Why fear fighting on foot?

[Julgolax]

I'm looking to start a Khorne themed army and I am aiming to start out at 1500 points. The question I have is, do I HAVE to take Rhinos and give my lord a bike or jump pack?

 

I mean, I understand shooting is deadly but that doesn't mean close combat isn't. The plan is to forgo Berserkers for 2 squads of the cheaper Chaos Marines (x10) with MoK and IoW (Icon of wrath), given close combat weapons (chainaxes count as close combat weapons?), Heavy Bolters or Missile Launchers and Flamers or Meltas for firepower. From there I was considering adding a squad of Raptors (x10) and a squad of Havoks (x5) with 2 Autocannons and 2 Missile Launchers.

 

Now... to the question at hand... do I need Rhinos and do I need a Jump Pack on my Lord?

[Mr.selfdestruct]

Personally I don't think so. The speed increase on the lord is nice, but if he is ranging too far ahead of the main force it's a no-no. I'd give him a jump pack and put him with your raptors though. Transports? Meh. I know, I know...maneuverability is everything, except that the table is only 4 feet across, and you are only 2 feet from their deployment zone. I just love seeing more bodies on the table.

The biggest problem you will have is deaths incurred as you run across the field. This can be mitigated by A: having more bodies than they have bullets, B: good target prioritizing by your havocs, and C: good target prioritizing by your raptors.

Simply my opinion, take it as that.

[spartan249]

Fighting with no augmented mobility essentially makes you a rolling thunder type of army, as you're trading offensive positioning tactics for staying power. If you're going to forego transports, you want to make damn sure that you are going to be able to make it through all the tricks the OPFOR will use.

 

Furthermore, I'd forego most close combat upgrades this way because you will have little to no say in what you assault.

[Captain Idaho]

Fighting with no augmented mobility essentially makes you a rolling thunder type of army, as you're trading offensive positioning tactics for staying power. If you're going to forego transports, you want to make damn sure that you are going to be able to make it through all the tricks the OPFOR will use.

 

Furthermore, I'd forego most close combat upgrades this way because you will have little to no say in what you assault.

 

Pretty much my thoughts. The problem with marching units is you pretty much sacrifice tactical movement to your opponent and become reactionary. I am fresh from a tournament yesterday where I found my Rhino squad was the most valuable Troops choice in the list by a long way. It never failed to get somewhere important, thanks largely to a maximum of 18" move in a single turn and having other armoured threats the opponent wanted removed.

 

I can work but you need resilience and/or numbers and a clear head when deploying or else you are in trouble. Firepower is important as you want to be able to hurt opponents from turn one.

[DarkGuard]

What you must remember as well is that in addition to mobility, Rhinos and the like also give your units protection. I personally prefer to have transports so I can get my units where they need to be, I prefer to be more forceful with my tactics.

 

However, with the new transport rules etc, foot armies are more valid, and used correctly can be just as good. So if you build your army right, you shouldn't need to fear putting everyone on foot.

[Dam13n]

Having been one of the many devotees of mechanised infantry in 5th edition, the benefits of a mechanised assault (with that ruleset) were too good to pass up. However with the changes to assaulting out of transports and assaulting from reserve, many of those tactics are dead and gone. Chosen losing infiltrate is one of the big ones to affect my favoured tactics.

 

Looking at the 6th edition Chaos Codex, there are some good and fairly viable "evil-tide" lists that come to mind. So I would say go for it. You will need to give each unit an assigned role and deploy accordingly. Special weapon chosen and havoks are still very useful if mixed into the tide (where a lax opponent may forget about them until it's too late), alternatively some small units of bikes/raptors with special weapons would enable you to cripple your opponents mobility or entrap him ready for your tide to hit home.

 

6th edition to me is about creating a good synergy list that gives you a strong base upon which to build your tactics.

 

Laterz...

[Schultzhoffen]

As has been said - all infantry armies are viable but the rhino gives you three game winning advantages:

 

1. Mobility - you can deploy quickly and put your opponent on the back foot within a turn or two.

2. Protection - even AV11 is better than nothing when facing loads of shooting or high Str low AP templates.

3. The ability to create control zones on the board, channeling enemy units, etc

 

I ran 3 rhinos in 5th. I still do in 6th.

 

However, ultimately the rest of your army should determine if you have rhinos (as well as what you want those rhino units to actually do).

