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I'd put my money on Necrons being the supreme standard in power playing. Gauss got redonk and they have no shortage of bodies to field it. Coupled with their fliers and the sweeping revisions to rapid fire nd I'd say until something more powerful comes out they are top dogs.

While things like terminators got buffed, Crons will still have the weight of fire to bring them down with relative ease. So I'd toss my vote on cron hybrid lists being the new "it" thing until Matt ward goes batcrap nuts and makes tau rail guns rapid fire fire warrr 5 point upgrades.

I'd say there's a difference to Imperial Guard foot lists (allegedly) becoming worse and mech being king of the edition again. Other Codices may be more successful at running foot lists.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:I'd say there's a difference to Imperial Guard foot lists (allegedly) becoming worse and mech being king of the edition again. Other Codices may be more successful at running foot lists.

Yes. The name of this Thread is not really correct. Ailaros talks mainly about GEQ units and armies. That is absolutely fine, but some people may think he is talking also about MEQ armies and call him craaaaazy
Mech will be king of the Guard, not the whole 6th edition. There are some viable foot choices for other codices. Nekron foot spam seems cool, SW drop pods with mass GH, bikes,...It is too early to say what is going to be the best, but I already saw a few good ideas about hybrid or non-mech lists.

I've got 5 games under my belt with traitor guard and have noticed some observations.

jmurph wrote:Yeah, what russes really need to watch is essentially the same as 5th- stuff that wants to get close. Russes definitely look better and griffons look like an awesome substitute.

In every game I played with the LRBT it was vastly underwhelming. In every case they did not kill much, and they were either ignored or melta'ed. The Russ' took a few hard hits
* PC sponsons cannot snap fire
* PC sponsons can cause overheating
* If you shoot ordanance, all other shots save 1 are snap fired. This makes sponsons useless
* As before, ordanance is a gamble. 2/3 of the time you scatter. If your opponent has night fight/ruins/aegis lines, then even hits can be underwhelming.
I still love the russ' as a tank, but right now I think that punisher with HB sponsons may be the best for its 29 STR 5 shots a turn.

jmurph wrote:I agree that all vets in chims took a hit, but that has more to do with the increased fragility of the vets and the easier removal of weapons.

I modeled up 4 squads of plasma vets and 1 melta vet for my chimera vets. They have been amazing in every game I have played them in for the following reasons.
* Since there is less mech in the meta right now, PGs are gunning down MEQ.
* Glancing hits no longer keep the vets from shooting
* Chimeras can move forward 18" a turn when going flat out -- great for turn 4+ objective grabbing

jmurph wrote:For guard, manticores are absolutely murderous now. S10 eats vehicles and infantry alike and multiple big templates with the new casualty rules is amazing

I think your right on that.

Labmouse- I was more referring to naked Russes. The PCs (as well as Razor plas) took a HUGE hit. The plasma turret is fine- no overheat rule. Have you tried HB sponsons w/battle cannon or Demolisher cannon? Cheap and 6 snap fires plus hull and turret and 2 more weapon destroyed soaks.

I agree on plasma vets. They will work a number on foot MEQ (which I do see becoming more prevalent, especially for BA). My point was that chim vets took a hit, but not because mech is now "bad". Vets are still very good, just slightly easier to kill. (Not that they were very tough to begin with).

jmurph wrote:Labmouse- I was more referring to naked Russes. The PCs (as well as Razor plas) took a HUGE hit. The plasma turret is fine- no overheat rule. Have you tried HB sponsons w/battle cannon or Demolisher cannon? Cheap and 6 snap fires plus hull and turret and 2 more weapon destroyed soaks.

That was my first loadout at 170 points. The HBs were unwhelming, as only 1.5 HBs hit per turn. While the extra 'weapon' are nice in case you suffer a weapon destroyed hit, the fact is my 'russ was not targeted save by stormravens or BA jump troops. In both cases, the melta was enough to do the job.

A naked 'Russ looks good on paper. You have a good chance of getting a penetrating hit on vehicles since you don't need the circle on it any more. You can do a number on infantry, as you can expect to get 5-6 models per 'hit'.
Alas though this expression comes to mind "In theory, there is no difference between practice and theory. In practice, there is.". What I encountered were people bringing lots of flyers and land raiders, with very few people bringing regular transports. When I was shooting at ground troops, only 2 hits per game were 'on target' and often they were in cover (in a runs, behind a aegis, or in one case scarabs behind wraiths still getting a 4+ cover save due to stealth)

As such, for 150 points, its just not a lot of firepower. I think that I would do better alling with SW or Daemons and using those points to get either GHs or LFs, or buy some flying monsteous creatures.

jmurph wrote:I agree on plasma vets. They will work a number on foot MEQ (which I do see becoming more prevalent, especially for BA). My point was that chim vets took a hit, but not because mech is now "bad". Vets are still very good, just slightly easier to kill. (Not that they were very tough to begin with).

