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 Vector Strike wrote:
Maybe changing the list building culture? A meeting about how the game could be more interesting and diverse if everyone tried to test new things and abandon the "you shall not pass" doctrine could be arranged. When people get too tuned to one thing, it blends quite hard, turning it basically natural.

Of course, it'll depend on how friendly and 'listenful' (sp?) are the players of your FLGS. If they like to win more than anything, this change would be quite hard to apply.

First response, and the best answer. No need to go further, every edition of 40k has lacked a composition element unfortunately. IMHO the game should have been built upon a :

1 HQ
2 Troops
1 Elite
1 FA
1 HS
Compulsory, and from their on been +2 troops each time you want to add +1 HQ,EL, FA or HS and all slots would require +1 before getting a 3rd. This is why it's best to talk with your gaming group as Vector Strike suggested in order to come up with your own remedy such as this.

Internet culture is more so to blame. Heck I went on the list building forum the other day and saw a new user asking for suggestions between playing Marines or Eldar. First the thread told him he had to play eldar because they were way better, then they proceeded to tell him to take pretty much 4 DA wave serpent squads all with SL's, then WW's or WK's with a couple bike HQ's and warp spyders... Seriously?

Not to call anyone out on their hobby either but this http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/552797.page probably isn't helping with the culture issue either. The emphasis on games like this is purely who wins and neither of these list require any real level of skill to play despite what the players will tell you. I call it point and click 40k and I agree that its not very fun, but that's just me. If the game is a luck based game and gaining an edge is best done by shaping the bell curve with your list, Lists like the ones from the game I posted are perfect examples, but while they help you predetermine what your odds will be, they literally only utilize 4-5 choices which are then spammed over and over.

Some gamers will insist that this is what makes a gamer "great." Basically they follow codex creep and spam the most efficient under priced units and then insist that it's all player skill involved, Ha. I have more respect for the guy from Montreal that played in my local second round Ard Boys with a rounded out non drop pod salamanders list in a meta of 75% 5th edition grey knights and won the whole tourney! HE was a good player, and it showed.

Unfortunately games like this http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/552797.page get WAY more attention then games like this http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/548443.page despite requiring more thought and care to set up. Not to mention the MUCH higher level of hobby skill and time put into the armies (which ironically makes for better pics).

TLDR:
Make the hobby fun for you and your gaming club, I am sure you could run an league that required a composition element and had missions designed to remedy the inequities that 40K at present is wrought with.

 sfshilo wrote:
I play nurgle.....I enjoy playing against gunlines since most cant hurt me enough by the time im in their face.

Its army dependent.....space wolves and ba players are having issues because they arent adjusting well in sixth.

I know you play guard....al the outflanker? Send a platoon in from the side and split fire?

Its definantly different. Only csm, daemons, and sm seem to have any units that can pull it off.

SW suffer from lack of AA. BA suffer from horrid overcostedness everywhere in the book. There is no "adjusting" to that.

BA are SOL but I actually have a flawless streak with my SW despite lacking AA. Of course I played them for 6 years straight so I generally have had a tactical edge over my opponents I'll admit.

As far as competitive play goes, I also find it not as interesting, but my local playgroup doesn't have many issues with diversity of lists. And yes, fielding a hyper-competitive list will allow you to win more, and is ''easy-mode" against someone who doesn't have a competitive list.

However, pretending that the game is just based on luck once you've got two hyper-competitive lists? That just isn't reflected in reality. The better player is going to win far more often than the inferior player. If this weren't the case, we wouldn't see successful players in tournament play be consistently successful. Anyone can bring tau/tau or taudar to the table, but only the best players are going to be consistently successful. It does not devolve into yahtzee just because you've got two top-tier lists.

I dont think your problem Ailaros is with mech gunlines or mech VS whatever, or taudar or Eldar, or meta shifts or listbuilding.
I think its simply to do with the overall game mechanics.

I've read a lot of your posts and you seem to have a good grounding in things like synergies, redundancy, positional dominance, basic tactical manouvering and all the other good stuff that goes with Wargaming in general.
However Im not convinced 40k as a game overall caters to these.

I havent played many other tabletop wargames but perhaps things like FoW, DSC, Warmachine etc might suit your needs better.

Thats not trying to come across as dismissive, I just dont think you will find that much of what you're after in 40k currently.
Yes different area metas are different, yes good players usually rise to the top, yes we cant sweep 40k as whole into the "uber army crushes all" bracket but as a ruleset I think its lacking in places, significantly in others.

A few spot picked recent threads

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/550739.page

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/550170.page

have varying opinions but the fact that people are posing the question perhaps gives an insight into things. I acknowledge these threads were around in 3-5th too however.
Did anything change in 6th? Not really imho, hence perhaps, the 40k ruleset both current, past and most likely future wont satiate your needs.

 Talore wrote:
As far as competitive play goes, I also find it not as interesting, but my local playgroup doesn't have many issues with diversity of lists. And yes, fielding a hyper-competitive list will allow you to win more, and is ''easy-mode" against someone who doesn't have a competitive list.

