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How do you win games with this army? The troops options are terrible for claiming objectives. You can either take horde infantry that is great camping behind its ADL in your deployment zone but can not move up to get objectives anywhere else on the table, or Dracosan squads that cost a ton of points for negligible firepower and still aren't that great at moving up quickly to claim objectives. The special squad the higher-tier HQ lets you take would be good, with an Arvus to deliver it, but they're elites and for some reason didn't get the "this is a scoring unit" rule that a lot of the space marine chapter-specific elites got. So how do you win games? Do you pray that you can kill all of your opponent's scoring units and win with nothing but the objectives in your own deployment zone, or do you always play by the 40k rules where everything can score?

 Peregrine wrote:
How do you win games with this army? The troops options are terrible for claiming objectives. You can either take horde infantry that is great camping behind its ADL in your deployment zone but can not move up to get objectives anywhere else on the table, or Dracosan squads that cost a ton of points for negligible firepower and still aren't that great at moving up quickly to claim objectives. The special squad the higher-tier HQ lets you take would be good, with an Arvus to deliver it, but they're elites and for some reason didn't get the "this is a scoring unit" rule that a lot of the space marine chapter-specific elites got. So how do you win games? Do you pray that you can kill all of your opponent's scoring units and win with nothing but the objectives in your own deployment zone, or do you always play by the 40k rules where everything can score?

Much like Imperial Guard, the idea behind how the army takes objectives is different than how a Legion list does it. You need high volumes of firepower to strip objectives of any resistance before taking it. You aren't hoping out of a vehicle, shooting, and charging in so much as rolling up with a few squads and blasting a BIG hole in their army and sitting there, content and uncontested.

You also aren't tied to any particular method. I see mixed armies - a few Las sections behind ADLs and Dracosans rolling up with Veletaris, though I prefer a full-mobile list personally.

Dracosans are tough as nails, pack a punch with the TL Lascannon and Demolisher Cannon and saturate the board in AV units. Inside are, ideally, Veletaris Squads loaded up with Volkites. They pack a mean punch to wipe out the last of anything left in the way.

You mix this with Malcadors, Malcador Inferus, Valdors, and other Super-Heavys (Stormlord!), you get a pretty heavy armored force that can deliver firepower and lots of it. Flamer Squads in a Stormlord are hilarious! The Infernus with Chem Ammo will simply delete Tactical Blobs. Valdors will give enemy armor fits and usually with a list like that, you see 3+ Dracosans, meaning just so many combined HP on the table, it can be overwhelming.

I hope that helped shed some light on the SA, generally. Kill stuff and hop out of transports to score would be the go-to strategy for an armor-heavy force, which are generally considered their most competitive builds.

I've always been low on scoring units myself when we play the Horus Heresy missions, as I mostly find myself annihilating the enemy before moving in close and grabbing whatever objective works best for me.

Almost all of my builds are mobile, the Dracosan is amazing at what it does, especially when given an auxiliary drive, just in case. You don't want a 135+ pts model getting immobilised and helpless throughout an entire game.

Stormlord is situational for me, I only tend to take it when I'm sure I'm going to field at least two squads of Household Retinue, whom while not scoring, are a cute little "go feth yourself" to a lot of objective camping stuff out there.

Veletarii are my go-to troops choice though, because they are a sweet combo of good strength ranged weaponry paired with armour that can re-roll against blasts and templates, quite a life saver.

Just remember, auxiliary flamer squads may only be taken if you also field a lasrifle section.

 BrookM wrote:
I've always been low on scoring units myself when we play the Horus Heresy missions, as I mostly find myself annihilating the enemy before moving in close and grabbing whatever objective works best for me.

Almost all of my builds are mobile, the Dracosan is amazing at what it does, especially when given an auxiliary drive, just in case. You don't want a 135+ pts model getting immobilised and helpless throughout an entire game.

Stormlord is situational for me, I only tend to take it when I'm sure I'm going to field at least two squads of Household Retinue, whom while not scoring, are a cute little "go feth yourself" to a lot of objective camping stuff out there.

