So...what are some ideas about how to make assault 'work'?

[Trevak Dal]

What are some ways we can make assault work, with just the basic Codex Chaos Space Marines and the Codex Supplement available to us?

 

Tau was my first (and primary) army.  I wanted Chaos Space marines because I wanted a more Close Combat-y army.  Stuff's gone awry, but I intend to re-engage the Apocalypse as it were.

 

Can you Flat-Out a Rhino after it's deployed troops?

 

If you can:   The idea would be to have two rhinos (and CSM/Cult teams inside them working in tandem).  The squads deploy behind their rhinos, and you 'Flatout' the rhinos so that they make a "wall" between the enemy units for on going fire.

 

Move any fast units (raptors, Spawn, Warp Talons, Bikes you don't want elsewhere being annoying) behind the disembarked assault units-close enough so that they could move and viably assault (their move distance + 8" for the random roll)

 

Weather the storm of shooting that will occur.  If you took Mark of Khorne, you got a decent chance of getting counter attack (assuming you're charged), MoS you strike first-you guys know this stuff.  The assault is happening one way or the other-they can do it the Easy Way-(get assaulted by the CSMs) or the Hard Way (assault the CSMs-get ganked and Star-Shanked by the back up unit).

 

When your turn comes, move the rhinos (if they're still alive) "opening the shield wall", move up, shoot with pistols-throw a grenade Per unit, and charge.

[minionboy]

Really, if you want to make assault work, you need to build for speed.  3-4 Maulerfiends, 1-2 units of Spawn/Bikes/Raptor with a biker lord/sorc.  Chaos Marines in rhinos just aren't fast enough for this kind of list, so aside from the fast assault elements, I'd then focus on effective scoring.  Even if you move up at full speed, then disembark, then charge, you're talking a turn 3 charge at best.

[FashaTheDog]

The real trick to making assaults work is to have sufficient terrain.  Most people seem to not use enough terrain and as a result, shooting armies dominate.  I've seen far more battle reports with spare terrain and the terrain that is there provides little in the way of line of sight blocking.  The most common I've seen is a forest with two or three trees, the old plastic 3rd edition starter ruins, the crashed Aquila Lander, and maybe a few craters and/or a small hill or two.  A good table should have loads of terrain, of which many lines of fire are blocked at various points and from different directions.  Once there is enough terrain, assault armies suddenly can make it across the table, even on foot, intact enough to do their job.

[minionboy]

The real trick to making assaults work is to have sufficient terrain.  Most people seem to not use enough terrain and as a result, shooting armies dominate.  I've seen far more battle reports with spare terrain and the terrain that is there provides little in the way of line of sight blocking.  The most common I've seen is a forest with two or three trees, the old plastic 3rd edition starter ruins, the crashed Aquila Lander, and maybe a few craters and/or a small hill or two.  A good table should have loads of terrain, of which many lines of fire are blocked at various points and from different directions.  Once there is enough terrain, assault armies suddenly can make it across the table, even on foot, intact enough to do their job.

 

Haha, this is something else I've been ranting about!  Unfortunately you can't control tournament terrain though.

[the jeske]

yep . speed is the only way . Still assault , specialy csm assault is too random to be good. If someone wants a chaos army that does melee , he should run a FMC list from the demon dex with csm ally to get a mace DP and a helldrake for cheap.

[Ammonius]

 

The real trick to making assaults work is to have sufficient terrain.  Most people seem to not use enough terrain and as a result, shooting armies dominate.  I've seen far more battle reports with spare terrain and the terrain that is there provides little in the way of line of sight blocking.  The most common I've seen is a forest with two or three trees, the old plastic 3rd edition starter ruins, the crashed Aquila Lander, and maybe a few craters and/or a small hill or two.  A good table should have loads of terrain, of which many lines of fire are blocked at various points and from different directions.  Once there is enough terrain, assault armies suddenly can make it across the table, even on foot, intact enough to do their job.

 

Haha, this is something else I've been ranting about!  Unfortunately you can't control tournament terrain though.

Why not?

