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My friend has an IG Air Cav list consisting of 5 Valkyries and 2 Vendettas. He has been rolling through anyone who plays him as he is testing this list. There is a group of about 10 very competitive guys here and none have come even close.

This list can throw down 6 pie plates. He has a Psyker unit of 9 psykers and an overlord (mainly used to reduce leadership to 2).
He never has to get out of his ships and is mobile as hell, but when he does his melta guns and demo charges make sure you don't get that close.

So far no one has been able to bring enough fire power to bear on this list to make a big enough dent before they are blown away.

So far he has made his way through the Nob biker list, the Lash list, 2 new Nid test lists, Space wolves thunder cav list, another mobile tank IG list, and numerous Space Marines lists.

Well, I think you've hit on it...don't get too close. Any advice really ahs to be army specific. What may work for marines won't work for eldar.

So what do you play?

Personally, as a marine player...i'd probably spam him with missile launchers and lots of infantry.... No vehicles at all except for perhaps bikes to grab objectives. Use a loose formation castle ringed with tacs so you can define where he can't enter the board. He has what 750 - 950 points invested in AR 12 vehicles? Shoot them at range and let his remaining infantry attempt to close. Then they will have to deal with bolter fire that will rip guardsmen to pieces.

Take my advice with a grain of salt. I'm hardly what i'd call a competitive player.

ender502

You know that he has to use squadrons, right?

First check to make sure he is following all the rules that those units require.

Vehicle squadrons have to remain within 4" of each other and have to target the same enemy. Vehicles in a squadron are also destroyed on an immobilized result. Vendetta's can only move 6" and fire all three lascannons. As Is recall Valkayies and Vendettas are not dedicated transports for veterans meaning they would have to start on the table and be embarked on the first turn negating any scout moves.

In my experience these type of lists are paper tigers. Quality target priority and enough anti tank will make a mess of these lists.

Tactics
IF you aren't mechanized you need to be. Units in transports cannot be broken by the PBS. Valkaryies cannot kill tanks. More after class

razorlead wrote:

Tactics
IF you aren't mechanized you need to be. Units in transports cannot be broken by the PBS. Valkaryies cannot kill tanks. More after class

A note on going mechanized... IF you go mech make it cheap mech. Chimera's with autocannons will be far preferable to high AR point sinks.

ender502

Actually, they can start embarked.

Agreed with Razorlead besides that though - mech up, stay on the move to keep away from his meltavets. With those two Vendettas he's only popping 2 transports a turn - and you should be able to take out the Gunships with relatively light fire considering they're squadroned - hell, as a Guard player I could probably even shake an entire squadron with a bunch of multilaser shots.

Just deploy to avoid alpha strikes, stay in trasports/cover, and there actually isn't all the much he should be able to do.

razorlead wrote:Vehicles in a squadron are also destroyed on an immobilized result.

Also they need to allocate hits, as described on p64 of the BRB. This means that 3 MM attack bikes can destroy all 3 Valkayies in a single round of shooting.
Also, since immobilized counts as destroyed, any penetrating hit has a 50% of destroying the vehicle. The 3 MM attack bikes would have a 66% of destroying each ship per penetrating hit!

razorlead wrote:As Is recall Valkayies and Vendettas are not dedicated transports for veterans meaning they would have to start on the table and be embarked on the first turn negating any scout moves.

I am not sure if this is the case. Were it so, then Ork Battlewagons would need to start with their troops out of the vehicles. The following 2 rules snippets indicate that troops can be deployed in any transport.
The only limitation of a dedicated transport is that when it is deployed it can only carry the unit it was selected with (plus any independent characters). After the game begins, it can then transport any friendly infantry unit p67 BRB

the player must specify if any transport vehicle in reserve is carrying any of the infantry units and/or independent characters in reserve. If they do, the unit and the transport will be rolled for together and will arrive together. p94 BRB

As someone who plays an IG air cav list I'll say this, heavy shooting will ruin your day. I've had them brought down by heavy flamers from a salamander list. Anything str 6 or higher has the potential to ruin your (or in this case, his) day. The squadron rules are killer, any immobilized is destroyed (which as skimmers happens anyway). My illustrious brethren who have already posted have also pointed out, he can only move 6 inches and still shoot all of his firepower. So either he's only barely moving around the battlefield or he's barely laying on the fire but he can't do both.

