

 

How does the post-FAQ system work- can bombers supported by fighters, overcome massive turret protection?

[Vaaish]

IL: Turrets do no such thing. A turret reduces the NUMBER of attack runs a bomber can make but don't actually affect the results of the damage rolls. While you are correct in your example that the bombers would get no attack runs, that number just represents the amount of dice you roll to defeat the armor.

 

The procedure is this:

4 bombers touch the base of a dictator (3 turrets)

Dictator rolls 3d6 and one bomber squadron is removed for each dice that rolls a 4+ (lets say two bombers are destroyed)

Each surviving bomber rolls a d6 minus turrets to determine the number of attack runs or dice it gets to roll against the dictators armor.

lets say we have 5 and a 3 rolled so 5-3 and 3-3 which gives us a total of 2 dice to attack the dictator

you then roll 2d6 and each d6 that rolls a 5+ would cause 1 point of damage to the dictator.

 

The FAQ system works pretty similarly, the difference being that each fighter up to the number of bombers in the wave provides an extra attack regardless of turrets or if the fighter is shot down.

 

It means a wave of 2 bombers and 2 fighters would always get at least 2d6 against the blackstone assuming that at least one bomber survives the turret fire while a wave of one bomber and three fighters would only gain one extra attack against the target.

[minigun762]

The procedure is this:

4 bombers touch the base of a dictator (3 turrets)

Dictator rolls 3d6 and one bomber squadron is removed for each dice that rolls a 4+ (lets say two bombers are destroyed)

Each surviving bomber rolls a d6 minus turrets to determine the number of attack runs or dice it gets to roll against the dictators armor.

lets say we have 5 and a 3 rolled so 5-3 and 3-3 which gives us a total of 2 dice to attack the dictator

you then roll 2d6 and each d6 that rolls a 5+ would cause 1 point of damage to the dictator.

 

The FAQ system works pretty similarly, the difference being that each fighter up to the number of bombers in the wave provides an extra attack regardless of turrets or if the fighter is shot down.

 

I think that is the most clear that bombing has ever been for me, thank you.

 

That being said, it still feels like bombers are not that great. 1:1 they're better then torpedoes but torpedoes typically come in much bigger quantities. I guess torpedoes have to deal with the ship's orientation while bombers don't so that is a plus. Maybe in an IN list where you could coordinate torpedoes and bombers hitting at the same time so they can only defend against one but for Chaos, I'm thinking that I'd rather just assault boat or lance them to death.

[Demoulius]

against targets with only 1 or 2 turrets bombers can be murderous if you roll enough attacks :)

 

buddy of mine once rolled 3 6's and 1 5 for the number of attacks (failed to shoot one down as well) i dident quite like that :) that said 6+ armour save and BFI save meant i only took like or 2 points of damage but still the potential for carnage is huge :nuke:

[Vaaish]

Bombers are great for finishing off crippled ships. The main benefit is that the entire wave can't just disappear when you touch another torpedo or fighter. You just can't expect them to do much against a healthy ship or one with a good number of turrets. As chaos you'll probably find yourself tasked with knocking out torpedoes and the like.

[minigun762]

It looks like this comes out to 1k exactly:

1x Devastation

3x Murder

1x Hades

Warmaster+ mark of Tzeentch 80 OR

Warmaster (+2ld from armada) 100

 

Thanks to all the advice, I keep coming up with this same basic fleet for 1000 point games. The single Devastation worries me somewhat but if all its doing spitting out fighters for ordnance interception, I think I can gamble that 4 waves will be enough.

 

The bulk of my firepower will come from the 12 lances, which is enough to cripple a full life, shielded cruiser in one turn if I roll average. If I roll above average or use the "lock on" order, I might be able to fry a cruiser completely.

 

As far as movement on the table, should I try to maintain max distance as much as possible, moving as little as possible to keep my range advantage or should I head straight for their forces so that I can get my weapon batteries into play sooner?

[Vaaish]

At 1500 points, 4lb would be a problem but at 1k you should be alright. Just make sure you try to target their carriers first. Just getting them to brace is enough. This fleet is set up to close from 60-30cm and then angle off to expose them to your abeam profile and batteries. It'll really depend on the enemy fleet if you close quickly or slowly. Heavy NC, close fast, most anything else, take your time and whittle them down or force them to close quickly.

[minigun762]

Where would I go after this when I want to bump it up to 1500?

 

Another Devastator I'm assuming, to hit the minimum for ordnance. That leaves me with 310 points to play around with, which is an odd amount. I'd like to get more cruisers but you can't get 3 with 500 points unless I take all Slaughters.

