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Hello Dakka. The other day I was at a tournament. Now at my FLGS most of the players myself included are dedicated veterans of 40K. We play quite often and have been playing for several years. Well the other day I was at a doubles tournament (mentioned in two other threads on here) and there was a player there that was using Mech Guard. Consequently I have only ever played Mech Guard one other time and it seems like they are quite possibly impossible to beat no matter what army you play other than playing another Mech Guard list, and even that is iffy. I was playing Eldar with 5 tanks and my partner was playing Mech Guard himself but even both our armies could not stand up to this guys Mech Guard army. Now the points were quite high and he was using himself as two players (I don't know how the TO let that go but whatever) and he ended up winning, but this isn't the first time I've seen Mech Guard take home the trophy nor do I suspect it will be the last.

What I want to know is how do you defeat a Mech Guard army with the following, Eldar, Blob Guard, Blood Angles.

His list and some similar lists I have seen look something like this,
Command Squad in Chimera
Melta Vets in Chimeras and Vendettas (usually about 3-4 Chimeras and 3-4 Vendettas)
Hydra Flaks
Manticores
Medusas
Occasionally Leman Russ Executioners

I play a long range Eldar and Blob Guard army and a CC oriented Blood Angles list and it seems like no matter what I do, no matter what units I take, no matter what strategies I follow, I can not blow up these fething tanks.

So I ask Dakka for help because 1. I'm tired of Mech Guard I don't think it's fun to play nor play against. and 2. I want to finally win a tournament against a Mech Guard player (usually I come in 2nd or 3rd). Thank you!

Long range Eldar: I recommend huge gangs of war walkers and a prayer to whatever gods are listening that you go first.

CC Blood Angels: MORE POWER KLAWZ!!!!!...I mean, uh...power fists...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually, it's a shame Hammernators are more expensive for the BA, because they wreak all kinds of havoc on a tank-heavy army.

War walkers are not the way to go. Against a good mech IG, it is extremely difficult to get to side armor, as he anchors his flanks with tough vehicles like russes or protects them with infantry.

If you want a hard counter, marine scout bikes. Take 2 squads of ten. If you have first turn, scout turboboost and then first turn charge with krak grenades all the stationary tanks. If you have 2nd turn, outflank them and put your stuff in reserve. Put enough stuff on the board just to give him trouble, but anything important needs to be in reserve.

Make sure you space out the scout bikes so that they don't get pwned by templates.

The key to using the scout bikes is to break the anchors, and make the guard player commit to killing them. They'll die for sure, but they'll buy the time you need to do what you need to do.

Edit:
Power fists are not the answer, and here's why: How many points is a squad with powerfist? How does it get there reliably? And even if you do, you'll trade that squad to kill a 50 point chimera.

Str 5 assault marines wreck mech ig.

3 str 5 swings>krak grenades against av10

Almost all ig vehicles are av10 in an assault, the couple av11 can eat a str 9 pfist or a melta gun

Multi assault everything, the base grunt in a ba army is built to wreck mech.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

scuddman wrote:War walkers are not the way to go. Against a good mech IG, it is extremely difficult to get to side armor, as he anchors his flanks with tough vehicles like russes or protects them with infantry.

If you want a hard counter, marine scout bikes. Take 2 squads of ten. If you have first turn, scout turboboost and then first turn charge with krak grenades all the stationary tanks. If you have 2nd turn, outflank them and put your stuff in reserve. Put enough stuff on the board just to give him trouble, but anything important needs to be in reserve.

Make sure you space out the scout bikes so that they don't get pwned by templates.

The key to using the scout bikes is to break the anchors, and make the guard player commit to killing them. They'll die for sure, but they'll buy the time you need to do what you need to do.

Or turbo boost them and use them as a screen if the ig player goes first, then assault with surviving bikes on turn 1. Works even better for ba players who keep a bike within 6" of a priest

Lol, combine schadenfreude's strategy with mine. Take scout bikes that turbo=boost with feel no pain and furious charge.

I also play with the sanguinor so add an extra attack for every scout and the pfist sarg against stationary mech that have not moved yet.

Ard boys list was 79 model count jump spam, every model was jump or bike, sanguinor, and 20 scout bikes in the list. Ig players were always happy not to fight me :p

Well, I think that mech Eldar and BA DoA can be a pain for mech IG.

How to beat guard? Take mid range light anti tank weapons that have multiple shots. this also can be construed as how to just win a tournement. tau do it by bringing missles and plasmas, nids bring hive guard and sometimes t-fexes, eldar do this by wave serpent spamming with dragons. dark eldar do this by.... well, taking the only worth while units in their army (for now, muwahahaha), orks do this with lootas... etc etc.

Just look at how the leaf blower list works and try to manipulate it to your army and playstyle.

Most importantly, learn to have fun in losing against the guard.

Dont become a rat that whines about the cheese

Tau give guard trouble.

Battlesuits that have mass S7 weapons to shut down chimeras.

Broadsides that will punch through anything they shoot at.
Markerlights to reduce cover and increase BS.

