Does Chaos suffer from a lack of heavy anti-tank?

[minigun762]

I'm observing the more common and cost effective choices people are using in the new codex and I'm starting to feel as if we're lacking options for the heavier armor in the game.

 

Autocannon havocs, plasma plague marines, power sword champions, baleflamer heldrakes, black mace lords, plasma bikers. All common options and all very effective for their points but I wouldn't consider any of these as hard counters to AV13/14. To counter this types of heavy armor, we are forced to focus on S9/S10 weapons like lascannon which compete with the cheaper autocannon options, take fast moving assault platforms like maulerfiends and demon princes or continue to include a fair number of melta weapons with appropriate delivery systems.

 

So that said, how are you trying to balance your armies and those higher AV targets?

[King Willy]

Melta havocs or just duel melts cam in rhinos or infiltrating, cheap and effective and aren t pure anti tank

[Aglǽca Darkwind]

I try to use raptors with meltaguns. They can pop a tank, then jump some infantry when they are done.

[Megalodon]

I've been fielding a pair of Preds one AC, LC sponsons and one Tri LC with a lot of success.

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

Oblits, melta Chosen, and Khârn. :lol:

[tvih]

I'm observing the more common and cost effective choices people are using in the new codex and I'm starting to feel as if we're lacking options for the heavier armor in the game.

 

Autocannon havocs, plasma plague marines, power sword champions, baleflamer heldrakes, black mace lords, plasma bikers. All common options and all very effective for their points but I wouldn't consider any of these as hard counters to AV13/14. To counter this types of heavy armor, we are forced to focus on S9/S10 weapons like lascannon which compete with the cheaper autocannon options, take fast moving assault platforms like maulerfiends and demon princes or continue to include a fair number of melta weapons with appropriate delivery systems.

 

So that said, how are you trying to balance your armies and those higher AV targets?

Uh, don't most armies have the same limitations? At least marines, whether Chaos or not. You mostly get your S8/9 stuff, and that's about it. I'm not a fan of autocannons from a tabletop performance point of view unless you're fighting something like Dark Eldar or Orks. Against MEq the lack of AP3 sucks, and against anything heavier than a Rhino they're not much use against vehicles either on average unless you get lucky with your penetration rolls - against AV13 a 4-autocannon havoc squad on average gets 1 glancing hit - and that's assuming it doesn't have a cover save.

 

My primary anti-tank is Lascannons. Mainly (or will come) from two tri-las Predators because that's what I've bought for my Black Templars, and to keep the purchases at least borderline sane I'm sharing vehicles between the two armies. I got into Chaos because of the cool infantry models anyway, so just as well to use mostly Loyalist vehicles instead of spiky ones I guess. But Predator seems a solid choice anyway. Obliterators get a lot of love, and I do think they're a pretty good unit - however their anti-armor is tricky, because while their lascannons are of course good, aside from that they only really have melta and multi-melta, and they're not exactly fast so that they can get in range easily assuming they don't manage to deep strike in range of a melta weapon. Still, if I get some obliterator models of my own rather than observing others using them, I'll at least take them for a spin. But since my HS slots are full as it is, they're not really a priority.

 

Secondarily I have missile havocs, largely because I think I have to field a skyfiring missile squad to have a chance against all the flyer spam. 4 skyfire missiles and a Quad Gun will hopefully help at least somewhat, and both will of course have some (limited in the case of the QG - damned S7!) anti-armor capability when there are no flyers in sight.

 

Thirdly I suppose I'll have to give my CSM squad a melta, but that won't do much on its own of course. Don't have Raptors, so no meltas to use there. Maybe two meltas to my bikers - and a melta bomb to boot.

 

Still, overall I'm not overly confident of my anti-armor capabilities in my C:CSM army list. Outside of heavy support slots there's just no long-range anti-armor, which is the exact opposite compared to how I have to design my Templars given their quite limited Codex - there I have to do missile and lascannon spam all the way, primarily with Predators, Terminators and Land Speeder Typhoons. Here I have to replace most of the missiles with meltas, which requires getting in very close - not always easy. Still, at the LGS there's not that often armor spam lists - it's almost always flyer spam. So, hopefully I'll make do.

