Disappointed in myself today...

[Brotherbry]

Hello brothers! New member here, but longtime lurker. I feel like I let us down today!

 

I played a 2000 point game vs a random today. He brought chaos and his list consisted of Kharne and about 50 khorne bezerkers, 6 rhinos, 6 obliterators, and a hell drake. He had quite an odd strategy that he lined all the rhinos up in one corner of the board in front of the absolute red tide of bezerkers. Then spread the oblits out. His plan was to run his army down the field using the rhinos as screens. He didn't put anyone in the transports.

 

My list was...

 

Hq

 

Belial. (storm and sword)

 

Troops were 2 five man deathwing squads one with thunder hammers (belial attached) and the other with cyclone and storm bolsters. Also had a 9 man green wing squad.

 

Also had a squad of vets in a rhino with combi plasmas, the deathwing knights, 6 black knights (all plas talons), a vindicator, and 3 speeders with mm's and cyclones.

 

I basically sat back and unleashed everything I had at his crappy list and he still somehow got to me. Carved me up pretty good towards the end but I was destroying him early. His plan was terrible I thought and I was surprised to see a squad of his oblits kill belial in cc!(forgot they had a 2+ save and sword is only ap3). Also wiped out the deathwing knights with a squad of zerkers. Couldn't believe it.

 

We ended up tieing in the end but before the game started I was laughing to myself thinking I'm about to destroy this kid.

 

Anyway just wanted to vent! Lol. Not sure what I could have done different besides the belial fiasco....I really like my balanced list but thinking the vets just don't fit...

 

Also I guess deep striking termies right into his grasp wasn't the best idea but I had no clue what opponent I was going to play. Does anyone just footslog in that situation?

[cypherkk]

Well with vets, I'd say in a drop pod or not At all. The difference being putting them exactly where I'd want them, rather than reacting and making the best out of the rhino's deployment and movement.

 

That actually looked like a pretty solid tactic/list, on his part.very 4th ed... Deep striking wasn't a good idea, at least right at him the better list would have been an land raider "deployer" pattern, lol for those dw knights and thunder hammers to ensure the assault. Deep striking cc terminators is asking for a while Lotta luck to survive in the current meta.

 

Good job in pulling a tie!

[jeremy1391]

Berserkers aren't something to lift your nose at. They are 4 attacks each on the charge, if they have veterans of the long war they are landing a lot of those hits and wounding on 3 with furious charge, so I could see a hefty squad killing knights easily.

[Raven of the Wing]

i wish i could offer advice, but in my encouters with chaos, it seems, belial and his DW always get creamed.

and with the AP3 sword its hard work to get belial to kill anything tbh!

[shortysl]

start taking the Mace of Redemption. it becomes AP2 against chaos.

[notmattlythgoe]

start taking the Mace of Redemption. it becomes AP2 against chaos.

Mace of Redemption on what?

[Brotherbry]

Yea I like the mace but then I'm taking a company master instead of Belial. And taking green marines in bulk against chaos is usually murder in my travels. The hell drake just barbecues my entire army

[Prot]

I'm just going to say this off the top of my head and please don't take this the wrong way but I believe the biggest mistake may not have been your list, or Belial but the fact you took Khorne for granted.

 

If you would have had a serious respect for what they can do if/when they reach you, I think you would have fared a lot better. Against a Khârn list I know I don't want any part of that reaching me (in any army). I will typically set up in a defensive posture, knowing that I will be retreating while popping off shots, and continue to retreat. Deep striking in behind any 'rush' army often puts a dent in their strategy. Do they separate a good portion of their rush and turn to take care of you? Or do they stick to the original plan and ignore you and take shots in the back?

 

Spamming just really basic firearms in these kinds of games is often a real deal breaker for this kind of army. Something like Tau or Necrons can just annihilate a list like that unless it has some pretty serious tricks up its sleeve.