Again, there are some army specific tactics but without knowing what you play is somewhat hard to generalize. Just, make sure you use target priorities. My opponents who have the best luck target a single group until it is annihilated and then move down the line.

Again, mechanized helps out as was mentioned by razorlead as the PBS can't break them inside a vehicle. My own list has 6 vendettas filled with veterans and stormtroopers which gives me blistering amounts of antitank but that is relegated to only 3 targets... and usually by turn 2 or 3 I'm down to 3 or 4 left. Besides, guardsmen (even grenadiers) don't do so well when their transport plummets from the sky.

Sandman

Have you tried using SoB's as allies? I would think their 3+ save would do better when falling from the sky?
Do you start with the game with your entire army in reserve to keep them from getting shot at 1st turn if you don't go first?

Just curious to know how an air cav player uses their forces.

I run air cav myself, so heres things I don't like to see:

-If you're running space marines take TH/SS termies in land raiders. Shrike is also a good choice as the name of the game against this list is threat range from vehicles. Also Shrike can get off a first-turn charge assuming you're going first.

-One big mistake people make against air cav is not applying pressure. You won't win a ranged fight. very few units in the game will last long against vendetta squadrons. With all of that in mind if you have a melee list move up at max speed and pop smoke. You have to take the hit of getting close as painful as it can be or it's already over.

-Your friend should really just be running vendettas, that list hits a good bit harder. With that in mind he'll have problems engaging AV12 or higher at range. All vendettas really don't have this vulnerability.

-First turn is vital to the army, things not shooting especially vendettas is intolerable to the air cav list, so vehicle shakens are perfectly acceptable results. With only 1 vendetta squadron he'll have trouble taking out smoking rhinos and serious probelms taking out smoking LRs. Deploying to stop an alpha strike is almost a moot point as the army already has the edge and you'll be on your back feet. It's nice to not lose alot of vehicles, but the game won't go any better otherwise.

-The infantry are a secondary consideration, they pack some punch, but if they have to get out something has already gone wrong.

Have you tried using SoB's as allies? I would think their 3+ save would do better when falling from the sky?
Do you start with the game with your entire army in reserve to keep them from getting shot at 1st turn if you don't go first?

I know I'm not sandman, but I'll field them from my perspective as it sounds like he has the same list. No to sisters, just no, vets have more special wepons for less points at the same BS and demo charges and neither wants to be standing outside of a transport in an entirely transported list. As for not starting on the table, my experience is that the army showing up piecemeal is far more painful than your enemy getting a shooting phase against an AV12 wall.

Labmouse42

I have, and while they work marginally better in general, I've got my whole army themed as the fast-rope down onto your position and obliterate it with flamer, heavy flamer melta goodness. Most of the opponents in my local gaming store are either long-range gunlines or assaulty swarm.

I go fluff over function on giving them all carapace armor, I've had more luck giving them demo charges but from my background they form a heavily armored vanguard.

I usually come on from reserves to avoid the constant drop pods that I usually face. Also I can still fire 2 lascannons when I come on, which can still ruin somebody's day. Though if it's an assault themed army without much shooting I'll just deploy and light up any transports, vehicles and MCs and then when they get closer I'll drop the vets and and burn, shotgun, melta them and then since I'll be assaulted anyway I assault them to deny them a few extra attacks. I don't ever plan to win, but sometimes it works.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ah, a true point Mastershake, I forgot to mention all the lovely special weapons that my infantry really rely on. Though I'm airborne I also themed them out to be cityfighter airborne (think Black Hawk Down) so my firefights tend to be at short range. SOBs are fine and all, my buddy runs an army of them, but there not really my style, I've got this hard-bitten grizzled guard force and I like my IG to stay IG. I don't really use allies as such.

Thanks for your thoughts, appreciate it.

