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"I like Lysander, but after 4th edition, it just seems wrong to put him in anything but standard terminators."

You meant assault terminators, right?

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:"I like Lysander, but after 4th edition, it just seems wrong to put him in anything but standard terminators."

You meant assault terminators, right?

G

I meant what I said, Bolter Drill seems wasted without actual bolters in the squad that he joined.

Though I do think an adaptation of the olde Lysanderwing would be 30 Thunderhammer Assault Terminators, and few scout bikers with Locator Beacons and two or three Tactical Squads in Drop Pods, sticking Lysander in with them.

I've had some good success with Attack Bikes as multimelta platforms. They seem to last a little better than Speeders do, plus they're cheaper, and can be quite versatile (in that as anti-infantry, they have the twin-linked bolters too, and in that you can chuck them into a close combat too, if necessary).

Khornatedemon wrote:For the record the list I've taken to using now, which is an evolution of the list shep posted, is:
Vulkan
MM/HF dread
MM/HF dread
tac squad with MM/MG/ powerfist and combimelta sgt (ride in redeemer with vulkan)
tac squad with MM/MG in rhino
tac squad with MM/MG in rhino
2x MM/HF speeders
2x MM/HF speeders
dakka pred
dakka pred
Redeemer with MM

I quite like that list and Vulkan really helps with all those Meltas. My main concern is with MM in Tactical Squads you can not move and fire with them so unless the opponent comes into melta range they seem a bit limited.? Obviously this does not trouble you? Do you not bother trying to get the second dice for Penetration or am I missing something...

Mahu wrote:What are the thoughts on Attack Bikes? I have thought of multiple squads of two with Multimeltas. Being able to turboboast, being cheaper, having more imunity to str 5 - 7 weapons, and never being stunned, sounds really appealing. I have played both HF/MM Land Speaders and Attack Bikes and I am finding I am prefering the Attack Bikes. Am I crazy?

Now I have been using mostly Attack Bikes and thinking of swithcing to Speeders. The Bikes work well at killing armour but then get creamed by the troops inside and do nothing when I face Orks.

Lyracian wrote:

Khornatedemon wrote:For the record the list I've taken to using now, which is an evolution of the list shep posted, is:
Vulkan
MM/HF dread
MM/HF dread
tac squad with MM/MG/ powerfist and combimelta sgt (ride in redeemer with vulkan)
tac squad with MM/MG in rhino
tac squad with MM/MG in rhino
2x MM/HF speeders
2x MM/HF speeders
dakka pred
dakka pred
Redeemer with MM

I quite like that list and Vulkan really helps with all those Meltas. My main concern is with MM in Tactical Squads you can not move and fire with them so unless the opponent comes into melta range they seem a bit limited.? Obviously this does not trouble you? Do you not bother trying to get the second dice for Penetration or am I missing something...

Mahu wrote:What are the thoughts on Attack Bikes? I have thought of multiple squads of two with Multimeltas. Being able to turboboast, being cheaper, having more imunity to str 5 - 7 weapons, and never being stunned, sounds really appealing. I have played both HF/MM Land Speaders and Attack Bikes and I am finding I am prefering the Attack Bikes. Am I crazy?

Now I have been using mostly Attack Bikes and thinking of swithcing to Speeders. The Bikes work well at killing armour but then get creamed by the troops inside and do nothing when I face Orks.

no I dont worry about them really. 24" is not as bad as some people will want you to think and outside of 12" they are a twin-linked missile launcher with ap1. Generally I drive my rhino's up first turn full speed, pop smoke, and next turn can melta out of the top if I need to or advance. Also they make good anchors for holding objectives. People think twice about sending a tank to an objective guarded by a twin linked MM.

The thing about attack bikes is they dont get heavy flamers. I've won games just on the heavy flamers on my speeders.

Attack bikes are great! I usually run two sets of 2 with multimeltas.

Better cover save, actually has an armor save, two wounds, twin linked bolters for up close action, and can assault to tie up things that have troubling wounding T5 models with 3+ armor saves.

