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Yeah, the title. I note that a large part of the mech problem is that the best way to kill a tank is to get close with melta, which of course requires either speed or a transport.
If we recognize the problem, maybe the nonmech players can come up with something.
But right now, what's the best nonmech army out there? What actually works against the tide of tanks?

Nids.

Hive guard are deadly to mech armies. So if the rest of the army has the speed and hitting power to attack what drops out of the tanks, nids can do it.

I Agree

Nids are EVIL against mech armies,not only hive guards,but all monstrous creatures and hive tyrant with wings

Nids all around.


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I would also say daemons as well.

Black templar. 2 Assault cannons per 5 man termie squad, preferred enemy/tank hunters for your whole army. A buddy of mine runs a 47 model army at 2000 points that's 25 foot termies with 40 assault cannon shots a turn. All in all nasty nasty army.

Dark Angels Dualwing have the tools to go non-mech.

Termies and Bike/Attack bikes as troops.

Most run MM/HF speeders to pop tanks, but they aren't required if you want to go full non-mech. The Termies and Bikes can cary plenty of AT with them.

That said, Nids still have the best non-mech army available to them. I was just offering up a non-nid option, if you don't want to use bugs

Foot Eldar can bring a large number of S6 shots, enhanced by Guide and Doom.

Codex Marines can do some freaking NASTY non-mech builds.

I saw one marine build that involved 30 walking hammer/shield terminators marching up the field... looked scary.

Also, with bikers as troops, marines can do an all biker army that is quite powerful.

whitedragon wrote:Foot Eldar can bring a large number of S6 shots, enhanced by Guide and Doom.

The large number of str 6 shots usually comes from the SL war walkers, which mechanized Eldar can use just as easily.


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I would also like to add that I feel that BA has the tools to do non-mech very well. With easy-to-get army-wide FNP and massive numbers of melta weapons available, they are better equipped than any others to survive without tanks.

It's the nids...Mawlocs Hive Tyrants Trygons Zoanthropes and Hive Guard...Then there's rending stealers and a whole bunch of stuff...Nids have this one in the bag. They know how to crack open that hard shell to get at the soft and tasty insides.

willydstyle wrote:

whitedragon wrote:Foot Eldar can bring a large number of S6 shots, enhanced by Guide and Doom.

The large number of str 6 shots usually comes from the SL war walkers, which mechanized Eldar can use just as easily.

Of course, war walkers, along with SM dreads, IG Sentinals, Orc deff dreads, and Orc cans are mech, so go figure .

wyomingfox wrote:

willydstyle wrote:

whitedragon wrote:Foot Eldar can bring a large number of S6 shots, enhanced by Guide and Doom.

The large number of str 6 shots usually comes from the SL war walkers, which mechanized Eldar can use just as easily.

Of course, war walkers, along with SM dreads, IG Sentinals, Orc deff dreads, and Orc cans are mech, so go figure .

Well, not exactly. I think 'mech' refers more to 'mechanized infantry,' rather than just walkers/vehicles, which is so useful in 5th to grab objectives. To do non-mech infantry/armies you have to survive large amounts of shooting, and deal with tanks. Nids, Orks, Daemons of Chaos, and most Space Marines have the tools to do this. Necrons, Eldar, and Tau don't have quite the same tools, they either lack anti-tank or surviving power or both.

Saying Eldar or Tau lack anti-tank is a bit silly.

Tyranids are great. Daemons work...until you run into Land Raiders.

Daemons Orks and Tyranids...and actually...

I always f=see foot guard take out mech guard.

MagicJuggler wrote:Saying Eldar or Tau lack anti-tank is a bit silly.

They don't, but their troops are rather frail, and will run off the table if shot up (Unless they happen to be fearless thanks to the Avatar, who can be singled out)

The problems with running with no transports is that you often lack a good what to capature enemy objectives. You really need to bring outflanking/DSing troops, or have a rush forward and assault army.

So, good armys would be Nids and CD (as they cannot be mech in the first place, so have stuff to balance this) and horde orks (lots of boyz for objective grabbing, grots to hold the home front, lootaz/rokkit buggies/rokkit koptas/rokkit kanz for AT, DCCW and PK for anti-AV14).

Tau could also work, running hordes of suits and BSides for AT and anti-heavy Inf, then 2x Small FW squads to hold home, 2x Kroot screens for the home/center board and 2x Outflanking Kroot to cap. enemy objectives

starbomber109 wrote:

MagicJuggler wrote:Saying Eldar or Tau lack anti-tank is a bit silly.

They don't, but their troops are rather frail, and will run off the table if shot up (Unless they happen to be fearless thanks to the Avatar, who can be singled out)

I misunderstood the context of the argument. Ultimately though, Tau are best as semi-mech (Crisis Suits, Krootscreen, Scoring Devilfish, and Broadsides replacing Hammerheads as points scale). Eldar are either Bikes or Pure Mech.

