[waddywoos]

Hey guys,

I live in newbury (UK) at the moment and they've just opend a GW store there. They only staff member they have is the manager, and there's hardly ever anyone else in there when I am, because I'm home at odd times of the week.

So i usually play him, the only problem is that he has deamons and thats his only 40k army. Having a squad of bloodletters and 2 squads of deamonettes landing right next to your tactical squads and then proceeding to endure one turn of shooting and then eat you in combat isn't fun! I have a dreadnought, so I gave it a twinlinked heavy flamer and a second heavy flamer as well, and it was great the one turn it got to fire, but then he just kept away form it and made it useless.

I fought him to a draw in the scrnario where you have to sit a troops choice on his objective while defending yours with anyhting you like. But it took a last chance heavy flamer shot to kill his last deamonette on the last turn that would have won him the game.

His list for 750 points is something like:

Bloodletters
Deamonettes
Deamonettes
3 flamers
A slanneshi person in a chariot
A khorne deamon prince

I recently bought 3 vindicators, I have tactical marines, assault marines, termies. 2 dreads, a rhino, land speeder storm, scouts and all the heroes.

could someone possibly come up with a combo of units to beat him? It was evident that my choce of 20 tactical marines and a commander wasn't so good when they ALL died on turn 2!!

thanks, waddy

EDIT: also, I have 5 grey knight terminators all ready to go that I used with my imperial guard many years ago. I'm not sure whether you can put these in a list somehow using the deamonhunters codex or not? Becaus i'm assuimg those guys might be a good option?

 

[Cougmeister]

Librarian with null zone, nuff said. Null Zone mauls Daemon armies.

 

[Mad Cat]

HQ: Librarian with nulzone and another power (gate or the heavy flamer one) 100

Troops: 10 Tac marines with plasma cannon, flamer and rhino 210
Troops: 10 Tac marines with plasma cannon, Plasmagun and razorback with LC+Plasmagun 260

Fast: Land speeder with HB+HF 60
Fast: Land speeder with HB+HF 60
Fast: Land speeder with HB+HF 60

Total 750

Deploy 5 marines with a plasma cannon in cover. Rest of the tacs are in vehicles closeby. Keep the speeders near to make attack runs on daemons as they arrive.

If the daemons deepstrike close in you can move away with the mechanised infantry or move in, disembark and flamer/bolter them. The 5 man squad on foot are there as bait really.

Your speeders will do most of the killing either staying at range if the daemons are far away or make attack runs with the heavy flamers. Squadronning the speeders will get you more kills on infantry but it makes them easier to kill. Your opponent cannot really deal with them as he hits on a 6 in combat if you keep your speed up.

The HQ casts nullzone to remove invulnerable saves. The plasma gun in the tac squad and the razorback should try to kill the daemonprince with their high strength weapons and good AP if he takes iron hide. Always kill Flamers of tzeentch on sight.

 

[mynameisgrax]

I agree with the above posters, although I think 'null zone' may cause him to cry foul. Yes, it's technically fair, but bringing it to a small game against a person you know only plays Chaos Daemons will probably be seen as cheesy.

I play both marines and daemons, and I've found the trick to fighting daemons with marines (after being on both sides of the battle) is:

1. Do to not underestimate flamers and blast weapons. Even with their invulnerable save, a good flamer shot will wipe out a lot of daemon troops, especially if you rapid fire on the same turn.

2. The best defense you can give your units are transports. The daemons only ranged weapon for fighting transports are bolts of change, and I don't see any in your opponent's list. In any case, it'll force him to first attack your vehicles, and not your troops, allowing you to rapid fire upon them the next turn. Just be careful not to get surrounded, or disembarking might become a problem.

3. Stay out of close combat for as long as possible. Chaos Daemons are a very specialized army, and involve a lot of random chance, but they're still (in my opinion) the best close combat army in the game.

 

[waddywoos]

unfortunately I only have one land speeder storm. I don't have any of the regular ones.

I'm not really well up on the rules with deamons, but would taking a 5 man unit of shooty terminators with an assault cannon help?

