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So I played an IG Sisters alliance with my Orks. Orks consisted of:
3 x BW with shootaz inside, KFF mek
Warboss & nobz bikers
Lootaz
Gretchen

Basically the Manticore wrecked the BWs, then wiped anything not in area cover. I eaked
out a draw with some luck, but seriously 1 manticore wrecked my army. 3 would have ended it turn 1 I think.
How do orks go up against these things? They're hidden so you can't shoot them. Nothing I have is fast enough to get there without getting splatted. Indirect barrage makes these things brutal, on the rare occasion it missed the second or third blast hits anyway.
I'm finding gunline IG behind an aegis line very troublesome in 6th!
Any advise would be great, thanks.

Outflank Nob Bikers. /thread

I play Ig and orks.

One of the weaknesses of it, is how vehicles work in cc. Use your nob bikers to turbo boost to close the gap quickly. Try to force him to move that stops it from firing. That's how I deal with them personally.

Also depending on the board, If you get to deploy first you can try to pick a side where it can't really hide.

I see a lot of outflanking/ scouting deffkopta users in my area, tl big shootas are decent at hurting its side armour.

 TheCaptain wrote:
Outflank Nob Bikers. /thread

But how? 1 in 6 chance of rolling outflank warlord trait, but even then the manticore prob won't be near enough to shoot if its central or on the other side of the table.
Would have snikrot assault it in the past but not an option anymore.

The blitza-bomma should make minecmeat of it, unless he had a quadgun

As mentioned he always runs an aegis line so shooting flyers down is covered : (

Is it always a Quad Gun?

a single shell has a 3/4 to hit, 2/3 to damage & 1/3 of it being avoided. That gives 1/6. four shots makes it 4/6, so you will probably take damage, but if you bring a few of them, at least two will survive.

 IHateNids wrote:
Is it always a Quad Gun?

a single shell has a 3/4 to hit, 2/3 to damage & 1/3 of it being avoided. That gives 1/6. four shots makes it 4/6, so you will probably take damage, but if you bring a few of them, at least two will survive.

Bomber sounds like it might work, but I dont have any ork flyers. Also I know he will just take a squadron of 2 hydras to swat them like flies, and 2 manticores the next game!

Any other strategies? Deffkoptas or Stormboyz any good?

Deffkoptas and stormboyz may be a viable option for you in this case.

I've been taking a Warboss/bike/klaw/pole and attaching him to 5x Deffkoptas w/ TL Rokkits for a fun time. They're cheaper than the Nobz don't last as long but they do have Str 8 weapons.

The Manticore has always been broken since the IG codex release. The only saving grace is it limit to 4 turns of fire. I am surprise I have not faced more of them to be honest.
Deff Koptas are probably the fast bet.

The reason you don't face more of them is because they're not as great as one might think. They whiff quite often, are highly variable, aren't particularly effective against heavier armored infantry, and the infantry they are effective against are often/usually better engaged by other platforms. The Manticore isn't bad, but it's not spectacular either unless you're facing a bunch of lumped up open-topped low AV vehicles or stuff like Nob Bikers/Tyranid Warriors/etc.

Heh. I fought a manticore for the first time yesterday against a fast attack list I wanted to try out. It wreaked havoc on my bike squad, killing 6 bikers that had a 5+ Jink save with one volley. Of course, he rolled a 3 on the d3 shots and got some very favorable scatter.

Anyhow, it also did a number on my scouts and whirlwind.

Try to get to it with some ork koptas. It's a flimsy chassis, so rush the darn thing. With my orks, I always have 3 solo ork koptas with TLRokkits for grins and giggles. I would make this tank their priority.

I find that a squadron of griffons more reliable than a single manticore. It won't pop heavy tanks, but it's a lot better at punishing infantry.

-Matt

Manticores become particularly deadly in Hammer and Anvil deployment; with a long table deployment, those things are hard as hell to get at.

Generally speaking, to get at them you need fliers or outflankers. Trying to rush through the battle line with bikes or jump troops can work, but it's very risky. I'd say outflankers are your best option, as fliers can be reliably countered in turn by the Guard, either by their own, better Vendetta, aegis lines, hydras (if they're savvy modelers or have the money for the FW kit, damn you GW) and so on.

You don't need a tough unit to kill them either; combat scouts with boltguns even stand a chance of killing a manticore, owing to side armour 10. All you need is something which can get there.

