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Does the Imperial Guard have any good alternatives to Plasma Veterans when it comes to killing MC's and heavy infantry?

MC's: Hydras, Autocannons in general, possibly Executioners or Exterminators, Plasma Company Command Squad, and (though I shudder to say this) perhaps a pask punisher.
Heavy Infantry (I'm assuming +2 Armor): Executioner, Demolisher, Plasma Company Command Squad, Large amounts of infantry with FRFSRF, Medusa

Melta Veterans? Lascannon batteries? Executioner Cannon? Vendetta?

If you honestly have problems killing MC with guard, something is wrong with your weapon choices. The army can bring more heavy and high S special weapons than any other, killing big bugs, demons, and Ctan should be easy.

As for plasma vets, I don't really like them. Plasma has gone down in value in this edition (cover saves, and reduced ability to take out armor). I would only use them in regular squads as the special. Vets should probably use melta or flamers. They are probably the squads that are going to move forward, so will have a higher chance of using them.

Ratlings!

Ratlings Have all kinds of cover bonuses, and BS4, and all have sniper rifles, and are dirt cheap!

use all those Snipers on the MCs and watch them fail enough armor saves that they go down to massed sniper fire.

MCs are actually really hard for a guard army as we don't have long-range anti-MC that is anywhere NEAR points effective. This leaves us with just short ranged options, which means cramming a lot of units in a very tight space very close to T6 W6 scariness. I agree that this feels less than ideal.

The problem is, though, that guard vehicles are woefully ineffective against monstrous creatures because our anti-MEq stuff comes in the form of blast weapons that can only ever do a single wound to an MC (compared to, say, starcannons, which are equally effective against MEqs and MCs). Some guard vehicles may look impressive (like the uber plasma executioner), but you're in the vague area of 250 points just to throw a couple of wounds on a single MC a turn (unless they have an invul save or are in area terrain, in which case, they don't even perform that well).

As such, the guard sort of have a hole in their army when it comes to weapons which are both strong enough to hurt MCs AND are good enough AP to make those wounds stick, which is really hard given how many wounds they can have. Autocannons, sniper rifles and the like are bad because they don't have the AP, power weapons, massed lasfire and the like are bad because they don't have the strength, and melta and big guns are bad because they don't have enough shots to put down enough wounds.

As such, this basically leaves us with two ways of handling MCs. The first is to combine a LOT of bad weapons to take down MCs. This means shooting a lot of missile launchers and battlecannon shots and meltaguns and, even though these are bad per-gun, if you bring enough guns, you might be able to pull it off. The other is to spam units you'd rather not have to use against MCs, like plasma SWSs, rough riders, ogryn, and priests. Or, of course, some combination of the two.

Good luck.

So all those cheap and effective auto cannons, multilasers, heavy bolters, and sniper riffles (and plasma and lascannons, if you can fit it in the list) are going to be firing at what? A list with MCs generally isn't meched up (nids don't have transports, necrons don't, demons don't, and CSM don't have much of an army) So what exactly are those hard target killing weapons firing at? Sure, they get armor. Sure it takes a lot of dakka to bring one down. Good thing you are playing guard, whom are the kings of dakka.

Concentrate fire, taking out a couple MCs a turn is an attainable goal. (I used to kill 2 MCs a turn with Demonhunters with guard allies, so a regular guard army shouldn't have as much trouble) For the most part they aren't going to surprise you, and have a hard time avoiding shots. Just just blast them away, the other things are usually lower priority, so they can be shot later or with units that don't have a good shot at the MCs.

Ailaros wrote:MCs are actually really hard for a guard army as we don't have long-range anti-MC that is anywhere NEAR points effective. This leaves us with just short ranged options, which means cramming a lot of units in a very tight space very close to T6 W6 scariness. I agree that this feels less than ideal.

The problem is, though, that guard vehicles are woefully ineffective against monstrous creatures because our anti-MEq stuff comes in the form of blast weapons that can only ever do a single wound to an MC (compared to, say, starcannons, which are equally effective against MEqs and MCs). Some guard vehicles may look impressive (like the uber plasma executioner), but you're in the vague area of 250 points just to throw a couple of wounds on a single MC a turn (unless they have an invul save or are in area terrain, in which case, they don't even perform that well).

As such, the guard sort of have a hole in their army when it comes to weapons which are both strong enough to hurt MCs AND are good enough AP to make those wounds stick, which is really hard given how many wounds they can have. Autocannons, sniper rifles and the like are bad because they don't have the AP, power weapons, massed lasfire and the like are bad because they don't have the strength, and melta and big guns are bad because they don't have enough shots to put down enough wounds.

