What chaos melee is right for the job?

[xerrol nanoha]

As of right now, Chaos has tons of melee options, and as a new player just trying to learn all the races, I have a difficult time understanding the strengths and weakness of each of the options available. Chaos in particular, feels like standing in a cereal isle of the supermarket and trying to look past all the 'deals' and 'whole grains' and 'prizes inside' to figure out what I would like best.

Tier 1: Default Heretics, Khorne Marines, Raptors
Tier 2: Blood letters, Blood Crusher, Dreadnought
Tier 3: Terminators, Great Unclean One

What units are good against what types of enemies?
for instance, what is good against setup teams?
how about light dedicated melee such as banshees?
what about enemy jump squads like storm boys?
How does one respond once anti infantry vehicles come into play?

Perhaps too many questions But it scrambles my brain so I thought I would ask the experts!

[Commissar Vocaloid]

As of right now, Chaos has tons of melee options, and as a new player just trying to learn all the races, I have a difficult time understanding the strengths and weakness of each of the options available. Chaos in particular, feels like standing in a cereal isle of the supermarket and trying to look past all the 'deals' and 'whole grains' and 'prizes inside' to figure out what I would like best.

Tier 1: Default Heretics, Khorne Marines, Raptors
Tier 2: Blood letters, Blood Crusher, Dreadnought
Tier 3: Terminators, Great Unclean One

What units are good against what types of enemies?
for instance, what is good against setup teams?
how about light dedicated melee such as banshees?
what about enemy jump squads like storm boys?
How does one respond once anti infantry vehicles come into play?

Perhaps too many questions But it scrambles my brain so I thought I would ask the experts!

Tier 1 doesn't have KCSM. KCSM are available T2.

There is no easy answer to some of your questions. For obvious counters, setup teams are weak to jump troop so by default, raptors are an obvious counter. But if you are spotting a Sorceror as your commander, you can use Sigil of the rift to have your melee tics warp in from behind a setup team, which will completely wreck them faster than you would with raptors. Blood letters are good in T2, but they are Light Infantry and are more susceptible to being taking more damage when they are countered as they jump in, and usually require some form of support (i.e heretic worship).

For banshees, they are naturally good against Power Armor. I have no idea how a fight would be between KCSM vs Banshees, but my assumption is that KCSM would lose traditionally in a 1v1. But, as is the case, you will not be finding yourself in a 1v1 scenario very often and will have some form of support. If you have Tics with AC, doomblast is a fantastic way to suppress the banshees + mass AoE from the blast, on top of possible support from units like CSM/TCSM, providing steady dps from the rear. Dreadnoughts are a natural enemy of banshees, but shouldn't be left alone to deal with them as an eldar player might be easily able to provide support in the form of one of their many AV counters.

Storm boys - they do pretty well against power armor for jump troop, but if you have tics with an AC and support of your commander, you can play your cards right and usually fend them off. Keep in mind that storms are also light infantry, and without their Nob, they are super squishy and can be easily countered.

Anti-infantry vehicles - well, a lot of the time your melee units won't really hurt vehicles unless they are heavy melee (0.5 dmg modifier vs a 0.15 on power melee). Some squads have a little bit of soft AV - KCSM have a melta pistol on their AC, but don't expect it to do a lot of damage to heavier vehicle targets. Generally, you want to get something that is meant to be used more effectively against vehicles, such as a lascannon, autocannon, meltas on raptors, etc.

But, these are literally small and very obvious examples. There are several options for each question you've asked, and it'll come down to experimentation and whatever else that fits your style of play.

[Sub_Zero]

Default Heretics

Default heretics don't stand a chance against other melee squads due to low hp per model (75 hp). They lose models quite often and that means they lose their dps (damage per second). However their ability "Doom blast" helps them greatly. It does good damage in area and supresses multiple targets. The ability can be used in 4 ways - escape mechanism (use the ability and retreat safely); defensivly (stop enemy's melee units by supressing them and therefore force them to attack heretics instead of a ranged unit in your army); offensivly (supress enemy's ranged unit and make kiting less effective); set up (you slow down the movement of any enemy's unit to use some ability like the Sorcerer's "Doombolts")
Heretics with an Aspiring Champion become more dangerous in t1. They gain more health and the Aspiring Champion does good damage. Upgraded heritics fulfill the same roles (I am talking about 4 ways to use them) but they do it better. Usually you want them to engage a jump unit (stormboyz, assault marines) or a melee unit (slugga boyz, banshees). In t2 they become less of a threat to most melee units (no t2 upgrades and bonuses for heretics), so don't expect much from them in t2, they only shine in t1.
But remember one thing - each time heretics sacrifice a member to make an explosion they lose health and damage output. So don't get carried away.