[Vaaish]

devastation and a desolator for sure. You could also swap out one of the murders for a second hades. That would make this:

 

2x Devastation

2x Murder

2x Hades

Desolator

Warmast +Tzeench

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

devastation and a desolator for sure. You could also swap out one of the murders for a second hades. That would make this:

 

2x Devastation

2x Murder

2x Hades

Desolator

Warmast +Tzeench

 

Oh, that looks absolutely killy. What a beautiful flotilla that would be. :woot:

[minigun762]

I agree, that seems to be a very well rounded fleet with no real weakness. Thanks Vaaish!

 

On a somewhat different point, I'm debating the usefulness of long range weapons battery fire. I am hoping you guys can point out where I'm wrong because my conclusion seems to be that batteries with 45cm or more range are fairly useless compared to lances and the reason is the automatic column shift combined with the high average armor (6+) of most fleets out there. Sure its nice against Eldar but it feels like I'd be chipping away at anything else.

Now if you get close, that column shift works in your favor and I could see the sheer volume of dice working out, but not so much at range.

 

Of course what I just described is how a Murder class cruiser should work. :D

[Vaaish]

You aren't far off. Long range batteries are indispensable against eldar since they can dart in and out or 30cm range preventing you from even returning fire. Against everything else you really need special equipment like the mars or overlord targeting matrix to negate the column shift or large amounts of it to get good results. Typically I've found without locking on, FP16 is useful for putting a BM or dropping shields entirely which makes your lances more effective but it's not anything to be relied on. Conventional wisdom says that the Carnage is the best chaos cruiser, but due to the heavy reliance on WB, I've never seen it perform well in games at range and it's outperformed in close by the slaughter. Despite that, between lances and WB, a skilled player can almost always roll far more dice using batteries than you can pack lances into a list.

 

Personally that's why I like the murder. it has the batteries to fight abeam, but it has the lances so you don't need to squadron if you don't need the combined firepower. Speaking on the list I posted up there... The difference in the murder and hades model is that the hades has the dorsal turrets rather than the antenna. You could magnetize them in order to use one as a the 3rd murder at lower point games and add the turrets for 1500 points.

[Lost Boyz]

I am new to this too (good thread!) and am starting a 'secondhand' Chaos fleet. I have a Repulsive. Are they a good battleship to build around?

[minigun762]

I am new to this too (good thread!) and am starting a 'secondhand' Chaos fleet. I have a Repulsive. Are they a good battleship to build around?

 

As you can see, I'm not the expert but i think they're a pretty good stand in for a battleship.

 

Compared to the Desolator, you lose 2 hits, 2 shields and a turret and 5cm speed but save 70 points.

 

Looking at firepower, the battleship has more torpedoes and slightly more lances (all with better range) but it loses out on max weapon batteries by a large portion.

 

In my eyes, the Repulsive is really just an oversized Lunar class cruiser, which is a great cruiser, without the 6+ prow whereas the Desolator is more like a long range fire support ship where you want to circle the enemy to death or give a point blank torpedo spread to a weakened ship.

[Grey Mage]

On 45cm weapon batteries: Theyre good. Sure, they wont help much in your initial engagement, but after that things get more interesting, circling broadsides, changing targets mid phase cause a cruiser just hulked twice as fast as you thought it would... chasing eldar and dark eldar... outranging imperials.....

 

Its not all about the number of shots- often its about wether or not the enemy can hit you back as hard or not. If you have 15 cm on them your likely to get the first punch, and in man situations force them to react quite particularly if they want to get a return punch in- use it to your advantage and rip them apart with their predicted move or force them to break off having taken whatever lumps you can dish out.

 

Besides, even if its only 1-2 hits, if you can drop the shields you open them up to all those lances a chaos force can field....

 

As for the Repulsive: Its not a bad flagship for smaller games, and its a decent heavy cruiser in larger games. Str 14 broadsides are an amazing asset, firmly putting its firepower in the range of battleships, and the 10 hits means its going to stick around a little longer. Oh and its really, really cheap for these abilities- cheaper than imperial battlecruisers!

 

One of the things about it that I think is often overlooked is that compliments a battleship really well at 1500pts and less- since its a grand cruiser, not a battleship, you can include both with only a basic cruiser compliment- and at its price its similar to having simply added another cruiser, further increasing your bang per buck.

 

Lastly, torpedoes. While a str 6 salvo isnt the most amazing thing in the world, I know, it does make this an excellent forward ship for a carrier fleet. Backed up by a devastations and a few infidels and you can really start making the enemy look at the hard choices for where their turrets are going.

[Lost Boyz]

I read in the FAQ that the Repulsive can buy another shield for 15 pts (and then has to be on a large base) - good idea? Does that then make her a battleship?

[Vaaish]

It can, and that is usually a good idea. It means you must put it on a large base but it doesn't change the class to battleship.