This thread has had some very useful information passed around. There are a couple points that i disagree with, and a couple more things to say on the 'template' list from Stelek that I posted.

1. Close combat. Against mechanized armies, close combat is just not an optimal choice. You can argue against this if you want, but close combat against a person with tons of transports will just get you a 35-55 point transport, then you'll get fried by all of the close range high quality special weapons that all mechanized armies carry in copious quantities. Close combat in 5th edition is a victim of its own goodness. Using the rules for running and the rules for cover, CC got a major buff, then demons and foot orks completely dominated two straight years of tourney play, and then everyone said "F this, I'm climbing in to a transport." The extra layer of transport protection gives all armies an extra turn of shooting, and completely bunches up assaulters that charge vehicles with no WS. I fully support Khornatedemon's vulcan list. Vulcan makes shooty units better, and plopping him in a land raider with a single lean CC unit (or even slapping a fist on a tac squad and placing it in the raider) is just fine. You've now spent points on assault, but vulcan stretches your meltagun dollar with his special rules. However, I wouldn't advocate a focus on any CC units. I did advocate it before, I ran a termie spam land raider list. But when even my friends semi casual mechanized ork list was able to burninate my termies with 15x burna templates after I got out of the land raiders, I realized that being close to a mechanized player and being on foot was tantamount to being dead. The more you spend on CC, the less ranged shots you have on transports, which increases the deadliness of CC near an army basically geared to hard-counter it.

2. Attack bikes. I like them alright. I don't see them as an analog to speeders though. Without the heavy flamer and without the deep strike option, they would more likely be a replacement to dreadnoughts. If you take land raiders, putting a pair out of LOS behind the raider makes for a decent transport denial to protect the land raider from melta rushers, but it doesn't have the devastating bloodcrusher counter that dreadnoughts have. Speeders are vehicles, and as everyone is discovering, vehicles often times have an obnoxious ability to stay alive. You hit them, then you "wound" them. Sometimes they get a good save, and then there is this new roll that infantry doesn't have. A small fraction of results on this roll have any sort of permanent consequence. I know everyone knows how the rules for vehicles work. But its easy forget that vehicles do have wounds. Each time you crew shake me, each time you immobilize the shooty vehicle, each time you crew stun a vehicle in a squadron, or when you weapon destroy the MM/HF speeder, you haven't finished the job yet. When 4 speeders land in your backfield, it is a LOT harder to kill off than if 4 attack bikes pushed up into short range multi-melta range.

3. The list. I mentioned that the list was a template and its important to understand what that means. It is a starting off point for list consctruction, meaning, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't recommend running it as is. Stelek's metagame is heavily mechanized. No one in his gaming group could whip out space marines on foot and stick a krak grenade on a tank, because those marines would be vaporized by all of the mechanized sisters, mech chaos, mech orks, lash/oblitted, tau plasma rifle/markerlight spammed or even worse IG 'fire on my target melta spam' followed by 6+ heavy flamers. You need to customize your list to your local meta. It doesn't seem like Stelek's group plays nids or foot orks much, so his space marines can probably get away with the somewhat light horde kill. If your main opponent has a foot ork army, then the dreadnoughts seem much less impressive. If your LGS has a ton of non-shooty demon players, then upgrading the three dreadnoughts to ironclads and auto-winning against them would be the smart call. If your meta is filled with IG players, then swapping the heavy bolter sponsons for lascannon sponsons on the predators makes them much more efficient transport killers (thats what Somnicide does, since I play IG and tau, and he and I play together a lot). Customizing your list puts your own persoanl stamp on it... it matches better with whatever playstyle you are comfortable with, and it is much more difficult to fully prepare to fight against, as your opponent won't be intimately familiar with all of the unit synergies. Take the template, then follow these steps.

step 1. Identify your meta composition.
step 2. Examine your matchups versus specific archetypes (mechanized, horde, demons, foot chaos)
step 3. Strengthen the template versus the most common and most difficult matchups for you.
step 4. playtest.
step 5. playtest.
step 6. repeat steps 4 and 5.

