Making Noise Marines Scream

[Bonzi]

The Noise Marines/Slaanesh army continue to impress. I award the Iron Halo to the Aspiring Champion that held the line and captured the objective. It seems that Fearless is a great boon regardless of situation. On a side note, I think that the Soul Grinder is much more viable in higher points games, 1500 +, the Obliterators cover much of his role in lower point games. Can you arrange a 2k point game, I am really curious to see how the Noise Marines perform in that bracket. 

 

I'm in a paint and play campaign right now and we are bumping the level by 250pts each month so I have been trying to keep up with that.  Next week we jump to 1,500pt games.  At the moment I could field a decent list up to 1850 but for the 2k mark I would be running sub par units.  I will try and get in larger games on our off weeks.

[Brother Ambroz]

Bonzi, wouldn't it have been a slightly better use of the soulgrinder to tarpit one of the gaunt or stealer units to try to save a NM unit? Or was that not possible with board setup? Just curious.

[Bonzi]

Bonzi, wouldn't it have been a slightly better use of the soulgrinder to tarpit one of the gaunt or stealer units to try to save a NM unit? Or was that not possible with board setup? Just curious.

 

Well the problem is that Ymagrl Stealers can charge the turn they arrive from reserve and the person gets to secretly pick which piece of terrain they arrive from.  My opponent let me deploy first and then in his deployment phase he picked all the terrain my NM were sitting in as his Ymagrl Stealers arrival points.  He had three squads of them and he targeted each squad on a NM unit.  Thus, turn two arrived and two of the squads appeared and charged two of my NM units right off the bat.  I couldn't shoot them up or tarpit them before they were locked in combat, I got my over watch and that was it.

 

 I was lucky in that I had moved one of my NM squads forward onto a central objective which took them off of their starting terrain that the third stealer unit arrived from in turn three.  However he had a mob of Guants with assault 3 guns come down in a mycetic spore right next to this lucky unit.  30 Str 4 shots later and all I had left was the sarg.  As with the other two units, all the damage was alpha strike style and couldn't be stopped or bogged down before it happened.

 

Now after he had gotten his Stealer charges off on my NM units I did send in my Oblits and the Soul Grinder to bail them out, but I couldn't kill the Stealers off fast enough to save the NM.  As for the Guants, they got killed off by my bikes before they could do any more damage but I had no way of stopping the initial drop and shoot.  The third unit of stealers arrived to an empty bit of terrain in turn three because my NM had moved...and for the sins of their brothers, they got flamed to death by the Oblits before they could move from that point.

[Brother Ambroz]

Ah, I see. Was there still room to deploy stealers though on a piece of terrain? The terrain I use wouldn't leave enough room I don't think.

[Bonzi]

Ah, I see. Was there still room to deploy stealers though on a piece of terrain? The terrain I use wouldn't leave enough room I don't think.

 

I don't know the rules for those Stealers well enough to know what restrictions they had.  If they had to appear entirely on the terrain then both of the units probably would not have been able to deploy without being within 1" of my unit.  I just assumed the terrain was the starting point and they could 'disembark' from there.  I really wanted to read the book to see if they were being played right as the unit seemed really broken from how it was played.  It seemed a little unfair he could select the terrain points after I had deployed but I'm just not familiar with a lot of the Nid specialty units.

[Brother Ambroz]

Yeah that really doesn't seem right to me either but I don't have the codex so I can't say.

[Leper]

It seemed a little unfair he could select the terrain points after I had deployed but I'm just not familiar with a lot of the Nid specialty units.

Bear in mind that I haven't played Nids since the release of the 5th ed. codex, but if I recall correctly, you're supposed to choose the location after terrain is placed, and sides are picked, but before deployment.

Which is still a nasty ability, and fun, but not nearly as scary as "let me immediately invalidate any non-CC unit you've placed in or near terrain."

EDIT: Just checked.

Apparently Ygmarl Genestealers choose terrain after deployment, but before the game begins. Nasty. On the other hand:

They all must be deployed within the boundaries of that terrain, and farther than 1" from an enemy model. Any that can't be deployed in that manner are destroyed outright.

Looks like the workaround for that is to deploy your shooty squads in smaller pieces of area terrain where possible, and also space them out to cover as much ground as you can while maintaining unit coherency.

Whether or not you want to remind him of how this rule works before your next game is up to you. The spiteful bastard in me says to wait and remind him next time decides to deploy them and winds up losing all but one or two models in a squad to deployment.

