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Polonius wrote:I guess I run into the problem that when I run a list with various elements, and one element consistently over achieves and the other is always a disappointment, I eventually start phasing out the disappointment. I've been running Chimera Vets along with some small platoons, and the platoons seldom, if every, accomplish anything besides holding objectives and allowing me to buy flamer PCSes. Even with orders, even with upgrades, I keep realizing that any points spent on Platoon Infantry Squads are points spent on stuff that isn't killing the enemy. there's also the key element of army construction that the more you focus your build, the more effective if will be. Half infantry, half mech gives every enemy gun something to shoot at.

So, I have two options: keep playing the units that I don't have fun playing because they don't do well, or switch to something that has more punch. I don't feel morally wrong for simply switching to something better. 40k isn't magic, where the net decks are figured out by a small group and spread. Most of the good stuff is pretty apparent (the stuff that looked good in rumors is still mostly considered good stuff), and simple playtesting will tend to produce convergent evolution. And even then, personal taste and local flavor will shape the good players to take different builds. I still prefer to take 2 basic russes instead of a third Executioner. I'm still trying to make infantry platoons work.

It's a bit of a bromide, but in a game where Marines are Rarer than any possible IG formation, I don't' feel that I should feel Fluff-Shame for fielding a rarer form of IG. There are more fully mechanized regiments than there are suits of terminator armor in the Imperium (or at least roughly the same number). So, unless you play nothing but foot slogging orks, I don't' want to hear "but the codex says it's rare."

Well said pelonius.

I did want to say that I had some great sucess with my Infantry Platoons last weekend. The Mechanized infantry platoons I only ran because I did not have the special weapons bits to run vets but running the two basic squads with a flamer, krak grenades and a melta bomb sgt in the Vendettas were great little objective claimers that continually killed more than they had any right to. And a Mechanized full flamer PCS is a really beautiful thing.

man Big T you're having a party in here!

I disagree with almost everyone here. Personally I play a mech Guard list. And I made mine last edition so get over it. If guard players like mechanised and like playing with certain varients go for it. It's 80x more fluffy than That Slaneesh DP or 2 which doesn't happen fighting with the Nurgle Marines and Oblits which also doesnt happen.

Or how bout the whole mechanised Ork list last time I checked its soppose to be just mobs of boys charging the enemy and such? O wait that pretty much blows its of course alright 2 have 2 BWs and 9 trukks full of boys and not be speed freaks or be them along with the Custom force field or shokk attack gun.

What I'm getting at is everyone here is a bunch of hypocrits. It's fething toy game. Everyone has there own style of play and things get popular because they are effective. You know esspecially in a codex that hasn't been a varient of that word for a long time. Get over it. I'm taking 9 Executioners in my next list just because of this thread.

P.S. My Guard are fun as hell to play no matter how I do it.

CajunMan550 wrote:I disagree with almost everyone here. Personally I play a mech Guard list. And I made mine last edition so get over it. If guard players like mechanised and like playing with certain varients go for it. It's 80x more fluffy than That Slaneesh DP or 2 which doesn't happen fighting with the Nurgle Marines and Oblits which also doesnt happen.

Or how bout the whole mechanised Ork list last time I checked its soppose to be just mobs of boys charging the enemy and such? O wait that pretty much blows its of course alright 2 have 2 BWs and 9 trukks full of boys and not be speed freaks or be them along with the Custom force field or shokk attack gun.

What I'm getting at is everyone here is a bunch of hypocrits. It's fething toy game. Everyone has there own style of play and things get popular because they are effective. You know esspecially in a codex that hasn't been a varient of that word for a long time. Get over it. I'm taking 9 Executioners in my next list just because of this thread.

P.S. My Guard are fun as hell to play no matter how I do it.

I think you actually agree with most of the posters then.

I have fun against Mech Guard because it's a challenge, and games that are easy to win are boring.

Heh, heh, heh.
This sight was made for me.

I have hordes and hordes of guardsmen. 1 tank. Nothing else. It's never boring to throw that much crap at you're enemy. Though it is painful to take your men out by handfuls instead of one-by-one.

Odd as it may sound, last year the guys I gamed with ran a "fluff tournament", where you had to write up a background for the army, represent it in some way with the models, and represent it in the armylist. It was actually pretty fun playing against Lost and the Damned lists made from the last edition's Codex: IG and the Daemon/Witchhunter adversaries, or the Tau O'Shovah Cadre that had the absolute bare minimum of the higher tech equipment.

