Views from the other side...

Mabrothrax · **Posted:** Mon May 11, 2009 6:52 pm

I thought as an interesting alterntive to the ongoing tactica thread I'd begin trawling through and compiling threads from other forums about 'how to deal with Deathguard/Nurgle armies'.

Hopefully this will give us all a good idea of what it is people fear about Nurgle armies, and what tactics people have developed against us, that we might counter them.

First up I've had a look a the Advanced Tau Tactica forum, which is a veritable feast of tactical and strategic musings...


	T'oturi from ATT wrote: So I squared off in two games...both games were Dawn of War deployment. The first was a Capture and Control, the second was Annihilation. He ran: 2x Demon Princes, Mark of Nurgle, Warp Time, and wings (I think) 3x 8 man Squads of Deathguard w/ T5 and an Aspiring Champion 2x 2 man squads of Obliterators 1x Summoned Greater Demon I ran: 1x Centurion HQ and 2x Helios+ BG 1x Deathrain Shield'El 2x 12 man FW squads w/ Pulse Rifles, and an 'ui 1x 15 man tastes like chicken Squad 1x 6 man SMT 1x Railhead 1x 2 man BASS team I got smoked in both games. The first was due to deployment mistakes, I made up for those in game 2. In the second game (the Annihilation one) I held everything back and moved on the first turn rather than deploying so his Princes could assault me T1. I decided I would try massed fire and AP1 and 2 weaponry against him, and on the first turn I walked on the board and poured 62 S5 shots into one squad, hitting above average, and wounding at least 20 times. He rolled saves and FNP and I only downed 2. Some shots from my Helios/Centurions downed another 2. After failing to down a single squad with over 70 shots, the game quickly went downhill. Doing the math, at BS 3, S5 shots at a T5, 3+ armor, FNP target... With those numbers taken into account...I would kill a single Deathguard marine with a single shot 2.77% of the time. This means that out of 100 shots, at least two DG should go down. So I did a little better with only 62 shots. What I've learned- Massed fire against DG really isn't going to do me any good. So where should I turn? Initially I thought "the more times I make him roll saves and FNP, the more likely he is to fail and lose a model." I'm convinced that is a poor strategy to use against this type of army. So I looked at some alternatives... The Helios (Crisis suit with Plasma rifle & Fusion blaster) A Plasma Rifle (only one shot) at BS3 would take down a DG approximately 33% of the time. At BS4 this increases to 44.4%, and at BS5 this shoots up to 55.6%. That looks fairly appealing. A Fusion Blaster at BS3 would take down a DG 41.7% of the time. BS4 increases this to 55.6% of the time, and BS5 increases the kill rate to 69.4%. For comparison, a single Burst Canon shot at BS3 wounds and kills a DG 2.77% of the time, all three at BS3 gets that up to 8.31%. A Missile Pod kills at 4.6%, and both shots bump that up to 9.2%. Now my math could be wrong, but Plasma Rifles and Fusion Blasters look like a much more appealing option for my fairly common games against Deathguard. Vespid look to be a decent option, and I'm beginning to think Shadowsun is a must for a variety of reasons.


	Tau Evolution from ATT wrote: My experience using Deathguard in my own Chaos army is that they are slow and not very useful in combat. (but they don't have to be good in combat against us I know) Deathgaurd are used by chaos players, mainly for rapidfiring and summoning either greater daemons or lesser daemons. Therefore what you need to do is keep your distance. kill the daemon princes and obliterators first. Only after that should you bring squishier units onto the table, and try to kill the deathgaurd and greater daemon.


