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The Inquisitorial allies rules are in the Daemonhunters (and Witch Hunters) codex. Until those are updated, any IG or SM army and all their variants (save Dark Angels, I believe) can utilize:

0-1 HQ
0-2 Troops
0-1 Fast
0-1 Elite

from either DH or WH codices.

BoxANT wrote:Personally, I favor AC HWS over Hyrdas.

1. They're scoring
2. They don't take up a Heavy slot, I want Griffions (perhaps w/ colossus), and 3 or 4 LRBT (variants) in 2 squads.
3. They put just as many hits on a target, more if they pass an order
4. They don't have to be grouped up.
5. They can't all be taken out by one melee charge or good round of shooting.

They only real advantage imo is that Hydras are good against Skimmers, but then again, so are normal AC.

I think in friendly games, the difference between AC HWS and Hydras will be minimal. But I think Sourclams is right here - in the tournament scene and among hardcore players, which is currently dominated by Dual Lash, Nob Bikers, Mechdar, and Eldar Bike Spam, the Hydras will do a superior job as it can take away those SMF and turboboosting cover saves.

Of course, if your psyker battle squads manage to get off Weaken Resolve on the Farseer, there's less need for a psychic hood, and you ought to be able to smash the squad when Fortune isn't on. Taking tests on 3D6 is hard, but with two-three squads of battle psykers, there's a decent chance of it going off. And hey, if it fails you only lose one guy!

Death By Monkeys wrote:

BoxANT wrote:Personally, I favor AC HWS over Hyrdas.

1. They're scoring
2. They don't take up a Heavy slot, I want Griffions (perhaps w/ colossus), and 3 or 4 LRBT (variants) in 2 squads.
3. They put just as many hits on a target, more if they pass an order
4. They don't have to be grouped up.
5. They can't all be taken out by one melee charge or good round of shooting.

They only real advantage imo is that Hydras are good against Skimmers, but then again, so are normal AC.

I think in friendly games, the difference between AC HWS and Hydras will be minimal. But I think Sourclams is right here - in the tournament scene and among hardcore players, which is currently dominated by Dual Lash, Nob Bikers, Mechdar, and Eldar Bike Spam, the Hydras will do a superior job as it can take away those SMF and turboboosting cover saves.

Autocannon HWS with the Fire on my Target! order, I reckon, is the way to go.

& by that logic, you can have a lascannon crew (or infantry platoon, or melta vets) that can ultilize those same orders (obviously only one per unit)

Id much prefer infantry to be useful & make use of thier orders rules.. and use units like the banewolf & russes to accomplish things your infantry cant (and to be hardy cool vehicles)

tzeentchling wrote:Of course, if your psyker battle squads manage to get off Weaken Resolve on the Farseer, there's less need for a psychic hood, and you ought to be able to smash the squad when Fortune isn't on. Taking tests on 3D6 is hard, but with two-three squads of battle psykers, there's a decent chance of it going off. And hey, if it fails you only lose one guy!

Weaken Resolve only works until the end of your turn. The Farseer's leadership returns to normal in his turn. Short of killing the Farseer you can't interfere with his casting.

Razerous wrote:Id much prefer infantry to be useful & make use of thier orders rules.. and use units like the banewolf & russes to accomplish things your infantry cant (and to be hardy cool vehicles)

Fast eldar can and will tank shock gun lines right off the table. This is a huge vulnerability of infantry units, and it's why I feel the Hydra belongs in a competitive template: it is the MOST effective counter that IG have to fast skimmers, bar none. Lots of lists will be effective, but hydras are a necessity to be effective against fast eldar.

Added to that they get 3 free heavy flamers for anti-assault work, and hydras return far more bang for their buck than AC squads.

First off. Why the hell have i not found this thread until now. Deathbymonkeys was talking to me like I had seen this, haha.

Good job, sourclams, and thanks. I don't know if you've caught some of my batreps or other discussion about IG lately, it looks like we're all going to be able to get some good lists built with people working the new codex into a good lather.

Ok, I see that you have gone even more top tier matchup specific than I have been going. I like that, it isn't how my brain works, but its a fine way to design a tourney army.

sourclams wrote:Company Command Squad + Astropath + Officer of the Fleet
110 pts

Emphatically, YES!

sourclams wrote:Psychic Battle Squad (7 psykers) + Chimera
145 pts

You make a good case for this unit in your post here, I haven't tried them yet. I haven't needed them yet. But I haven't really faced off against who we are really talking about using them against. I'm going to face off against nob bikes without it, and see if just being mechanized and a good general can stave them off. If I get rocked (my prediction) then including a choir could immediately change that matchup. You'll need a fast vehicle to keep up with the running bikers to make sure that they don't get a chance to regroup once their leadership kicks back up to 9 on their turn.