[the jeske]

IG ally , melta bikes [why plasma to get 1 turn of double taping and then ending up in hth ?] , las preds , oblits for some people . this is our long range anti av13 meta . ah icarus for all those who may want to use it , but its more a loyalist thing because of dark reaper in ally slot.

[Jonah]

I carry 2 HadesFiends and at least 2 Melta options; most armour is gone by turn 2-3. Fiends eat a couple of rhinos each turn and the melta takes care of anything heavier. The Fiends can even contribute to AV 14 if you Daemon Forge them; they've brought a Landraider and a Monolith down to 1 HP with average rolls.

 

I don't know why but HadesFiends seem to be really underrated at the moment. On average they put out more damage than a ML Devastator squad and they have the chance to do double that with perfect rolling. They even get a 5++ and can heal themselves.

 

Lascannons have never been great against AV 14, you still need 6s to pen. That's poor odds unless you have 4 of the buggers.

 

I have SM, Ork, IG, GK and Tyranid armies and I've found Chaos has the best anti-armour. I'll pick the Fiends over Psyfle Dreds any day.

[CitadelArmyGuy]

Cheap and cheerful 5pt meltabombs. Obviously not something you'd want to take out Melee Walkers with though, since you might end up waiting for a hit and subsequently take a large amount of damage.

 

But 5pts to have good odds to kill a Land Raider is pretty great.

 

IMO Oblits are the 'best' Heavy option but you pay for it, being the most expensive option. Generally I only run 3 Units of 2 models, or else a 2 and a 3. I gave them a bad rap in the past but having used them myself and having fought against them more, I see their 'must switch weapons' is not as big a problem as I thought it might be. Running two or three Units of them on my opposite flanks means they can easily obtain side-armor shots most of the time, making the non-lascannon options more useful.

 

I don't know why but HadesFiends seem to be really underrated at the moment. On average they put out more damage than a ML Devastator squad and they have the chance to do double that with perfect rolling. They even get a 5++ and can heal themselves.

Because AP4 is terrible. If the opponent only has Infantry (more and more common these days), then you're looking at 4 wounds on average. The other killer is that BS3. Any rolls that use 4+ will have the highest swings of deviation, since it lies right on the 50/50 line. You could easily see only 1 wound on one turn, and 7 wounds the next. Reliability is generally something people like when they pay 175pts.

[allwaysoffside]

In all honesty how many tanks are there that have AV13/14? And how many are high AV all round? Monolith, Raider? The Russ forwards and side wards. Are there many more?

Cheap as hell bikes, and decent raptors can be armed with plasma guns and meltas. So whilst we appear to lack heavy AT fire, we have speed special weapons and rear armour. Which is how I prefer to play it.

 

 

If you are going to meat force with force, obilts are good. Especially if you DS them and get to shoot at rear armour. If facing 14 all round, then maybe more turns shooting is better then trying to get to the rear.

Lasscannon Havocs are not too expensive, although a tri lass predator is king for S9 as it can move and still operate.

A defiler can be upgraded to have a S8 battle cannon and a twin linked lasscannon and two power fists. But at 215pts each this is going to need to do the job and AV12 even with 4 HP is a liability

A side form this, its time to call on MCs and FMCs.

Also I don’t have the demon dex, but flamers have 4+ chance of glancing for every template right? This seams to be a VERY good way to get at heavy armour.

 

Jeske, I run plasma on my bikes with MoS. The extra fire power into a squad, before charging with HoW, and striking first means I can expect the attacks back to be minimal. And yes, whilst I only get to use it once it’s very, very useful.