 

Those are just my thoughts from reading what you wrote. I have played as World Eaters many time, and I will tell you the best thing I like to see is a smaller Elite based list like you have. The weight of close combat attacks I can come to bare down on you with can be really hard to recover from. Ideally this is not your best match up, but I think you're being too hard on your list (unless you simply want to tailor it for World Eaters which I doubt.)

[Brotherbry]

Yea your probably right about that as well. I really didn't expect my terminators getting carved up like that until I saw the amount of dice he was about to roll the first time he got to me lol

[facmanpob]

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle” - Sun Tzu

 

I will echo Prot's post above, in that the biggest problem I can see from the tone of your post is that you had little respect for your opponent and even less for his army. I mean that with the utmost respect to you, but it sounds like you were thinking "noob!" at the start, and expected a walkover.

 

I faced very similar tactics from my main playing buddy a few weeks ago (although he was running T5 nurgle marines and sorcerers able to give his marines shrouded, and havoks instead of oblits - but the effect was similar and he used the charge down the flank tactics you mentioned above). I got a hard-earned draw out of the game, and very nearly won it, but his wave of marines was extremely difficult to deal with.

 

EDIT - spelling

[Brotherbry]

Ha yea to an extent. I just didn't see the tactic working or being effective for him but I def have a new respect for the bezerkers.

 

I am always respectful to my opponents though. I just thought for sure I was taking this one!

[shortysl]

I'd suggest an Interrogator Chaplain for the Mace seeing as how he's rather good at hitting things.

[Master Avoghai]

It seems that your only error was to forget the 3S rule in v6 : Saturation, Saturation,Saturation.

 

Saturation of your termis : with 4A/guys at WS5 rerollable your termis are likely to be saturated and will miss their save no mater they have 2+ save.

 

Saturation of the enemy : my regular opponent plays pure khorne, either SMC or Deamons. The last battle I've made against him I've created a 24" bubble with the dakka banner. At the end, the result was 2x10 berserks + 5termis + termi lord all dead for 5 tactical lost.

That's why I've chosen to DS my termis with Belial turn 2 because I knew he'll want to reach my gun line and I wanted my termis to arrive the turn the berserk will suffer from dakka fire.

 

Arriving too soon, it would allow him to throw them to H2H with termis causing :

a/ dead termis

b/ berserkers protected from my fire by being out of range and/or locked in CC.

 

Here they were blocked between the anvil of my gunline and the hammer of my Belialized terminators. The shooting phase weakened them so much that they weren't enough to be a menace for my termis. And they finally finished them in CC the following turn.

 

I think your list was fine and that berserkers are not the best unit in v6 because their only strength is CC and v6 gives importance to shooting...

Problem was you allowed him to use his only strength whereas you couldn't profit from yours.

[Brother Immolator]

In fact from what I read on his list and tactics he was fielding anything but a crappy list. The very fact that he footslogged the zerkers behind the rhino screen and did not embark them means he pretty much had a cohesive plan. The only drawback I can think here is the free rhino kill points.Also the very fact that you will not see such a list/playstile every day has the advantage of getting you by surprise which will not happen again anyway from now on

That been said, dont feel bad things like that happen. I am more than surprised on the performance of the DWKs. I assume he charged them first?

Now to tactics: I would still keep my terminators in reserve (not the knights and storm bolter ones) and either forgoe deathwing assault or deepstrike turn 2 and keep an inch distance of at least two turns. So if he wants to come to them he will have to eat their charge in the face. Like that you can use the terminators deployment to create bottlenecks alongside terrain pieces to stall his advance. Since we are talking about stalling, you should have at least a couple of approprietly equiped tacs/devs/dreads(that one is good to tarpit zerks as well)/preds to take out the transports. The wreckage can work to your advatage. Sometimes the explosion will cause wounds and even become terrain that will slow him down.

I would also fiddle with an expensive assault deterent: LRC with the deathwing knights in.

Have the crusader hammer him with its guns and counter charge his zerkers when applicable. Another drawback of his list is that he cant stay back he has to come to you.

EDIT: Another good detterent is to drop the DKs and go RWBKs. Assuming you have space you can be zooming arround and gunning zerkers left and right, charge the leftovers.