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I'm scratching my head and coming up with nothing on this one. What army/list can take on leafblower/super-mech IG and still be able to take on other armies in a tournament?

So many tanks, so many low AP high strength guns, throw in ordinance, flyers, and maybe some allies (at least a =I= and mystics). Dominates every time.

Ideas?

Dont worry about destroying vehicles, just play the glance game against non-chimera vehicles preventing them from shooting at you while multimeltas get close. Use their own vehicles and terrain to limit their options as they are usually clumped up during deployment. If you can glance the vehicles that have a clear shot at you while using terrain to recieve cover saves from the other stuff you can usually overwhelm one side.

The "Leafblower" army suffers from two overt flaws that I can perceive. First, it's a lot weaker in 2,000 points than it is in 2,500. Second, like most "alpha strike" armies, it relies, at least to some extent, on going first.

Well I dont know what army you are playing, but as a guard mech player, Units that can attack me without allowing me to shoot first are my bane, so vanguard deepstriking then assaulting, drop pods with melta guns, wolf scouts/ kommandos with snikrot. Monstrous creatures can be a pain depending how much ordinance they field, because they will only ever take one wound from even a demolisher

Although leafblower armies do indeed get much better at higher points, mass mech with some air cav is very annoying.

@CKO: to glance even half those vehicles giving each other cover, you'd need a lot of AT, especially ranged AT. Not many armies can pull that off. Plus, glancing them all day doesn't help in an objective mission that they can just tank shock me off of.

@Volkov: The broken 32pt =I= with mystics can completely ruin deep striking armies/units. Even if they aren't fielding this ridiculous little unit in a Valk/Vendetta/Chimera, the best I can do is get close, get shot up, break open a lowly chimera, and get shot to death the next turn. Armies that can DS monstrous creatures like Daemons and new Tyranids especially (with their best save being a 3+) get mowed down by super mech IG. As to deepstriking/assaulting units, there are what? 4 units in the game that can DS and assault same turn? Maybe they can take out a valuable ordinance vehicle, but their dead next turn.

It just seems to me any list is in for an uphill battle against this IG build. What/army list can take it out? I dunno...

My Dark Eldar raider lance spam would like a shot.

At 2500 points, we're looking at 26 dark lances (36" range) and 18 blasters (12" range). I suppose first turn matters greatly here, although a 24" flat out movement ability for a 4+ save and reserves would mitigate some of not going first.

Any list with lots of autocannon profile shots should do fairly well such as an Ork army with 3 units of lootas. Each loota squad is almost certainly going to at least silence an AV 12 gun platform, and stands a fair shake at killing it or putting it out of commission for the rest of the game. If the IG player focuses on the lootas and not the rest of the army rushing at them, they will lose. Who gets first turn is still a factor, but it doesn't look good for the leafblower.

I think I had a pretty good chance of taking out the leafblower list that won 'ard boyz, especially if I went first and seeing as how I had already massacred 2 IG mech lists earlier in the tournament, but I got paired with different opponents.

Dashofpepper wrote: I suppose first turn matters greatly here, although a 24" flat out movement ability for a 4+ save and reserves would mitigate some of not going first.

Alpha Strike lists, no surprise, do rely rather strongly on going first. However, for another fragile alpha strike list like DE, simply putting your stuff into Reserves and relying on turbo to keep you safe isn't really the answer. You get half your vehicles on 2nd turn and can't shoot, and Hydras smoke you. Even if the opposing list has no Hydras, 2500 point IG has more than enough heavy firepower to swat AV10 out of the sky at 30 inches.

Not my AV10! I've corrupted Eldrad and he's joined my dark eldar army under the mysterious and terrifying secret name of....."Eldrad the Corrupt." He uses the psychic power "snowstorm" to grant my entire army a 2+ cover save and force my enemies to use half range nightfight rules against me the whole game, and has an army wide fortune that lets me reroll those 2+ saves.

*giggles madly*

Yeah, going first is generally the key for 'big boom' guard lists. They need to blast you off the table from the word go, if, for some reason, they can't do this, they will suffer for it. I mean yeah, they will have an Emperor's tarot in their list if they have =][= allies, but going first is never a sure thing. Also, if they get the initiative taken from them, they will get stunned by every auto-cannon the opponent can muster. They also suffer in Dawn of War deployment, where they can't really shoot too well during turn 1.