I think my favorite army that I played alongside, though, was a Scythes of the Emperor army, where almost all his Troops slots?

They were taken up 90% by Scout Squads, with the Sergeants having Teleport Homers for pinpoint assaults.
It was awesome to see, especially given that we were using Allied rules, and it made a nice little objective taking setup for my deep striking Kasrkin squads.

CajunMan550 wrote:
Or how bout the whole mechanised Ork list last time I checked its soppose to be just mobs of boys charging the enemy and such? O wait that pretty much blows its of course alright 2 have 2 BWs and 9 trukks full of boys and not be speed freaks or be them along with the Custom force field or shokk attack gun.

Utter fail.

This thread has been reported. I am not closing the thread...yet.. as some interesting points from Kanluwen and others have value about alternate uses etc. But trolling will not be permitted.

The point that I'm trying to address, the one that all the self-defensive mech-guard players are apparently missing, is that I want to see lists with variety. When all I see on the table are mechvet squads, executioners, and valks (and *nothing else*), it's dull. It's just as bad a a table with nothing but biker nob squads, jetbike councils, or in the last editions, lasplas squads or harlie-falcons.

I agree that a mechanized list is fun and balanced and a quicker, tenser game than 300 infantry. That's not my point. My point is, if your list looks like this:

CCS x 4 melta and chimera x 2
Mechvets with melta/flamer and chimera x 3-5
Vendettas x 3
Executioners x 2

then it's not going to be a very interesting game. I'm not "shoehorning the otherside into an extreme" - I'm talking about a very specific, and in my area, very common powerbuild. . this sort of thing happens with every codex, i'm just a little shocked it's already happened to guard, and the new powerbuild. if your list has the banewolves, or the sentinels, or the stormtroopers, then my comments don't apply to you.

Then ask GW to write internally balanced codices.

The fundamental issue you seem to have isn't with competitive gaming, it's with inferior units within a codex.

If Ogryn were 20 points, I bet we'd see them more often.

If the Leman Russ Vanquisher was AP1, I bet we'd see it more often.

If at a certain points level X was as good as Y, then we'd see X a lot more often.

But I would still contest your opinion that Meltavets/Vendettas/Executioners are the only lists out there.

Hydras, Medusas, Psyker Battle Squads, Valkyries, BHellhound variants, and Leman Russ Eradicators are all very good units that I often see in lists.

If you really want to change the lists that you play against then alter your personal lists to shake up the metagame.

People seek to optimize. When people get into an army they often times want to build a playable list as quick as possible, then build from there to expand it. Building a 60 model mechanized army is a whole lot easier than a 120 model gunline army, so people will be more attracted to the mechanized style at least immediately, though as they collect more models they may grow out of it (I know I'm playing mechvet because it was the cheapest and easiest to build right off the bat).

It has also already been presented to you that there are a large number of very strong lists coming from the IG codex and mechvet is only one of those lists. If you're sick of seeing them all over in your area then it is a problem in your area and not something you should be scathing the dakkadakka online community about. Saying all of us are guilty of whatever it is you're trying to say is silly since you're clearly frustrated with the commonality of the list in your area, which definitely does not apply to the overwhelming majority of us. I'm the only person who plays mechvet guard in my area, so local to me, my list is uncommon.

I'm not surprised that there are already a fair number of strong lists evolving from the IG codex because just glancing through it, there is obvious power (my first impression of the book was that it was pretty strong anyway). The process also gets accelerated when people are able to share ideas and collaborate so forums such as dakkadakka really do well to aid in the development of ideas.

I can think of a few lists off the top of my head that are playing Hellhound variants and/or Storm Troopers that are very powerful as well, so I guess perhaps your comments should also apply to them?

If you want your opponent to mix up what he plays, mix up what you play. Figure out what will beat them, and force them to adapt. If nothing else, the codex has been out for a month, let's let IG players get used to it a bit before complaining too much about what they're playing.

Regwon wrote:WW1 style tactics in 40k would be very dull. We sit in trenches and shell your guys while you sit in trenches and shell our guys. Occationonally some guys run out into a field and get shot by some other guys. A tank may trundle along killing some guys until it falls into a trench and cant move. What fun.

