# CSM lack of massed fire



## Iron_Freak220 (Nov 8, 2009)

Ok so when confronting an enemy that runs a lot of TH/SS where you need a lot of massed fire to just put as many wounds on the squad as possible, what do you do if you play CSM? (Also had this problem against a Blood Crusher squad)

I know CSM has a lot of quality shots (Oblits) but how do you put down as many as possible just to make those damn TH/SS take so many wounds that eventually they start rolling ones, because 4 plasma gun shots rarely does the trick against a 3+ invulnerable saves.

Also, short of running 3 squads of havocs with autocannons what other strategies do you have for taking down TH/SS type units? (doesn't necessarily have to be shooting)


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## Lord Sven Kittyclaw (Mar 23, 2009)

Short of Havocs tooled out with HB/autocannon, oblits like you mentioned, and Dakkapreds.

Vanilla squads with HB/autocannon and a plasmagun, and of course their bolters.


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## Iron_Freak220 (Nov 8, 2009)

I know we have those ranged options but then it leaves us little anti armour. Do you have a strategy for dealing with these units without compromising your anti armour heavy support?


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

Yah its called lashing them back and forth between a 24-13 inch range for 3 turns.


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## Truefaith (Oct 11, 2009)

9 Obliterators and 2 Lash Princes. 3-5 squads of Plague Marines with meltas or plasmas. Or less Plag. Marines. 1850ish

Lash the TH/SS together/away and rain plasma cannons down on them.


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## Iron_Freak220 (Nov 8, 2009)

I was afraid lash was our only option


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## Lord Sven Kittyclaw (Mar 23, 2009)

except the problem is, a Plasma cannon can only one wound arounD 2-5 termies on its template, then all they have to do is pass a 3++ he is saying how can we just force shots on them. But the problem is, if you just spam shots, their probably rolling on a 2+ but if you go low volume they are still rolling on a 3++ not good for odds.


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## Truefaith (Oct 11, 2009)

I dont know, but I think my small blast template, coupled with Lash can hit, 6-7 Termis...

So one squad of Oblits, all hitting, wound 18-21... 

1/3 of those kill a dude...

Sounds like a break check at least.


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## search116 (Aug 9, 2010)

Don't forget you get chosen that can take like 5 plasma, and you have no right to complain tell that to the necron and daemonhunter players


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## Lord Sven Kittyclaw (Mar 23, 2009)

what do you mean no right to complain? He wasnt complaining, he was asking for advice.

And as already said, 5 plasmas are well and good, but even then they still have a 3++ to fall back on


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

Well it just goes with being a SM that we can't shoot out 50+ str3-4-5 shots a turn. I mean use common sense, who are the most common enemies of MeQ armies... that's right GeQ, TeQ armies. So if we could spit out those kinds of massed fire well still wearing power armor do you think anyone in their right mind would play none MeQ armies... the answer is no. 

In other words yes we don't have massed fire power, but then again last time I checked 2-1 thunder hammer terminators will still lose to 10 CSM so just spray them down with vindicators fire, or massed anything (Even bolters), and let the 2 idiots that survived the unit get the charge, chances are you will either finish those 2 guys of or at least hold them. Or you could just make a sacrificial unit of 10 Mark of tzeentch terminators to take the charge, keep in mind your paying more, but what do you expect when you try to beat someone at their own game.


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## Iron_Freak220 (Nov 8, 2009)

Yeah i'm not complaining. I was just wondering what strategies y'all have for taking out these types of power units since we don't have that kind of massed fire power


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## Cyklown (Feb 8, 2010)

Lash is the way to go. Keep them at arm's length, or else bunch them up with lash and drop some plasma on them. Once there's a pair of them then zerkers can torrent them to bits in cc.

Don't switch your infantry loadout to deal with the,. You have enough problems with vehicles already. All the firepower in the world won't stop termi's from getting to you if you can't stop that Landraider from rolling up to your front lines. Avoid plasmaguns, just pop the transport and use the few decent tools in the dex that you were given to handle nasty models on foot.


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## Truefaith (Oct 11, 2009)

For Crushers, Lash really works the best. If they deep strike and you can move your models more then 12 inches away you can then effectively lash them away all game and move away from them.