 

I have committed a lot of effort to making terrain at my FLGS, and everything I make will be with my army in mind: Forests? LOS blocking rocks in the center. Hills or Mesas? Tall enough to block a Valkyrie's LOS. Buildings? Tall enough to block flyer LOS, mostly with bases for area terrain saves.

 

The world is run by those who show up. If your tournament people don't have enough terrain, build some and make sure they use it.

 

(Now, if you are traveling to tournaments far and wide and can't influence the terrain options then please accept my sympathies and disregard my advice)

[hornywingythingy]

yep . speed is the only way . Still assault , specialy csm assault is too random to be good. If someone wants a chaos army that does melee , he should run a FMC list from the demon dex with csm ally to get a mace DP and a helldrake for cheap.

Or the screamer council from chaos demons, or the flesh hound spam, even the seekers are effective used with fiends, hell, they are hideous with fiends....

 

So many builds, its why I'm cd primary now, I tried spawn spam, and its effective, but you need sorcerers and to pray for some kind of save power for your spawn, even 3w t6 doesn't hold up that well to missilesides.

 

I do wonder about triple landraider, it has potential, but the cost..... Shudders.

[FashaTheDog]

 

 

 

yep . speed is the only way . Still assault , specialy csm assault is too random to be good. If someone wants a chaos army that does melee , he should run a FMC list from the demon dex with csm ally to get a mace DP and a helldrake for cheap.

I do wonder about triple landraider, it has potential, but the cost..... Shudders.

 

You would make Dark Eldar players squee with delight...then lose all three Land Raiders and their contents on turn 1.  Otherwise, it could be fun.

[zyl-]

I doubt they have enough firepower to table an army on turn 1. Give it about 2 more codex releases.

[minigun762]

 

I do wonder about triple landraider, it has potential, but the cost..... Shudders.

 

I don't think the actual point cost is that bad really, it's more the loss of your heavy slot options.

That said, cheaper Land Raiders filled with cult units supported by drakes and maybe some termicide squads would be a decent way to negate much of the mid strength firepower out there while providing a decent means to get up close and punchy.

[daboarder]

I reckon s nasty mutilator/Termi squad with a lord in a raider, backed up by a pair of maulers.

 

2 big spawn units and a bunch of cultists babysat by a Dark apostle.

 

Go for the throat, tear the heart out of his army.

[Scribe]

I reckon s nasty mutilator/Termi squad with a lord in a raider, backed up by a pair of maulers.

 

2 big spawn units and a bunch of cultists babysat by a Dark apostle.

 

Go for the throat, tear the heart out of his army.

 

Was thinking something like this, but just flooding the table with Marines instead.

 

Sorc Termi, Termi's, in LR

4 x 10 CSM (mix of 2 x 2 Flamer, 2 x 2 Melta, all have LC on Champ) in Rhinos.

2 x 5 AC Havocs in the back for some turn 1 shooting.

 

Drive up, unload, shoot up, pop the nova (Black Legion list) Dirge on all the rides. Can you kill 40 Marines across 4 units, and the Terminators? Would it be enough to dent a more balanced list? I would think so.

[hornywingythingy]

 

 

 

 

 

yep . speed is the only way . Still assault , specialy csm assault is too random to be good. If someone wants a chaos army that does melee , he should run a FMC list from the demon dex with csm ally to get a mace DP and a helldrake for cheap.I do wonder about triple landraider, it has potential, but the cost..... Shudders.

You would make Dark Eldar players squee with delight...then lose all three Land Raiders and their contents on turn 1. Otherwise, it could be fun.

When was the last time you saw dark eldar at a tournie? They are damn rare round here, and what there is tends towards venomspam with 2-3 ravagers, unless allied with eldar, when you lose points to fit the serpents and jetseer in.

 

I'm not claiming its amazeballs, but it could be a route, perhaps noise marines in landraiders with dirge casters.

