Best Sterguard bullet/how is this tactic

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**Yuber**

Grey Templar wrote:even on the charge orks go last agianst SMs.

its the extra attack and Str that is why you want to neuter the charge.

I cant believe you actually tell players to charge a body of 30 orks and expect to survive. Orks Get I4 with furious charge, they will strike WITH you. Math hammer says orks wont kill that much marines, but you will be surprised how many they will ACTUALLY kill.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

QuietOrkmi wrote:The Problem of assaulting orks is mainly the numerical one...

With 3 attacks, 1 out of ever 2 orks will wound a space marine. With a 3+ save, it would take 6 orks to kill a single marine if he got charged.

Keep in mind that space marines usually have 1 attack, 2 on the charge. The small units hurt you guys a lot when fighting orks as you cannot dole out enough wounds to really hurt our unit strength.

21 attacks with only a fourth wounding means 5 dead orks. going from 29 orks and a nob to 24 orks and a nob means that we fight back, and through sheer dice, kill 4 marines and the klaw kills another one.

My recommendation is to just rapid fire us because a third of your shots will kill an ork. With 20 shots, you are killing 6...

If your opponent is running the green tide, without kans, I would suggest dreadnoughts because they can tie up a horde. Only the Nob can hurt the Dreadnaught, with 3 attacks, half of them hitting and the other half doing nothing, your odds are good that you can whittle them down with fearless.

As with the Rhinos, +1 to that suggestion. Green Tide is slow, you can shoot out of a Rhino (more importantly shoot a flame template). I have seen the following tactics being used against horde players.

The Rhino Block: You have your men disembark from the Rhino, rush the rhino forward as far as it can go... pivot sideways. The Sternguard open fire with *No cover* rounds, repeatedly until the horde player blows up the rhino (mind the 1" rule during non-assault phases), suffers S3 attacks from shrapnel, has to go through difficult terrain, and finally gets to you turns later.

Fake Retreat: You have a Tac squad in front of your sterguard (firing *no cover* rounds), your opponent will have to take a rapid fire from both before he assaults (unless he has fleet). By the time he assaults the Tac Squad, he will be large enough to win combat, but not wipe you, choose to fail your morale check and fall back. On your turn, you can give him another round of rapid firing.

This guy pretty much nails it in the head. Im sorry Grey, not only do I not agree with you, I also think you are completely wrong.
Disclaimer: Im talking about regular codex Tac marines. hell! even assault SMs have a hard time against 30 bodies of ork.

**Tri**

Yuber wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:even on the charge orks go last agianst SMs.

its the extra attack and Str that is why you want to neuter the charge.

I cant believe you actually tell players to charge a body of 30 orks and expect to survive. Orks Get I4 with furious charge, they will strike WITH you. Math hammer says orks wont kill that much marines, but you will be surprised how many they will ACTUALLY kill.

You only get furious charge when you charge ... also boys are I2 so when they charge they strike at I3 ... Nobs are I3 but more often then not he will have a P.Klaw and strike last.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

QuietOrkmi wrote:The Problem of assaulting orks is mainly the numerical one...

No you're missing the point if you have ork within assault range that means ... next turn they will assault you. Better to charge them then be shot and charged by them.

You charge them their odds of wounding (after saves) is 1/18 if they charge you its 1/12 ... not to mention they get to shoot you and they have an extra attack for charging.

**Yuber**

Tri wrote:
Yuber wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:even on the charge orks go last agianst SMs.

its the extra attack and Str that is why you want to neuter the charge.

I cant believe you actually tell players to charge a body of 30 orks and expect to survive. Orks Get I4 with furious charge, they will strike WITH you. Math hammer says orks wont kill that much marines, but you will be surprised how many they will ACTUALLY kill.
boys are I2 so when they charge they strike at I3 ... Nobs are I3 but more often then not he will have a P.Klaw and strike last.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

QuietOrkmi wrote:The Problem of assaulting orks is mainly the numerical one...

No you're missing the point if you have ork within assault range that means ... next turn they will assault you. Better to charge them then be shot and charged by them.

You charge them their odds of wounding (after saves) is 1/18 if they charge you its 1/12 ... not to mention they get to shoot you and they have an extra attack.

I stand corrected. Boyz indeed strike I2.

