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Hello Dakka,

Today was the second or maybe even third game where the following thing happened:

My ML combat squad holding my objective/my table edge, usually positioned behind a ruined wall or some other kind of directional cover, gets totally fethed up by a squad of ten deep-striking Imperial Guard stormtroopers. Those guys zoom in, unleash something like 17 hotshot lasgun shots, a grenade and a flamer template onto my little squad, which dies quite quickly to AP3. Main problem is: The enemy picks his striking place, of course, always in a way that my cover is irrelevant.

Now, I was thinking about how to plan for this situation, which will return the next games, too. Don't understand me wrong, those troopers get usually fragged in the next round (and losing 185 points to kill only a 90 points marine combat squad isn't that great of a statistic). However, I'm thinking how I can save these poor guys that are usually the target of the deep-striking.

Only thing I can think of is a) try to position them in cover terrain like woods or high grass (the first one being dangerous to troopers, too) or b) when no area cover available, use scouts for their job, give them camo-cloaks, go to ground when being shot at and hope for that 5+ cover save. Which is not really...you know...that great.

Trying to castle their position against deep-striking doesn't work on our low (560 points) point level, usually I'm not able to field more than 16 marines and a cybot.

So, any ideas from your side? Would be glad to hear some tactical advice on this one.

Thanks for reading,
Witzkatz

My first suggestion would be to castle, but you already said that that won't work.

i would put two of your units together: a powerful shooty unit (like Sternguard Veterans) and an assaulty unit (like vanguard veterans). The Stormtroopers can only possibly shoot at one of the units. The other unit can then decimate the unit of Stormtroopers.

At your low points level, I understand that the squad targeted by the Stormtroopers will be a significant chunk of your points. Make sure that You have a cheap, expendible unit. Put that unit in a very Deep-Strike friendly area, and then surround it by other guys in cover. Hope that your opponent target the weak unit with his stormtroopers. Then your strong units can blast the troopers. This does not always work, however, because he will not always target the weak unit.

You could put your units in rhinos to make them pretty much immune to the Stormtroopers (he will probably adapt to this and take meltas).

You could also field a list that deep strikes in entirely and use his own tactic against him. He will find that he needs to use his Stormtroopers defensively instead of using them to attack. He will be playing the game on your terms.

These are just a few ideas. you may come up with more.

Area terrain = un-removable simply by good positioning. Use it wisely.

Charge him in close-combat = If you have troopers survive that onslaught, or a squad nearby, charge him in close-combat. Your I4, Str4, WS4, T4, 3+sv, LD9 marines will pound him in close-combat. Those expensive AP3 gun wielding models will die in droves. Honestly, with only a handful of marines you can win combat. I'd say four and up, you win.

Witzkatz wrote:Hello Dakka,

Today was the second or maybe even third game where the following thing happened:

My ML combat squad holding my objective/my table edge, usually positioned behind a ruined wall or some other kind of directional cover, gets totally fethed up by a squad of ten deep-striking Imperial Guard stormtroopers. Those guys zoom in, unleash something like 17 hotshot lasgun shots, a grenade and a flamer template onto my little squad, which dies quite quickly to AP3. Main problem is: The enemy picks his striking place, of course, always in a way that my cover is irrelevant.

Now, I was thinking about how to plan for this situation, which will return the next games, too. Don't understand me wrong, those troopers get usually fragged in the next round (and losing 185 points to kill only a 90 points marine combat squad isn't that great of a statistic). However, I'm thinking how I can save these poor guys that are usually the target of the deep-striking.

Only thing I can think of is a) try to position them in cover terrain like woods or high grass (the first one being dangerous to troopers, too) or b) when no area cover available, use scouts for their job, give them camo-cloaks, go to ground when being shot at and hope for that 5+ cover save. Which is not really...you know...that great.

Trying to castle their position against deep-striking doesn't work on our low (560 points) point level, usually I'm not able to field more than 16 marines and a cybot.

So, any ideas from your side? Would be glad to hear some tactical advice on this one.

Thanks for reading,
Witzkatz

HA! SMs finally feeling the pain from some of the less popular armies. It's good for you to feel like you got pwned sometimes. Inspires humility.

I kid, I kid. This may be total n00b material, but if he's running his squad with a flamer, you might try mechanizing your force with a few Rhinos. Cheap as hell, and you can even try putting a CC squad in 'em (or even just a tactical squad, because IG have nothing when it comes to CC) throw a tank shock on him after he Deepstrikes in, disembark, and assault him.

Inquisitor & 2 mystics = death to deepstrikers.