Read up on trench raiding. That stuff is actually very intense, and very widespread. IIRC, some of the ANZAC troops had a reputation for being very effective trench raiders.

Similarly, night infiltration tactics are one of those things that is overlooked in the history that is presented in the schools.

Sourclams, when you speak of internally balanced codices, I have to agree with you wholeheartedly. Except I would say balanced (against each other) codices, but that's not going to happen.

All honesty, if there weren't an overabundance of MEQ armies at tournaments or FLGS' pickup game days...

I doubt you'd see these "cheesed" out armies.

But it would take an amazing amount of showcasing to get the limelight shifted away from MEQs and balancing towards Guard/Tau levels as the standard.

Really good news ahead on the foot IG department.

I've been following every planetstrike thread I can find and piecing together what it looks like the missions will be like from sources like warseer and from the clearly planettrikey batrep from 2 white dwarfs ago.

I can be wrong here as my info is all based on rumor hunting.

Fortifications give infantry a 3+ cover save, and every defender will have them. Bastions can be made open topped, and with that radr-y gubbin on the top i'm assuming IG can use a stratagem to make them command vehicles. Furthermore, it seems that the majority of the mission types revolve around the defender being able to score his own deployment zone, and that the attacker can win the game by contesting with a single unit. Attackers will never take troops... they will take fast and hard hitting units, and they will try to swarm and choke deployment zones.

And it seems to me that the best way to defend a mission with IG when you don't have to move, and all you have to do is survive with some troops (who have 3+ cover) and kill off attackers is to take masses of infantry platoons.

Take creed (or count zazz) take big blobs of infantry units with attached commissars and priests. Put your command squads in the bastions where they can issue orders in relative safety. they can hop out and heroically counter charge when need be. Take 6 HS slots full of leman russes, or just take more infantry platoons, physically block units from entering your deployment zone and choke their warmachine with bodies. It sounds very guardlike doesn't it?

And its probably the best way to defend a planetstrike as far as i can tell at this early juncture.


the problem with the standard missions is that they are not very representative of an actual military battle. Units are zipping into enemy gunfire for no reason other than to "go stand here" Generally i would find it more wise to shoot the enemy dead from range before you drive an APC next to their position, but that would make for a terribly boring game.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a competitive player and standard missions represent the most fair and balanced way for two people to meet and play against each other with little prep work. but in military terms, they are all certainly falling under the catagory of "two recon elements clashing in the middle of the battle lines"

If you were an army commander of an imperial army, and you had a cadian mechanized regiment, a valhallan rifle regiment, and an armored regiment at your disposal, and you had a mission to seize ground from the enemy, and you couldn't support them at the regimental level with ordnance barrages, and the ground needed to be captured and controlled within a very short span of time, which regiment would you choose to send? I'll answer for you since I'm being rhetorical, you would send the cadians.

Now, what if your objective was to not seize ground but just destroy all opposition, smash apart a defensive line and make way for an advance? Then you take the armored company right?

And if you were manning defensive lines and attempting to repel an advance? I think the Valhallan regiment would fill that role rather nicely.

The IG mech vet spammers aren't playing unfluffy, they aren't playing 'boring' they are just playing "to mission". I thinkt he more fluff inclined players are going to get a LOT more out of planetstrike than the standard missions. the standard missions have little narrative value, their value is in balance and in their standardization.

I know that unless I'm playing a pick up game with a new opponent, or I am prepping for a tourney, I will be playing an expanded game (planetstrike, cities of death or apocalypse)

Excellent post, shep.

Shep

I think there was a little reasoning behind planetstrike being announced shortly after all the valkyries and such were sucked dry: GW wants people to buy infantry now, after you have bought either 9 leman russes or 9 valks. Anyways...

I have to say that if you are massing infantry in a standard mission there is no way you are playing fluffy.
Massed infantry is for planetdefense (planetstrike), not going out and destroying the enemy, that is the specialists' job.

It is highly improbable that over 100 men are footslogging through the desert and have the will to fight off enemies. thats dumb.

Great post Shep

I agree fully that the scale and scope of normal 40k does not mesh well with the standard fluff for IG strategy and tactics. That is, to win by brutal attrition over time with, and entrench into fortified positions with a lot of men, while the big guns hammer down.

Hopefully PlanetStrike will change the scope of the game so that a static force like gunline IG will actually be able to be effective. I would love to see massive amounts of infantry backed up by artillary