SM APO vs MoT CSM

[Ordie]

Dear Forum,

I am playing a lot of Apothecary, and in t2 I have a lot of trouble dealing with 2 MoT CSM. If I get ASM, the enemy has them split, and my ASM get shot down before they can be very effective. The only solution I have found it to get a dreadnought, though if the enemy responds with AV (or worse, preempts with AV), I end up in the unfortunate position of having my Dread countered, and my infantry countered, and I am all together screwed. How does a SM APO counter double MoT CSM?

[Batpimp]

devastators the heavy weapon team.

disruption..whirl wind, plasma dev team



vehicles..razorback, whirlwind, dreadnaught

melee... asm, apo forced melee, librarian melee (also use his lightning strike)

[Narcolepsy]

Well, I'd look at it like this (coming from a current Sorc main with a history of apo- not that I'm that good or owt). I might ramble around a little, I ask your forgiveness.

MoT is 400 for CSM + 125+30p for the upgrade, and let's be honest, I'm always gonna get eternal war for 20% dmg buff for 60+15p.

So, if we're against each other and you see the double MoTs, you know I've spent 1170 + 90p on these units alone. Playing sorc for a little bit now I know that if I want to do this in early T2 I'm not buying a dread or bloodcrusher, or if I put it off for a little bit for a vehicle,I'm probably at a disadvantage to the tac blob in other areas.

If you do go dread/razorback/whirlwind (i'd suggest WW against chaos anyway to bust up the swarming tics/break up the worship) and I've got havocs (which is likely) you force me to put on a lascannon, which takes off my suppression ability. This leaves me with suppression from doomblast, and that's about it. CL or Plague champ will do better with counter melee attacks that follow than my sorc, but I don't play those much. The upshot is is that now my army is very melee/suppression weak and I'll want to rush out a MoK dread or bloodletters to bolster the lines against the incoming ASMs, which costs me even more req and power. The best bit about this trade for you is that I'm massively spending to build in T2 (which will admittedly be a tough army, given the strength of Chaos T2) but should, if you keep me at arms length and piss me off with back capping scouts/powerbashes let you get to T3 easily before me, where SM comfortably have the advantage.

What I really, really hate playing Chaos is when people use knockback disruption on me to stop my lovely high DPS. Here's something that might work though with Apo.

His storm bolter has full auto, which deals knockback. With WW and this AND ASM (even vanilla ASM) you have 3 sources of KB damage to deal out to 2 squads- alright, I will most likely counter initiate the ASM with tics or champion, but you also have tacs in the mix, and the WW is a constant source of annoyance for all my units. Maybe scout grenade in there too for extra lulz? If I'm playing a sorcerer anyway, you'll have a sarge for them to detect my cloaked units.

I think the trouble you're having is the reduced DPS from playing Apo compared to TM or FC, who can be much more dakka with their play. If you try something like the above, and slap on angels of death global as you engage, I'm gonna have to leg it or lose all my shit.


Thanks for sticking with the ramble

[saltychipmunk]

I dont recommend the devastators since 2 Mot Csm can easily kill the gunner model on a devastator in 1 single volley from both squads . Tcsm are a very bursty unit.

Asm should technically be an effective counter to the tcsm, It makes me wonder if perhaps how you are choosing to engage the tcsm might be a core issue.

Consider this. If you lead the charge with the asm then it stands to reason that the tcsm will already be targeting and shooting at the asm .. even before you jump in. This means you probably are going to land bleeding.

Try drawing there fire with your tactical marine squad .. preferably while it is in cover and then jump your asm on them after they are already engaged with the tacs. this gives your a much better chance of having a full hp asm squad on landing to hurt the tcsm. But you optimally will want to find a way to tie both squads up in melee some how.

hell Tcsm are pretty damn expensive so you can easily get away with buying 2 asm if the need arises .


infiltrated shotgun scouts are also useful since you can jump on one tcsm and suppress the other with the scouts.

[Cyris]

Some notes:

Double Tacs with plasma guns and Kraken active deal really high HI damage for cost. With an Apo toping of the squad that gets focused first (or maybe using full Auto) you can actually win firefights against TCSM. TCSM can ultimetly become stronger with EW and AC, but your tac + plasma rifle is only 510/30. Sarge isn't really needed, since it only marginally increases ranged damage against HI. Save the req/power and upkeep for a dread/dev/pdev/asm/whatever.

Quick maths:
510/30 tac + plasma + kraken - 79 dps to HI
525/30 csm + MoT - 68 dps to HI

Analysis of the maths:
Now clearly, the CSM can buy EW for 60/15 to bring that to 81 dps to HI, and pick up an AC to bring it to bring the total to 108, but the cost has also jumped up 75/25 to a total of 660/70. Two of these guys are 1320/140, while two plasma tacs are 1020/60 (and less pop/upkeep) which leaves 300/70 to pick up a number of different goodies. Heck, if you summon 1 or even two of these tacs through the drop pod, you can squeeze a 3rd in! Let's say you buy 1 and summon 2, it'll be 1330/90 +200 red. This will COMPLETELY outshoot the TCSM, leave you with 2 drop pod renforce points and potential renforce some models for free on the way in. Noisy has done this to me as GK as his "Steel Rain" build - it's no joke.
(fun fact, inferno damage deals .75 to commanders, while piercing deals .9!)


If you go dread, strongly consider the AC upgrade, which will let you shoot up the TCSM at range without overly exposing yourself to AV fire, and maybe get a good assault barrage in.