Let me tell you sir, these plasma vets were 'money' this weekend. One BA player was forced to re-enact WW1 as he rushed my chimera line. Each chimera was shooting 3 PGs, 2 LGs, 1 scatter laser, and 1 HB (snap shot) while I kept him at bay. Finally I moved up and then shot the piss out of him and left nothing but smoldering boots on the ground.
He dropped in 2 full squads and took out 2 chimeras, then I made those turn into piles of boots. It was not pretty. (that was one game where the LRBTs were useful, hitting the clumped BA)

I played a deathwing army as well, and had similar results. He dropped in one squad of terminators -- shot up a chimera. I would then pile out, move 6" to the side, and shoot all the termies without SS's until there were only 2 models left per unit. I tabled him on turn 4. The LRBTs were useless that game.

Now, in a 1500 point list I brought 2 LRBTs. What if instead i spent those 300 points on GHs in drop pods or rhinos? I could have used them to engage MEQ or other targets, helping to preserve the vets. I also could have bought a bloodthister and 2 nurgling squads and used the bloodthirster to engage enemy models as counter-assault. (Just for the record, I would think a bloodthirster would be more of a counter-clobber unit and less of a counter-assault unit)

labmouse42 wrote:I've got 5 games under my belt with traitor guard and have noticed some observations.

jmurph wrote:Yeah, what russes really need to watch is essentially the same as 5th- stuff that wants to get close. Russes definitely look better and griffons look like an awesome substitute.

In every game I played with the LRBT it was vastly underwhelming. In every case they did not kill much, and they were either ignored or melta'ed. The Russ' took a few hard hits
* PC sponsons cannot snap fire
* PC sponsons can cause overheating
* If you shoot ordanance, all other shots save 1 are snap fired. This makes sponsons useless
* As before, ordanance is a gamble. 2/3 of the time you scatter. If your opponent has night fight/ruins/aegis lines, then even hits can be underwhelming.
I still love the russ' as a tank, but right now I think that punisher with HB sponsons may be the best for its 29 STR 5 shots a turn.

I think you're right that PC sponsons are useless but there's a place for heavy bolter sponsons as weapons destroyed results are randomly allocated now.

As ordnance I think it got more reliable this edition due to Focus Fire, my opponents rarely have all of their unit in cover so I can just Focus Fire on the part that's outside of cover. Yes, some things give a 4+ cover save but more often than not (depending on your local club's terrain selection) cover saves are 5+. Mech Guard is probably the best equipped to deal with Night Fight, having Searchlights on every single Chimera. Last week I actually took a pair of Chimeras with my otherwise foot + Russ list just to scoot up and searchlight things I wanted to wreck with my Russes and Manticore.

You have a good idea with focus fire. Ill try that this weekend when I play.

You know, your right on chimeras being a decent gun platform for 55 points. Slap a HB and ML on that puppy and watch it move 6" and toss out 6 shots a turn. Since its also an AV 12 tank, its not a bad deal at all to act as mobile cover.

I've been quite pleased with my triple HB LRBTs so far. Having disposable searchlights does help, but even without it, they force enough saves to get their kills.

Yes, cover got slightly worse, but there tends to be a lot more of it in the new game.

As far as the vehicles...too easy to destroy. On average, a Dread will probably be either wrecked or destroyed if shot by ap 1.

2+ armor and psykers are huge... Played a game with 3 dreadknights that just killed. Just those 3 smacked down nearly 1850 points of Blood Angels

TechMarine1 wrote:Yes, cover got slightly worse, but there tends to be a lot more of it in the new game.

As far as the vehicles...too easy to destroy. On average, a Dread will probably be either wrecked or destroyed if shot by ap 1.

It was the same in 5th. Dreadnaughts got smashed by meltas all the time, due to a)being AV12 (or very occasionally AV13) and b)usually being up in the front lines, and therefore in melta range.
Support dreads are just as durable as before though.