The problem is that he can bear a ton of fire power down on any unit he wants and he can stay away from assault units.

With the flyers in squads he can allocate results. So if I get 2 glancing and 2 penetrating. He can put both glancing on one and the pens on the other, almost ensuring one lives to fire back.

I tried a Missile launcher heavy list and my devastators were taken out by round 2 and the single missiles could not get it done.

It seems that you play space marines. Why don't you post what units you have and we can try to make an effective list for you.

Off hand I would say that land speeders with typhoon missile launchers, Autocannon/Heavy bolter predators and Godhammer pattern Land raiders would be a good start to a list. Foot Marines will not be effective but if you had to do it. I would bring as many squads as you can with max heavy weapons and then combat squad them to maximize target saturation (spread out too) this way his massive squadrons can kill only two or three units per turn. In this type of list you will have to accept the loss of units but if you can drop one or two Valkaries per turn you will win in the end. Finally, Air cav (much like real life) has a hard time holding objectives. If you can hold your objective you will win the game.

PS allying a DH inquistor with a psychic hood would help against the PBS (he's cheap)

This psyker squad that reduces Leadership, is it also mounted in a valkyrie or vendetta? If they use their powers while embarked in any vehicle other than a chimera your friend is cheating. Those powers require LOS and the only IG transport with fire points is the chimera.

For marines if he's starting his things on the table then you could do some fairly nasty things with drop pod sternguard with combi-meltas. They'll die but if his vehicles are close together then 5 point blank melta shots into each of 2 different air cav squadrons should produce results. Since his vendettas are squadded together, that means that he can't kill more than one vehicle per turn from range and will have to get close with the valks if you have a lot of vehicles (unless he's sporting hellstrike missiles which isn't likely.) With that in mind, if you fielded some lascannon predators and dreads then you would easily reach saturation on his ability to destroy your armor. Combined with your tac squads in rhinos for short ranged punch and protection from valk blasts so when he tries to get his melta vets near your firebase you should be able to crush him handily. Since your tac squad is going to spend a round or two not moving, giving them a missile launcher or somesuch to try to knock some birds down while they wait for him to come to you will work well. Turn 3 they should be headed towards objectives in objective games though.

For sure taking anything that relies on being close as your anti-tank element isn't going to be wise because mobility he definitely has on his side.

For other armies, loading up on weapons with profiles similar to autocannon or lascannon should work (railguns and missile pods for tau.)

razorlead wrote:It seems that you play space marines. Why don't you post what units you have and we can try to make an effective list for you.

Off hand I would say that land speeders with typhoon missile launchers, Autocannon/Heavy bolter predators and Godhammer pattern Land raiders would be a good start to a list. Foot Marines will not be effective but if you had to do it. I would bring as many squads as you can with max heavy weapons and then combat squad them to maximize target saturation (spread out too) this way his massive squadrons can kill only two or three units per turn. In this type of list you will have to accept the loss of units but if you can drop one or two Valkaries per turn you will win in the end. Finally, Air cav (much like real life) has a hard time holding objectives. If you can hold your objective you will win the game.

PS allying a DH inquistor with a psychic hood would help against the PBS (he's cheap)

I'll second the auto cannon pred...but not the typhoon or god hammer. Typhoons will be vulnerable (assuming range) to every weapon he has (and what is the S of a typhoon?). The god hammer is quite pricey and can be expected to be penentrated AT least once for every nine TL las shots. The pred are good because they are invulnerable to the rocket pods, cheap and pose a danger with the autocannon. He can't ignore them and taking them out means wasting TL Las on just a handful of points.

I think the key is LOTS of cheap units rather than fewer pricey ones. The smaller your # of units the more he can gang up on them. Oh, and i'll second the DH as well.

ender502

I mentioned it earlier, MM attack bikes are your friend. 3 of them costs you 150 points.
Turbo-boost them on turn one, so they will be getting a 3+ cover save. The 24" turbo boost movement will keep the IG from getting way from you -- especially as he has to move 6" if he wants to fire more than once. Turbo boost in the direction of his birds. While the 3+ cover save is very handy, if you can also keep your bikes out of LOS that will help too.

