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These guys are everywhere and SO tanky. Sometimes I get lucky and they die in 2-3 shots, but it's not uncommon for them to survive 5-6 shots. A few dozen Heavy Bolter clips are not enough for the hordes of Word Bearers you come across in a campaign. Same for krak grenades. I also tried melee but more often than not it's my guys who end up dead.

Is there an easier way to deal with them?
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Ruldra: These guys are everywhere and SO tanky. Sometimes I get lucky and they die in 2-3 shots, but it's not uncommon for them to survive 5-6 shots. A few dozen Heavy Bolter clips are not enough for the hordes of Word Bearers you come across in a campaign. Same for krak grenades. I also tried melee but more often than not it's my guys who end up dead.

Is there an easier way to deal with them?
Stat wise, they're (usually) no better than your own men - though, of course, it also depends of experience levels... -, so it's mostly about engaging them correctly, with the numbers. Don't just try 1 vs 1 fights for the sake of it, unless you have Mighty Hero level guys - and, even so, it's rarely useful. Try to aim for single guys with all your forces, treating targets by order of priority, one by one.
Technically, the common Chaos Spaces Marines can't survive two Bolter shots with their health, regardless of your luck... But Armor plays a huge part there and that is only if you've succeeded to land a Weapon Wound (with the Weapon Strengh stat against your target's Toughness). Check the stats well (in the Shooting or Close Combat reticule for example) to devise your plans and move your troops accordingly.
Don't run systematically, as it lowers your Hit score by quite a bit - except with Mighty Heroes and very high stats -, and use Aimed shots when this score goes too low... or with weapons which allow for Sustained fire - as the doubled Action Points cost remains then, in this last case, quite reasonnable. Plasma guns work well for this...
Use your Heavy Weapons (or Krak grenades, yes, but that's already riskier, at close range) to brake their armors - for they get damaged just like yours - and increase the wound probability score of further attacks. The Heavy Bolter is actually the weakest Heavy Weapon you'll have (as far as Armor Penetration goes) and it's more useful to finish targets already socked by a Krak missile, a Lascannon, a Heavy Plasma, etc.
At close range, Flamers can break their morale and allow you to hit for free more or less anyone, but beware : they'll still retaliate in close-combat. Regarding close-combat, avoid that with your average Tactical Marine (and his Combat Knife), unless he's a (Mighty) Hero with a lot of health left or if you can gang up on someone with multiple troops at once - for the extra-attacks bonuses.
Now, honestly, if you're playing in the regular unaltered game on "Normal" (Veteran) difficulty, the Assault and Terminator Squads are those usually at work as soon as they've leveled up a bit. For example, the Assault Cannon can chew half a dozen Chaos Space Marine per Turn (seriously !) ; the Heavy Flamer will allow you to control vast zones ; the Terminator Close Combat weapons result in one round kills very often... and your Assault Marines, with a bit of experience, can turn almost anyone into mince meat before they can retaliate. It's mostly a question of experience, so try to avoid casulties at all cost...
Finally, learn to use Overwatch well : even with simple Bolters in the early part of the campaign, it pays to leave agressive Chaos Space Marines run at you (when they do so, rather than defend a place), while leaving your squads on Overwatch : cross fire can soften their armors a lot. Just pay attention to Overwatch ambushes while moving on afterwards ^^...

Good luck :) !
Post edited June 12, 2023 by Zaephir-Moth
Zaephir-Moth, thanks for your useful info.
A big difficulty in some missions is that some chaos marines are in defensive position behind barricades/walls/cover and do not really move.
This means they are harder to hit, and because they don't move they have no accuracy penalty and can overwatch shoot your marines to death.

It's where smoke grenade/missile should play a role, allowing your troops to close distance (so they can shoot from closer and so not get so much difficulty to hit) while the CSM will not shoot them at full accuracy while you're trying to approach
Post edited June 08, 2023 by Sanc
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Sanc: A big difficulty in some missions is that some chaos marines are in defensive position behind barricades/walls/cover and do not really move.
This means they are harder to hit, and because they don't move they have no accuracy penalty and can overwatch shoot your marines to death.