I play in tournaments here in the Tampa area, Orlando and Sarasota so trying to build a list for a 'local' meta can be futile. I go for well balanced lists in general and take advantage of what that race has to offer.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:I play in tournaments here in the Tampa area, Orlando and Sarasota so trying to build a list for a 'local' meta can be futile. I go for well balanced lists in general and take advantage of what that race has to offer.

G

Great point. I almost mentioned that. For tourney players that play in regional events, your own experience and reading popular message boards, coupled with a little luck (or future sight) is the best you can do when tracking the regional meta.

Previous tourney results are also good guides to what to expect.

My point was you don't need to design a list with a meta game in mind to do well.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:My point was you don't need to design a list with a meta game in mind to do well.

G

So what do you do? Take your favorite looking units? Take the stuff you have painted?

Taking stuff 'that plays to the strengths of your army' as you say might work for blood angels, as their focus is strictly on CC. But vanilla space marines can focus on short range shooting OR CC. Since smart players are running mechanized list PACKED with CC hate (blasts, templates and transports) If you have a choice, then I'm advocating choosing to avoid CC. Blood Angels and demons (your two armies) don't have a choice.

I know this isn't entirely on topic, but I thought I would throw the CSM list I've been using the past few weeks out there to show how it relates. I haven't lost with it out of my last 6 games since I began play-testing, and only drawn one. Granted I don't think it's the uber kill-everyone list, but I pretty effortlessly dispatched a Lash/Plague/Oblit spam with it too.

Chaos Sorcerer – 125
MoS, Lash of Submission

Chaos Sorcerer – 125
MoS, Lash of Submission

240 – CSM x9
IoCG, 1x Melta, Champ w/Power Fist and Combi-Melta, Rhino

240 – CSM x9
IoCG, 1x Melta, Champ w/Power Fist and Combi-Melta, Rhino

265 – CSM x10
IoCG, 2x Melta, Champ w/Power Fist and Combi-Melta, Rhino

265 – Havocs x10
IoS, 4x Flamers, Champ w/Power Weapon and Combi-Flamer, Rhino

265 – Havocs x10
IoS, 4x Flamers, Champ w/Power Weapon and Combi-Flamer, Rhino

3x Obliterators - 225

Greater Daemon - 100

That being said, I believe the Melta spam coupled with a small amount of anti-infantry is perfect. I don't think tac squads are rated highly enough when you consider that a marine is a mini-tank compared to a lot of basic infantry out there. Their selection of guns is fantastic and their accuracy is pretty ridiculous compared to the other races. Hopefully this was somewhat helpful.

Shep wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:My point was you don't need to design a list with a meta game in mind to do well.

G

So what do you do? Take your favorite looking units? Take the stuff you have painted?

Taking stuff 'that plays to the strengths of your army' as you say might work for blood angels, as their focus is strictly on CC. But vanilla space marines can focus on short range shooting OR CC. Since smart players are running mechanized list PACKED with CC hate (blasts, templates and transports) If you have a choice, then I'm advocating choosing to avoid CC. Blood Angels and demons (your two armies) don't have a choice.

I have played around with a Lysander/Vulkan list that is not shabby in cc.

G

I think the big question right now is how, if at all, are mech marines going to have tochange their list to take the new guard into account. As of right now I'm leaving my list as is and hoping for the best. I have a tourny tomorrow and another in 2 weeks so after then i can report back as how things look from that perspective

I know IG killed Assault Marines for me. Stupid Collossus, nothing like seeing the 6 assault marines you have left on the table disappear.

Khornatedemon wrote:no I dont worry about them really. 24" is not as bad as some people will want you to think and outside of 12" they are a twin-linked missile launcher with ap1. Generally I drive my rhino's up first turn full speed, pop smoke, and next turn can melta out of the top if I need to or advance. Also they make good anchors for holding objectives. People think twice about sending a tank to an objective guarded by a twin linked MM.