[edit]
Actually I like Sourclams idea of rhinos better.

You should absolutely be inside of Rhinos.

It's the simplest solution to all your problems. For 35 points per unit, you're suddenly immune to any weapon of S4 or less (which, in a guard army, means specials or heavies only) and you at the very least double the number of units needed to shoot at your squad in order to take them out.

If he does destroy your Rhino, you simply walk your 10 guys over and beat their faces in during the assault.

Thanks for all the answers!

I really like that Rhino idea, because I wanted to buy one soon anyways and this way I can either use it as an assault vehicle or as a little bunker.

I'm a bit hesitant about charging the stormtroopers in CC - although the odds are not that bad, those stormtroopers have two attacks in CC due to pistol and CCW and their boss has 3 energy weapon attacks. Means I may get out 10 attacks on the charge and eat 18 normal and 3 armor-ignoring attacks afterwards.

I think as long as he doesn't take meltas in that squad, his only way to pop that rhino by shooting is a krak grenade launcher, wich means a chance of roundabout 1/26 of destroying the rhino. That probably won't work, so I can use one round of shooting to kill everybody (if lucky) or at least enough to force a morale check (probably). Depending on situation I would drive the rhino 6"-7" in my turn, so the krak grenade CC assault won't really work well.

This way, he needs to dedicate his expensive 185 points stormtrooper squad to try and kill this 35 point transport with lousy weaponry OR do something else with them, which basically is a win on the rhino-and-friends side. Is my thinking correct so far?

When the point level is high enough, I will use 5-6 deep striking terminators, which usually scare him enough to dedicate his troopers to use them defensively, like Exarch_Nektel pointed out. Should work, too, in my last game where I used them the termies soaked up one round of ALL enemies shooting at them (causing 1 death), Yarrick charging them (getting himself killed) and were only killed with some stormtrooper CC (damn energy weapon). Made their points up.

Well, thanks again for the answers!

Better assault vehicle or bunker: Land Raider. If you are going to buy just one, make it the land raider. Higher armor values, more offensive capabilities, and assault ramps. Better 'points-to-money spent on the model' ratio.

Witzkatz wrote:

Now, I was thinking about how to plan for this situation, which will return the next games, too. Don't understand me wrong, those troopers get usually fragged in the next round (and losing 185 points to kill only a 90 points marine combat squad isn't that great of a statistic). However, I'm thinking how I can save these poor guys that are usually the target of the deep-striking.

Wrong way to look at it. Its a non-scoring unit removing a scoring one.....

yeah,
Don't forget that you can fire your bolt pistols before you assault which will reduce the number of stormtroopers you have to fight, you'll hit first in combat again reducing the number of attacks you face... I'd expect half the enemy to be dead before they get the chance to hit back.

If your buying a transport for a 5man combat squad I'd say get a RazorBack. Same as the rhino but with the fire support from twinlinked heavybolters for only 5pts more.

Also If your expecting the DS Stormies soon, pop smoke instead of shooting giving the RazorBack a 4+ cover save...

Panic...

@carmachu: Aye, have not thought about that. Although, the last game wasn't even about scoring objectives, just annihilation and it was annoying enough...

@FoxPhoenix135 and Panic:

Your arguments for Razorbacks and Land Raiders are good. I like both vehicles for their appearance and their usefulness, so I'd be intrigued to buy one of those.

However, one point that needs to be mentioned: My actual gaming group is rather small. Both my usual opponents can't field more than, say 600 points, maybe 700 max. They both mainly use the force boxes of IG and Tau. Sending a Land Raider in there is...quite evil, as far as I can see. Only AT capable of taking out a LR would be a ML HWS and...two meltaguns, one on each force. A LRC or LRR could simply drive around and smash everything to pieces single-handedly. I'm not sure if I want to make the game so one-sided at this moment. (Although, since I lost every fething time against IG until now, it is tempting...very tempting.)

This was just for your information, the Land Raider is still an option for me, I guess.

So now I'm thinking: Rhino, Razorback, LR Godhammer, LRC or LRR? I'd be glad if some of you experienced players could give me some pros and cons on those vehicles. Main enemies will, as stated above, be Tau and IG. I fear that an offensive played Rhino or Razorback might fall too soon to MLs or plasma weapons, but hey, pointwise they're cheap as hell compared to the Land Raider variants. Which, of course, really is a driving fortress...*ponderponder*

While I agree that the Landraider might be somewhat ridiculous in low point-value games like that, there are cheap ways they might be able to counter it. For example, they could paint one Guardsman up fancy, label him Sly Marbo, and demo charge the Landraider. If I remember all the relevant stats correctly, that has a good chance of taking out almost half your points.

