Your most dreaded opponent?

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**Lordhat**

I was looking at the "What threatens you the most" thread, and I realised that no unit exists in a vacuum. Yes some units are more threatening than others, but every unit needs an army around it to take some of the pressure off, screen for saves, tie up CC etc. I'm making this thread to see what happens out there on the tabletop, how it's countered, how the counter is countered, and so forth.

PLEASE LEAVE OUT THE COMMENTS ON OTHER'S POSTS FOR NOW. I JUST WANT A SAMPLING OF STRATEGIES AND TACTICS, NOT A DEBATE ON WHETHER GROTS ARE THE BEST WAY TO KEEP OBLITERATORS FROM SHOOTING. THANK YOU.

So what I'm looking for here is:

1. What Faction do you play? (Do specify what flavor; every faction has multiple different configurations; This is why WH40K is fun!)

2. What's your strategy with your list? (Is there a very specific role for each unit? Are the majority of your units set up to take advantage of any given situation? A little of both? Is your list designed to dominate in one or two areas, or is it designed to deny your opponent their strategies?)

3. What Faction gives you the most problems? Why, and what do you do to mitigate the impact your opponent's list has on the game?

**JD21290**

1: im a green skin

2: small ammount of supporting fire while pushing the boyz into combat as soon as possible, then let large numbers of attacks kill off most things, while shotting anything that bugs me with lootaz / kanz, and the odd tank shock with the wagon

3: nids :K
hate the bloody things, most armies you can charge into with orks, and have little in the way of problems, however, nids in combat match orks pretty well, ripper swarms have a habbit of keeping units away from the fight, while i get pissed off with my mek being munched on by raveners that come from nowhere :K

oh, and i missed 1 big thing, pie plate galore :K
no unit of boyz like a shooty fex hiding from them, and blasting away until his heart is content :(

**Mekboy**

1. Orks, semi horde but moving more towards speed freaks now.
2. Basicly run screaming at 'em. The SAG and grots sit on some objective, while bikes and trukks go after shooty squads and tanks. If they survive their job is then to go and PK characters to death.
3. Mech tau+ Mech eldar. You run screaming at them...
and they drive off shooting you. You run screaming at them again... and they drive off shooting you. You get the idea...

**Casper**

1) Tau Empire (so footsloggin FW, Suits, Broadsides, HH...etc)

2) Basically since my army is not Mech, or Dropsuit I need to concentrate fire and prioritize which units will get obliterated by my Infantry while my railguns deal with the most prominent threat.

3) Currently Khorne Theamed CSM, 2 winged Deamon Princes tie up most of my fire while the rest of the zerkers scream accross the board. I would assume that other CC armies (BA, BT, KoS Orks) would also present the same problem as they just move to fast for me to constatnly concentrate my firepower and keep my troops out of range.

**Chrysaor686**

1. I'll go ahead and list two of them, since they include my favorite tactics. I run a Raptor Wall Death Guard army, and a 500 point Exorcist Witch Hunters list.

2. My Death Guard rely on the notion that people will always target Assault squads, no matter how fast they're going. So, I run Havocs behind them (Usually with heavy flamers), and once the Raptors are down for the count (it takes a while, if it happens at all, due to T5 and FNP), I mop up everything with Heavy Weapons. Plague marines make good units for sitting atop objectives when I have to. It never results in total domination, but it's just as satisfying as if it did.

And then I manage to squeeze an Exorcist into a 500 point game, and my Witch Hunters absolutely destroy. I usually run two units of SoBs w/ two Meltaguns each, a Bare-bones Exorcist, and an Inquisitor Lord with Scourging, three Acolytes w/ close combat weapons and bolt pistols, and a close combat weapon himself. There's not much Strategy here, except for to try and stay out of CC for as long as possible so the Exorcist can work it's magic. The Inquisitor also kills in a 500 point game, as for all intents and purposes, he has 6 wounds and D6 S5 AP5 shooting attacks.

3. The Death Guard tend to have a problem with highly mechanized armies, as Grenade Launchers just don't cut it against tanks. They still do decently here, but not nearly as well as if the army they face is troop-centric. The SOB have yet to lose a game, but they tend to have a problem with horde CC armies (Actually Tyranids are a bigger problem than Orks, because of leaping).

