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Melchoir huddled deeper into his blanket. The front flap of his lean-to whipped maniacally in the gale force wind. The angry hiss of sleet and freezing rain seethed through the ruins and soaked absolutely everything. Now and again, the blasting storm would shift just so slightly, sending a wave of frozen torment cascading into the tent. Just as quickly, the wind would shift again, leaving the tiny pellets of ice to melt into the mud pack floor.
The officer looked up at Sanario, who was also crammed into the tarp leaned up against the side of the ruined building, but didn't seem to mind the cold as much. He grunted with irritation as the wind made it difficult for him to read from his prayer book, flipping the pages back and forth erratically nearly as fast as he was able to re-find his place. Melchoir was glad that there was a priest to pray for them. Things were going badly for the Foleran forces.
Everywhere the crusade was meeting with disaster. Poor coordination between ground and space-borne forces was wreaking havoc, and despite being badly outnumbered, the enemy still exercised air superiority over the planet. Desperate to consolidate SOME gains from the initial planetfall, battle command had shrunk down the total area that was being fought over. Instead of dozens of landing sites spread all across the planet at strategic locations, the ground forces had been redeployed into three, new, massive positions. The new plan would be to link up this triangle to create a no-pass zone for enemy troops and fighters. Perhaps then the army would have a safe source of supply from the ships above and, properly equipped and in a sound defensive position, would finally be able to affect the breakthrough required to win back the planet.
The few remnants of Melchoir's initial planetfall forces had been disbanded and absorbed into other units. Melchoir himself and his attendant priest were redeployed with a new unit. The demand for Kingsguard had proven unquenchable, and battle command had called for another massive expansion of the program. It was all that could be done to prevent cutting corners as troops were rushed onto the field. The new plan, after a few months of training, was to take cadet Kingsguardsmen and throw them into the fight to gain some practical battlefield experience before their training was finished off at their scholas. The officer was given one such cadet outfit with the hope that new soldiers would be able to glean something from his considerable experience on the field.
To his great discomfort, though, he was also assigned a regimental sorcerer. As the cadets were a more important asset, it seemed fit to battle command to make sure that they had extra protection. The witch made his skin crawl, but he couldn't bring himself to break orders by keeping him as far away as possible. Furthermore, he sensed a strange reluctance by his priest with regards to purging the mutant from their midst.
Melchoir checked his watch. It was time to go. The ruins that he was occupying had been the site of a dozen battles already, bastions and hasty fortifications put up everywhere. He had ordered a break to be taken to give his troops a brief respite for food, and to get out of the murderous barrage of liquid ice and tiny hail. Despite the ferocity of the storm, though, there was a time table to keep, and he meant to keep it.
It only took him a few minutes to get his men going again. The intense training that the cadets had already undergone over the past few months was telling compared to his regular soldiers. The soldiers broke camp nearly instantly and were formed up and ready to go in a moments notice. The stinging ice seemed to make no impact on either discipline or morale.
Melchoir gave the order, and the troops began to march forward as the storm blasted around them.
As they picked over the slick rocks and freezing mud, Sanario began to mutter the litany of "The Forbearance of Foul Weather Glorifies our Souls in His Name", something which he had committed to memory long ago. He was just about to start on the fourteenth stanza when the officer's micro-vox clicked into action.
The scouting party had run across more than rain shifting in the mists.
Melchoir gave the order to move up and engage the enemy.
The sound of crackling plasma guns snapped over the gale just out of Melchoir's vision. To his right, his cadets neatly took up defensive positions behind a barricade, one of them manning an abandoned anti-aircraft gun. He didn't know what the gun would be shooting at in the storm, but he conceded that it must have felt better than having only a lasgun between you and the enemy.
A strange sound split the air above the officer. He looked up to see a black shape approaching him through the downpour. It was an enemy fighter! Instead of attacking through the storm, this enemy menace was attacking him IN the storm. Melchoir shouted in alarm as more black shapes descended on his soldiers.
The anti-aircraft gunner, quickly swiveled around and delivered a long stream of concussive violence up into the driving sleet. Not able to properly see his target, he swept up in the general direction of his foe.
The officer raced forward.
"There!" he shouted over the storm, "Take that one down! Right there!"
Troops scrambled forward to man the barricade, when suddenly a new threat emerged from the mist before them.
The officer didn't even need to give the order for the troops to shift fire onto the new threat careening down upon them. With well-aimed shots, the cadets blasted the enemy warlord in his chariot, the shots pattering helplessly off the front armor as the warlord raised his arcane metal scythe in preparation for ending the lives of the guardsmen.
***
The witch perceived his environment with cold calculation. He didn't appear to even notice the storm, much less be bothered by it. The terrors that other's ignorance shielded them from was plain before the psyker at every moment. What was the purpose of wasting effort on a little rain when there were demons present everywhere yearning to rip open a man's soul and eviscerate it from the inside out, maw dripping with saliva and tears. It would be like noticing your boot lace untied as you ran over a cliff to your certain doom.
He could feel the enemy, reaching out towards him in the void. Moreso, though, he could feel his compatriots. Their hopes. Their fears. The latter soon came to cascade upon him.
Blinking back visceral madness, his mind reached out before him. There was panic. There was death. Shouts of alarm began to pierce his mundane hearing.
Off to his right, the nightmarish threat had materialized. Swiftly it glided over the ruins and began to cut guardsmen in half as the whirling ice around him pierced the breeze.
Despite their hardened training, the guardsmen had begun to break against their invincible foe. The witch called out for his target. A voice in the warp.
He found it as the enemy finished off his butchering of the soldiers.
The two locked gazes. Both in the material world and in the warp.
The psyker calmed his mind and reached for his forbidden powers.
"Argas, Pargon, Naxos..." He began chanting as he began to sway back and forth. Not for reasons of the wind buffeting his body, but because of the tides of the warp washing over his soul.
"Karell, Eismin, Pargon..." He continued, the words of the mantra focusing his mind. His spirit began to boil the warp around him, now a small ripple and then another. Now a churning and heaving of empyrian substance.
"BANKARON, ZELOTATH..." His frail voice lifted to an unearthly boom.
He could feel his target. He reached out to it in the warp. He could almost... touch... it. The waves of power swelled up in his body, the moment of impact stood at the threshold of his mind.
The witch screamed in a horrific shriek not producible by mortal man. The blasting wail of a dozen millenia spewed from his mouth in a vomit of blood. Untold power smashed his body and distorted time and space around him. He screamed again as he doubled over in agony, falling to his knee as his soul desperately gasped. He was drowning. Fear and panic overtook him as his lungs pooled with blood and his mind pooled with the raw substance of the warp.
Just at the moment of desire, a demon of the warp entered into him. He writhed back and forth, tearing at his clothing, desperately trying to hold onto his staff. The witch spasmed violently as the psyker abandoned his bodily functions to turn all of his efforts at fighting away the warp entity.
Not this time. Not would this moment be the hour of his eternal damnation, much less the perishing of his vulgar flesh to the material grave. The extensive surgery they had done on his brain began to take effect. Order began to emerge out of chaos. He began to see the warp around him again, still boiling from his presence. Still eager.
He opened his eyes.
Blood and sleet ran down his face. He was real again.
***
Lightning exploded around Melchoir as the fighters swooped down on him. Everyone threw themselves to the ground. Arcs of raw power shot around them, jumping from body to body, and crackling back up into the air in an unimaginable shower of light and heat.
They were everywhere.
"Bring them down! Bring them down!" Melchoir shouted desperately. The anti-aircraft gun desperately swung around, but pointing directly into the storm, the gunner was blinded by ice driving into his face.
Violence came in from every where and went out everywhere as the defenders desperately attempted to return fire against the sudden foe to no effect. An invincible black tide washed over them.
The officer looked over at the psyker perched on his rock. The two made eye contact. Melchoir felt his stomach drop out of him as he stared into the witch's blood-soaked eyes, all but incomprehensible of the carnage around him.
"DO SOMETHING!" he screamed at the psyker. The robed man returned to his feet, wiping the blood off of his face with his sleeve.
He looked up to the heavens as lightning crackled all around him. He lifted his staff high into the air as the wind and the sleet pounded into him, whipping his garments frantically around him.
"BANKARON, ZELOTATH, PARGON!" the psyker boomed against the storm with a voice from the outer world. He reached his hand out towards one of the circling enemy aircraft.
With the screech of a thousand steel plates ripping into each other, a colossal blast of power exploded from the psyker's hand. As much lightning as was getting shot at them was returned a hundredfold in a massive cone of incomprehensible destruction. The power slammed into the flying craft, a thousand shafts of lightning instantly obliterating the vessel, blasting nothing but a fine shrapnel cloud up and away from the psyker as the flying menace disintegrated against his otherworldly might.
The officer stared on in disbelief.
Sudden cries for help swirled around him. He returned his focus to his men. The enemy chariot had slammed into his lines, scattering the men before him in a bloody display of martial prowess.
The enemy warlord grabbed his standard bearer and cut him in half with one swift movement. Sanario charged in, but was beaten senseless with the standard before he could swing his blade. The enemy threw away the standard and looked at Melchoir.
No, not this time.
The officer activated his power fist and grabbed the enemy warscythe as it came crashing down towards his head. The disruptor field on the gauntlet reeled against the power of the arcane staff. The enemy jerked his scythe back up quickly, but Melchoir hung on, the inhuman strength of the warlord lifting him up off the ground and onto the chariot. The officer let go, and the enemy slammed his weapon into him, but the shot bounced off his refractor, sending a shower of sparks and light into the wind blasting across the deck of the battle barge.
The enemy was momentarily disoriented by the sudden movement of his blade. Melchoir looked up through the sparks and through the storm. He was face to face against the cold, relentless gaze of his enemy. With a loud shout, the officer brought forth his power fist and smashed it into the warlord's face.
A second shower of sparks exploded across the barge, and into Melchoir's face. The chariot lurched and careened to the left. He jumped off the platform as the vehicle swept up and away into the storm.
He landed hard in the mud, dropping down to one knee. He looked up at the carnage around him. Everywhere the twisted casualties of his men lay strewn around the battlements. Those he still had that were fighting capable were making a fighting withdraw to a small copse of ruined trees. Enemy fighters continued to swirl around him in the driving sleet, firing at will on his positions.
This had to end, and to end now.
The officer switched off his power fist and ran over to the anti-aircraft gun.
He sat down and prepared the weapon to fire. In moments, the angry barking of the cannon blasted a steady stream into the storm. Melchoir strafed over one flier, who banked sharply as he found his mark with one of the shots.
Freezing rain poured into his eyes and ran down his face.
"AAAAAAAAH!" Melchoir screamed as blast after blast ripped into the air, desperate to find targets in the blinding hail.
He swung the main cannon after a swooping aircraft, his thunderous shots just trailing the vehicle. As it swept behind the bastion the psyker took aim from the woods, sending another small blast of lightning up into the air. The flyer bucked violently against the attack, turning and jetting off into the storm.
"Sir, look out!" one of his attendants shouted towards him. He turned and saw another battle barge careening towards him.
He desperately began to turn the gun. The cannon slowly traversed as the enemy sped towards him. All he needed to do was to just... get the gun... around...
At the last moment, the emplacement locked on target. Melchoir clenched on the trigger just as the chariot crashed into the anti-aircraft gun.
Melchoir flew backwards over the battlement.
The world went dark.
***
Melchoir huddled deeper into his blanket. His head hurt nearly as much as his back.
Over the endless blowing of the wind came the gut-pounding thuds of massive artillery fire. The senior magistrate marshal in charge of the operation had ordered an artillery barrage on all of the positions lost in the storm. For the next 48 hours, earthshaker cannons would pound the ruins into dust. If any of the enemy were still there, they wouldn't be two days from now. Nothing would be.
"Come on," Sanario said, getting stiffly up to his feet and offering a hand out to the officer. With the priest's help, Melchoir managed to get up off of the cot. He tossed his blanket behind him, and with help emerged into the icy spray.
Before him was a company of new cadets, eager to finally get some battlefield experience under their belt. With practiced discipline, they stood in file, attempting to be impervious to the freezing rain.
Melchoir took a quick glance at them. They would need to be ready soon. The imperial guard marched implacably on.
Interesting how the carapace vets turned out. It does seem like, once again, you got shafted by the terrible dice rolls, but I think this list has potential. I would definitely stick with it for a while and see how it goes.
Have you considered throwing in Russes or something along those lines to help support these guys? That's the only thing I can really think of that might work better for you. That and maybe try the aegis with an icarus lascannon, I don't see why people don't take it over the quad cannon.
Great stuff as always Ailaros - the storm effects were particularly good. I also like your two-phase reports, to cater for both sides of the bat rep community.
No fun with all those flyers I expect, time to get some Vendettas perhaps and fight fire with fire?
Great batrep. I found your old style batreps easier to learn from, but understand that those must have taken a ton of time. These narrative-style batreps are definitely very enjoyable. I thought the bit with Melchior manning the AA gun was especially well done, as was your description of Perils of the Warp on the Primaris Psyker. Inspired me to consider bringing one!
I simply cannot believe how bad your luck with the storm troopers has been. And I thought my dice were bad! I've not had that many mishaps over all the games I've used stormies let alone in one game!
Interesting to see how carapace may actually be worth the points in this edition. You've definitely got me thinking with this batrep!
I love your battle reports so much and I'm really sorry to see how 6th foot guard is treating you. I'm no expert on guard at all, but I was wondering if you've ever tried using Conscripts with Chenkov's "Send in the Next Wave?" One thing I notice that you're saying is that your guard don't have survivability despite their foot spam, well I was thinking something like this at 1850:
Just took a look at your blog Ailaros. Now I'm no expert on Guard but it seems to me 10 man squads simply won't cut it. Your special and heavy weapons just go down too fast, and since you put the points into expensive Vets and Stormtroopers you are left with a shortage of manpower very quickly.
Have you considered fliers of your own and Manticores? Vendettas/Valkyries give you mobility (I would put suicide PCS inside for late game objective grabbing and linebreaker), while Manticores help apply early pressure. Lots of guns on lots of cheap infantry would be my way forward, but that's just me. I know it's not a dedicated infantry platoon, but there is still room for plenty of bodies and sometimes a compromise is necessary.
Necrons are a horrible match-up for foot guard. Especially coupled with such horrible melta luck. It just makes sense that when you switch all your troops to veterans, none of them can hit the side of a barn.
With such horrible luck shooting and all the ridiculous scatter, I'm not sure how much can be learned from this game other what you already noted. The current setup you have has a razor thin margin for error.
It's good that you didn't have to go anywhere either, because I'm still not convinced that it's possible to walk across the board with the weapons that are available now. 4+ save is nice, but it's only a 50-50 chance to live. With all those high strength weapons you're being forced to roll armor saves a lot.
Also, I'm not sure if your diagram is wrong in the tactical overview, but there should only be a single 4 point objective. Otherwise you'd have a tie.