Mech may still be awesome, and better than foot lists (though I will continue to play footguard nonetheless), but I don't know if Mech will still be the central meta of the game- it may be replaced with 2+ spam or flying circus.

DOOMBREAD wrote:Mech may still be awesome, and better than foot lists (though I will continue to play footguard nonetheless), but I don't know if Mech will still be the central meta of the game- it may be replaced with 2+ spam or flying circus.

Honestly that's nonsense. Only GK and DA can 2+ spam, and only Chaos Deamons can do flying circus (though that may change with the new tyranid codex).
Mech is here to stay, it's just not ubiquitous.

Eldar are going to be scary with that many psykers and a new codex on its way...

Testify wrote:

DOOMBREAD wrote:Mech may still be awesome, and better than foot lists (though I will continue to play footguard nonetheless), but I don't know if Mech will still be the central meta of the game- it may be replaced with 2+ spam or flying circus.

Honestly that's nonsense. Only GK and DA can 2+ spam, and only Chaos Deamons can do flying circus (though that may change with the new tyranid codex).
Mech is here to stay, it's just not ubiquitous.

Ummm...not so on the 2+ spam.

Chaos marines, wolf guard, vanilla marines can all spam 2+ armor spam.

Squat Kid wrote:Eldar are going to be scary with that many psykers and a new codex on its way...

All 2 psykers and 2 disciplines? Yes, that's a whole lot compared to Tyranids 17.

DarknessEternal wrote:

Squat Kid wrote:Eldar are going to be scary with that many psykers and a new codex on its way...

All 2 psykers and 2 disciplines? Yes, that's a whole lot compared to Tyranids 17.

You think they won't get more? and you can take squads of warlocks...

IG are all 2+ when they go to ground behind a defense line, one could argue that IG can field the most 2+ in the game.

Squat Kid wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:

Squat Kid wrote:Eldar are going to be scary with that many psykers and a new codex on its way...

All 2 psykers and 2 disciplines? Yes, that's a whole lot compared to Tyranids 17.

You think they won't get more? and you can take squads of warlocks...

I'm confident they won't. They've given me shuriken catapults after all. Eldar are dead and will stay that way.

DarknessEternal wrote:

Squat Kid wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:

Squat Kid wrote:Eldar are going to be scary with that many psykers and a new codex on its way...

All 2 psykers and 2 disciplines? Yes, that's a whole lot compared to Tyranids 17.

You think they won't get more? and you can take squads of warlocks...

I'm confident they won't. They've given me shuriken catapults after all. Eldar are dead and will stay that way.

Eldar have the best 2 disciplines and can rock 5 powers a turn with runes of witnessing, warding, and a ghost helm. Eldar players have many legitimate complaints, the new psychic rules are not one of them.

schadenfreude wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:

Squat Kid wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:

Squat Kid wrote:Eldar are going to be scary with that many psykers and a new codex on its way...

All 2 psykers and 2 disciplines? Yes, that's a whole lot compared to Tyranids 17.

You think they won't get more? and you can take squads of warlocks...

I'm confident they won't. They've given me shuriken catapults after all. Eldar are dead and will stay that way.

Eldar have the best 2 disciplines and can rock 5 powers a turn with runes of witnessing, warding, and a ghost helm. Eldar players have many legitimate complaints, the new psychic rules are not one of them.

Bingo

I think we might need to get a little more specific if I'm going to make any points in this conversation.

My 1500 list in 5th edition was mech. I won a lot of highly competitive games with it. It was something along the lines of this.

CCS 4x melta chimera
vets 3x melta chimera
vets 3x melta chimera
vets 3x melta chimera
vendetta
vendetta
vendetta
2x hydra
2x hydra
2x hydra


We have an instant problem, before we talk about matchups, before we talk about close combat affecting vehicles, before we talk about hull points.

Now, if I had the top of 1, which I did want if I won the roll, then my 30 veterans will be debarking on the top of 5. Oh by the way, I won't be contesting a SINGLE point, unless it is with a 5 or 10 man unit consisting of T3 5+ armor models. There is now an entire player turn and a 67% chance of additional turns, where my guys are on foot.

Using the Crusade mission as an example, even if I got lucky and we rolled an odd number of objectives, and I got to place the first one, I'm not contesting any of the objecitves my opponent placed. I could threaten to score the three that I placed, but what is the reality of me keeping one model alive from each of my three units. And even more devastating, is that if my opponent walked over and had just a single troop model within 3" of one of my objectives at game-end, then it would be irrelevant whether or not I had two or three vehicles hovering over that point.