sourclams wrote:DH Inquisitor + 2 Mystics
32 pts

Haven't faced demons yet with my list. They do intimidate me, but I don't really see how a single 14" bubble of 'don't land here' could really change the game. It's certainly worth 32 points, and it isn't competing in slots. But is it worth the 2 KP? I don't know. You have made your case clearly and I understand what we are weighing here. As always, I'll try it. But only after I've faced demons the old fashioned way.

sourclams wrote:Hydra Flak Tankx3
225 pts

I agree with those that think the hydra is good but might not belong in a template. The hydra has advantages that you've mentioned over the HWS or just a plas/AC line squad. But its disadvantages include eating a heavy slot and not being a scoring unit. It might be better if you've got the slot. But I need my griffons and my russes as well.

sourclams wrote:Vendettax3
390 pts

I have gotten great effects from my valkyries. Burning a heavy slot on hydras and then burning all three fast slots on direct fire might make cutting through 30 man ork units exceedingly difficult. i expect to see a LOT more of them than I do nob bikers. Its possible to buy some more slots by squadroning, but I'd rather find out if I need all three of the vendettas, or if I can swap one or two out for the faster and more anti-horde valks. You had a very specific explanation for them versus nob bikers, but I think a full IG 1750 could force a morale test on a single nob biker unit (even a turbo boosted one) without needing to give up so much. I am completely discounting the vendettas ability to kill the majority of tanks in the game for this discussion, but I take that into consideration when I think about the give/take between valk/vend. It just depends on what the rest of my list is doing.


Fantastic analysis sourclams... thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Death By Monkeys wrote:

BoxANT wrote:Personally, I favor AC HWS over Hyrdas.

1. They're scoring
2. They don't take up a Heavy slot, I want Griffions (perhaps w/ colossus), and 3 or 4 LRBT (variants) in 2 squads.
3. They put just as many hits on a target, more if they pass an order
4. They don't have to be grouped up.
5. They can't all be taken out by one melee charge or good round of shooting.

They only real advantage imo is that Hydras are good against Skimmers, but then again, so are normal AC.

I think in friendly games, the difference between AC HWS and Hydras will be minimal. But I think Sourclams is right here - in the tournament scene and among hardcore players, which is currently dominated by Dual Lash, Nob Bikers, Mechdar, and Eldar Bike Spam, the Hydras will do a superior job as it can take away those SMF and turboboosting cover saves.

I think in friendly games, the difference between AC HWS and Hydras will be minimal. But I think Sourclams is right here - in the tournament scene and among hardcore players, which is currently dominated by Dual Lash, Nob Bikers, Mechdar, and Eldar Bike Spam, the Hydras will do a superior job as it can take away those SMF and turboboosting cover saves.

Raxmei wrote:

tzeentchling wrote:Of course, if your psyker battle squads manage to get off Weaken Resolve on the Farseer, there's less need for a psychic hood, and you ought to be able to smash the squad when Fortune isn't on. Taking tests on 3D6 is hard, but with two-three squads of battle psykers, there's a decent chance of it going off. And hey, if it fails you only lose one guy!

Weaken Resolve only works until the end of your turn. The Farseer's leadership returns to normal in his turn. Short of killing the Farseer you can't interfere with his casting.

Ah! See, this is what I get for not reading the leaked pdf and making comments.

Thanks for the opinions, Shep. I'm checking out your batreps; real field tests are necessary to back up my assumptions based on Theoryhammer.

All of these tactics solely rely upon your opponent playing directly to the strengths of your core list.

Daemons... I would love for my best units not to arrive until the 5th turn of the game. You will have one turn to shoot then I will assault en masse... This will vapourize both mech and foot slogging lists. I have a lot of daemons in my list. My troops will land beside objectives placed in vover and run in with the 2" spread. You will not be able to shoot them all off the table in five turns.

I think the mystics are way overrated. Their typical range is 14". You are going to have to pack your army on the table like a sardine can to keep everything with that bubble... which plays right into the hands of a daemonic assault horde. At least put your mystics in a rhino to help extend their range.

Fateweaver can come in behind another unit for the 4+ cover save. I will take that and drop pie plates on your anti daemon units.

Nob bikers... I start in reserve if you go first. I turbo boost up into your grill if I go first. I will take my two saves per model against your Hydras. If I start in reserve there is roughly a 50% chance both nob squads will come in on the same turn... So the odds are greatly in my favor that both nob units arrive the same turn. Having to shoot at two units cuts your firepower in half. You basically have one turn of shooting before I assault you.

All mech lists except for LR spam are extremely vulnerable to assaults if you are counting on your armor to win games.

G

I don't really know what to say to the pile of nonsense that you just posted.