I had not really thought of them as short range Missiles. It keeps it consistant with the range of the rest of the squad. I shall have to try it out. Any other tactics you would like to share?

What would you drop to make this into a 1500 points list? Perhaps downgrade a Tac squad to Scouts? Drop a Predator? or is is just no longer viable if whittled down?

I won three RTTs in a row, recently.
The army (with minor variations) looked like this:

Librarian w/ terminator armor, storm shield, null zone, ...

10 Assault Termies w/ th/ss

10 Termies w/ cyclone x2

10 Tactical Marines

10 Tactical Marines

10 Scouts w/ sniper rifles x5

I played in a tourny today hosted by my club with the list I posted earlier and came in 4th out of 30+ people with 2 wins and a draw. I was 3rd in battle points but lost out due to my paint score. (we have some really amazing painters around here and I've been lazy with highlighting my stuff) We had people from about 5 different clubs in southern NY show up so it was a nice mixed field.

Star of the day was definitely the redeemer which failed to die in all 3 games and actually won my second game almost on its own by surviving a ton of melta shots and sitting atop my opponents objective. In my 3rd game against another vulkan list it fried a tactical squad with its flamestorms and blew up a vindicator and a razorback and again proved invulnerable.

I was kind of dissapointed in the dreads all day. They really didnt do much and both of them ended up destroyed in 2 of the 3 games without doing much of anything. I like the dreads and the punch they have the potential to add but they just dont seem to accomplish much for me lately.

Some changes I'm going to toy around with are dropping the dreads to either add a terminator squad to ride with vulkan in the redeemer and buy the tac squad in there a rhino, or dropping the dreads again and taking 2 more speeders and putting lascannons on my pred sponsons. I think the terminators might be more fun but the speeders + lascannons might prove more effective. I have another tourny in 2 weeks so im gonna try them out till then and see what I like.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lyracian wrote:

Khornatedemon wrote:no I dont worry about them really. 24" is not as bad as some people will want you to think and outside of 12" they are a twin-linked missile launcher with ap1. Generally I drive my rhino's up first turn full speed, pop smoke, and next turn can melta out of the top if I need to or advance. Also they make good anchors for holding objectives. People think twice about sending a tank to an objective guarded by a twin linked MM.

I had not really thought of them as short range Missiles. It keeps it consistant with the range of the rest of the squad. I shall have to try it out. Any other tactics you would like to share?

What would you drop to make this into a 1500 points list? Perhaps downgrade a Tac squad to Scouts? Drop a Predator? or is is just no longer viable if whittled down?

One thing thats not really a tactic per se but something i always used to forget is that your squads can charge the occupants of a transport if they blow it up in the shooting phase. With an army sporting a lot of melta guns it can be a life saver against mech guard and some other lists. Its also another reason I like the tactical squad with vulkan in the redeemer. I can get out, hit a transport with 2 meltaguns, then charge the guys that bail out if it pops, with the redeemer's MM as back up in case they fail. This is something I like a lot against a heavy mech guard army that has so many tanks that they are all cluttered together, especially in heavy terrain, as you can pop the transport with the tac squad and if you position it right hit the squad that bails out with a few tactical marines and if there is another tank close enough put vulkan and the powerfist into the tank as well as as many tactical marines that are within 2" of them. This puts minimal attacks into the guardsmen that hopefully wont run away and keep you safe from return fire. Its a risky move, but I like to play ballsy.

I honestly dont play games less then 1750, and would rather play 1850 minimum but everything in my area runs @1750. The list I play wouldnt really work at 1500 methinks. You would probably have to lose the redeemer and find 35 points for a rhino.

Khornatedemon, would you mind providing a mini-batrep? I run a somewhat similar list and am interested in what armies and compositions you faced.

EOD Tech wrote:Khornatedemon, would you mind providing a mini-batrep? I run a somewhat similar list and am interested in what armies and compositions you faced.

I played mech BA, sisters with some allied guard, and another mech vulkan list in that order.