Actually I had a though that because he has few units maybe this would be a good idea, using the models that I have:


Librarian 100

1 tactical marines, flamer, missile launcher, 170
5 scouts, bolters 75

land speeder storm, Heavy flamer 60

vindicator 115
vindicator 115
vindicator 115

equals exactly 750

cos then its 3 vindicators to absolutely demolish (pun intended!) anything that drops near my troops. If i deployed all three vindi's next to each other with the librarian then any deamons that came close would have to take at least one turn of shooting, with 3 demolisher cannons and re-rolling passed invulnerable saves because of the librarian's power. The speeder with 5 scouts in it could then make a dash for an objective once their path was clear, then hop out and douse anything over there with 10 bolter shots and a heavy flamer from the speeder.

hows that?

 

[4theEmperor!]

Use Null Zone. It's not cheese. Each army has strengths and weaknesses and it is not cheesy to capitalize on weaknesses and try to mitigate their strengths.

 

[rafis117]

The army is a little tailored to one opponent though, which would seem mildly unsportsmanlike. As long as this is your go-to army for 750 points (in which case you should spec out your Librarian null zone and something else if you haven't already, IMO), then nobody will cry "cheese" because he is using a legitimate strategy against everyone, not just that one opponent.

Additionally...you did mean a 10 man squad of tactical marines, right?

Lastly, how does Null Zone work? Does it negate ward saves? Invuln. saves? I'm an Eldar player and I'm beginning to worry all of a sudden, especially since my buddy (who runs a lascannon-spam army) has openly acknowledged fielding a Librarian to shut down my Farseer,

 

[Red Archer]

Lastly, how does Null Zone work? Does it negate ward saves? Invuln. saves? I'm an Eldar player and I'm beginning to worry all of a sudden, especially since my buddy (who runs a lascannon-spam army) has openly acknowledged fielding a Librarian to shut down my Farseer,

It forces enemy units within 24" to re-roll all passed invulnerable saves. A psychic hood is nice to have against a farseer and null zone is nice against Eldar too, but probably runes of warding will shut down null zone at least half the time, and the librarian -possibly not even having an invulnerable save- could very well 'warp-peril' himself to death if he tries too often...

 

[rafis117]

It forces enemy units within 24" to re-roll all passed invulnerable saves. A psychic hood is nice to have against a farseer and null zone is nice against Eldar too, but probably runes of warding will shut down null zone at least half the time, and the librarian -possibly not even having an invulnerable save- could very well 'warp-peril' himself to death if he tries too often...

Very useful information, especially the last bit... MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... [/evil laugh]. That suddenly makes the Farseer a very, very nice unit. Suffers "Perils"... I'm not even sure how to mathammer that one. That's a pretty complex problem (especially given the choice halfway through instead of a simple number machine). Regardless of its numerical value, it's a pretty low number.

That made my day. Though, to be fair, about half of my day was spent at the orthodontist so my that isn't nearly as much an accomplishment as usual.

 

[Red Archer]

I'm not even sure how to mathammer that one.

38.0% chance for perils of the warp every time the librarian uses a psychic power (37.5% of suffering a perils of the warp attack while failing the power, and just a little short of a half percent chance of suffering perils by rolling three 1s).
When this happens: If he doesn't have terminator armor he suffers a wound every time. If he wears terminator armor without a storm shield he suffers a wound with a probability of 88.9%, if he has a storm shield he suffers a wound with a probability of 55.6%.
He furthermore has a 62.5% chance of failing his psychic powers...

Runes of warding hurt. A lot.

 

[waddywoos]

To be fair, he admitted that his list is built specifically with killing space marines in mind...

I'd have to take a hero against anyone I played anyway, so having a librarian in there makes no odds - i'll run him normally. As will i run the three vindicators - seeing as hopefully EVERYONE will have a problem with that at 750 points.

and yes that was a 10 man tactical squad, even i'm not silly enough to try and give a guy a missle launcher and a flamer etc

I'm guessing its not a good idea to put these in the list for playing against deamons, but in general (and to save creating another topic) I'd quite like to build a 5 man unit to accompany an HQ unit (librarian, commander etc). I was thinking 4 lightning claws and 1 TH/SS combo.

that would be... probaly something like this

Vanguard veteran squad
5 man squad, sergeant has TH/SS, other 4 have pairs of lightning claws 275 points

is that a bad unit to be fielding in a general battle to go with a librarian/commander? Do they need a rhino?

