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Ok, since Khornatedemon doesn't live down the street, Somnicide and I offered to throw a list idea of his against my current (at the time) IG list.

My list for the game was

CCS 4x melta chimera hull HF
CCS 4x melta chimera hull HF

overseer and 8x psykers chimera hull HF
overseer and 8x psykers chimera hull HF

veterans 3x meltas chimera hull HF
veterans 3x meltas chimera hull HF
veterans 3x meltas chimera hull HF

executioner with plasma sponsons
executioner with plasma sponsons
3x hydra


We had to pare his 1850 down to 1750... we put our heads together to do it, should be keeping the spirit of the larger list. Let's see if I get this right

Vulkan

dreadnought MM/HF
dreadnought MM/HF

10x tac marines lascannon/flamer rhino
10x tac marines lascannon/flamer rhino
10x tac marines MM/flamer

2x speeders MM/HF
1x speeder MM/HF

predator autocannons sponson lascannons
predator autocannons sponson lascannons
land raider with multi-melta


To Khornatedemon, the drop pods were dropped from the dreads, it saved Somnicide 3 kill points, and didn't really gel with your overall concept of 'hang back and shoot'. By hanging back i was only able to fire my meltas twice, both times at speeders.

We rolled a dawn of war annihilation. I won the roll, and decided I wanted the first non-night fight shooting phase and so took first.

Som deployed a single rhino with guys about 12" on the table, thinking that maybe if i spotlight it, and fail to kill it, he could take a lascannon shot on turn 1. It was really just a silly thing, not really risky at all, but with almost no chance of doing anything either.

I deployed nothing, then i steamed on turn 1. My lumbering russes only went 8" and 7". I had three tries to spotlight his rhino before the hydras could fire. On my third try I rolled a 12! Pulled out tape, and his rhino looked to be about 37 or 38 inches away!

So I had no shooting on 1, he moves his guys on and can't see in the dark either.

Turn 1 score 0-0

Turn 2... The sun rises over the hills and I blaze away. I move my guys up a little close to ensure that the psykers have good range to everything (I think I underestimated my range a little, but thats ok)
Bot of his dreadnoughts were getting 4+s, so I unloaded the team onto the two rhinos. I weapen destroyed shook and immobilized one, and i killed another, unfortunately, not a big boom. However, despite the fact that Som placed the rhino sideways after moving, because he knows my tricks, one of my executioners and one of my psyker squads had LOS to the unit, like barely a leg LOS, but LOS. Well, I managed to force a test with the russ, and successfully weakened resolve for -8. He was way too close to the table edge after the debark and so he trotted off the table.

Now he goes, he manages to wiggle just enough movement to get his multi-meltas into range, with good cover on at least one dread. The order that he applied damage to my vehicles will be pretty tactically unimportant, but he managed to crew stun a battle psyker chimera, and big boom blow up a CCS chimera, the CCS lost a wound on the company commander and lost a meltagunner, but were unpinned. Neither of his speeders arrived. he was able to turn the engine over on the rhino.

Turn 2 score 2-1

Top of 3 I think this was our slap-fight turn, if I remember correctly. i hid my CCS behind a russ, with only 4 models it was pretty much completely out of LOS. I put almost everything I had into his one not in cover dreadnought, and stacked like 4 stunned/shaken results on him. I managed to kill the other rhino, but couldn't scratch the tac marines as they fell out.

Both of his speeders showed up. One landed behind my russ and killed it, the pair landed in front of my hydras. Som's only mistake was probably here. In hindsight, it had zero game impact, but one could argue that he had sort of forgotten about the mission just briefly. He put the pair of speeders into my hydra battery blowing one up. His non-speeder shooting was as ho-hum as my shooting, he slapped a bunch of crew stunned on my front row chimeras. Keeping them in multimelta range for another turn. His speeders did exactly what they were supposed to do, they each landed and killed a vehicle. Unfortunately, they came too early, and this was annihilation. I think it was this trn or next that one of my psyker chimeras died. The psykers were unpinned but lost 4 models.