Funk3140 wrote:way to go Melchoir! very good narrative. Imagining him firing the AA was brilliant.
If there's anything we've learned from recent games, it's that Melchoir can beat up darth vader, and that he's the 40k incarnation of Malcolm Reynolds:
I'd like to think Melchoir has a nearly as noble, if not nearly so charming personality as Mal.
MrMoustaffa wrote:Have you considered throwing in Russes or something along those lines to help support these guys? That's the only thing I can really think of that might work better for you. That and maybe try the aegis with an icarus lascannon, I don't see why people don't take it over the quad cannon.
I've been considering it, but what would I add, and what would I take away?
I'm already going to drop harker, and one of the plasma vet squads into a melta vet squad. That saves me enough points to upgrade the vets to carrying lascannons, but it could also be used for something else. I'd also, possibly, consider dropping one of the stormie squads, but that's only if I really trusted what took its place.
I like the idea of the support weapons, but if I go vehicles, it seems either flimsy AV12, or its going to be inefficient russes.
Gordy2000 wrote:No fun with all those flyers I expect, time to get some Vendettas perhaps and fight fire with fire?
I don't want to stoop to vendettas unless I literally have no choice. My choices do seem to be waning somewhat, though, so perhaps that time is getting closer.
NWansbutter wrote:Great batrep. I found your old style batreps easier to learn from, but understand that those must have taken a ton of time. These narrative-style batreps are definitely very enjoyable.
Thanks, but to be fair, most of the tactics are still there. There are only three things missing from the tactics part now. There is a lack of detailed description of who shot at who, but target prioritization is generally rather obvious. It is missing information on precise movements. Movements for objectives can be described vaguely and still be sufficient, while basically the rest of movement is designed to get your guns in range, which doesn't actually need that much description, especially in a world of pre-measuring.
The third thing its missing is a full category of specific die rolls. I've come to learn, though, that not all die rolls are created equal, and that the outcome of a game tends to hinge on a rather small set of events. These are described where I find it appropriate.
Of course, you could always take the opinion...
bogalubov wrote:With such horrible luck shooting and all the ridiculous scatter, I'm not sure how much can be learned from this game
... or even take it to the next level wherein you question how much you really learn from battle reports in the first place.
In any case, the lists, the missions, the objectives, and the deployment are all still in there, and that's where most of the player skill resides in this game anyways.
bogalubov wrote:It's good that you didn't have to go anywhere either, because I'm still not convinced that it's possible to walk across the board with the weapons that are available now. 4+ save is nice, but it's only a 50-50 chance to live. With all those high strength weapons you're being forced to roll armor saves a lot.
Boy I got a lot of use out of carapace this game, though. Having a 4+ save is an awful lot better than having no save. Interestingly enough, in this game, cover wasn't any different than armor against tesla weapons most of the time, which did allow me to run forward with my meltaguns more than I would have otherwise dared, allowing me to get in range unencumbered by the need to hang out in cover.
I think the idea is sound in principle, but I won't pass judgement on it without more proofing.
bogalubov wrote:Also, I'm not sure if your diagram is wrong in the tactical overview, but there should only be a single 4 point objective. Otherwise you'd have a tie.
So, it was actually different. We have scouring tokens at our store, but they've been getting mixed up and lost over time. The only ones left were two 4's, two 3's and two 2's. We both just agreed to go along with those points values, as it KIND of doesn't really matter what the actual totals are.
As for the tie, firstly I'd have to have avoided getting tabled. Secondly, my opponent controlled 4 objectives, the three on his side and my right side one, while nobody had my center. It could only have been a tie if, well, if I'd not already lost the game.
Lukus83 wrote:Just took a look at your blog Ailaros. Now I'm no expert on Guard but it seems to me 10 man squads simply won't cut it. Your special and heavy weapons just go down too fast, and since you put the points into expensive Vets and Stormtroopers you are left with a shortage of manpower very quickly.
... but... I brought 100 guardsmen. And everything had a 4+ save. And was behind an ADL.
Just how much more do I need in order to bring enough manpower?
Also, weapon upgrades aren't hidden anymore. Blobbing up does help them survive a little bit, but not enough to make a difference, I've found.
rivers64 wrote:I love your battle reports so much and I'm really sorry to see how 6th foot guard is treating you. I'm no expert on guard at all, but I was wondering if you've ever tried using Conscripts with Chenkov's "Send in the Next Wave?" One thing I notice that you're saying is that your guard don't have survivability despite their foot spam
Hah! The solution to guardsmen dying to fast is to bring a literally infinite supply of them?
I might try this out once my experiment with veterans is done. The problem, of course, is that while this does address the durability problem, it only exacerbates the killing power problem.
I don't think it's the manpower that's the problem. It's the fact your firepower was in fragile squads of 10. Sure blobs have issues, but do they really have more than 7 ablative IG wounds?
NWansbutter wrote:Great batrep. I found your old style batreps easier to learn from, but understand that those must have taken a ton of time. These narrative-style batreps are definitely very enjoyable.
Thanks, but to be fair, most of the tactics are still there. There are only three things missing from the tactics part now. There is a lack of detailed description of who shot at who, but target prioritization is generally rather obvious. It is missing information on precise movements. Movements for objectives can be described vaguely and still be sufficient, while basically the rest of movement is designed to get your guns in range, which doesn't actually need that much description, especially in a world of pre-measuring.
The third thing its missing is a full category of specific die rolls. I've come to learn, though, that not all die rolls are created equal, and that the outcome of a game tends to hinge on a rather small set of events. These are described where I find it appropriate.
The thing that I found the most helpful were the overview shots with the arrows showing where things went etc. But I believe I read that it took you three hours to do those up, so I completely understand why you're not doing them anymore. But on the whole I still find the batreps very informative and thought-provoking. I like that you try out lots of different things.
Another thought -- your disappointment with the quad gun has me thinking Icarus Lascannon. I just some quick and dirty math hammer Wansbutter style (i.e. just rolling a bunch of dice pretending that it represents different scenarios in a battle) this evening, and despite only having one shot (non-twin-linked) the Str 9 and +1 to damage result roll is huge. I did a bunch of dice rolling positing my blob's commissar manning the gun and consistently came up with a lot more kills. I guess the moral is who cares if you hit it more times if it's harder to damage it? Have you tried the Icarus lascannon?
In the case of both PISs and vet squads, you need to kill 9 guys in order to get down to a guy with a plasma gun.
The problem with, say, squads of 20, is that they're not actually that much more durable. As mentioned, if my opponents can kill 30-50 models per turn, whether they're grouped into squads of 10 or squads of 20 doesn't make much of a difference.
Plus, there's still the force concentration of non-vet infantry amongst other things.
I had the idea that carapace vets and more, cheaper infantry would wind up being about the same, durability-wise. This game bore that out, and I suspect that future ones will as well.
As for the icarus, I haven't tried it. This is my first time with an ADL at all. My biggest concern about the icarus is the lack of interceptor. I'm not too shaken up about the snap firing at ground targets, but I AM somewhat concerned about the lack of shooting at fliers before they get a chance to shoot. Why GW decided to split the skyfire/interceptor rules the way they did seems very strange, but so it goes.
1. There's only one 4 point objective in the Scouring. Your map shows 2.
2. Zooming Fliers don't have Jink unless they Evade.
3. The Icarus lascannon has both Skyfire and Interceptor
2.) I know. Handling fliers wasn't ALL that big of a problem. The problem is being able to handle everything else while handling fliers. The fliers were annoying, but the jink save AV13 transports were unassailable. Likewise last game it wasn't so much the fliers as that I couldn't handle fliers AND mass skimmer spam.
Now at home with my IG codex. Bluntly my analysis of 6th so far is that 3 things dominate: MSU, Deathstars and fliers. The answer to all 3 (IMO) is overwhelming firepower. Have you considered just spamming the crap out of heavy/special weapons?
CCS 1x Lascannon
CCS 1x Lascannon
5x Stormtroopers
2x Meltaguns
5x Stormtroopers
2x Meltaguns
5x Stormtroopers
2x Meltaguns
PCS 4x Melta
2x PIS
3x Autocannon HWS
PCS 4x Melta
2x PIS
3x Autocannon HWS
Vendetta
Vendetta
Manticore
Manticore
I know you don't want Vendettas, but the mobility really is helpful, as is the fact they are now fliers, not just fast skimmers. Manticores take pressure off the HWS, at least initially, and on Turn 2 you are saturating the enemy with additional units (lots of suicide melta giving your opponent a tough choice...continue attacking the firebase or deal with the more immediate threats).
For the record I'm just throwing this out there. I don't play IG but have played against them a lot.
I agree that firepower is currently my problem, but HWSs aren't the way to go. I feel like there should be some new metric out there, like the Firepower per Turn on Board ratio, or something, sort of like on-base percentage for baseball. A HWS will do damage very efficiently while it survives, but they're so fragile that the amount of damage they do is actually rather limited, because they just don't survive long enough (or, worse, survive but have to stay gone to ground).
In this case, a russ has a better FTB ratio because, while it is less efficient (an exterminator puts down arguably half the firepower or less than autocannon HWSs), they are likely to actually survive past turn 1. A pair of autocannon HWSs that's off the board by the end of turn 2 is worse than a russ that's on the board the entire game.
Furthermore, your list has less staying power, what with a few more infantry models, but in a more killable format, especially with the HWSs that are likely to take a single instant death casualty and then break and run (or just get wiped out altogether.
And on top of that, I'm not actually certain it has more killing power. You're talking about 6 TLLCs, 2 storm eagle launchers and 18 autocannons with assorted other goodies. The list I'm running comes with a LOT of Ap3 firepower, along with 12 BS4 plasma guns and 7 BS4 autocannons with krak grenades, and a psyker, and more melta to boot. All while being less fragile.
It's not the worst list, but I'm unconvinced that it's much better.
If you agree firepower is the problem what solution do you think would work? I know HWS are easy kills so you either over saturate or just look at something else completely.
Why not try droping some vets for blast templates? Maybe would not have helped this game, but I noticed you don't really have any high Ap High strength blasts. If guard can do anything right, it is make it ran blast templates. Maybe adding in a colossus, basilisk or Medusa for some really heavy hitting power?
Regarding your analysis of IG foot lists, I think you are making your conclusions from something like an elite footlist. Carapace Vets and ST are just way expensive, and 100 wounds is not a lot. At 1850, you could in theory put down 200 wounds, with arguably similar firepower. Anyway, Guard footlist to me is more about staying power and board control than firepower.
If firepower is the way to go, I would also not discount the HWS. I like your analysis on their FTB vs a Exterminator, but HWS have the advantage that you can spam them in extreme quantities. I am tempted to try the 15 HWS list with AGL. 15 targets is just way too many for an opponent to target, and those that do get shot at will go to ground for the 2+ cover. Just not sure how to fill out such a list to have enough mobility.
I think this list highlights another weakness of a vehicle-free list in 6th edition: The prevalence of Night Fight. All Guard vehicles come with searchlights free (or can buy them for a point). It's a cheap afterthought option that 100% Foot Guard just don't get access to. I'm not sure of any solutions that don't involve vehicles, but it does highlight the utility of one or two vehicles added to the list.
-Harker: 55
Plasma->Melta on one vet squad: 15
Drop the ADL alltogether (When you're paying for 4+ armor, I'm not comfortable paying for better cover, also): 100
Current Total Freed Up: 170
That's a Lascannon Exterminator right there, with no major loss in firepower or durability. You could also just drop the ACs in your melta vets and use the points to upgrade the ACs to LCs in your plasma vets. You've got a fair bit of S7 with your plasma guns, but Lascannons can do some work against heavier armor also. You could also give in and go for a Vendetta. It's not the most morally offensive unit for Foot Guard. An all foot formation is basically light infantry, and light infantry often operates with air support. You've already got valks dropping off your Stormtroopers, having one arrive on the tabletop isn't the worst thing.
If you just max out on hws for 2 platoons and camp them behind the adl, then thats 18 autocannons with 4+ cover, I don't think your opponent could take all that out turn 1.
Hey man. Just so you know, "The Hand of the King" reports are always my favorites to read on here, even if 6th Edition is proving to be troublesome for foot Guard armies. Keep it up.
As for HWSs, I'd invite people to look at the earlier reports in this series. I started 6th ed with 3 of them, and they were always instantly wiped out turn 1, with plenty of firepower left to spare. Had I brought more, my opponent would have killed them, rather than wasting their extra S6-8 firepower on my infantry or AV12 vehicles.
Plus, spamming HWSs creates problems of its own. The first few HWSs may be able to set up in spots of cover with great firing lanes, but once the choice spots are taken up, you're going to be putting them in places without cover, or in places where they're not able to actually see all that much. In these cases, the durability of an insanely fragile unit goes down even more, and their efficiency of firepower likewise goes down if they don't have good lanes of fire to actually shoot at stuff.
As for dura-vets being too expensive, I don't see it. I'm bringing 100 wounds of guardsmen at 1850 points. That's still a foot horde. Nobody is ACTUALLY bringing 200 guardsmen to an 1850 point fight. Apart from all of the serious practical and logistics issues, an 1850 point list with 200 guarsmen is likely going to be a really awful list.
I mean, for comparison, my last 1850 point list in 5th ed had 110 infantry models (115 wounds), and 6 ogryn. What I'm putting down isn't THAT much less, and when you add in the fact that everything is getting a 4+ save against bolters instead of NOTHING, and I really don't think the setup I've got here is significantly less durable.
Happygrunt wrote:Why not try droping some vets for blast templates? Maybe would not have helped this game, but I noticed you don't really have any high Ap High strength blasts. If guard can do anything right, it is make it ran blast templates. Maybe adding in a colossus, basilisk or Medusa for some really heavy hitting power?
Well, I started with this, but phased it out. It didn't seem like they were really doing all that much, with the exception of the colossus, whose role is now more than taken care of by all those stormies I'm bringing.
I'm going over my 6th ed games so far, and I'm having a hard time seeing why artillery would be better than what I have now already.
Biophysical wrote:I think this list highlights another weakness of a vehicle-free list in 6th edition: The prevalence of Night Fight. All Guard vehicles come with searchlights free
Hmm, this is certainly true.
Biophysical wrote:When you're paying for 4+ armor, I'm not comfortable paying for better cover, also
I made a lot of use out of carapace this game, but I don't know if I'm quite ready to abandon it just yet. There are Ap4 weapons out there, and I still want something with interceptor. If either one of those wind up not being such a big deal, then yeah, I'll probably drop it.
Aleinikov wrote: Thanks for the report, this is a great read.
HWS have the advantage that you can spam them in extreme quantities. I am tempted to try the 15 HWS list with AGL. 15 targets is just way too many for an opponent to target, and those that do get shot at will go to ground for the 2+ cover. Just not sure how to fill out such a list to have enough mobility.
