Warlord survivability

[Denzark]

I am thinking of running a dual lord CSM list. One will be on a bike with MoN (T6), sigil of 4++, and 3 other nurgle bikers. One will be with 33 cultists behind an Aegis line.

What is the hardest to kill, ie least likely to give up a warlord point?

Answers on a postcard please,

[Learn2Eel]

Probably the one with the Cultists, as that one doesn't need to get into the thick of things and has thirty-three ablative wounds to keep themselves alive.

[nurglez]

Also depends on your opponent, the mission, terrain... But yeah I'd say the one with the cultists, as the biker lord would probably be off killing things :D

[rtmaitreya]

I am thinking of running a dual lord CSM list. One will be on a bike with MoN (T6), sigil of 4++, and 3 other nurgle bikers. One will be with 33 cultists behind an Aegis line.

What is the hardest to kill, ie least likely to give up a warlord point?

Answers on a postcard please,

The beauty of it is that you can adapt your warlord choice by opponent, unless the TO rules otherwise. It's one of the pleasant benefits of Tyranid lists, because the specific opponent you face has a LOT to do with which HQ is more survivable. A prime or tervigon babysitter in the backfield is pretty survivable because the vast majority of your army is very aggressive and presenting a wealth of high priority targets. Against certain enemies, though (heavy drop pod army in 2-objective mission) this is foolhardy, as the opponent will be focusing most of his elite killy units on your backfield. Make the decision when you know your opponent, then adapt, kill, eat (not necessarily in that order).

[Warptiger]

The one with the cultists will probably survive longer... but, what exactly is he going to accomplish in the game? Seems a weird waste of a chaos lord. I don't take any unit without having a specific purpose for it... and sitting around not doing anything seems a weird purpose.

[Nabterayl]

Well, I don't know how Denzark plans to equip his Chaos lord, but he's the cheapest way to make those cultists Fearless. And if he's going to sit behind the ADL, he can just man the gun emplacement with his BS5.

[Caitsidhe]

I am thinking of running a dual lord CSM list. One will be on a bike with MoN (T6), sigil of 4++, and 3 other nurgle bikers. One will be with 33 cultists behind an Aegis line.

What is the hardest to kill, ie least likely to give up a warlord point?

Answers on a postcard please,

Well... hrm.. ummm.... depends on what you do with them? :D Turbo-Boosting Bikers running from the opponent can be kept away from your opponent just as easily as someone hiding (but footslogging) at the back of your lines. Of course, having more bodies will give you more chaff to protect your Warlord. I guess I have to go with the Cultists if you have some other way to keep the opponent from getting to you. Either way, I think you have your mindset backwards on this one.

Trying to avoid giving up a Warlord point isn't something to build around. You build around gutting as many points out of your opponent as possible. Losing the game on 1pt sucks but you are going to lose by a lot more than that if that 1pt becomes a main army consideration to you.

[jgebi]

I think I can see your tactic for this and really it won't matter if I'm right but for bait I'd throw it with the cultists and watch them march into a killing field with bikes charging the lines hmm could be interesting

[Denzark]

Thank you for the answers. As a bit more explanation, this is for 1500pts. The lord + 33 will be my objective holders, hence at the back. He has blight grenades, and a reasonable mix of 20-odd autoguns, and the rest cc+ pistol. So you can either get stuck in his tarpit, fighting with one less attack when you charge, or try and shoot them from behind 4+ cover. The squad has 3 flamers as a further deterrent. He won't have a quad, but a comms relay - to try and ensure I get maximum use of the 2 drakes that will be blatting around - that should be enough anti air.

The troops going forward are CSM squads - rhino up, out, bolter. With the bikers and their lord on hand. It just occurs to me that they will draw a lot of fire. My last 130 is currently a hellbrute with scourge and TL lascannon, to snipe armour and also help the back field. But thinking of turning the brute into a dakka pred or possibly a vindicator. The biker squad is the lord + 3, I don't have much flex to bring extras, hence not convinced they are a more that a mini deathstar, and thus not survivable.

[Caitsidhe]

Thank you for the answers. As a bit more explanation, this is for 1500pts. The lord + 33 will be my objective holders, hence at the back. He has blight grenades, and a reasonable mix of 20-odd autoguns, and the rest cc+ pistol. So you can either get stuck in his tarpit, fighting with one less attack when you charge, or try and shoot them from behind 4+ cover. The squad has 3 flamers as a further deterrent. He won't have a quad, but a comms relay - to try and ensure I get maximum use of the 2 drakes that will be blatting around - that should be enough anti air.

The troops going forward are CSM squads - rhino up, out, bolter. With the bikers and their lord on hand. It just occurs to me that they will draw a lot of fire. My last 130 is currently a hellbrute with scourge and TL lascannon, to snipe armour and also help the back field. But thinking of turning the brute into a dakka pred or possibly a vindicator. The biker squad is the lord + 3, I don't have much flex to bring extras, hence not convinced they are a more that a mini deathstar, and thus not survivable.

Just don't get too confident in kicking back in cover. The proliferation of weapons which ignore it and that can destroy an ENTIRE unit of Cultists in a single round of shooting can't be entirely discounted. There are IG units which don't even need LOS that can shoot cover ignoring templates into you, several torrent flamers, and the ever popular deep strike in with Heavy Flamers to do the job. I mention these things only because I use them and have them used against me quite frequently. As a result of the popularity of the Aegis Defense line, the use of certain weapons and builds are on the rise. Even with the altered rules, the Daemon Flamers will still gut a Cultist blob on impact.