However, pretending that the game is just based on luck once you've got two hyper-competitive lists? That just isn't reflected in reality. The better player is going to win far more often than the inferior player. If this weren't the case, we wouldn't see successful players in tournament play be consistently successful. Anyone can bring tau/tau or taudar to the table, but only the best players are going to be consistently successful. It does not devolve into yahtzee just because you've got two top-tier lists.

Oh yea? Try checking tourney attendance then looking at lists. The same players attend all the same tournaments and are usually thew ones with the easy mode lists. Thats more reason why they are always winning then not. It doesn't help that by far more often then not the gamers who try out a tournament like adepticon for the first time with a "fun list" usually never repeat attend because of the idiotic builds that arrive. Furthermore most taented painters like to hobby a variety of models, so a lot of these "competitive" format tournies have rubbish looking armies in attendance. I'd say 90% or more from my own experience. Next add horrid terrain more often then not, and yea, the same types of individuals generally all attend the same tournies.

Here's an example, Da boys GT is a NY based GT that has composition and sportmanship oh and heaven forbid painting scores, yet none of the big names bother attend.... I wonder why that is? That argument is seriously tired man.Is there strategy? yes to a small degree, the main issue is that when these net lists that are spam hammy and fallow codex creep arrise, the game very much does just become a matter of who has the better bell curve in their list.

Seriously people? I am dumbfounded by all the people on this site who come into a strategy thread and get out their soap box to preach their same position all the time. The question wasn't should I stop 40K or random rant against power gaming. It was how to play against mechanized gunlines without resorting to a gunline.

Honestly, pods work very well against mech lists IMO
Drop combi sternguard, with one target, (we'll use mechvet guard)
x5 Meltas, x5 flamers

They land, combat squad, making sure each seperates for a clean line of fire. Fire 4/5 meltas, chimera is gone, likely blown up, they take casualties from the explosion, then hose them down in promethium 3/5 flamers which ignores their armor AND cover

plasma guns never fire, 70 points to kill off the chimera, squad, and their special weapons, a good trade.

Repeat this 3 times first turn, 3 dead chimeras, along with 30 dead guardsmen, barring something really bizzare.

Thats a lot less firepower to deal with, esp if you focused on a single flank, which with pods is wise.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
If you have cheap enough units, I've found that they can out swarm my mech.

I have been beaten down by massed Krak Grenades.
180 guardsmen with krak grenades.
90 guardsmen ran up each flank to prevent escape and the heavy guns pounded the middle.

It was clear that I didn't have enough firepower to kill 20 squads while in the transports, and to get out was to give up my speed advantage and my protection from the big guns. My shooting was average, but I was over-killing one squad while under killing another. Even a handful of guys with krak grenades take out transports.

In the end, I didn't have enough time to get to his back field, let alone the mid field objectives.


If you opponent backs up for 2 turns, then you pop the transport, it's going to take him ~2 turns to get his infantry back where he started, and that doesn't leave him much time.

-Matt

I think this is very true. I don't run my guard with any chimeras but they've all got krak grenades and they all charge across the table while my big guns take on stuff they cant hurt.

Also how does flying circus fit into the "only mech gunlines work" narrative. Or the inevitable increase in bike armies, who can, after all, get close to the transport, shoot it to death and charge the squad inside in a single turn.

I hope you don't quit playing 40k because I've admired your posts and approach to the game for a long time Ailaros.

cheers

So to give an example of what I'm talking about. This is a contemporary example from the current eldar thread:


Autarch w/ jetbike

2x 5 Dire Avengers
Serpents w/ holofield, scatterlaser, shuricannon

2x 5 Fire Dragons
Serpents w/ holofield, scatterlaser, shuricannon

3 Warwalkers w/ dual scatterlasers.

 Xerics wrote:
So to give an example of what I'm talking about. This is a contemporary example from the current eldar thread:


Autarch w/ jetbike

2x 5 Dire Avengers
Serpents w/ holofield, scatterlaser, shuricannon

2x 5 Fire Dragons
Serpents w/ holofield, scatterlaser, shuricannon

3 Warwalkers w/ dual scatterlasers.

Whre are the troops in this list? This isnt a legal list without troops.

Wow I totally read them as fire dragons...

 Xerics wrote:
Wow I totally read them as fire dragons...

Did you not notice the 2x5 in the listings? There are two 5-man squads of DA and 2 5-man squads of FD

Back on topic:

So Ailaros pointed out that close range shooty units have to commit to destroying transports, so are then retaliated on against the rest of the army.

He's absolutely right. Because that's so, you want to design your short ranged stuff with 3 principles in mind:

1. Target saturation. This means your army cannot be designed to just send one unit at a time. Your whole army needs to be designed to show up in the same place at the same time and most importantly present a credible threat the turns after they show up. Your whole army facing theirs works a lot better than one unit that does very little, then gets wiped off the board. Because of killpoints, pawn sacrifice isn't a very effective tactic in some missions...

2. Damage mitigation. The obvious one is cover, the 2nd obvious one is to place your units so that return firepower is limited, but against units with range/move and shoot that can be difficult. There are also things like techmarines, providing cover with transports, dark shrouds, 4+i relic, azrael, feel no pain mechanics, etc etc.