As for being shot, Id definitely like that, so I can use Combat Tactics grinning myself to safety.

Returning to the matter of charging versus rapid firing: Charging them indeed reduces their odds of wounding, regardless, Im sure you will STILL LOSE ANYWAY even if their odds are reduced. Shooting them instead however, allows you to kill more orks and the biggest advantage you get: you prolong the melee by 1 turn.

Bottomline: Shooting them gives you free kills. Assaulting him gives him kills on YOUR turn.

**Tri**

Yuber wrote:I stand corrected. Boyz indeed strike I2.

As for being shot, Id definitely like that, so I can use Combat Tactics grinning myself to safety.

Returning to the matter of charging versus rapid firing: Charging them indeed reduces their odds of wounding, regardless, Im sure you will STILL LOSE ANYWAY even if their odds are reduced. Shooting them instead however, allows you to kill more orks and the biggest advantage you get: you prolong the melee by 1 turn.

Bottomline: Shooting them gives you free kills. Assaulting him gives him kills on YOUR turn.

Wait your plan is to run away? Firstly to be able to do this you need to be roughly 12" away from you're table edge. Secondly you need to be able to fall back so you won't end up within 6" of the enemy (or you cannot regroup). Thirdly the ork needs to cause 25% casualties (out of 10 that's 3) which is a stretch from ork shooting: odds 1/18 so 30 shoota boyz is 3.3 dead SM and 30 slugga boyz is 1.6 dead SM ... so if you go up against 30 shooter boys they may just cause enough wounds for you to fall back.

That's not a plan to win that's a plan to loose. If you're that close go kill some orks before they kill you.

**tedurur**

Ok, lets just do the math shall we?

Rapid fire vs assault.

Lets assume 4 are hit by the flamer, if so we get 1 kills and one wound on the Nob from the flamer and 3 kills from the pistols. another 4.375 Dies from the charge. So 21 boyz and one Nob strikes back. thats 40 attacks from the Boyz and 3 attacks from the Nob.
The Boyz kill 2.333 Tactical and the Nob Kills 1.25 Tacticals. SM wins combat by one with 3.58 dead marines. One Boy dies to fearless

Next turn SM kills 1.55 boyz and the Boyz kill 2.16 Marines and another 1.25 killed by the Nob. This leaves roughly 3 Tacticals and 19 Boyz.

Rapid fireing 1 killed and one wound on the nob by the flamer, 1.5 killed by the frag and 5.33 kills by the bolter so a total of 8.83 wounds.

Next turn the Boyz charge, 2.3 killed by the marines the Boyz then kill 5 marines and the Nob kill another 1.666 The outcome of this is then roughly 3.3 tacticals left and roughly 20 Boyz left.

So in conclusion, no matter what a 10 man tactical squad do, you are pretty much boned vs 29 Boyz+Nob

Edit:If the Ork player gambles and fires at your tacticals then you loose another 1.66 Tacticals

**mercer**

Though, another point is you may not get all 20 + Boyz around those Tactical Marines. But, the answer is the same, Tacticals = brown bread.

**Yuber**

tedurur wrote:Ok, lets just do the math shall we? Rapid fire vs assault.

Lets assume 4 are hit by the flamer, if so we get 1 kills and one wound on the Nob from the flamer and 3 kills from the pistols. another 4.375 Dies from the charge. So 21 boyz and one Nob strikes back. thats 40 attacks from the Boyz and 3 attacks from the Nob.
The Boyz kill 2.333 Tactical and the Nob Kills 1.25 Tacticals. SM wins combat by one with 3.58 dead marines. One Boy dies to fearless

Next turn SM kills 1.55 boyz and the Boyz kill 2.16 Marines and another 1.25 killed by the Nob. This leaves roughly 3 Tacticals and 19 Boyz.

Rapid fireing 1 killed and one wound on the nob by the flamer, 1.5 killed by the frag and 5.33 kills by the bolter so a total of 8.83 wounds.

Next turn the Boyz charge, 2.3 killed by the marines the Boyz then kill 5 marines and the Nob kill another 1.666 The outcome of this is then roughly 3.3 tacticals left and roughly 20 Boyz left.