I'm not very familiar with the Ork codex; there's only a couple Ork players locally, and they're inconsistent in their appearances, but I'd imagine that one outflanking character, snikrot I believe his name is, with some sort of shooty unit, or durable assault unit which can survive the one turn of not being able to do much, would do well. Kustom Force Field blobs also stand a good chance of survival, not great, but good. I've seen a pair of Battlewagons loaded with Mega Armoured Nobs and assorted ork boyz do alright; they usually lose the wagons before too long, but they get them close, and the KFF gives them decent odds of surviving not only the Manticore, but the rest of the Guard gunline as well.

I had never seen one before, but then one of the Guard regulars pulled one out, wrecked face, converted two more, wrecked face-and-then-a-bit, so the other guard regular got one. I actually finbd it funny to be wading through pieplates like that, just Ressurecting.

I have been studying up on how to improve my own IG list and will be building a Manticore ASAP. My FLGS has lots of Daemons and Necrons and I simply need more firepower!

 rubicant99 wrote:
So I played an IG Sisters alliance with my Orks. Orks consisted of:
Indirect barrage makes these things brutal, on the rare occasion it missed the second or third blast hits anyway.
I'm finding gunline IG behind an aegis line very troublesome in 6th!
Any advise would be great, thanks.

It should miss 2 out of 3 times .

Is your opponent using the multiple barrage rule? If so it's very difficult to correct a missed #1 shot with subsequent shots. It sounds like your opponent is ignoring the often confusing multiple barrage rule.

ack on topic it's 12 10 10 3hp and costs as much as 4 meganobz. The 10 side armor and high cost is it's weak points. Outflanking deffkoptas should do the trick. Rockets or tl s5 dakkaguns should do the trick if you outflank behind the aegis.

Manticores are a hard counter to horde but they'll struggle against marine armies where their low armour comes into play. As mentioned above though, orks can counter it easily.

A unit of Kommandos with Boss Snikrot should do the trick

I'm currently running a plasma vet list with 22x Plasma guns and they rock against everything apart from AV13-14 so in order to get some decent AV14 killing power I run a couple of Manticores they won't usually kill them from Pens but they can do well at stripping Hull Points and causing stunlocks.

If I'm not facing any AV14 the Manticores do fantastic against guys behind Agies lines most units will go to ground to get the 2+ cover saves but the Manticore being barrage takes the dead from the hole so most thing won't get any benifit from the Agies this can even work for Marines with there 3+ save becausr I'd rather force them to roll a 3+ than a 2+. What I find fun to do is shoot out the men from behind the Agies turn 1 & 2 and then drop Marbo on there Quad Gun and use Marbo to shoot it.

Also to the Ork player whos Wagons got shot out from under him make sure that the guy shooting the Manticore follows the rules for multipul blasts. He should place the first one and if it scatters away the following shots scatter from the first blast. It sounds like he was rolling each of the large blasts seperatly.

A single manticore basically wiped out an entire ork army? Sounds like a case of insanely good luck moreso than anything else.

Manticores only get 4 turns of shooting, and the number of shots they get is sometimes only 1. And they still have to hit.

It sounds more like either your opponent was playing the manticore wrong, you SERIOUSLY clustered your troops together, or your opponent was very, very lucky (or some combination of the three).

I was the Sisters player! [sorry for Ninjaing your post mate ]. The manticore was absolutely brutal [should have taken 3!] especially as the battlewagons were grouped together to get the bubble save from the mek. AFAIK the guard player I was allied with followed the rules for multiple barrages correctly [if it's a hit you can place the subsequent shots where you want on the original marker, a miss and it has to touch the edge in the direction of the dice]. The manticore was parked behind LoS blocking cover in the corner of the table so to get at it was pretty impossible.

Having said that I think it was a lascannon that popped your first wagon with some lucky rolling. Maybe try spreading the wagons out? Hard to know what to do against that gunline though, I'm sure if he wasn't teamed up with me he would have taken a couple of Hydras. Plus I think with with all my sisters all I did was kill a few Gretchin, a couple of looters and put some wounds on the biker nobs so I was pretty much dead weight.

I think we're both struggling against his guard [I wrote a similar post after getting mashed with my Dark Eldar!], will have to ban the magic scatter dice.