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## ROT (Jun 25, 2010)

This is the problem I have with World Eaters, there isn't a single unit that is fluffy for Khorne, that can push out massed fire...

I sighed when I saw Lash Princes as a suggestion... that just about sums up our Codex.


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## D-A-C (Sep 21, 2010)

ROT said:


> This is the problem I have with World Eaters, there isn't a single unit that is fluffy for Khorne, that can push out massed fire...
> 
> I sighed when I saw Lash Princes as a suggestion... that just about sums up our Codex.


Apparently there is an old unit called 'Khorne's Teeth' that was Khorne Havoc squads armed with Heavy Bolters. Four of those would be 16 Strength 5 Ap 4 shots at a 36" range. Also a Dreadnought with a Heavy Bolter and CCW + Heavy Flamer might be good and fluffy.

Anyway, as for the original poster, it's a tricky problem, and while CSM's cannot mass fire (though they can rapid fire) try and stay in cover and just focus all your attention on that unit, and that way you can achieve a target saturation effect. 

But as always I find it hard to give advice about topics like this, as the nature of 40k means that despite all the mathhammering and pre-game tactics, things may always end up differently when the game is actually played.


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## Lord Sven Kittyclaw (Mar 23, 2009)

Well ROT defilers are Khorney (no pun intended) and have Battlecannons.

But that about sums it up, well you could argue that tanks are destructive thus khorney but eh, its all semantics.


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## Lord Sven Kittyclaw (Mar 23, 2009)

D-A-C would be 12 shots, Heavy Bolters are heavy 3


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## TimberWolfA (Jan 12, 2010)

Truefaith said:


> I dont know, but I think my small blast template, coupled with Lash can hit, 6-7 Termis...
> 
> So one squad of Oblits, all hitting, wound 18-21...
> 
> ...


If the squad has enough members, you will get 7 'to wounds' on a bull's eye with a small blast vs. a unit with 40mm bases (assuming that you placed them correctly while lashing) because when dealing with true circles of identical radius (and the 40mm bases should be just such) six of them will surround one perfectly every time.

I'm not sure that everyone runs SS/TH Termies in squads of more than 5. It's just not an army that I've seen very much of.


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## Mr.Juggernaught (Nov 16, 2010)

I would just lay down a few vindicator shells on them as the shells go right through Armour and will cover all the terminators in the squad and it will be a 2+ to wound and after it takes out the terminators it can go on to other things to reduce to ruble. Although if you don't want to use any heavies then I would go with some Berserker's of some lightning claw terminators.


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## Ferik (Nov 5, 2008)

You can also use plain old bolter fire as well, mind you it may take 2 to 3 units rapid firing into the termies to bring them down but forcing a tonn of wounds on them and your bound to drop some.
The problem with using Plasma or any other type of special marine weapontry is that you most likely won't cause enough wounds to actually kill a model with a 3++ save, were as pumping a butt load of normal fire that they need a 2+ save for they are more likely to roll 1's, at least for me as a player who has used TH/SS termies its the small arms fire that brings them down quicker than anything else.


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## Brother Nbolo (Sep 17, 2009)

How about noise marines? from what i remember they can push out a good number of shots.

Odd i know but beserkers might be you answer, TH/SS termies strike last, zerkers can throw a LOT of WS 5 S 5 attacks at them.. 10 zerkers will force 17 saves on average, those termies are lossing that fight.


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

We all know about the cookie cutter Lash+Obz plasmacannon and the obvious Vindicator so lets look at other options (that wont rape our heavy support, aka the only FO slot thats actually worth something aside from troops for us):


Emperors Children!
Sonic weapons shoot a lot to say the least. 5 NM with Sonic Blasters shoot 15 shots while standing still. My NMs have killed countless Deathwing terminators nowdays.
The key factor here is that they can do this from 24' away, not within 12' as normal bolter tooting muppets must do. They can even walk away and shoot 10 shots....

Tzeentch DPs with Warptime and Wind of Chaos:
Warptime, jump up, puke and charge. They will need to take a bunch of IW saves, probably close to 10 on a normal 5man unit. That sucks.