Veletarii are my go-to troops choice though, because they are a sweet combo of good strength ranged weaponry paired with armour that can re-roll against blasts and templates, quite a life saver.

Just remember, auxiliary flamer squads may only be taken if you also field a lasrifle section.

Aux Drive seems a bit redundant when it has Explorator Adaption. Re-rolling those Dangerous Terrain tests on top of that 6+ vs Blast and Templates. Just got to love SA vehicles!

EDIT:
Though I guess being able to undo Immobilised entirely from any scenario is good too. Not sure I would buy it unless I had the points leftover.

Undoing immobilised on a 4+ at the start of the movement phase is well worth the 10 pts, especially on such an expensive model.

 BrookM wrote:
Undoing immobilised on a 4+ at the start of the movement phase is well worth the 10 pts, especially on such an expensive model.

You have to be immobilized first though. But I like to live dangerously.

I'd rather be safe than sorry, it may be sturdy, durable and all that, but all it takes is one unlucky roll of the die and she's a fething useless piece of gak that can do feth all.

 BrookM wrote:
I'd rather be safe than sorry, it may be sturdy, durable and all that, but all it takes is one unlucky roll of the die and she's a fething useless piece of gak that can do feth all.

Well, except lob out S10 pie plates and shoot a S9 AP2 shot. And busting through that AV13 Flare Shielded front isn't going to be easy, less so for Blasts. A shame the Dracosan didn't survive the next 10,000 years. I wish my IG had anything nearly so good. Or my MT, for that matter.

It's a fixed weapon, you can't pivot on the spot if you're immobilised, making it situational.

I'm not big on giving it a flare shield, bit too much of a sink for me. About the only thing I give one to is my Malcador, as at that point its a nice and even 300 pts of battering ram.

 BrookM wrote:
It's a fixed weapon, you can't pivot on the spot if you're immobilised, making it situational.

I'm not big on giving it a flare shield, bit too much of a sink for me. About the only thing I give one to is my Malcador, as at that point its a nice and even 300 pts of battering ram.

Blasphemy! Being able to shrug off S7 weapons (S8 Blasts) and lower is outstanding. That makes that thing so much harder to kill, which it desperately needs if it wants to get close enough to use that Demolisher Cannon and toss out a Veletaris Squad, etc.

Mine are outfitted with lascannons, I've saved the Demolisher cannon for the Malcador.

 em_en_oh_pee wrote:
Much like Imperial Guard, the idea behind how the army takes objectives is different than how a Legion list does it.

See, this is what I don't get. IG are my primary army and being able to drop scoring units with Valkyries/Vendettas late in the game is a key part of the strategy. Kill everything with overwhelming firepower to create a vulnerability, then the late-game scoring units show up to drop onto the objectives (often ones my opponent had to leave lightly defended so they could move up and attack my main offensive threats). But with solar auxilia you can't do this. The only transports available for troops are slow and expensive, and the only unit that can take a fast transport has to give up the ability to score objectives to do it.

Dracosans are tough as nails, pack a punch with the TL Lascannon and Demolisher Cannon and saturate the board in AV units.

Err, the demolisher cannon replaces the lascannon, you don't get both. Not that you could actually fire both at the same time anyway.

You've already kind of answered your own question. Solar Auxillia don't have the tools to quickly jump on objectives, so your only option is to play a Leaf-Blower style list where you basically pound the enemy force into oblivion while your transports slowly grind up the board. Essentially, if you don't have troops on an objective by the end of turn four then you probably aren't getting that objective. Once you actually get on a point though you can defend it fairly well from enemy scoring units.

 Peregrine wrote:


Err, the demolisher cannon replaces the lascannon, you don't get both. Not that you could actually fire both at the same time anyway.

HAH! That will teach me to read before I proxy.