It's where smoke grenade/missile should play a role, allowing your troops to close distance (so they can shoot from closer and so not get so much difficulty to hit) while the CSM will not shoot them at full accuracy while you're trying to approach
That's true, but beware of such a double-edged sword. In most cases, it's hard to estimate the actual impact of smoke clouds on enemies hiding behind something. Those clouds can hinder shots (decreasing Ballistic skills) by 25%, 50%, 75% or 100%, but it's hard to judge in advance. And troops which may seem on the other side of such clouds might still able to open fire with little difficulty on your marines because of a particularly favorable angle or a higher vantage point. Soon or later, you will take a shot or two which seemed impossible at first...
This kind of tactic is made even trickier by a simple fact : as long as enemies really can't hit you, it usually means that you can't hit them. And, provided Overwatch stances have been properly set by both sides, as soon you'll move out of your (smoke) cover, guess who'll get fired at first ? Which may seem a reasonnable risk to take from time to time, but, as your campaign goes on, as the Ballistic skills of your opponents rise and their weaponry improve, you'll soon face situations in which even an experienced marine's head can get chopped off by a single mistake like that.
This limits, in practice, the use of smoke clouds to 1) Turns during which you're only on the move, as a mesure of extra-safety, by covering with smoke the path you're about to take ; 2) Defensive (or desperate) maneuvers to avoid getting shot at during the enemy Turn, by throwing a grenade or two on a given team with its last Action points ; 3) Offensive blinding measures not meant to kill anyone, but only to seal (completely) a few units' line of sight - or snipers' on the other side of the map -, with then (obviously) no hope of harming then either.
Don't count too much on smoke clouds : they certainly have their use, but, in practice (once again), they're quite the risky double-edged sword and you'll find (with time) more reliable ways to spend your Turns in most cases. If a given marine can't fire with enough precision on a target which absolutely has to be shot down (and not circumvented or attacked at close range, for example), how about trying to destroy your opponent's cover first - when it's barbwire or barrels for example -, using indirect damage (through blast radiuses) by targeting a spot next to it, or retreating to the furthest reachable point to fire at him with a long range weapon (taking as much time as needed) ?
There's also another way of using smoke clouds which shares this kind of efficiency and risk ratio... Since all effect durations, at least those of your own weapons and spells, are checked at the end of your opponent's Turn, there's no risk (at all) of being stripped of your smoke cover as he's about to act. So you can abuse of this by setting clouds in interesting positions and entrenching yourself into them while waiting for the effect to wear off. No need to come out of them to fire at those fortified positions you were scared off... Once the clouds start to dissipate, you'll have one Turn - or rather, one shot - to fire before the enemy can react, even with Overwatch stances readied against you. Now, obviously, you'd better then hit those troops (to shock them out of their Overwatch stances) and not have to move by a single step before doing so, or you're in for a beating... So it's still quite risky.

Lastly, regarding shooting accuracy, keep in mind that normal (usual) moves don't hamper any unit's ability to fire. Second edition rules were not really followed on that point. Only by running do troops suffer the (fixed) -30 malus to their Ballistic skills. But running, on the other hand, does slightly decrease the Ballistic skills of anyone firing at the said troops. Which could be seen as an incentive to make bold attempts, if the malus wasn't quite small - it's hard to extract out of the game's files, but it seems to replicate the second edition rules on that matter, which means -10 points - and neglectible as soon as you'll starting facing experienced Chaos Space Marines. So don't expect lowered accuracies from your enemies after you've seen them move a bit... and don't run for the sake of it. Except if you only have (Mighty) Heroes, which, in the base unaltered game, had such incredible Ballistic skills that the malus didn't meant much anymore...