I would love for my best units not to arrive until the 5th turn of the game. You will have one turn to shoot then I will assault en masse...

Half your army comes on turn 1. If you have the guts to DS within 14" of me, I absolutely destroy that unit on arrival with whatever flavor of pie plate throwing death I fill out my list with.

On turn 2, 1/3 of your reserves come in, and if you try landing close, I shoot you again. Then I shoot the stuff that walked towards me in my actual shooting phase.

On turn 3, 1/2 of the remaining reserves come in. Repeat.

On turn 4, the rest probably comes in. Repeat. That's the strength of IG and this list versus Daemons. You have to fight me piecemeal the whole time. If you don't, my artillery or Vendettas blow away your units on landing.

Fateweaver can come in behind another unit for the 4+ cover save. I will take that and drop pie plates on your anti daemon units.

This is not a psycannon gimmick list. Fateweaver shows up, I shoot him with 9 TL lascannons. If he takes one wound, which is likely on 1/9 wounds, I hit him with my Psychic Choir and he disappears into the warp. He dies if he takes one wound and he's within 36" of my choir. An assault lynchpin cannot function 36" away. I don't know what version of Daemons you play, but you do not have pie plates that can blow through mystics ensconced in AV12 consistently enough to matter.

I think the mystics are way overrated.

I disagree, I don't believe you thought much at all. Inquisitorial Mystics are a 32 point IWIN button against Daemons. Daemons are a premiere first strike assault army. By their very nature Inquisitorial Mystics take that away from them.

Nob bikers... blahblahgarbage

You start in reserve. On turn 2, there is a 2/3 chance that one Nob biker squad comes on. You turboboost and claim a 3+. I shoot you with 9 TL lascannons and deal almost 2 instadeath wounds with that one squadron alone, and it's a 1/5 chance whether one goes onto the warboss. My entire army then deals one more instadeath wound, and the psychic choir force you to take leadership at *2*.

If you go first, you hit my infantry screen and disintegrate them, and then I do the same thing to you again. I can just keep bouncing your bikes back and forth until you run out of bikes or run off the table.

I spent a lot of time on my analyses and indices, and I post here to actually try to help IG players optimize their lists from a mathematical and synergistic basis. I welcome constructive criticism and valuable playtest experience, but if all you've got is poorly thought out anecdotal false garbage, save everybody's time.

sourclams wrote:I spent a lot of time on my analyses and indices, and I post here to actually try to help IG players optimize their lists from a mathematical and synergistic basis. I welcome constructive criticism and valuable playtest experience, but if all you've got is poorly thought out anecdotal false garbage, save everybody's time.

He has spent a lot of time on this.

See...

I told you all...

A Different Kind of Evil.

zannal wrote:So What bikes are you really takeing away the cover save from?
The only bikes that I can think that the Hydra will be good against are scout bikers.
Space marine/chaos bikes have 3+ armor and orks have a perma 4+ due to the smoke screen rules that the bikes give.

The ork bike cover save is just a cover save, it would be removed by anything that removes cover saves.

Double post :(

The hydra takes away the 3+ coversave from going fast, not the 4+ natural save.

tzeentchling wrote:Of course, if your psyker battle squads manage to get off Weaken Resolve on the Farseer, there's less need for a psychic hood, and you ought to be able to smash the squad when Fortune isn't on. Taking tests on 3D6 is hard, but with two-three squads of battle psykers, there's a decent chance of it going off. And hey, if it fails you only lose one guy!

on a PotW attack the overseer kills D3 psykers. If the overseer is dead already, the entire squad takes a PotW attack (poof!).

I recommend taking 9 psykers to shore against this, and to provide a S9 template against fearless armies.

Clams it's time to go back to the drawing board. Sorry for bursting your bubble. Hee!

G

Sorry sourclams but I agree with Green Blow Fly. I just don't see it happening your way with an experienced player on the other side of the board.

Also don't take it so personally. To the world it looks like you are throwing a hissy fit because someone isnt kissing your feet for finding yet another way to kill stuff with stuff in 40k. :/

Then prove me wrong.

Speeding Nobs: 3+ cover save

3 Vendettas: 9 TL Lascannons

Turn 1: You speed Nobz 24"

I shoot you with 9 TL lascannons; 6.75 hit 5.625 wounds. 1 Wound on Warboss, 4.625 on Nobz. After 4+ cover saves, you lose 1/3 Warboss + 1.54 Nobz. It's going to be between 1 and 2 Nob Bikes dead. Now my entire army has to kill only 1-2 more Bikes and I hit you with the Psychic Choir and you run away 35/36 of the time.

T2: Your other Nob Bikes hit half of my layered infantry screen and kill them. (assuming I have 2-4 squads in 2 layers; 20"-40" across the table).