First game was pitched battle with 5 objectives and bonus's for killing commanders and some other stuff that ended in a draw. Fast moving space marine tanks are annoying. I was going first and 5th turn he managed to zip a baal pred onto one of my objectives to contest it and he rolled a 2 to end the game. Had it gone another turn I most likely would have won as I had 4 melta's in 2D6 range as well as a full marine squad with a powerfist and vulkan to charge it. There was a bit of a rules issue regarding some height and terrain (see my post in YMDC) that if it was ruled in my favor would have put a MM in a position to death or glory said Baal and potentially give me a win, but alas it was not to be.

Second was Capture and control with table quarters and bonus's for controlling table quarters. I played a mostly foot sisters army with some inducted guard for heavy weapons, and exorcist and a 4 melta squad in an immolator. There were a ton of autocanon, heavy bolter and lascannon shots in his army and pretty much every hit was blowing up a tank. His rolling was great and the sisters faith giving them invulnerables and rending heavy flamers was just beating the snot out of me. I made the mistake of being too hasty in trying to get vulkan and his squad into CC with his sisters. I beat the snot out of 1 squad and was then faithfully rended to death with bolters and heavy flamers and 2 guard lascannons finishing off vulkan. In the end I pulled off a win with my redeemer surviving a ton of melta shots and being able to park on his objective with me have 2 small squads of marines on mine with nothing of his left in my quarter. I was mauled pretty bad and had a total of 9 marines, a pred with only 1 heavy bolter remaining and the redeemder left. I think he had something like 30 sisters, an immobilized exorcist, an immobilized immolator, and inquisitor + retinue and a few guardsmen left. Only having 1 transport hurt him as he had nothing to get to my objective after i stopped his immolator and killed the 15 or so sisters he marched into my dz.

Last game was annihilation + DoW with both players nominating a terrain piece and getting bonus points for controlling them. I was playing another vulkan list with 4-5 tactical squads with MM/MG, 4 in assault cannon razorbacks, 1 in a rhino, and 2 vindicators. This was probably the most fun game I've played in a while. Being DoW nothign really happened the first 2 turns as we were both playing lists with short ranged firepower and i think my preds were the only things in either army that shot farther than 24". I made a ballsy moved and ran my redeemer up 3rd turn and put vulkan and his tac squad into one of his 10 man squads. The redeemer managed to shake the vindicator in the area with its MM and vulkan and his squad killed 7 of his squad and they held. His next turn he charged me with his vulkan and 5 guys + fist. I finished off the squad i initially charged and won combat but we held. My next turn his vulkan puts a wound on mine while my powerfist insta-jibs his vulkan. Also my redeemer killed off his vindi with an amazing 3 6's to penetrate with the assault cannon. From there we just traded shots for a few turns but he was unable to kill my redeemer and it was soaking fire and giving me a KP a turn. I ended up winning 7-5 at the end of 6.

All in all I was happy as this is only my second tourny with the army. I came in 6th of 40 last time and was 4th of 30 something this time and would have had 3rd overall if I had spent more time painting my army instead of playing Call of Duty lol.

Cool, thanks for the report. Glad to hear the redeemer did well, since most people usually recommend the crusader.
My current 1850 list is:
vulkan
5 Assault terminators in a Redeemer
3x 10 man tac squads, 2 in rhinos
2x attack bikes w/ mm
1 landspeeder with mm/hf
1 vindicator
1 landraider

Was only able to play a few games with it before I deployed....7 more months and I'll be able to play again!
I dropped dreads from it due to a lack of effectiveness. Used to have a librarian instead of Vulkan but Vulkan improves the whole army whereas the libby doesn't.

Nice job khornatedaemon.

G

Star of the day was definitely the redeemer which failed to die in all 3 games

Well, how many points was this?

I've seen Landraiders going down from the first lascannon shot at the game.
In larger games, fielding a single LR is a gamble.

wuestenfux wrote:

Star of the day was definitely the redeemer which failed to die in all 3 games

Well, how many points was this?