**Ciaphas-Cain**

1. I play a classic Imperial Guard gun line, with lots of flashlights and the usual compilation of demolisher, basilisk, and russ, as well some allied Sisters of Battle units, depending on the points a few chimeras/hellhounds.

2.I try to position my army well in cover, deployment is key for me, as i try to get the best fire lanes for my men, while still giving them survivability, the basilisk is almost always back of my lines and hopefully behind some cover, the russ lines up on the stronger flank of my army. With this the demolisher is placed on the "weaker" flank. Presenting my opponent with a weaker flank he/she usually sees this as a free entrance into my army, as he hopefully approaches this flank i pour fire from all my special weapons and flashlights. I try to gain armoured superiority at the beginning of the game with my heavy weapons targeting the most dangerous targets (this doesn't mean the best, just most dangerous to me), in the face of a mech army, i try to cripple his anti-tank as soon as possible. After he has breached the weak flank, or destroyed it to shooting, hopefully i have weakened enough of his army that now i can use my superior fire power to cripple whats left of his army.
This doesn't work at all against another shooting army, in which case i hunker down and hope my tanks can win the day for me...not much strategy in that one, just concentrate fire on one thing til its destroyed and move onto the next one, providing my opponent with a target rich environment.

3. My big issues are Drop Pod spam(with the new SM codex this is becoming an issue) and not that surprising, Eldar (of any kind although Dark Eldar tanks rarely scare me) with there speed and dominance of close combat i try to bog him down with bait units with the book of st.lucuis i can sometimes pull this off.. although with those armies played right i am in very big trouble.

**Lord Bingo**

1.My army is a infantry heavy space marine army. I use gate of infintiy with my librarion who has a termie squad backing him up. I use the libarion and a couple of assult squads to outflank the army i'm fighting, tac squads punch up the middle with a dread to support them. I sometimes use a landraider as well.

2.The tac squads are usually ignored in favour of the faster squads. This means they arrive unscathed alot of the time, letting them finish of the enemy after the faster elements bleed the enemy white. I use cover to make sure the tac squads arrive undamamged and i also use cover so that faster elements are not charged. If there is a unit i need to tied up (for example a big unit of orks) i use my dreadnought knowing that it cannot be hit back. I tie up that unit for the rest of the game is need be. However if it is not an objective mission i will charge the tied up unit as soon as possible.

3.My main concern are veichle heavy armies where my lack of long range firepower can be an issue. The plan can be undone as well if the enemy go for the tac squads rather than the assault marines. I can also have problems with tau if i cannot reach them in time and with necrons, always had problems with necrons.

**studderingdave**

1. Bad Moonz Orks. Loads of shooty, lots of killa Kans with a few suprises.

2. Killa Kans wall with 3 units of shoota boyz all protected by a KFF mek. its pretty simple and very effective in most circumstances. unit of stormnoyz around the flank and snikrot from behind.

3. tau. markerlights reduce or eliminate KFF saves, loads of shooting depletes my mobs to quick. when i face tau i make sure snikky takes down a choice target, and i usually play more aggressivly, calling the waaagh earlier to get stuck in when i can.

**bryantsbears**

1. I play Imperial Guard, and am toying around the method by which I run them. At present, it's a modified gunline: I've got a platoon sitting traditional gunline with the armor, I have a squad of grenadiers as the fast troop support and I have a platoon of drop troops I have to react to the situation (and react to armor, etc). I also am quite keen on ratlings and special weapon teams.

2. I try to emphasize each unit's internal synergy. If I have a squad that is meant to be mobile, I'm not going to weigh it down with a heavy weapon. If I've got a rapid fire unit, I'm not going to spend extravangantly to get an assault weapon. I'm not going to put two sniper rifles in a special weapons team with a demolition charge. Wasted shots are not a way to win.

Now, this is not to say that I won't diversify a little bit; I will put meltaguns into my drop platoon (despite the assault nature of them). I will abstain from putting a storm bolter on a veteran sgt if the rest of the unit has flashlights; the bolter is effectively the same and works best with the unit.