Turn 3 score 3-4

Top of 4 this was big turn, I ended up scoring 4 KP this turn, and built my lead that I would end up protecting for the rest of the game. I shot hydras at the dreadnought with no cover one more time and finally got him. I killed about half of the tac marines that fell out of the rhino into a forest, and hit them with a -4 weaken resolve. I moved my meltas that I had been hanging back over to the speeders and took them all down. We are getting to the point where the rest of his shooting is pretty much untouchable.

Bottom of 4. he shoots at the exposed psykers and I go to ground. I lost either one or none. he shoots at and kills a veteran chimera, but not a big boom, my guys get out and are unpinned. His rolls seemed a bit soft, it was tough for him to find that 5 or 6 on the long range melta shot to pen my chimeras. Vulkan was making them pretty much unerringly accurate, but because both of us were so melta heavy, no one could really be the first to step up. Once we found our comfortable long range, we both were forced to park and start a shoot-out. Objective games are obviously a different beast, but this was KP.

turn 4 score 7-5

top of 5, I try really hard to kill his in cover dreadnought but fail. Everyhting that can't pen AV12 did a 'move backwards' escape from multi-melta dance.

bottom of 5, It was up to his autocannons and lascannons here, and he had another lackluster rolling moment. That list he had has no way of casuing a morale test on infantry from range, which i feel is a weakness. I would have like heavy bolters on his predators, but as Som pointed out, without those lascannons, even less of my transports would have been opened up. So he goes for some tanks. weapon destroys a chimera, and does something else non-lethal to another.

turn 5 score 7-5

and the game ends.


It was a very quick fun game. We both took a couple phone calls during the game, and ate some pizza as we played. The game was still under 2 hours with that time-wasting. Armor 12 versus armor 11 is noticeable. My multi-lasers were the equivalent to his autocannons when we fired at each others transports. He had 3 autocannons, I had 7 multi-lasers. His speeders would have been excellent against me in an objective mission, but they are one of those units that you have to understand as you buy them that they are going to hurt you in an annihilation. As it stood, they only cost somnicide a KP because he chose to shoot one unit into a 3 vehicle squadron. Had he shot at the nearby chimera, he still would have lost all of the but they would have pushed 0-0.

I'm not calling this one as an advantage to IG. It was just a good evenly matched duel. Target priority order and dice were the decider. Som picks up a KP off of that speeder, rolls a little better and kills another chimera and its a tie game going into turn 5. I had a decent chance of eventually downing his dreadnought. And he was probably done using the land raiders multi-melta, but after that dread goes away his army is essentially unkillable. With 4 lascannons and 2 autocannons, he had the range to keep working on me. If the game goes 6 turns he could tie or take the lead, 7 turns is an even bigger probability for me losing a couple more chimeras.

I definitely had a more dominating table position had this been an objectives game, and i was able to remove two of his three troops pretty easily. But its best not to armchair that too much, as his deployment and movement phases would likely have been drastically different.

He certainly shut down my 17 meltaguns, and I had already changed the list down to 10 meltas to add some vendettas, but after learning so much, will likely tweak even a bit more on it. This also helped Som a lot as he is currently getting a crimson fist army ready for tourney play. I hope this helps space mariners of all chapters as well....

To simplify. Shooty dreadnought in cover good.... predators good... burny/melty speeders good....

The Vulkan list is pretty close to the one I ran at Adepticon it can be very strong and the speders are brutal if used properly.

I think that kind of list will be one of the tougher matchups for "Hard Guard" but certainly not one it cant handle.

I wonder if perhaps you did not run to conservative, so many juicy melta targets in his army, but so many meltas as well. Hard to say if going all Patton on his ass would have hurt you or helped you.


This is the kind of game that makes me think Sourclams is right about the Vendetta's though. That Makes me feel better about the 20 hours ive already spent painting and assembling mine!

Great batrep keep em coming, these batreps are really helping me decide what to test my own guard list against.