Does this mean that foot guard are a better option for me? I'm not sure. It doesn't really look like it. What playable aggressive denial units do IG have? Stormtroopers? Ogryn? Rough riders? All of our "objective contesting" in 5th edition came from late game tank shocks or 24" vendetta moves.

One might say that for around every 55 points of chimera, you get an infantry squad with an autocannon. Ok, thats interesting. But would an autocannon unit like that be able to brave table-center on foot in order to contest an objective? No way. It isn't any better at denying objectives than the chimera really, because as it approaches a more robust and superior unit, it will just get effortlessly erased. Is a unit in a chimera better than two units in 6th? Not really. You charge the chimera, get overwatched, kill it easily, get shot by the unit inside, then charge it, get ovrwatched and kill it. If there are two units, you charge one unit, get overwatched, kill it, get shot at by the other unit, then charge the other unit, get overwatched, then kill it. It is really just splitting hairs on how you want your bunker to look.

"So Shep..." you ask, "What does all of this mean?" Well I'll tell you what I think it means. IG aren't good at winning missions like crusade, scouring, big guns never tire, and relic. Mech isn't good at it, and foot isn't better at it than mech. Pure IG is going to dominate purge the alien and emperors will. In purge the alien it will just sit back and table you with shooting, picking up extra points for first blood and slay the warlord. And in emperors will they will easily score their own objective, deny linebreaker and warlord slay, and win on first blood and warlord slay.

If we are talking about book missions, the winners in this edition are the armies that have good aggressive denial units, and outstanding shooting. It is, in my opinion, pretty irrelevant whether or not my IG troop is shooting out of a chimera, or twice as many guys just going to ground all day and not dying either. Because nothing IG can field can even threaten to stop my opponent from claiming his objective with troop models that are either out of LOS or in ruins laying on their stomachs with 2+ cover. You'll want somewhere around 60% of your army to be gunline, and the rest to be incredibly fast, incredibly resilient, non-vehicular aggressive units. A book like space wolves is just gorgeous for 6th. Run your 15 fangs, have some razorbacks holding tiny grey hunter units or full sized grey hunters for the objectives you placed, and run a massive, resilient and fast thunderwolf rush to contest your opponents objectives. The awesomeness of allies really fixes the metagme though, as now, everyone gets to be as ridiculously stacked as space wolves. Lots of people will be taking IG or tau as their firebase/home objective controller, and lots of people will be taking space wolves, demons, and orks to threaten the denial.

If I were playing book missions for high stakes right now, and I went with IG as my primary detachment, I would take rune priest/grey hunter/thunderwolf cavalry, bloodthirster/plaguebearers/bloodcrushers or biker warboss/nob bikers. If I had to take pure IG, honestly, I think I might reach for Yarrick and 10 ogryn. Or multiple units of 3 or 5 ogryn in chimeras. You need to move forward and contest in the late turns of both 5th edition and 6th edition 40k. In 5th edition we could do it because chimeras that moved 12" were essentially melee immune, and they contested. We'd just kill off their anti-tank early, and then they wouldn't really have an answer to that. Now, 5 tac marines or 5 wyches are anti-tank, not to mention they can just ignore tanks in terms of win conditions.

This is starting to get pretty rambley... Let me bring it back. Foot guard isn't better than mech guard now. But I think they both do equally well at scoring home objectives and I think they both suck equally at scoring or contesting objectives that you didn't place. Our heavy support still rules, we have the best flyers, but our HQ/elite/troop section isn't good enough to get it done on its own without allies.

I think I'm going to start running around with some ogryn/rough riders. Rough riders seem interesting for a 10 point model that has krak grenades and can contest and move as cavalry. Ogryns are just the only thing we have that can survive the new and improved bolter fire that we are going to be seeing.

One thing that I feel the need to point out is that getting First Blood is not going to be reliable at all. It tends to go to whoever goes first-- this is intentional and balances the normal natural advantages of going second. Also, winning based on secondary objectives will likely not be what you want to do in a tournament setting...

Fetterkey wrote:One thing that I feel the need to point out is that getting First Blood is not going to be reliable at all. It tends to go to whoever goes first-- this is intentional and balances the normal natural advantages of going second. Also, winning based on secondary objectives will likely not be what you want to do in a tournament setting...

We usually don't get first blood until turn 2, sometimes turn 3.

I have 2 points!

