1500 tournament afterthoughts - Typhus and his 69 best buds

[nevaenuffbass]

My head has just stopped throbbing after a 4 game, 1500pt tournament. The tourney was "comped" in that you could only take 10 comp points worth of units (see community comp facebook page for the restrictions). Comp inspired me to consider CSM, as it is widely agreed they are one of the weakest books in the current game, supplements and dataslates notwithstanding. 

 

My list:

Demon Prince, MoNurgle, Black Mace, Wings, Power armour, spell familiar, Mastery level 3. I called him Harry, because he is "dirty"

Typhus

2 x 27 zombies

heldrake, baleflamer variety

3 Obliterators, Veterans of the long war, MoNurgle

5 havocs, 4 lascannons

5 havocs, 4 autocannons

 

I went in to the tournament hoping to get one win. I doubled that with 2 wins and no losses (2 draws).

 

My opponents were 

1. Orks - well built list with 2 battlewagons (tankbusters; mega-armoured warboss and his retinue of 18 boyz) some nobz, a plane a big unit of bikes (draw)

2. Imperial Guard - lots of AV14 tanks, a valkyrie with para-jumping ogryns (go figure, amusing if nothing else), chimera, and something I assume was a hellhound - lots of flame and a bit of a gunboat with a squad of guys inside (win)

3. Daemons - everything but nurgle. A DP and 2 greater daemons, slaanesh chariot thing, a unit of each blood letters, daemonettes and horrors and a khorne chariot thingo which ended up being very annoying (draw)

4. Imperial Guard - self-proclaimed mech guard with 4x AV14 front tanks with various disgustingly powerful guns, a couple of chimera, a vendetta and a squad or so of dudes. (win, much to my opponents surprise and disgust).

 

Obliterators

 

So easily, the "man of the match" (unit of the day) were the obliterators, who shone in every game. In the first three they were deployed in cover and ended up working as a bit of a reactive force. In the last they took out 2/4 of the AV14 tanks which was quite lovely, with a courageous deep strike. So some points on these guys

- VOTLW is an essential upgrade, as they will take Ld tests. 

- They work well up close, and deep strike is / was a good idea. Being able to alternate between multimelta and twin linked melta compensates for the whole can't fire same weapon twice.

- Never forget they can assault. I think I could have won against the orks if i had have remembered that - I heavy flamed them (they did not enjoy that particularly much) and didn't think to assault. 20/20 hindsight and I may have lost 1 or 2 but the powerfist attacks are pretty powerful. 

- Don't be afraid with these guys. Sure everyone is packing plasma, but 2W each and the demon save and I was surprised at how resilient they were. 

 

"Harry" the dirty demon prince

- He clocks in at 355 points. That is a lot for a T5/4W/3+/5++ model. I tried to mitigate his cost with early demon summoning, and even though he has the demon special rule and a spell familiar I perilsed 5 times in 4 games. For what it is worth, I found plaguebearers more useful than daemonettes when summoning, and the ability to create a unit or 2 over the course of the game was pretty good. The requirement to take at least one nurgle power is not worth the "free" primaris (which with a range of 6" is pretty limited, even if you fly). 

- In close combat he is hit and miss (pun intended). Even with the mace he is S5, and despite the interwebs saying black mace is THE item for him, not one model failed a T test against him (even 3 pink horrors). The only benefit I saw for black mace was the demon weapon special rule (which ate him in the game against the orks).

- S5 is a real liability with the 7ed smash rules. Sure I rolled well on my demon weapon roll and have "warpspeed" cast on myself but that is still only one SMASH attack. This, combined with the limited utility of the nurgle powers (which will be 2 out of 4) makes him struggle against mech. Admittedly he could easily eat 2 or 3 tac squads in a game. 

- Biomancy has the potential to make him pretty amazing. But that is nothing new. I tended to take 1 nurgle, 1 biomancy and the demonology primaris with him, and this worked okay. 

- While Harry was certainly a linchpin of my army, I am not sure he was worth the points he cost (over 25% of my total army).

 

Typhus

- On this forum and elsewhere I have bagged typhus, and called him over-priced. I take those comments back. Even without zombies he was probably worth close to his (almost land raider) amount of points. I realised before going in that he doesn't like coming up against force weapons nor S10, but aside from that there isn't much he can't tank. Even powerfists etc have to work through his wounds one at a time and he will get his 5++ and fnp. He held up bloodthirster for 3 turns in a challenge, by way of example. Wish he carried meltabombs mind you. Adding blight grenades to the squad you put him in is handy as well. But where to put him...