[Pater Sin]

While losing 1 point might be annoying, a chaos lord should be moving forward and smacking the enemy with a big stick. It isn't a very subtle plan but generly it works more often than not.

[Warptiger]

While losing 1 point might be annoying, a chaos lord should be moving forward and smacking the enemy with a big stick. It isn't a very subtle plan but generly it works more often than not.

I agree with him. If you're not going to have a quad gun on the aegis line, then it makes even less sense to me to have your chaos lord sitting around.

You should have a plan for every unit you take. "this unit will move towards objectives in this quadrant, this unit will block for them as they move forward, or tarpit enemy units, etc, etc". A chaos lord sitting at an immobile defense seems a little passive. Your lord isn't taking action, he's waiting for someone else's action to hit him.

You have 2 heldrakes in a 1500 pt game? that seems a little excessive to me. Just my two cents. That's over 22% of your pts on 2 units. But maybe your local gaming group is flyer heavy.

[Denzark]

Maybe a little more explanation. I am possibly biased, but am seeing a shed load of games going to seocndary objectives. I am keen to avoid losing any of them. Now, it is all well and good from the last 2 comments, Pater and Warptiger, to say 'you must have a plan' and that for the Lord, he is a beat stick.

That is not very subtle. The military will sometimes talk about 'effects based warfare'. Also, there is a concept known as 'doctrinal' or 'mission' verbs. DETER is one of these, as is DENY and DISRUPT. So, by leaving the Warlord on the backline, where at least one objective will be, I DENY that objective to the enemy. The Nurgle, Blight Grenading, burning brand carrying Lord with his 33 blokes, including 3 flamers, is a hard act to kill for that warlord point. The autogun fire power is entertaining. The whole piece acts as DETER against the enemy engaging. The load out, and the ability to detach the Warlord, is capable of significant DISRUPT against enemy coming onto my manor to try for linebreaker - particularly given it is running with some other stuff such as dakka preds or what have you.

So actually, the use of lord and cultists, I find quite symbiotic - he gets 33 ablative wounds, they get fearless - you absolutley positively have to kill every mutha fercka in the whole damn room to stop them scoring. I'm aware of what weapon systems could prove troublesome - this list has others going forward and I would be quite happy to trade a turn of firing with enemy 'problem weapons'.

I consider doing DETER/DENY/DISRUPT as proactive a course as sending my Lord forward to DESTROY/NEUTRALISE or whatever other effects you can think of.

[Pater Sin]

You could also put a Dark Apostle with the cultists if you want them to sit on the objective. I used a squad of 10 with MoN in my last game and they lasted a suprisingly long time.

[Power Klawz]

I was also going to suggest using a dark apostle with the cultists as opposed to a Lord, slap a mark of Khorne on those rowdy boys and you can do a fine imitation of an Ork mob, minus the color palette.

A chaos Lord, in my opinion, should only be concerned with the verbs RIP, TEAR and BURN. Although given how amazingly cheap a naked Chaos Lord is you might be on to something. The only problem being that without the gribbly bits he's basically just a space marine captain with a chip on his shoulder, and since he has to challenge it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine some plucky terminator sergeant or drug-fueled space elf giving him the business without having to wade through the rest of your cannon fodder.

Thinking about a 5 strong Deathwing Knights unit deepstriking into your Cultist's neighborhood. Even with a full round of shooting and overwatch you'll be lucky to knock out one of them, then the Knight Champion is going to make his career and a Victory Point off of your Lord's crumpled corpse.

[Denzark]

PK - you are correct - there are things that could do it. But if they come out 1st turn the rest of my army won't be so far away from the Lord (snug in my deployment zone) that they couldn't brass up said enemy hard unit and then proceed on. You would have to have something really massive to make it worth while.

[Power Klawz]

Actually now that I think about it the Cultist Champ could probably eat the challenge anyway so it doesn't put you in as precarious a position as I had at first suspected.

Given the two options you've presented I am almost positive that the dude in the cultist squad would live longer, I'd certainly prioritize a Chaos Lord riding around on a bike over a tarpit squad. A tooled up Nurgle Lord on a bike is a much more immediate threat for obvious reasons, you're going to catch a lot of plasma.

[phreakachu]

Probably the one with the Cultists, as that one doesn't need to get into the thick of things and has thirty-three ablative wounds to keep themselves alive. Sounds good until you realize that he's gonna get called out. sure his cultist b!tch champion would get dropped first, but thats one round of protection. anybody with hit and run will drop in to say hello, before letting someone else run through and take out the warlord. Survivability is more due to luck (will of our dark gods!) rather than any amount of numbers/padding/ect.

[rtmaitreya]

Sounds good until you realize that he's gonna get called out. sure his cultist b!tch champion would get dropped first, but thats one round of protection. anybody with hit and run will drop in to say hello, before letting someone else run through and take out the warlord. Survivability is more due to luck (will of our dark gods!) rather than any amount of numbers/padding/ect.

You could have a minimum squad of cultists sitting off to the side to add a counter-charging character for a second round of defense of your Lord. Not too expensive, and just toss it into the fight.

[Da Gargoyle]

I don't know about camping with cultists, seems weird even for Chaos. I think there would be better value for your Warlord to camp with a squad of 5 CSM with a heavy weapon and sgt with power weapon. They can survive flamers and hit targets with the heavy and are more dodgy in h-h. Your cultists would last as long as it took me to get my storm guardians up to the wall. Two flamers and a warlock with destructor will clear the line give me a well protected objective and a warlord ta boot. I think cultists are best used to provide bodies for the berserkers to clamber over when they assault.