3. Disruption. In shooty gunlines, there's usually a specific unit or two that is the MOST dangerous because they can wipe out entire units by themselves. The most obvious thing is to kill those units, but sometimes that's easier said than done. The 2nd thing is disruption: blinding them, getting them locked into hth, blocking their LOS, limiting their movement...these are all things that many players don't really incorporate into their lists or strategies. Of course, proper counter play can limit the damage that disruption units can do, but when you combine all 3 strategies together, you can give gunlines a run for their money.

Is it failproof? Of course not, but I watch a lot of games where I feel the person that lost to the gunline lost because he didn't do those things I mentioned above. And you knkow what? I usually hear sour grapes about losing to a gunline instead of self reflection on what they could do better.

Ironically flying circus armies can do all of the above, but some might argue that's just a different form of lame mech strategy. Your mileage will vary.

 scuddman wrote:
Back on topic:

So Ailaros pointed out that close range shooty units have to commit to destroying transports, so are then retaliated on against the rest of the army.

He's absolutely right. Because that's so, you want to design your short ranged stuff with 3 principles in mind:

1. Target saturation. This means your army cannot be designed to just send one unit at a time. Your whole army needs to be designed to show up in the same place at the same time and most importantly present a credible threat the turns after they show up. Your whole army facing theirs works a lot better than one unit that does very little, then gets wiped off the board. Because of killpoints, pawn sacrifice isn't a very effective tactic in some missions...

2. Damage mitigation. The obvious one is cover, the 2nd obvious one is to place your units so that return firepower is limited, but against units with range/move and shoot that can be difficult. There are also things like techmarines, providing cover with transports, dark shrouds, 4+i relic, azrael, feel no pain mechanics, etc etc.

3. Disruption. In shooty gunlines, there's usually a specific unit or two that is the MOST dangerous because they can wipe out entire units by themselves. The most obvious thing is to kill those units, but sometimes that's easier said than done. The 2nd thing is disruption: blinding them, getting them locked into hth, blocking their LOS, limiting their movement...these are all things that many players don't really incorporate into their lists or strategies. Of course, proper counter play can limit the damage that disruption units can do, but when you combine all 3 strategies together, you can give gunlines a run for their money.

Is it failproof? Of course not, but I watch a lot of games where I feel the person that lost to the gunline lost because he didn't do those things I mentioned above. And you knkow what? I usually hear sour grapes about losing to a gunline instead of self reflection on what they could do better.

Ironically flying circus armies can do all of the above, but some might argue that's just a different form of lame mech strategy. Your mileage will vary.

Flying Daemon Princes are not mechanised, by definition

I can see hard-assault armies doing quite well against mech spam- Screamerstar, Flying Circus, my own patent Black Knight Spam list. Other than this, no. 40k is game about extremes.

 scuddman wrote:
Back on topic:

So Ailaros pointed out that close range shooty units have to commit to destroying transports, so are then retaliated on against the rest of the army.

He's absolutely right. Because that's so, you want to design your short ranged stuff with 3 principles in mind:

1. Target saturation. This means your army cannot be designed to just send one unit at a time. Your whole army needs to be designed to show up in the same place at the same time and most importantly present a credible threat the turns after they show up. Your whole army facing theirs works a lot better than one unit that does very little, then gets wiped off the board. Because of killpoints, pawn sacrifice isn't a very effective tactic in some missions...

2. Damage mitigation. The obvious one is cover, the 2nd obvious one is to place your units so that return firepower is limited, but against units with range/move and shoot that can be difficult. There are also things like techmarines, providing cover with transports, dark shrouds, 4+i relic, azrael, feel no pain mechanics, etc etc.

3. Disruption. In shooty gunlines, there's usually a specific unit or two that is the MOST dangerous because they can wipe out entire units by themselves. The most obvious thing is to kill those units, but sometimes that's easier said than done. The 2nd thing is disruption: blinding them, getting them locked into hth, blocking their LOS, limiting their movement...these are all things that many players don't really incorporate into their lists or strategies. Of course, proper counter play can limit the damage that disruption units can do, but when you combine all 3 strategies together, you can give gunlines a run for their money.

Is it failproof? Of course not, but I watch a lot of games where I feel the person that lost to the gunline lost because he didn't do those things I mentioned above. And you knkow what? I usually hear sour grapes about losing to a gunline instead of self reflection on what they could do better.

Ironically flying circus armies can do all of the above, but some might argue that's just a different form of lame mech strategy. Your mileage will vary.

I think scuddman is on the right track, here.

What I'm getting as the definition of a gunline is something that uses almost exclusively long-ranged firepower and actively avoids close-range engagement. I think the real lament here is that gunlines have in particular gotten better at avoiding engagement, usually by being mechanized, and that even when they have to get close they still have effective weapons (rending Avengers, Plasma Vets, Henchmen, etc) as fairly cheap throw-ins.

Again, I think scuddman is on the right track, especially with saturation. When you get in close to a gunline, they have two options: run or shoot. Since they generally have great range, they can shoot an awful lot. If you only provide a single viable target, they'll just focus it down and wait for the next. If you present three or four viable targets, the odds are not in their favour for taking out everything before they're forced to play the short game. On the flip side, if they run, they usually have severely reduced firepower. You end up gaining ground with fewer losses and can hopefully threaten again the next turn if appropriate.

Damage mitigation is good but maybe not directly necessary. Mass numbers is basically a form of mitigation. Of course, having a portable 4++ never hurts. . .

