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What changes will you make to your list or how will the top teir armies (lash, deamons, nobs) be changed to take down the new army men??

Why is this post dropping to page 2 so fast.

I'll weigh in.

Eldar. Its official. Full mech, fire dragons/dire avengers/fire prisms, bright lances, scatter lasers, stay far away.

Space marines. I have been having a hard time finding out what to hit with my thunder hammers, getting out of land raiders exposes me to all sorts of nasty shooting. I have returned to speeder/predator/melta rhino/dreadnought firefight mech.

CSM. Add chosen in rhinos with max meltas, outflank, profit

Tau. Add ethereals to expensive non-mech units like broadside/shas'o combos (thanks focusedfire!)

Demons. More tzeentch. Can keep the core list intact, but need to add railtongues/bolts of tzeentch (around 5)

Sisters, kick up the melta count a bit. max exorcists.

Orks. Lootas need battlewagons. Non 30 man units need mad doc grotsnik. Going to be trying a mechanized ork list. Boarding planks and KFFs.


Those are the armies I either play or have had discussions with their pilots about what they are going to do.

My Tau are even more boned then they used to be. I doubt I'll bring them to a tournament again until they get a new codex.

Mech Orks will be even bigger then they are right now. More battle wagons, Shock attack Guns, & lottas. Less Nob Bikers


Daemons will take a hit if Inq. with mystics ally into the army.

With the ability to lower my reserve rolls and potential issue with drop pod heavy lists with mystics I'll have to develop lists that enable me to start turn 1 with everything on the board. Running salamanders this might mean even more Melta action then before. Bikes that turboboost get a 3+ cover save. 6 Multi Melta attack bikes run me 300 points. Might be a good bargain.

I agree with a lot of the ones shep said.

Daemons - I think you might actually see some daemon players try out screamers. If not expect to see tongue on grinder's and more bolts scattered through the armies

Tau - At least one 3 man unit of broadsides with an ethereal and all the fixings.

Orks will mech up or go 30 in a foot mob. How big can you get a gretchen mob again?

Marines if they aren't all mechanized need to start. Whether it be by rhino/razorback or drop pod.

Nid's - I think they are going to have to go with the mc wall. 6-8 big nasty gribly things with cc weapons that just run right at you with the hormagaunts running up behind. Also you might see more lictors for going after tasty artillery.

Sister's - the current mech build will hold up well

Necrons - No clue here, i got nothing, the new battle psyker squad hoses em even more.

Chaos - What few lash players that didn't mount up before will need to now. Most good lash players were running with 6 oblit's. I think that will stay but termies might get swapped for chosen. Berserkers will be hell on chimera's if they get to charge.

I expect most armies to end up going fully mechanized, don't know if that's good or bad. 5th has been pointing people towards this for a while, the IG codex may be the final nail in the coffin.

Warmaster wrote:I expect most armies to end up going fully mechanized, don't know if that's good or bad. 5th has been pointing people towards this for a while, the IG codex may be the final nail in the coffin.

It looks like GW is going to be shoe-horning a new nid book between space wolves and dark eldar. Like maybe a january 2010 thing. (don't ask me where I heard this or how true it is. Its just my observations on rumors and releases. i don't have a 'source')

They need to carefully do something with nids, but they'd be a great meta-game shaker. It feels like they asked Robin to play executioner to loota spam, although I'm not sure that I believe thats true, but in doing so, they really just shut down horde orks more than lash has even been able to do, and have made the game "fearless or transported"

meltaguns, multi-meltas, plasma guns, plasma cannnons and heavy flamers seem to be the only guns anyone will actually shell out points for. Outside of heavy flamers (which are just supremely efficient affordable infantry killers) All the guns people are taking are there to kill transports, tanks or heavy fearless infantry.

I think we can all take the next 8 months and go "vroom vroom" with our mech lists. That's a decent amount of time for a vehicle heavy environment to not get stale and boring. As long as tyranids make a metagame impact when they arrive, we will get a chance to revisit our codexes and revise to a new paradigm.