 

[Red Archer]

Vanguard veteran squad
5 man squad, sergeant has TH/SS, other 4 have pairs of lightning claws 275 points

is that a bad unit to be fielding in a general battle to go with a librarian/commander? Do they need a rhino?

This is probably a points sink. Especially in low points games. You have very few troops anyway, but you need them for objective missions. If you want a hard-hitting all-power-weapons squad you should probably go assault terminators.
As a general rule: close combat squads should never be foot-slogging. So yes, they need a means of transportation! A land raider is usually best because they can assault out of it.
If you want a five man squad and not more, and if you don't want jump packs, then stick with the command squad instead of vanguard. Cheaper, comes with feel no pain, has better starting equipment and more upgrade options.

 

[Xpyre35]

Also a word of caution on the vindicators, in the role you specified. (Vindicators to demolish anything that DS's near your troops)

Those demolisher plates will annihilate your tacticals with some bad scatter rolls. You may want to consider using their size to wall off possible DS locations so they have a turn or two of marching towards your tacticals. It may let you fire your vindicators more safely, and give you an extra round of bolter fire.

 

[waddywoos]

okay - a couple of things to reply to here then.

THe thing i notice the most about the command squad is taht you HAVE to take a captain to be able to use them. So if i'm taking a librarian to use null zone on the deamons and then running with just him in normal games to justify it then I can't actually take a command squad. A command squad with 4 pairs of lightning claws and the apothecary is still 235 points - so there's hardly any difference considering there's no TH/SS sergeat in there.

Assault terminators sound like a better option really. In that case, shoule I go with TH/SS or pairs of lightning claws (this is in general, not vs. deamons, but feel free to say whats better against them too). If i did go this route then its probably best to be purchasing the space wolf box of terminator armoured wolf guard and use them as vanilla ones? I'd just like some variety thats all. Should i then deep strike them, or go out and buy a land raider as well, so plop 450+ points into one kind of thing there?
(side not there, can someone clarify whether when it says the land raider's transport capacity is 12 models, is that 12 tacticals or 6 terminators? I remember it used to be half the number if you wanted termies in there - might be wrong of course!!)



RE: the vindicators... I was thinking more set up so that, with terrain, it'd be really hard to deep strike anything closer than 12 inches. Then set up three vindicators next to each other. This is where i really wish I could have taken a rhino, then everything would be safe from the deamons. the first game we played with my 25 tactical marines i took in the list, they just got eaten for breakfast under the 48(!!) attacks that a deamonette unit had against a combat squad on the charge with a higher initiative. This is why 'd like the vindicators to provide cover to ensure they deploy a fair way away from the tactical marines so I have tome to shell/bolter them to death.

Also, if you were him - would you purposely avoide the vindicators and play for a draw?
To be fair, he did challenge me to come up with the best list i could to beat him. SO being cheesy is fine really.

 

[rafis117]

38.0% chance for perils of the warp every time the librarian uses a psychic power (37.5% of suffering a perils of the warp attack while failing the power, and just a little short of a half percent chance of suffering perils by rolling three 1s).
When this happens: If he doesn't have terminator armor he suffers a wound every time. If he wears terminator armor without a storm shield he suffers a wound with a probability of 88.9%, if he has a storm shield he suffers a wound with a probability of 55.6%.
He furthermore has a 62.5% chance of failing his psychic powers...

Runes of warding hurt. A lot.

I got that last bit from your previous post . I meant I was trying to mentally determine approximately the likelyhood of a "perils" test for a Farseer. It's a little hard, because, with certain wargear, the Farseer rolls (3d6)C2, the lowest two being taken and of those, if doubles then perils.

Would it just be 6/(6C2)? That isn't a large number to be sure, but it's considerably simpler than solving out the probability from the mess in the para above.

On a related note, does embolden (from a warlock squad) have an effect on leadership tests for "Perils"?

 

[Red Archer]

THe thing i notice the most about the command squad is taht you HAVE to take a captain to be able to use them. So if i'm taking a librarian to use null zone on the deamons and then running with just him in normal games to justify it then I can't actually take a command squad.

True.

A command squad with 4 pairs of lightning claws and the apothecary is still 235 points - so there's hardly any difference considering there's no TH/SS sergeat in there.