On the next turn, move 12" and shoot him with your MM. If you have Vulcan in your list, they are twin-linked, which will increase the number that you hit with.
As MM do double penetration within 12", and the bikes can move 12", you have a total range of influence of 24"-36" from where the bikes started. Given the size of the IG birds, its hard for the IG player to avoid your bikes. Only one bird from the squad your shooting needs to be within 12" to get the double dice for penetration, as allocation happens after you roll the effect.

If you want to ensure better luck, use 2 or 3 of those squads.

labmouse42 wrote:I mentioned it earlier, MM attack bikes are your friend. 3 of them costs you 150 points.
Turbo-boost them on turn one, so they will be getting a 3+ cover save. The 24" turbo boost movement will keep the IG from getting way from you -- especially as he has to move 6" if he wants to fire more than once. Turbo boost in the direction of his birds. While the 3+ cover save is very handy, if you can also keep your bikes out of LOS that will help too.

On the next turn, move 12" and shoot him with your MM. If you have Vulcan in your list, they are twin-linked, which will increase the number that you hit with.
As MM do double penetration within 12", and the bikes can move 12", you have a total range of influence of 24"-36" from where the bikes started. Given the size of the IG birds, its hard for the IG player to avoid your bikes. Only one bird from the squad your shooting needs to be within 12" to get the double dice for penetration, as allocation happens after you roll the effect.

If you want to ensure better luck, use 2 or 3 of those squads.

+1 for the MM bikes. I love my squadron of three in an all comers list. Also, would recommend adding one or two Predators with lascannon sponsons. Gives you 2 ST7 and 2 ST9 shots at 48" range which should help drop birds quickly, especially if your bikes crippled the squadron earlier.

PanzerLeader wrote:Also, would recommend adding one or two Predators with lascannon sponsons. Gives you 2 ST7 and 2 ST9 shots at 48" range which should help drop birds quickly, especially if your bikes crippled the squadron earlier.

Saturating his target list is a great way to go here. He can only shoot at one unit at a time with his squad, so if he goes first he is shooting at either the pred mentioned above, or at your MM bikes. Either way your goal is to give him to many targets to shoot at.

The allocation is what will get him. Lets say 2 of the LC sponsons hit, and both cause penetrating hits. He has to allocate one penetration hit onto two birds then roll the effect of each penetrating hit. One of your targets can blow up multiple of his birds, where he has to pick out your tanks / MM squads one at a time.

Great advice so far, thanks guys.

So far I've worked up a list with the 3 squads of attack bikes and a 10 man Stern squad of meltas in a pod. 2 tac squads with missile launchers and a Dev missile launcher squad and 2 Preds.
If I add Vulcan that tops me off at 1850. Where should I put him?

Drop him in with a tac squad, sternguard or devs... anything to get some 3+ wounds around him. Honestly I'd drop him with the Sternguard because (as has happened to me) TL heavy flamers have brought down my birds before.

The list you've got right there should thoroughly ruin his day. A friend of mine has 3 attack bike squads and the only thing that helps me out is coming out of reserve and hoping that 6 vendettas will be enough. It sometimes is but usually isn't. Since he has more Valks than Vendettas then he'll have an even bigger problem.

Oxfordseth wrote:
So far I've worked up a list with the 3 squads of attack bikes and a 10 man Stern squad of meltas in a pod. 2 tac squads with missile launchers and a Dev missile launcher squad and 2 Preds.
If I add Vulcan that tops me off at 1850. Where should I put him?

The 10 man Sternguard unit seems like a waste to me. You could take a Tactical squad with Melta/C-Melta and Multi-Melta or Missile Launcher for alot cheaper and its scoring. This frees up even more points for MM Attack Bikes or MM Speeders.

