TACTICA ANGELUS TENEBRAE By Daniel Custodio ( Chaplain Lucifer ) |
This article has been reproduced with kind permission from the author. It's use here is not intended as a challenge to the original authors copyright and is reproduced here for the sole purpose of enhancing the Dark Angel spirit and the warhammer 40,000 experience |
Chaos: Our arch-nemesis since the dawn of the Imperium. Iron Warriors Watch out for these guys! They can often outshoot us and are better in close combat too. Getting the first turn is essential, so you can eliminate the bigger threats. If you don't have the first turn, commend your soul to the Emperor and sell dearly our life, because they're very tough! First get some Land Speeders with Multi-melta to hunt down those inevitable Basilisks, Vindicators and Defilers. Deep-striking Terminators can also be used to this role, just don't expect them to survive if the scatter goes wrong and you end up in front of the army instead of the back. Plasma cannons are a solid choice, because they'll cut down IW squads and can deal with Rhinos and Obliterators as good as lascannons. Speaking of Obliterators, those are one thorn in every Marine's backside! You'll have to waste at least 2 lascannon shots to kill just one of them and Iron Warriors can field up to nine! They're a real pain because they'll effectively pose the same threat as tanks and to kill a squad of three will absorb more firepower than predator. My suggestion is to go with an all foot army, using tactical and devastator squads with lascannons and plasma cannons. Two or three Land Speeders with Meltas to hunt tanks and a strong HQ (or two) in case something nasty reaches your lines. In alternative you can bring the fight to them and assault, but only if you are sure that you can handle the Chaos Lord and the close combat troops. Speaking of which, obliterators are nasty too due to Toughness 5, save 2+ and power fists. Librarian with force weapons and GM with sword of secrets can deal with them. Watch out for sweeping advances, you don't want to get caught in the open. Chaos Undivided Pretty much like Iron Warriors but without the 4th Heavy Support and with a maximum of only three Obliterators. They can be hugely flexible with a core of shooting troops, with some demons (bloodletters especially) and Chaos marines to do the close combat work. At least there's no problem in out-shooting them. Treat them like you would treat Vanilla Marines, but remember that their close combat prowess is much, much better and they have some skills that can swing fire fights in their favour. One other swing that can swing at our favour is that their abilities come with a price and the army can end up being very tooled up but very small. Word Bearers Although being pretty much like Undivided, they can have more Troop slots, traded by Fast Attack Slots. You'll hardly see nine Troops Slots filled,but better be prepared just in case. A Word Bearers player can easily put something like four 5-men squads with heavy weapons, two HTH squads on rhinos and three daemon packs, and still have points left for some more HTH or Shooty nastiness! Death Guard/Nurgle Just sit back and shoot because you can outgun them easily. Their lack of heavy weaponry can be deceiving though because they have access to special weapons in great numbers so engage them at long range. Remember that every shot has to count because they have Toughness 5. Beware of the rhino-rushing Death Guard army, once they get in to close combat they'll be in their element. Anything with high strength and AP3 or better will be good to fight them. Lightning Claws will come in handy because of the re-roll to wound. Death Guard players have a tendency towards using Land Raiders in their armies, so be warned! Khorne/World Eaters Boy, facing this army is alot of fun!!!! Just send 3 or 4 Land Speeders their way, and shoot them with while they disembark of their Rhino's to chase the Speeders. Again, Plasma cannons are your friends. Once (or if) you have a lock on the inevitable Chaos Lord retinue, shoot them to oblivion so the Bloodthirster doesn't show up early and when he does he'll have to make an instability test on 3d6 every turn so he's as good as dead. Watch out for Close combat. Not only they have plenty of attacks, they reduce armour saves and some benefit of higher strength (like the Lord). Vindicators will be helpful too, because World Eaters will have a tendency to come straight at you on foot, or even better you can get a result of 6 on the ordnance table against the fully loaded rhino! Tzeench A Tough, but very slow army. Lacking of heavy weaponry, this one can be out gunned too just as long as you stay out of 12" range. Remember that although they can be slow, they can move and rapid fire. Each Thousand son has 2 wounds, so with a good spacing of models they provide hard targets to plasma cannons. Fortunately there are missile launchers and lascannons that can kill them outright. Considering the high points each Thousand Son costs it is not a bad trade. Remember to watch out for their abundant psykers, and the nasty psyker power that shoots at 24" range with S8 Ap2. I would advise bringing a librarian with psychic hood to counter some psyker powers and a force weapon that could make life a lot more easier killing Thousand Sons. Lightning Claws, Powerfists and Thunder Hammers are equally good at the job. Slaneesh Good close combat abilities and good shooting abilities make Slaneesh armies tough opponents, but you can treat them like a Chaos Undivided army with unit restrictions. Daemonettes are a good hand to hand troop so watch out for those. All in all a Slaneesh army is better dealt with at an arm's length. PART THREE: SCENARIOS Cleanse Mission In this mission you need three things above all: speed, timing and staying power. You'll need speed to capture/deny opponent quarters, timing to know exactly when to move and staying power because units can become isolated and easily overwhelmed. Speed: The speed part is easily taken care of in the form of our revered Ravenwing. Bikes are good and have light toughness, but Land Speeders are even better, they can move 24" in one turn. Empty (or loaded) rhino's can also provide a healthy 12" move to contest or capture quarters in the last turns. Timing: Timing is difficult to handle because no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. With this in mind you should try to secure your quarter and control the adjacent ones. Your opponent's quarter is where the strongest opposition will be most of the times, so a RW Land Speeder or two kept out of harm's way during the battle can easily contest/deny it! Use RW Land Speeders! The 6+ save can be crucial! Staying power: In order to capture the quarters you'll have to do divide your army, and that's a bad thing, because isolated squads can be easily picked up, so don't send small squads, send large ones (remember that below 50% units can't calm quarters). Place them in a position so that you can give them cover fire from your own quarter. If possible send squads in tag teams so one can cover the other. Instead of move in masse to the enemy's deploy try to split up your forces and surround him from both flanks. Beware of fast armies like Eldar that can thwart your plans, against those is better to establish a firebase in your quarter and blast away anything that moves, while approaching the central point of the table. From there you only have to move in your last turn occupy all others. |
TACTICA BATTLE FORCE |
