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

[Azekai]

? 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.

Probably not, that is a lot of artillery for us to face- Daemon allies are probably necessary. :huh:

[allwaysoffside]

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...

 

I never said I’d charge the enemy HQ regardless. It’s often the most dangerous unit but that a long cry from the one you need to target.

[Excessus]

I never said I’d charge the enemy HQ regardless. It’s often the most dangerous unit but that a long cry from the one you need to target.

Obviously I would never charge the enemy HQ either if there was no chance of me winning, but you can't expect your opponent to be completely oblivious to this fact. He knows I want to charge something squishy and will take measures against it. It's hard to outrun an enemy unit that moves at the same speed your unit does...

[Prot]

Actually considering the strength GW have given flyers in 6th, I'm more surprised at the lack of Anti-flyer rather than anti-tank.

[tvih]

Well, at least Heldrake can do anti-flyer, so can missile Havocs (though obviously at a cost). These are more than some codices get. Granted this is the first Codex released for the 6th Edition, but even so. I doubt we'll see huge amounts of of anti-air units in other codices in the future either. After all they'll want to keep selling their pricey flyers, making them easier to shoot down would be counter-productive :P Ok ok, I'm being a bit of a cynic here, but really what the hell were they thinking with the new flyer rules combined with old codices - namely those with no flyers nor skyfire things at all ;) It'll take them years to release new codices for all the armies... heck, they probably won't even manage to do that before 7th edition comes here. After all, we still have 4th edition codices in the 6th. And in the meanwhile they don't seem willing to do any sort of real upgrades (liking giving those flak missiles) to old codices.

[minigun762]

Actually considering the strength GW have given flyers in 6th, I'm more surprised at the lack of Anti-flyer rather than anti-tank.

 

I think AA shooting is one area that we are strong at. Having access to flakk missiles and our own durable flyer gives us a solid foundation for handling flyers. We may not be Necron powerful for AA but we aren't struggling as much as others.

[the jeske]

I think you have rethink the durable part . under 2k we can max run 3 draks and doing that makes our list lack points in other departments . at the same time IG and necron [and if IG then all loyalists] can easily fit 3-4 in to their list that is without gimping their lists . out numbered flyers will always die faster , double that if the opposing army can kill your aegis before you can kill his. actualy can happen if we are runing 2 drakes or more , sometimes we may even not have points to buy those .

Test it a bit . take a chaos army with 2 drakes and then check how the chaos army performs when it takes IG as ally . From my testing the IG version is more flexible and less random . if you have 4 flyers having two come before your opponent and get hurt aint good , but acceptable , having 2 pop up first when your just runing 2 is a huge problems , specialy considering the higher cost.

[Prot]

Actually considering the strength GW have given flyers in 6th, I'm more surprised at the lack of Anti-flyer rather than anti-tank.

 

I think AA shooting is one area that we are strong at. Having access to flakk missiles and our own durable flyer gives us a solid foundation for handling flyers. We may not be Necron powerful for AA but we aren't struggling as much as others.

 

Well I've run the Bale Flamer Drake and as a result (for fun) I never got better than a stunned Valkyrie....

 

The Flak Missiles? I'm not sold on these guys yet. Almost leaning more towards just more autocannons and crossing my fingers on the 'to hit' rolls. But I have not actually -played- flak missiles yet.

[Azekai]

I ran flakk havoks at a local tourney last week, and I was really underwhelmed. The low strength is bad, and you get very few shots for how much you are spending. I stunned a single heldrake, and shaved off a few hull points, but that was about all the havoks ever did.

[Vilicate]

Actually considering the strength GW have given flyers in 6th, I'm more surprised at the lack of Anti-flyer rather than anti-tank.

 

I think AA shooting is one area that we are strong at. Having access to flakk missiles and our own durable flyer gives us a solid foundation for handling flyers. We may not be Necron powerful for AA but we aren't struggling as much as others.

 

Well I've run the Bale Flamer Drake and as a result (for fun) I never got better than a stunned Valkyrie....