[minigun762]

Have you considered consolidating two of the blastmaster squads into one? You save the cost of the second champion and give the unit a little more durability but you lose a scoring unit and the ability to fire at two targets. That said, I can't imagine there are many targets where a pair of blastmasters would be considered overkill.

[cgaolol]

Don't you need at least 10 NM to a Blastmaster?

 

Edit: Nevermind, checked the FAQ/Errata!  Blast away!

[Bonzi]

Have you considered consolidating two of the blastmaster squads into one? You save the cost of the second champion and give the unit a little more durability but you lose a scoring unit and the ability to fire at two targets. That said, I can't imagine there are many targets where a pair of blastmasters would be considered overkill.

 

The only real benefit is the cost savings of the sarg.  The number of ablative wounds are the same, it just takes four instead of eight kills to kill the first blastmaster.    I find this is offset by the utility of an extra scoring unit and the ability to hit more targets in one round of shooting.    I ran a big unit once and it didn't pan out as well as later trials with multiple MSU squads.

 

 

 

We, I had another close battle at 1.5K against another CSM player.  Mission was Relic with the diagonal deployment.

 

His list:

 

Khârn

 

Sorc: lvl 2

 

9 Berzerkers

10 CSM: x2 plasma

10 CSM: x1 plasma, x1 melta

10 CSM: x1 plasma, x1 melta

 

Helldrake

 

Defiler

 

Forgefiend

 

My list:

 

Chaos Lord: bk, mos. aod, power sword

 

5 NM: bm

5 NM: bm

5 NM: bm

 

5 Biker: power ax, x2 melta,  meltabomb

 

2 Oblits: mon

2 Oblits: mon

 

Herald of S: greater gift, lesser gift, locus of b., steed of slan.

 

17 Nettes: aluress

 

6 Seekers: aluress, lesser gift

 

Soul Grinder: mos, torrent flamer

 

 

It was a tight battle, I inched it out on the bottom of the 5th turn by running my biggest remaining squad of NM (3 guys) onto the relic.  I made it just far enough to pick up the relic, otherwise it would have been a tie (slay the warlord, first blood  vs  slay the warlord, linebreaker).

 

 

Lessons/Results

 

#1.  The last few games have made me forget that I'm a shooting army first and foremost, this game reminded me of the fact.  My bikers, Nettes, and Seekers all got mauled by shooting and CC and only delivered meh results.  It was my Oblits and Blastmasters that carried me through this game in a big way.

 

#2.  Oblits were the MVP of the game.  I could't get a decent armor pen roll to save my life, but I played these guys aggressively.  They netted a lot of Breserkers, CSM, and punched his Defiler (which was sitting on top of the relic) to death.

 

#3.  MSU NM took a mauling from the Defiler and the Helldrake but fearless marines are tough to beat.  At the end of the game I had one unit of three with a blastmaster touching the relic, the other two units were reduced to just their blastmasters.  They accounted for a lot of CSM and Zerker kills in the shooting.  I basically just mowed down his troops as they moved to take the relic.

 

#4.  Nettes got shot to pieces this game.  Three were left alive at the end of the game and they killed nothing.  They would have taken the relic if I hadn't gotten it with my NM unit.  I was just too cautious with them, I should have just sent them up the middle with my bikers. 

 

#5.  Seekers + Herald were ok this game but not amazing.  Again I just played them too cautiously.  I lost my Herald to Khârn and terrible rolling.  In the end my Seeker aluress killed Khârn, killed a CSM sarg, and then died to overwatch charging his last unit of CSM.

 

#6.  Bikers + Lord took a hammering this game.  The entire unit was wiped out but it took Khârn + Zerkers + a full squad of CSM.  The benefit was all his units were cluster up when he killed the last biker.  He lost all his Zerkers and the unit of CSM to my shooting in the next turn.  My Lord should have at least wounded Khârn but terrible rolling in CC was the order of the day for me.

 

#7.  The Soul Grinder was another meh in this game.  I shot him at the Heldrakes rear armor and missed every shot.  I got a solid hit with the torrent flamer on a CSM squad but he saved all the wounds.  I killed about three CSM with him in combat and then spent the rest of the game in a punching match with the forgefiend.  It would have been a quick fight but my claw had been blown off before the fight began.  Again, I probably should have just shoved him up the center rather than worrying about the heldrake.

 

 

My impression of CSM units he used:

 

#1.  This is my second time facing a forgefiend and I'm just not impressed.

#2.  Zerkers are not scary in the least.  Khârn yes, but the Zerkers no.  They don't carry enough of an edge in close combat and they have too little shooting to be dangerous.

#3.  Defilers are dangerous and hard to kill but still really expensive for what they do.