Shield drones that minimize shooting casualties for Tau especially in conjunction with broadsides.

Entrenched kroot in woods have a +3 coversave.

Lets not forget the battlesuits can be made complex and with proper wound allocation, you wont be killing too many suits.

Luckily most people dont bring Tau to a tournament because other armies crush Tau.

The railgun comes in at a nasty S10 AP1 and most vehicles in a guard army are av12 and the 2-3 av14. Any artillery will be blasted by railguns that have 2-4 drones protecting them. Try to hide behind cover, they will drop that cover to nothing.

Command Squad in Chimera is missile pod fodder from battle suits

Melta Vets in Chimeras and Vendettas blow up between railguns and missile pods

Hydra Flaks die to broadside railguns
Manticores same thing even if they try to hide. S10 means nothing to s+2 sv on broadsides and they will usually be spaced out to hit 2-3 and those 2-3 wounds go on drones.

Medusas same fate as Hydras

Occasionally Leman Russ Executioners these will be top priority for broadsides.

Fighting against IG is an exercise in target priority recognise threats and his force multipliers and kill them quick. As a guard player I hate playing against Eldar - Brightlances,waveserpents, fire dragons, jetseer, holofields .

Guard are a tough codex but they aint the instant win button people seem to think, keep a positive attitude because if you believe you have lost before you start then you probably will.

Sanguinis wrote:I was playing Eldar with 5 tanks and my partner was playing Mech Guard himself but even both our armies could not stand up to this guys Mech Guard army.

This actually signals a problem with you and your partner (either on the field or in the list building stage), not that mech guard is invincible. Both armies give you the tools to crack this nut.

The thing to remember with mechanized+artillery list is that they only exist for the alpha strike. Take this away from them and they fold pretty fast.

The way to beat guard as any marines is this:

Drive forward 12" and pop smoke on every tank, next turn, drive another 12" and jump out shooting meltaguns at everything.

That's very basic I know (VERY basic) but the point is, be aggressive. Marines can't outshoot guard at long range, get in their face and smash them.

As for eldar, they don't have enough firepower against guard. A vendetta costs the same as a wave serpent and has more (and better) guns. Your best bet would be to play a reserve/standoff game. And find some big pieces of terrain to hide your tanks and troops behind.

Edit: also, don't worry too much about blowing up the tanks, go for immobilized, stunned, or shaken results, then move on.

With eldar, wave serpents have the whole "make everything pretend it's a missile launcher ability. Coupled with perpetual SMF, an eldar player should easily be able to deliver dragons somewhere. That and jetbikes go awful fast and get an invul save. That and you can always decide to outflank with khandras...

scuddman wrote:War walkers are not the way to go. Against a good mech IG, it is extremely difficult to get to side armor, as he anchors his flanks with tough vehicles like russes or protects them with infantry.

If you want a hard counter, marine scout bikes. Take 2 squads of ten. If you have first turn, scout turboboost and then first turn charge with krak grenades all the stationary tanks. If you have 2nd turn, outflank them and put your stuff in reserve. Put enough stuff on the board just to give him trouble, but anything important needs to be in reserve.

Make sure you space out the scout bikes so that they don't get pwned by templates.

The key to using the scout bikes is to break the anchors, and make the guard player commit to killing them. They'll die for sure, but they'll buy the time you need to do what you need to do.

Edit:
Power fists are not the answer, and here's why: How many points is a squad with powerfist? How does it get there reliably? And even if you do, you'll trade that squad to kill a 50 point chimera.

Figuring out sarcasm fail.

Ailaros wrote:With eldar, wave serpents have the whole "make everything pretend it's a missile launcher ability. Coupled with perpetual SMF, an eldar player should easily be able to deliver dragons somewhere. That and jetbikes go awful fast and get an invul save. That and you can always decide to outflank with khandras...

Hydras ignore skimmer flat out save.

Also, what's a long range Eldar army even contain?

Hydras can be a pain for skimmers moving flat out.
But I usually don't do this with my mech Eldar army.
It gradually approaches the enemy along a flank shooting it, eventually assaulting if necessary.

wuestenfux wrote:It gradually approaches the enemy along a flank shooting it, eventually assaulting if necessary.

Which will fail horribly against alpha strike armies.

And yeah, hydras do ignore SMF, but it is very likely that you'll be bringing way more skimmers than he's bringing hyrdas (as they compete for precious HS slots).

I played in a tournament this weekend and got absolutely owned by space wolves.
I run 2 valks, 2 manticores and griffon heavy mortars with 5 chimeras so full mech. It was Dawn of war so I lost alpha strike.
He had 3G long fangs (in cover) they could split fire & 2 rune priests with living lightning so could hit 8 vehicles a turn. It was basically auto lose for me.
I find dual seer council elder in wave serpents are tough.

I did table a dual landraider vulkan list in 3 turns though.