Putting the combat squad inside a Razorback sounds like a more reasonable idea. Alternatively, you could put the combat squad on the objective as usual, and put the Razorback next to it, blocking any realistically deep strikable approaches to them. They won't be as defended this way, but then the ML and the Razorback will both be able to fire.


If you're interested, I have some ideas on small games & short discussion with a couple other people on this blog post:

http://rocketshipgames.com/blog/?p=9

It doesn't talk at length about this particular problem of the Landraider being overkill, but I play a fair bit of small point value games and would be interested in your comments and experience.

Thx

I'm not sure how well it would work, but what about using Scout Bikers to booby-trap the terrain that your RL Squad is sitting in? If your boys sit still, they'd never have to take the test to set them off, and anyone charging in at you would.

If your buying a transport for a 5man combat squad I'd say get a RazorBack. Same as the rhino but with the fire support from twinlinked heavybolters for only 5pts more.

If you are grabbing a transport I'd get a razorback. It comes with everything that a rhino would and it gives you the ability to also field it as a weapons platform if you so choose.
Your group is small and you are fielding small forces. The razorback gives you more options as well as fitting into the size of the games you play better than a land raider.

Also strength 3 Weapon skill 3 power weapons arn't something that are terribly scary. They hit on 4s and wound on 5s against you and its after you strike them. Also don't forget that standard marines are equipped with bolt pistols so you can assault after shooting.

Edit: quote fail

High Commissar Biffsmack wrote:

Witzkatz wrote:Hello Dakka,

Today was the second or maybe even third game where the following thing happened:

My ML combat squad holding my objective/my table edge, usually positioned behind a ruined wall or some other kind of directional cover, gets totally fethed up by a squad of ten deep-striking Imperial Guard stormtroopers. Those guys zoom in, unleash something like 17 hotshot lasgun shots, a grenade and a flamer template onto my little squad, which dies quite quickly to AP3. Main problem is: The enemy picks his striking place, of course, always in a way that my cover is irrelevant.

Now, I was thinking about how to plan for this situation, which will return the next games, too. Don't understand me wrong, those troopers get usually fragged in the next round (and losing 185 points to kill only a 90 points marine combat squad isn't that great of a statistic). However, I'm thinking how I can save these poor guys that are usually the target of the deep-striking.

Only thing I can think of is a) try to position them in cover terrain like woods or high grass (the first one being dangerous to troopers, too) or b) when no area cover available, use scouts for their job, give them camo-cloaks, go to ground when being shot at and hope for that 5+ cover save. Which is not really...you know...that great.

Trying to castle their position against deep-striking doesn't work on our low (560 points) point level, usually I'm not able to field more than 16 marines and a cybot.

So, any ideas from your side? Would be glad to hear some tactical advice on this one.

Thanks for reading,
Witzkatz

HA! SMs finally feeling the pain from some of the less popular armies. It's good for you to feel like you got pwned sometimes. Inspires humility.

I kid, I kid. This may be total n00b material, but if he's running his squad with a flamer, you might try mechanizing your force with a few Rhinos. Cheap as hell, and you can even try putting a CC squad in 'em (or even just a tactical squad, because IG have nothing when it comes to CC) throw a tank shock on him after he Deepstrikes in, disembark, and assault him.

be careful if the IG plays rough riders though.....they have enough range to really assault and destroy a small squad of marines..

I'm surprised someone was actually USING stormtroopers.
And noone uses roughriders... ever.

The easiest way is to go mech man. Once you go mech you never go back.

Wow, thanks for all the replies! This is really getting productive.

tjkopena: I read the article you linked and found it very interesting. There are some points mentioned I've not thought about until now. I guess my opponent could do something like paint up Sly Marbo, unfortunately the IG player hasn't even tried to paint anything yet. I guess, for the sake of somewhat balanced games, the LR is out of the question for the moment. But what you said about the Razorback blocking LOS from possible Deepstriking locations made me think about another thing: how about a Predator? It is somewhere in between the AV11 transports (that can easily be destroyed by lucky HWS shots) and the AV14 of the LR. It is still rather cheap and offers a lot of versatility in such a small game. Disadvantage is, of course, that it can't transport anything. When playing defensively, I'd have to try and block LOS to the scoring marine squad to achieve the goal of deep-strike defense. However, what do you people think about it?

generalretreat: I'm not sure if I understand your idea. Using scout bikers as scoring units is only possible with a bike captain, isn't it? Apart from that, yes, they would be more durable against S3AP3 fire due to T5 (aren't they?), but I guess an armored vehicle is still the safer variant.