3. Factions? Hah. Kill points. Kill points and dawn of war ruin my games.

Straight space marine drop pods also have a tendency to dampen my fun, as do assault heavy lists. I've tried to vary my tactic such that I aim to be more mobile than them (or some amount of flexibility).

(I've run straight drop troops + armor before, and while I'm able to drop in and shoot the crap out of things in 12 inches, but the armor takes a licking in the first two to three rounds, and it becomes a question of how many shots their anti-tank can get in before the rest of the lads chute in).

**Cannerus_The_Unbearable**

1. Transport and traditionally troop heavy Chaos Marines. I use a mixture of different themes depending on what I feel like, but sometimes lend toward lots of MCs, but usually run dual lash sorcs hidden in mobs of embarked infantry with the usual Oblitz

2. If I feel like I can against a list, my ideal game has me sending a few transports up the center and one up the side with a somewhat ridiculous amount of lesser daemons springing forth to add support and to give me some board control in terms who is tied up, plus a few swiss army-type units in reserve (3 termis with combi-weapons and the like). I tried to keep just enough anti-tank to handle what I need and devote the rest to anti-horde jsut in case.

3. Horde's scare me, especially at low point levels since my codex is very "elitish." I try to grab as many templates as I can, and often feel like I need lash just to survive. Necrons are always a problem for me because Mono's are too hard to try and destroy, but a skilled Necron player not only takes away one of my two really decent means of board control (tying up in combat) but also always finds a way to get his WBB rolls. Some games against them I feel like it's not worth going past round 2 :p I try mybest to seperate and destroy what I can, baiting if necessary.

**Dashofpepper**

1. I play Tau - I make gunlines.

2. Outflanking causes me the most trouble, along with units that can get across the board and into CC faster than I can kill them.

3. I deal with it by using sacrificial units to slow the tide.

**Lordhat**

Good answers so far! Keep em coming!

**extrenm(54)**

For my necrons:

Deathwing is the bane of their existence. A super shooty army with almost no AP2. If my opponent rolls better than average than armor saves just once, it usually results in my getting phased out.

For my Khorne CSM:
When I put down 60 berzerkers and 2 DP in 1850, I usually feel pretty good about winning in CC. But BT make me re-think things. Fun to fight, but hard to beat.

However even scarier and this does for my daemons too is Imperial Gaurd. back in 4th I wouldnt have worried at all about steamrolling over a gaurd gun line. But now...with all their tiny squads, guard are unassailable. and I know I need better tactics than just "CHARGE" when fighting them.

**shirou**

1. Sisters. I run exorcists, small celestian squads with melta guns in immolators, and battle sister squads. The battle sisters squads may have rhinos, maybe not, depending on the points.

2. My plan is essentially to push the celestian units (with canoness) to the front. The melta guns are good for destroying vehicles, and the immolators are good for destroying infantry. I will lose many of my celestians, but they are small, cheap units. They usually make up their points many times over. Meanwhile, I am shooting with my exorcists and advancing the battle sister squads, who make up the true core of my army.

3. Orks. All the heavy flamers in my army can be quite dangerous to orks, but even if I kill 25 boyz out of a squad, that leaves 5, including the nob with PK, who by himself is extremely dangerous to my girls. Also, lootas will quickly turn my immolators into flaming wrecks.

**Masaioh**

1. Mechanized chaos apoc/ork speed freeks

2. 'Blitzkrieg' elite squads backed by ordinance/transport zerging

3. Tau in general/Land raider spam because orks have no high-STR ranged so all i have is tankbustas

**Lukus83**

1. I play nids. Nidzilla to be exact. 1 tyrant with 3 guard, 3 strangler fexes and 3 sniperfexes. 47 ouflanking stealers.

2. Its pretty simple. Push up the centre with the heavies. Stealers outflank. Opponent has 2 options as I see it. Stay in the centre where blasts will take their toll, or spread out their deployment and get ripped apart by the genestealers. Normally I leave a couple of broods of stealers in safer spots to collect objectives late game, and position a couple of big bugs to be in a position to contest if the opponent pulls a fast one (such as a landspeeders). Early game its all about the big bugs, late game the stealers take over with the MCs contesting what I cannot control. Ever tried to remove 4 fexes in 2 turns?