Plasmagun armed choosen/Combiplasma Terminators arent such a bad bet either. Plasmaguns effectively reduces the save for the TH+SS termies by 50% (3+ is half as good as 2+). The key there is getting inside rapid fire range alive, and if you fail to kill them to survive, something the Choosen defo wont...


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## Izzleydill (Jul 11, 2010)

or just use some khorne beserkers. 4 attacks each at *WS* 5 and *S* 5. With ten basic beserkers there will be .555 dead from the pistols and 3 dead from melee before they even strike back, and they won't manage to kill more then 1 or 2 when they hit back. Use hoardes of attacks against *TH/SS* terminators, because they can only make so many 2+ saves before failing one.


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## ROT (Jun 25, 2010)

Lord Sven Kittyclaw said:


> Well ROT defilers are Khorney (no pun intended) and have Battlecannons.
> 
> But that about sums it up, well you could argue that tanks are destructive thus khorney but eh, its all semantics.


 But a Battlecannon is 1 shot, that could misses a lot; It isn't massed fire.

Battlecannons are good for thinning numbers, before charging units with 'Zerkers.


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

Or termis with lighning claws and MoT 

You'll be striking first with more attacks, an assaulting unit will have about 20 attacks and their save will keep most safe, a bit attritional but you should win


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## Iron_Freak220 (Nov 8, 2009)

I completely forgot about noise marines :laugh: that really is the answer. (if you dont' want to run lash/oblit/vindi) I guess cause nobody ever takes them, you really don't even think about them. Thank you all for the idea. I need to buy some noise marines. Two squads of noise marines and two squads of zerks should do well


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## ROT (Jun 25, 2010)

Barnster said:


> Or termis with lighning claws and MoT
> 
> You'll be striking first with more attacks, an assaulting unit will have about 20 attacks and their save will keep most safe, a bit attritional but you should win


 You wont win... You may kill 1/2 with 5 LC termies; then you take 5 massive hits back - which fuck you up, COMPLETELY.

But again, MoT can't happen in a World Eaters army ; so I'm left with the annoying predicament.


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## clever handle (Dec 14, 2009)

I've had great success with noise marines.

But if you're after a WE army the answer is shoot em up rapid-fire style before charging with zerkers.


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## Cyklown (Feb 8, 2010)

ROT said:


> This is the problem I have with World Eaters, there isn't a single unit that is fluffy for Khorne, that can push out massed fire...
> 
> I sighed when I saw Lash Princes as a suggestion... that just about sums up our Codex.


Well, sure. It's the Chaos codex. It's a pile that struggles to compete against any good/great list IF you play it unfluffy as hell.

If you want to play a fluff world eats list then you can't use the Chaos list. Luckily, the BA codex is out there and GW has been very emphatically clear on their support of counts-as.


To the rest of you: you're doing it wrong. Good list design AND *the OP's request* require you to not gank the crap out of the list and add fail to it in favor of adding more torrent fire to the list. You're doing it _wrong_. Those options would all make the list weaker.

Things like Nurgle DPs (with warptime, natch), Zerkers once you can afford to CC, creative oblits usage and lash to buy you more time to shoot all keep to the strengths of the list.

Or you can, y'know, play a counts-as list. BA Night Lords or World Eaters. That sort of things. You'll get plenty of options that way.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Vindicators, or multiple units of Chosen/Havocs with Plasma in your damn unkillable Rhino's?

Or tar pit with Berserkers, although tarpit and 20pt models don't go too well together.


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## Iron_Freak220 (Nov 8, 2009)

What do you mean by tarpit?


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Tarpit is a unit made of lots of models (or lots of wounds) that isn't supposed to do damage, just to shut down enemy CC units. Like charging 60 Grots into a DP so he just has to kill Grots all game and can't kill the valuable Lootas/Nobs/Battlewagons in the main army. It used to be really common for Guard armies to have 50 Conscripts with Commissar for the Stubborn special rule.

Midnight


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## Iron_Freak220 (Nov 8, 2009)

Oh well good thing CSM has plenty of those types of units. We've got...uhmmm...lemme think...those ones who...errrr...


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Ah... sometimes I love bein' a horde army...

Midnight


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## Fallen (Oct 7, 2008)

noise marines with sonic blasters. 10 of them only costs 250 points.

after that maybe give them a blast master as well, good chance of them losing some models then.


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