 

If you want to assault anything you need speed (but rhinos are not the answer here). You could go one of 3 routes (seeing as you're CSM):

 

1. A Land Raider (possibly not a wonderful option in the new Codex but it IS durable and an assault vehicle).

2. Use bikers for assault (great unit).

3. Use Raptors/Warp Talons (WT have issues due to lacking grenades).

 

Therefore, your basic troops should really not be your main CC units and therefore could easily be transported by rhino.

 

Your Chaos Lord could either be on a bike, in a LR or run with the raptors. A bike would be my suggestion.

 

Hope some of this helps.

[Wookie Archangel]

Just to put my two cents in.....

- back in 5th Edition I ran a space wolf close combat army and had all troop choices with meltas to take out tanks. I found that mounting them all in rhinos helped alot. I think i had like 4-5 squads and the extra 200ish points spent on rhinos seemed like a waste but if I got first turn....that extra 12 inches was really helpful.

- depending on if the army i was facing was shooty or not I would either line my rhinos up in one line to minimize shooting damage or line them in a horizontal line for none shoot armies

 

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- It always seemed to work for me, not sure how the chaos tactics will run with that tactic though, especially with the new edition.

[Ming]

The problem with not bringing some metal boxes to ride in for Marines on Foot all boils down to one basic word...Manticore...

 

If your slogging can survive the most basic thing - artillery, then all is good. If your local meta ignores the usefulness of the big guns, keep it quiet, and make sure all of the big guns are hiding on the back shelves at the FLGS...

 

Being a foot slogger means you have to have some mobile cover from non-barrage assets....meatshields in the front like chaos cultists fill that role well...(or dreads, etc), but these will not help vs barrages. To counter barrages in a footslogger list, raptors / deep striking meltaguns are a good answer.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Someone mentioned something in the "Rhino Rush?" thread on Chaos Ascendant that I have not seen a single other person bring up, and it's a very important point.

 

Night Fighting is more common in this edition; every BGB scenario has it. Rhinos provide cheap access to searchlights. Seriously, think about it -- especially from a C:CSM point of view. Rhinos are cheap and plentiful and provide searchlights to mitigate the effects of Night Fight. And considering that the new Night Fight rules -- ie, Stealth and Shrouded -- stack on top of other cover saves, getting rid of those saves can be a god-send for things like quad-AC Havocs or a Forgefiend.

 

And while things like the Defiler, Predator, and Vindicator also have searchlights, might I also remind you that you cannot activate a searchlight until after you've fired your weapons. So searchlights aren't there for the unit doing the shooting; they're there to synergize with other units in the army.

[Captain Idaho]

Someone mentioned something in the "Rhino Rush?" thread on Chaos Ascendant that I have not seen a single other person bring up, and it's a very important point.

 

Night Fighting is more common in this edition; every BGB scenario has it. Rhinos provide cheap access to searchlights. Seriously, think about it -- especially from a C:CSM point of view. Rhinos are cheap and plentiful and provide searchlights to mitigate the effects of Night Fight. And considering that the new Night Fight rules -- ie, Stealth and Shrouded -- stack on top of other cover saves, getting rid of those saves can be a god-send for things like quad-AC Havocs or a Forgefiend.

 

And while things like the Defiler, Predator, and Vindicator also have searchlights, might I also remind you that you cannot activate a searchlight until after you've fired your weapons. So searchlights aren't there for the unit doing the shooting; they're there to synergize with other units in the army.

 

Totally agree.

 

It's not just the increased cover save, it's the limitation on firing further away than 36" that can help. If you want to assault you obviously need to be able to deploy within a reasonable distance, but the trick with Night Fighting on turn 1 is to place your units designed to advance on a flank so only a portion of the opponent's army can threaten your army. Firepower wise I used Rhinos as spotters so my other firepower units could lay down decisive fire against my opponent.

 

End of the game, firing a couple Storm Bolter shots from a Rhino or two (if you have any left) can act as spotters for your other units when targetting opponents at range.

 

I did exactly the former in the recent tournament I attended (shameless plug), tournament blog in the Ultramarines forum explaining what I did.

[RolandTHTG]

As someone who has been running an all infantry list with the new Chaos Codex, though with a Nurgle emphasis instead of your khorne, chaos foot is a very viable strategy. I am currently 4-1-1 in tournaments this past month, using a pretty aggressive strategy.