A lot of the time my home games will be 'unmechanized' with a request that my opponent do the same. That will keep the tourney and FLGS games fresh.

Fast 'Nids will mess up any IG army reliant on large amounts of infantry; either hormagaunts or scouting stealers (although I prefer Horms). I wouldn't bother with outflanking, just run the horde right at them and get into cc before they can kill you. I don't see IG being too afraid of 'Zilla Nids, however; they have the concentration of firepower to deal effectively with a small number of models, no matter how tough they are.

Likewise mechanized Orks shold have a good time as well, especially 3x Battlewagons with 2x KFF. The only HQ I'd take against IG would be the big Mek with KFF; against Guard he's a badass close combat monster without any upgrades. 1-2 Lootas are necessary imo.

3x Land Raiders with a bunch of AssTerms should do fine as well, although if IG players are building their lists with a lot of meltas it'll have problems. Shrike especially adds effectiveness.

Dark Eldar should have a good chance, although I don't think people have figured out how to maximize cover with vehicle squadrons yet, so they may actually be in trouble against very good IG players.

Eldar have hyper resilient, fast, close combat units (Jetseer Eldar) capable of ripping tanks apart in CC; I think this is the best possible counter. It also has the benefit of being incredibly effective against many other 'top tier' lists. This one imo is the real IG killer.

Chaos/Mech Marines with minimal bells and whistles who do nothing but drive rhinos forward until they get within melta/rapid fire range should work fine due to target saturation and general toughness of vehicles in 5E.

Tau with excessive amounts of disruption pods and fushion blasters should do fine.

At least, that's how I would kill the IG army lists I've put together. Shelve gimmick lists like Nob Bikers and lynchpin lists like Kairos Fateweaver/Blood Crushers or Penitent Engine/Deffdread spam; IG have the firepower and special abilities to rip apart any lynchpin early.

sourclams wrote:Fast 'Nids will mess up any IG army reliant on large amounts of infantry; either hormagaunts or scouting stealers (although I prefer Horms). I wouldn't bother with outflanking, just run the horde right at them and get into cc before they can kill you. I don't see IG being too afraid of 'Zilla Nids, however; they have the concentration of firepower to deal effectively with a small number of models, no matter how tough they are.

And neither type of nids can really step to a full mech IG list. It's just a short wait for them to get updated though.

sourclams wrote:Likewise mechanized Orks shold have a good time as well, especially 3x Battlewagons with 2x KFF. The only HQ I'd take against IG would be the big Mek with KFF; against Guard he's a badass close combat monster without any upgrades. 1-2 Lootas are necessary imo.

Agreed. This one is so hard to envision, but battlewagons from range with a 4+ seem pretty untouchable for guard. I'm looking forward to lots of speed freak versus mech IG games in the coming months.

sourclams wrote:3x Land Raiders with a bunch of AssTerms should do fine as well, although if IG players are building their lists with a lot of meltas it'll have problems. Shrike especially adds effectiveness.

This one I just don't see. I have to disagree as someone who has been playing a little bit of thunder hammer lately. 3 land raiders facing off against 15 or more BS4 meltas? With a massive investment in these models that have to get out of the land raider to do something. You get out, you hammer the absolute crap out of a 55 point chimera, get melta'ed and multi-lasered for a couple of wounds and the weaken resolved off the table, if they don't just shoot the termies completely off the table. I think SM is sitting perfectly fine when facing IG, but they need to focus more on shooty vehicles and transports, rather than a non-fearless uber unit that can't fire from a transport.

sourclams wrote:Dark Eldar should have a good chance, although I don't think people have figured out how to maximize cover with vehicle squadrons yet, so they may actually be in trouble against very good IG players.

I can't imagine my list winning against dark eldar, but I can't imagine a dark eldar list winning against anything else.

sourclams wrote:Eldar have hyper resilient, fast, close combat units (Jetseer Eldar) capable of ripping tanks apart in CC; I think this is the best possible counter. It also has the benefit of being incredibly effective against many other 'top tier' lists. This one imo is the real IG killer.

