Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I was playing a friend of mine, he'd never faced lash so I figured I'd show him.

Chaos (me) ran: 2 Slaanesh DPs with Lash. TS units x7, AC has meltablast (3 units). NM units x7 with BM (3 units). 2 oblits (3 units).

Smurfs (that's loyalist marines to you) ran: Chaplain with jump pack, 10 man jump pack squad with pfist (2 units), Techmarine full kit (2 of 'em, attached to dev squad or tactical), 10 man tactical squads with PF/apoth and las/plas (2 units), Dev squads with 2 missile + 2 lasc + pfist (2 units).

He setup his devs/tacticals in pairs on hills with LOS to the forests on my side. There were hills in between us. I setup my NM in the forests and my TS in the open, with my DP and my oblits hiding behind my forests. The DP were about 8" in, the oblits a little further back.

He got first turn, and moved his jump packs forward on the other side of the hills in the middle.

He fired alot, didn't do much to me. I lost 1 marine. (He rolled bad, I rolled a couple 4+ saves).

Now comes the interesting part, since I've never really bothered running lash since playtesting of the new Dex ceased, I figured I'd see how it works against one of the more popular marine army types (the all-marine army type). I was planning to pull his devs forward, but he instead moved his jump pack guys towards me with his chaplains supporting them.

So, on my turn I moved my 3 TS units forward. 1 directly towards each hill, and 1 straight out so it can cover either hill with fire. My NM stay put. My oblits come out, but only enough to see the hills in the middle--not enough to get shot by the dev squads. My DP run right out, max move directly forward.

I then cast lash successfully on both his units (I can't see over the hills directly, but my DP are far enough forward I can see slightly behind the hill and get LOS to his jump pack troops).

Now, alot of players have this thing for defilers and lash. I hope by posting this they'll see why defilers, while neat, are very vulnerable and really not as good as what I run for most purposes.

So I get 6" and 8" lashes off and pile his jump pack troops on top of the hills they were hiding behind.

Each unit gets the following treatment:

Rapid fire from 1 TS unit at short range (15 S4 AP3 shots).
Long range standing still fire from a NM unit (18 S4 shots, 1 S8 AP3 blast)
2 Plasma cannons from the oblits (2 S7 AP3 blasts).

The plasma cannons are first, followed by the NM blast, the NM weapons, and then the TS fire.

I also have uncommitted, 2 oblits and a TS unit at long range. These both get used to 'clean up' anything that's left of the JP troops.

When all my firing is done, all 20 jump pack marines are dead. The chaplains (2 wound variety) have a wound each and 1 survived two lascannon hits.

That's turn 1.

Now he goes, and he moves his Chaplains forward.

He has slightly better luck with his heavy weapons, and drops 4 marines from 2 squads. He also puts 3 wounds on 1 DP.

He charges, and for the next two assault phases my TS and his chaplains dance around.

My turn, I start moving the left most oblits (I had to place first, so after the jump packers on the table center were wiped out, I didn't have much for them to do) towards the center. I moved my DP up, and lashed his tactical squad forward twice. I shot my NM at his devs (no apoth save) and fired 4 lascannons at the two dev squads (again, no apoth saves). I charged my DP forward into his tactical squad, killing 5 or 6 and losing the thrice wounded DP to a power fist. His tactical and techmarine moved away from my other DP...he won but didn't catch them sadly. Of the chaplains, both died this round. One to TS, one to the AC of the TS. I moved both TS squads forward.

His turn, more shooting at my TS. I lost 3 from one squad (including the AC) and saved the rest. My DP ate a whole bunch of rapid firing tactical and dev squad fire, and died.

I had half a tactical squad and a dev squad facing 2 TS units, a NM unit, and 4 oblits. On the other side, I had 1 TS unit (down to 2 guys lol), a NM unit, and 2 oblits.