^This, if you are being blasted by fliers then you need to snap fire anyway against them so going to ground for a 2++ each turn is infinitely better the an exterminator. Especially since you can order BiD and receive twin linking. Also remember that night fight isn't random any longer and necrons have a short range, FoMT is a great order for this as well as search lights. But I will agree this isn't a great solution, as you have addressed it has logistical issues immediately. I think we are getting closer to that horizon, this journey can't go much further I fear.
Again I feel like you are Knee capping yourself with these restrictions though. The best AA in the guard book is Vendettas, the best elite unit hunter....Vendettas...mobility...durability, they have it all or the cheaper Valkyrie can bring whats missing. They have arguably the best "FTB ratio" in the guard book. AV 12 fliers are insanely difficult to deal with and grav chute insertion is redonculously fun to use and surprisingly affective. I know you want to vet and acid test all pure foot builds but honestly whatever 5th left alive, 6th killed. I think the best and most entertaining guard armies are hybrid anyway. What is turning you off about transports out of curiosity? Is it spamming them? Because that's a choice not a rule. Two chimers and one vendetta and I think you will make your army much more potent, and by no means is it bandwagoning, those are super fun units to field. You own the chimera chasis, you just need one flier, I am sure you can scratch build a unique foleran one as well. Anyway, rant over. I am having fun running this exercise but I feel the solution has been forced on us this edition and it was no miscalculation.
I, like Ailaros, have mightily resisted jumping onto the Valkyrie bandwagon for years now. I really hope I won't have to buy into them just to remain competitive. Though I run a hybrid list already so maybe I'm okay ...
NWansbutter wrote: I, like Ailaros, have mightily resisted jumping onto the Valkyrie bandwagon for years now. I really hope I won't have to buy into them just to remain competitive. Though I run a hybrid list already so maybe I'm okay ...
I was fortunate to win my first in a tournament and pick up two more for 40 each on the web. that said I have only fielded all three once and usually use one because I like to play my guard more casually due to logistical reasons (and I have owned them for almost 3 years now). When I play in tournies I prefer lower model count lists. That said I was in love with them immediately aside from cost, they look boss, are incredibly fun to use and unless you spam them they aren't over powered IMO. Now in 6th, I feel that due to the density of necron, marine and rival guard armies all using fliers, that it is smart to field at least one preferably two to fight off other fliers.
To justify it as a foot guard player I always just imagined it as a separate battle going on for air superiority while ground forces fought, and took collateral damage. Just try to think of a 1850 game really being 1500 normal and 350 as a tax for a simultaneous air game. Otherwise just bring two lists and play all foot unless they have the fliers.
NWansbutter wrote: I, like Ailaros, have mightily resisted jumping onto the Valkyrie bandwagon for years now. I really hope I won't have to buy into them just to remain competitive. Though I run a hybrid list already so maybe I'm okay ...
I was fortunate to win my first in a tournament and pick up two more for 40 each on the web. that said I have only fielded all three once and usually use one because I like to play my guard more casually due to logistical reasons (and I have owned them for almost 3 years now). When I play in tournies I prefer lower model count lists. That said I was in love with them immediately aside from cost, they look boss, are incredibly fun to use and unless you spam them they aren't over powered IMO. Now in 6th, I feel that due to the density of necron, marine and rival guard armies all using fliers, that it is smart to field at least one preferably two to fight off other fliers.
To justify it as a foot guard player I always just imagined it as a separate battle going on for air superiority while ground forces fought, and took collateral damage. Just try to think of a 1850 game really being 1500 normal and 350 as a tax for a simultaneous air game. Otherwise just bring two lists and play all foot unless they have the fliers.
Air superiority has been determining the course of wars for the last 90 years so it's not much of a stretch to imagine that it would still be important in 38000 years.
I think a lot of us are annoyed that we have to buy flyers where before you could get by without having any. Now, if you don't bring your own flyers you are starting in a hole.
I am now resigned to the fact that I'm going to have to get a few to put into my CSM army. I suppose there is always landraider spam too. Even lascannons have trouble against those bad boys.
I just object to the "flavour of the month" feel to the Valkyries and how so many people jumped on that bandwagon (same reason why I refuse, on principle, to employ Manticores in my army). The models are great looking, though, and I've been long tempted to paint one up in inquisitorial colours and have my inquisitorial storm troopers dive out the back as it zooms across the field.
What's better for anti air? The Vendetta or the Valkyrie?
One thing about Necron vehicles is that their Quantum Shielding only works on front and side facings.
All your Vets and Stormies have Krak grenades.
All close combat attacks against vehicles hit rear armor.
Thus, you're hitting those skimmers on 3+ and glancing on 4+ with all 90 of your guardsmen of various flavors. This won't help you against the flyers, of course, but against the skimmers it definitely will.
And, of course, you can throw a Krak grenade during the shooting phase as well, when trying to hammer down those CCBs. S6 AP3 is nothing to sneeze at, and definitely beats out a lasgun shot in most situations.
Have you considered using the vets to complement your PIS's? I tend to run 5 squads of carapace vets: 3 melta squads and 2 plasma, backing up a five squad platoon of plasma guard. That gives me a pretty durable front that opponents generally try to hang back from, and I haven't been able to try it out with an Aegis, yet.
Nave Senrag wrote:Have you considered using the vets to complement your PIS's?
I did once, but the two didn't feel like they mixed that well on the table. Perhaps if my vets don't work out as exactly as I'd like, I'll reconsider.
Veskrashen wrote:All your Vets and Stormies have Krak grenades. Thus, you're hitting those skimmers on 3+ and glancing on 4+ with all 90 of your guardsmen of various flavors. This won't help you against the flyers, of course, but against the skimmers it definitely will.
If only they could survive long enough to get there...
Of course, there was the additional problem here with the chariots, who attack back in close combat.
So, my gold colored dice are actually precision backgammon dice. The $5 per pair hand-crafted-to-be-used-in-riviera-casinos dice. I use them for any roll that I need to make 4 or fewer of. In this case, it's not the dice, it's the luck.
The opaque dice from Kopchow haven't actually treated me that poorly, at least, not poorly relative to the precision dice. They're certainly a LOT better than the old chessex cubes I used to buy.
bogalubov wrote:I think a lot of us are annoyed that we have to buy flyers where before you could get by without having any. Now, if you don't bring your own flyers you are starting in a hole.
The thing is, though, I'm actually not convinced that you need to have fliers, either to take out other fliers or in general.
I mean, I've played 3 games with fliers already. In the first game, I took down 4 of 12 HP of fliers. In the second game, I took down 3 of the 6 HP of fliers my opponent took. In this game I stripped off 10 of the 12 HP worth of fliers my opponent brought. I mean, with just thinking things through a little bit, I've gotten it to the point where I can nearly handle fliers with nothing but infantry, much less needing to go to the far end of taking vendettas for anti-air.
I really don't see the situation against fliers as being so hopeless that their only recourse is a single unit which will be required to win any games with guard.
Red Corsair wrote:if you are being blasted by fliers then you need to snap fire anyway against them so going to ground for a 2++
You mean the 2+ ADL cover saves that fliers ignore? They're high enough that they can just shoot over the ADL at the guys inside. They need to actually be obscured to be able to take the save.
Even in the worst case scenario, my opponent can always just focus fire on those models that aren't obscured.
Red Corsair wrote:Again I feel like you are Knee capping yourself with these restrictions though.
To be fair, it's A restriction against vendettas. Yes, there are a lot of good reasons to take them, but I only need one reason not to - I don't want to show up and look like a cock. The reputation of a vendetta precedes them, a reputation I'm not interested in investing myself with.
On an interesting similar note, now that it seems that fanbois have entirely abandoned the hydra, it may well be possible to start taking them without needing to hide my face in shame...
Red Corsair wrote: What is turning you off about transports out of curiosity? Is it spamming them? Because that's a choice not a rule. Two chimers and one vendetta and I think you will make your army much more potent, and by no means is it bandwagoning, those are super fun units to field.
I guess I don't really know what I'm getting from having just a single chimera or two. As for taking a lot, the bias comes from nothing but preference. I'm just not a treadhead enough to seriously consider mech guard.
Red Corsair wrote: I am having fun running this exercise but I feel the solution has been forced on us this edition and it was no miscalculation.
As you may be aware, I rather don't like getting forced to do things. Furthermore, despite my crippling losses, I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet. So far I've used only 23 of the 39 units in the guard codex since it came out. There's still a lot to work with, here.
More importantly, I'm still seeing improvement. I feel like this is something that creativity and patience will bear out in the end. I mean, if CC foot guard was "impossible" 4 years ago, and then it wound up being really, really possible, I have confidence that the current "impossibility" of running foot guard will wind up going the same way.
NWansbutter wrote:Another thought -- your disappointment with the quad gun has me thinking Icarus Lascannon. I just some quick and dirty math hammer Wansbutter style (i.e. just rolling a bunch of dice pretending that it represents different scenarios in a battle) this evening, and despite only having one shot (non-twin-linked) the Str 9 and +1 to damage result roll is huge. I did a bunch of dice rolling positing my blob's commissar manning the gun and consistently came up with a lot more kills. I guess the moral is who cares if you hit it more times if it's harder to damage it? Have you tried the Icarus lascannon?
You know, let's do the actual math here. Let's assume, for the sake of standards, that the shot is BS3, and that the target doesn't have cover.
Against an AV11 flier, the lascannon shoots once (.5) and causes a HP 5/6ths of the time (.42), and wrecks the vehicle outright on a .22. The quadcannon hits 3 times for 1.5 HP stripped off, and a .166 wrecked vehicles. Assuming two shots, the icarus will knock off 1.6 HP, and will wreck the vehicle .44. Meanwhile, the quadcannon will likely cause 3 HP or .33 wrecks
Put another way, against AV11 fliers, they are both just about equal at wrecking the vehicle outright, but the quad gun is more consistent, putting down twice as many glances.
Of course, if you take the .42/.22 and the 1.5/.166 numbers and change the parameters a bit, things come out a touch different. If you assume the operator is BS4, for example, those numbers become .56/.29 compared to 1.8/.19 (slightly favors the icarus), and if you assume cover, it's .27/.14 compared to 1/.11 (hurts both equally).
For AV12, the numbers after a single round of shooting look like .333/.11 compared the the quad gun's .5/.03 In this case, of course, the icarus looks better, putting out nearly as many glances, and having any real chance to blow up the vehicle outright.
I suppose it's still a question of value, though. Is a 1 in 9 chance frequent enough to make the icarus worth it? Ignore the quadgun, and just focus on those odds.
As for the vets, it's actually kind of interesting as well. Comparing a single autocannon to a single lascannon (because that's what's practically speaking going to happen), the autocannon is .166/.02 while the lascannon is .14/.04 against AV11, and takes the dominance to a new level with AV12.
So, what do we take from this? Against AV11 the quadgun puts down twice as many glances (enough to actually kill stuff), for the same chance at blowing a flyer up. Against AV12, the two are roughly equal, both putting out about as many glances and both having a rather poor chance to blow something up outright (though the lascannon does actually have a chance while you've got to be really lucky to do it with the quad gun).
For infantry. Shoot fliers with lascannons. Don't bother with autocannons. Of course, don't expect much either way. Even the 1 in 20 shots of blowing up a flier with a lascannon seem pretty bad.
So if Vendettas are taken out of the equation entirely (which is a shame since the best defense against fliers are other fliers, but I see why you choose to avoid them), what options are left which can deal with not only fliers, but are also competitive choices against the "usual suspects" you are likely to see. I see this coming down to efficiency (as per usual with Foot Guard). A few thoughts on some of the choices you seems to be warming towards to far (from an opponents perspective I guess):
As HQ choices go there really is little reason to not take at least 1 CCS. Orders, special weapons, high BS. They also synergize really well with foot IG.
Haven't had any experience vs the Primaris Psyker but if he's working out then I say see if he can consistently earn his keep.
I'm also getting behind the idea of Storm Troopers. They can give you Linebreaker, disrupt enemy plans and bring the pain to backfield long range shooting. And at AP3 even marines fear them. They may not benefit from orders due to the way they deploy, but with the increased BS I think it's not a big issue. Also the fact that if your entire army relies on orders to be effective you are inevitably going to run out of orders to give. Now that glances hurt and the fact they can get rear/side shots on armour maybe plasma is the more attractive option.
The we come to Troops, and in all honesty the only choices I see worth taking are Platoon Infantry Squads or Veterans. They both pack a punch at range so the question is do you want quality or quantity? You can start spending upgrades to improve the Vets somewhat, but then the saturation factor comes in. Do you want better guns on more survivable bodies or just more guns? Personally I'm not sold either way, but saturation of firepower is IG's largest strength so perhaps I would slightly lean towards PCS and PIS for my bullets. More bodies and all that. As I said though, not completely sold either way.
Red Corsair wrote:Again I feel like you are Knee capping yourself with these restrictions though.
To be fair, it's A restriction against vendettas. Yes, there are a lot of good reasons to take them, but I only need one reason not to - I don't want to show up and look like a cock. The reputation of a vendetta precedes them, a reputation I'm not interested in investing myself with.
On an interesting similar note, now that it seems that fanbois have entirely abandoned the hydra, it may well be possible to start taking them without needing to hide my face in shame...
I don't even know where to start, that is how ignorant that line of remarks was. I feel offended for anybody who ever wanted to play a unit for the sake of the model or the fact that it's fun to use, heck even hard core gamers. Your entitled to your opinion, but I fail to recognize how using a strong unit in an aging codex makes someone a cock. Further more, I saw more angry and bitter people in regards to blob squads then I have ever run into with mech spam or vendettas. I am sorry but hidden power weapons on cheap guardsmen kicking ass and taking names from terminators in CC was and forever will be completely ridiculous, and so was universal 4++ cover save from overlapping units for that matter. I mean, heaven forbid units have some shred of realism applied to them now.You know what wars sucked? Wars of attrition, fought in close quarters like WWI, thousands died for mere feet. I think it is understandable how the exact same infantry tactics applied 38k years in the future would still fail. Now if you want to point the finger at spamming in 40k I will agree to some degree. It builds boring lists that get stale quickly. By no means is using any option going to make any body a cock, that remark is shades of stupid. "There are so many reasons not to smoke, but I only need one reason to smoke. I want to look cool!" = Fail.
Also, most of the units you have yet to utilize are armored units, repackaging 100 to 115 t3 wounds is not going do solve the issue here. The best way to aqueeze efficiency out of every slot and point is to take chimeras. 55pts for a str 6 turret and a hull HB or HF, command vehicle, amphibious, search light, smoke launchers and a hatch that allows for 5 to fire HW teams counting as 1all on an av12 chassis with a short profile.... Yea clearly its just the talking heads of the net, it's not that obvious cost/benefit ratio of everything you get on an av12 transport for a mere 55 pts staring at you from the page.