I would disagree here too. I would not assume that a seer council would make it to do any damage. I can guarantee 3 wounds, I think the odds are pretty good that I can slip a weaken resolve past RoWard.

However, Warmaster had a pretty good batrep of how a wave serpent based force can slowly dismantle a guard army with the right conditions.

sourclams wrote:Chaos/Mech Marines with minimal bells and whistles who do nothing but drive rhinos forward until they get within melta/rapid fire range should work fine due to target saturation and general toughness of vehicles in 5E.

Agreed. It won't be easy for them. But that's how they should do it.

sourclams wrote:Tau with excessive amounts of disruption pods and fushion blasters should do fine.

I'm not as confident about that as you are. But I know what tools they'll need to take, I'll find out if they can do it or not

sourclams wrote:At least, that's how I would kill the IG army lists I've put together. Shelve gimmick lists like Nob Bikers and lynchpin lists like Kairos Fateweaver/Blood Crushers or Penitent Engine/Deffdread spam; IG have the firepower and special abilities to rip apart any lynchpin early.

All of those lists you mention have zero early disruption. They take their first turn and then say 'go'. It just doesn't look like you can do that to IG. You have to hurt a couple units as you arrive. If you just let an IG player go off of his scripted playbook all game, he will table you.

I think some of the new IG lists floating around here look to be suceptible to, what I like to call, a simpler IG list. No disrespect to the list makers (I think their methodology and end results are great for what they expect to face), but I think another IG list with 8 Leman Russ'will look across the table at 3 Hydras, 2 Excucutioners, 2 psyker battle squads and 5 meltagun squads in chimeras and blast that army off the table at range. I would consider the other potential IG builds in the metagame vs. IG. That codex just has so much flexibility.

I think pod lists are actually helped by guard. because they will work well aganst them. you drop down right in their lines you are too close for the big guns and not enough flashlights to shoot down 30 marines.

My space marines: convert my curently illegal 4ed chaplain into a Cassius look alike to escort my terminators. Enjoy Vulkans abilities a bit more, while lamenting the loss of combat tactics a bit less. Appreciate those new fangled krak grenades more.

My tyranids: Look at adding more synapse so my stealers aren't sent off the table on turn 1. Wonder at how IG out nid the tyranids (Chekov, stubborn blob squads with cc punch, furious charge galore, special leadership related rules that aren't a kick in the jimmy).

My marines were already heading towards mech. This is just the kick I needed to finally invest in tac squad multi meltas. A legion of the damned squad with a melta and multi melta might not be bad either. Re rollable deep strike and the ability to fire the multi melta after landing is a nice combo with a 3+ inv save and fearlessness.

I think DarthDiggler has an excellent point here with regards to other IG.

Sourclams' core list (discussed elsewhere) was focussed on taking down the current powerbuilds (nob bikers, daemons, mechdar, etc) but did seem to be heavily reliant on precisely the sort of AV12 vehicles that IG can take down in spades.

This for me will be the interesting metagame of the next tournament round - how will IG fare against each other while fending off the current crop of top tier lists?

Str5 templates, Twin-linked = re-roll to penetrate. Pop down behind a chimera at an angle & you could (i think) get a couple chimeras with the one (or two - ironclad) template. Murders foot-based guard. Can resist damage quite well & can destroy any unit fielded by IG.

All that is needed to prevent the drop pods is a 32 point Inq with mystic's squad allied in. Now that Ironclad is getting 9 lascannons from the 3 vendetta squad ON YOUR turn. Deep striking near an IG list set up with mystics is just asking for a loss.

I'm not sure mech works that great against guard, since guard is the army that can fit more autocannons can anyone. I'd think the classic "sit in chimera and shoot" strategy with mutilasers carrying Autocannon troops with some hydra and vendettas can pop vehicles faster than any other army. Afterwards it is just the story of moving 6" and shooting all the dangerous stuff.

Still beats getting choired off the table I suppose.....