Disruption. It would be great if pinning were something you could do consistently, wouldn't it? If a sniper squad could actually *pin down* a unit for a turn or two, they might be worth taking. As is, not too many options for this come to mind unless your opponent left an opportunity to strike at a valuable unit. Taking out Tau markerlights is good, taking out Farseers (or any support psyker) would be great but they're likely to be well-protected, IG command squads, etc. . .

Part of the problem is that you probably want some sort of long-ranged option, yourself, which will help you disrupt. Thankfully, this can count as saturation, if it's of similar type to the attacking group of units. Advancing with Dreadknights? Having Psyflemen makes them wonder where to aim the Lascannons.

I think the key is mobility and timing. It will help you with the timing issue, it'll help mitigate damage if you can hide behind terrain, and it can let you suddenly concentrate your forces on one point for saturation. The real trouble comes in when your gunline *also* has mobility, like Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Tau. Fast skimmers, man, they can bolt right out of your close-range weaponry and pick up a 4+ (or better) on the way. Sure that means they don't fire for a turn, but what are the odds you'll be able to threaten them like that two turns in a row? With bikes, maybe? Then there's a danger of losing your concentration and saturation as your force gets dragged around the board.

I think where my rambling has lead me is that most gunlines can be handled with a flexible and varied list and proper saturation (which should be an element in any list). Fighting the two armies that apparently dominate tournaments, though, is another beast. To take out Eldar Serpentspam, you need to be able to threaten or harm them consistently, which practically necessitates long-range weaponry. Of course, that'll be targeted right away, so you need a defense or "even more dakka". Going down that road sure seems to lead to a gunline, wave serpents, or marker lights.

Well, when the next Ork codex comes out and Snikrot gets to come on any board edge, with Move Through Cover, fleet, and the special ability to assault the turn he arrives with 2 BikerBosses in tow, then we'll see less gunlines, mech or otherwise.

For now the way the boyz do it are:

Lootas, Shootas, NobBikerz, and Lobbas (for character sniping)

Bikes speed forward up to 24" per turn while covering boyz walking/running forward while the Lootas hammer vehicles and key troops such as Pathfinders. I've lost one game in the last 15 months using a variation o these units.

CSM have this thing called Screamer Star.

IG still have the LRBT, not perfect but enough of them will kill most no fliers.

TWC with Wolf lords don't seem to be doing as well so charge 8 pt wolfs at them and go for rear armor assaults.

Hide Necrons scarabs in terrain. Advance through cover. Wraiths!!!

DS some DC in a Redeemer or Crusade into Terrain. Don't get out first turn. Or use that Thunderhawk wannabe and DS with some DOA and a Dread in the claw.

TFC Tremor shots!

Swamp them with the cheapest demon units. 5+ inv FTW.

10 Terigons! 90 gargoyles jumping all around the board. 9 DakkaFexes, something will get through.

Actually I should have mentioned this first since its probably the best counter (yes my BikerNobz are jealous): Whitescars!!!

Oh only if I didn't swear off SM's for life. Whitescars are so juicy!

That's off the top of my head, I could come up with more given time.

Play on a Cities of Death-like board. Ruined downtown is no place for Gunline!

So, a lot here. I've been reading everything, but I'll reply to only the stuff that's strictly on-topic for now.

The first is the idea of saturation, but that's what I was already talking about with the force concentration problem. For hordes, for example, it's a problem of space. You're not packing 150 guardsmen into the same footprint as an eldar army of 4 wave serpents and two wraithknights. Long range shooting means your opponent gets to concentrate his killing power, while you'll have units that you're going to be desperate just to get in range to be able to attack at all. There just isn't enough space without getting into suicidal coherency against blast and template weapons. This is all exacerbated by the fact that the mech gunline is more moble, so they can always make sure a big part of your army isn't doing anything while every part of their army always is.

Meanwhile, mobile units have a problem with force concentration on the axis of time as well as space. For example, if you're bringing in deepstrikers, there is no guarantee that they arrive on turn 2, much less by the time that anything else that starts on the table manages to make it up to them to meet up. Plus, you are far from guaranteed that deepstrikers won't scatter out of position, or that they won't mishap, or get killed by interceptor fire.

And even if we ignore the time issue (though more than once I've had flamer stormtroopers land somewhere next to a transport ready to flame the guys inside only to have the transport remained in tact), we still have the efficiency problem. Bikes are a great example of this exact problem, actually. At least in the CSM codex, you have to spend 220 points for a pair of meltaguns, some krak grenades, and a bit of bludgeoning power. That's no small chunk of points, and you don't get a LOT of killing power for it (compared to what the defenders in transports are going to have, much less at all). You get some help with the time issue, but that's about it.

Meanwhile, per point, the bikes aren't as survivable as their opponents are killy for the same number of points. You can't just shove a bunch of stuff at a mech gunline and expect it to survive to be able to do very much. I've seen 80 guardsmen disappear in two turns more than once, and I've seen a bike army all but tabled in two turns. Whatever you're paying those extra points for, it's just not nearly as good as having more killing power. The gains you make by more speed or more durability don't outweigh the gains you would have had if you had killed your opponent's stuff before they had a chance to kill you.