 

The Flak Missiles? I'm not sold on these guys yet. Almost leaning more towards just more autocannons and crossing my fingers on the 'to hit' rolls. But I have not actually -played- flak missiles yet.

 

How many times have you actually run the Drake? Just once?

 

I've found for the most part I've been able to ignore fliers. Yeah, they have a decent amount of firepower, but when you're bringing 60ish FnP Power Armored bodies, it's tough to get through all of that...

 

That being said, the CronAir army (though I haven't played against it yet) seems like it might be rougher, but that's mostly due to having lots of fast transports full of dudes than them being especially scary to power armor.

[the jeske]

60 power armored PMs or MoS csm is what 2000+pts ?

[minigun762]

As far as flyer durability, I was thinking of terms of a model:model comparison. I can't think of a single flyer that is more difficult to kill than the helchicken.

 

As far as flakk vs autocannon havocs, we must remember that 4 flakk havocs will always be twice as deadly to flyers as 4 autocannon havocs at roughly 50% increase in price. This means that when comparing the two options against flyers, flakk havocs are a better choice for points or for FOC slots. Actually flakk havocs are basically tied with hades helchickens for the best Chaos AA.

 

Autocannon havocs are a great buy because they're a cheap generalist unit that does a fair job of handling a variety situations at a very cheap price. They really only excel against AV10/11 and 4+ save models.

[Prot]

Actually considering the strength GW have given flyers in 6th, I'm more surprised at the lack of Anti-flyer rather than anti-tank.

 

I think AA shooting is one area that we are strong at. Having access to flakk missiles and our own durable flyer gives us a solid foundation for handling flyers. We may not be Necron powerful for AA but we aren't struggling as much as others.

 

Well I've run the Bale Flamer Drake and as a result (for fun) I never got better than a stunned Valkyrie....

 

The Flak Missiles? I'm not sold on these guys yet. Almost leaning more towards just more autocannons and crossing my fingers on the 'to hit' rolls. But I have not actually -played- flak missiles yet.

 

How many times have you actually run the Drake? Just once?

 

I've found for the most part I've been able to ignore fliers. Yeah, they have a decent amount of firepower, but when you're bringing 60ish FnP Power Armored bodies, it's tough to get through all of that...

 

That being said, the CronAir army (though I haven't played against it yet) seems like it might be rougher, but that's mostly due to having lots of fast transports full of dudes than them being especially scary to power armor.

 

3 Times. What does that have to do with it? What if I said '38' times? Some people here, not sure if it was you, were just trying to sell me on the damage it does... so is it ignorable? Or the wrecking ball some people are claiming it is? Perhaps just situational?

 

Regardless of how many times I've used a drake, I can tell you I have used cron flyers, and IG flyers. I also regularly play against IG flyers, Blood Ange flyers, and Ork flyers.

 

While I agree the heldrake is ignorable by 'most', the amount of flyers, and some types of flyers are certainly not ignorable. I just don't think the tools are really there in Chaos for handling them.

 

I don't pretend to know the direction of the game... but in some competitive circles flyers seem to be very dominant. Perhaps they'll milk it for a while, and then put out a magic bullet. I really don't know but my point was I don't think the Chaos codex is that magic bullet... perhaps DA?

 

I'll be using it again the drake this week. Maybe I'll switch up from the baleflamer to the missiles... I really just think relating to the OP, anti-tank isn't an issue. I'd put anti-air ahead as a potential issue.

[Excessus]

You don't use the baleflamer against vehicles unless it's an emergency, you vector strike them and then flame some squishy targets in another place. The torrent rule on it pretty much makes sure you can burninate a truckload of marines almost every round. The drake is one weapon against fliers, but it shouldn't be the only weapon against them...

[the jeske]

only there is a slight difference of hiting stuff with a str7 vector strike and str9 ap 2 lascannons or 2 twin linked teslas or twin linked MM .

[Excessus]

only there is a slight difference of hiting stuff with a str7 vector strike and str9 ap 2 lascannons or 2 twin linked teslas or twin linked MM .

You do realize that the vector strike is d3+1 hits, right? That makes it much better than an autocannon, and they don't get a cover save against it. Also, as I said, if you are only relying on the drake for anti-tank, you are doing it wrong, but it is one of our tools at least...