Edit - Just remembered, he'd already immobilised one of your wagons in turn 1

 rubicant99 wrote:

 IHateNids wrote:
Is it always a Quad Gun?

a single shell has a 3/4 to hit, 2/3 to damage & 1/3 of it being avoided. That gives 1/6. four shots makes it 4/6, so you will probably take damage, but if you bring a few of them, at least two will survive.

Bomber sounds like it might work, but I dont have any ork flyers. Also I know he will just take a squadron of 2 hydras to swat them like flies, and 2 manticores the next game!

Any other strategies? Deffkoptas or Stormboyz any good?

Hydras don't have Interceptor, you'd be getting the alpha strike.

They can be horrible. But i think they have a 36" or 24" minimum range. Get within that and all they are is an Av11 box with a HB/Flamer attached.

They will destroy armour and low armoured infantry quite happily but suffer against MEQ or better.

my advice? kill them, kill them quickly or give them something nasty to shoot at.

A friend of mine plays IG and has a fear of necrons. To stop him melting all my warriors i have started running a small cheap squad of scarabs towards the manticore. He has to either use his shooting to kill the scarabs, and ignore the gauss wall heading his way; or blast the warriors and accept that the scarabs will be on him in a couple of turns.

They can still fire within their min range. Counts as firing indirectly I think . I got rid off doom when he dropped in because of this lol

I play guard and run two manticores at 1750 and 2000 points. Here is what I do to protect them.

1. Hide behind cover and if points are available, I get the camo netting on them. Behind cover is any ruins, ADL, hills, any thing.

2. If I can put a manticore or both of them in a corner I will. Usually behind the ADL w/ quad gun. This protects them on one side and rear from out flanking units.

3. Give them a detail to protect the weak side (away from the table edge). This provides a weak cover and a tar pit unit for a turn to get the final rockets off. Penal legion squads or scout sentinels work great for this. I got this idea from some spearhead formation.

4. After I have fired all rockets, it just becomes a mobile heavy bolter. It is helpful in the "big guns" mission.

Things I'm afraid of and counters to it.

1. Deep striking nits, drop pods. Stern guard crazy Melta drop pod or iron clad drop pod. Any dreadnought with Melta in a drop pod. I do run a small 5 man interceptor squad (gk allies) at 2000 points.

2. Other long range weapons. Cover. Anything that blocks line of sight. The manticore does not need to see what it is shooting at.

3. Outflankers. Read above.


Hope this helps you,figure out,what to,do,against one. If you go against the IG in a hammer and anvil deployment you need to close the distance. That deployment is best for the IG.

Yes I made some errors in deployment which I won't be repeating, but having the initiative stolen from me hurt.
Although it should scatter 2/3 shots (he has magic scatter dice that don't miss) the large, often multiple blasts still seem to hit something, especially turn1 when ur packed together.
From what I can see any ork unit that isn't a flyer or in mega armour gets pulverized by manticores unless in area cover.
Thanks for some of the ideas guys - deepstriking stormboyz or snikrot & friends seem to be the only viable option, but these are still relying on their crappy bs2 to hopefully get rear shots.
Here's hoping a new ork codex has some better fast options...

 kronk wrote:
Heh. I fought a manticore for the first time yesterday against a fast attack list I wanted to try out. It wreaked havoc on my bike squad, killing 6 bikers that had a 5+ Jink save with one volley. Of course, he rolled a 3 on the d3 shots and got some very favorable scatter.

Anyhow, it also did a number on my scouts and whirlwind.

Try to get to it with some ork koptas. It's a flimsy chassis, so rush the darn thing. With my orks, I always have 3 solo ork koptas with TLRokkits for grins and giggles. I would make this tank their priority.

I know this is about orks but why weren't you taking your 3+ armor save against the manticore ap4?

And from what I've seen deffkoptas seem to work good. But there's a reason so many people take manticores. They are really good, with few hard counters.

@Chance: You're right. I was taking my armor saves against the Manticore. I remember that wrong. He was also hitting me with a pair of LRBT that required the Jink Saves. Funnily enough, I made the JInks against the Leman Russ', but failed most of the armor saves versus the Manticore...

Oh yah, touché then ;p.

I play SM's and manticores aren't really that big of a deal for me due to me running multiple drop pods that kill them first turn either before or after a singular turn of shooting. The first time I faced 3 though spread across the table was a nightmare. I feel bad for armies without the ability to wreck them quickly cause they hurt when they get rolling.