[the jeske]

Had to re read my own post 3 times . No LR in sight. Anyway . As eldar/deldar goes . Yes there is serpents , yes they can ground you. But this is when skill and knowing how to play on the terrain you have comes in to play. Even neither of the necron scyth wing builds aren't a dead match up for Demons. Sure you not roll them and you can lose , if dice want so . But the only chaos army that could win against anything was the WFB one

 

At the same time DE have a horrible time in 6th ed , they are harder to play with then BAs .And as Horny said you don't see them offten enough to make a FMC build Invalide. Technicly every army who can focus fire 40 shots on a FMC can ground him and then finish him off with support units . The question is can it do the same to 3-4 FMC while countering troops and being bale flamed . DE can't .

[Zhukov]

You have basicly 3 (not so good) options regarding Assaulting with CSM:

4x Maulerfiend + 2x Spawn. (using supplement as allies)

2x Prince + Allied GD and Prince from Daemons.

Bike Lords/Spawn Lords + Bikes/Spawn.

That's it. Land Raiders suck, Rhino based Assault units suck.

Frankly: CSM isn't good at assaulting. CSM is good at... Fielding Heldrakes... sorry

If you want an assault based army, I'd go for Daemons or Tyranids. In case of Tyranids: Wait for their next codex. In the case of Daemons: Flying Circus (ally Chaos if you want) or lots of Khorne Flesh Hounds both work.

And it seems like nobody mentioned it, but no, you can't move flat-out with a rhino in the turn you disembark.

[Sception]

Do FW options help the chaos assault scene at all?

 

Dreadclaws are AV12 flying assault transports, which is nice, but since you have to start in reserve, the earliest you're charging is turn 3 whether you disembark the turn you arrive or not. They also eat a fast attack slot, though that is slightly less damaging now thanks to the BL supplement letting you ally with yourself. They can transport any infantry (including terminators) or a dreadnought. The big penalty is that they must deep strike, they can't just zoom on from a table edge, and while they can arrive over impassible terrain, they have no protection from mishap should they scatter onto other models or within an inch of enemy units.

 

Storm Eagles are another decently armored flying assault transport - which again means no assaulting before turn 3 at the earliest, but at least they don't have to deep strike. They cost about the same as a land raider, with better capacity and armament. Seems like they might be decent option to consider in place of land raiders. A fast attack choice, but since the BL book lets us ally with ourselves that's not so bad as it once was.

 

The Spartan is basically a bigger land raider, with another hull point, protection from the melta rule, improved weaponry, and a greatly improved transport capacity. It seems decent, a considerable upgrade over our usual land raider for assaulting jobs, but it's also much more expensive than a normal land raider, especially if you use it to transport the huge squads of marines or terminators that it can carry.

 

 

Since the purge and re-founding of my warband, I'm not yet up to the strength where I can really try any of these out, but once I have a decent amount painted up to the new standard (based on current rate of completion, should be about 2029), I'll be borrowing some drop pods and storm ravens from a marine friend as proxies to test out some dual drake/dual claw; dual drake/dual eagle; dual claw/dual eagle, and quad claw lists.

[Trevak Dal]

Could a storm raven be a good stand-in for the Storm Eagle?  I can lay my hands on two pretty cheap.  I know it's current form...leaves much to be desired but maybe kitbashing it with a Rhino could bring it up to par?

[Sception]

The storm raven certainly works to proxy it out for a game or two to see if you like the way it plays. I've seen a lot of conversions made by extending a storm raven's hull out with foam core and card stock, with varying results based on the skill of the converter. Seems like a decent way to go.

[FashaTheDog]

I doubt they have enough firepower to table an army on turn 1. Give it about 2 more codex releases.

 

Done it to a Grey Knights player with three Land Raiders in his list.  I have routinely tabled Deathwing/Loganwing/Draigowing in two turns with the similar lists, sometimes only because my foe held stuff in reserve. 

 

As for what I ran, it is my typical list which is usually something like a trio of disintegrator armed Ravagers, a quartet of ten strong Warrior squads in Raiders armed with a blaster and two with splinter cannon while the other two have dark lances, a pair of three strong Reavers with a heat lance, and Raider mounted Trueborn only armed with blasters.  I only have old models so Venoms and aircraft are not an option for me.

 

Also, Dark Eldar are my only tournament army and they always do me quite well.