I kept up the fire, and essentially crushed his center in two turns of firing while losing no TS (I made all 6 of my 4+ saves) to heavy weapons fire, but bolters cut down 2 or 3 from 1 squad. By then I was in rapid fire range, and his center evaporated. I tried to move up around the forest in my way in between the two hills I'd just wiped his jump pack troops on, but I couldn't so I just hit him with 3 blast templates per turn. I pinned those devs one turn with the NM, which really helped as I fired everything at his tactical squad and blew it away.

Since he had only a handful of devs left at the end of turn 5, we called it a game as my slow moving force would soon be 'coming around the mountain' as it were and be able to finish anything the NM and the Oblits couldn't handle.

The game was pretty much over on turn 1, but he did his best to hold me off. Way too many AP3 weapons and templates and lascannons hitting him at all times really hurt him.

He doesn't have a lash defense, but as this army works fine for being chaos or loyalists (it's based off the illuminati) he's going to give lash a try in his chaos version (tactical, havocs, and raptors).

hmm, if he had taken a libby and hooded one of the two lashes, would that have saved any or all of his assault marines? One of the units would have been out of LOS still right? Would that have given the surviving assault marine unit any good places to go to set up a charge?

You think an opponent that has seen double lash would have played any differently than that guy?

Did you play under 4th or 5th... i know you've been doing a lot of both.

this really makes a case for 5th ed marines to be taking lots of rhinos. It sounds to me like a hood would have only made this game over on 2 instead of on 1. A total rework of shooty marines would be in order if they planned to roll into a no-comp tourney. Rhino seems like consistent lash counter, and not such a deathtrap anymore.

Shep wrote:hmm, if he had taken a libby and hooded one of the two lashes, would that have saved any or all of his assault marines?

Yes, both units were completely blocked from my firing units LOS.

Shep wrote:One of the units would have been out of LOS still right?

Yep.

Shep wrote:Would that have given the surviving assault marine unit any good places to go to set up a charge?

Yep, into a thousand sons unit either way, they were close enough.

The countercharge would have been a NM unit, a oblit unit, and a DP on each though.

Shep wrote:You think an opponent that has seen double lash would have played any differently than that guy?

He might have tried to hide but 11 marines is hard to hide completely. See below for more.

Shep wrote:Did you play under 4th or 5th... i know you've been doing a lot of both.

This was under 4th. Nothing would have changed under 5th, except I would have given up 6 KPs while claiming 14 and I'm pretty sure all the objectives would have been controlled by me.

Shep wrote:this really makes a case for 5th ed marines to be taking lots of rhinos.

Not really. DP can see you when they are about 15" or less away from you. I don't need to see you to shoot you, I just need LOS. There is a difference in 5th but alot of the playtesters giving feedback are apparently ignoring that fact.

Shep wrote:It sounds to me like a hood would have only made this game over on 2 instead of on 1.

Indeed, it would have hastened the end as I'd have gotten my firing units some free movement forward.

Shep wrote:A total rework of shooty marines would be in order if they planned to roll into a no-comp tourney.

Who still runs comp tourneys? They're for lamers who can't play.

Shep wrote:Rhino seems like consistent lash counter, and not such a deathtrap anymore.

It's all relative, bud. If my oblits take your Rhinos out, I can just lash you forward.

That will be more dangerous in 5th than it is now, as right now you cannot blow away a Rhino with smoke up.

In 5th you can. Again, playtesters "testing" while not really "getting" the rules doesn't help. There's a long thread with lots of comments that frankly are wrong in so many ways I've tried to stay out of it.

Anyway Lash sucks now, but in 5th edition games where lots of people are playing the KP/Objective game, especially marines...and not playing to defeat the enemy army, well, Lash gets it's power from lists like that.

I really enjoy playing my 'kill the marines' game against the 12 troops in a marine army (combat squads). Kill all the long range stuff, and when you get to it, kill the slow no range crap in the middle of the board.

Better still, assault wave over the forward marine half-squads and gallop into the back line of lascannon twits.

It's great fun. I guess the question really is, when do marines not suck vs Lash? When they have two libbies, which pretty much only I seem willing to run.

Viel of Time Lib > 5 man combat squads. POW! Next. POW! Next. Gee, 10 marines from 2 combat squads in two assault phases. From 1 HQ. lol

My Warptime DP's do a similar job, I don't really need to roll well like I do with the Libs.