The "Leafblower" army suffers from two overt flaws that I can perceive.

That, and the stupidest name for a list ever.

Culler wrote:Any list with lots of autocannon profile shots should do fairly well such as an Ork army with 3 units of lootas. Each loota squad is almost certainly going to at least silence an AV 12 gun platform, and stands a fair shake at killing it or putting it out of commission for the rest of the game. If the IG player focuses on the lootas and not the rest of the army rushing at them, they will lose. Who gets first turn is still a factor, but it doesn't look good for the leafblower.

I think I had a pretty good chance of taking out the leafblower list that won 'ard boyz, especially if I went first and seeing as how I had already massacred 2 IG mech lists earlier in the tournament, but I got paired with different opponents.

You massacred 2 IG with Orks? Awesome.

What did you use? 45 Lootas i suppose?

Looking at the list he took, any mechanized army shouldn't really have that much trouble with it. A lot of the firepower is based on ordnance, which is randomly reliable against vehicles.

There are basicly 2 ways that you win against this kind of ordinance overload guard army

A. You went first instead of them

or B. the guardsmen missed.

Or some combination of the two, there are some ways to force them to miss, but good players know their target priority, and will shoot what they need to shoot.

I play a hybrid mech IG army. 1 30-man tarpit with Autocannons, 2 units of melta vets, 3 Vendettas, lots of Chimeras, and I am currently taking 2 Executioners and 1 Manticore as my Heavies @ 2k.

Not going first is not a big deal to the IG army if they are running an Astropath and they should be. I would run an Astropath over the Inquisitor+Mystics combo if I had to choose.

Do not try to outshoot me, you will lose. Close combat is still the bane of my army, even though I am running Straken and Power Weapons in my tarpit.

The first thing I do when I look at your army is to determine what melta units you have and what are their delivery systems.

Then I look at what fast things can get close and clean house that can wipe out my tarpit.

Finally I look at what could harm me at range.

If your army can weather the storm and bring in multiple close range hurt units, my IG will fold.

Snikkyd wrote:

Culler wrote:Any list with lots of autocannon profile shots should do fairly well such as an Ork army with 3 units of lootas. Each loota squad is almost certainly going to at least silence an AV 12 gun platform, and stands a fair shake at killing it or putting it out of commission for the rest of the game. If the IG player focuses on the lootas and not the rest of the army rushing at them, they will lose. Who gets first turn is still a factor, but it doesn't look good for the leafblower.

I think I had a pretty good chance of taking out the leafblower list that won 'ard boyz, especially if I went first and seeing as how I had already massacred 2 IG mech lists earlier in the tournament, but I got paired with different opponents.

You massacred 2 IG with Orks? Awesome.

What did you use? 45 Lootas i suppose?

28 lootas in 2 squads certainly helped but weren't really the factor that put me over the top. My two nasty assault units were what did it in for IG: 30 slugga boyz with cybork bodies + grotsnik and a nob biker squad with attached warboss. The nob bikers pretty much always get killed and that's OK because while they're being a target (and taking out a few tanks) Grotsnik's squad starts eating through the IG lines in hilarious fashion. 2 mobs of 30 shootas swept in behind to add insult to injury while another mob of 20 held objectives.

One game had the nobs charge in and take out a couple demolishers and a blobbed infantry squad before dying, while Grotsnik's squad aimed like an arrow into the heart of the spearhead deployment and began eating everything it touched. His mechanized elements never had anywhere to go that wasn't already occupied by Ork bodies and the one thing that almost did got shot to pieces by lootas, giving me mastery of the board and control of the objectives.
The other game saw the nobs going around wide on another spearhead, skirting around a hill and smashing into the side of the IG formation and taking almost no casualties while Grotsnik's mob charged into the russes and the front wave of chimeras, wrecking shop and laughing off hellhound and heavy flamer shots with their 5+ invuln and 4+ FNP. Lost most of the mob what with the entire army focusing on them but they did their damage. The shoota boyz did more in this game since it was king of the hill by providing a second wave of good assaulters. The lootas took more of an anti-armor role, silencing hydras and opening up chimeras so the boyz could get at the juicy contents.

Every alpha strike army needs to go first. That list on BoLS would have gotten it's ass handed to it by another shooty army that went first, but he got lucky and had first turn every game and his opponent's didn't reserve up.