Red Corsair, I think you took Ailaros' comment the wrong way. I didn't understand him to say that HE thinks people who use Valkyries/Vendettas are "cocks", he said that this is what OTHERS will think of him if he brings them, and he doesn't want to wear that.
I share some of his thinking. The (apparent) overuse of Vendettas and Manticores is one of the reasons I refuse to use them, as well (although I am weakening on the Vendettas for aesthetic reasons and just so I can grav-insert storm troopers). I am probably not expressing myself well ... trying to think of an analogy ... well, I'm tired and going to bed, maybe tomorrow. But I think you're overreacting to Ailaros' comment and calling him stupid is not exactly being the better man.
To be fair, the main reason most people aren't taking vendettas is because they cost a rediculous $80 a piece (need the upgrade kit with all the lascannons). I don't care how good a unit is, right now I'm not spending $240 for some fast attack choices that will probably be nerfed in some way soon. Hence why I'm so interested in hellhounds, because those can be converted fairly cheaply. I believe this is one of Ailaros's main reasons, even if he hasn't stated it. I know he doesn't have many chimera hulls either, so that limits his vehicle choices. I can sympathize, as I'm in the same boat.
As for ideas pertinent to the list Ailaros, the big thing I'm noticing with this list, is while you are matching the numbers of Guardsmen that you are used to from a platoon oriented Foot IG list, you're running very low on support units for these guardsmen. Platoon IG was notable in that, while the guardsmen died faster, have lower BS, and less special weapons, they had enough points left over for tanks, artillery, and other support units to make them shine. Heck, you were taking almost 550pts worth of stormtroopers and still having little trouble buying tanks to augment your guardsmen. Which is the main problem I see with "duravets" styled force like what we're seeing here. You can still pump out the guardsmen, but you can't pump out the support units they need to truly fight the enemy. I'm not exactly sure yet how to surmount this obstacle, but the best idea might be to mix platoon and vets in a list. Using the PIS's exactly how you're used to as cheap scoring units to take hits and put down decent firepower, while your carapace vets provide hard points within your foot horde, designed to handle to big threats, concentrate firepower, and take the really important objectives or take out critical targets. This way you have a mix of cheap bodies and higher quality troops, and should still be able to afford your support units like tanks and whatnot. With 30 stormtroopers, you wouldn't need but 3 or 4 vet squads to help augment a couple of platoons, and that should get you plenty of guardsmen, firepower, mobility, and durability. Just something to think about.
MrMoustaffa wrote: To be fair, the main reason most people aren't taking vendettas is because they cost a rediculous $80 a piece (need the upgrade kit with all the lascannons). I don't care how good a unit is, right now I'm not spending $240 for some fast attack choices that will probably be nerfed in some way soon. Hence why I'm so interested in hellhounds, because those can be converted fairly cheaply. I believe this is one of Ailaros's main reasons, even if he hasn't stated it. I know he doesn't have many chimera hulls either, so that limits his vehicle choices. I can sympathize, as I'm in the same boat.
As for ideas pertinent to the list Ailaros, the big thing I'm noticing with this list, is while you are matching the numbers of Guardsmen that you are used to from a platoon oriented Foot IG list, you're running very low on support units for these guardsmen. Platoon IG was notable in that, while the guardsmen died faster, have lower BS, and less special weapons, they had enough points left over for tanks, artillery, and other support units to make them shine. Heck, you were taking almost 550pts worth of stormtroopers and still having little trouble buying tanks to augment your guardsmen. Which is the main problem I see with "duravets" styled force like what we're seeing here. You can still pump out the guardsmen, but you can't pump out the support units they need to truly fight the enemy. I'm not exactly sure yet how to surmount this obstacle, but the best idea might be to mix platoon and vets in a list. Using the PIS's exactly how you're used to as cheap scoring units to take hits and put down decent firepower, while your carapace vets provide hard points within your foot horde, designed to handle to big threats, concentrate firepower, and take the really important objectives or take out critical targets. This way you have a mix of cheap bodies and higher quality troops, and should still be able to afford your support units like tanks and whatnot. With 30 stormtroopers, you wouldn't need but 3 or 4 vet squads to help augment a couple of platoons, and that should get you plenty of guardsmen, firepower, mobility, and durability. Just something to think about.
No idea where you buy your Valk kits from but where I get mine its $49.50. Then I simply traded for some of the twin linked predator lascannons or the land raider ones (honestly i dont know if there is a difference.) So in total I paid $150 for all three of my Vendettas.
I run a MSU foot guard as well. I have a Support platoon that sits back and babysits their heavy weapons. (Usually its an Autocannon/flamer squad) and 1-2 Assault platoons with no heavy weapons and either meltas or plasma. I also tend to have 3 leman russes in support and 2 Vendettas and a Puinisher Vulture.
Example
HQ: CCS: Lascannon, Regimental Standard, Camo Cloaks, Sniper 110ptd
Troops 785pts
1st Platoon
PCS: 4x Flamers
3x PIS with Meltaguns
2x PIS with Flamer and Lascannons
2nd Platoon
PCS: 4x Flamers
3x PIS with Plasmaguns
2x PIS with Flamer and Autocannons
Fast Attack 415 pts
Vendetta 130pts
Vendetta 130pts
Vulture with Twin Linked Punisher Cannon 155pts
Heavy Support 490pts
Leman Russ Battle Tank
Leman Russ Battle Tank
Leman Russ Executioner
Red Corsair wrote:I fail to recognize how using a strong unit in an aging codex makes someone a cock.
It doesn't.
What makes you a cock is being a cock. Cocks flock to vendettas like they do to needlessly expensive German cars, needlessly expensive designer sunglasses, and needlessly expensive haircuts.
I mean, you show up with a few vendettas at a vendetta convention, you get a...
"Sup, BRA! See you got tha 'dettes. High five, bra!"
If you haven't seen this kind of behavior, you're not looking closely enough. You don't have to be a douche to take a vendetta, but if you're a douche, you're taking vendettas.
Other people have, unfortunately, set the standard. The question is if I want to have myself associated with said other people.
Or to put it another way:
NWansbutter wrote: Red Corsair, I think you took Ailaros' comment the wrong way. I didn't understand him to say that HE thinks people who use Valkyries/Vendettas are "cocks", he said that this is what OTHERS will think of him if he brings them, and he doesn't want to wear that
This.
Red Corsair wrote:You know what wars sucked? Wars of attrition
... but that's foot guard. Even the codex itself says that that's how foot guard works. So does the rulebook.
In 5th ed, you could play foot guard as an attrition army and do okay (not phenomenally, but still really not that badly), now you can't. I guess you'd be happy with that, as you don't like the play style, but the question now becomes one of how to make an army that was designed to win by attrition win by other means?
MrMoustaffa wrote:you're running very low on support units for these guardsmen. Platoon IG was notable in that, while the guardsmen died faster, have lower BS, and less special weapons, they had enough points left over for tanks, artillery, and other support units to make them shine. Heck, you were taking almost 550pts worth of stormtroopers and still having little trouble buying tanks to augment your guardsmen. Which is the main problem I see with "duravets" styled force like what we're seeing here.
Right, there is something I'm trying to reclaim here, I suppose. In 5th ed, guard troops choices were good, and you just needed to drape a little support over them to fill in the cracks. I'm trying to reproduce that in some small way. I don't like the idea of having weak core units leaning heavily on support units to make "toy" heavy lists.
I'm actually not THAT stuck on my support options, though. I'm using stormies because they seem the best units, not because I'm trying to be all-infantry. Was there something that would be better support, I'd rather seriously consider taking it.
The problem, though, is that you never know what your support units should be unless you know what your core units are. That's been sort of the first few bricks I've been trying to understand to put back together to make a new proverbial wall of good guard footsmanship...
So, for example, this is the natural conclusion from this game:
The question is one of what can I add that still keeps a decently strong core, that will actually make the list better? One way I've been doing this is when I make a new list, I see if it would have done better or worse in all the games I've played up until now (in this case, in 6th edition), and see if it would have done better than my current list.
At the moment, the only thing I'm possibly considering is dropping a meltavet squad and a squad of stormies and replacing it with 3 squads of 2x hydras. I don't yet quite know if that will actually be better, though.
I am looking at it the situation just fine. Your argument is still ignorant and unjustifiable. All you have proven is that you care more about image then strategy.
If someone is a dick, then they are a dick. Playing a certain army or unit type isn't going to matter. If you are afraid of being a dick it has nothing to do with your unit types and everything to do with your attitude.
I think you should look closer and you will see that the gaming community by in large is not made up of douches. I have never heard of such an idiotic concern. Who n earth would label someone as a cock immediately because they brought a particular unit? If this is your perception then I have to say your last few games must have been miserable. You played what, three different cocks?
Don't use a unit because you hate the model, the rules, the money.... Those I can understand, but because of your biased perception of what someone might think? Fine, but that is a sad approach to the game.
Red Corsair wrote:I am looking at it the situation just fine. Your argument is still ignorant and unjustifiable. All you have proven is that you care more about image then strategy.
That's a pretty sweeping statement to extrapolate from a very small thing. If I cared more about style than strategy, I'd play eldar.
What you're seeing here is someone who, for the sake of argument, cares 99% about strategy and 1% about style, and you've stumbled upon that 1% and are making it seem as if I care 10% about strategy and 90% about style. It's just not true.
Red Corsair wrote:Who on earth would label someone as a cock immediately because they brought a particular unit?
No one calls the necron flying circus cheese. Everybody is glad to see draigo across the field from them, or grey knights in general, actually. Fzorgle refers to an italian pastry, not a CSMHQ setup. Leafblower is nothing more than a tool you can pick up at Home Depot. Mephiston is a completely cheeseless addition to any well-balanced BA list.
Need I really continue? Certain things develop a bad reputation. By buying into the unit, you're buying into the reputation. There's no way around it.
Red Corsair wrote:Don't use a unit because you hate the model, the rules, the money.... Those I can understand, but because of your biased perception of what someone might think? Fine, but that is a sad approach to the game.
Firstly, it's a social game. Social implies that at some point you give any consideration to the people around you.
Secondly, so what? It's an aesthetic choice. Would it be any better if I said that I don't want to take vendettas because I just don't want to take vendettas? What does the particular reason matter if I'm already being arbitrary?
Red Corsair wrote: I am looking at it the situation just fine. Your argument is still ignorant and unjustifiable. All you have proven is that you care more about image then strategy.
Let's be real here, 40k is not an amazing strategy game. It is, in fact, an 'image' game, so if someone wants to do what they want for their own reasons, that's fine. Try to give advice within the parameters people ask, or at least discuss without criticizing someone's parameters. Ailaros proved, I think, that you could do guard in a different way in 5th than the cookie-cutter chimera/vendetta spam that you saw in the tournament scene and still have success, though massive foot lists don't usually see a lot of play in timed tournaments.
Also, your advice about Chimeras is off base. One, two, even three Chimeras isn't enough. They're still a bit flimsy and will probably get instagibbed in a vaccuum, the way Chimeras work is by being cheap and numerous, overwhelming the anti-tank assets of an enemy and making all their bolters and stuff useless. Once you get to that, though, I think that goes against what Ailaros is trying to do.
At the moment, the only thing I'm possibly considering is dropping a meltavet squad and a squad of stormies and replacing it with 3 squads of 2x hydras. I don't yet quite know if that will actually be better, though.
I think that those Hydras might be a very good idea imo. I mean thats 12 autocannon shots with special anti-flyer rules, any player who brings aircraft out in the open against 6 hydras will immediately have them blown out of the sky. And even if you dont face flyers you still have 18 heavy bolter shots in addition to the BS1 twin linked autocannons primed at your enemy.
And since players in your FLGS seem to tailor their lists against you, once seeing the hydras they will drop any notions of aircraft spam in their lists.
By the way, why would people think you are a cock you give so much helpful advice on dakka dakka and i would imagine any normal A**hole to be reluctant to spend so much time on battle reports and writing the fluff.
@MrMoustaffa you can convert Valkries into Vendettas by using spare lascannons from HWS sets i think there might be some articles out there that will be able to help you, i havent attempted it myself due to the price of the Valk.
Red Corsair wrote: I am looking at it the situation just fine. Your argument is still ignorant and unjustifiable. All you have proven is that you care more about image then strategy.
Let's be real here, 40k is not an amazing strategy game. It is, in fact, an 'image' game, so if someone wants to do what they want for their own reasons, that's fine. Try to give advice within the parameters people ask, or at least discuss without criticizing someone's parameters. Ailaros proved, I think, that you could do guard in a different way in 5th than the cookie-cutter chimera/vendetta spam that you saw in the tournament scene and still have success, though massive foot lists don't usually see a lot of play in timed tournaments.
Also, your advice about Chimeras is off base. One, two, even three Chimeras isn't enough. They're still a bit flimsy and will probably get instagibbed in a vaccuum, the way Chimeras work is by being cheap and numerous, overwhelming the anti-tank assets of an enemy and making all their bolters and stuff useless. Once you get to that, though, I think that goes against what Ailaros is trying to do.
I can be real, in fact I was being analytical and playing the exercise fine until that insanely stupid comment was made. I expected a bigger person to redact their statement not compound it. So if it now appears to be 90% the issue it;s not my fault. I merely suggested a stupid statement that stereotypes players was stupid and unnecessary. Calling the game an image game is fine for you, but make no mistake here, we all play for different reasons and if you have no strategy and are buying into an "image" then that your motivation but it is not mine.
That makes no sense. If, by Alairos own logic, upgrades are the single easiest way to make a unit moire efficient and potent, then how could even one chimera be bad? Your logic is flawed here. Many chimera are always awesome but that doesn't make one or two and definitely three bad. I will take the one or two any day over none because it is an insane addition to a pcs or ccs. You are applying the vacuum here not me, for it's price there is no better purchase an infantry unit can make.
No one calls the necron flying circus cheese. Everybody is glad to see draigo across the field from them, or grey knights in general, actually. Fzorgle refers to an italian pastry, not a CSMHQ setup. Leafblower is nothing more than a tool you can pick up at Home Depot. Mephiston is a completely cheeseless addition to any well-balanced BA list.
Need I really continue? Certain things develop a bad reputation. By buying into the unit, you're buying into the reputation. There's no way around it.
Red Corsair wrote:Don't use a unit because you hate the model, the rules, the money.... Those I can understand, but because of your biased perception of what someone might think? Fine, but that is a sad approach to the game.
Firstly, it's a social game. Social implies that at some point you give any consideration to the people around you.
Secondly, so what? It's an aesthetic choice. Would it be any better if I said that I don't want to take vendettas because I just don't want to take vendettas? What does the particular reason matter if I'm already being arbitrary?
SO then according to you everyone should avoid 2-3 armies and 3-6 units in each book at least or they will be labled? I don't by it, in fact I have always thought the whiners we the crowd with the poor image.
Don't play it for what ever reason you want, but don't expect an immature opinion directed toward other play styles to go unchecked.