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 SeraphimXIX wrote:
You've already kind of answered your own question. Solar Auxillia don't have the tools to quickly jump on objectives, so your only option is to play a Leaf-Blower style list where you basically pound the enemy force into oblivion while your transports slowly grind up the board. Essentially, if you don't have troops on an objective by the end of turn four then you probably aren't getting that objective. Once you actually get on a point though you can defend it fairly well from enemy scoring units.

THIS.

You really should do a more thorough read, because you're on a roll here..

 BrookM wrote:
You really should do a more thorough read, because you're on a roll here..

Oh, how so? One commonly missed victory condition and this? Aside from all the other rules I cite and help with regularly? And SA isn't my primary army by any stretch - it is something I tinkered with a while back. So... how am I on a roll?

if you're really insistant on playing the IG like "send fliers up the board to drop off troops" then run with arvus lighters (which do the same thing, but cheaper).

personally, I haven't found speed to be much of an issue with the army. between lighters, fast (even if only once) leman Russ's, and the speed of something like a dracosan mean you can get up to mid field and slightly beyond pretty quickly.

 Brennonjw wrote:
if you're really insistant on playing the IG like "send fliers up the board to drop off troops" then run with arvus lighters (which do the same thing, but cheaper).

personally, I haven't found speed to be much of an issue with the army. between lighters, fast (even if only once) leman Russ's, and the speed of something like a dracosan mean you can get up to mid field and slightly beyond pretty quickly.

LRBTs and Arvus squads are not scoring units.

What points value do you normally play at, by the way?

My Solar Auxilia use the firepower of the myriad superheavies to blow baddies off of objectives while my troops camp on a couple of the safer ones.

If you have two and your enemy has 0, you win, even if there are 5 objectives.

Remember, Objective Secured doesn't exist in 30k so your superheavies and fast tanks can still contest enemy objectives and make them not have it.

I would always take flare shields. They skew the armor in a crazy way. Most armies can't handle it.

I guess I read the dedicated transport section as meaning that any squad that can fit into an Arvus can take one. So the tactic of late game objective grabbing by a storm section would still be viable.

Even if that's not the case, most people in 30k don't tend to take more than a few token scoring units. So if you focus on killing them and holding your own objective your scoring units might need to go far to do their job. Also, while few units are scoring, most of them are denial units. So you still contest an enemy objective without using troops.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:
if you're really insistant on playing the IG like "send fliers up the board to drop off troops" then run with arvus lighters (which do the same thing, but cheaper).

personally, I haven't found speed to be much of an issue with the army. between lighters, fast (even if only once) leman Russ's, and the speed of something like a dracosan mean you can get up to mid field and slightly beyond pretty quickly.

LRBTs and Arvus squads are not scoring units.

nono, sorry. Arvus' carry up veletaris to score, leman Russ's rush foreward more to keep the enemy off of objectives while dracosans/infantry rush up behind to grab said objectives.

bogalubov wrote:
I guess I read the dedicated transport section as meaning that any squad that can fit into an Arvus can take one. So the tactic of late game objective grabbing by a storm section would still be viable.

Nope. Units can only take the dedicated transports that are listed as options in their unit entry. Not all units have access to all transport options.


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 Brennonjw wrote:
Arvus' carry up veletaris to score

I don't see how this is viable. You'd have to leave the velataris out in the open while they wait for the Arvus to come out of reserves, board it and survive a turn in hover mode, spend another turn moving to the objective, and finally get a chance to disembark. Even if you pass your reserve roll on turn 2 and nobody dies you're not going to be on an objective until at least turn 4-5. And to even consider doing this you have to spend points on a second squad to buy the Arvus then sit around being marginally useful with no transport to deliver them.

The omission of the lighter as a dedicated transport for veletaris sections or flamer sections seems like a mistake. In the militia list grenadier squads can take an Arvus. So the more well equipped Solar Auxilia lack the option available to back water rabble? If you read the unit entry on the side, it says: "The Solar Auxilia makes extensive use of an armed variant of the Arvus and of several similar orbital shuttles, using them to insert infrantry sections and command units into a war zone with pin point accuracy."

Also, the lasrifle section doesn't list the Dracosan specifically in the unit entry, but is allowed to take one.