It was a solid list to be sure, but he got very, very lucky.

Best way to kill IG tanks is CC. Outflankers, fast assault units, etc. will waste them with very little trouble.

The strength of the lists is its strength against most of the common lists people take. It takes a very analytical approach saying that this leafblower list has a better than even money chance to beat 75% of the armies out there. Then it relies on getting good match ups and dominating and then drawing vs bad matchups. In small RTT style tournaments this % may be even higher. Overall its not a bad way to win smaller tournaments. You have a 42% chance to get three good match ups and a 56% chance of getting two good match ups, with only a 1% chance of getting three bad match ups. Add in a random n00b stomping and you have a 50% chance of raking in that 60$ gift card or battle force every month. All assuming that people don't tailor a list to beat the leafblower or the TO doesn't give you a screw you scrub in the first round. This list also is made for massacre scoring and will be less successful in win lose draw style tourneys. However, when you go to larger tourneys like GT's or a Con your odds get worse as the larger field grants more possibilities for niche or unique armies to ruin your day.

Like many other posters have said this list has firepower in spades, but lacks mobility and CC power. So lets look at armies with high toughness to shrug off firepower, mobility, and CC power.

At 2000 pts
Double wing Dark Angels
Drop pod marines/Gate libby/shrike
Deepstriking Tyranid MC spam
Khan bikers

Other fast moving CC armies w/ invulnerable saves or other methods
Chaos Demons
Wave Sepent Spam
Webway portal Dark Eldar

Drown in bodies
Snikrot Commando Spam
Outflanking Genestealer spam
Blood Angels
Orks

Outshooting Other Alpha Strike armies
"Critical Mass" Space Wolves/Razorwolves
Tau
Raider spam Dark Eldar

Gimmik
Ninja Tau

Extremely Low KP/attrition
Grey Knights
7 Landraider DH
3 monolith Necron
Warrior Spam Necron w/ Res orb
Blob IG

To the OP
I wouldn't worry too much about stopping the Leafblower. Its going to be a dying breed in a few months. Once the new codex comes out and eliminates allies it gets a lot weaker. In the mean time, I gave plenty of ideas to knock it down a peg

Hey guys !

Sorry to disturb you with this question, but I 'd like to know what you refer as leafblower IG army and alpha strike army ?

The "leafblower" army was the army that won 'Ard Boyz this year-- it's basically an extremely shooty IG list. An "alpha strike" army is a shooty army that fires a very heavy salvo on turn one in order to inflict major damage on the enemy before they have much of a chance to react.

Thanks for the info. I could then find the list on a Bell of lost souls report.

Wow, this is a nasty artillery-heavy army, with a lot of units that complement each other. Interesting to note that at least, it is not overly based on stupid identical selection spam.

But at 2500 pts level, if played on a standard 72*48" table, this army is naturally advantaged by a hardly avoidable dense enemy placement.

Well, no matter what us back seat generals say, the guy won Hard Boys, which says a lot about his skill and the list.

Alpha strike lists are not just uber shooty lists, although most are, they are armies that hit you super hard turn one, and that can come in many forms.

You can make a nasty Alpha Strike assault list with Shrike in a marine list, or with drop pods, etc.

Alpha Strike lists are fun because they can win the game turn one, but they rarely work against the same opponent twice. They are a bit of a gimmick.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Interesting to note that at least, it is not overly based on stupid identical selection spam.

That always cracks me up, why is taking multiples of a good unit stupid?

If one is good, two is better, three is great.

It is actually smart to maximize the strengths of a list in competitive play, which the hard boys is. It is actually stupid to take weaker units for the utterly arbitrary reason of not wanting to "spam."

You can say you like variety, but hard boys is all about winning. Period. If you have multiple options for one force org slot and one selection is clearly better, take as many as you can. That is called smart play.

I play for fun too, but not in the Hard Boys, you go there to win. Take what is best, and only what is best.

Reecius wrote:That always cracks me up, why is taking multiples of a good unit stupid?

I think the intent of "stupid" was more "boring" than actually a dumb move. 5th ed is clearly the "redundancy of forces" edition.