Ork hordes are weaker relative to other Ork builds.

Orks, then nids.

But since both take to long to move they never get to finish a tourney game, and there for do not win often enough to counter the mech glut.

Lets add space wolves to this list...

3x full units of long fangs
3x full units of grey hunters with plasma guns
3x single TWC with storm shield and power fist
3x wolf guard battleleaders with power fist and stormshield
rune priest with living lightning and jaws

That list is a monster, no two ways about it.

Nids have a few anti-mech units that can get the job done (get mech out of thier transports in the shooting phase). Namely Hive Guard, Zoes, and TFexes.

Hive guard can take out AV 12-11 transports though high rate of fire, not because they ignore cover...because in most cases they won't. Mech tends to get its cover saves from being adjacent to other vehicles, popping smoke, using force fields, SC, and other wargear...items that HG don't ignore. They are cheap and fairly resiliant. Accoringly, your opponent will want them dead and fast, which is why it may be a good idea to keep a Tervigon and its FNP ability close by.

Zoes can take out tanks (AV 14 and lower) as they are statistically comparible to melta guns. However, they have decreased range when compared to the HG. You can overcome this by taking a spod but then thier points costs become very high and they will bleed 2 KP. They are also vulnerable to SM and IG Hoods (effectively giving mech an invulnerable save on top of a likely cover save). Lastly, they sadly compete with Hive Guards in the elite slot.

TFexes are your only long range high strength gun, but more importantly, they are not elites. Consider them to be the equivalent of a LRBT (anti-mech and anti-infantry combined while being very resiliant). They are not the end-all-be-all. For one, they are a MC. Therefore they are very, very expensive. Their low BS means that you will normally get only 1 hit a turn and then you need to sneak past your opponent's cover save. In addition, unlike a tank, they can't simply move out of CC. Given thier paultry WS3, they will be lucky to kill a SM a turn, so they are very vulnerable to prolonged CC engagements. As such, it is proabably a good idea to buble wrap them in some guants.

In regards to Mawlocs, a str 6 ap 2 shot that fires every other turn and scatters 2d6 is not an anti-mech weapon. Nor is a 200 point Carnifex or HT with a one shot poor man's lascannon. In regards to harpies, I think they are a solid anti-infantry choice when equiped with the TL Barbed; however, the TL poor man's Lascannon for 170+pts will have an uphill battle stunning a High AV tank in cover and is unlikely to immobolize/wreck a transport.

As for CC Trygons, Carnies, and Genestealers, yep they can wreck mech in an assualt. The problems comes with wrecking (and for genestealers the double whamo of exploding) transports, as as soon as your done eating thier 35-60pt transport your turn ends and the comical destruction of your grouped up 200pt CC experts sadly begins. Again, the transport popping needs to come from your HG, Zoes, and TFexes, so that your CC monsters can get to grips with the more expensive and critical troops.

Unlike most armies that can easily pepper anti-mech throughout its lists and usually on the cheap, Nids are a bit pigeon holed into either elite slots or pricey heavies. So I kinda disagree that Nid's are the easy choice for anti-mech. You can win with them but Nids have no tolerance for mistakes or bad dice rolls.

Anything necron. *Shrug* Always glance on 6 with every weapon seems to work pretty well for me against anything with an AV.

starbomber109 wrote:

wyomingfox wrote:

willydstyle wrote:

whitedragon wrote:Foot Eldar can bring a large number of S6 shots, enhanced by Guide and Doom.

The large number of str 6 shots usually comes from the SL war walkers, which mechanized Eldar can use just as easily.

Of course, war walkers, along with SM dreads, IG Sentinals, Orc deff dreads, and Orc cans are mech, so go figure .

Well, not exactly. I think 'mech' refers more to 'mechanized infantry,' rather than just walkers/vehicles, which is so useful in 5th to grab objectives. To do non-mech infantry/armies you have to survive large amounts of shooting, and deal with tanks. Nids, Orks, Daemons of Chaos, and most Space Marines have the tools to do this. Necrons, Eldar, and Tau don't have quite the same tools, they either lack anti-tank or surviving power or both.

I tend to think back to the Steel Legion of 3rd edition: Mechanized Infantry in Chimeras, Tanks such as Basalisks and LRBT, and Sentinel Walkers. Pretty much everything had AV or was in something with AV. In orther words, I always saw mechanized infantry as one component of an all mech list.


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Kevin949 wrote:Anything necron. *Shrug* Always glance on 6 with every weapon seems to work pretty well for me against anything with an AV.

I played against Norbu The Destroyer's "Ghost Cron" list and can say that it was pretty damn competitive. It did have a monolith, but just one. Most of his punch came from 2 units of wariths led by a Destroyer Lord. Still, he is a really good general and tends to make thinsg look easier than they really are.