	Hereticus from ATT wrote: Anything that denies them a save, and therefore their FNP roll are worth looking at. In addition to what you have already explored you may also want to look at Ion cannons, Pathfinders with Rail Rifles, Sniper Drone Teams and Broadside Teams with Plasma Rifles. A 3 man Broadside team with Plasma Rifles should put a fair bit of hurt on just about anything, especially since you are pretty much rerolling all your to hit rolls.


	styx from ATT wrote: Death Guard is one of the only armies to have ever been a problem for my Tau, save for Dark Smelldar with 13 Dark Lances and crapload of shooting in rapid open topped vehicles. Some ideas: Vespid: AP 3, STR 5. He would still get FNP. Slightly expensive and would require Marker lights to bump up the BS on the unit to hit properly. Broadsides with Plasma guns: Either With Advanced Stablisation System or Multitrackers these could be nasty. Broadsides for the first opening shots on the Demon Princes then as he gets closer plasma. Plasma and Fusion gun Crisis suits: While these are good, the downside is these weapon options are expensive. For example if you put a plasma rifle and Fusion gun on a crisis suit with Multi tracker is fairly pricey. While the AP is nice, you should consider marker lights to make them hurt. Hammerheads: Railguns vs the big guys, large blast vs the Nurgle, should get a few kills using the blast, STR 6 on T5, should would on 3+, say you catch 6, 2 fail armor saves, 1 fails FNP on average. Weight of Fire is my choice: Burst Cannons and Missile Pods....I try to take out the Princes early and then use range to down the Plague Marines. Stealth Suits: Shoot, jump, shoot again....lure him from an objective. Pirannia Squads all with Fusion, drop them out of reserve, roll up 12", within 12" of the fusion gun, burn a squad if all Fusions are included. Tatics: Kill Points: Deprive him of targets, keep away from him. Kill his higher point value units first. Obliterators and Princes first then try to focus fire on one squad at a time without exposing yourself. Objective based games. With Capture and Control with 2 objectives you can work for a draw depending on the deployment zone. Put the objective so far away he will never reach it and defend it. Setup a flanking or FW in Fish to linger towards the edges and zip to the objective near the end or at least something to contest his control. You win. On the multi objective games....don't head to them directly...see where he goes...then snach up the ones he fails to take and drop firepower on the rest of the army.


	kenseiOwl from ATT wrote: One of my main opponents is a DG player and they have proven to be one of the hardest armys for me to put away. I agree with you in that massed fire just doesn't cut it after their T5 3+ and FNP are all taken into account. Though filling the air with shots and forcing a ton of saves is normally a strong hand to play the numbers just aren't on our side in this case.

The Tau have access to some amazing weaponry and units that can be equipped in many ways, but their AP 1 & 2 weapons are few and far between.

The single unit that will do the most harm is a Broadside team upgraded to have twin-linked plasma rifles in addition to their twin-linked railguns. Being slow (or immobile) long ranged units makes them a prime target for winged daemon princes, deep striking terminators or possible harrassment and assault with a double melta raptor or bike squad.

Crisis suits equipped with plasma rifles and fusion blasters need to get up close and personal, where a Plaguemarine unit can rapid fire them into submission. Assaulting a Crisis suit team is also a very strong counter.

nurglephill · **Posted:** Mon May 11, 2009 7:04 pm

wow, this is a FAB idea Mabs. FAB!

thanks, i shall "keep 'em peeled"

Cassarus · **Posted:** Mon May 11, 2009 7:17 pm

A really good idea!
I don't play that much against tau so this was interesting, and I'm looking forward to more additions in this post!

minamoto · **Posted:** Wed May 13, 2009 8:08 am

The Standard Tau: has BS 3 (BS 4 for Crisis Suits) in 90% so only 50% will hit (mathhammers say that) and only 50% of the hits will wound in case of pulserifle (standard FireWarrior weapon)
So the standard Units are not that big deal for PM's only those 30" Range can be anoying, and with FnP your PM's should handle that. RapidFire Range is a completely different case...

XV8 "Crisis" Suit:
They are deadly in teams of 2-3 with TL Plasmaguns or the Helios variant with two Fusionblasters (Melter), wich they obviously will have against DG or Marines in common. But those are most times 2 teams per army of Crisis. Like every Tau they are very fragile to CloseCombat. That's your chance to ge them. the Plasmaguns have 24" range wich is very close for Tau and those Meltas have only 18" which is even closer. Only big danger are the rapid firing Plasmaguns. E-weapons are a great deal for you since they have a standard infantery profile and not a vehicle profile. But they will definately deepstrike to kill your support units or tanks from behind.