Thanks for the report! So did he take 3 preds or 2 and the LR? I'm not sure what the deal with the pods are as I dont use em and i do take heavy bolters on my preds :p

The exact list I'm using atm is:

Vulkan

Dread w/ MM/HF

Dread w/ MM/HF

Tac squad with Las/flamer + rhino

Tac squad with Las/flamer + rhino

Tac Squad with MM/flamer + sarge powerfist who ride with vulkan in the LR either as a full 10 or combat squaded

2x MM/HF speeders

2x MM/HF speeders

pred with auto/heavy bolters

pred with auto/heavy bolters

Standard LR with MM

I think the land raider makes the difference against any guard list not using vanquishers as it can sit back and pop chimera's and then launch assaults.

But very good report and glad to know that even a standard mech marine list can stand up to a guard list like that and not have it be a blow out.

Yeah it was a great game, really fast and really fun - I am about to run out of the house for a couple of hours, but as I am driving around I will put my thoughts in order for a proper reply.

bigtmac68 wrote:The Vulkan list is pretty close to the one I ran at Adepticon it can be very strong and the speders are brutal if used properly.

Yeah, nice precision tool. Coming in a bit cheaper than obliterators, not heavy support, and resilient to anti-infantry.

bigtmac68 wrote:I think that kind of list will be one of the tougher matchups for "Hard Guard" but certainly not one it cant handle.

Yeah, this and the modified lash list I played a while back (it was half mech) were definitely tough matches. Its primarily because both of these armies are very "post IG" The other lists I have been playing against haven't made any adjustments. Which isn't really a fair demonstration of IGs true power.

bigtmac68 wrote:I wonder if perhaps you did not run to conservative, so many juicy melta targets in his army, but so many meltas as well. Hard to say if going all Patton on his ass would have hurt you or helped you.

I think it might have had the same outcome, but the KPs would have been much higher. I didn't want to be the first one to venture within 18" of his twin linked move and shoot multi-meltas, and my infantry was pretty invulnerable to his long range shooting. So I think closer would ahve made his preds and land raiders viable targets, but then everything in my army can die too

bigtmac68 wrote:This is the kind of game that makes me think Sourclams is right about the Vendetta's though. That Makes me feel better about the 20 hours ive already spent painting and assembling mine!

Haha, yep. Vendettas going in my list too. I'm pretty sure that it is totally unimportant that they carry anyone. I have been stuck trying to get a troop in them, but they are just there as an armor 12 lascannon battery. They can just flare out in late game turns to block, no need to try and score with them. The other option I am looking into is devildogs with hull MM. Its a plasma cannon against infantry, and against larger tanks its BS4 or sometimes BS5 (if that is confusing, I just mean it easier to keep the hole over a larger tank) And I can go 12" and put a multi-melta shot into something. I don't feel like I need the hydras AND the executioner russes if I can get some vendettas going. And I have no idea what my next list is going to look like. Other than unfortunately, 2 PBS units are staying.

Khornatedemon wrote:The exact list I'm using atm is:

Vulkan

Dread w/ MM/HF

Dread w/ MM/HF

Tac squad with Las/flamer + rhino

Tac squad with Las/flamer + rhino

Tac Squad with MM/flamer + sarge powerfist who ride with vulkan in the LR either as a full 10 or combat squaded

2x MM/HF speeders

2x MM/HF speeders

pred with auto/heavy bolters

pred with auto/heavy bolters

Standard LR with MM

Ok, cool... looks like we just cut one speeder and upgraded your heavy bolters to lascannons

(shhh... don't tell Somnicide but I like your list a little better.)

Khornatedemon wrote:I think the land raider makes the difference against any guard list not using vanquishers as it can sit back and pop chimera's and then launch assaults.

But very good report and glad to know that even a standard mech marine list can stand up to a guard list like that and not have it be a blow out.

Yeah land raider supported by multi-meltas is god mode. It isn't going to die. Its just unfortunate that thanks to my meltas, he couldn't move it into position to utilize the somewhat expensive unit inside. But that unit is useful in other matchups.

Shep wrote:

Khornatedemon wrote:The exact list I'm using atm is:

Vulkan

Dread w/ MM/HF

Dread w/ MM/HF

Tac squad with Las/flamer + rhino

Tac squad with Las/flamer + rhino

Tac Squad with MM/flamer + sarge powerfist who ride with vulkan in the LR either as a full 10 or combat squaded

2x MM/HF speeders

2x MM/HF speeders

pred with auto/heavy bolters

pred with auto/heavy bolters

Standard LR with MM

Ok, cool... looks like we just cut one speeder and upgraded your heavy bolters to lascannons

(shhh... don't tell Somnicide but I like your list a little better.)