I've seen Landraiders going down from the first lascannon shot at the game.
In larger games, fielding a single LR is a gamble.

1750. Well technically anything can die to a lucky single shot. Your terminators can die to lasguns, does that mean you shouldnt use them? The odds of a single lascannon taking out a LR with one shot are low enough I'll take my chances. In the game against the sisters army it survived 8-10 lascannon shots, 6 meltagun shots, a bunch of shots from an Exorcist, and an assault with a meltabomb. Now I understand it wont do that every game but it did in this one and nabbed me a win. I'm not sure what you consider a larger game but I dont think using 1/3 of my points on 2 LR's that do have the chance to die easily in certain matchups is worth the risk.

I know a lot of people like the crusader more but if I had a crusader instead of the redeemer my third game I dont know if I would have won. I actually managed to get a shot with a flamestorm that killed like 8 marines from a full tactical squad that let me finish them off with bolters from a tactical squad behind my vulkan squad which allowed my vulkan to assault another depleted squad for a KP. The redeemer is a big scary threat to anything that doesnt pack a lot of melta's. The mech BA army only had 3 MG's in his army and 2 were attached to slow moving dreads I was able to keep far away from.

Well, larger games - about 1750 points or more.
The point is if you put too many eggs in one basket it can go wrong. For instance, sticking Assault Termies into a LR that gets popped in first turn so that the Termies need to take a walk. But foot slogging eventually is a slow way to die.

wuestenfux wrote:Well, larger games - about 1750 points or more.
The point is if you put too many eggs in one basket it can go wrong. For instance, sticking Assault Termies into a LR that gets popped in first turn so that the Termies need to take a walk. But foot slogging eventually is a slow way to die.

I have a tactical squad in a Land raider with a single character. I dont really consider that too many eggs in one basket. I dont know where you play where lascannons are popping land raiders first turn every game, but that usually doesnt happen in my games.

Well, the transport capabilities of a Landraider are wasted if it transports a non-Termie squad - at least in theory.

I dont know where you play where lascannons are popping land raiders first turn every game, but that usually doesnt happen in my games.

Well, it happened several times in recent RTTs.

wuestenfux wrote:Well, the transport capabilities of a Landraider are wasted if it transports a non-Termie squad - at least in theory.

I dont know where you play where lascannons are popping land raiders first turn every game, but that usually doesnt happen in my games.

Well, it happened several times in recent RTTs.

It's only wasted if its not used. It still gives me a mobile platform to launch assaults with. I know tactical squads arent the best of assault units, but I generally get to pick and choose my battles and vulkan is not really a slouch in the CC department, especially backed up with a powerfist and a few meltaguns.

I understand it can happen. But like I said I had a game where my Land Raider took 8 lascannons without a scratch. I've also seen vulkan die to ogryns and terminators die to lasguns. In a game of dice rolling anything CAN happen, all we can play to are the odds of it not happening.

Well, in the upcoming GT played at the 1750 pt level, I'll leave the LR home and take some Rhinos.

Khornatedemon wrote:I have a tactical squad in a Land raider with a single character. I dont really consider that too many eggs in one basket. I dont know where you play where lascannons are popping land raiders first turn every game, but that usually doesnt happen in my games.

Your Tactical Squad and a single character cost as much as a 10-man Terminator Squad. Add the points for the LRR and realise that's quite an egg basket you have there. You do realise that surviving the amount of fire it faced it your WH game takes some incredible luck? That said, it can work very well and attack multiple targets effectively in a single turn.

Have you actually experienced a situation where the LR has been destroyed or immobilised (or stunned, do you have EA?) on the first turn? I was pretty satisfied with my LRC before such a thing happened: I was playing against the double lash + 9 Obliterator list that's very popular here and they immobilised my LRC with Assault Terminators inside on the first turn with lascannons despite cover. It doesn't happen often, but it's so crippling that I don't want such a thing to happen in a tournament. Thus I haven't dared to try out any Land Raider in a tournament. I would be siding with Wuestenflux on this one, glad to hear you did well though. Might try out mine again soon.