Maybe it's new wound allocation and new cover save rules from 6th ed, or maybe it's the new codices, or what, I don't know, but you can't outlast a gunline anymore, especially one that has the ability to keep you out of reach, thanks to extra mobility, has the ability to concentrate their force better (thanks to the mobility, but it's also the nature of defense in a non-fog-of-war environment).

There are a lot of solutions that fix one of the three problems of time, concentration, and efficiency, but you kind of need to, at an army-wide level at least, fix all three.

If you fix the concentration issue, but it takes awhile for everything to get concentrated, then your opponent can just work towards tabling you while you wait, and you might not have enough time to break everyone out of their rides, especially if your opponent knows how to fall back appropriately. He can also take advantage of your efficiency problem because you had to spend hundreds of points on stuff just to get them to the battle - just to be able to attack - while your opponent has already been attacking with weapons, turn one, for free, because he doesn't have to pay extra for that mobility (or whatever).

Meanwhile, you can't exactly straight up reverse these problems either. If you pin your mech gunline opponent into his deployment zone for the first few turns, that's great, until he tables you and wins by TKO. Or he has a couple small units of jetbikes (or whatever) that zoom onto objectives at the end of the game. Or it's not even a many-objectives game, and he still has enough mobility for chimeras to spend a turn or two getting somewhere to score, or worse, skimmers. Or, because he's already beaten up your army, he can now kind of just do whatever he wants, especially if he's not that damaged himself. He could always just choose to go for a tie and win on secondaries, for example. Against good opponents with decent mobility, you need to have appreciable stuff left on the table to win. Once you start taking horrific, unsustainable casualties by the end of turn 2 or 3, your ability to DO anything, and influence the game has already been curtailed relative to your opponent.

And that's really a part of the timing problem. I've played against gunlines many a time so far in 6th ed (as mentioned, a big majority of my games), and many, dare I say most, were already a foregone conclusion who would win by the end of turn 3. Sometimes you could tell who won by the end of turn 1 - the rest was just mopping up...

And that's part of the nature of gunlines. They kill so much so fast that they shut down your ability to do stuff because you just don't have the necessary pieces left on the table anymore. Add to this the one-two nature of transports, where you have to peel open the wrappers and THEN kill the guys inside, when combined with the time pressure against gunlines at all, it can be a struggle just to break open just the transports (much less handle everything else in your opponent's army) in the seriously truncated time constraints you have.

I don't see how maybe-they'll-turn-up-on-time deepstrikers or a suicide bike charge is going to fix the time problem, much less the efficiency one, and unless you're playing one of the few, proper, low-model-count, can-get-everything-in-now armies, like ravenwing or drop pods, I don't see how you fix the concentration problem as well.

The more I think about this the more the idea of *general* solutions to this sort of min-maxed vehicle gunline seems to be a myth. I do think there are some solid ways to beat it, granted, but each way is specific to a codex/build which is problematic for TAC lists. Also, the specific type of mech gunline one is fighting also considerably changes how it needs to be fought, I think. There is a huge difference between a Wave Serpent and a Chimera--one is the child of cheap AV 12-10-10 transport and a bunker, while the other is pretty much an skimmer Main Battle Tank that can hold more people inside it than a Land Raider. They also tend to have very different payloads.

The Chimera tends to hold a 10-man veteran squad with 3 special weapons and *maybe* a heavy weapon, whom utilise the whopping 6 fire ports on the vehicle to really give the Chimera its teeth--without them the Multilaser is fairly meh at BS3 and the hull weapon either even more meh (HB) or avoidable (Heavy Flamer). The vehicle itself is not particularly durable, with AV 10 sides--and it is not very difficult to get side shots on Chimeras once your army starts moving, nor are multilasers (even when massed) particularly frightening--most vehicles will shrug it off and most infantry will either be too numerous to care or have good enough armour to avert crippling casualties. The scary weapons inside the Chimera are either meltaguns (12") or plasma guns (24" for one shot, 12" for double-tap), neither of which is optimised for blowing away enemy armies from clear across the board, so it's the other units in the enemy army doing most the killing on the first 1-2 turns. Knocking out the big guns early on, then, really helps when having to march/drive up to the Chimeras. Some armies (like IG) have to do this by repaying in kind; hunkering down and blasting the enemy until it's safer to advance--and unfortunately I'm fairly certain that IG's best bet is to have at least a 'half-gunline'. Other armies can play different tricks. Deepstriking 10 Hammernators with no-scatter Belial right in the midst of the enemy's castle is going to krump some Russes or Basilisks and keep things busy there for a good while, for instance. Once it's time to pop the Chimeras things get pretty dicey. Most of the time I think one just has to rely on being able to pop the tank with their AT shooting and then having a nearby unit nuke (preferably with teardrop templates) the vets that come out. Sure, sometimes things don't always work out and the Chimera will stubbornly refuse to yield...but that's a dice game for you. Sometimes the plasmavets will melt themselves, too. It should also be noted that a Chimera has no ability whatsoever to fly over any terrain save for water features, of all things. The vets inside a Chimera will inflict casualties once you advance too close, but they can be boxed into a bad situation and be unable effectively utilise vehicle movement for self-preservation if you do some canny manoeuvering.