You seem to be of 2 mind on your 5th edition lists...

I've seen you propose a 6 guardian 2 phoenix lord 2 harlie list. And then some days you are talking about not focusing on troops but rather, focusing on troop killing.

Each army is different, but if you are advocating, taking 3 or less troops choices, and gearing the rest of your list to eliminate troops, then what's your answer to one or more of your own troops being eliminated?

i added the caveat of each army is different, because I would guess that you would counter this logic by using a chaos space marine army with 1k sons and plague marines as your mathematically backed example. In the case of the cult heavy chaos army. the simple elimination of their troops isn't so easy. but in most other cases, skimping on troops so that you can just play the 'wrath of god' game isn't gonna net you many wins.

Specific lists aside, being plump on KP and light on scoring, ties an arm behind your back, gives you less flexibility, and makes you more prone to 'rare' events like a poor round of armor save rolling, or a 6,6 from a SAG, or a couple ramshackle scatters that take slugga boyz way closer to your precious scoring unit than you had calculated.

As for comp tourneys. I like em as much as i like prison rules tourneys. I play when and where i can. It seems to me that 'theme' is a scoring catagory in all tourneys I've been to in recent memory. I think winning overalls says more about your skill set than best general. But I can co-exist with people who disagree with me, and i can compete with them too.

I know you get a lot of games in... I've been playing too and i think on the troop composition point I'm just in total disagreement. Cover is too good, the killzone clear is gone, transports are better (loss of entanglement, no escalation, scouts and infils flanking in dedicated transports, the increased need of anti-infantry weapons and the overall decrease in lascannons), new wound allocation rules, new IC targeting and unit joining rules, new 'engaged power fist' swinging after a clear killzone...

the list of buffs to UNITS and nerfs to ICs, shooty vehicles, and MCs is a long one. I like the chaos list you ran for this batrep, it was troop heavy... but the implications you made at the end of your reply, imply that "troops" are a sucker's bet in 5th ed. And I'd pasionately disagree with that.

Dear Stelek,

Well, that makes me feel better about buying several hundred dollars worth of Chaos Marines.

But, I am still unclear why we need a 'Xeno Renaissance', seems like your Dark Eldar and your Chaos Marines both whack ordinary marines in either edition....

Mike: We need a Xeno Renaissance because 4 of 5 players play marines. Been that way a long time.

I loved seeing so many different armies at my local tourney I ran recently, but I think alot of that is me crushing marines no end with my Xenos armies convinced other players to give them a try. Leave the box, the comfort zone, and venture out onto the battlefield with T3 guys with a 5+ save.

Some of them are getting quite good at it. I need to play the latest wave of new inductees, show them army building isn't about pretty models, paint jobs, or crazy conversions. You do that AFTER you have a good build!

Shep, you gotta keep this in mind when you look up what exactly I'm playing at.

I don't run high AP weaponry. I build armies that yes, they can pierce your armor if you are a marine, but I'll take the Necron 'forlorn hope' of just putting so many wounds on you that you fail.

Cover is great. What if I've been playing against players who always sit in cover? That I've long ago given up on starcannons and switched to scatterlasers? That I generally don't even fire my Leman Russ BC against marines (or anyone else) and just fire my 3 heavy bolters and whatever I get, I get?

It's all about my style of play, which is--ok, everyone wants to play marines, everyone wants to beat the 3+...but what if I make an army that makes you take so many saves you die anyway? For cheaper points? And I'm not afraid to sit out in the open and take the starcannon fire because I know when I fire back, I won't be getting shot again as my unit will kill what just shot me?

People play 40k against me, and they lose because I don't play normal 40k. I play Andy's 40k. Just like my fantasy armies, I don't play fantasy--I play Andy's 40k.
In Warmachine it was the same thing, and people quit playing the game after ONE game with me. I ran Warjacks when Warjacks sucked, but no one could beat me. In Flames of War, I'm starting to figure out how to beat someones army with half of mine. It's a struggle, but again...I'm playing Andy's 40k.

