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5th edition is very mech-heavy, but is it possible for armies with no vehicles to still be competitive?

All tyranid (obviously) and most necron builds have no vehicles anyway and both orks and daemons can work. Some armies (tau and dark eldar) would really struggle if not be completely unplayable without vehicles. But what about the others?

Is it possible to build a marine, guard, inq, CSM, or eldar army with no vehicles of any kind and still compete at the top level?

It just seems that with the prevalence of mech in 5th ed, take-all-comers armies have to take lots of high strength, low ROF weaponry which then becomes a bad investment if you can only pop one grunt at a time. Or would the lack of mobility cripple the army as it would be unable to take objectives?

Eldar can walk, it usually includes the Avatar and 3-6 unit of support guardians.

CSM can do it with daemons and tac squads + obliteraters

I dont know enough about the others

Blood Angels can jet pack were they need to go, I'm sure there are some marine biker armies out there. Oh yeah Tyranids

my primary build with eldar is 6 foot slogger guardians + wraithlords. it does a good enough job with the missle launchers.

i almost took a 51 marine foot slogger to a 1500 tourney. but went with dark eldar instead.

CSM can't. Space Wolves and Blood Angels definitely can though. The former by Missileguard and Cavalry and Long Fangs. The latter by Jump Pack.

Orks can and do work without vehicles, as long as you get enough Boyz and PKs on the table.

IG can do it, but that's a lot of infantry so the army tends to be expensive, and taking a turn with that many blob platoons can take a while.

Black Templar foot-slogging hordes can be competitive to an extent. Their Righteous Zeal ability makes up for infantry's limited mobility, as with a Chaplain and Cenobytes a horde moves a total of 9+2d6" after it's been shot. Ten-point Neophytes cushion you to an extent against the durability sacrificed by a lack of Rhino and Preferred Enemy (All) gives strong hitting power when you close the distance to assault.

The combined squads can make a scary guard infantry army especially if you take some of the named characters. They have a lot of different weapon options so they can still perform without the tanks and walkers.

What is you definition of Vehicle? Tanks, Transports?

its tough for some armies to do games above a certain points level because they run out of FOC slots

Necrons need Monoliths.

Space marines can do it.(but you need to be a good player)

Space marines can do a good list with Scouts, Land speeders and assault squads for an army that is entirely DS and infiltrate.


My GKs have no DTs and LRs only come as Heavy Support.

Chaos Daemons have no vehicles (unless you count the Soulgrinder) and can tear faces off.

I'd say Blood Angels have a chance to do it with minimal vehicles. Being able to spam FNP onto practically the entire army helps a lot, as does their access to jump infantry as a troops choice.

Its really hard to straight up say yes this is competitive or no this isn't competitive, especially to such a broad question like this. The only way to really find out is to build it and playtest the heck out of it.

In 5th edition it is just really difficult to top the resilience, mobility, protection and firepower that you can get out of some of the vehicles so its really hard to leave them behind.

space marines can mount their entire army on bikes, and be pretty competitive.

Yes.

Orks, as said, can boy swarm. You can also Biker spam, with some Koptas with em.

csm's can. berzerkers and oblits and raptors and lash princes and termicide.

I guess it would not be tournament competitive(or, for that sake, competitive in any kind of way), but perhaps Tau.
they could spam it with Crisis, take some Fire Warriors and broadside to guard the home objective(s) and some infiltrating Kroots(stick 'em in some neat piece of cover) to try to grab the opposite objective(s).
Crisis attempt to smash the enemy, Kroots then move in the wake and grab the objectives. If they survive that long.
Perhaps a really skilled and experienced player might manage to pull it off. Though you would probably lose 9/10 of your battles anyway.
Haven't tried this out, but it would have been a interesting battle indeed.

Well, foot slogging Orks with lots of Boyz are competitive.
Foot slogging Eldar is competitive, with Eldrad, Avatar, Guardians
walking in the Avatar's fearless bubble, War Walker (if you don't count them as vehicles as they move like infantry),
Wraithlords, and Harlies for counter-strike.

I think BA can be a non-mech army with some of the new rules it makes it very easy not to use mech because you can assult vechiles with assult squads. Which i find awesome!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
if im wrong please correct me thanks

My friend has played a horde sister of battle army. sooooooo much melta weaponry

wuestenfux wrote:Well, foot slogging Orks with lots of Boyz are competitive.
Foot slogging Eldar is competitive, with Eldrad, Avatar, Guardians
walking in the Avatar's fearless bubble, War Walker (if you don't count them as vehicles as they move like infantry),
Wraithlords, and Harlies for counter-strike.

No and no.

I played against sisters of battle once i hade to use only assult marines an death companys because the meltas just wrecked my mech :(. But i won in the end =]

This>>

skkipper wrote:csm's can. berzerkers and oblits and raptors and lash princes and termicide.

+ Lesser & Greater daemons

Dark Angels work well without any vehicles due to their Biker/Terminator troops, both also get very good upgrades from their respective company masters (Sammael and Belial), as the ravenwing provides mobility and accurate deathwing assaults, and the deathwing provides staying capability and heavier guns and CC weapons, so alone they are very good, but toether they do fine without vehicles

I'm shocked that nobody has mentioned the Gate of Infinity enabling Space Marines to move squads across the field, or Sicarius' ability to confer Scout/Infiltrate to a Tactical Squad while supporting the entire army with Rites of Battle against pinning and morale checks. Surprise Attack is also handy for getting that first strike, but not reliable.

A Guard infantry spam army would just about require movement trays before I'd think of using or playing it.

I think Space Marines CAN be an all-foot army. It means you have to use your Devastators more to clear the enemy of armour or long-range weapons, but other than that it means you have more bodies on the ground.

I'm not sure how an opponent would feel faced with:

3 squads of sternguard.
6 squads of tactical marines
3 squads of assault marines
3 squads of devastators.

not including HQ that's....

150 power armoured marines.

Even if we just take the chepest option on everything they'll still be outnumbered LOADS. but that's what rapid fire's for....

Cheapest possible foot army using Space Marines:

HQ
Librarian

100

Elites

Sternguard x 3 (just bolters)

375

Troops

Tactical Squads (10 man) x 6 (ML, HB, Fl)

1020

Assault

Assault Squads (10 man) x 3

585

Heavy Support

Devastator Squads (10 man) x 3 (w/ 4ML)

690

TOTAL: 3000

Taking up all slots on a normal army list comes to 3000 points.

I'm sure you're thinking an enemy hoarde army could overrun that with ease.
I say take it to the board table and see!!

Tau are almost capable if it weren't for pathfinders requiring you to take a devilfish. I run a 9 broadside list that uses no vehicles at all save the mandatory devilfish and I win more than I lose.

Can't believe no one mentioned Nids.

I would venture they are the only army out there that loses NOTHING when you leave all of your vehicles behind.

I've played the Avatar, Eldrad, and 3 wraithlord combo with guardians and avengers. It's not a bad list, but definitely suffers against mech. Readily handled a pre-new codex Nidzilla army and a necron list with twin 'liths, but was blown off the table by tank heavy IG.