Khornatedemon wrote:I think the land raider makes the difference against any guard list not using vanquishers as it can sit back and pop chimera's and then launch assaults.

But very good report and glad to know that even a standard mech marine list can stand up to a guard list like that and not have it be a blow out.

Yeah land raider supported by multi-meltas is god mode. It isn't going to die. Its just unfortunate that thanks to my meltas, he couldn't move it into position to utilize the somewhat expensive unit inside. But that unit is useful in other matchups.

Definitely. Thats pretty much the way I feel about it right now. It gives me something tough with a scoring unit inside. Had he been able to pop more transports then the squad inside might have been more useful, but they are more for objective missions than kill points. It sounds like somnicide rolled like I usually do, so I guess it was a pretty accurate match up lol

Haha, yep. Vendettas going in my list too. I'm pretty sure that it is totally unimportant that they carry anyone. I have been stuck trying to get a troop in them, but they are just there as an armor 12 lascannon battery. They can just flare out in late game turns to block, no need to try and score with them. The other option I am looking into is devildogs with hull MM. Its a plasma cannon against infantry, and against larger tanks its BS4 or sometimes BS5 (if that is confusing, I just mean it easier to keep the hole over a larger tank) And I can go 12" and put a multi-melta shot into something. I don't feel like I need the hydras AND the executioner russes if I can get some vendettas going. And I have no idea what my next list is going to look like. Other than unfortunately, 2 PBS units are staying.

Personally I like 2 'dettas and 1 valk and I keep finding that the 'dettas perform the same role as the hydras would have but better. Even against fast moving skimers 6 twin linked lascannon shots tend to do more than 12 Twinlinked Autocannons. Only against 4+ armor save targets and above do the hydras really shine relative to the detta's and you have crud loads of other weapons that do just fine there.

Hydras are an awesome deal for the points and all, but Man those 'dettas can really screw up your opponents game plan. If it were me id kill the hydras for Valks, but I can definitely see the counter point to that argument just as well.

( Sue me, im a valkyrie fanboi )

Okay, a bit more here. First, had I had only heavy bolters on those predators I am not sure I would have killed anything. The pred lascannons and the land raider were about the only things in my army that did well.

I had a lot of penetrating hits but couldn't roll above a 2 if there was money on the game. It was a bit frustrating, but at least it was keeping you from shooting. Also, only doing 3 wounds to your battle psykers when I blew up the chimera (needing 3s to wound) was a bit of a let down.

My reasoning for targetting the hydras with the 2 speeders when they landed was I was expecting both to hit (I think that was the only shooting turn where a multimelta just flat out missed both times) and in my head, I saw them destroying 2 hydras and then the predator would finish up the squadron. That would have helped out my dreadnought, at least.

It was a fun game and definitely gave me some ideas of what to do with my own Crimson Fists and got me thinking about Marines in a different way, so thanks for that Khornatedaemon!

double post

Great report

Shep, looks like your list is really shaping up, looks very solid. Just curious what you plan to take out if you decide to throw in a Vend? One of the CCS?

Somnicide wrote:Okay, a bit more here. First, had I had only heavy bolters on those predators I am not sure I would have killed anything. The pred lascannons and the land raider were about the only things in my army that did well.

I had a lot of penetrating hits but couldn't roll above a 2 if there was money on the game. It was a bit frustrating, but at least it was keeping you from shooting. Also, only doing 3 wounds to your battle psykers when I blew up the chimera (needing 3s to wound) was a bit of a let down.

My reasoning for targetting the hydras with the 2 speeders when they landed was I was expecting both to hit (I think that was the only shooting turn where a multimelta just flat out missed both times) and in my head, I saw them destroying 2 hydras and then the predator would finish up the squadron. That would have helped out my dreadnought, at least.

It was a fun game and definitely gave me some ideas of what to do with my own Crimson Fists and got me thinking about Marines in a different way, so thanks for that Khornatedaemon!

