Captain's Lance Fleet guide

Howdy Admirals,

Having Played this game from release I have been able to gather a substantial amount of experience in the game (holding Rank 1 in competitive makes me think that some of it works too!). With the Introduction of new factions I thought it time to write a guide to give some tips to any budding Warmasters out there. Before I start I will say this: nothing in this game is absolute, meaning there is no "correct way" of playing, or building fleets, however i will be giving informtion about the fleet I have been developing and tweaking over time, which has proven itself in the majority of circumstances.

For the purpose of this guide I will be assuming a base understanding of both the game mechanics and the Chaos faction on the part of the reader. I also will be listing the fleet with ranked mode in mind, so some slots will be empty becuse the ships would not have enough points to be upgraded, and therefore left unused.

The Fleet:

Battleship slot - Despoiler x1
Upgrades - Automated refuelling, Disruption overcharge, additional void shields, auxilary capacitors, Belt armour
Skills - Recon beacon, Supercharged shields, Stasis bomb, plasma bomb
Crew- Dark navigator x3 Cultists x3 warp talon x3

BattleCruiser slots - Acheron x2
Upgrades - Disruption overcharge, additionl void shields, auxilary capcitors, belt armour, overload generator
Skills - recon beacon x2, Supercharged shields x2 Stasis bomb x1, disruption bomb x1
Favour- Nurgle x2
Crew- Dark Navigator x3, possessed Gunner x3, cultists x3

Cruiser slots - Carnage x2
Upgrades - Advanced cogitor links, auxilary capacitors, Additional void shields, belt armour, extra turrets
skills- Supercharged shields, emergency capacitors
Crew - Dark navigator x3, possessed gunner x3, cultists x3

Light cruisers - Hellbringer Mk2 x1
Upgrades- emissions disipator, camo, improved auger array, additional void shields, auxilary capacitors
Skills- recon becon
Crew- Dark Navigator x3, possessed gunner x3, cultists x3

General overview of ship tactics - The despoiler provides a solid ship for your fleet, along with sound carrier capabilities and reasonable firepower. The main reason why I take this ship however is that most opponents will see a battleship and try and focus on it. This is a mistake for this fleet composition, as the majority of your damage will be coming from the battlecruisers. As such try to keep The despoiler close enough to your battlecruisers to serve as a decent distraction/ provide cover, however if fighting Orks splitting your fleet is a good way to force him to split up and therefore significantly reduce effective firepower.

Now I'll be moving on to the Acherons, these ships will be the workhorses of your fleet, the lances are capable of packing heavy punches to all enemies except eldar, they also count armour at 25% so will eat up space marine and imperial vessels with ease. Another amazing perk to using lances is that they're not affected by firing through stasis fields in the same way that macro weaponry and squadrons are, meaning that you can use stasis bombs deployed between your fleet and your opponents to almost "turn off" their macro weaponry for a reasonable duration. Although these ships have been equipped with Nurgle favours do not be fooled, they are not close range ships. The reason for this choice of favour is two-fold, firstly the 20+ troop value is incredible, especially when fighting against enemies that utilise boarding torpedoes and lightning strikes heavily. The other reason is to act to deter other admirals from closing the distance with your ships, for fear of the locust swarms. It is imperative to keep these ships between 6k and 9k units when engaging, to avoid the worst of enemy macro fire, only move in close if you need to use a boarding action for objectives, i.e data stealing or cancelling the warping of fleeing admiral ships, with the overload generator upgrade you will be dealing good numbers of critical damages from afar.

Now for the Carnage cruisers. These ships are included in the roster purely for fighting the pesky eldar, because lances are not cut out for dealing with holofields. be sure to be ultra aggressive when engaging the eldar, their greatest weakness is how hard it is to effectively micro manage the whole fleet, so going in guns blazing offers you a chance to put the pressure on. Use recon beacons to attach to the ships too for extra panic, because very few eldar admirals that have stood their ground and won while beaconed up. These ships can also be used if you've lost acherons or the despoiler in the previous match/matches, but be careful because with lower armour they will not stand up well to prolonged engagement with brawlers from most factions.

Light Cruiser, In this fleet the hellbringer is used primarily for scouting, for which the upgrades make it ideal, with the beacon and enhanced augurs you can identify enemies from long range whilst emmisions disipator means you can send it well ahead of your main fleet, however this is ill advised if the enemy has gas clouds to hide in and ruin your efforts. Recon Beacons are best taken on multiple ships, then can be used with one going down to identify the ships, then another to be attached to a ship once its shields are down. This completely negates the enemies ability to hide, and counters annoying favours like tzeentch. with 12k range on your lances the stuck ship can be whitled away before the enemy can even get into firing range.

General tips
Target generators whenever possible. Factions like Imperials or marines depend on the shields to absorb huge amounts of firepower, taking these out of the picture leaves you with a huge advantage. The only time i would change this advice is when facing orks, whose shields are quite low, go instead for engines, without these ork ships will not be able to stay in detection range for long, and you can engage from well beyond the range of their gunz

Use bombs with more than just damage in mind. Bombs make for great deterrents, admirals are reluctant to send ships through the red circles of doom, as such stasis bombs can be used to deny areas for not only their duration, but for most of their arming time. Once the enemy is trapped then its time to use your damage bombs, because without a warp jump they arent going to miss.

Target the medium sized ships first. This may seem counter productive as its often the big ships that do the most harm, but focussing out smaller classes can leave the enemy missing some hefty firepower, it also means you then have more firepower dedicted to killing the big ones afterwards. to achieve this make good use of stasis bombs to keep the enemy fleet seperated. This tactic works very well against space marines due to the noticable difference in speed and survivability of their battlebarges to their cruisers, its easy to keep the scary barges at bay while you maul the cruisers, thus giving you a distinct firepower advantage when the time comes.

Do not be afraid to warp your ships out. In ranked mode it is usually the admiral with most ships functional that end up winning the final cruiser clash. To that end if you deem fighting to be unacceptably costly to you then warp out and fight on a more even field with the 3rd round. Obviously if you have lost one round already this does not apply, keep those ships fighting till the bitter end because if you lose then it wont matter if they got away.

My most important tip though is quite simple, however implementing it can require practise. Don't Over-plan. If you go in with a plan of how you want to play and stick to it regardless of what happens then you will most likely lose. The best thing to do is keep in mind the capabilities of your ships and what their strengths and weaknesses are, then see how your enemy plays and manipulate the flow of battle to maintain those conditions.

Best of luck Admirals,

Yours Aye

The Captain

[Unbiddenpain]

Thanks your my hero brother

[KaiZer]

navigators.. sweet) i just wanna to meet this capten in 2x2

[El-squishi!]

7.8/10 - Too much heresy

In all seriousness I've played coop with this beast, listen to every word he says

[Leo]

Thank you for the great guide. I have been playing since beta but could never really control a chaos fleet well in high point matches. I might give this a go right now actually.