#4.  The heldrake is scary but fast infantry and good positioning can save you from a lot of pain.  Against non-fearless units he would have been far more devastating.

[Hellrender]

i love these reports. I am trying to come up with a good Iron Warrior list, trying to do it undivided tho, but your an inspiration. Will see if i can get something similar with normal CSM (unmarked) and daemon allies.

 

Keep up this threat, abosuletly love to read it, and a nice change of tone from the normal CSM threads!

[Bonzi]

i love these reports. I am trying to come up with a good Iron Warrior list, trying to do it undivided tho, but your an inspiration. Will see if i can get something similar with normal CSM (unmarked) and daemon allies.

 

Keep up this threat, abosuletly love to read it, and a nice change of tone from the normal CSM threads!

I appreciate you posting.  Part of the reason I started this thread was because I was so sick of the doom and gloom about CSM (which is even worse on this forum than it is on the rest of the interwebz).

 

 

Unfortunately work kept me from getting in a battle this week.  Instead I am working on a kitbash Herald of Slaanesh which I hope to have roughed out this week.  The Herald will be a Daemonette crouching atop the shoulder of a dead SM tactical.  The tactical will be sitting on the ground with arms hanging down, legs splayed out, and his head torn off.  The Herald will have a double bladed staff weapon jammed into the armor where the SM's head was, holding onto it with one hand for balance.  In the other hand she will be holding a whip or the SM's bloody head and spine.  I also want to put some wings on her so I can use her as an on foot herald or use the wings as a 'counts-as' steed if I want her to join some Seekers.

 

I am writing this down so I will actually have the motivation to do it.

[minigun762]

My impression of CSM units he used:

 

#1.  This is my second time facing a forgefiend and I'm just not impressed.

Why do you think this was? I've had good success with them using the Hades Autocannons.

[ChaosLord Leon Enaek]

Me too - I've proxied in a 2 Hades/1 Ectoplasma in a couple of games and its performed pretty well for me - a terror to all but the largest light infantry squads, most light/medium vehicles and even small MEQ/TEQ squads.

[minigun762]

Me too - I've proxied in a 2 Hades/1 Ectoplasma in a couple of games and its performed pretty well for me - a terror to all but the largest light infantry squads, most light/medium vehicles and even small MEQ/TEQ squads.

How was the ecto head? Did you find it worth the extra points?

 

I run it without the head weapon but I'm tempted because it's a moderate point increase for another nice weapon.

[Warsmith Aznable]

How was the ecto head? Did you find it worth the extra points?

 

I run it without the head weapon but I'm tempted because it's a moderate point increase for another nice weapon.

 

For me it either does absolutely nothing at all, or murders whole squads. There has never been an between level of performance for it.

[ChaosLord Leon Enaek]

 

 

How was the ecto head? Did you find it worth the extra points?

 

I run it without the head weapon but I'm tempted because it's a moderate point increase for another nice weapon.

For me it either does absolutely nothing at all, or murders whole squads. There has never been an between level of performance for it.

Same, although because of my local area it tends to perform well - there's a lot of Ork hordes and Draigowings - large S8 (AP2) attacks are so very useful :D

[Prot]

I still think a Forgefiend belongs in an army with a fair chunk of mid AV11-12 units.  Most of these EC lists are quite infantry heavy.

 

My best success with them back when the codex came out was a dirt cheap HQ (Warpsmith) and lots of AV12 on the table. They work far better in pairs imho as well. (I haven't tried Maulerfiends yet though.)

[Bonzi]

I still think a Forgefiend belongs in an army with a fair chunk of mid AV11-12 units.  Most of these EC lists are quite infantry heavy.

 

My best success with them back when the codex came out was a dirt cheap HQ (Warpsmith) and lots of AV12 on the table. They work far better in pairs imho as well. (I haven't tried Maulerfiends yet though.)

I think that is the heart of it.  Fiends don't work well against MEQ infantry, on average killing only 1-2 Marines per round, and my army is heavily infantry based.  Their sweet spot is monsterous creatures or AV11-12 spam where their guns are going to tear it up.  If you switch over to Ecto guns the Fiends role reverses except ectos have a really short range and AV 12 is not very durable in a world of plasma spam and krak grenades.  If hellbruts were better you could make a really scary walker style army, but as it is right now AV12 is just too easy to take down.

[Hellrender]

If you would roll Master of Deception for your Warlord, would it allow you to infiltrate those daemonettes? Or does that only work for the primary detachment?

[Bonzi]

If you would roll Master of Deception for your Warlord, would it allow you to infiltrate those daemonettes? Or does that only work for the primary detachment?

