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.

I was in a tournement the other day and I got my templar army stomped into the ground by two battle wagons with death rollers, and a big mek with custome forcefeild. Between turn one and two I hit those things with 4 las cannon and 2 demolisher cannons ( all front armor) and a melta gun on side armor. I cause NO results, between a couple of poor rolles (2) and several great rolles by him on turn three he crushed a land raider, a rhino, a vindicator, and 12 of the 20 marines I had. Other than the obvious, like " roll better" what is the best strategy for templars vs that kind of assault. thanks

Spread out. A battlewagon is only so wide, and can only hit things in a straight line. The front armor is tough, but the side and back are soft and juicy. Spreading out offers your weapons a shot at those areas. Get some assault terminators with thunderhammers, and have one of them go for the Death or Glory attack. If he hasn't moved 6" by the time he reaches you, you should have a little less than a 50% chance of stopping him dead. Don't forget that he is open topped. All your hits will do more damage.

Splitting your force might actually be a good tactic. Let him choose a side and rush it, then you can take pot shots at his flank all day. If you can engage the Big Mek's unit in combat, then devote your attacks to ending his life. After that, the battlewagons should be easily destroyed.

... just out of intrest he didn't use the deff roller on your tanks saying they also took d6 str10 hits did he? alot of players get confused and think ramming and tank charging are one and the same

According to the John Spencer fella at askyourquestion@GW, death rollas do not work against vehicles. Be sure to clarify with your tournament organizer if they go with GW's impromptu rulings.

I have the feeling this would change your game outcome dramatically.

And according to Ard'Boyz tournament finals and Balitmore GT 2008 rulings the deffrolla works on ram attacks.

Which carries more weight?
Official GT judge ruling
Non-official customer support guy's (the guy who fields your complaints about missing bits) ruling

But lets continue beating the life out of this one in YMDC eh?

I think the real question is why did you only have 20 marines in your army.

had 40 marines, only mentioned the 20 effected. Spreading out is good advise thanks.

Orks are tough in low points games, where they can simply bring a load of boyz and flashy vehicles that you probably couldn't handle.

First things first: pretty much everywhere I go let's the deffrolla be used on vehicles. You will face that. The easiest way to prevent getting rolla'd is by having meltas in your squads. When they get near your vehicles just fan your meltas out in front to discourage tank shocks.

Also, it sounds like you are playing a low point game. Don't bring so many high priced items in such a game. In a 1000 points or less, a land raider is usually an expensive points sink. Add a vindicator to that and most of your army is taken up by two vehicles.

Moz wrote:And according to Ard'Boyz tournament finals and Balitmore GT 2008 rulings the deffrolla works on ram attacks.

Which carries more weight?
Official GT judge ruling
Non-official customer support guy's (the guy who fields your complaints about missing bits) ruling

But lets continue beating the life out of this one in YMDC eh?

According to GW there is no such thing as an "official" ruling at a tournament. Results may vary.
edit: I wonder if it was the same judge that ruled that Demons start with units placed on the table in Dawn of War deployment?

1750 -
Lr
LRC
40 marines
2 rhino's
vindy
emp champ - accept any challenge
marshal

Why are you ignoring the templars best asset of cheap neophytes?
Why not try to take many ten-man squads of five-man pf/melta marines and five-man neophyte ablative wounds? Also death rollas do not ignore armor saves last I checked, and with about two minutes of pointing the correct answer out, he'll be unable to ram your tanks for instant death.

Stop giving them shooting gear. We outmelee orks. Get some hand weapons and leave the shooting to tanks.

Especially consider giving rhinos storm bolters and extra armor(ten points total) to make them effective annoyances. If the ork horde has you down, grab a twenty man squad of ten initiates and ten neophytes. They can mob all they want, we're bigger with rerolls.

After grabbing the marshall, champ, lrc, and two rhinos you should have something like 1085points left to work with. If you take the standard 5 initiate/5 neophyte pf/melta combo, you can have potentially seven squads running around. That's seventy templar, half of which reroll to hit. But since seven troop choices is illegal, how about something like
10 initiate/10 neophyte pf/melta 285
5 initiate/ 5 neophyte pf/melta 155
5 initiate/ 5 neophyte pf/melta 155
5 initiate/ 5 neophyte pf/melta 155
5 initiate/ 5 neophyte pf/melta 155

After that, I think you'll probably have enough points left for your vindicator, if not just take out a few things.