So in conclusion, no matter what a 10 man tactical squad do, you are pretty much boned vs 29 Boyz+Nob

Edit:If the Ork player gambles and fires at your tacticals then you loose another 1.66 Tacticals

Exactly what I mean. But to further stress my point, its better to take casualties on HIS turn than on MY turn, which explains why rapid firing is better. thus buying me 1 more turn for my other guys from an assault.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tri wrote:
Yuber wrote:I stand corrected. Boyz indeed strike I2.

As for being shot, Id definitely like that, so I can use Combat Tactics grinning myself to safety.

Returning to the matter of charging versus rapid firing: Charging them indeed reduces their odds of wounding, regardless, Im sure you will STILL LOSE ANYWAY even if their odds are reduced. Shooting them instead however, allows you to kill more orks and the biggest advantage you get: you prolong the melee by 1 turn.

Bottomline: Shooting them gives you free kills. Assaulting him gives him kills on YOUR turn.

Wait your plan is to run away? Firstly to be able to do this you need to be roughly 12" away from you're table edge. Secondly you need to be able to fall back so you won't end up within 6" of the enemy (or you cannot regroup). Thirdly the ork needs to cause 25% casualties (out of 10 that's 3) which is a stretch from ork shooting: odds 1/18 so 30 shoota boyz is 3.3 dead SM and 30 slugga boyz is 1.6 dead SM ... so if you go up against 30 shooter boys they may just cause enough wounds for you to fall back.

That's not a plan to win that's a plan to loose. If you're that close go kill some orks before they kill you.

Like tedurur said, you're pretty muched f'ed anyway so might as well do it while falling back and suffering no regroup. At least this way you can still rapid fire.

**Grey Templar**

@Yuber: you are claiming 10 Tactical marines won't do well.

no they won't...

But we are discussing Sternguard on this thread

, who have 1 additional attack, each has an assault weapon that can statistically kill 2 orks(flamer with 4 hits will kill 2) and THEN they asault with 3 attacks each.

20 orks will die to flamers and then another 5-7 in CC. at MOST there will be 5 orks left to swing back.

this also assumes the orks have taken NO other shooting casualities.

i grant that the Sternguard are twice as expensive as the orks charging them however they will have eliminated a significant amount of the enemy and orks are really strong when spammed.

**Yuber**

Grey Templar wrote:@Yuber: you are claiming 10 Tactical marines won't do well.

no they won't...

But we are discussing Sternguard on this thread , who have 1 additional attack, each has an assault weapon that can statistically kill 2 orks(flamer with 4 hits will kill 2) and THEN they asault with 3 attacks each.

20 orks will die to flamers and then another 5-7 in CC. at MOST there will be 5 orks left to swing back.

this also assumes the orks have taken NO other shooting casualities.

i grant that the Sternguard are twice as expensive as the orks charging them however they will have eliminated a significant amount of the enemy and orks are really strong when spammed.

Well it does change everything if you have had killed 20 orks from shooting (implying 5 flamers). But I'm arguing about why it is a bad idea to assault 30 orks to merely deny the charge. I didnt say that you shouldn't assault 10 orks.

I was arguing with labmouse's post in which the context is against 30 boyz, and I did not care to use sternguards in my example because he said marines not sterns in which later he expound that sterns will have better chance.

But to be clear on the debate, if you were using tacs, not sterns, would you rather deny the ork's charge by assaulting or rapid fire them instead?

**labmouse42**

One thing to consider is that the biggest threat to MEQ from an ork horde is the PK nob.
When you are assaulting them, its best if you can keep that PK from crunching up ~2 MEQ a turn.

So, if you can assault part of him that is further than 8" away from his PK nob, then yes. If you charge right into the throes of him, then no.

As I mentioned in my post (and perhaps I was not clear enough) you want to assault with 1 marine as far from center as possible, so the first round of assault is between 2-3 orks and 2-3 marines. That allows you to take away his FC and prevent a PK from hitting you. On the 2nd round of combat all the forces will be committed.

**Tri**

Right firstly God only knows how some one can manage to get 30 orks safely into charge range but i don't believe that maths.
Nob has a power klaw as that gives him the best odds to kill SM. I take a pair of Combi-flamers so i will factor them into both If you want I'll rework both without. (Note both flamers hit 5 orks with the flamer; you could hit more you could hit less but Vs 30 I find hitting 5 reasonable.)