Khorne Marines

Fully upgraded Khorne marines are dangerous and tough. You have to spend 230 req and 70 power to buy all the upgrades. They have no abilities whatsoever and that means they are less versatile than heretics but better in terms of pure combat. Khorne marines counted as a heavy armored unit. It means they are more resistant to small fire (guardians, termagaunts, tactical marines) but more vulnerable to power melee weapons (banshees) and different ranged attacks (plasma, inferno bolts). Their weapons classified as power melee weapons so they do more damage to heavy armored units as well (wraithguard, nobz, assault marines). What are they for? They can fulfill both defensive and offensive role. Improved speed helps them to reach targets faster and high damage helps them to tear apart jump units while they are busy dealing with supression teams/ranged units. Also, they are very good at chasing retreating units and their pistols do good damage (the aspiring champion wields a melta gun, it will help a bit against vehicles) However, they should not engage toe to toe fully upgraded banshees, genestealers, upgraded ogryns and lots of other melee units.
Remember one thing - fully upgraded khorne marines have 4 models in a squad and they less exposed to bleed (model losing), they often preserve models even being low at health and therefore preserve their dps.

Raptors

Raptors are a decent jump unit but not the best one. They are good only for dealing with ranged units and supression teams/snipers. If you decide to send them against melee units your raptors most likely will be killed. Because their jump gives them no edge in melee fights. The jump only gives an edge against ranged units setup teams/snipers since it slows them down (basically the supression effect). Melee units won't be scared fighting your raptors while ranged units will try to slip away. to be continued....

What is the mess with the scroll bar? It pulls up all the time when I write something so I am not able to see what I write.

[Ace of Swords]

Tier 1: Default Heretics,Raptors

Heretics are a great melee counter to pretty much every t1 melee unit, you will need to learn how to doomblast propely to use them effectively, aswell as when use them as a support unit with worship when necessary, at the start of the game, if you use them well they should be able to beat any other melee starting unit, when the game progresses, and things like ASM,Aspects for banshees, burnas etc... come out you will need to get an Aspiring Champion on them.

Raptors should be your favorite choice to counter setup teams, but they will need quick support from your hero/tics (heretics), or well, I don't like to use them vs setup teams, I find havocs, your hero and NM to provide the setup team counter well enough already, Instead I like to use raptors vs big blobs since their big supression range permits you to approach with your whole army without beign shooted.

Tier 2: Blood letters,Khorne Marines, Blood Crusher, Dreadnought

Blood letters are one of the best units in the chaos arsenal imo, they jump quickly, they do alot of damage, they wipe squads almost instatly, I generally get them vs nids since they counter their whole T2, but they are also amazing vs pretty much everyone but IG.

Khorne marines are situational, you can either use them to fill up a missing melee slot if you have gone for a ranged build with like nade launchers and PMs in t2, or you can go full melee with AC tics,Khorne marines,bloodletters.

Dreadnought, I prefer to keep it ranged with it's autocannon, and get the mark of tzeentch when needed to counter other vehicles, the khorne dread is very strong but also very risky, if you want to get it use it's ability often and value well if it's worth getting it depending on the damage you can cause with it before losing it.

Tier 3: Terminators, Great Unclean One

I'd honestly always get the autocannon, it's just that good, the only time I would get the LC is when I really have no melee or I have to against other LC termies, the GUO imo is the best super unit, does alot of damage to everything, and can tank for a long time, but if you are missing alot of hard and long range av, then in that case you should not get it and get the phobos instead.

What units are good against what types of enemies?

Bloodletters and Kcsm and LC termies do power melee so they are extremely good vs both HI and SHI kind of armor, Tics do the standard melee damage, but they are still good vs everyone, especially sluggas,shees etc...

for instance, what is good against setup teams?
how about light dedicated melee such as banshees?
what about enemy jump squads like storm boys?

Like it was said before, vs setup teams you want to be able to avoid their supression so raptors/bloodletters are their ideal counters, though usually the chaos commanders have other and more reccomendable ways to counter supression teams.

Meanwhile, vs more 'elite' melee units you want to pair up your unit vs them, like AC tics + letters or Kcsm or some CC from your hero vs genstealers/storms since usually you won't be able to beat them in 1v1 fights

How does one respond once anti infantry vehicles come into play?

Usually all of the units that do power melee do some pretty good damage vs tanks and transports, so if you can pair them up with a slow on a vehicle like plagues marines, melta bomb or a lascannon shot you shouldn't have too many troubles in taking it down.

Vs dreds you'll need to keep the distance, and take it down with melta/lascannons/plague marines or your own vehicle, like a tzeentch or khorne dred or a bc under worship with some light av support.