I think the main flaw of your suggested 1850 pts army is that at you have only 7 long range weapons in an army that is in essence static. There is a great risk that your opponent will dictate terms for the games with either superior long range fire power (forcing you to move or die) or superior mobility (making sure he fights part of your army with a substantially larger part of his) or both. But then again maybe that's just the curse of 6th ed foot guard....
Triple plasma/melta vets are great if they get to shoot at short range at a preferred target and I think they are excellent candidates for a chimera or vendetta ride. However at 24"+ range they do not peform significantly better than a 65 pts PiS. How do you plan on getting the veterans in a position to do what they do best with this army?
Red Corsair wrote:So if it now appears to be 90% the issue it;s not my fault.
Well...
Ailaros wrote:What you're seeing here is someone who, for the sake of argument, cares 99% about strategy and 1% about style, and you've stumbled upon that 1% and are making it seem as if I care 10% about strategy and 90% about style. It's just not true.
Anyways,
Red Corsair wrote: If, by Alairos own logic, upgrades are the single easiest way to make a unit moire efficient and potent, then how could even one chimera be bad? Your logic is flawed here. Many chimera are always awesome but that doesn't make one or two and definitely three bad.
I think you might misunderstand that maxim a bit. I said WEAPON upgrades are the most efficient, because you get more killing power without having to pay for more carriers. Buying a chimera does get you more guns, but it also costs more, because you have to pay for a new unit. Getting 2 heavy bolters for 55 points isn't as efficient as giving 5 heavy bolter weapon upgrades to 5 squads that don't have heavy weapons for the same price.
You're right, though, logic does not dictate that failing to spam makes chimeras individually bad, it's a matter for reason, rather than logic. Guard stuff is flimsy, and so needs redundancy to make sure it actually accomplishes the mission it was taken for. Having one of something is, in fact, not as good at having two or three of something. At least not in 40k, and ESPECIALLY not with guard.
Red Corsair wrote:SO then according to you everyone should avoid 2-3 armies and 3-6 units in each book at least or they will be labled? I don't by it, in fact I have always thought the whiners we the crowd with the poor image.
To be fair, I never said everyone.
Secondly, I fail to see the distinction between a single group of people labeled whiners over there and a discreet group of cool people over here. Because of this, things get more or less a single reputation, rather than two or three separate ones.
Look, I understand the point of being level-headed and only working with things on the abstractest of levels. Autism makes that easy, if not compulsory. What I'm trying to do, though, is to be more comprehensive with my approach to 40k here.
40k, it turns out, isn't a game that pits two players' skill against each other in a complex system that can be reduced to absolute principles. I used to really believe this. It turns out, though, it really IS a game of putting painted stuff on display and rolling dice while drinking a proverbial beer. The temptation to take it seriously is still too great for me, what with this all being the only outlet for my endlessly stymied sense of professional ethic, but that doesn't mean that I can't try to avoid the pure, abstract, unintentionally sociopathic trap that people who take 40k seriously fall into really, really quickly.
Because 40k IS a social game. If you take the others players at your FLGS into consideration when you decide whether to bathe before you play or not, or whether you are going to be polite or not, or any number of other cues regarding towards your behavior, why is it suddenly a big shock to follow this same model, even some tiny bit, with regards to the behavior of list building?
I don't like following crowds, and I don't like groupthink, and I don't like decisions made by peer pressure, etc. etc. I like keeping things rational and looking at the numbers to have the purity and flexibility to come up with new things others missed. In this case, though, in order to best fulfill this desire, I've got to start by just doing the opposite of the crowd. Yes, you could argue that it's still a form of peer pressure (or is it? Perhaps I don't like mainstream because liking mainstream is too mainstream, because hating mainstream was getting too mainstream), but if I just fold now and follow the herd, then the other ways for guard to handle fliers will never be found, and we'll all be stuck with cookie cutter guard lists again.
Preventing that is nearly as important as horribly beating face in my games. Two people with netlists showing up, using the same tactics, and just rolling dice at each other feels soulless, and really against the entire point of having a game with as many options as 40k.
dakka farta wrote:I think that those Hydras might be a very good idea imo. I mean thats 12 autocannon shots with special anti-flyer rules, any player who brings aircraft out in the open against 6 hydras will immediately have
zoat wrote: There is a great risk that your opponent will dictate terms for the games with either superior long range fire power (forcing you to move or die) or superior mobility (making sure he fights part of your army with a substantially larger part of his) or both. But then again maybe that's just the curse of 6th ed foot guard....
It is, rather. I'm never going to be able to catch storm ravens or venoms or doomsday arks if my opponent doesnt' want me to get in range with them. Given just how fast everything dies in 40k, you've got to be a little more careful with suicide attacks.
But it's still the problem with foot guard, more or less exactly as you describe it. How do you get guns on target when everything dies so fast? With foot guard, the short answer is HWSs, but they die SO fast, and have a bunch of other problems. As you can see, one way I've been liking is to take stormies that stay (more or less) completely safe off the board, and can alpha strike without being shot at first.
That really is the question of the moment, though. Just how do you support foot guard?
zoat wrote: How do you plan on getting the veterans in a position to do what they do best with this army?
100 guys with 4+ armor and a 4+ cover ADL placed halfway up the board.
dakka farta wrote:I think that those Hydras might be a very good idea imo. I mean thats 12 autocannon shots with special anti-flyer rules, any player who brings aircraft out in the open against 6 hydras will immediately have
I'm guessing that you didn't have the points to fill another two more hydras into the list, but that still 8 Autocannon shots The list looks more supported and much more balanced now, Lascannons and Meltas to engage Infantry and ground vehicles while the Hydras light up the sky ridding you of flyers, skimmers etc. It seems to solve one of your problems in this battle report, the fact that flyers can't shoot over the aegis due to the swathes of hydra fire makes your infantry a lot more durable against fire.
I'd cut the two melta stormtrooper squads down to 5 men each, freeing up 160 points, then plough that into a third squad. Flamer squad (which have worked so well for you in the past), or something? That 160 points would pay for a 9 man squad with 2 flamers. Overall, more bang for your buck if you ask me.
There's an awful lot of Vendetta griping going on. Didn't he say at some point that he already feels he can deal with fliers with what he has and it was the dealing with everything else that was an issue?
Ailaros wrote:The thing is, though, I'm actually not convinced that you need to have fliers, either to take out other fliers or in general.
I mean, I've played 3 games with fliers already. In the first game, I took down 4 of 12 HP of fliers. In the second game, I took down 3 of the 6 HP of fliers my opponent took. In this game I stripped off 10 of the 12 HP worth of fliers my opponent brought. I mean, with just thinking things through a little bit, I've gotten it to the point where I can nearly handle fliers with nothing but infantry, much less needing to go to the far end of taking vendettas for anti-air.
I really don't see the situation against fliers as being so hopeless that their only recourse is a single unit which will be required to win any games with guard.
I don't remember costs off the top of my head, but camo netting might be a real boon to Hydras if you go that route. Even if flyers come on and get free shots at them, you've got a 3 l+ cover with the Aegis.
Here's another questionable use of points: Hunter-Killers on the Hydras. They won't be shooting at aircraft on turn one. The HKs give them something to do and help your alpha strike.
DarknessEternal wrote: There's an awful lot of Vendetta griping going on. Didn't he say at some point that he already feels he can deal with fliers with what he has and it was the dealing with everything else that was an issue?
Ailaros wrote:The thing is, though, I'm actually not convinced that you need to have fliers, either to take out other fliers or in general.
I mean, I've played 3 games with fliers already. In the first game, I took down 4 of 12 HP of fliers. In the second game, I took down 3 of the 6 HP of fliers my opponent took. In this game I stripped off 10 of the 12 HP worth of fliers my opponent brought. I mean, with just thinking things through a little bit, I've gotten it to the point where I can nearly handle fliers with nothing but infantry, much less needing to go to the far end of taking vendettas for anti-air.
I really don't see the situation against fliers as being so hopeless that their only recourse is a single unit which will be required to win any games with guard.
Guess he did.
Your right he did, and I never said other wise. I just am not a fan of someone having to put down one play style to justify their own. But I will digress, I don't like arguing in game and I surely don't online. I just expect a little maturity and responsibility from people I am in a discussion with. If he wants to list reasons why he doesn't want to field something he can doo it without labeling others.
Red Corsair wrote:So if it now appears to be 90% the issue it;s not my fault.
Well...
Ailaros wrote:What you're seeing here is someone who, for the sake of argument, cares 99% about strategy and 1% about style, and you've stumbled upon that 1% and are making it seem as if I care 10% about strategy and 90% about style. It's just not true.
Anyways,
Way to miss the point. I don't are how much you claim, your actions and more importantly words are demonstrating otherwise. Besides how irritating it is that you actually used a percentage to gauge a subjective issue.
Here's another thought for your list, Alairos. Now that you've got an ADL, I'm not sure you need to pay for Carapace Armor on the Troops that you've got "staying home". There are surely AP5 weapons that ignore cover, but most of them are basic flamers. The ones that kill at range are almost all AP4, by my memory. This means you could rely on the Aegis for home defense, and use Carapace for offense. This would at least be a 90 point savings (Carapace on your Meltas, nothing on your Plasmas). Alternatively, you could give your plasmas behind the line Forward Sentries instead. This would give them a 3+ cover save behind the line, or a 4+ in other terrain.
My preferred option, though, would be to swap out the plasma vets for regular guardsmen. 2 Plasma Vet Grenadier squads with LCS is 330 points, throw in the 3 LCs on the melta vets for another 60 points. This could get you a platoon with a PCS and 4 PISs, all with LCs, and PGs on the PISs. It more than doubles the number of bodies (vs the two plasma vets squads), with almost no loss of resilience per model, because most enemies that shoot at these Guardsmen will be shooting at them in cover. They don't have to march into fire, so they can rely on cover. The BS on your lascannons will be lower, but you'll probably be hitting with them more in the long term, because you won't be moving them when your melta vet squads move.
Red Corsair wrote:I just am not a fan of someone having to put down one play style to justify their own. But I will digress, I don't like arguing in game and I surely don't online. I just expect a little maturity and responsibility from people I am in a discussion with. If he wants to list reasons why he doesn't want to field something he can do it without labeling others. I don't are how much you claim, your actions and more importantly words are demonstrating otherwise.
As I've made abundantly clear, I don't have problems against play styles, I have a problem with the attitude that guard need vendettas to survive, or that any one unit in the codex is so awesome that it's an auto-include, or that because a unit is good, it's therefore the solution to all problems, or because any one person thinks that some particular unit is cool, that other people must take it too.
I've spent my entire 40k career thinking abstractly and talking about things strategically, trying to be helpful, and creative, and useful to guard commanders. I've tried to explain this abberant issue in particular to you with well-reasoned argument in multiple different ways. Instead of engaging with me in dialogue AT ALL, you're instead ignoring me and degenerating to the point of just calling me immature over and over again.
Nothing more can be said to one who does not listen.
Biophysical wrote:I don't remember costs off the top of my head, but camo netting might be a real boon to Hydras if you go that route. Even if flyers come on and get free shots at them, you've got a 3 l+ cover with the Aegis.
But would it?
The big problem here is that you can't just be behind a piece of terrain, it still has to actually obscure 25% of the model. Given that fliers are up 6" off the table, it's going to be basically impossible to hide a vehicle behind anything other than a 2 or 3-floor piece of terrain (and even then, this can kind of be flown around). Against ground threats, sure, the ADL would be rather useful, but not against fliers in this case, which, unfortunately, is the biggest threat to them.
And it costs 20 points a pop, which isn't quite cheap enough for me to feel real great about them.
Biophysical wrote:Here's another questionable use of points: Hunter-Killers on the Hydras. They won't be shooting at aircraft on turn one. The HKs give them something to do and help your alpha strike.
I might were it not for the fact that skyfire applies to the unit, not the weapons. At BS3, it's already questionable, but 10 points for a single BS1 shot...
flonky wrote: I'd cut the two melta stormtrooper squads down to 5 men each, freeing up 160 points, then plough that into a third squad. Flamer squad (which have worked so well for you in the past), or something? That 160 points would pay for a 9 man squad with 2 flamers. Overall, more bang for your buck if you ask me.
So, the problem with 5x stormie squads is that they're suicide squads and nothing more. If I wanted something that could shoot a little and then die, I might as well drop them altogether to pack my HS slots.
What I'm trying to do with the stormies is to actually have some field presence upfield. They're not just a firepower unit, they're a denial unit. They contest objectives. They claim linebreaker,. They provide a real threat that my opponent has to expend more than passing fire against to eliminate. None of this would be possible with a suicide stormie squad.
dakka farta wrote:The list looks more supported and much more balanced now, Lascannons and Meltas to engage Infantry and ground vehicles while the Hydras light up the sky ridding you of flyers, skimmers etc. It seems to solve one of your problems in this battle report, the fact that flyers can't shoot over the aegis due to the swathes of hydra fire makes your infantry a lot more durable against fire.
I've been mulling over this a bit more. One of the things I did was compare my sequitur list with the above. The question was could my non-hydra list survive better against a list that contained no fliers than a non-hydra list could that contained them?
By that standard, the hydra list fared more poorly. I can almost handle fliers without hydras, but throwing out a lot of stormies and dudes in general would hurt more, I think.
Although, it did rekindle the ogryn idea, as ogryn can take down fliers with volume of fire AND still be beefy at the same time. I figured it wouldn't be long before I put them back in my list, but I didn't think that it might be quite this short.
Biophysical wrote: Here's another thought for your list, Alairos. Now that you've got an ADL, I'm not sure you need to pay for Carapace Armor on the Troops that you've got "staying home". There are surely AP5 weapons that ignore cover, but most of them are basic flamers. The ones that kill at range are almost all AP4, by my memory. This means you could rely on the Aegis for home defense, and use Carapace for offense. This would at least be a 90 point savings (Carapace on your Meltas, nothing on your Plasmas). Alternatively, you could give your plasmas behind the line Forward Sentries instead. This would give them a 3+ cover save behind the line, or a 4+ in other terrain.
That's a pretty reasonable idea. You could always have at least one squad fully contained by an ADL save (even to fliers) and 2 from most angles. 2 squads of Vets without Carapace, but with ADL is actually a 10 point savings.
As to the "use 5 man Stormies ideas": an army needs to contain Marbo before it considers 5 man Stormtrooper squads since he's both better and cheaper at what they can do.
Sanario goes with the Ogryn, giving them re-rolls and a fistfull of Eviscerator attacks. Melchior manages the gun line behind the Aegis line, the Vets and Sisters advance with meltas to get objectives and blow stuff up on its way to your firebase. There's plenty of flexibility if you wanted to drop the AC squad or one of the PISs to fit in the Primaris Psyker.
Still plenty of models, still a few points leftover for whatever you want.
ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:How do you feel about forgeworld stuff?
Wanting to include an interesting unit? Sure. Needing to take forgeworld because the guard codex can't cut it? Never.