Wave Serpents, on the other hand, tend to be configured in a way opposite that of Chimeras. Whereas the Chimera is a cheap transport filled with a killy core, the Wave Serpent is often a through-and-through tank with a small, squishy core (minimum DA squads, though Fire Dragons may be found in them, too, and these can be much more dangerous). A friend of mine runs a very annoying Eldar list and while he doesn't play gunline-style, he does have plenty of serpents with 5-man DA squads. In my experience pretty much anything can drop MSU DA teams like they're hot regardless of the cover the DA might end up hiding in. Thus, the headache of fighting a Wave Serpent is mostly the vehicle's fault and usually has little to do with what it might be carrying (until it's time to nab objectives, that is). Being fast and a skimmer the Wave Serpent can maintain a wonderful rate of fire while constantly putting more distance between it and an advancing enemy--and it can even fly over enemies trying to trap it. Unfortunately, the only passably general strategy for efficiently killing Wave Serpents without losing an ungodly amount of models by chasing it is something along the lines of 'bombard it until it stops working,' which seems to be exactly the type of playstyle we're suppose to be avoiding here. I've always killed them with a mass, entire-army Deathwing Assault and juicy rear hits...and, well, that's just not something most armies can do. Even drop pod armies have to put half their stuff into reserve...which usually means more serpents still around after turn 1.

I think you might be underestimating the durability of a chimera a bit. Chimeras are mobile, so they always have the option to not point AV12 at stuff, and if you're that spread out that you can go fishing for side hits anyways, that means you've got terrible force concentration, which is bad against both gunlines and mech lists. Assuming AV12 partially obscured by a ruins, you need 9 lascannon hits to reliably knock one out. That's not exactly flimsy. Nor are 9 lascannon hits cheap. And that's just one chimera knocked out.

Of course, that's before the you-can't-pen-me, cover-always-on wave serpents that have units of meltagunners or mass fortune rending...

Anyways, what's really damaging is how they interlock. As El Cheesus notes, the worst of these ultra-defensive units are pretty cheap, so you don't have to skimp much on long-range killing power to take them. Melta mechvets are only 155 points apiece, and blasterborne in a venom or henchmen in chimera are even cheaper. Wave serpents are more expensive, but the wave serpents themselves ARE a long-range gun platform.

So, what really kills, then, is the way cheap defensive units interlock with those long range units. At range, that medusa spam is going to hurt, but if you drop 10 hammernators nearby, well, medusas still shoot at short range. Except now you've also got to deal with those cheap plasma mechvets. The chimeras drive up and form a wall, blocking you from assaulting the artillery (which scoots away), and then those two 3x plasma gun+PPs mechvet squad and their chimeras kill half the squad in a volley. Rather, the other half, because those mechvets were only 330 points. It probably took only a part of the rest of his army to finish the termies, and even if they didn't, so what? You're going to kill a chimera or two, tops in the next turn.

Of course, this shouldn't be surprising, as it falls into all three problems.

TImewise, even if the terminators survived, maybe they don't arrive until turn 3 (or 4), and maybe they scatter away so they'll need a turn of running just to get anywhere near their target, or are delayed by a mishap. Then they don't do anything the turn they land. Then they only manage to break open the transport. The game could be over before they swing their first hammer against a guardsman.

Concentration, of course, is terrible. 500 points of terminators right there against your opponent's entire army? Of course they're going to get gunned down. You just don't have the same number of points in the same place as he does. Then you watch as you get shot at at BS4, then they overwatch, then they shoot you again, then they overwatch again. You're getting phase after phase of beating before you kill your first real target. Odds are the termies will be wiped by then anyways.

Efficiency is also terrible. 500 points just for the CHANCE to kill maybe a 55 point chimera. Maybe two if you're lucky. This is a VERY asymmetric piece trade. Even if you're talking about units that are better at this, and are attacking juicier tark, you're still generally not doing better than breaking even, and that's even if your opponent leaves things exposed. And it still doesn't solve the time or concentration problems.

And you also note the concentration problem with drop pods. Half the pods show up and wipe out some vehicles. The troops in the transport/other stuff (say, 3/4 of his army), wipes out the 1/2 of your army that landed. Then the other half of your army shows up on an uncertain time table and is gunned down by a still-superior force. It sort of, but not completely solves the concentration issue, and sort of, but not completely solves the time issue, and it's a bum on efficiency. Yes, drop pods are cheap, but sternguard aren't.

 Ailaros wrote:
I think you might be underestimating the durability of a chimera a bit. Chimeras are mobile, so they always have the option to not point AV12 at stuff, and if you're that spread out that you can go fishing for side hits anyways, that means you've got terrible force concentration, which is bad against both gunlines and mech lists.

I disagree. Spreading out and "dual-firebase" tactics can be extremely effective in the right circumstances. Further, outflanking units and Flyers can often hit side armor on the turn they come in. In practice I consider Chimeras to be AV10 rather than AV12 because of how easy it is to get side armor shots on them in this edition.

 Ailaros wrote:
Assuming AV12 partially obscured by a ruins, you need 9 lascannon hits to reliably knock one out. That's not exactly flimsy. Nor are 9 lascannon hits cheap. And that's just one chimera knocked out.