Space marines shoot then are shot and charged(using hellfire for best outcome)
HF 20/36 x 16 (8.8 dead) + Flamers (5 dead) total 14 dead orks (rounding up)
Orks shoot 1/18 x 16 (0.8 dead) total one dead space marine (rounding up) ... they then charge
SM 5/24 x 18 (3.75 dead) total 4 dead orks (rounding up)
Boyz 1/12 x 44 (3.6 dead) + Nob 5/12 x 4 (1.6 dead) total 5 dead space marines
One Game Turn down what have we learned? 4 SM left and 11 boys and a Nob.

Space marines shoot then charge (pistols and flamers)
BP 1/3 x 8 (2.6 dead) + flamers (5 dead) total 8 dead orks (rounding up) ... charge time
SM 5/24 x 30 (6.25 dead)
Boyz 1/18 x 45 (2.5 dead) + Nob 5/12 x 3 (1.25 dead) total 4 dead (rounding up)
Orks Loose combat. Orks are Fearless. 2 Boyz Die for loosing combat (rounding up)
SM 5/24 x 12 (2.5 dead) total 3 dead orks (rounding up)
Boyz 1/18 x 33 (1.8 dead) + Nob 5/12 x 3 (1.25 dead) total 3 dead (rounding up)
One Game Turn down what have we learned? 3 SM left and 11 boys and a Nob.

Well I'll be, it is slightly worse If you charge them. That said its not exactly setup that will happen in a game; after all when was the last time you let a 30 strong mob of boys get into assault range without killing any.

**Yuber**

Tri wrote:Right firstly God only knows how some one can manage to get 30 orks safely into charge range but i don't believe that maths.
Nob has a power klaw as that gives him the best odds to kill SM. I take a pair of Combi-flamers so i will factor them into both If you want I'll rework both without. (Note both flamers hit 5 orks with the flamer; you could hit more you could hit less but Vs 30 I find hitting 5 reasonable.)

Space marines shoot then are shot and charged(using hellfire for best outcome)
HF 20/36 x 16 (8.8 dead) + Flamers (5 dead) total 14 dead orks (rounding up)
Orks shoot 1/18 x 16 (0.8 dead) total one dead space marine (rounding up) ... they then charge
SM 5/24 x 18 (3.75 dead) total 4 dead orks (rounding up)
Boyz 1/12 x 44 (3.6 dead) + Nob 5/12 x 4 (1.6 dead) total 5 dead space marines
One Game Turn down what have we learned? 4 SM left and 11 boys and a Nob.

Space marines shoot then charge (pistols and flamers)
BP 1/3 x 8 (2.6 dead) + flamers (5 dead) total 8 dead orks (rounding up) ... charge time
SM 5/24 x 30 (6.25 dead)
Boyz 1/18 x 45 (2.5 dead) + Nob 5/12 x 3 (1.25 dead) total 4 dead (rounding up)
Orks Loose combat. Orks are Fearless. 2 Boyz Die for loosing combat (rounding up)
SM 5/24 x 12 (2.5 dead) total 3 dead orks (rounding up)
Boyz 1/18 x 33 (1.8 dead) + Nob 5/12 x 3 (1.25 dead) total 3 dead (rounding up)
One Game Turn down what have we learned? 3 SM left and 11 boys and a Nob.

Well I'll be, it is slightly worse If you charge them. That said its not exactly setup that will happen in a game; after all when was the last time you let a 30 strong mob of boys get into assault range without killing any.

Yes, on paper its already slightly worse. but imagine the actual: Boyz will most likely win assault most of the time becuase of the PK and their fearless rules. Its gonna be a bad day for SMs if they lose assault.

**Grey Templar**

actually Fearless is a liability for orks in an assault.

it's why assaulting them is a good idea(in addition to other things)

Fearless wounds will result in more dead orks.

against 30 orks your Tac squad will die, but if you are letting 30 orks get to your lines without any casualities you deserve the pounding.

there shouldn't be more then 20 before they reach you. and 20 is something a tactical squad can handle when you factor in a heavy weapon combat squad providing covering fire and the sergeant and 4 marines charging in with a combi-flamer, flamer and 3 bolt pistols.