 

- The nurgle powers aren't great. In fact they are pretty awful compared to say biomancy. But the ML2 means you can generally get force off on manreaper, making him a good threat to tarpitted characters / monstrous creatures. Also the "gets hot" malediction has a pretty good range and can make things like guard blobs whittle themselves down. 

 

Plague Zombies

- This is where typhus belongs. Yep, sure they are slow and so is he. But they have such a big footprint on the table that you can assualt what you want typhus to engage with them, and it may take a turn but he'll get there. Also remember that the zombie champion can absorb a challenge if there is something with S10 in it.

 

- Plague zombies don't kill things. They do however win games. The first guard player was very frustrated that his amazing flamethrowing tank was killing 3 or 4 per turn. In no game did I have less than 20 zombies left. In most, both squads had some members left, and generally on an objective (or denying a kill point). The trick is to know where you want them on turn 5, and avoiding terrain (you want your full 6" even if you have to go around some buildings or woods or whatever). It will take them a long time to get there, and you can't really change direction. With the list I ran, the army worked to make the zombies do what they had to do (survive, tarpit something, or claim objectives). Don't forget that they assault, which speeds them up too. 

 

Heldrake

- This guy is lots of bark, and only a little bite. I wouldn't drop him, but I doubt he made his points back in any game. He is fast, being a flier, meaning while he might not kill much pointswise, he will contribute to clearing troops off objectives. 7ed changes to vector strike suck a lot more than the no-longer 360 degree baleflamer. 

 

Havocs

- The lascannons were disappointing. Even when my oblits fired lascannons I was underwhelmed by the results. I think I'd spend the same points on spawn if I was running the list again (prob the only change I'd make). If they did anything, it was attract fire. In EVERY game they were the first ranged target. So maybe these guys kept my oblits alive. 

- The autocannons have previously done me proud. They were okay, but not amazing today. The rate of fire is handy at whittling things down. 

 

Keen for your thoughts. I found typhus and his buds a very fun army to use, and the limited mobility made me think all day. 

 

[Caustic63]

Aren't Daemon Princes S6? Also, doesn't the Black Mace give Fleshbane so it doesn't really matter what his strength is (except versus vehicles)?

 

I would think Typhus belongs with a unit of Nurgle Terminators or Plague Marines, because his high toughness becomes much less useful against basic shooting when hes with Zombies.

[bozo69pd]

Typhus does not want to be with zombies normally usually but termies or plague marines. Sometimes I stick him with deep striking Oblits because he really protects them if someone charges them. It didn't really matter with the armies you fought, but some armies will make you test off of average unit toughness or leadership. Plus in shooting if typhus is face tanking some shots they are resolved at the units average toughness.

 

I don't use havocs or heldrakes anymore because nurgle oblits, spawn, and bikers are better. If they have air I use my DP to vector strike em, that's all it is really good for nowadays.

 

Blackmace is mostly just for the bonus attacks, but if you combine it with biomancy enfeeble or nurgle malediction to lower a guard blob to toughness 2 it can be funny. I have killed many a Typhus or DP of my own through perils and daemon weapons rolling a 1. Poor Belakor.

[nevaenuffbass]

Thanks for your thoughts. I note your thoughts regarding typhus and what unit he goes well with. I can see that majority T tests or majority Ld tests could be an issue. Shooting not so much - he doesn't hang out near the front of zombie blobs, and being fearless he and they won't worry about morale from shooting. 

[Lagrath]

I was at a brutal 1850 no holds barred tournament today and my head likewise still hurts. As for your reflections- you pretty much realized what everyone realized about a year or two ago regarding most Chaos units. My only warning is that Obliterators are heavily overpriced despite being useful (though maybe a comp'd tournament eliminates a lot of the points-effective units in other armies). Today I tried to two separate deep striking mutilators and they were quite useful in maelstrom objective-based missions.

[Prot]

The funny thing is, and I in no way mean this to be insulting, is your list is like time traveling for me. Your list could have been posted the month the codex came out.... Seriously that list is almost exactly what everyone was taking to tournaments (from chaos).

 

What changed?

 

Oblits do feel too expensive now since other dexes came out, BUT as you and others note, there isn't a heck of a lot of placed to get more value from the codex that produces some results.

 

The Bale-drake  of course lost the ability to fart fire (turret / torrent). The change soured people enough to make them move on to bikes more permanently.

 

Glad you had a good time! Sounds like you were competitive.

[Aspiringchaoschampion]

Il be honest i think the problem is alot of people have got good at countering that list imo if we want to place well at tournies we are going to need to think more outside of the box

[the jeske]

Spam them with multi CAD CS possessed and talons.