3. I havent lost yet, though I can see landraider spam giving me a headache, as well as a tau gunline and necrons. IG arent accurate enough and marines dont have enough guns (generally).

**Karoline Dianne**

1: I currently play Chaos Marines, Slaanesh in particular, but with some small bits of Tzeentch here and there.

2: as of now my army is small, but my general strategy is to get my troops to any strategic locations/objective points while my HQs, Elites, and Heavies do most of the killing. 3 CSM squads and a squad of Summoned lesser Daemons make up my troops. Tzeentch Sorcerer and a flying DP are my normal HQs, and they can do a lot of damage, especially to vehicles and such. A small squad of possessed make up my elites, and a vindicator is my Heavy support.

More is coming in soon, though. I'm getting a squad of bikers, some termies, and a havoc squad very soon. Soon after that I'm planning on getting a lot more in my troops.

3: Nids and Tau really bug me. 'All CC' enemies are annoying because I can't fire my guns at them once they jump into combat... 'All super ranged' enemies bug me because I get sniped to death before I get into decent shooting range.

**nikeforever22**

Army: Dark Angels
Designed: Take all comers and dominate
Most Problems: Anything fielded by Blackmoor, Sazzlefrats, or Darrian13.

**ShumaGorath**

1: I play anti horde shooty marines with a lightning fast light assault element.

2: My general strategy is to denied flank in a corner then just shoot things to death. Shrike and his accompanying assault squad break through and hit anything that is overpowering my gunline as soon as they can (broadside squads and the like). I also field a rhino and drop pod and mix dreadnauts, preds or terminators depending on how I'm feeling.

3: Dark angels are my toughest kill. I have little ability to deal with massed land raiders carrying an army full of 2+ saves. I'm too oriented to killing orks or other hordy foes.

**deviant cadaver**

1. I play chaos daemons with a heavy nurgle them and a few khorne for heavy hitters.

2. I try to anvil with my nurgle stuff and counter charge with khorne.

3. Mech tau are a nightmare for me they are too fast to catch and can target my weaker units, I just need to get more shooting in my least to help deal with this type of army.

**LunaHound**

The old store owner i used to play against fielded
3 basilisk with walls of las cannon , auto cannon IG .

I had a highly mobile Mech Eldar army and no matter how well i try to maneuver and stay out of LOS his basilisk
always lands their hits. Well the whole game club basically got the whole distance thing down to only 1 inch or less
off. Guess range weapons arnt guessed at all xD

**Squig_herder**

3 armies:
Eldar
1. Ulthwe, footslogging WITHOUT ELDRAD
2. Tactics are mostly outflanking war walkers, with mobile fire bases.
3. I have never beaten SoS, their faith and cool models just are too much

Tyranids
1. Splinter Fleet, quite a few warriors and 1 god fex, rest termiguants and middle bugs, eg lictors and raveners
2. DS lictors and some raveners and the rest run up
3. chaos/marine heavy bolter spam or the like

Orks
1. Snakebites, lots of gretchen and 1-2 looted wagons
2. Run straigh up but with a special formation of my own design
3. Dark Eldar, way too mobile

**Razerous**

1. Eldar

2. Foot slogging avatar&guardain block w/ maugen Ra & harlies as counter with some prisms in suppot

3. Necrons. They just dont go away. H.destroyers are too fast and he can pull things around with his monolith like only eldar with the webway shoud be able to!

**skkipper**

1 berzerkers with lashes
2 lash then charge
3 all mech list

**Fafnir**

1. Grey Knights, and when they're done, Orks too.

2. With my GK, shoot until I can get close, and assualt. Hope I win. Seek out the biggest, scariest (Edit: Sweaing removed) in the enemy army, and take them out with my GMs before they can do much damage. Focus more on elite units, and use small units of troops to capture objectives.

3. I'd have to say, from the 3 games I've played so far, Eldar. Their high mobility and quantity of attacks just hurts like a bitch. Although, anything that can force me to roll enough 1s to save is painful enough.

**ungulateman**

1.Eldar, using Fuegan to lead it.