You need 9 lascannon hits to kill a Chimera by Hull Point damage if it's in 4+ cover and you're shooting its front armor. But lascannons aren't for killing by Hull Point damage, and both AV12 and 4+ cover are dubious assumptions.

Further, there are other weapons that are more effective if you do have to dig Chimeras out of cover with their front armor facing you. Barrages, for instance, will hit them on AV10 rather than 12 and likely ignore cover. The Thunderfire Cannon, for instance (not a strong anti-tank choice), is a serious threat to any Chimera chassis vehicle. If your initial round is a hit, you've basically scored 4 strength 6 hits on side armor (or 4 strength 5 hits on side armor if you really need to ignore cover thanks to Night Fighting and smoke or something). In the era of Hull Points, that is quite dangerous!

 Ailaros wrote:
Of course, that's before the you-can't-pen-me, cover-always-on wave serpents that have units of meltagunners or mass fortune rending...

There are many ways to deal with Wave Serpents. If you're forcing them to keep their shields up, you're probably already winning.

 Ailaros wrote:
Anyways, what's really damaging is how they interlock. As El Cheesus notes, the worst of these ultra-defensive units are pretty cheap, so you don't have to skimp much on long-range killing power to take them. Melta mechvets are only 155 points apiece, and blasterborne in a venom or henchmen in chimera are even cheaper. Wave serpents are more expensive, but the wave serpents themselves ARE a long-range gun platform.

So, what really kills, then, is the way cheap defensive units interlock with those long range units. At range, that medusa spam is going to hurt, but if you drop 10 hammernators nearby, well, medusas still shoot at short range. Except now you've also got to deal with those cheap plasma mechvets. The chimeras drive up and form a wall, blocking you from assaulting the artillery (which scoots away), and then those two 3x plasma gun+PPs mechvet squad and their chimeras kill half the squad in a volley. Rather, the other half, because those mechvets were only 330 points. It probably took only a part of the rest of his army to finish the termies, and even if they didn't, so what? You're going to kill a chimera or two, tops in the next turn.

Why would you assume deep striking Terminators were a good choice for breaking a wall of plasma guns?

 Ailaros wrote:
And you also note the concentration problem with drop pods. Half the pods show up and wipe out some vehicles. The troops in the transport/other stuff (say, 3/4 of his army), wipes out the 1/2 of your army that landed. Then the other half of your army shows up on an uncertain time table and is gunned down by a still-superior force. It sort of, but not completely solves the concentration issue, and sort of, but not completely solves the time issue, and it's a bum on efficiency. Yes, drop pods are cheap, but sternguard aren't.

If only transports were so protective! I've found that usually much the reverse occurs-- when you shoot transports with optimal weapons for the job, Shaken and Stunned results on the transports neutralize their passengers for the next turn, allowing you to kill the transport in one turn and then the passengers in the next.

This is actually critical to the puzzle of breaking the "mech gunlines" that you talk about. When dealing with transports, you ideally want a large number of penetrations from high-AP weapons, thus maximizing your chance of getting Shaken or Stunned results and negating the transported unit for a turn. Low-AP weapons may kill vehicles more reliably, but torrents of high-AP fire are much better when dealing with transport vehicles and Wave Serpents in particular.

Kingsley wrote:Spreading out and "dual-firebase" tactics can be extremely effective in the right circumstances. Further, outflanking units and Flyers

Dual firebase? You mean gunline.

And how do fliers fix the concentration, efficiency or time issues any better than deepstrikers?

Kingsley wrote:This is actually critical to the puzzle of breaking the "mech gunlines" that you talk about. When dealing with transports, you ideally want a large number of penetrations from high-AP weapons

Well, sure, in a perfect world you'd have an army of only great weapons that were always in range and facing against your opponent's weakest spots. But this isn't a perfect world.

How do you get lots of penetrations with both high-S AND bad AP weapons? At what cost? With what means of concentration? Quickly enough?

Isn't the solution to this rather simple? All the transports you are having problems with are AV 12, just bring more autocannons (or your army's equivalent). Focus on glancing out rather than going for pens. With wave serpents this is especially effective. Also, autocannons tend to have good range, so the mobility problem you are mentioning is less of an issue. Isn't that how people did it in 5th?

NinjaStars wrote:Isn't the solution to this rather simple? just bring more autocannons

... which would be defeating a mech gunline... with a gunline.

That's the opposite of the entire point of this thread. If all I wanted to do was shoot down wave serpents or raiders, I'd just play guard and bring a hydra line. Or whatever. But what if you don't want to play a gunline whether because you think it's a loathsome playstyle that ensures boring, non-tactical games, or because you want to play an army that really uses the movement phase, or close combat, or because you're playing an army that doesn't gunline well? How do you beat the mech gunline WITHOUT a gunline?

Then what style do you want to play? I know you want general solutions, what general type of army is being denied by the resurgence of mech?

 Ailaros wrote:

Kingsley wrote:Spreading out and "dual-firebase" tactics can be extremely effective in the right circumstances. Further, outflanking units and Flyers

Dual firebase? You mean gunline.

No, I mean dual firebase. This can be as simple as a las Predator or Broadside team in either board corner and is separate from your maneuver elements. I don't really understand why you insist on calling many non-gunline things "gunlines."