@ Reecius

While I am not a fan of spam I agree with what you said in regards to the concept. However I do believe that the best lists don't have a lot of spam. If you go extremely heavy with spam then your army becomes a lot like a one trick pony and will eventually played out as people figure out what are it's Achilles Heel. This happened to NidZilla, nob bikers and other past popular meta net spam lists. They are really strong when they first show up but then the returns are always diminishing plus new codices typically feature new units that scissor their paper. It's inevitable really.

G

While IG are big fans of going first, alot of armies don't pack the ranged firepower to do appreciable damage to trailer park IG. Also an IG army packing Hydras and Vendettas can generally power it's way through smoke "Oh you have cover, how cute, take 4 saves against pen hits"

Orks can do pretty well in the metagame against guard. Mech Orks are rocking the perma-cover of a KFF and have a staggering threat range. If they get first, IG have a single shooting phase in which they have to do alot of damage or get run the hell over. The Kan Wall has large mobs of Orks that need to be dealt with and can get fleet for a crucial turn on top of a pile of AV11 with cover. Both lists also have Lootas chilling in the backfield racking up kills. Overall I'd say Orks in the meta have the best chance. If not for the Vendetta I might say nids would be a solid choice, but the Vendettas are way too good at mowing down MCs and hordes aren't much of a concern for the trailer park.

DE skimmer spam can work if they go first and are feeling on point with the rolls, nightshields and ludicrous numbers of DLs can go a long way. If IG get first, the paper air force is going down in flames without question.

An army that completely relies upon going first is not a good army and the chances are less than 50 percent.

G

Why “spam” can be bad is that often there is no “clearly the best choice” in a FoC slot.
You can determine that you want to to rely entirely on lots of medium strength shots, and pick units accordingly, spamming Missile Launchers for instance. This will work great against most opponents. However, when you do meet that opponent with only Land Raiders and 2+ saves, you might be in trouble.
With a diversivied list you have more choices, more often having the right tool for any particular job.

The inverse of your argument can be just as true. "Spam", once the negative connotations are removed, simply means that you have redundant selections; typically redundant selections of a more powerful unit within the codex.

Many mech IG builds, for example, are built around having many redundant AV12 selections carrying some sort of melta or flamer weapon. In addition they tend to have long range shooting between S7 and 10 in their Heavy or Fast slots.

This list features both "spam" in the amount of misc. AV12 hulls are on the table but it also has diversification in the wide range of targets it can effectively engage.

Diversity without redundancy will simply result in an opponent neutralizing the most threatening unit early and absorbing the counteroffensive of less threatening units. For example, let's take a Space Marine list with a Thunderfire Cannon, a triple Las predator, and a Vindicator versus an Ork mob with 30 Lootas; the Thunderfire will die and the other two options aren't hugely effective against non-vehicle Orks.

Against mech Eldar, the triple Las predator will die and the other two options aren't hugely effective against energy prow-ed AV12.

That's true!
But if the "spam" minded Eldar player thinks the EML is the best heavy weapon, and chooses it wherever possible the opponent with Land Raiders and Terminators does't even have to kill that single Bright Lance.
I agree there's merit in redundancy/spam, it will probably give you a high percentage of winning games and beyond that it's more easy to get those massacres you need to finish in the top. But some players like to have an answer for everything, and take that single Bright Lance.

Earlier on this claim was made:

It is actually stupid to take weaker units for the utterly arbitrary reason of not wanting to "spam."

You can say you like variety, but hard boys is all about winning. Period. If you have multiple options for one force org slot and one selection is clearly better, take as many as you can. That is called smart play.

I think this lacked nuance and needed a response.

Well, if you stupidly choose to spam something that is not powerful or not cost effective (Flash Gitz Spam, for example), then it's not spam that's failing, it's the unit you decided to focus on.

3 units of Dark Reapers probably won't do anything worthwhile. 3 units of Firedragons in Wave Serpents probably will do something worthwhile.

Referring to the claim that you quoted, I quite agree [with the claim]. Take Eldar Heavy Support, for example. You have some good options, some options that can work depending on what your list runs, and then you have Dark Reapers.

Opting to take 3 units of War Walkers, for example, is a very competitive selection. Same with 3 Fire Prisms. 2 Fire Prisms and a unit of War Walkers is also competitive, and arguably less spammy.

Taking a Wraith Lord, Dark Reapers, and a Shadow Weaver battery for the sole purpose of not spamming and not taking vehicles is just making a poor competitive choice.

In the same vein, spamming Dark Reapers is also a very uncompetitive choice.