As such, this basically leaves us with two ways of handling MCs. The first is to combine a LOT of bad weapons to take down MCs. This means shooting a lot of missile launchers and battlecannon shots and meltaguns and, even though these are bad per-gun, if you bring enough guns, you might be able to pull it off. The other is to spam units you'd rather not have to use against MCs, like plasma SWSs, rough riders, ogryn, and priests. Or, of course, some combination of the two.

Good luck.

what Ailaros is trying to say is use Autocannons. especially Hydras.

Ratlings wreck MC's. They're 10 points each. For BS4 sniper rifles. They're so cheap they're ridiculously points-efficient. Against Nids, at least.

Also, Hydras work wonders.

What everyone else is saying. Get Hydras and autocannons against MC's.
For MEQ enemies, you cant go wrong with a battle cannon, or just use volume of fire to bring them down.
Against TEQ, An executioner works wonders. 5 Plasma cannons anyone? Just make sure to protect it against the opportunistic meltas.

The executioner works well on MCs as well.
an Exterminator (w/Pask) is a pretty decent choice.

notabot187 wrote:So all those cheap and effective auto cannons, multilasers, heavy bolters, and sniper riffles firing at?

Firstly, I don't have those things firing at anything because I don't bring them precisely because they're not effective.

Secondly, as mentioned, the first part of my suggestion is to fire a lot of crappy weapons at them and hope for the best.

notabot187 wrote:Just just blast them away

The problem is that this is general advice for what to do against anything with the guard that unfortunately has problems in this specific circumstance.

Gavo wrote:Ratlings wreck MC's. They're 10 points each. For BS4 sniper rifles. They're so cheap they're ridiculously points-efficient.

10 ratlings put, on average, ONE wound on a tervigon every turn. How does that qualify as "wreck"?

Gavo wrote:Also, Hydras work wonders.

likewise, it takes two hydras to put a single wound on a tervigon per turn. Why are people saying that this weapon is good when it takes so long to do enough damage?

Yes, ratlings and hyrdas are less awful in the points-effectiveness world than other options, but they still suffer from awful effectiveness problems.

alarmingrick wrote:The executioner works well on MCs as well.

Or you could take an executioner instead of a hyrda and spend way more points for something that's even LESS effective.

alarmingrick wrote:an Exterminator (w/Pask) is a pretty decent choice.

Or you could spend nearly 300 points for something that does about 3 S7 hits a turn. More effective than a single autocannon? Sure, but your opponent can bring two MCs for the price of just that one tank which can ever so easily be destroyed by zoanthropes and most tyranid units in close combat. This is the case of the other extreme where you're getting some real effectiveness, but at such a huge opportunity cost that it's not actually worth taking.

A very cost-ineffective route that is kinda fun: Paskisher. 20 S5 BS4 shots that reroll to wound against MC's. Downside is, of course, the 24" range. I would never use it seriously, but it seems like fun.

Vendettas work wonders. I don't know why anyone hasn't mentioned them yet.

I use vendettas. When there's no other vehicles to shoot at (in the case of Nids) they might as well shoot at something, right?

Also, ratlings aren't terrible. Not a ton of wounds according to Mathhammer, but a solid run of rending has the possibility of ruining an MCs day. At least, it did against a Tervigon, and then again against a Talos. The thing is that the average isn't great, but the possibility of hitting hard is pretty solid.

Vendettas are just great. 3 vendettas with sponson heavy bolters will have a very, very good chance to kill any 6-wound MC in one round of shooting, and only take up 420 points of resources in a Guard army.

I agree with a great deal of the above. Melta guns, whilst only giving one shot and being awfully dangerous to use near to MC's are very effective when piled into a vet squad (3)! Lauch that Vet Squad at said MC from a Vendetta and you're on your way to taking it out! Jump out with a dude wielding a Demolition charge and you might find it easier still.

Marbo will show up with a demo charge and ruin whatever heavy infantry you throw it at. He'll then charge that infantry and hopefully cut them to shreds. Trust him with the demo charge but be ready to lose him in the assault phase. Dependant upon your target he will probably die becasue his stats are a bit deceptive. Not bad for 65 pts though eh?

Hydras are an excellent heavy support choice if you want to mow down heavy infantry and you use them as a squadron, 3 will bring 9 Heavy bolter shots as well, but they're not that effective against the MC'c or larger vehicles so if you like them, which I do, you need to be selective with your targets to get the best out of them. If you're going for the "fire everything" suggestion from Ailaros then they'll do their part!

The majority of advice given here is good but every game is different. If I was fielding a 4k pts force it would be easy to target and hopefully do in the majority of MC's in the early stages of the battle, I'd select all of the above options. If it was a small game of 1k pts then you need to be alot more focused on what you taking with you. In this instance I'd say go with what you know. My experience with Melta guns and demo charges has not disappointed me yet so in a small game thats what I'd field. In a larger game i'd take them all.

Oh, and one final piece of advice about MC's... keep you distance!