Really, the problem is that getting into forgeworld has a barrier to entry. I've got to buy more rulebooks, new models, etc. I'm still working my way through building codex units, so I kind of only want to bother if there's something particular I want to include for fluff reasons.
Actually, it's for the exact same reason I'm not including allies, come to think of it.
Biophysical wrote:Yay! Ogryn are coming back! Hand-held flak canons! It does hurt to lose the third Storm squad, though.
... yeah.
I don't know, it seems like my list is starting to actually congeal right now, and am finding it more difficult to put new stuff in as my list itself gets better. I do feel more comfortable about losing a stormie squad and the ADL for some ogryn than losing a stormie squad and a vet squad for a couple of hydras. It all seems so close, though. It's like, there are 4 nearly identical versions of the list, and I just don't know which one is better.
Perhaps time, thought, and time on field will help.
Actually, now that I think about it some more, it's actually on a continuum. hydras->exterminators->ogryn->all foot. I want to play the one on the right, but fliers are pushing me to the left. Perhaps the better against fliers I can get, the further to the right I'll be able to scoot...
DarknessEternal wrote:As to the "use 5 man Stormies ideas": an army needs to contain Marbo before it considers 5 man Stormtrooper squads since he's both better and cheaper at what they can do.
The 4 Hydras will eliminate your problems with fliers totally, they are flak tanks by profession and have 72" range they will get the first shot off, After establishing your foothold in AA you can expand into other options which would add to your killing power against targets on the ground. Plus if you face a non flier army you can just make a quick calculation to swap the hydras for ogryn.
Yes, hydra would certainly end my flier problems straight away.
The problem, though, is that I don't only face fliers and skimmers. I have in the past two games, but those aren't the only two players at my flgs. Someone mentioned just having two list, the f-flyers list and the everybody else. I'd like to avoid that as much as possible, of course. In a way, I think that's a bit of the problem with the hydras. They're tailored against fliers, but they're kind of weak against most else.
Going back over my recent battle reports, I've been asking myself if I could have afforded to run a list with that many hydras, looking at the non-flier games I've played. The answer is closer to "no" than I would care to admit. For example, taking out a unit of stormtroopers when there is also a lot of power armor makes me a touch queasy.
Really, there seem to be two philosophies in conflict here. Do you take the bare minimum of what you need for everything else, and pack in the rest with anti-flier, or do you bring just enough anti-flier, and pack the rest in with everything else. I've been leaning towards the latter, of course, because I want to find the way to handle flier armies without resorting to the obvious options. If I'm successful, I'll have more points to throw at other stuff and have a better list over all compared to lists that are burdened with a dedicated anti-flier faction.
Honestly, it seems like a matter of patience, rather than of possibility. At any time, I could just throw three vendettas or 9 hydras in my list and just give the middle finger to flier lists. Or I could keep two lists. Or I could refuse to play against people with fliers. I'd rather not do any of that, though.
As I mentioned before, I'm trying to add to what it means to be a guard commander. If I'm not innovating, well, I'm just another regular guard player, and who wants that?
I do feel like I'm starting to get close to the answer to two questions. The first is "how do I advance upfield?" and the second is "how do I handle fliers?" If I can answer these questions with a solution other than "you need to take vendettas to win with guard", I feel like I'll have really made a contribution to our corpus of guard knowledge here.
How about two Full rough rider squads each with 2 meltaguns, they stay behind your aegis and once an enemy comes within charge distance they spring out and attack, the charge will push your enemy back and while your riders sacrifice themselves the veterans can move up and blow up the survivors of the cavalry attack you can do all that for the cost 250pts.
Meh, I see RR's like HWSs, except even worse, as they don't have the option to attack stuff turn 1. If you could still assault from reserves, I'd seriously consider it, but as you can't, it's just something to get shot up before it has a chance to be useful.
At the moment, the question I'm asking myself is how much do I need the ADL? I want the cover for when the carapace doesn't work, and I want the interceptor against fliers. If I don't need them, though, I can do more. It sort of seems like my list with the HQ, the 6x vets, and 2 stormie squads. Then it's a matter of 6 ogryn, 4 ogryn and an ADL, or another stormie squad and an ADL.
Also, it just kind of struck my that, apart from their horrible luck, I'm also using my stormies wrong. I'm still sort of behaving with them as if they were a suicide unit, picking off targets of opportunity, when really I should be treating them like a troops choice, except that they can deepstrike.
On the one hand, they're a support unit, so they should be supporting the troops choices. That means I should be using them a bit more reactively rather than proactively - something to bail out my vets, rather than someone to take things out alone.
Secondly, no support unit, itself, works without support. Putting them out in the middle of nowhere with my opponent able to counterstrike without me being able to counter the counter will just end up with them being killed, even with the extra guys.
And that's the point of the extra guys, of course. To not just get killed right away. I think I need to play more conservatively with them to prevent just this from happening.
So many points wasted on Strorm Troopers - It makes my head hurt and eyes water just looking at it.
You're paying 16 points for each one of those extra ST. Maybe if you wanted to get cute and have 1x 10 man squad to DS and disrupt. But three!? Insanity! You must explain. Those ST take up right around 30-35% of your army no? Really the problem is the 10 man ST squad with 2 flamers. 175+ points of ZERO range firepower. I couldn't waste BS4 any better if I tried.
I know you're an experienced IG player - and, maybe you just wanted to experiment? At 1850 points your firepower is astonishingly underwhelming. I couldn't imagine this list winning but 10% of the time at this point level. I'm not trying to flame, I just really am perplexed. Maybe I'm missing something here.
Look at stormtroopers comprehensively, rather than just at their special weapons options, and you'll see why.
- Ap3. Combined with deepstrike, this is a big middle finger to marines. Bonus points for the fact that they also get Ap3 overwatch.
In fact, 10x stormie squads are superb anti-infantry weapons. You only need to look back into my battle reports where they landed anywhere near their targets to see this.
Thus, of course, the flamer. With their accurate deepstriking, it's not that challenging to get 20 flamer hits in with a pair of flamers in addition to all that hellgun fire. You can take out termies with this kind of damage, and it certainly beats the hell out of everything else infantry. In this case, the fact that the rerollably deepstrike is more important than the fact that they're BS4.
- They deepstrike. Apart from the above killing power benefit, there's more. They start in reserves, so they can't get shot up before they attack. They deepstrike, which means they can attack anywhere on the board.
And once they land, they stay there. They can still contest objectives, and they give you much better field presense, especially if your troops are stuck hiding behind an ADL. They bring the fight to the enemy, and force them to react in a way that HS slots really can't.
- Other goodies. With Sv4+, played properly, those thorns-in-the-sides can be very difficult to dislodge. As mentioned, I'm not playing them right (and I've been very unlucky), but as I get better, this will play out more.
In a way, they're proper FA choices, as they can show up on an enemy's flank and have both the killing power and durability to roll it up.
Then they get grenades and power weapons, and stuff, but by this point, that's mostly cake icing.
The non-anti-infantry firepower is, indeed, somewhat lackluster, I'll grant, but when they catch marines out in the open, they're dead, in one turn. When there's something trying to hold onto a backfield objective, they're dead, in one go. They have a lot of strategic use. You've got to look at more than just their firepower to see that.
On paper I like the idea. Especially if you get in Rapid Fire Range and get 20 AP 3 shots. Even against SM it always seems to be underwhelming for me. 10 will hit. Great! Now we need 5's to W (Ouch). This means you'll knock off around 3-4 Marines if you're Rapid Firing into them. If you're outside of the 9'' then taking down 3 is a bit of luck depending on your special weapons. I feel like Stormies have their uses. I can't subscribe to your philosophy that 3squads of 10 is remotely plausible however. Let's say 30 ST unload from 12'' away on a tactical squad. 30 shots. 15 hits. 6 W on avg. Again, what am I missing here.. Is the flexibility of DS really worth it? I really feel the AP3 is somewhat negated with S3 and the high points cost.
Ailaros wrote: The non-anti-infantry firepower is, indeed, somewhat lackluster, I'll grant, but when they catch marines out in the open, they're dead, in one turn. When there's something trying to hold onto a backfield objective, they're dead, in one go. They have a lot of strategic use. You've got to look at more than just their firepower to see that.
10 Stormtroopers Deep Strike in to attack 10 Tactical Marines outside of cover. Let's assume that everyone is within rapid fire range and that each flamer gets 6 hits (this is highly generous). 16 hellgun shots inflict 32/3 hits and 32/9 wounds. The flamers inflict six wounds and two guys fail saves. So under extremely favorable conditions, a 10 man Stormtrooper drop with two flamers will likely kill five or six Marines, and one or two Terminators. If the enemy has Interceptors, this is somewhat risky and might even ruin your unit (a quad-gun will fairly reliably kill two or three Stormtroopers before they get to attack, potentially provoking a Morale check). If you scatter at all, your flamers will be much less effective and you could very well find yourself out of Rapid Fire range with several models, considering that this is only 9" for hot-shot lasguns now.
In response, the remaining four or five Marines can run up, throw a frag grenade which will hit like 7 or 8 guys if it hits, shoot bolt pistols/flamers/meltas, and charge. If they have a flamer of their own, it'll hit everybody. Also, any plasma cannon, Whirlwind, etc. has a reasonable chance of blowing up your extremely expensive unit of T3 4+ save models.
Honestly, I don't think Stormtroopers are good except as a means of getting Scouting Chimeras or suicide melta Deep Strikers. Despite being an "anti-MEQ" unit, they just don't pack enough punch, and they cost as much as the Marines they are purportedly able to counter. Considering that they aren't even that good at doing that, I would definitely drop or deemphasize them. I feel like you got lucky with your initial tests of Stormtroopers and have kind of gone nuts on them as a result, but realistically they just aren't that effective or reliable for their points.
well... what you're missing is what I said you were missing in my last post. You're looking at stormies as nothing more than a melta delivery system. In that role, of course stormicide squads make the most sense. What I'm saying is that there is a lot more to stormies than their special weapons.
To note something you said specifically, don't forget that stormies are BS4. If you drop them in close against a tac squad, and get 9 flamer hits per flamer, that's 18 flamer hits and 12 hellgun hits. The hellguns put down 4 marines, and the flamers put down 3 more. In return, 3 marines are NOT killing off 10 stormies. In shooting, the stormies get an armor save. In assault, stormies get AP3 overwatch. In a contest between flamer stormies and anything in power armor, the stormies win, and win handily.
On another note, keeping with my list problem, I think I may have gotten it. I don't actually need to take away stormies to add in hydras...
Of course, it is a bit of a risk, what with a lighter troops section, but dang. 4 hydras and 3 full stormie squads is going to mess stuff up. And the troops still have carapace, and they still have the ADL cover.
Kingsley wrote:Let's assume that everyone is within rapid fire range and that each flamer gets 6 hits (this is highly generous).
It's really not, though. Unlike most other flamers, these deepstrike. And they can reroll to scatter. If you haven't had the insanely poor luck that I have (remember, they've got just under a 2/3ds chance to hit dead on) you can place them up close and very personal.
In any case, the math shows that their initial splash is good enough, and, compared with their resilience, they punch at their points cost, not below. Add to it all of the non-killing-power advantages, and I'm really not seeing myself as being all that overexhuberant.
Stormies are just one of those things that have changed in 6th ed. You can't think about them in exactly the way you thought about them in 5th.
Meh, I see RR's like HWSs, except even worse, as they don't have the option to attack stuff turn 1. If you could still assault from reserves, I'd seriously consider it, but as you can't, it's just something to get shot up before it has a chance to be useful.
True, will probably be cut down like this....
They will die a hero's death but not to any tactical advantage sadly :(
About the deep striking stormies, i would say that its a good idea and solves the problem of getting your men up in the enemies face the 10 man squads have the staying power and extra firepower which is useful when you want every gun you can get against the opponents weaker backfield, if only the could deepstrike with chimeras......
I'm seriously considering taking a outflanking Al rahem platoon with no current way to move up squads effectively he seems like the best option, even if he shows up on a board edge with no enemies he can just collect linebreaker with his entourage. I think outfitting the entire platoon with chimeras also might be a good idea with the extra survivability and firepower
On another note, keeping with my list problem, I think I may have gotten it. I don't actually need to take away stormies to add in hydras...
Of course, it is a bit of a risk, what with a lighter troops section, but dang. 4 hydras and 3 full stormie squads is going to mess stuff up. And the troops still have carapace, and they still have the ADL cover.
Regarding your list, like before i think that the Hydras are a great addition. Don't forget that the Hydras get heavy bolters too! so in the event that there are no fliers you can use your Hydras as mounted HWS' with HB and BS 1 autocannons.
I'm beginning to understand what you want to acheive with the stormtroopers. It's a pretty neat gambit actually that you just might pull off, but here are some things to consider:
- It's almost 30% of your list
- The chance of landing "on the spot" is actually closer to 1/2 than 2/3. In fact in appx 1/12 of your games all will scatter. The chance of none scattering is slightly less than 20%
- They will have very little support.
Some ideas:
- Marbo. Cheaper and will more reliably arrive where needed.
- Al'rahem. Could outflank and bring men and some heavy guns to support the Storm troopers.
- Astropath to make it more likey reserves arrive together. Remember he also allows you to reroll which edge outflankers arrive at.
- Mortars. I know, they are crap, but they are also the only foot guard weapon that is mobile in the sense that it can reach out to almost any part of the table.
- Master of Ordnance. I know, he is crap, but see mortars above. Take two and hope they hurt something. Bring in the ST to mop up.
I also liked how you put the Aegis infront of your army and moved into position the first round. I missed that at first, thanks for pointing it out. There is a clear risk CC oriented armies will pick up on that idea though...
Even though I'm likely to build a combined force myself I've been toying with different ideas of ways to play foot. One idea I had was to use a refused flank approach with plenty of units in reserve to counter enemy mobility.
NOTE: It's pretty far from the army you are trying to build, so see it as an inspiration, not me telling you to redo your army.
NOTE: The attached image is a sketch. I'm sure I'm way over 1850pts and probably breaking a few rules as well!
What kind of weapons do those Necron flyers have on them? I don't know the range or strength but on the batreps I read on here they seem to carve a swath of destruction. Are you sure Hydras would get the first shot off? I'm worried they'd just be the first targets and get wiped by the vehicles since they don't have interceptor.
NWansbutter wrote: What kind of weapons do those Necron flyers have on them? I don't know the range or strength but on the batreps I read on here they seem to carve a swath of destruction. Are you sure Hydras would get the first shot off? I'm worried they'd just be the first targets and get wiped by the vehicles since they don't have interceptor.
Some sort of 4 shot, S6 weapon. Reminded me of the Supa Shootas on a dakkajet. It's only 4 shots though, so while it picked off my PCS's pretty reliably, I wasn't too afraid of it. In the game I played against one, I ended up ignoring it after it dropped it's payload, since it really didn't have anything important it could threaten. I'm sure they could easily glance a hydra to death though.