The thing about Tyranids is that for them, stunning and shaking vehicles *is* good enough for them.

Also, when it comes to nailing light vehicles, if doing a Drop-nid build, then obviously it will be in your best interest to take Dakkafexes to complement your Zoanthroapes. Brainleech Devourers, while not great at destroying vehicles, are still good at rendering them nonfunctional. Something to suppress his return-fire until you can get into melee and crack open the juicy bits.

The new Blood Angel Codex, can build an all jump pack/dpod list with a lot of potential against armour and mech. Still testing myself but with some target prioirty and picking your targets carefully. It so far seems a win or lose big list though.

MagicJuggler wrote:The thing about Tyranids is that for them, stunning and shaking vehicles *is* good enough for them.

Also, when it comes to nailing light vehicles, if doing a Drop-nid build, then obviously it will be in your best interest to take Dakkafexes to complement your Zoanthroapes. Brainleech Devourers, while not great at destroying vehicles, are still good at rendering them nonfunctional. Something to suppress his return-fire until you can get into melee and crack open the juicy bits.

Funny, the only time ever that my buddy has destroyed my lith was with his Nid army (he also plays black templar) and it was some shooting weapon on his hive tyrant that had a -1 on pen. He rolled a six twice in a row. Just funny that that was (still is) the only time he took down a lith in all his years of playing 40k (much much longer than me).

I'm going to throw in as a good footslogger list an Eldar Wraithwall Circus list (That is, wraithguard, farseers, harlequins, and wraithlords). The Harlequins can close on the enemy quite easily, the wraithlords hold long-ranged anti tank weapons, and the Wraithlord are just as good at killing tanks as they are at killing infantry. Also, Avatar.

Heavy Venom Cannons, and regular Venom Cannons, are actually really useful, particularly at destroying mechanized infantry. You see, the drawback of an automatic -1 to damage results which people complain about is actually a benefit.

Firstly, it's not actually a drawback against the kind of vehicles you don't want to close with, like Ork Trukks, and Ork Battlewagons, or any open-topped vehicles, because the -1 to the damage rolls only affects vehicles which are not open-topped. If they are open-topped, then they roll for damage as normal.

Secondly, it's not a drawback because it prevents vehicles from exploding. That's a good thing, because you know what's annoying? Crashing a brood of Genestealers into a vehicle, ripping it apart, and then losing half to the explosion, not having enough to prevent emergency disembarkation, and then having the rest of the Genestealers get shot up by the passengers in the following turn.

With a Heavy Venom Cannon or regular Venom Cannon you can run the Genestealers into position around the vehicle, and pop it without an explosion, meaning that no emergency disembarkation is possible, and both the vehicle and the embarked unit are destroyed without the loss of valuable Tyrannic life.

In order to do this you need both large swarms of little bugs and lots of both types of Venom Cannon, but pulling it off is pretty fun.

I've noticed few people are saying Infantry Guard. I play infantry guard and I know they can be effective against mech lists. I know what I'm about to say is anathema to most guard players but heavy weapons teams are the nonmech answer to tanks IMHO.

I just did a bit of math in Army Builder. (Now bear in mind this is an extreme number of heavy weapons teams) in an 1850pt list it is possible to cram in 54 autocannon teams. That's 108 autocannon shots per turn. Clearly using lascannons would reduce the number somewhat but still give you tons of lascannons...for the record its about 40. I've run this list and vouch for its effectiveness.

Yes they die easily. Yes they run away easily. This is why you field 15-20 squads of them. This is why you deploy them as spaced out as possible (no 2-for-1 pie plates). This is why you give them Company Command support (twin-linked!!!). I've never seen anything that can take 40 lascannon shots (or 108 autocannon shots) on turn one and live. Given that only one shot must score a glancing hit to prevent shooting, you could rather easily deprive an all-mech list of any shooting each turn (and more than likely blow up a few tanks to boot).

What's even better about the Heavy Weapons Spam list...everything bar the Command Squad is a troop and can take objectives! "But how can you take objectives far from your deployment zone?! The army is so slow and lacks mobility!" Well if your opponent takes an objective far from your front line, here's what you do. You simply contest the objective with 10-20 lascannons to the scoring unit's face. ...also...every once in a while...IfieldaVendetta...

To paraphrase another post, "There's no problem that another 6-10 (pick your favorite weapon) won't go a fair way toward solving.

I'm going to second the nids followed by guard.

The guard can take a 3x meltagun SWS for 65 points. This is cheap enough to take a lot of them (and let's not forget the PCSs which you get for "free"). Given "bring it down!" and the inexpense of the individual squads, the guard can create an effective hedge of melta ranks thick. I'd like to see a transport army charge into that on purpose.

Knights would stand better chances against a square of pikemen....

Nids, then Orks... just because of the amount of bodies on the board...