Another unit that you really want to consider is the RifleDread. 2x TL Autocannons = 1.18 damage rolls per turn. With a 48" range thats not too shabby really.

minigun762 wrote:

Oxfordseth wrote:
So far I've worked up a list with the 3 squads of attack bikes and a 10 man Stern squad of meltas in a pod. 2 tac squads with missile launchers and a Dev missile launcher squad and 2 Preds.
If I add Vulcan that tops me off at 1850. Where should I put him?

The 10 man Sternguard unit seems like a waste to me. You could take a Tactical squad with Melta/C-Melta and Multi-Melta or Missile Launcher for alot cheaper and its scoring. This frees up even more points for MM Attack Bikes or MM Speeders.

Thing is, it's really hard to beat 10 twin-linked melta shots into 2 squads of birds on turn 1 if he's using Vulkan. No travel time, works turn 1. It's a little over 300 points down the tube as basically a sacrifice, but in this case the sacrifice is probably worth it as each melta shot has a 43% chance of killing an AV 12 vendetta/valk in a squadron (so 5 going into each squadron should each kill 2 birds for a total of 4 dead aircraft, over half his total craft, crippling him severely.) Keep in mind that it really only works once against an opponent, as after that your opponent will probably hold things in reserve to force you to drop that bomb on empty space. This is a win for you though since you can better pick them off as they come on. A half squad of melta sternguard works also and then you don't have to worry about dropping the pod between 2 squads. You still have the fear factor and the effectiveness, and you've got 150 points to play with adding another piece such as a autocannon/lascannon pred or a rifledread or whatever floats your boat.

I probably wouldn't include vulkan with your sternguard as they are essentially a suicide unit, not likely to survive for the 2 guys that actually have meltas to strike again.

If anyone else besides your friend has IG I'd recommend running a full squadron or 2 of Hydra AA tanks.
Can you say, good by Flat out cover saves?

Culler wrote:
Thing is, it's really hard to beat 10 twin-linked melta shots into 2 squads of birds on turn 1 if he's using Vulkan. No travel time, works turn 1. It's a little over 300 points down the tube as basically a sacrifice, but in this case the sacrifice is probably worth it as each melta shot has a 43% chance of killing an AV 12 vendetta/valk in a squadron

Yeah its basically the Loyalist version of Termicide and it makes sense but its so much more expensive for what it does because it requires that Pod. If you wanted a disposable Melta unit I'd think about DS MM Speeders or Podding Dreads with AC or MM. Actually an Ironclad with 2 HK Missiles and a Meltagun seems like a pretty solid counter and I think its still cheaper.

Culler wrote:

minigun762 wrote:

Oxfordseth wrote:
So far I've worked up a list with the 3 squads of attack bikes and a 10 man Stern squad of meltas in a pod. 2 tac squads with missile launchers and a Dev missile launcher squad and 2 Preds.
If I add Vulcan that tops me off at 1850. Where should I put him?

The 10 man Sternguard unit seems like a waste to me. You could take a Tactical squad with Melta/C-Melta and Multi-Melta or Missile Launcher for alot cheaper and its scoring. This frees up even more points for MM Attack Bikes or MM Speeders.

Thing is, it's really hard to beat 10 twin-linked melta shots into 2 squads of birds on turn 1 if he's using Vulkan. No travel time, works turn 1.

If he decides to Reserve his Vendettas then this is basically a wasted 300 point unit. And IG Air Cav has no problem playing the Reserves game.

No no no, use the Sternguard, the melta shots will bring down the birds, and the higher number of attacks or the hell fire shells will be great against the passengers next turn.

Go with the Sternguard/Vulkan in a pod!

rdlb wrote:No no no, use the Sternguard, the melta shots will bring down the birds, and the higher number of attacks or the hell fire shells will be great against the passengers next turn.

Go with the Sternguard/Vulkan in a pod!

I'm not sure what this squad can do that a MM Dread/Heavy Flamer/Pod can't do for cheaper.

If you don't play Vulkan, I'd even consider a AC/Heavy Flamer/Pod version. I'd have to run the numbers but I bet that 4 S6 rending shots > 1 MM shot even within 12".

It's very close, but AP1 still gives the MM a distinct advantage at 12" and under. Longer range, though, the AC outperforms the multimelta.