Hammerheads:
Well those Big Railguns are very devestating to armour and other heavy things... if you won't roll only 1s They Can put out heavy fire that can kill any tank in first turn. So be aware you Rhino-Rushers.
The Submunition is very deadly onto big amounts of troops. With only strength 7, it wont instakill your PM's but lesser deamons... well... good bye.
Don't know anyting on Ion-Cannons, never used them.

XV88 "Broadside" Suit:
I am a big fan of these. You will see armies with two HH's or a skyray but often no XV88... sure they are not as mobile as a HH. But who talks about mobility when you can fire TL 72" S10 shots? They don't have the Submunition, but equiped with SmartMissileSystem wich ignore cover you have a great deal against medium infantery. As mentioned above they also can use TL Plasmaguns... ouch...

Deepstriking and picking out specific units is for Tau very very deadly. They are depending on the marklights of their Pathfinders. Those Pathfinders push up the BS of every Unit using a marklite and those lites deny cover saves. They often will be found on the very front to make use of their 30" Marklights. Rhino-Rush?
Deepstriking Deaomons or Termies in the back of a Tau-force to pop their tanks or strike down the XV88 will cause alot of confussion.

A very important issue to keep in mind is that except for XV8 "Crisis" Suits or XV15/25 "Stealth" Suits no Tau unit can work without another one effectively. They really rely on combined fire with marklitghts. make them spread out and they are lost. Maybe a good hint is that DPod Marines are the arch-enemy of Tau or flanking Smelldar.

This litle reply only represent MY opinion. I am nearly as god-like as the pope, which means I can't fail, but sometimes also do a mistake or two

- hope this little insights helps.
Also great Idea Mabs. I am curios to see how orkze or 'Nids would handle our beloved DG.

Cassarus · **Posted:** Wed May 13, 2009 9:55 am

Cheers Mina!

nurglephill · **Posted:** Wed May 13, 2009 2:36 pm

yes thanks Moto

Mabrothrax · **Posted:** Wed May 13, 2009 2:44 pm


	minamoto wrote: I am curios to see how orkze or 'Nids would handle our beloved DG.

I've been loking around the few Tyranid forums I know of (if you know a good one, tell me) and for the most part there's not much abut Deathguard, but plenty of concern over daemons.

The few threads I've seen regarding Plaguemarines suggest loading up on rending claws, so watch out for piles of Genestealers and Raveners.

Was having a look on the Smelldar portion of 40konline, some interestng stuff. Will share later.

nurglephill · **Posted:** Thu May 21, 2009 8:33 pm

i asked this Question on another forum, how to beat up on plague marines. Shep gave me this response...:

Well, My current armies are IG, Tau, Smelldar and I'm building witch hunters and demon hunters.

IG. I love facing plague marines. I have leman russ exterminators, devil dogs and chimeras to open up rhinos, and I have 2 plasma executioner tanks with plasma cannon sponsons and 3 devildogs to shoot at you when you fall out. No 3+ armor, no feel no pain, maybe not even cover if the rhino went 'poof' You'll need long range shooting to stifle my game plan. If you don't get some crew shakens or weapon destoyeds on me quick, it'll be a short game. I'd advocate making a 'plague marine heavy' army rather than a 'pure plague marine army'

Tau. It doesn't get easier to kill transports than tau, all my crisis suits have begun taking plasma again (because plague marines are very good and very scary) so the idea would be, kill your transports with pathfinders, broadisdes and crisis teams, then strip your cover saves and increase my ballistic skill with plasma rifles to quickly wipe out plague marines as they advance.

