Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey all - I've done well with IG in small games, but now I'm having trouble pushing them to larger games. I'm looking at running a heavy tank + guys list for 'ard Boyz, but have zero experience with it. (That will end well I'm sure) Some things I'm puzzling on:

Is bubble wrapping a practical defense against valks with melta squads, given that you've got to be 5.5" out to stop it, and the valk can then fly over you, right? Or is the base too big?

Is the double castle (split deployment) dead in the era of outflankers, or can you block your table edges with guys and make it work?

Meltabombs on the squad leaders - worth it for dreadnaughts and tank shock?

Sponsons - they seem more valuable now, but have the issue of giving cover to your target when shooting through your supporting infantry (as I understand it) - are they worth it or not?

Could Creed make it possible to build vet squads with 2x melta, 1 x flamer, PF, shotguns that could do both melta work (with bring it down) and anti infantry/counter assault (with furious charge)?

Putting up a blob conga line across the entire board - any merit to this?

Thanks!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hmm - 2 more questions.

If you have bubble wrap do you need mystics?

and

What is this I hear about using infiltrators to block scout moves? Not seeing how that would work.

And another one -

Is it worth using different weapons on a heavy weapon squad for wound allocation purposes and such? One lascannon and two autocannons looks somewhat attractive....

Bubble-wrapping works as long as you don't leave a gap big enough for the model to land (and deploy) between your wrapping and your tanks. Remember that at the end of the scout move, before turn 1, he still has to be more than 12" away from any of your models. So if you put some models in the spot where he wants to go & disembark, his only choices are to bomb your bubble wrap instead of your tanks, or boost so fast behind your wrapping guys that he can't disembark.

I never heard of a double castle being good versus outflankers--it sounds like a bad idea to me. If you go all one side, 1/3 of the outflankers wind up out of position, but if you put targets out on both ends, besides splitting your forces, it means all the outflankers get something to fight with. Deal with outflanking foot/bike troops by deploying everything on one side with a line of cheap guys along the edge to keep outflankers away from valuable units. Versus outflanking vehicles or skimmers, go all reserve or castle up in the middle.

Meltabombs and sponsons are an ongoing debate. IMO it's personal preference, but in general I find that taking something as insurance is almost never as good a value as taking something you always have a definite use for. The same goes for powerfists in vet squads.

Also in general it's better to give a unit--especially a fragile unit like vets--one job to make sure they do it. Vets tend to die the turn after they shoot. Picture yourself rolling two dice to melta that tank that absolutely has to die, and turning up two misses. The third melta would have saved you. So either meltas or flamers makes it count, since they won't get a second chance.

As soon as something hits one end of your conga blob, the whole thing gets pulled off the other direction on reaction moves (that's how I'd get a conga blob out of the way--by throwing something that will tarpit it at one end and letting them all run to that side).

Rumor has it that Mystics are going away with the new DH codex anyway. So it's better to get used to using deployment to counter deepstrikers.

At the end of the scout move, the scouting unit has to be more than 12" from any enemy model. So you can use infiltrators to create a 24" diameter no-go zone where the (deployed) scouting units can't go.

Thanks - that clears things up! Somehow I missed the 12" rule on scouting - don't use fast scouts, so it had never come up.

Even getting pulled one way, a 36 or 48" conga line is going to be a hell of a barrier, since its only going to "fold up" 6" per turn, right? My understanding is that once the combat begins, it blocks line of sight. That could be useful, depending on who you were fighting and what the mission objectives were. Good for holding up termies, I suppose.

kestral wrote:
Even getting pulled one way, a 36 or 48" conga line is going to be a hell of a barrier, since its only going to "fold up" 6" per turn, right? My understanding is that once the combat begins, it blocks line of sight. That could be useful, depending on who you were fighting and what the mission objectives were. Good for holding up termies, I suppose.

6" in the "reaction" after charge moves, then another 6" in the "scrum" move at the end of the first assault phase. Then another 6" each *player* turn, so by the end of the first complete turn, everything has moved 18" ignoring terrain.