 

Trait only specifies D3 infantry units in the army.  Doesn't specifically limit it to CSM codex units so I would say it would work for the Nettes.  It's a dirty dirty trick I hope I get to use some day, but unfortunately in all the games I've played so far I only ever roll Hatred or Fear.

[minigun762]

 

I still think a Forgefiend belongs in an army with a fair chunk of mid AV11-12 units.  Most of these EC lists are quite infantry heavy.

 

My best success with them back when the codex came out was a dirt cheap HQ (Warpsmith) and lots of AV12 on the table. They work far better in pairs imho as well. (I haven't tried Maulerfiends yet though.)

I think that is the heart of it.  Fiends don't work well against MEQ infantry, on average killing only 1-2 Marines per round, and my army is heavily infantry based.  Their sweet spot is monsterous creatures or AV11-12 spam where their guns are going to tear it up.  If you switch over to Ecto guns the Fiends role reverses except ectos have a really short range and AV 12 is not very durable in a world of plasma spam and krak grenades.  If hellbruts were better you could make a really scary walker style army, but as it is right now AV12 is just too easy to take down.

But in light of EC's ability to handle marines, I feel as if a hadesfiend would fill the other gaps in your army, namely AA, light/medium armor busting and throwing wounds on MCs and 2+ saves.

[Bonzi]

 

 

I still think a Forgefiend belongs in an army with a fair chunk of mid AV11-12 units.  Most of these EC lists are quite infantry heavy.

 

My best success with them back when the codex came out was a dirt cheap HQ (Warpsmith) and lots of AV12 on the table. They work far better in pairs imho as well. (I haven't tried Maulerfiends yet though.)

I think that is the heart of it.  Fiends don't work well against MEQ infantry, on average killing only 1-2 Marines per round, and my army is heavily infantry based.  Their sweet spot is monsterous creatures or AV11-12 spam where their guns are going to tear it up.  If you switch over to Ecto guns the Fiends role reverses except ectos have a really short range and AV 12 is not very durable in a world of plasma spam and krak grenades.  If hellbruts were better you could make a really scary walker style army, but as it is right now AV12 is just too easy to take down.

But in light of EC's ability to handle marines, I feel as if a hadesfiend would fill the other gaps in your army, namely AA, light/medium armor busting and throwing wounds on MCs and 2+ saves.

I think it depends on the style you play.  The Fiend certainly has a place in a more static shooting list, but for me I just don't see it working.  My NM are the static element and the rest of my army creates the dynamic pressure.  Oblits and Soul Grinders are units I can use in melee as well as at range whereas the Fiend is easy to reduce to scrap metal once it gets locked up.  I like having the option of changing how I play based on who my opponent is and Oblits and Grinders give me that flexibility, a Fiend is a shooting walker and that's it.  If you go up against another shooting heavy -or- infantry based army your Fiend becomes something of a write-off.

 

It boils down to style and how the rest of your list is built.

[Phytoon]

I just finished reading this thread, and I have to say that I'm thrilled to find further validation for the bikers. I just got into Warhammer 40k about 6 months ago, and I got the new battleforce for chaos that came with the bikes. My friend who played for a while was trying to convince me that the box with khorne berserkers was better, because the zerkers were apparently "brokenly good," but after a few games with the bikes, I thought he was just trying to mess with me.

 

Actually, the thing that attracted me to this thread is the similarity between our armies. The biggest difference is that I don't have a lot of bikers, only the three that came with the battleforce, so I can't field a bunch of them like you, so I make up for that with upgrades. 

 

My favorite part of these reports is the after-thoughts, especially with the changes you plan to make. I seem to have come to similar conclusions, especially with the bikers doing so well to lock down an enemy unit (or two, in one special case) after taking out a vehicle. I've been running my chaos lord with the black mace, but if I copy your strategy, he comes down a lot in price and frees up points for other units, so it works out pretty nicely that way.

 

I just recently bought a heldrake, and will be running that in a local campaign/league in the next few weeks. I managed to fit it into my 750 point list, and I can't wait for that game because of it. Likewise, I can't wait to read about your next games. Good job, man.

[Brother Ambroz]

 

 My friend who played for a while was trying to convince me that the box with khorne berserkers was better, because the zerkers were apparently "brokenly good," but after a few games with the bikes, I thought he was just trying to mess with me.

 

If I had a friend that did that, I'd definitely punch them. That'd be quite a bit of cash for something that isn't very good currently.

 

Bonzi, have you considered AC Havocs? They're not quite as expensive as a hadesfiend and they're harder to kill.