I wish I could find points for the sponson lascannons but I feel I want the speeder more. Unless it turns out I truly need them then I'll find a way. But then I have crap for long range anti-infantry. But with enough flamers I dont know if its 100% needed. Yay for playtesting.

It sounds like you roll liek me. I've had so many games in the last few weeks where I've had my melta's roll double 1's or double 2's. I dropped scouts and telion from my list because I had a game where telion roled double 1's 2 turns in a row. Initially i wasnt even using Vulkan but only took him cause my melta's constantly missed. I need new dice bad

Your welcome man. it helps me too to know how the list would fare. I probably would have done things a little different with the version with the heavy bolters. I probably would have dropped the speeders next to chims and unloaded with HB's on the squishy occupants for KP's. How do you guys feel an objective mission might have played out?

I use the hb sponsons on my ac preds, 3 of them.

I find Long range firepower is not a problem since i run 3 ironclads in drop pods with melta flamer, they do a fantastic job of taking care of enemy long range backfield firepower.

That combined with the speeder squadrons mms, and meltas in the rhinos I never have problems with heavy armor, and never get into long range shooting duels as Im down the enemys throat from the start.

I find that Vulcan works best when used with extreme violence of action. He is the George Patton of the Adeptus Astartes. With him it's all about grabbing the enemy by the belt buckle and tear his throat out with your teeth!

Shep's list has something like 17 meltas so you don't really want to get too close.

That being said I absolutely love Ironclads.

Somnicide wrote:Shep's list has something like 17 meltas so you don't really want to get too close.

That being said I absolutely love Ironclads.

yeah thats the thing, against guard with 5 squads toting multiple BS4 meltaguns I DONT want to get close :p

I love ironclads but my issue with them is that most of the time melta's dont give a crap about one more point of armor.

Yeah, but remember they are not supposed to live, just kill the russes, and three ironclads dropping in pods should do that well.

If his melta vet squads stay back to deal with the iron clads then my skimmers, land Raider redeemer with Assault Termies, and Rhinos with M/MM can get close enough to do thier work.

Against his army, regular dreads would actually be better as the Ironclads will just be more expensive suicide troops, but the Ironclads really make thier presense known agains other armies so I keep them in the list.

God knows this is no easy matchup, I cant think of an army my Vulkan would rather NOT face (which is why Im working on just such an army right now )

But I always feel Vulkan lists work best when built to be brawlers. Just my preference I guess.

bigtmac68 wrote:Y

But I always feel Vulkan lists work best when built to be brawlers. Just my preference I guess.

I agree and I usually play very aggressively with my sallies, but against the new guard I just dont see that working out in my favor. I'm going to need to pop at least a few chim's on my way in. Aside from vindicators lascannons are our best bet.

I'm going to get a game against a guard list next monday with my revised list so I'll let you fella's know how it goes.

So I managed to get a game in myself against Ed and the list being discussed here http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/239803.page

We got a 3 objective objective game with pitched battle that ended in a draw due to me rolling two 1's on the penetrating hit table on turn 5 to kill the empty chimera contesting the middle objective. I'm pretty happy with the draw knowing that with a few better roll's in the game or being able to play out a turn 6 (we rolled to see if we would get it but the shop was closing) it could have possibly turned into a win.

I played a more aggressive in your face version of the list that replaced the standard land raider with a redeemer and put meltaguns in my tac squads. The redeemer performed better than i though with it toasting his demolisher with its MM, immobilizing a chim with its assault cannon, and delivering vulkan and his squad into the thick of things. I would have loved to have been able to fry some guardsmen with its flamestorm cannons but alas there's always next time.

I have another game against guard Monday and I'm going to try to get my own battle report up on the game

It's nice to hear that the redeemer worked out in your game (very Salamanderish and a great model)... but I'm curious how you dealt with his melta-vets. Seems like the redeemer would need to avoid them like the plague, but would also need to close with them to get into effective strike range.

Did you manage to pop most of his chimeras at range or did you take your redeemer to a melta-vet free flank while he was pushing objectives with them?