Everything is TLOS now, so if shooters can see past the close combat, they can shoot past it. You might get cover saves, but I think you'd get more utility out of a big infantry blob by using it offensively, and then using terrain and deployment for cover saves. On a decent table, cover is abundant from terrain and you shouldn't have to use your units that way. This isn't 3rd edition with the guardians blocking the wraithguard blocking the wraithlord Iyanden armies anymore

For your "guys" army, mystics are almost completely obsoleted.

Leman russes + guys is a great way to run a non-standard IG army. People who loaded up on missile launchers and autocannons will be really pissed when they see no good targets for their anti-transport weapons.

What you have to make sure you have is your own anti-light vehicle, along with acceptable ranged anti-tank. You can't move and put meltas where you want them so its got to be ranged. Also, HWS as your autocannon base will get focused on quickly. Not saying you shouldn't field HWS, but i would make sure that your russes can down those vendettas/chimeras/speeders/razorbacks. If you field 6 russes, maybe 4 exterminators and 2 vanquishers. You are putting those gunships like vendettas and speeder typhoons on a pretty short clock. The right amount and use of bubble wrap will keep those russes alive for 7 turns no problem.

Now getting to the objectives? That is a major problem for a list built like this.

I was thinking 2 demolishers, an executioner, and 3 standard russes perhaps, with an inquistional landraider to get to the objectives... I'd like to get an exterminator (thats the autocannon one right? Get the e - russes mixed up) into the mix, and I could borrow the model, but its hard to see the best grouping, since you have to have 3 squadrons. Demolishers because they are credible in an anti tank role, anti horde role, anti anything except long range bombardment really. Of course, having to get within 24" complicates the defending infantry's job...

Yeah, you touched on it right there. As much as i like the package the demolisher brings, it just doesn't gel with bubble wrap. If you are playing well, nothing is gonna be within 24" of your tanks. So that means the demolisher doesn't come in to play until something has gone wrong.

The large blast russes in general are frustrating to me. Statistically speaking, there isn't that much wrong with the basic leman russ, but i have found that it just hasn't been able to take out those tanks like I want them to.

Thats just me and my scatter luck though, and they are definitely something that long fangs don't want to see across from them.

I hate everything about the vanquisher but yet I still recommend it for lists like these, only because there isn't anything that isn't armor 12 that can counter a land raider early enough to matter.

I could see a pair of standard russes, a pair of exterminators and a pair of vanquishers. You don't really have to worry about redundancy here because no one is gonna drop your tanks quickly except tau and nids.

Thanks for the thoughts! You'd know far better than I, I expect. But I think I'd like to try to play a more aggressive game. Partly because castle up and shell isn't much fun for many opponents, but mostly because I'm inexperienced, so I figure my best chance is to break the mold a bit, try to upset the metagame. Odds are good my opponent will know more about breaking the castle than I will about defending it....

Why do you see nids as an anti tank threat, rather than eldar? It seems like lance spam is the real danger. Are we talking about tyrannofex or trygons here?

So, how about trying to play agressive, swarm forward with lots of infantry squads with melta, with Creed to make them a bit more interesting and reliable, with tanks moving up behind (and in the early, deepstrike turns, among) them? Fluffy, though probably very risky.

My basic mathhammer gives 2 demolishers only slightly less of a chance to stop a Landraider than 2 vanquishers (assuming blast templates hit about 1/2 the time), the vanquisher needs a 7+ on 2D6 to pen, and the demolishers need a 5+ on 2D6, take the highest. Of course, the demolishers are only going to get 1, maaybe 2 chances at that. A basic infantry squad with a meltagun looks like a good LR stopper - run up and stand in front of it. If they tankshock you, they've got about a 33% chance of losing or immobilizing their landraider. Not great, but if another squad is standing behind the first...

One thing I noticed in a careful reading of the cover rules is that vehicles determine if the target has cover as though each weapon was a model in a unit firing. That means you can mount a pintel mount heavy stubber, fire it and one sponson though defending infantry, and not give a cover save, I think.... Of course it might be more economical just to not have the sponsons. I'm thinking about modeling these little dust or furniture covers to put over them, since I'm not about to rip them off my stuff, let alone the tanks I'm borrowing... : )

Range is the most important factor that mathhammer can leave out. If a vanquisher gets 2 or 3 more shots than a demolisher because of the longer range, then it has 2 or 3 times as much chance of killing a target (or can kill 2-3 times more targets).