Smelldar. My Smelldar have been on the shelf for a while. The list I think i would be playing with if I whipped them out would be bright lance wave serpents filled with dire avengers, coupled with either war walkers with Smelldar missile launchers or fire prisms. My fire prisms and my Smelldar missile launchers would be the only weapons you would need to have any respect for, and I bet you could overrun those guns before the game ended. At least with my particular Smelldar list, you could be ok. You would need to make sure you had long range tank kill however, because even though you can live through a lot of Smelldar shooting, you'll need to kill something eventually to win, and they will likely try to play keep away with you all game.

Witch Hunters. Exorcists and meltagauns are going to haunt you. You'll need lots of ways to stop rhinos and immolators, and you'll need to respect exorcists with your troops. Fortunately, a properly built chaos army with a focus on plague marines isn't necessarily out-ranged by sisters. This would be a very evenly matched and very fun game if the army lists were similar in power level.

Demon hunters. You won't be able to deep strike to get close to a demon hunter army, and you probably wouldn't want to get into CC with it if you were heavy into plague marines, but if you bought transports for your marines, you can stay safe from light shooting and pick them apart. It shouldn't be a difficult matchup if you have the tools to kill land raiders and you are marginally maneuverable.

unique_dragon · **Posted:** Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:03 pm

whew; thanks for this guys :D

minamoto · **Posted:** Tue Jun 16, 2009 6:57 am

Hey hey a little update on that Tau story. Legacy40k known for his awesome Battlesuit Conversions came up with this topic on ATT Tau vs Nurgle

I found 2 very interesting post on page 1


	EatThisShoe wrote: Plague Marines are T5 with 3+ armor and feel no Pain. They are the small elite squad your troops can't hurt. A combination of low AP shots and markerlights to remove their cover saves is a good option, but it requires a lot of units committed to the task. The most dedicated low AP units would be a FB PR Crisis Suit, or Plasma equipped broadsides with multi tracker. And you would really need pathfinders to get enough markerlight shots to both raise BS and lower cover saves, you really want to maximize I find you tittilating and mildly arousing unit is dedicated to low AP.

and


	Yami Kero wrote: I regulary face a similair squad, BA Death Company. They also have feel no pain and a 3+ save. However I found a way to stop them. As mentioned before, Helios suits work wonders. My buddy fears my 2 Helios 'El since they have devastated his Death Company in one phase, and a turn later his Assault Squad. This is the case because they have 6 shots, within 12', that ignore 3+ armor and feel no plain. If need be beef them up with Shield drones, Stimulant Injector or make them O's and instead of TA give them Shield Generators. The El's now serve as elite hunter. As for 'Vre and "Ui Give either give them a Helios configuration if he has a lot of those Nurgles, of if they are few make them atleast able to support your El's with atleast one AP 1/2 weapon. If they are in cover and on an objective ignore them! Let them sit there. I don't know the units but it sounds like they are expensive and elite. If he wants to waste those units on an objective, let him. Go after the rest of his army and in the last turn contest the objective with some fast units like Piranhas. As a last piece of advice, don't waste normal shots on 3+ Feel No Pain units. I had a full FW squad and a Warfish (31 Str 5 shots of which 7 at BS4) shoot at 4 Death Company units. There where no casualties... Next turn he routed my FW. Hope it helps

Warfish = Smart-missile-system equiped Devilfish APC
Helios = Plasma Rifle + Fusion Blaster (Plasmagun & Melter)

To be honest I just can't give a quick answer how to come over them with a nurgle force... Those damn/awesome Suit can "jump-shot-jump" So they possibly hide in cover jump out kill your PM's or tanks and jump back into cover... or they just deepstrike behind your lines. But they still suck at CC. But it's probably better to kill Helios suits on Range, The Plasma Rifle is just 18" range aswell the Blaster does (if I am not mistaking...)

Esty Buckets · **Posted:** Tue Jun 16, 2009 7:56 am

Aw you guys, this really puts things in perspective for me. It will totally help me with writing my army list, I reckon.
Great idea!!

nurglephill · **Posted:** Sat Jun 27, 2009 12:18 pm

ok, something i got from an ork genreal:

As an ork General, I love playing plague marines. Unfortunately my techniques are generally simple,

1. Swamp'em, plague marines are 23 points, boys are 6. I commit 4 boyz per plague marine to assault. Also, powerfists on nobz are a must.