**Yuber**

Grey Templar wrote:actually Fearless is a liability for orks in an assault.

it's why assaulting them is a good idea(in addition to other things)

Fearless wounds will result in more dead orks.

against 30 orks your Tac squad will die, but if you are letting 30 orks get to your lines without any casualities you deserve the pounding.

there shouldn't be more then 20 before they reach you. and 20 is something a tactical squad can handle when you factor in a heavy weapon combat squad providing covering fire and the sergeant and 4 marines charging in with a combi-flamer, flamer and 3 bolt pistols.

Can you expound on how fearless is a liability to orks in assault? Also, in your scenario, if you combat squadded, then wouldn't that mean 5 marines vs 20 boyz? Still, not a winning proposition still.

**revackey**

I played vs my brothers BA, and got shat on, the Dawn of War setup + Capture and Control screwed me over, my shooty army that needs to have range didn't have their range. His ability to cover the 18" difference and my crappy dice rolls combined equaled 2 or the 3 transports exploding, leaving my tac squads open for a slaughter from his Death Company, My sternguard were stuck in a transport not able to do crap.

On the 5th turn I had an immobilized Predator, Landspeeder with typhoon and a x5 Sternguards with combi meltas. I dropped em and shredded up his assault squad with hellfire bullets + Rapid fire, then when his deathcompany finally killed my Land Speeder he slaughtered me with only 4 people lol.

It was a learning experience....

**Tri**

Yuber wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:actually Fearless is a liability for orks in an assault.

it's why assaulting them is a good idea(in addition to other things)

Fearless wounds will result in more dead orks.

against 30 orks your Tac squad will die, but if you are letting 30 orks get to your lines without any casualities you deserve the pounding.

there shouldn't be more then 20 before they reach you. and 20 is something a tactical squad can handle when you factor in a heavy weapon combat squad providing covering fire and the sergeant and 4 marines charging in with a combi-flamer, flamer and 3 bolt pistols.

Can you expound on how fearless is a liability to orks in assault? Also, in your scenario, if you combat squadded, then wouldn't that mean 5 marines vs 20 boyz? Still, not a winning proposition still.

If you look at my example when charged the orks took 2 fearless wounds had they just been Ld10 they would have just ignored loosing.

Any way 10 Sterguard combat squaded. One unit has the three combi meltas and the other has all the two combi-flamers lets see how they do vs 30 orks (Note I'm taking max sizes because any one can work out that more SM vs Less Orks will do better)

SM Shoot Flamers and pistols from Unit A :- BP 1/3 x 3 (1 Dead) + Flamers (5 dead).
Unit B fires Helfire rounds rapid fire :- 20/36 x 10 (5.5 dead) Total 12 dead orks (rounding up)
Unit A charges (the fools!) :- SM 5/24 x 15 (3.14 Dead)
Boyz 1/18 x 42 (2.3 dead) + Nob 5/12 x 3 (1.25 dead) total 4 dead
SM take a LD test, 72.2% chance of making it (83.3% if you have Sicarius shame you can't just take regular HQ for LD10)
SM 5/24 x 2 (0.4 dead) total 0 rounding up
Boyz + Nob = one massively dead SM (killed 4 times rounding up)
One Game Turn down what have we learned? 5 SM left and 14 boys and a Nob.

Well this I think this must be the best option since Its now the space marines turn to shoot again and they're not in combat with the orks.

**QuietOrkmi**

Spacemarines are suppose to be the generalist of 40k...

Specialist are better then generalist in a given field.

Orks are general specialist, meaning they choose a speciality to expound upon. If they specialize in HTH, do not fight them in HTH... +1 for shooting them, Just watch out for the WAAAGH!

Exploded/Wrecked Rhinos are your greatest ally, as it slows them down and it is unlikely that half of them are in cover.

**revackey**

QuietOrkmi wrote:Spacemarines are suppose to be the generalist of 40k...

Specialist are better then generalist in a given field.

Orks are general specialist, meaning they choose a speciality to expound upon. If they specialize in HTH, do not fight them in HTH... +1 for shooting them, Just watch out for the WAAAGH!

Exploded/Wrecked Rhinos are your greatest ally, as it slows them down and it is unlikely that half of them are in cover.

I actually do charge orks, only when I've made their numbers dwindle, I either charge with a tac squad if I'm confident or I send in my assault squad. Hasn't failed me yet