[bozo69pd]

Or you could try running typhus, helcult formation, and 280 fearless cultists. I haven't played that list yet in 7th edition. Also, Typhus + nurgle oblits are really good if you bunker escape hatch for a turn 1 18 inch move.

[Zhukov]

 

Heldrake

- This guy is lots of bark, and only a little bite. I wouldn't drop him, but I doubt he made his points back in any game. He is fast, being a flier, meaning while he might not kill much pointswise, he will contribute to clearing troops off objectives. 7ed changes to vector strike suck a lot more than the no-longer 360 degree baleflamer. 

Correct, the change to vector strikes literally killed CSM as a competitive army.

[bozo69pd]

I forget because vector strike counts as one shooting attack can you still vector say some terminators then in shooting barbecue some tacticals, or do all the hits have to be on the same unit?

[Excessus]

Can vector strike and shoot different units...also, the black mace has fleshbane so the strength doesn't really matter...

[bozo69pd]

Totally forgot BM had fleshbane... would have helped in a game once guh. I'm surprised people qq that hard about the heldrake too seems like it would be easy to line up a hit on a wraith knight then bbq some quardians or something.

[Excessus]

The most whine about the drake are relics of 6th ed...

[nevaenuffbass]

The funny thing is, and I in no way mean this to be insulting, is your list is like time traveling for me. Your list could have been posted the month the codex came out.... Seriously that list is almost exactly what everyone was taking to tournaments (from chaos).

 

What changed?

 

Oblits do feel too expensive now since other dexes came out, BUT as you and others note, there isn't a heck of a lot of placed to get more value from the codex that produces some results.

 

The Bale-drake  of course lost the ability to fart fire (turret / torrent). The change soured people enough to make them move on to bikes more permanently.

 

Glad you had a good time! Sounds like you were competitive.

 

This should probably not be a surprise - that the list has dated a bit.

 

With the few weeks since the tourn, and the comments made on this forum, a couple of ideas I wouldn't mind some thoughts on:

 

1. Helcult formation. Now I know that the www says this is rubbish. But I can see promise. On a most basic level, a helbrute is less of a tax for fearless blobs of cultists that typhus is. The loss of obsec and fnp is offset by the ability to run, extra attack and ability to have flamers. The brute itself is not worthless. I'd probably give him a plasma cannon and the fist he comes with (no to hit on the plasma cannon means it won't hit one of my own models)

2. Vengeance weapon battery x 2, with the punisher Gatling guns. 2 of these are cheaper than the lascannon havocs. Different type of firepower but there is a lot of it. Anyone had much experience with fortifications in a Csm army?

[Zhukov]

1. Helcult formation. Now I know that the www says this is rubbish. But I can see promise. On a most basic level, a helbrute is less of a tax for fearless blobs of cultists that typhus is. The loss of obsec and fnp is offset by the ability to run, extra attack and ability to have flamers. The brute itself is not worthless. I'd probably give him a plasma cannon and the fist he comes with (no to hit on the plasma cannon means it won't hit one of my own models)

 

Nah. It's not because the internet says they are rubbish that they are rubbish. It's because you spend 200+ points on bad models that it's rubbish lol. Big fearless blobs are a lot less usefull when they don't have ObSec, because often you don't even have to kill them. (You can though, T3 with a 6+ is as easy to kill as it getsl) Helbrutes are just bad too, so that doesn't help. I don't see how this is better than just taking blobs of cultists and troops and putting Khârn or Abaddon in them. Makes them fearless, you keep ObSec and they have an actual purpose besides that (functioning as cheap extra wounds for the characters).

 

2. Vengeance weapon battery x 2, with the punisher Gatling guns. 2 of these are cheaper than the lascannon havocs. Different type of firepower but there is a lot of it. Anyone had much experience with fortifications in a Csm army?

 

Little range, they are a non-factor against long ranged armies.

[the jeske]

Totally forgot BM had fleshbane... would have helped in a game once guh. I'm surprised people qq that hard about the heldrake too seems like it would be easy to line up a hit on a wraith knight then bbq some quardians or something.

you mean that str 7 on t8 and str6 flamer vs av 12 wave serpent? It does not do too much. But then again it is only what the interweb says.

[bozo69pd]

Jeske when you word it like that boy does it make a pack of 5 nurgle spawn sound more appealing in that matchup.

[the jeske]

nurgle always sounds more appealing when one talks about chaos. Or at least since gav dex went live.

[bozo69pd]

I hope the khorne codex shakes things up.

[crucial]

I hope the khorne codex shakes things up.

Man i am feeling BUZZED about that.