1) Necron are the flavour of 6th ed, not mech. They have the best guns, as reasonable assault units as anything else out
There, the best fliers, best anti troop and best anti mech. They also have s9 ap2 guns on jump packs with preferred enemy for everything and Can make carnifexes beat themselves over the head with their own wrecking claws of death. They can make a land raider av5 in a turn before shooting it and then whatever is left from the meltdown of whatever the hell powers them. They can deep strike in av14 tanks with an
Option to maybe ignore shaken and stunned ( admittedly that's been nerfed) and then teleport 20warriors to them to finish off the job if anything is left. They can pop your vindicator with its own shot, and then pop another thank while they are At it. They have to be killed on average 1.5 times a model if there is a res orb around to die and can kill a charging wraithlord. There is nothing that you can do that a crib can't. Whatever happens, mech or not, you are screwed. (yeah in a crib fanboy)

2) that article that ailaros keeps referring to is written by none other than... Dun dun dun dah dah... Ailaros! Isn't that funny. 2 pages of why footsloggers are dead as evidence when it's actually the exact same stuff written By the exact same guy. Wow... Classy Ailaros!

Nemesor: So what? Instead of quoting an article he wrote, he just linked to it. What's the problem? Anyone who follows the link finds that out readily, it's not hidden. The article stands or falls on its arguments, not its author.

I think Necrons are strong, no doubt, but in the chances I've had to play against them (there's a lot of Necrons at my FLGS), I'm struck by just how easy the are to kill with Guard, at least compared to MEQs. Guard has the tools to kill squads wholesale, and actually aren't afraid of the Necrons in close combat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, thanks to Shep for the mission breakdown, we've talked a lot about the rules, and less about winning missions. In that vein, is objective contesting a new role for Marbo? He can show up anywhere and has Stealth. He's not tough enough to last too long in combat against most full strength squads, but if you just couldn't finish off an objective camping squad, Marbo might be a non-terrible option if you could weaken it with indirect fire first. I think it would be more of a secondary role for him, but it could come in pretty useful.

Testify wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:One thing that I feel the need to point out is that getting First Blood is not going to be reliable at all. It tends to go to whoever goes first-- this is intentional and balances the normal natural advantages of going second. Also, winning based on secondary objectives will likely not be what you want to do in a tournament setting...

We usually don't get first blood until turn 2, sometimes turn 3.

Do people in your area use vehicles?

imweasel wrote:

Testify wrote:

DOOMBREAD wrote:Mech may still be awesome, and better than foot lists (though I will continue to play footguard nonetheless), but I don't know if Mech will still be the central meta of the game- it may be replaced with 2+ spam or flying circus.

Honestly that's nonsense. Only GK and DA can 2+ spam, and only Chaos Deamons can do flying circus (though that may change with the new tyranid codex).
Mech is here to stay, it's just not ubiquitous.

Ummm...not so on the 2+ spam.

Chaos marines, wolf guard, vanilla marines can all spam 2+ armor spam.

And I am very capable of fielding plasmacannons, guns, and other AP1/2 weaponry.

Honestly, from all the "2+ saves are the shiznit yo!" i hear, it makes me wonder where everyones plasmaguns have been. I could go toe to toe with elite troops who are armed as a bare minimum with a powersword in melee, and lots more scary option... or I could use my plasma cannon. Nice 5++ save on your 40p model there

Jihallah wrote:

imweasel wrote:

Testify wrote:

DOOMBREAD wrote:Mech may still be awesome, and better than foot lists (though I will continue to play footguard nonetheless), but I don't know if Mech will still be the central meta of the game- it may be replaced with 2+ spam or flying circus.

Honestly that's nonsense. Only GK and DA can 2+ spam, and only Chaos Deamons can do flying circus (though that may change with the new tyranid codex).
Mech is here to stay, it's just not ubiquitous.

Ummm...not so on the 2+ spam.

Chaos marines, wolf guard, vanilla marines can all spam 2+ armor spam.

And I am very capable of fielding plasmacannons, guns, and other AP1/2 weaponry.

Honestly, from all the "2+ saves are the shiznit yo!" i hear, it makes me wonder where everyones plasmaguns have been. I could go toe to toe with elite troops who are armed as a bare minimum with a powersword in melee, and lots more scary option... or I could use my plasma cannon. Nice 5++ save on your 40p model there

I know it! at any given time, I have 15 plasma guns in my army... and plenty more AP 1 and 2 in addition... Blood Angel assault termies were nasty, 2+ armor, 3+ inv and feel no pain? ouch