Mekanob: Why don't you post something useful and stop wasting time with your sarcasm? If it's sarcasm, you're an idiot for wasting people's time. And if it's real advice, you're just an idiot. If you want to mess around gtfo of the tactics forum.

scuddman wrote:Mekanob: Why don't you post something useful and stop wasting time with your sarcasm? If it's sarcasm, you're an idiot for wasting people's time. And if it's real advice, you're just an idiot. If you want to mess around gtfo of the tactics forum.

I'm sorry that you think humor is a waste of people's time. You should try out Orks sometime. They're a riot!

If you have first turn: Deploy and go forward! Spam fast resilient units.

If he has first turn: Reserve everything.

Mismatches to normal mechguard:

ALL competitive BA builds (to be more concrete, either tons of jump infantry with some priests or tons of fast moving cheap vehicles)
Space wolves relying on long fangs and scouts.
Orks relying on tons of Boyz and perhaps kommandoz and lootaz
Eldar with dual jetbike council, Mechdar in general.
pure Ravenwing bike list. Autolose for IG.

Well Space Wolves are definitely worse than IG at the moment, BA being about equal with IG. I think there are weaknesses to be exploited with a mech guard list, and nothing is unbeatable thanks to the almighty dice roll, despite what the internet would have you believe.

Hey thanks for all the tips guys these actually really helped. I never thought of a scout bike list.

Darkness Eternal Wrote: Also, what's a long range Eldar army even contain?

My Eldar list looked something like this
HQ-Avatar,Eldrad
Troops-2 Squads of DA's with BS in Waveserpents, 1 squad of 5 rangers
Elites-2 Squads of FD in Falcons
Heavy Support-2 Falcons (mentioned above), and 1 Fire Prism

With that list I thought I had a nice amount of anti tank and against other armies (Space Marines, and Nids) I did my Waveserpents, Falcons, FD, and even the 1 Fire Prism did really good at taking out Land Raiders, Rhinos, and Nid Monstrous Creatures. (My FD's took out a Tervigon in one round of shooting) But against those mech guard I just couldn't do it. I am however gonna tweek it a bit and see what I can do. Maybe add some Jetbikes. As for what my long ranged Eldar army looked like, that was it.

Spam drop pod list may also play havoc with mech guards.

Assuming the mech guardplayer is experianced with the list and deploy correctaly, how does DP spam 'play havoc'? It's quite strong wording~!

Sanguinis wrote:
My Eldar list looked something like this
HQ-Avatar,Eldrad
Troops-2 Squads of DA's with BS in Waveserpents, 1 squad of 5 rangers
Elites-2 Squads of FD in Falcons
Heavy Support-2 Falcons (mentioned above), and 1 Fire Prism

There's nothing in that list, five tanks, with five long ranged guns (of some kind, I would hope none of the tanks have a brightlance)

I can't think of a way to fit more guns into it though, jetbikes or guardians are an option, you might be forced to add vypers as there are no other platforms in that codex for heavy long range weapons.

IMO, stick with your BA if you think you might face guard, BA can get aggressive and chew up the guard close in, eldar cannot, they also cannot outshoot the guard at long range.

ChrisCP wrote:Assuming the mech guardplayer is experianced with the list and deploy correctaly, how does DP spam 'play havoc'? It's quite strong wording~!

Well, it starts with turn 1 when two combat squads of combi-melta sternguard flop out and blow up two vehicles and a DCCW+Multimelta dread comes out and blows up a third. Then, turn 2, more meltagun tac marines pod in and blow up another vehicle while sternguard combi assault with krak grenades for another couple dead and the dred DCCWs something to death while biker scouts outflank and meltabomb the artillery (which likely auto-hits) for another one or two dead. By the bottom of turn 2, the guard player has gotten to shoot once, and is now nearly tabled.

That's how they play havoc.

Ailaros: You need literal balls of steel to drop pod that close to a Guard army, I know because my Salamanders are an all drop pod list and it's very hard to reliably hit that 6" melta range if you roll a scatter, not to mention scattering off the table and rolling a mishap.

Also, your not taking into account cover saves from the smoke launchers he would (should) have popped so all those vehicles you say you've just destroyed? Halve that for scattering DPs and then halve it again for successful cover saves. How is that Guard army now 'nearly tabled'?

Mech Guard are tough to play against to be honest, though the sight of T6 Tyranids really ruins my day. As your playing with Eldar You really need to be using your speed and S8 guns to get at the side armour, how you go about doing this is far too subjective to be discussed accurately, but you do need a way to break up his phalanx to get at the wafer thin sides.

A jetbike Seer Council might be a nice counter, turbo-boosting with Fortune makes them insanely survivable and 4-5 Singing Spears for S9 vs vehicles in both shooting and assault is very nasty indeed.

L. Wrex

Lycaeus Wrex:
Locator Beacons on the Scout Bikers make the Drop Pod assault accurate.

Whereby you either turbo boost them Turn 1 and pray they survive the onslaught, or outflank them and risk them not coming on at all to help your drop pods arrive accurately. It's an idea though, as the Guard player should be far more concerned with the melta in his face than the Scout Bikers...

L. Wrex