Key points I have found:

 

1) Unit Focus is KEY.

Are you planning to assault, get in close range/mobile firefights, or stay back and shoot? Take flamers/melta, plasma guns, and Heavy weapons respectively. Assault units shouldn't take rapid fire special or heavy weapons, shooting those (even snapshotting the Heavy weapons) will prevent you from charging. Keep away from temptation, don't put them in your assault squads.

 

2) Veterans of the Long War (VotLW)z

This is in my opinion a must-take on assault squads or any squad you are relying on to stay on the field. The +1 Ld will keep you in the fight if bad rolls happen, and the rerolls to hit from hatred will give you an edge against the armies (MEQ) you don't have a natural stat advantage against.

 

3) Use your Mass

Other armies will likely have an advantage in mobility (your raptors may help you mitigate this) Conversely, you will likely have larger numbers or a bigger deployed footprint. Use this to your advantage. Deploy across a broad front or in key areas to deny him room to maneuver. By deploying forward & pushing aggressively towards the enemy, you can likely push them where you want and keep them on the defensive.

Note: make sure that any split in your forces is big/good enough to take care of itself while the rest of your army moves to reinforce. My one loss was when I was too spread out and a GK Paladin unit was able to roll up my flank, because I could only engage the paladins with one unit at a time, and was denied the advantage of numbers.

[Hellios]

I've been rolling Eldar on foot for years... If Eldar can do it then Chaos Marines can. Your biggest threat comes from armies that can stick down a load of templates of death such as guard. I agree mainly with the points others have made (mobility and protection from rhinos) but I do think it is possible to control areas even with a foot list. This however depends a lot of your army and to some degree the enemies.

[clever handle]

One rhino costs the same as 2 space marines kitted out the way you are describing. One rhino can stand up to infinitely more lasguns, splinter shots & bolter rounds than two space marines.

 

What happens if / when you are facing a fast opponent? How do you plan on shutting down a dark eldar or ork truck army with your foot sloggers? I can dither about at 24" firing splinter into your advancing units only to turboboost the turn you get close to ensure you can never catch me. All the while you're losing models.

 

What happens if / when you face nids? Even khorn marines will get slaughtered by the combination of big bugs, hordes o little bugs & genestealers.

 

What happens if / when you play hammer & anvil & your opponent deploys his objective 6" away from his short table edge? You are now RUNNING 39" through terrain & incoming fire just to get there. at 6+d6" per turn you will need 6 game turns to get there assuming you aren't slowed by terrain or casualties.

 

as others have mentioned - basilisks & other guard artilery can punish you. GK with s5 storm bolters will punish you......

 

all in all I think all foot is a bad idea. I have a friend who insists on trying to rush 2x 16 khorn berserkers across the table (combined with daemon engines, raptors & sometimes terminators). He has yet to win a game against my slaaneshi marines, my friend's templar, my dark eldar, his own guard (when played against him), my death guard..... noticing a trend?

 

the downside to transporst obviously is easy killpoints & that you MUST spend 1 turn in the open getting shot prior to your assault - but think about it, for every rhino you lose you do not lose combat effectiveness, for every marine you lose you do. One round of shooting (followed by overwatch) compared to at LEAST two turns if you foot slog....

 

*edit*

I believe that the benefits definitely outweigh the negatives for including transports. EVERYBODY doesn't need one, but the units you have chosen to send across the field certainly should have some form of moving more than 6" per turn.

 

I would equip any assault squads with Vets, CCW & bolters & the marks & Icons of your choice. This allows you to push 12-18" turn one, turn 2 push 12 more inches and rapidfire, turn three pistols and assaults. Because you are basically stuck getting shot at least once I would recomment slaanesh (for FNP) over khorn - YOu lose ALL the benefits from being khornate if you multicharge, slaanesh improves survivability from small arms fire due to FNP, and improves survivability in combat due to I5 (free kills first) and FNP.

 

*edit 2*

don't forget you can use transports to block LOS to reduce shooting & overwatch as well..... those 35pt boxes have a multitude of uses. Hell even the guys who sit in the backfield like autocannon havocs can use rhinos c/w havoc launchers to increase your 1+1 threat potential (my havocs ALWAYS make their points back - kill a single marine!)