[the jeske]

yes. so its lower then 4 havocks with sky fire RL . on av 12 in avarge.

 

only or not doesnt matter. If drakes cost more then other army flyers then they get outnumbered[so hit more] worse it means that after buying drakes and getting fewer flyers then opposing armies , we also have less points to spend on other AA units .

this means unit per unit , we not only get a flyer that is weaker in AA against other flyers , but taking it means it is harder for us to get AA in general .

 

the times we face fewer then 2 flyers , its either SR or FW units[someone runing a single castus ram] a drake does nothing to a castus ram . At the same time loyalist if they realy hate flyer [and psykers] take eldar ally and pick up a dark reapers and their exarch uses a quad gun or icarus twice . draks are bad at anti air as is chaos in general . high cost units to kill cheaper ones , when the cheaper ones get a 1 turn to counter stuff [only fortifications have interceptor right now] is not a good counter.

[Excessus]

Yes yes, I know all that already, but you are assuming the havocs have skyfire...why? Their 1,33 hit for four ACs is still lower than the drakes average of 2 hits with the vector strike. Even if you count flakk missiles, sure they get 2,67 hits compared to 2, but the drake will also flame something with it's S6 AP3 flamer in the same turn...and what's more, you can still have both of those squads...

 

It's useless to be envious about how cheap other fliers are, or how this or that codex does X or Y cheaper or better. We have our codex and have to look at what to take from that. Also, you are assuming that only the opponent have allies. We have those as well...

[Prot]

This thing is getting a little derailed. All I am saying , in relation to the original post, is that no we don't have an anti tank issue. At least I don't.

 

Some of the method I use may be unorthodox but even so the codex does have a lot of ways of dealing with 'tanks'. If we are talking about what the codex does have for issues, considering it's a sixth ed codex, it would be flyers.

 

Vector striking is what you should be doing with a 'drake w/bale flamer. I don't think anyone in this entire thread thinks that is a bad idea.

 

Back on point, between my Termies (love these guys again), bikes, oblits, havoks, pred-anni, and all the medium armor tools we have, I don't think tanks are a big issue... especially in 6th.

[Brother Nihm]

I agree,

That was what I was going for here:

 

Termicide

Melta Bikers

Oblits

Prince

Melta Havocs

Melta Chosen

Melta Raptors

Las Preds

 

 

Take your pick.

 

And to add to that:

 

Allies

[Kol Saresk]

Allies: So Skyrar's Dark Wolves finally get some playtime alongside the Knights of Blood?

[CitadelArmyGuy]

...The torrent rule on it pretty much makes sure you can burninate a truckload of marines almost every round...

Truckload? 4 Marines isn't a truckload... against an opponent who knows what they're doing, the Torrent template will only hit 4 models. Then you have to wound on 2+.

 

Of course, if you need the opponent to use spread-formations because you're headed to melee them, NOW you're talking. Synergy.

 

Don't use Baleflamer-Heldrake with a gunline CSM build. Its a waste. Use it with a Melee List. Because if they spread out then you achieve Strategic Concentration. If they don't spread out, then it's time to make s'mores.

[Prot]

This thread is kind of funny. Really I mean that because what I'm getting here is we are debating different things here but essentially we all seem to agree that the codex has sufficient anti-tank... right? :)

[CitadelArmyGuy]

This thread is kind of funny. Really I mean that because what I'm getting here is we are debating different things here but essentially we all seem to agree that the codex has sufficient anti-tank... right? :D

In complete agreeance. I don't feel CSM have problems with Heavy Armor removal.

[Kol Saresk]

As someone who observed but never weighed in, yeah Prot is right. I think the disagreement is what anti-tank to use and quite a bit of it, like everything else in this Codex, has a when, where and how and it is simply figuring out what those are for each unit so we can all use them. It does seem like this Codex is better than some thought, but still has problems and those problems are the fact that it is mostly situational. Almost like GW really does want to leave the tourney scene and have everyone go into organized narrative campaigns or something and leave the tourney scene to FW and the fluff to BL.