If you wanna stick with ASM, work on engaging all at once. Put your tac and Apo on the way up to take the first volley of TCSM fire and jump the full health ASM in. The tacs can then fire into the melee.

[egewithin]

Using Apo in melee is taking a huge risk vs Chaos. I suggest for you to stick with Bolter and let the ASM do the job for you so you can keep away him from MoTCSM

[Oddnerd]

If you are playing APO with the bolter upgrade then you can always use the active ability to knock one of the CSM squads down. Also, as people mentioned, two upgraded TCSM squads is a large investment by your enemy - counter it by having more units on the field.

[Atlas]

I'll say this just for completion's sake since I'm assuming that this topic is coming from a beginner to middle level player, but you can consider kiting him with scout snipers. You can take a shot with your snipers, move them back very quickly and then take another shot later on. The margin is pretty razor-tight on it though, so use at your own risk.

That being said, if you're playing against a CSM player going for 2 csm (and this holds true for teams as well imo) you can get away with teching to a very fast razorback. The rback is not invincible, but it can put out a respectable amount of dps while supporting whatever other unit purchase you made in T1.

The Rback smoke grenade effects the Dev's damage output, but not it's supression rate. This means a Dev Team under smoke cover is basically invincible from ranged attack while still locking down ranged blobs.

ASM can either be carted directly onto the battlefield, supported with smoke (since they don't have much ranged dps as well) or reinforced directly on the field if need be.

Now, this might be a little stereotypical, but a lot of 2x MoT CSM players tend to get Plague Marines to handle their AV. If you bought ASM, they could tie them up if need be. A more unconventional, but surprisingly effective, method of dealing with PMs and MoT CSM blobs is to field Plasma Devastators. CSM players tend to be very lazy with their PMs, so if you just park your rback under repairs with smoke PMs tend to just sit there and shoot at your rback. You can then wait for the PDev to line up it's shot, do huge damage and make that ranged blob .

Hope that helps.

[Tex]

Razorback causes massive problems for chaos.

Use it on the periphery of combat and it will completely screw up your enemy's formations. Chaos AV is incredibly non-mobile in T2.

If you force him to buy a bunch of plague marines or a Tdread against you, you should be laughing. Both of those things are easily dealt with by SM.

[Atlas]

Razorback causes massive problems for chaos.

Use it on the periphery of combat and it will completely screw up your enemy's formations. Chaos AV is incredibly non-mobile in T2.

If you force him to buy a bunch of plague marines or a Tdread against you, you should be laughing. Both of those things are easily dealt with by SM.

For completion's sake, how does SM deal with PM and TDreads?

[Nurland]

I have never found PM exactly super strong against SM. I mean they don't really poop on HI. They are hard to force off and will soak up s lot of damage, I'll say that. Tdread's würst enemy is lib + VoT Devs

[Black Relic]

Sternguards eat Plague Marines Alive with Hellfire. And Since the ASM are there, melta bomb and switch to vengeance rounds and T Dread is dealt with.

Note you do not jump on the dread you jump a TCSM squad close to the dread.

Your Tacs get Plasma gun. Your Apotho gets combat stims and throws it on a high value target. Id say ASM imo since that 25% more damage almost turns their chainsword into power weapons vs HI (which is why For the EMP does so well on ASM). Your scouts use (if they have shotguns) disrupt the heretics or the TCSM if tics are not present. Your Apotho can TRY to tie up the other TCSM squad. But the disruption and the knockback all has to be present. You can get his chainsword to get into melee faster if you go that way since it increases is charge range to 23. After that you pretty much won the first with a razorback behind you. Since he can pop smoke nades and tank 3 shots of lascannon fire before smoke wears off. And by that time a TCSM squad is forced off and the other is injured which leaves your ASM free to attack their havoc. If they have bloodletters, sterguard focuses them. You can honestly leave the heretis alone if you have a razor back around with an apothecary and focus on more damage dealers.

I say the combat stims also since it will not only buff the target's damage but any abilities they use. ASM melta bomb does 25% more damage. Merciless strike does 37.5 piercing dps per "explosion" which there are 3 of. The target breaks and is immune to suppression for a duration. Its pretty great in some situations and with a razorback to back you up I think it would be a fair choice.

Edit: Combat stims actually increases damage by 30% not 25%. My bad.

[Tex]

Razorback causes massive problems for chaos.

Use it on the periphery of combat and it will completely screw up your enemy's formations. Chaos AV is incredibly non-mobile in T2.

If you force him to buy a bunch of plague marines or a Tdread against you, you should be laughing. Both of those things are easily dealt with by SM.

For completion's sake, how does SM deal with PM and TDreads?

To fill in the blanks,

1) The razorback is super mobile and provides enough dps that it can force off anything chaos can field. By using it on the periphery of combat, it is less easily flanked, and it really becomes a nuisance to the chaos player who will badly want to be keeping map control. Since chaos has most of its AV balled up into specialist units (like orks) they have the problem of being outmaneuvered.

2) PM's get torn to shreds by any variant of Tacs. Sterns with hellfire go crazy on them. Scouts with shotguns also do big damage. Scout snipers are also a great response. In fact, if your opponent buys 1 or more squads of PM's, it is perfectly appropriate to counter that purchase with 1 or more scout sniper squads.

3) The TDread is easily solod by a melta dread and SM can also repair a hell of a lot better than chaos. Further, SM are all around equipped to deal with a relatively non-threatening walker such as this one. Meltas and Rockets are more than enough to deal with the Tdread. Also, in terms of sheer economics, if your opponent bought a Tdread to deal with a razorback, you are MILES ahead.