That isn't the list that I want to play. I understand that the idea of spending 350 points in wound absorbtion is the way some people see templar, but not me. I have no problem with orks in hand to hand, My oponent litterally crushed 75% with death rollers by turn 3. I am aware that i get armor saves, he didn't get any instant death kills. do you see that at 155 points per squad that it is only 30 points more to have 10 marines instead of 5 and 5? seems more attractive to me

So instead of having 120 points free to buy something else you'd rather just have the five extra marines in the squad? Personally I'd rather have the ablative wounds since anti-meq weaponry is so popular nowadays. Those ten-man squads WILL take casualties on the way into battle and personally I'd rather lose joe mc ten points a guy rather than steroid-pushing, takes-a-hundred-years-to-create-another-one initiate. But if you've come upon a stronger strategy, I'd love to hear it, because ten-point 4+ wounds are really nice. Not to mention they also contribute a good amount of weight to our attacks. I'm always confused how people will immediately spend 10 points to give a model a 5+ invulnerable save that will work 1/3 of the time, but can't be bothered to spend those points buying the good models an extra wound that works 100% of the time.

While it might be overkill having that many models, and it might not be your playstyle, that's perfectly fine, but you specifically asked what's the best strategy against orb mob, and for templar it's either vehicle spam, or mob spam. How'd he crush 75% with two deff rollas by turn three? Did you literally not roll a single save? Or just death or gloried on every single one? Statistically they'd only get 7 hits each trukk each turn, 2 of those should roll a 1 to wound, and you should be failing 1/3 of the remaining saves(which kills about 4 marines a turn)

Well honestly if you don't want to change the list or tactics, than go get casino dice, help the homeless, and get that karma back up, because it just sounds like you rolled horrifically.

Lists aside, the best way to destroy battle wagons is to ignore front armor. Assault hits the rear armor or use something like a drop pod, speeder to get rear/side armor shots.

Consider a split deployment where you deploy your army to the sides of the board, leaving the center empty. Or pull the old Illipa outflank. If he picks one direction the shooting elements on the other side of the board will have a side armor shots on the battle wagons.

When you play orks that are heavy with deff roller battle wagons, center deployment and a assault up the middle is playing to your opponents strnegths not yours. Even if you are are an assault army...

Pete

Pdeflorio wrote:Lists aside, the best way to destroy battle wagons is to ignore front armor. Assault hits the rear armor or use something like a drop pod, speeder to get rear/side armor shots.

Consider a split deployment where you deploy your army to the sides of the board, leaving the center empty. Or pull the old Illipa outflank. If he picks one direction the shooting elements on the other side of the board will have a side armor shots on the battle wagons.

When you play orks that are heavy with deff roller battle wagons, center deployment and a assault up the middle is playing to your opponents strengths not yours. Even if you are are an assault army...

Pete

Be careful, though. If he has a Mek and a KFF, suicide units might not be the best way to get in behind him since it's hard to scatter within 6" of a vehicle with consistency, you might end up just giving him something tasty to krump . I'd suggest bringing meltas, flamers and powerfists, and also making sure that all of your units have at leas one other unit in range that can counter charge. This helps because:

1. Meltas are one of the only weapons that have a decent chance of fragging a KFF tank, especially if he goes Battlewagon heavy and brings a KFF Mek. I've had 9 lascannon shots bounce off my Armour, only to have a tank blown by a
melta.

2. Powerfists are also good against this type of list. DO NOT DEATH OR GLORY. Take the deff rolla, and then he has to engage that unit with his boyz mounted in the trukk or else the wagon has a good chance of being penned by the
power fist.

3. Flamers wreck Orks. Always. Since they cannot consolidate into battle anymore, this means that any ork player worth his salt (especially in a low model count list like a Battlewagon one) isn't going to want to lose a twenty boy squad in a single turn. Be careful though, and make sure you posistion your flamer units so they can't get assaulted simultaneously with the other unit.