As for the stormtroopers, maybe you should toy around with the other doctrines they have? Aeriel Insertion isn't the only one you can take after all. You can have them infiltrate with pinning on the first shot, and can get them to outflank as well. Maybe you should experiment with these some and see if they can help?
The other idea would be to deploy them how an actual special forces unit would deploy I.E. Not in an open field right behind a tank. Maybe try dropping them in behind a building, or in a little defended area, so they have breathing room to spread out and engage the flank of your enemy or move to objectives to deny them. For example, dropping a squad off near an objective you think your enemy will attempt to grab towards the end of the game in his deployment, and have them guard it. I've never tried anything like this with stormies, but if you're going to run them as special forces units that aren't supposed to die in one turn, maybe you should try stuff other than land next to the tank and hope to god they kill it.
dakka farta wrote:True, will probably be cut down like this....
They will die a hero's death but not to any tactical advantage sadly :(
PUNISHER CANNONS!
Seriously, though, I think RR's are less likely to reenact the glorious final charge of the satsuma rebellion, and the story of my equine escapades are going to look more like this:
dakka farta wrote:I'm seriously considering taking a outflanking Al rahem platoon with no current way to move up squads effectively he seems like the best option, even if he shows up on a board edge with no enemies he can just collect linebreaker with his entourage.
zoat wrote:- Al'rahem. Could outflank and bring men and some heavy guns to support the Storm troopers.
- Astropath to make it more likey reserves arrive together. Remember he also allows you to reroll which edge outflankers arrive at.
When I eventually get around to it, I guess I'll still consider it. Al'Rahem has his own problems, though. There was a reason I stopped taking him (see previous battle reports in this series for the dakka debate).
I'd like to note, though, that even with an astropath, there's still a 1 in 9 chance that his several hundred points wind up on the wrong side. That's not exactly all that much better than hundreds of points of stormies showing up somewhere worthless.
zoat wrote:- The chance of landing "on the spot" is actually closer to 1/2 than 2/3. In fact in appx 1/12 of your games all will scatter. The chance of none scattering is slightly less than 20%
- They will have very little support.
As for the latter, any unit that shows up in the backfield will have support problems. In any case, I think there's a learning curve here that I haven't mastered.
For the former, yeah, it's a gamble, but anything with dice is. Yes, it has a slightly higher risk level with being with a slightly tinier number of die rolls that other things (as far as large numbers are concerned), but I've noticed, not just from myself, but from reading other people's battle reports and old-fashioned asking them, that 6th edition seems to have much, much narrower margins than 5th. 6th ed games seem to be determined by just a few decisions and just a few critical die rolls more than its predecessor.
If this is the case anyways, it encourages go-big-or-go-home behavior (which I think was intentional on GW's part). If "safe" odds wind up winning or losing games on a couple of key die rolls basically just as often as "risky" odds, then there isn't much reason to limit yourself to "safe" odds (if there ever really was one in the first place).
zoat wrote:Master of Ordnance. I know, he is crap, but see mortars above. Take two and hope they hurt something. Bring in the ST to mop up.
I'm not against MoOs, and rather liked them when I fielded them (they allowed me to put little artillery blast things on my pictures:
The problem isn't the MoO, per se, the problem is the CCS. In order for the MoO to work, the squad has to stand still, which is congruous with a shooty CCS. I spent an entire rules edition with Daxos P Clinton being nothing but a hot air bag. Never really doing anything.
I didn't think I missed melchoir until I started running him again. Melchoir Theleos is a hero of the Imperium. I can't take him and Sanario AND have a MoO at the same time. Unfortunately for the artillery officer, he's not the one I'd rather have of those two.
zoat wrote:I also liked how you put the Aegis infront of your army and moved into position the first round. I missed that at first, thanks for pointing it out. There is a clear risk CC oriented armies will pick up on that idea though...
Yeah, that's a neat trick I picked up somewhere. I like it because it means that, for free, I get my forces at least 1/4 of the way up no man's land.
I don't know if I'd worry about assault armies picking this up. Whatever they gain in durability, they lose because they need to make a difficult terrain test over the aegis. More likely than not, this will mean that they have to spend an extra turn on the board before they get into CC, which means less durability overall.
Put another way, a cleverly-placed aegis won't save assault armies.
zoat wrote:Even though I'm likely to build a combined force myself I've been toying with different ideas of ways to play foot. One idea I had was to use a refused flank approach with plenty of units in reserve to counter enemy mobility.
Hmm, I'll come back to this when I'm done with vets.
NWansbutter wrote:What kind of weapons do those Necron flyers have on them? I don't know the range or strength but on the batreps I read on here they seem to carve a swath of destruction. Are you sure Hydras would get the first shot off? I'm worried they'd just be the first targets and get wiped by the vehicles since they don't have interceptor.
The tesla blasters. The ones that shoot 5 times for an average of 8 hits. Yeah, they would have been tough on hydras, but look at what I took out to field them. The PP is a loss, but the plasma vets didn't do anything anyways.
Plus, to give the hydra credit here, a squad of two of them only NEEDS one round of shooting to blow a night scythe out of the sky.
MrMoustaffa wrote:As for the stormtroopers, maybe you should toy around with the other doctrines they have? Aeriel Insertion isn't the only one you can take after all. You can have them infiltrate with pinning on the first shot, and can get them to outflank as well. Maybe you should experiment with these some and see if they can help?
Maybe try dropping them in behind a building, or in a little defended area, so they have breathing room to spread out and engage the flank of your enemy or move to objectives to deny them.
I've never really had anything but disaster from infiltration. I don't know if I'm just using it that wrong or if it's just worse than deepstriking. It seems like the best I'd get is a semi-supported area denial unit. I feel like it could do better otherwise...
But perhaps being more cautious is really the name of the game. Perhaps I have to think of them as more of a board control unit than a show up and kill stuff unit. I don't know. It feels like a skill that I just really haven't gotten the knack for yet.
dakka farta wrote:if only the could deepstrike with chimeras...
Ailaros wrote: well... what you're missing is what I said you were missing in my last post. You're looking at stormies as nothing more than a melta delivery system. In that role, of course stormicide squads make the most sense. What I'm saying is that there is a lot more to stormies than their special weapons.
To note something you said specifically, don't forget that stormies are BS4. If you drop them in close against a tac squad, and get 9 flamer hits per flamer, that's 18 flamer hits and 12 hellgun hits. The hellguns put down 4 marines, and the flamers put down 3 more. In return, 3 marines are NOT killing off 10 stormies. In shooting, the stormies get an armor save. In assault, stormies get AP3 overwatch. In a contest between flamer stormies and anything in power armor, the stormies win, and win handily.
Did you read my post? I went over this specifically. Suffice it to say that 9 flamer hits per flamer is absurd (even Hellhounds can't rely on these sorts of hit rates, and they don't have to Deep Strike) and any scatter will not only deprive your flamers of hits but may put hellguns out of rapid fire range.
Ailaros wrote:In any case, the math shows that their initial splash is good enough
It doesn't. It really, really, doesn't.
Ailaros wrote:and, compared with their resilience,
T3 4+ is not resilient. T3 4+ is below average, especially since Storm Troopers come down in base-to-base contact if they don't Run after Deep Striking and are hence horrendously vulnerable to blasts and template weapons of all kinds.
Ailaros wrote:Stormies are just one of those things that have changed in 6th ed. You can't think about them in exactly the way you thought about them in 5th.
Yeah. In 5th edition they were better, because you could use Smoke Launchers with your Chimera after Scouting and got to Rapid Fire your hotshot lasguns at 12" instead of 9".
If you score 9 hits on a unit with a flamer, either your opponent is bad enough that nothing you do matters because you've already won, you just exploded a very full old style Rhino, which probably killed several of your Storm Troopers in the explosion, or you're shooting at a horde of orks or termagants or hormagaunts who won't care about your inflected casualties or your Wall of Death overwatch and will just rip you a new donkey-cave in close combat.
You guys are missing the point. Deepstriking. They let you put your flamers anywhere. Getting 9 hits with flamers isn't absurd. I've done it already.
There are lots of reasons to bunch up in places that people think are safe - behind an ADL, or behind a building, etc. Normal flamers are worthless against them. Deepstriking flamers are not.
As for a horde, do the math. A mob of boyz at 175 points is what, 20 boys and a nob? Even assuming only 6 flamer hits, that's 10 boyz killed on the drop, followed up by 4 more on overwatch. Then the stormies get to strike before the boyz now, killing another boy before they get a chance to swing. 5 boyz up against 10 guys in 4+ armor save is going to be really tough, and if the sarge challenges, it's keeping the klaw out of their face.
And this is in a situation that's being presented as worst case. Even if the stormies lose, all you're saying is that a unit that's up against a unit that they're bad against will lose. Next we'll get to hear about meltaguns being good against tanks? Perhaps we shouldn't use those either, then, as there is something out there that can counter them.
Tautologies aside, it still misses the point. Killing power is ONE things that stormies can do. If I ONLY cared about killing power, then I'd only ever take HS slots. Turns out that there is more to this game than raw power, though.
Ailaros wrote: You guys are missing the point. Deepstriking. They let you put your flamers anywhere. Getting 9 hits with flamers isn't absurd. I've done it already.
Even with a reroll, you will scatter 4/9 of the time. So you only even get to put the flamer where you want slightly more than half the time, and that's assuming it doesn't get Intercepted (for obvious reasons, flamers tend to be the closest models to the enemy). This seems very clearly not reliable enough.
Every unit in the codex has reasons not to take them. It's generally not that difficult to find them. Saying nothing more than that they're not perfect is meaningless.
Kingsley has a point though. Landing deep strike units will become more difficult as Interceptors can fire out of sequence at any unit that entered from reserve that turn.
I'd like to note, though, that even with an astropath, there's still a 1 in 9 chance that his several hundred points wind up on the wrong side. That's not exactly all that much better than hundreds of points of stormies showing up somewhere worthless.
While in principle correct I think you are making it sound worse than it is. With the astropath the outflankers will appear at turn two on 2+, so your stormtroopers will know Al'rahem ended up on the "wrong" side of the table and can deploy accordingly. In this case think of it as them supporting Al'rahem.
I read the other Hand of the King series battle reports and I get the impression that what you really need to do is some more praying to the dice gods!
That being said I agree with your conclusion that guardsmen in general and HWS in particular seem to melt away too easily...
As for the stormtroopers, maybe you should toy around with the other doctrines they have? Aeriel Insertion isn't the only one you can take after all. You can have them infiltrate with pinning on the first shot, and can get them to outflank as well. Maybe you should experiment with these some and see if they can help?
Maybe try dropping them in behind a building, or in a little defended area, so they have breathing room to spread out and engage the flank of your enemy or move to objectives to deny them.
The point is for the Stormies to get shots at their enemies before they are fired upon and are more of an alpha strike unit, if your opponent sees them out in their deployment they will blast them to pieces in fear of melta shots against their weaker backfield. An added detractor is that the stormtrooper weapons are generally short-ranged.
Aliaros PUNISHER CANNONS!
Seriously, though, I think RR's are less likely to reenact the glorious final charge of the satsuma rebellion, and the story of my equine escapades are going to look more like this:
When I eventually get around to it, I guess I'll still consider it. Al'Rahem has his own problems, though. There was a reason I stopped taking him (see previous battle reports in this series for the dakka debate).
I'd like to note, though, that even with an astropath, there's still a 1 in 9 chance that his several hundred points wind up on the wrong side. That's not exactly all that much better than hundreds of points of stormies showing up somewhere worthless.
Sometimes you just have to rely on that number to win the game, its a game of luck you are betting on that all the time with all your units, plus linebreaker makes them more useful now. Outflanking IG seems the way to go now imo for footguard but i would suggest keeping the Rahem platoon light with 3 PIS to avoid a massive point drain and potential blunder if they fail in coming in the right area.
I'm not against MoOs, and rather liked them when I fielded them (they allowed me to put little artillery blast things on my pictures:
You should make some fluffy ariel shots of the battlefield featuring explosions and more cool sfx, it really puts the life in the battle reports.
By the way Aliaros, i'm thinking of making a battle report sometime and i was just wondering whether it would be okay to use your format (5th and 4th ed one), since i really like their style and fluid way of displaying the battle, not that your current ones don't its just i do not want to make two separate ones.
Ailaros wrote: it's not that challenging to get 20 flamer hits in with a pair of flamers in addition to all that hellgun fire.
I've seen you say this many times now in defense of the stormies. 20 hits with 2 flamers?!? Are you playing against fantasy armies here? 4-6 hits per flamer with a hit, sure, but 10? Sounds like you should add tons of blast templates to blast all those ranked units away.
Edit: I see others have already commented, point still stands though
TheMicah25 wrote:I think moderation will win the day in this list. As i mentioned in a previous game of yours, why dont you try 2 units of 10 stormies and marbo?
This will save you some points and marbo can do things the stormies cant thereby giving you greater options for cheaper.
But what am I really gaining from marbo? It seems like I'd be dropping a 10x carapace guard squad with Ap3 BS4 weapons so that I could have... a single battlecannon shot?
DarknessEternal wrote:
Ailaros wrote:
NWansbutter wrote:What kind of weapons do those Necron flyers have on them?
The tesla blasters. The ones that shoot 5 times for an average of 8 hits.
Tesla Destructors have 4 shots, are twin-linked, and any roll of 6 to hit is 3 hits instead of one. They average 5 and 1/3 hit per time firing.
Ah, so the flyers put down a bit shy of 11 hits per round of shooting, with the possibility of getting more by arcing.
Illumini wrote:20 hits with 2 flamers?!? Are you playing against fantasy armies here? 4-6 hits per flamer with a hit, sure, but 10? Sounds like you should add tons of blast templates to blast all those ranked units away.
Once again. Deepstriking.
On the one hand, I can actually get flamers suicidally close. On the other hand, there are places on the board where my opponents feel safe bunching up (because they're out of LOS, for example), and the stormies can attack what was once unassailable positions with flame throwers. It is entirely possible to spread out or defend yourself against frontal attacks in such a way that they become more vulnerable to deepstriking.
NWansbutter wrote:What kind of weapons do those Necron flyers have on them?
The tesla blasters. The ones that shoot 5 times for an average of 8 hits.
Tesla Destructors have 4 shots, are twin-linked, and any roll of 6 to hit is 3 hits instead of one. They average 5 and 1/3 hit per time firing.
Ah, so the flyers put down a bit shy of 11 hits per round of shooting, with the possibility of getting more by arcing.
No, Nightscythes are armed with a single Tesla Destructor, so 5 hits on average with arc, which is trivial. They have no other weapons or ways to gain other weapons.
Doomscythes, the other flier, have a single Tesla Destructor and the line of powerful randomness.
Annihilation Barges have a single Tesla Destructor and can also have a Tesla Cannon (2 shots, not twin linked). But they are not Fliers, they are Skimmers (not even Fast Skimmers).