Yes, but you get feel no pain (effectively giving them a 2+ armor save against anything worse than AP3 and still a 4+ save against AP3), ranged AND close combat weaponry and a very cheap WS5 model.

Assault terminators sound like a better option really.

Very much so.

In that case, shoule I go with TH/SS or pairs of lightning claws (this is in general, not vs. deamons, but feel free to say whats better against them too).

Since our new storm shields are so great I would go TH/SS. But against all-comers the lightning claws can get very useful too, so I tend to go 2+3 or 3+2 in my squad...
Against daemons, because lightning claw terminators are vulnerable to power weapons and Khornies usually strike at I5 on the charge, I would go TH/SS. But again: it depends on what you throw them up against, because against those invulnerable saves sheer number of attacks is often key... I don't know.

If i did go this route then its probably best to be purchasing the space wolf box of terminator armoured wolf guard and use them as vanilla ones?

Don't know the box's exact contents, but as far as I know you'll have a hard time fielding a legal squad with Codex: Space Marines. It's possible, but you won't have many choices to make...

Should i then deep strike them, or go out and buy a land raider as well, so plop 450+ points into one kind of thing there?

Definitely the latter. It's many points, that's why I wouldn't field them at all at lower points levels. But they are very much more effective with a land raider. Deep-striking them means they come in turn two at the earliest, later if you're unlucky. Then they stand around for a turn, and then the opponent has an easy time outmaneuvering and avoiding them. The land raider allows for quick redeployment and an effective 20" threat range... And you don't suffer the risks of scattering.

(side not there, can someone clarify whether when it says the land raider's transport capacity is 12 models, is that 12 tacticals or 6 terminators? I remember it used to be half the number if you wanted termies in there - might be wrong of course!!)

12 normal models means 6 terminators, correct. Page 102 in Codex: Space Marines.

I meant I was trying to mentally determine approximately the likelyhood of a "perils" test for a Farseer. It's a little hard, because, with certain wargear, the Farseer rolls (3d6)C2, the lowest two being taken and of those, if doubles then perils.

Runes of witnessing? You don't suffer perils of the warp on all doubles - only double-1 and double-6.
The chances with runes of witnessing are about 8.8%, without the runes they are only 5.6%. This is due to the chance of getting double-6s dropping drastically, but the chance of rolling double-1s goes up by an even greater amount.

On a related note, does embolden (from a warlock squad) have an effect on leadership tests for "Perils"?

You could re-roll double-6s (because you failed your psychic test which is a leadership test), but not double-1s (because the test in this case is passed). Without runes of witnessing that would mean you could re-roll half your perils on average, with runes of witnessing you could re-roll one nineteenth of your perils on average...

 

[4theEmperor!]

Go with TH/SS terminators. The 3+ invulnerable save is wonderful, AND the low initiative won't hurt you because most assaulting daemon units go before I4 anyway...

 

[rafis117]

Runes of witnessing? You don't suffer perils of the warp on all doubles - only double-1 and double-6.
The chances with runes of witnessing are about 8.8%, without the runes they are only 5.6%. This is due to the chance of getting double-6s dropping drastically, but the chance of rolling double-1s goes up by an even greater amount.

You could re-roll double-6s (because you failed your psychic test which is a leadership test), but not double-1s (because the test in this case is passed). Without runes of witnessing that would mean you could re-roll half your perils on average, with runes of witnessing you could re-roll one nineteenth of your perils on average...

Yeah, Runes of Witnessing. I was trying to not appear to infringe on GW's copyright. Also, the chance of a Perils does go up, but the chance of the psychic attack working (especially with a Librarian on the field) goes up even more so.

 

[Red Archer]

but the chance of the psychic attack working (especially with a Librarian on the field) goes up even more so.

Well, kind of...
The chance for failure drops from 8.3% to 1.9%, true, but the librarian's chance to suppress the power with his psychic hood is unaffected. So if he is within range he will still shut your successfully cast power down with a 41.7% chance.
Overall chances of not getting the power off successfully within range of the psychic hood therefore are 53.5% without runes of witnessing and 57.3% with runes of witnessing. Not too much of a difference, actually. Doubtful whether this upgrade is worth the trouble...

While on the other hand -and I know I am repeating myself - runes of warding really kick behinds!