2. Out class'em, I run 4 kanz and a dread in 1000 pts. Kanz have rokkits, 4 rokkits generally can take down a transport or blast a plague marine or two. In combat, AV 11 or 12 is difficult for most plague marine units to take down, although a powerfist in the squad makes combat not an instant win. My kanz hit on a 4+, the dred on a 3+, wound on a 2+, and ignore armor and FNP. Also, the walkers are shielded by a KFFG mek to lessen shooting fatalities.

3. Blast'em. Similar to my first tactic, but for when I run a shooty army. With lootas, and shoota boyz, I can put out an obscene number of shots on a given unit per turn. Park my lootas somewhere safe in cover, have my shoota boyz 18" away, with a screening unit infront to provide cover saves, and let fly. The idea it to make the PM player take so many saves that they fail some, while preventing them from doing any real damage to myself. Keeping 13-18 inches out forces the plague marines to come after me, in their turn, or only get 1 return shot each, for which I will get a cover save. It is useful for drawing units out of cover. Theory hammer wise, 5 PMs vs 20 boyz (both cost about 120 points). Boyz shooting will hit 13.3 times, wound 4.4 times, fail the save 1.48 times, and average .74 dead plague marines. Fire from the PM at the same range will hit 3.3, wound 1.6, and kill that many, the ork player brought no cover. The issue here is that .74 of 23 is 17 points, and 1.6 times 6 is 10. This battle of attrition is one that the orks can afford, but the plague marines can not. When you add supporting fire from lootas, no unit is safe.

There is, however, one aspect of any marine list that will give an ork player difficulties, and I figure Ill share it with you, Rear armor AV 14. The way the ork list is designed, the majority of the anti armor tactics involve close combat, although lootas do make a mockery of light armor at long distances. Because our lack of melta weaponry we must rely on tank bustas, pk warbosses on bikes, walkers, nobz with PKs, and the like. All of these units take down armor in close combat. 5th edition is nice, because it lets us strike against rear armor, which tends to be AV 10 or 11, but against AV 14, most of our anti armor options, infact all but tank bustas and kanz, have a hard time.

Because of our lack of ability to shoot down AV 14 at a distance (BTW the only units that have a snowballs chance in h*ll {meaning a chance beyond zero but much less than .1} are armed with rokkits, have a kannon, or a variable strength weapon) Just about any unit in a Land Raider will get to assault our ranks before we can do anything to stop it, and most ork players have nothing in their list to mitigate the damage. The con of that being that nurgle isnt really an assault geared army, like Angry Red Git, but it is a tactic that works.

Mabrothrax · **Posted:** Sun Jun 28, 2009 8:51 am

Excellent post Phill, and yet another reason to go for Land Raider assault armies!

nurglephill · **Posted:** Sun Jun 28, 2009 10:02 pm

yes the mistake he makes is saying that a PM army isnt an assault army, i think it certainly can be if played right.

to me this says when up against orks two flammer squads in raiders. tank shock with the raiders to bunch up the orks flame them then assault them. that has to mean LOTS of dead orks

oldschoolgamerOo · **Posted:** Mon Jun 29, 2009 1:58 am

Posted this question on the Robot Boy Toy Forum I been browsing and really haven't gotten too much of a responce, which kinda sucks because I really wanna know with the amount of Chaos Players in my area and if I have any hope of getting a win I woulda liked some input.

What I got though was build a destroyer(regular and heavy) heavy army with a C'tan (Deciever be the better). Seems (semi)sound except for the fact that the 'they will be back' rule has a short tally with all the expensive troops. As far as what to do with them, where I should concentrate my attacks I really got nothing but basically hit and run :shrugs: Guuess I will have to figure it out on my own.

Views from the other side...

Who is online