TheMicah25 wrote:I think moderation will win the day in this list. As i mentioned in a previous game of yours, why dont you try 2 units of 10 stormies and marbo?
This will save you some points and marbo can do things the stormies cant thereby giving you greater options for cheaper.
But what am I really gaining from marbo? It seems like I'd be dropping a 10x carapace guard squad with Ap3 BS4 weapons so that I could have... a single battlecannon shot?
An AP2 battle cannon shot. its good for lots of things dont forget about its boost on the damage table. You are also gaining more precision. not to mention saving points for more troops. By using marbo you are increasing the flexibility of your army and adding things that the storm troopers can do but not as well.
But what am I really gaining from marbo? It seems like I'd be dropping a 10x carapace guard squad with Ap3 BS4 weapons so that I could have... a single battlecannon shot?
Considering an optimal situation (hit on turn two, all weapons in range for double tap, ten hits per flamer), for 175 points, your Stormies come in and can take down, on average, one squad of marines by the end of turn three (7 kills turn two, 3 turn three). In return they lose one guy to that squad. More likely than not, that will be their only kill of the game. Anything within 18 inches will shoot the stormies, and they will be hurt badly enough to be more or less worthless, but we'll say that for the rest of the game they accumulate five more kills.
Considering the same for Marbo, for 65 points, comes in and drops a Str 8 AP2 large blast. In a squad of ten, assuming it covers all of them, it has over a 90% chance of either hitting or scattering so little that Marbo's BS 5 turns it into a hit. The blast will kill 9 marines on average. That one marine will, likely fail to even put a wound on Marbo, let alone two. But in the following turn, Marbo can charge the marine and kill him handily. That forces your opponent to choose between letting Marbo wreak havoc in his backfield, and firing enough guns to put two wounds on 6+ cover in the open, 5+ if gone to ground, and 4+ if gone to ground in cover. And Marbo can wreak a lot of havoc, considering he has more tools on his belt than Batman.
But what am I really gaining from marbo? It seems like I'd be dropping a 10x carapace guard squad with Ap3 BS4 weapons so that I could have... a single battlecannon shot?
Considering an optimal situation (hit on turn two, all weapons in range for double tap, ten hits per flamer), for 175 points, your Stormies come in and can take down, on average, one squad of marines by the end of turn three (7 kills turn two, 3 turn three). In return they lose one guy to that squad. More likely than not, that will be their only kill of the game. Anything within 18 inches will shoot the stormies, and they will be hurt badly enough to be more or less worthless, but we'll say that for the rest of the game they accumulate five more kills.
Considering the same for Marbo, for 65 points, comes in and drops a Str 8 AP2 large blast. In a squad of ten, assuming it covers all of them, it has over a 90% chance of either hitting or scattering so little that Marbo's BS 5 turns it into a hit. The blast will kill 9 marines on average. That one marine will, likely fail to even put a wound on Marbo, let alone two. But in the following turn, Marbo can charge the marine and kill him handily. That forces your opponent to choose between letting Marbo wreak havoc in his backfield, and firing enough guns to put two wounds on 6+ cover in the open, 5+ if gone to ground, and 4+ if gone to ground in cover. And Marbo can wreak a lot of havoc, considering he has more tools on his belt than Batman.
If its area terrain it would be a 2+ cover save. 5+ base. G2G makes it 3+. Stealth then makes it a 2+. Seeing as most 5+ terrain is area terrain thats pretty good.
I agree on Marbo, he does everything the stormtroopers can do but for cheaper and be more reliable. Only thing he can't do is crack landraiders, but he should be targeting the guys inside anyways.
I've been killing all kinds of stuff with him in 6th. That take models from closest to the firer is brutal. I killed an emperor's champion today with him, and still killed a good 5 crusaders as well. I've also killed chaplains, an archon, and 2 squads of longfangs who thought they were safe. He really is worth every point. Plus, he never scatters. So you can put him up on that balcony of a ruin and he'll be just fine with zero scatter. Let's see your stormies do that. You have a game where he literally showed up INSIDE YOUR CCS. You can't tell me that isn't effective.
Also, run some regular russes again. I know you're deadset against them, but they're much better in 5th. Give em a lascannon (no bolter sponsons, they're terrible snapshotting all the time) My russes haven't let me down once yet. The battlecannon got a LOT more powerful this edition. I've been hunting tanks with it as much as infantry now, and have only lost 2 to shooting so far, over about 12 games. They just soak up so much firepower (people see them as a threat, unlike exterminators. That big cannon just seems to have that pyschological effect) The nerf to cover, full strength anywhere on the template, that hull lascannon, and all that armor makes it a force to be reckoned with. Just try it again, you'll be (pleasantly) surprised.
Also, and this will sound like madness, but I ran blobs today. Didn't have time to do proper battle reports (let's see you play 2 seperate 1,000pts lists you wrote the night before against 2 guys teamed up against you with over a hundred models in your army) but the blobs kicked some serious butt. Game one, a blob with axes killed an entire 15 crusader squad, and the second gutted a harlequin squad, and managed to even hold off a second full strength one for a turn after the other one hit and ra on turn 3 (blob two was running maces) Game two, the axe blob fought a unit of grey hunters and got them down to half strength (I positioned my blob horribly and didn't hit anywhere near full strength with my axes) The mace blob killed an entire death company squad due to some clever use of enfeeble and a friendly neighborhood lord commissar with a fist. And even if I hadn't enfeebled them, it only would've taken another turn with all the wounds those maces throw down. They then proceeded to beat a Baal predator to death with their maces, and were about to take on mephiston himself when the game ended on turn 5.
I thought precision shot would wreck them, but with all the characters in the squad, it was far easier to keep the commissars alive than I thought it would be. Only time they died early were against units that would've swept them before anyways, so it wasn't a big change. They still need some tweaking, but I think IG just might be able to keep running them, especially in low points games. Maybe you should try them out again. Artillery spam armies will be scary, and if someone runs a good amount of snipers you might sweat, but they're pretty rare army compositions right now, and I think they may have a better shot than we thought. I tried them with a primaris pysker and a lord commissar with carapace and fist w/ meltabombs, but I think using a couple blobs as a solid core wouldn't be a bad idea for a larger army. I'm going to play around with it more though, as 2 games isn't anywhere near enough to call this "fact" yet. All I know was that by game 2, I had a blood angels and a space wolf player both hesitant on charging guardsmen because they didn't want to get stomped in combat. It was a good feeling I'll let you know how they do after a few more games. Hopefully I can get a battle report made next weekend when I've got some more time to take pics.
Sorry guys, I really don't see it. To compare the durability of one guardsman, even with stealth, against an entire squad of stormies is a joke. Furthermore, the firepower is nowhere near the same. Melta stormies have Ap1 and the chance of +D6. The demo charge is probably just peeling off a HP. Meanwhile, having a huge pile of BS4 hellguns is way better against most infantry unless your opponent is wadding up into a circle (flamers in this case being better as most people put their troops into lines that are vulnerable to enfilade). Most importantly, when they survive, they shoot the melta/hellguns again.
Marbo is a one-shot earthshaker cannon. A suicide unit. 10x stormtrooper squads are a take and hold unit. Very different roles.
As for russes. What I need to support my troops is anti-flier. Regular russes don't fit the bill. As for what else regular russes are good against, I've now got melta duravets with lascannons and melta stormies (for vehicles), and a flock of Ap3 hellguns for marines.
The LRBT still easily takes its spot in the top three russ variants, but, plainly put, I don't NEED russes. Were I to drop my stormies, of course they'd suddenly look rather interesting.
As for blobs, how do you even get them into close combat? It's so easy to just wipe out a squad that LoS! doesn't even mean anything, and wound allocation stripping guys from the front and random assault ranges means you're going to spend an extra turn or two on the board before you make it into close combat.
Unless I know WHY your blobs were successful, I can't really endorse them. Perhaps if your opponents are displaying the same questionable behavior that's keeping your HWSs alive, but without something more concrete, I have to remain skeptical in the face of overwhelming deductive force.
Used them more as defensive units, like how the orks are using shoota boy mobs now. Moving up, holding mid field and shooting the enemy till they're forced to charge them. Then they tie the enemy up most of the game, like they did in 5th. Pretty straightfoward. Like I said, need more games to nail them down and make sure it wasn't a "fluke", but they performed very well. They're only 200-300pt guardsmen units, they are not walking across the board murdering everything in sight. Just like in 5th, they can't beat the real crazy assault units, but that's because those crazy assault units are double their points. But in anything even remotely close to a fair fight, they held their own. Of course, i was fighting units that had very few characters. Let me fight a nob squad or some paladins and we'll see what they're really capable of then.
They take a lot more work now, and I wouldn't build an entire army around them, but they still make good central units to hold the line it seems. 1 or 2, and then bring lots of smaller infantry squads seems like it wouldn't be a bad idea for example.
Also, while marbo is a "one hit wonder", he is far more reliable, and one third the cost of your storm trooper squads. He pops up and doesn't scatter, and with BS 5, doesn't scatter very often. Try him and use him to pick off warlords or pesky support units. That's what he's made for after all. We're calling him a hitman for a reason.
As for the russ, fair enough, but after a few games with the exterminator, I learned pretty quickly why people never shot at it, because it never really posed as much of a threat as a regular russ does. And with all the heavy weapons I bring, I usually just end up spamming bring it down until the fliers I care about die. Or just ignore them and kill things that can actually control the board, whichever works.
Actually I got my self worked up yesterday doing the numbers on a blob boosted by the "reroll to hit" spell. That would be an awesome unit shooting at about BS 4.5, snapfiring at the equivalent of BS 2 and then rerolling hits in CC if charged.
Then when I tried to build a list around this idea I relized our psyker cannot take divination... And then we have the "It's for your own good" rule... Well, well, I would consider bringing in an ally just to try this combo out though.
Running a Lord Commisar warlord and putting him in a blob could also mean you get some use of the warlord traits and (for better or worse?) be fairly confident you opponent will focus on this unit.
Marbo is great. I hear you when you say you want some staying power in the back field, but I wonder if that staying power might not be improved if you replaced the flamer ST with Marbo. He has a much more reliable alpha strike and could probably remove one of the most urgent threats to your remaining 2 ST giving them better survivability. As well as saving about 100pts.
Still don't see marbo. I ran him for awhile in 5th ed, and I can't imagine he's much different in 6th. BS5 looks great, but when you consider that an average scatter is 7", that still all but scatters off what you were pointing at. With even mildly bad luck, marbo's one shot of glory is just wasted. Quick math shows that marbo COMPLETELY misses what he throws his demo charge at a third of the time. That's right, it's the equivalent of a single BS4 earthshaker round. Given that he doesn't bust cover or come with multi-shot weapons, it seems like he'd be the same as before - occasionally awesome, occasionally a waste of an elites choice, and usually worth roughly only 65 points of nuisance before he dies.
Yes, he can "snipe" now, but with the relatively few hits you're likely to put down, LoS! becomes a real issue.
As for blobs, I suppose I'd agree that they'd only work in CC as a countercharge unit. You'd still have to keep them alive, though. The other thing I've noticed is that the only way people are being able to even remotely consider blobs is with a hard IC leading them, whether a rune priest or a lord commissar, or whatever. This makes me think that you really can only have as many blobs as you have tough ICs to lead them.
... and you still have to keep them alive...
On an unrelated note, wow, over 90 posts in this thread? That's nearly double of the most commented upon blood conquers report.
Yeah I see myself using them as counter charge units or as something to hold an objective in a dangerous area. They can't walk across the board though and kick teeth in, that's obvious. They make a great unit for guarding heavy weapon crews and tanks though.
But when orks can't walk across the board either, it might not be so much IG, as just that's the way this edition is. A lot of ork players I know are just walking their shootas halfway up the board, shooting all game, and forcing the enemy to assault them to pull them off. I'm going to try blobs in this way as well just to see how they do, but probably won't be running into the enemy deployment unless I'm against another IG or a Tau player
As for the precision shot thing, one thing I've noticed about the units that have it, is that they were units that annihilated us in close combat anyways back in 5th. Nobs, paladins, etc. they all wiped blobs easily back in 5th. Now they just do it in a different way. Most regular squads only have 1 or 2 characters in them, so they don't seem to get many precision shots off. We've got like 4 or 5, so we're pretty much guaranteed at least one or two 6's. I found that to be almost as much of a boon as power mauls and axes are. However, I've gotta admit that wounding on a 3 or a 4 against marines is awesome as well Still split on which to take though, they're both amazing when you can get them against their preferred targets.
What you're describing is basically how I've run blobs a few times in 6th. Keep them simple and cheap, use them to go after a midfield objective and hang on to it.
As far as Marbo is concerned, I've run him a number of times. He's a gamble, but so are Stormtroopers, they're just a different kind of gamble. With Marbo, you're gambling that the Demo Charge hits. If it doesn't he's not going to earn his points back, but they still have to deal with him, because he's got fleet meltabombs. He's not hard to deal with, as he only has two wounds, but he's not easy to deal with, as he's got Stealth, and will be in cover unless you're dumb. Stormtroopers are gambling on their Deep Strike roll, which is about a 55% chance of spot on success, and is a bit higher if you include scatters that don't suck. Nevertheless, it's a gamble either way, especially if you use heavily placement dependent weapons like Flamers.
And seriously, like 1/3rd the price of a full size Stormtrooper squad. That's another squad of Grenadier meltavets.
Yes, but it's a 55% chance that marbo will do NOTHING while it's a 55% chance that the stormtroopers will merely be delayed or be in a less than ideal position when they land. A single guardsmen doing nothing and then dying, and the above with 10 stormtroopers are not analogous. You do really get what you pay for with the stormies.
Yes, it's possible for stormies to scatter in the exact wrong direction the exact wrong number of inches and then roll a 1 on the mishap table (as these two games show), but it's also possible for Marbo to do nothing but blow himself up either.
I'd also add that people are highballing the stormie scatter. Yes, it's a .55 to hit, but that's not the only acceptable result. If I put down my melta stormtroopers 6" away from a vehicle, they can scatter in (almost) any direction up to 5" and still be in range. They can scatter up to 6" in most directions and still be in range. Hell, there are some directions that they can scatter 12" (say, directly over the vehicle and on the other side), and still be in range.
If you allow for the stormies to be good if they roll a hit OR roll a scatter of 6" or less, that brings acceptable stormie scattering from .55 all the way up to .85. That sounds pretty reliable to me, especially since half of mishaps are merely delayed. Really, what you've been seeing is nearly the trashiest luck I could have with them.
The list looks more supported and much more balanced now, Lascannons and Meltas to engage Infantry and ground vehicles while the Hydras light up the sky ridding you of flyers, skimmers etc. It seems to solve one of your problems in this battle report, the fact that flyers can't shoot over the aegis due to the swathes of hydra fire makes your infantry a lot more durable against fire.