4. Finally, counter-attacks. Orks suck on the defense, so use this to your advantage. If they don't wipe out the first squad on the charge. You can ram another squad in their and absolutely decimate them on the combat rez chart.

This one is easy. It's called Dreadnoughts with Multimeltas and attack bikes with Multimeltas. Both are relatively cheap in a templars army and are the only substitute for a lack of heavy weapons within the army. Dreadnoughts are one of the best counters to a Deff Rolla Battle wagon..IMHO.
Capt K

CaptKaruthors wrote:This one is easy. It's called Dreadnoughts with Multimeltas and attack bikes with Multimeltas. Both are relatively cheap in a templars army and are the only substitute for a lack of heavy weapons within the army. Dreadnoughts are one of the best counters to a Deff Rolla Battle wagon..IMHO.
Capt K

Really? I've never had problems swatting a Dreadnought. The problem is is that if you deep strike it in, and if it lands within 12" inches it gets one shot to deal effective damage, which, under a KFF, has a 50% chance of being negated anyway. If that shot misses/is saved against/fails to do any effective damage, you've just dropped two KPs that are easy for an Ork player to get.

Attack bikes are a little better, but you better have a way of getting within 12" of a battlewagon over cover. Remember, a Battle wagon loaded with shoota boys (with 2 big shootas) and a big shoota equipped wagon) can easily drop 36+ S4 and 9 S5 shots into any thing within 24" inches (25" w/red paint job). If they are playing a battle wagon heavy list, chances our they will have multiple wagons in range.

Gitzbitah wrote: If he hasn't moved 6" by the time he reaches you, you should have a little less than a 50% chance of stopping him dead

Your post had a bunch of good info, except this one.
A DoG attack does not roll to hit. the hit is automatic.

Tri wrote:... just out of intrest he didn't use the deff roller on your tanks saying they also took d6 str10 hits did he? alot of players get confused and think ramming and tank charging are one and the same

Oh, God!
PLEASE, folks... can we keep the tank shock vs. ramming out of this thread and confined to the 3 or 4 or eleventy-five OTHER threads that it's being argued in?
Please? LOL


As others have said... you have to ignore the front armor.
You need a fast element that can get to it ASAP and assault it. Assault is the best option, IMO, because it doesn't matter what direction you come from. Assault always attacks the rear armor, so you can still hit it head on and bust it open with Joe Average.

S>7 weapons from the side & rear armors, too (again, as has already been bandied about).

Eric

MagickalMemories its a fair question ... it explains why he lost so many vehicals to ramming (... and i've not meet or heard of GW agreeing they do but till FAQ its any ones call)

best advice get a land speeder with a heavy bolter and assualt cannon you'll be able to get round (fast skimmer 24" FTW) shoot the hell out of his side armour next turn ... 80pts but well worth it

Really? I've never had problems swatting a Dreadnought. The problem is is that if you deep strike it in, and if it lands within 12" inches it gets one shot to deal effective damage, which, under a KFF, has a 50% chance of being negated anyway. If that shot misses/is saved against/fails to do any effective damage, you've just dropped two KPs that are easy for an Ork player to get.

You don't drop it in you have it escort your other units as they advance, or you hold your ground. Venerable Dreads are trouble for Orks, because the ork anti-tank sucks.

Attack bikes are a little better, but you better have a way of getting within 12" of a battlewagon over cover.

Bikes are more mobile (with great anti-tank ability) than Battle wagons and you have to deal with them. Meanwhile that takes the pressure off any LRC's I have. LRC's also deal out MM shots as well. I'd gladly sacrifice cheap MM units if it means good chances of blowing up Battle wagons. If you field can't make the save and I pen a wagon...it's gets destroyed on a 3+.

Remember, a Battle wagon loaded with shoota boys (with 2 big shootas) and a big shoota equipped wagon) can easily drop 36+ S4 and 9 S5 shots into any thing within 24" inches (25" w/red paint job).

If you are going to do that, then the LRC's are relatively free to shoot as well, since your attention is paid to the bikes. The nice thing is that attack bikes have the manueverability to get side shots.