Volkan: Aye, Razorback looks tempting, the option of making it a little AT-tank is nice, too. About the power weapons: Yes, you're right, I may be a little traumatized by a stormtrooper sergeant killing two of my powerfist terminators before they could strike.

freddieyu1: I think he doesn't like the style of the rough riders, so that is not really going to happen, I think. But thanks for the point, haven't thought until now about those guys.

firebat: He bought the stormtroopers (Kasrkin) mainly for their looks and for how cool they were in Dawn of War 1, I guess. Nevertheless, against marines they prove themselves...against my little ork force they're quite wasted.

Again, thanks for all the answers! Keep going!

To conclude some of my thoughts:
1. How about a predator as an option
2. LR may be too heavy in my gaming round
3. Is the razorback with its AV11 hardy enough when some trouble comes around the corner?
4. Ah, another thing: Does the razorback come with all the weapon options mentioned in the codex?

Not using the Scout Bikers to score, but adding a unit of Scout Bikers to your army. You can have them do whatever you need them to do, the idea I had was to use their Cluster mines to booby trap the piece of area terrain that your Rocket Launcher squad is sitting in. If it's big enough, and the Stormtroopers have to enter it to shoot you, they take 2D6 Str 4 hits. This really doesn't neutralize them, just mitigate somewhat.

Honestly, I think the other posters have it best. Use a Rhino. Sit them in it on the objective, hull down if possible. Razorbacks are cool beans, but have no firing points. If you want one of those, why not just get a 5 man naked squad and the RB, maybe buy a fist for the Seargent since you can buy for him without filling out the squad? It's a whole 'nother troop choice, and does great in small games. A TL-LC or LC/TL-PG would work great for this kind of role, I think.

Ah, thanks for that input! I think I must read my codex more closely...didn't even know that scout bikers can use cluster mines.

I guess, after reading on the "Rhino or Razorback"-thread that one can build a Rhino out of a Razorback anyway, I will soon buy the Razorback box and use it either as a bunker or a gun platform with scoring troops inside, like many of you suggested. I may post my results with this tactic here after the next games, so those of you interested can see if this thread helped my army.

@GeneralRetreat: Again thanks for pointing out these scout bikers. I'm now intrigued to get some, just to be able to say "Ah yeah, there are a couple dozen cluster mines lying around somewhere on the map guys!" before a game. That sounds like weapons-grade psychological warfare.

firebat wrote:I'm surprised someone was actually USING stormtroopers.
And noone uses roughriders... ever.

The easiest way is to go mech man. Once you go mech you never go back.

really? tsk tsk must be the models...but mine are converted to be bike riders..very efficient MEQ killers for the points they are worth...

For those who do use them, they are extremely effective....mech is a great list, but it's becoming vanilla....variety is the spice of life...

It may be because you have never been on the receiving end of a RR charge that you say so, well I hope you don't get that experience, if you play MEQ....


CHARGE!!!!

Those guys look awesome! Do they count as normal stormtroops, RRs or as something else? I mean, IG has no bikes, has it? Anyway, cool conversion!

Just do a Rhino. It's cheaper and you can field more guys and doesn't compromise your original goal.

The Razorback is already en route from maelstrom. I guess I will field it as Rhino and Razorback from time to time, to see what works better.

I'd have saved...2-3 Euro if I bought a single Rhino. So I thought, a Razorback can still be used as a nice AT platform if my opponents start buying more armour. If that would happen, I'd really have to buy something with nice AT, which would end up more expensive than the 3 Euro for a TL-LC Razorback upgrade.

Apart from that, Razorback can still sit with a combat squad/Scout squad at the home objective and play bunker.

Ah well, I'll see if it is worth the money!

Witzkatz wrote:Those guys look awesome! Do they count as normal stormtroops, RRs or as something else? I mean, IG has no bikes, has it? Anyway, cool conversion!

rough riders, and they have saved my bacon many many times...the nice thing with the new codex is that they are also excellent antitank troops, since the lances strike at rear av10 armor, and once the lances are gone RR come with krak grenades as part of their standard equipment..

I tell ya, daemon princes, regular terminators, necron lords, AND now eldar skimmers, tanks, have fallen to the RR's charge(s)....and they are fast enough to keep up with a mech force, and with the mech wall to hide in they are not as easily targetted as compared to charging over open ground...