[Excessus]

I don't get why people assume that bikers only shoot once? There is more than just charging mindlessly into your opponent, especially if he also has a hard-as-nails fast melee unit and keeps outside your optimal charge distance(because he wants the charge or at least the option to). There is something called tactics in this game, and to regard bikers as melee only is a mistake!

[Jonah]

Because AP4 is terrible. If the opponent only has Infantry (more and more common these days), then you're looking at 4 wounds on average. The other killer is that BS3. Any rolls that use 4+ will have the highest swings of deviation, since it lies right on the 50/50 line. You could easily see only 1 wound on one turn, and 7 wounds the next. Reliability is generally something people like when they pay 175pts.

 

Ok, I get that. But the biggest threat these days seems to come from vehicle spam. Fliers are also an issue but when you're rolling 8 dice there's a good chance you'll get a 6 in there. And if your opponent has no mech there has to be a toughness 5-6 model in there, or something with multiple wounds.

 

In my experience the Fiends have been very reliable, I don't think they've ever missed more than 4-5 hits on a single roll. That's still on-par odds with the Devastator squad. Rocking 2 of them means that if one totally fluffs it then the second should make up for it. I've run Tyranid lists with 2 Tyrannofex, and with those you really do feel the BS 3. You only get 2 dice each so it was very common to spend most of the game missing completely.

 

Like I said I see your point, but I've never faced an army that didn't have something for a S8 to shoot at, and sure BS 3 isn't great but when you're rolling 16 dice I don't mind too much.

[Caffeineated Chaos]

Cheap bike and raptor squads w/ melta, cheap las or ML havocs, Oblits, cheapest Tri-Las Pred, Forgefiend Hades AC or Ectoplasma. Plenty of good Str 8 & 9 and melta options. And given most people don't field much heavy armor any more I think we're good. Oh and allied flamers destroy even LRs with relative ease now, and allied IG for the obvious

[techsoldaten]

I am less concerned about the lack of anti-tank and more concerned about the lack of options versus a lot of anti-tank.

 

Thinking about a Guard list with 3 Leman Russ squadrons (or worse yet, a 2000+ point game with 6 of them). How do you fight 9 - 18 AV 14 tanks with big guns that can kill entire units? Not sure how to construct an army to actually deal with a list like this.

 

I usually bring Obliterators and a Defiler as my anti-tank choice and maybe melta bombs on a champion. Here's about the best combination I could think of for dealing with them:

 

- 3 Heldrakes for shooting up rear armor

- 3 Squads of Obliterators, who would be firing lascannons every other round

- 3 squads of Terminators with chainfists to deep strike into the tank's ranks

- Take Abaddon and max out on meltaspam Champions

 

Not sure this would really make a dent. IG armor has some huge advantages over other lists b/c of the fact they can field a lot of it and there's no effective counters built into other lists.

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

Thinking about a Guard list with 3 Leman Russ squadrons (or worse yet, a 2000+ point game with 6 of them). How do you fight 9 - 18 AV 14 tanks with big guns that can kill entire units? Not sure how to construct an army to actually deal with a list like this.

This, I personally feel tank squadrons are seriously unbalanced if only one faction can have them, and I was really hoping they would give us at least predator squadrons, and give craftworld eldar, tau ect the ability to take squadrons as well.

[the jeske]

cant FW legion lists take predator squadrons ?

[Brother Nihm]

Termicide

Melta Bikers

Oblits

Prince

Melta Havocs

Melta Chosen

Melta Raptors

Las Preds

 

 

Take your pick.

[EricBasser]

:) Trolling :)

 

Allied Flamers and Screamers?

 

In all seriousness, I feel that Chosen, Obliterators, and Havocs are good enough. I also still feel that Melta is better than Plasma with multi-wound and feel no pain Mega Nobz and Paladins. Those seem to be popular in my area right now.

[allwaysoffside]

I don't get why people assume that bikers only shoot once? There is more than just charging mindlessly into your opponent, especially if he also has a hard-as-nails fast melee unit and keeps outside your optimal charge distance(because he wants the charge or at least the option to). There is something called tactics in this game, and to regard bikers as melee only is a mistake!

