mush`s victory as tau

so my local group is quite widespread in both skill and types of army, not to mention lists brought to the table. for some time now i have been trying to get some of what i feel the veteran players to swap armies,(also had my opponents say how cheesy DE are and how easy they are to play with) mainly so that i could understand my list better, so that when that faithful day arrives when someone who knows DE inside out i wont get tabled.

after mush`s exploits with Tau i managed a game against a veteran (although relatively new to DE) whom very kindly played my list while i played my sons space wolves.

by turn 3 their was next to nothing left of the DE and i was embarrassed on how poorly my list performed.

the spectators then jumped on the band wagon of "you know your list and its weaknesses of course it was going to end that way" this from other marine and GK players that go on about how cheesy my list is lol.

so we played again i used the same SW list and he used his "net" list 1500 points countless venoms (i only use 2) this was a little closer and went to turn 5 and whilst some unlucky dice in turn 4 prevented a SW firm victory with a captured relic and DE all but wiped out, a victory was SW all the same.

so after reading Mush`s report i would like to follow up with a huge thanks to all who post batreps and discuss tactic here whom have helped me understand DE and how to play them with some effectiveness that allows the variety of mon keigh out their to have night mares.

that said i feel sorry for those that just pull from the net hoping to get an army list that wins.

I'm frankly amazed at people who claim DE are cheesy. When I first started my DE I had a couple of games against my regular opponents in which I tabled them inside of 3-4 turns and they started calling cheese but since then they have learned that we are quite probably the most fragile army out there and if we use our units poorly we will get massacred. I have had a much harder time of it lately.

I might try to persuade them to swap armies a few times. I usually play against Nurgle CSM and Necrons, both of which are extremely tough match ups and whilst I hold my own I think it would be interesting to see how they deal with my army.

It would be a good idea. And it's allways good to know how many different armies work. Makes you better player in the process too

While these news aren't really the kindest to the people you proved wrong, I love these kinda news

Great job showing the lesser races what we can do and that we're not as esay to play as it seems.

Funny to hear that DE is cheesy, perhaps cheesy is equal to our "Win big or lose big" thingie. I consider cheese to be necron lists that spam fliers/annibarges/wraiths/spyder & scabs, GK in general

Great to hear you giving army swapping a go, and being successful too! It's very rewarding both in terms of improving as a player and proving those mon keigh wrong!

I'm not surprised he did better with the venom netlist. Netlists tend to be more simplistic , easier to use and often consist of a combination of units that look very strong on paper. They don't tend to include the personal touch and the depth of unit synergy that you would find in a Dark Eldar list that has been optimised to suit a particular players play style.

It's fun getting people to put their money where their mouth is.

How is Nurgle CSM a tough match for DE? I ask because my friend plays them, but I tend to wipe the board with him and I'm afraid I'm actually making the hobby un fun for him and would like to fix that. What advice can I give him? (Aside; he hates when his whole army is destroyed only to have his helldrakes, which he doesn't like fluff wise, swoop in and save the day)

The Red King wrote:

How is Nurgle CSM a tough match for DE?

Because all chaos armies come with three helldrakes and nurgle armies come with a horde of FNP cheap scoring zombies.

The Red King wrote:

How is Nurgle CSM a tough match for DE? I ask because my friend plays them,  but I tend to wipe the board with him and I'm afraid I'm actually making the hobby un fun for him and would like to fix that. What advice can I give him? (Aside;  he hates when his whole army is destroyed only to have his helldrakes, which he doesn't like fluff wise,  swoop in and save the day)

Metal boxes! Lotsa metal boxes! I believe putting all your plauge marines in rhinos will help alot. And obliterators should be able to DS in and wipe alot of our troops.

facelessabsalom wrote:

The Red King wrote:

How is Nurgle CSM a tough match for DE? I ask because my friend plays them,  but I tend to wipe the board with him and I'm afraid I'm actually making the hobby un fun for him and would like to fix that. What advice can I give him? (Aside;  he hates when his whole army is destroyed only to have his helldrakes, which he doesn't like fluff wise,  swoop in and save the day)

Metal boxes! Lotsa metal boxes! I believe putting all your plauge marines in rhinos will help alot. And obliterators should be able to DS in and wipe alot of our troops.

This ^^, plus what Mush said ^^^. On the face of it, Nurgle CSM shouldn't be too much of a problem for us. After all, most our weapons ignore Toughness! But in order to use those weapons you first have to shift the little buggers out of their Rhinos. Due to my complete inability to destroy Rhinos with darklight weaponry (seriously, a Rhino will easily last 4 turns against my lances every damn time) the only effective means of destroying them is to send in the Wyches, who will easily destroy the Rhino but are then annihilated by the Plague Marines that were inside. Plus, if they somehow manage to survive the next round of fire they will lose any combat due to needing 6's to wound, 3+ save and 5+ FNP.

Then you have the Helldrakes...

The Red King wrote:

How is Nurgle CSM a tough match for DE? I ask because my friend plays them,  but I tend to wipe the board with him and I'm afraid I'm actually making the hobby un fun for him and would like to fix that. What advice can I give him? (Aside;  he hates when his whole army is destroyed only to have his helldrakes, which he doesn't like fluff wise,  swoop in and save the day)

The 6e Chaos codex has a lot of options which cost too much for what they do. The best options are Heldrakes, Cultists, and Typhus with Zombies. If your friend gets Heldrakes, then he could take Plague Marine lawn chairs but I think Cultists are better. If he takes Heldrakes and Cultists then Obliterators become good too.

If he refuses to take Heldrakes then my next advice would be to ally something in. Common allies are Daemons, Necrons and IG. The best options are flyers, cheap units and tanks.

I don't know what your friend is running but Plague Marines are only good at holding objectives so he should expand his list to include units which kill things. Hopefully he hasn't invested so much that he doesn't want to spend more to make his army more competitive. Someone needs to hang for this new book

I really appreciate all the input here guys, He actually runs typhus, Plague marines, oblits, zombies, a Demon Prince and two drakes. The problem is I wipe the floor with EVERYTHING else in his army due to massive Splinterfire and then his drakes come on and kill everything. He doesn't like that the rest of his army does nothing. Any advice on making a  more "killy" Nurgle army?


Also Is this getting off topic? Because I don't want to detract from the OP, but I rarely get this much feedback on my own posts T-T lol

plauge marines into rhinos, usually with plasma guns. Against you, maybe flamers? I'm not a fan of zombies, even in huge numbers they'll just get whittled down.

Consider meching up a bit, hellbrutes with missiles+ reapercannons etc. Vindicators are nice.

we have a guy that has a demon prince, a pair of vindicators, forgefiend, 2 drakes, couple of helbrutes running with his cultists that add in the numbers. lots of scary stuff that needs takin out all at once

My Nurgle buddy has stopped using his Heldrakes against me for the reasons given above: they are an easy-win crutch.
Once he dumped them, he enjoyed his games more(as did I!), but he did lose more.
His latest addition is a Maulerfiend, and that is proving to be hard work for me: the speed that the thing gets across the table is scary, and once in combat is hard work for me. (It's basically a cross between a Walker and a Beast, so it can charge 12", but you are hitting front Armour 12)

The general Chaos strat has always been to outlast and wear the opponent down and Nurgle just does that better. When I originally got into 40k, I picked up Chaos but I wound up selling them and starting Eldar because I wanted a more killy army.

These days Chaos has more options and they're not all well-explored. Maybe try some of their new vehicles- forgefield, maulerfiend and the new dreadnought guy? If he takes the same units as everyone else, he'll only have the same results as everyone else.