 Ailaros wrote:
And how do fliers fix the concentration, efficiency or time issues any better than deepstrikers?

Flyers greatly add to force concentration because in practice they come in wherever you want and attack whatever you want-- unlike Deep Strikers, who are very constrained by smart deployment and play.

 Ailaros wrote:

Kingsley wrote:This is actually critical to the puzzle of breaking the "mech gunlines" that you talk about. When dealing with transports, you ideally want a large number of penetrations from high-AP weapons

Well, sure, in a perfect world you'd have an army of only great weapons that were always in range and facing against your opponent's weakest spots. But this isn't a perfect world.

How do you get lots of penetrations with both high-S AND bad AP weapons? At what cost? With what means of concentration? Quickly enough?

By taking the right weapons and firing them at the right units? Tesla destructors, autocannons, assault cannons, and both Tau and Imperial missiles generally produce good results in my experience, with meltas, lascannons, grav weapons, heavy rail rifles, etc. to pinch hit. These are readily available on mobile units. Further, given the ample access to Tank Hunters and Ignores Cover in this edition, I find that dealing with vehicles is generally easier than ever.

You can add more autocannons without doing a gunline. Drop pod termies or dreads with autocannons, Tau crisis suits with missile pods. Just load your army with as many str 7 weapons as possible.

If you're complaining about the ineffectiveness of assault in 6th, I feel your pain, I started this game with orks and shelved them due to assault now sucking, but thems the breaks. Hopefully when the tyranid and ork codexes drop we'll get good assault armies again.

Leman Russ Vanquisher or Medusa takes em out pretty easily. Leman Russ especially because it's invulnerable to the things you're mentioning.

And don't respond with "herpderp that's a gunline too". It isn't it's just a few units.

NinjaStars wrote:Then what style do you want to play? I know you want general solutions, what general type of army is being denied by the resurgence of mech?

Non-gunline. Mech or otherwise. I'm really trying to find anything, otherwise. Well, anything other than "play this one army in this one way", hopefully. I'm trying to keep things abstract so that those abstract principles could be applied to any army.

Kingsley wrote:No, I mean dual firebase. This can be as simple as a las Predator or Broadside team in either board corner and is separate from your maneuver elements. I don't really understand why you insist on calling many non-gunline things "gunlines."

Since when is broadsides parked in cover not a gunline unit?

More importantly, how is a pair of predators going to dismantle a serious gunline? Those couple of units will be neutralized right away, leaving your army in the same predicament it was in before, but now with fewer points spent on it.

Of course, you could go as far as was mentioned on the last page and say that you should do basically a gunline with a single unit or two that's not, but I don't see how a mostly-gunline is a solution to an all-gunline. And even then, it sort of defeats the point. Defeating a mech gunline with a 90% gunline instead of a 100% gunline is still 90% not what I'm looking for here.

Kingsley wrote:Flyers greatly add to force concentration because in practice they come in wherever you want and attack whatever you want-- unlike Deep Strikers, who are very constrained by smart deployment and play.

But fliers arrive late, and they'll concentrate your army for roughly 1 turn before they're forced to fly off the board, turn to face not where you want them, or drop into hover mode and get blown away. Depending on the situation, they're not even that great at efficiency either, especially as more AA comes into play.

Kingsley wrote:Tesla destructors, autocannons, assault cannons, and both Tau and Imperial missiles generally produce good results in my experience, with meltas, lascannons, grav weapons, heavy rail rifles, etc. to pinch hit. These are readily available on mobile units.

Most of them are available on gunline units, you mean. Plus, you're talking about one possible strategy that, in perfect situations might do the job against one part of the mech gunline.

Start talking more generally, and about the problems of efficiency, time, and concentration, which just saying "take meltaguns" or "take grav weapons" doesn't address, and we'll be getting somewhere.

NinjaStars wrote:You can add more autocannons without doing a gunline. Drop pod termies or dreads with autocannons, Tau crisis suits with missile pods. Just load your army with as many str 7 weapons as possible.

But drop pods have the timing and concentration issues. Autocannon dreads and assault cannon termies have terrible efficiency problems.

DarknessEternal wrote:Leman Russ Vanquisher or Medusa takes em out pretty easily. Leman Russ especially because it's invulnerable to the things you're mentioning.

And don't respond with "herpderp that's a gunline too". It isn't it's just a few units.

Will a single vanquisher fix all the problems of facing a wave serpent list? Will it solve a leafblower hiding out of LOS with artillery? How many russes will it take to actually accomplish this job.

Because once you start talking about lots of russes, then it's a mech gunline. If you're talking about a few russes, then how is it getting the job done?

Plus, russes are expensive to, so have efficiency problems, in addition to making the army "herpderp".

Local player runs an IG Chim gunline. With demolisher, vendettas and Basilisks. You sit back to shoot, he bombards you with ordnance. You drop in or advance and the plasma vets get you ( I play marines).

Terminators dropping in? Yeah did that. Mass plasma, demolisher and lasgun fire wipe them out.

enough units that he can bubble wrap the killy stuff on the flanks. He has lots of troop units to advance and secure objectives after blowing you off them.

Just not enough stuff to drop in and not get wiped out with the counter attack, and not enough long range stuff in a marine army at least to counter it.