2.Zip around on Bikes to steal objectives, melta tanks using Fuegan and some dragons, and screen my Banshees with a squad of guardians. Oh, yeah, and Warp Spiders DS at any artillery/etc.

3.Chaos Marines. They obliterate anything in combat (except Banshees, but I have terrible rolling with them) and I don't have much AP3 or better weaponry apart from my Dragons. (sorry even to speak of them, but Oblits hurt like a *****.)

ungulateman

**Lord Solar Plexus**

1. Imperial Guard. One platoon to guard objectives and do the dying, 2x6 ST in Chimeras to try and capture stuff (or get away), 2 HH, 2 Dem, Ratlings, assorted AT- and F-SS in HQ.

2. Observe, orientate, decide, act. I don't have the one approach that fits all, and I don't have the mobility of some other factions, so I am usually more reactive. The aim is to get my target priorities right, build in some redundancies, and keep the objectives in mind, this kind of stuff.

3. Daemons, especially any build with the Fateweaver. They play far too unconventional for me, and stacking three saves (sometimes on top of T5) means even picking up my dice is nonsense. (To a lesser extent, Eldar - seer council or anything fortuned is just as bad).

**Iron_Chaos_Brute**

1. CSM, LR rush zerks and 2 squads of CSMs, DP and Termicide.
2. LRs knock out hard targets, Zerks and CSM mop up. The zerks are awesome, I had a game where they killed 70+ orks in exchange for ~15 Zerks.
3. Mech Eldar, killing my raiders with fire dragons, or Dark eldar, with all of their nasty tricks.

**Hand of Dume**

1. I play Chaos: Lascannon in each troop choice, oblits, couple squads of chosen with lascannons and or meltas, DP's (not just lash prince), 'zerkers and plague marines.

2. Blast vehicles with lascannons before they get to me. 'zerkers and princes hit the infantry. Plague marines to hold objectives.

3. Orcs, especially nob bikers. Used to be mech Eldar, that's why I now have lots of lascannons!

@ chrysaor686
Havocs can't take heavy flamers.
Taking the mark of Nurgle does not give you FNP (this seems to be a concensus alot with players taking the mark)

**FU 2000**

CSM-
1- Black Legion, so a mix of all the gods. I never run more than one Lash, but I like running two Princes or a Lord with a D Weapon and a Prince. I used to use Oblits, but now use Defilers(3 of em). Always use a unit of Plague Marines, ussually use Zerkers in rhinos or land raiders. Raptors to escort my winged princes( love that nurlge prince with Warptime).

2- I try to blow as much stuff to hell with my 3 Defilers before they get popped, I run either everything right at the enemy, or push a solid force forward and skirt around the side with Princes and Raptors. If I can get my Defilers into CC, bonus. I try and handle anti tank duties with melta from Raptors or D Prince assaults. My Plague Marines ina rhino are my squad that goes for the enemy objectives. Ussually bring a small Lesser Daemon squad to sit on the home objective. I love terminators and have 30 of em, but they haven't found their way into one of my lists in months. They've been replaced with a 5 man chosen squad in a rhino outflanking with 5 flamers.

3- Very mobile shooty armies. And guard gunlined me to death once and I never forgot. Also any army that can beat me at my own game- Close Combat.

Daemons-

1- ALWAYS 8 Bloodcrushers(sometimes 12), always 3 squads of 10 horrors with bolt, 10 plague bearers and 5 more for home objectives, always 2 soulgrinders with phlegm. My HQ drifts from 2 Great Unclean Ones to 4 Tzeentch heralds on Chariots. I also have 3 flamers, a Bloodthirster, 16 bloodletters, and a bunch of Daemon Princes. Nothing Slaanesh.

2- I try and drop the horrors and HQ's to shoot the crap out of stuff, then when it gets assaulted I drop the heavy hitting Bloodcrushers and Soulgrinders to counter assault. I find that 10 horrors with their 4+ inv sv last long enough in CC until my Khorne stuff shows up. I ussually table my enemy or have a close game. If my Close combat stuff comes in turn 1, I deploy conservatively and slowly march towards the enemy until my shooting shows up and hopefully they all hit in synch.

3- Again, mobile shooty armies. Any AV 14. And anyone who can just play a better game than me.