 

Got to dissagee.

 

With out going off topic.

Bikes are basically mechanised cavalry. Good on the charge, solid and hardwearing thereafter but nothing special. Bikes get loads of attacks into the unit they attack that turn if they charge. A 20 pt bike will get 2 twin linked bolter shots, a HoW attack, and 3 attacks on the charge into one unit. Times by the number of bikes adding special weapons in there aswell this is very good.

Compared with 1 bolter round when you're 18 inches away, to be sure you don’t get charged. It dones't stack up.

Whilst letting off a few rounds and waiting for the enemy to commit themselves sounds very cleaver, this normally gives them the chance to deal loads of damage or get inot a position where they are going to deal loads of damage and can possibly not be stopped. Which given your increased speed you sould have intercepted and stopped, if you'd have seen it.

 

So the real tactics with bikes is identifying the enemy units you need to target and using their speed to intercept them. Not spending a few turns shooting and letting the game develop whilst you figure out what to attack.

 

Tanks.

Being able to field 18 Av 14 tanks at 2000pt seams broken to me.

But if you have 2 FoC, allied with demons you can get a hell of a lot of FMC to smash the tanks, lots of flamers who glance on a 4+. With that lass boats and obilts ar good. With that many tanks its even worth DS obilts and melta termies as you're going to be with in 6inches of a tank.

If you are going to come across lots of armour, melta bikes are a cheap hard to kill unit, especially with MoN which means small arms fire is of almost no use. there are oter units that can perform this role, such as infiltrating raptors. But I find bikes to be the cheapest, the easiest to use and the most versatile

[Seahawk]

Not in the slightest. They tend to have more ranged anti-tank options than C:SM, the book with all the options!

[Excessus]

Snip snip

Err, yeah, because you'll want to get into melee with those wraiths and necron destroyer weave lord, where you'll be at I1 and they'll whittle you down before you an do lasting damage on them? Perhaps you do, but I don't! You move 12", but so do they, they don't want to go into your line where you can counter-assault him with a truckload of units, and you sure as hell don't want to go into his line with your bikers+lord alone before his unit is whittled down a bit. Taking into account terrain and the need to grab objectives, things might not always go the way you plan, and again, it's not always a good idea to mindlessly charge your bikers into your enemy's line...

 

It takes two to tango, you are not playing by yourself...

[Sanctimonius]

? Who can field 18 AV14 vehicles in a 2000 point game?

 

We do seem a little hamstrung by not having the AV options of our loyalist brethren, though no more so than in other slots. Let's face it, if you wanted an easy game you would have chosen Space Puppies.

[Kol Saresk]

Or the Grey Knights. Or the Necron Scythe spam.

[Rik Riorik]

I quite fancy Vindicators.

 

Positives:

Cheapish at 120 points a pop.

Large template meaning you can hit more than one vehicle if bunched together.

Strength 10, AP2.

Ordnance, meaning you get to roll 2D6 for the armour penetration and select the highest.

 

Drawbacks:

24" range, although they can of course move 6" prior to shooting making it effectively 30" that still isn't that much.

Can't hit fliers because of being a Blast weapon.

 

 

So I wouldn't rely on just Vindicators but they have a function to fill definetly and I'd rather pick one over a Defiler because of the lower cost and harder hitting weapon even though the Defilers battlecannon has a better range.

[techsoldaten]

? Who can field 18 AV14 vehicles in a 2000 point game?

 

We do seem a little hamstrung by not having the AV options of our loyalist brethren, though no more so than in other slots. Let's face it, if you wanted an easy game you would have chosen Space Puppies.

Well, I did say a 2000+ point game. But yeah, if not 18, it could be 15.

 

The point is not that they get access to more tanks than we do, it was whether or not there's a way to counter this with a Chaos army. I don't believe there is.