DarthDiggler wrote:I think some of the new IG lists floating around here look to be suceptible to, what I like to call, a simpler IG list. No disrespect to the list makers (I think their methodology and end results are great for what they expect to face), but I think another IG list with 8 Leman Russ'will look across the table at 3 Hydras, 2 Excucutioners, 2 psyker battle squads and 5 meltagun squads in chimeras and blast that army off the table at range. I would consider the other potential IG builds in the metagame vs. IG. That codex just has so much flexibility.

This is something that has been on my mind for the past 24 hours or so. I've been fooling with my list quite a bit and I feel comfortable against most, if not all, of the current metagame (ie powerful armies) but I never considered what my list can do against other Guard. If someone tries to spam LRBT variants or something I'm not sure what I'll do. I've got a pair of Vendettas with meltagun vets as the only thing that can really get around the front arc on them. At this point I'm even considering switching the PC sponsons on my Execs for Multimelta sponsons so I can look at other IG lists with less concern.

I don't disagree that the IG book really pushes the meta towards mechanized lists more than ever because it presents such strong tools for dealing with non fearles/non mounted troops. I find it interesting though that the IG book has something of an answer to mechanized lists built into it being that they have the ability to take a staggering amount of Melta/Multimelta as well as fast moving TL Lascannons and numerous longer ranged options for 2d6 armor pen rolls (Vanquisher, Medusa) and strength 10 shots. I'm not saying that the book is far gone over the top "broken" or anything like that, but the diversity and number of options in it seems to allow the IG list to adapt to changes in meta very easily. Rough ideas for how I think armies can handle the seemingly more popular IG lists right now:

Marines/Chaos: Mech. Fast moving meltas are important and speeders/attack bikes fit the bill. So do outflanking chosen with tranports and tons of meltas. If the IG player doesn't have an IQ/Mystics then I think pods filled with melta weapons can do quite a bit of damage as well.

Tyranids: I don't really see much here. Even putting 6-8 MCs on the table, they aren't extremely frightening based on the sheer amount of firepower IG can lay on them. Combined with Bring it Down on melta/plasma vet units it seems bad. I seriously can see the IG player pulling 3-4 MCs down by the end of their third turn or so, at which point the rest are approaching the short range weapons. Scouting Genestealers can be scary en masse for both mech and guyspam type lists.

Tau: Broadsides with Ethereals to make them fearless and drone protection seems like a good place to start (I can't remember where I read this idea on here or who said it but I like it a lot). After that Fusion Guns are awesome on deepstriking suits unless there is an IQ/Mystics in the IG list (which I wouldn't be suprised to see in a fair amount of competitive armies since deepstirking melta type stuff can do serious damage otherwise). Hammerheads aren't awful either since their front armor 13 is difficult for Hydras to really damage. Disruption Pods are also awesome.

Eldar: Mech with Prisms/Wave Serpents and Fire Dragons/Dire Avengers. Hydras can only keep up with so many skimmer a turn and most IG playes will be taking 1 squadron of them so they can only focus on 1 skimmer per turn with them. Biker councils can be brutal as well since there is no way to avoid them getting at least their 4++ which should also always be fortuned. Sneaking a Weaken Resolve through Warding won't happen frequently enough for the IG player to count on, even with 2 PBS units.

Dark Eldar: Standard lance spam seems bad for the mechanized lists, and painful for ones running infantry as well. Armor is simply important to IG at this point. I don't really see how my list can beat proper DE lance spam without getting obscenely lucky to be honest.

Necrons: Load up on the Monoliths I guess. I have no clue what to do with these guys at this point, 5e really hammered them.

Sisters: Exorcists. Melta everywhere. This one seems to require minimal, if any, changes to the normal versions of the mech list to contend.

Daemons: Tzeentch/Tongue Grinders.


As has been previously stated, it seems like giving the IG player a couple of turns to play his game without disrupting him will spell disaster for just about any army out there. As a result armies need to be fast enough to get range very quickly, or have enough long ranged firepower to protect other elements of their army as it positions itself.