It's all about the mindset. I don't say 'Ok' alot to piss people off, I'm saying 'Ok' because the machine in my head is going 'Ok, that isn't going to hurt my plan'.

I've just learned wargaming differently than most other people. Hell, if I told you where my models will be at the end of the game, what I was doing, why I was doing it, what YOU were going to do, and that in the end the dice rolling wouldn't have much effect--would you believe me if I told you BEFORE the game started? If you didn't, and the game ended the way I said it would--would you want to play me ever again?

Think about it.

It'd certainly be fun to see the egg all over your face when you lose.

Seriously, how do you do when your opponent isn't so polite and doesn't go out of their way to make things easy for you? Can you win without sucker-punching an unprepared and unskilled opponent?

When are tournament opponents polite at a GT? When they aren't there to win? Gee. Maybe you should play more, talk less.

If all you are doing is referring to the battle report and calling me a bully...I told him quite clearly what Lash did.

I've also beaten the same army just using Warptime instead of Lash.

So seriously, how do I do?

Going to numerous GT's and beating everyone I play is sucker punching unprepared and unskilled opponents...interesting viewpoint.

I guess if all I managed to pull out of Nurglitch is a snappy one-liner I really musta floored him.

I'm not calling you a bully. I'm wondering how you'd do against someone who didn't make it so easy for you, like your opponent in this battle report. I'm sorry it wasn't clear enough for someone of your caliber to understand.

Incidentally if you've beaten everyone you've played at "numerous" Grand Tournaments, you must have won one of them, right? Right? That certainly makes it easy to narrow down who you are. 25 points ain't bad, I suppose. A 77 Battle score is good, only six other people equaled or beat it. Still, 82/162, that's kind of like winning a Grand Tournament, right?

No wonder you rail against sportsmanship, I think 18 was the worst there. You were no one's favourite opponent or player choice, and other people did as well or better for Battle scores.

I remember when my brother won a Canadian Grand Tournament back during the 3rd edition of Warhammer 40k. When I show people the battle report that was done for White Dwarf people are first surprised by the fact that my brother was running Fire Prisms, Shining Spears, and Scouts back in 3rd edition.

Then they're surprised by the Daemonhunters that he beat to win. They're surprised by the composition of the army, and the way the guy played. I've been to a couple of Grand Tournaments myself, they're not the best of the best. They're just a bunch of people that had the time and money to go play Warhammer for a weekend. Heck, they even let me in.

Of course they're there to win, they just aren't any better at it than your average 40k fan. Which, according to this battle report, is a step up from your friend's level of skill. Of course he's not doing it on purpose, but playing badly because you're not a good player is the same as politely walking into your opponent's crosshairs - you're basically giving them the game because your play is one dimensional and easily predictable. That's why they're called 'marks', because they're polite enough to mark themselves as patsies.

*shrug*

If that's all you've got, you're not very good at arguing.

You do seem to have arguing for arguments sake and going off on a tangent down pretty well.

Kudos for doing 2 things right in 1 day.

I love how you always devert the point of focus to how people are "whining" when in fact they are completely disproving everything you say. Stick up for yourself for once and don't run away? Petty little insults like "If that's all you've got, you're not very good at arguing." are just ridiculous. I've known fifth graders that can whip out better comebacks, and their moms still make their lunches for them. Does yours too?

A kid kept repeating every insult I threw at him when I was in grade 7 and couldn't come up with anything for himself, so I punched him in the face and gave him a bloody nose. I got suspended for 1 day, missed nothing important in class, didn't have any reprocusions from my parents(I'm a diplomat when it comes to talking myself out of punishments) and the day I got back I stuffed a garbage can over his head before he could even respond. I kicked it a couple times and rolled him around for good luck too. Everybody was cheering too, by the way. Just thought you might like to know that you remind of that kid. He even changed schools a year later because nobody liked him.

Talk tough while you're on the internet, because God knows that you can't back it up. And try to stick to an argument for a change and argue back the points that were brought to attention instead of just e-shrugging.