Actually I ran the redeemer right at him on turn 2. I knew it was suicide but i needed to pop that demolisher before it started to rain death on my units on objectives and i wanted to get vulkan and his powerfist squad into destroying tanks in cc. They managed to destroy one melta vet chimera and i think stunned a command squad chimera with a split charge. The explosion killed 7 from the melta vet squad. If i was smart and took a meltagun in that squad in that game and they could have popped that melta vet chimera in shooting then charged the survivors the redeemer would have lived. I now take a melta and combi-melta in that squad

I believe he had 2 melta vet squads and a melta command squad on the flank I was on (i deployed a refused flank as I knew he had too many tanks to deploy them all on one side of the board) It took the 2 melta vet squads to kill the redeemer. The first one he shot with was from the wrecked chimera and failed to do anything and it was the second squad that took it out. So like I said had I been able to take out that squad the redeemer probably would have lived through it all.

I dont have any shooting farther than multi-melta's except the preds in the list so there isnt much i can do to pop chimera's from range. His hydra's had taken out all my speeders as I was originally going first but he stole the initiative and knocked them out like they were nothing. i have a new hatred for hydra's

AoBR MM Dreads in Pods would seem to be better than Ironclads in pods, especially in a vulcan list. The return melta fire doesn't care about AV12 vs AV13, and the MM Dread can still bake things at 12" vice 6" of the Ironclad, which practically guarantees a return melta shot on the opponent's turn.

who is using ironclads? Or drop pods? I actually do use 2 AoBR MM dreads that walk and provide support for the army.

I think he was responding to me, I mentioned that my variation of this list runs 3 ironclads in pods.

Like I said in my post, against MechVet regular dreads are better, but the Ironclads come in so handy against so many other armies that I am willing to live with the fact that they I pay for benefits I cant use against other Vulcan and Mech Vets

bigtmac68 wrote:I think he was responding to me, I mentioned that my variation of this list runs 3 ironclads in pods.

Like I said in my post, against MechVet regular dreads are better, but the Ironclads come in so handy against so many other armies that I am willing to live with the fact that they I pay for benefits I cant use against other Vulcan and Mech Vets

ah that would do it. I would think about ironclads but enough of my gaming grp have realised melta's are the way to go and take enough of them to make me not want to waste the points. I might use 1 or 2 in pod's at ard boyz this year since i have the points to spend.

I think that if Mech Vets take off that will spell the doom of my podclads. For walking dreads standard black reach MM/HF dreads are better and far cheaper.

May end up saving me the money on buying the new ironclad model.

bigtmac68 wrote:I think that if Mech Vets take off that will spell the doom of my podclads. For walking dreads standard black reach MM/HF dreads are better and far cheaper.

May end up saving me the money on buying the new ironclad model.

I honestly find myself wanting the dreads less and more speeders more. I do love the dreads but in my last few games they just havent been doing much. I'm going to stick with them a little longer and see how it goes but I find myself wanting to drop my 2 dreads for 2 speeders and possibly lascannons on my pred sponsons

Shep - from your experience, how/why does a squadron of 2-3 hyrda's effect the game? and what do you use them as?

Gutteridge wrote:Shep - from your experience, how/why does a squadron of 2-3 hyrda's effect the game? and what do you use them as?

From my experience against them they are a monster for light vehicles. They shred speeders and rhino's and are a general annoyance.

Gutteridge wrote:Shep - from your experience, how/why does a squadron of 2-3 hyrda's effect the game? and what do you use them as?

They are monsters against light armor/transports and are good for piling wounds onto some MCs. They also are rather good against armies that heavily utilize SMF like mech Eldar. Ironically, they're quite good against other IG armies as well since they can do a number on Chimera hulls and Valkyrie hulls.

I have personally dropped them from my list in favor of a Demolisher though as I find my Vendettas and the meltas they carry around to be more or less sufficient in dealing with the things the Hydras are good against.

Gutteridge wrote:Shep - from your experience, how/why does a squadron of 2-3 hyrda's effect the game? and what do you use them as?

Like the fellas are saying. They had a very specific role in my list, their first target was always a transport if possible. Shut down the enemies movement, so that he can't get his meltas to me. Against armies with no transports there was usually a monstrous creature, or some kind of light vehicle spam, and thats where the shots went.