Of course if you hold yourself to a stricter standard and your fellow gamers are also purely RAW, then I point you to my other point that you can use the command squad to contest the other dude's objectives while holding your own.

bogalubov wrote:
The omission of the lighter as a dedicated transport for veletaris sections or flamer sections seems like a mistake.

Or a case of rigid doctrine, where troops get Dracosans. I don't see any reason to assume that it's a typo instead of a design choice that some of us disagree with. And yeah, you can ask your opponents to let you house rule it, but you can do the same for anything. Why not house rule in a squad of Elysian veterans and their dedicated transport Valkyrie?

Also, the lasrifle section doesn't list the Dracosan specifically in the unit entry, but is allowed to take one.

No it isn't. The tercio as a whole may take up to three Dracosans (see page 32), the individual squads can not take their own transports.

Or a case of rigid doctrine, where troops get Dracosans. I don't see any reason to assume that it's a typo instead of a design choice that some of us disagree with. And yeah, you can ask your opponents to let you house rule it, but you can do the same for anything. Why not house rule in a squad of Elysian veterans and their dedicated transport Valkyrie?

I provided proof regarding it not being a design choice based on the unit description on the side of the page.

No it isn't. The tercio as a whole may take up to three Dracosans (see page 32), the individual squads can not take their own transports.

My point being that not every unit entry specifically calls out the dedicated transports that it can use.

In general 30k is touted as much more of a laidback environment where you try to "forge" the narrative. So from that perspective a faction that got its start in void warfare seems to make sense as having access to flyers. However, if you don't want to go down that path and don't want to use the command squad in an Arvus as a contesting unit then don't do it.

Arvus Lighters are only dedicated transports for the Tactical Command Section and the Household Guard. This is true and indisputable.

My post does not require Arvuses to function and has won Mr plenty of games.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:
if you're really insistant on playing the IG like "send fliers up the board to drop off troops" then run with arvus lighters (which do the same thing, but cheaper).

personally, I haven't found speed to be much of an issue with the army. between lighters, fast (even if only once) leman Russ's, and the speed of something like a dracosan mean you can get up to mid field and slightly beyond pretty quickly.

LRBTs and Arvus squads are not scoring units.

But are denial units. This isn't a system where objective secured is an issue - contesting your opponent's objectives with non-scoring household guard elites whilst holding your own with lasridle troops behind an aegis line still works perfectly well.....

bogalubov wrote:
My point being that not every unit entry specifically calls out the dedicated transports that it can use.

And my point is that you're wrong. Not every unit entry specifically calls it out in the unit entry, but every unit with access to a dedicated transport explicitly states it somewhere. Access to Dracosans is not granted in the individual unit rules, but there is an explicit statement that you can take them. No such thing exists for the Arvus as a dedicated transport for any troops units. There is no reason to believe that access was intended, outside of your fluff-based argument that "solar auxilia should have flyers".

In general 30k is touted as much more of a laidback environment where you try to "forge" the narrative. So from that perspective a faction that got its start in void warfare seems to make sense as having access to flyers.

They do have access to flyers, just not with the specific units you (and I) want to carry in those flyers. Maybe you only play with people who let you make up your own rules as long as you can justify it with "forge the narrative", but I'm not interested in an army that I can only use if I can convince my opponent to accept my house rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

locarno24 wrote:
But are denial units. This isn't a system where objective secured is an issue - contesting your opponent's objectives with non-scoring household guard elites whilst holding your own with lasridle troops behind an aegis line still works perfectly well.....

On the other hand the lack of obsec works both ways. If I only have scoring units on a couple of objectives in my own deployment zone my opponent can tank shock a Rhino through the scoring unit to contest it, and then I don't hold objectives anymore. And with little or no ability to get those scoring units to any other objectives it makes it very easy for my opponent to know where they need to deliver their denial units. This is part of why Vendetta vets were so good in 5th (with the same scoring rules as 30k), your opponent had to respect the threat of a scoring unit appearing on any objective on the table at the end of the game.