I do the same thing again. Your other Bike squadron rallies and turbos again to get back close. They hit the rest of my infantry screen and kill them.

I just keep doing this and squash you, and this is the best case where you go first and I don't get 2 turns of shooting before you hit my infantry screen.

Prove the math wrong, that's all I ask. You're going to run out of Nobz on turn 3.

Theoryhammer just doesnt work like that man. You cant assume what I am going to do with my army, and you cant assume average rolls. If we are going to do it like this though and I am going first then my deffcoptas turbo in the scout move and assault rear armor with st 8 first turn. There go the vendettas...

sourclams wrote:T
I shoot you with 9 TL lascannons; 6.75 hit 5.625 wounds. 1 Wound on Warboss, 4.625 on Nobz. After 4+ cover saves, you lose 1/3 Warboss + 1.54 Nobz. It's going to be between 1 and 2 Nob Bikes dead. Now my entire army has to kill only 1-2 more Bikes and I hit you with the Psychic Choir and you run away 35/36 of the time.

(Morinic part of my post removed by me)

If you decide to split the Vendettas out of a squadron, this gets a lot worse for the Guard player, as more wounds can be safely allocated to the Warboss before dropping the Nobs themselves.

I have a lot of tricks up my sleeves. Like I shot your tank you are shielding with infantry with a skorcha and then combi charge. There are a lot of factors you are not taking into account. That's why I don't play vassal online... It will never be the same as a tabletop game. Remember that all armies are over hyped when they get their new rules and the real power builds usually come out around 3 months after the release.

G

Assume my infantry screen is actually competent and I know those tricks exist, because I do.

Nob bikers is a 1 dimensional army. Your tactic will inevitably be move as fast as you can and charge because that's all you can do. Anything less and you die to my shooting.

It's a very simple request, just show me how the math is wrong.

The math for the averages is correct, no one is arguing that lol. What we are arguing is how you manage to make the math matter, how you plan on using that on the table. Unfortunately it cant really be argued because as I said before theoryhammer doesnt work. Im also not trying to argue that nobz are auto win vs guard or anything, I am just saying what you have proposed isnt as likely to happen as you think and isnt the auto win solution for guard.

Green Blow Fly wrote:
Nob bikers... I start in reserve if you go first. I turbo boost up into your grill if I go first. I will take my two saves per model against your Hydras. If I start in reserve there is roughly a 50% chance both nob squads will come in on the same turn... So the odds are greatly in my favor that both nob units arrive the same turn. Having to shoot at two units cuts your firepower in half. You basically have one turn of shooting before I assault you.
G

There's actually only a 25% chance that both units come in on the same turn (assuming turn 2). Each one has a 1/2 chance to arrive. The chance to roll 4+ on two separate dice is 1/4. If the Officer of the Fleet is included, there is only 1/9 chance that both will come in on turn 2.

I think what you're forgetting here is the fact that this "core" list that has been posted is only around half of the army. It doesn't include things like the cover-save ignoring artillery pieces that ignore the Nobs armor, cover and FNP that the IG player might chose to field, or any of the LR variants that are sure to be included.

"Theoryhammer doesn't matter"

That's not the point of this analysis. Theoryhammer doesn't matter because there is a discrepancy between real-world performance and theoretical construct. That's why, you're correct, theoryhammer doesn't matter. A better player will beat a worse player with lists that are identical. A worse player will have a chance against a better player if his list is nothing but Land Raiders and the better player has nothing above S7.

What I am doing is to take the random element of player ability out of the equation altogether. What I give is a mathematical stress test that compares the raw advantages of each list. This "core" list targets the weaknesses of the top tournament-level lists. Some better than others, however Nob Bikers are one that IG will beat much more easily than most by targeting the weaknesses of the Nob Biker formation.

this is pure theoryhammer with an unproven codex.

G

And by the way I don't play nob bikers but I am very familar with them.

G

That's a great expression of your opinion but you have nothing that refutes the empirical evidence.

Nob Bikes have multiwound models that take advantage of wound allocation, FNP, and combat resolution.

IG have long range instant death that ignores FNP and largely mechanized lists that ignore combat resolution paired with abilities that attack leadership.

Until you can refute that, please stop posting. I value field tests but your anecdotal shoot-from-the-hip counterpoints aren't valuable.

Nob bikers have four main advantages that make them so resilient: High toughness, two wounds (coupled with allocation rules), portable cover save, FNP.

In all the "beat Nob Bikers" tactical discussions, the main contention was that you had to be able to beat at least two of those advantages to win against them. That was why TS/TH Terminators were considered so good: ignored the high toughness, ignored the cover save, caused instant death and ignored FNP.

From what we can tell about the new IG codex, it appears that the IGs have a variety of ways to circumvent at least two of those advantages.