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Lately i have been facing a lot of players that run plenty of transports. i am a BA player and i cant figure out a way to deal with them that works most of the time. I just dont seem to have enough points to take out the transports and the infantry. any ideas?

What kind of transports are you facing?

your blood angels... you should have NO shortage of melta weaponry in your assault squads.

failing that, you should have NO shortage of razorbacks / predators / dreadnoughts to pop the enemy armor.

So, generally speaking, transports are so cheap that you have to spend more points to take them down before they dump their cargo than they have to spend in taking transports. Plus, even if you destroy their transports, they can still sprint across the field at you, so you're really not slowing them down ALL that much.

As such, it's better to ignore the transports and assume that they'll make it to your lines and take stuff that's really good against what's INSIDE the transports, rather than wasting too many points taking down the transport itself (something that can easily be achieved with a couple of meltaguns once the transport gets close).

You're to hung up on cost-efficiency Ailaros. If nothing is capable of taking down transports without costing more than the transports, you just don't bother? That can quickly lead to several bad things:

Their lines are going to launch a coherent attack at your forces.

The enemy retains his mobility, allowing him to react better to your moves.

What when you're up against a shooty mech army that doesn't close with you, then what do you do?

Or what about that combat squad in a rhino that is on an objective on the last turn, far away from your meltagun?

Also, against IG, blowing up the chimera often means that the squad inside takes heavy casualites too.


You need some long range firepower capable of cracking open transports from afar, or some fast moving meltas. BA's have predators, baal predators, vindicators, land speeders, attack bikes and devastators that can all do this job very well. Most of them can also take on the stuff inside with some success. Relying on assault marines to crack transports doesn't really cut it IMO.

Autocannons are pretty reliable, but you can't take them :(

you never really want to assault a transport, it isn't a risk you want to take, and the guys inside can just get out and kick you around anyway.

As above, attack bikes are very nice for the points, if you need to squeeze more anti tank onto your army and run dreads, remember they can have built in meltaguns, magna grapplers, /and/ can assault the squad that disembarks from the transport if he wrecks or blows it.

Ailaros wrote:So, generally speaking, transports are so cheap that you have to spend more points to take them down before they dump their cargo than they have to spend in taking transports. Plus, even if you destroy their transports, they can still sprint across the field at you, so you're really not slowing them down ALL that much.

As such, it's better to ignore the transports and assume that they'll make it to your lines and take stuff that's really good against what's INSIDE the transports, rather than wasting too many points taking down the transport itself (something that can easily be achieved with a couple of meltaguns once the transport gets close).

When the transport gets close to your melta gun it has already achived what your opponent paid it to do. Correct me if Im wrong but you take dual HFs on your chimeras right?

Illumini wrote:You're to hung up on cost-efficiency Ailaros. If nothing is capable of taking down transports without costing more than the transports, you just don't bother?

Right. The thing is that most things that are okay against transports are crappy against other stuff (or should be shooting at other stuff), this means that you need to sacrifice from the rest of your list to pay a premium to stop their transports when they're still on their side of the board.

Given how cheap transports are, and how blowing them up doesn't eliminate the units inside, you're not getting a very good return on your rather considerable investment, relatively speaking.

Illumini wrote:Their lines are going to launch a coherent attack at your forces.

Blowing up their transports doesn't stop this. Furthermore, no army's scariest units take regular transports (they take drop pods, or outflank, or have wings, or take LR's, etc.)

Illumini wrote:The enemy retains his mobility, allowing him to react better to your moves.

transport armies already have the initiative over footslogging armies. Taking their transports away after turn 1 doesn't really change this. Also, if you're running a mechanized army (or drop pods, or whatever), than it's all moot anyways.

Illumini wrote:What when you're up against a shooty mech army that doesn't close with you, then what do you do?

Or what about that combat squad in a rhino that is on an objective on the last turn, far away from your meltagun?

That depends on the game. Sometimes I'd blow it up with artillery, some times I'd charge in. The second point seems to assume that I'm not in control of my own movement and are thus incapable of putting meltaguns near objectives.

These points are both taken care of with movement with regards to the particular mission in the particular terrain. As such, any general advice or concern isn't really applicable.

Illumini wrote:You need some long range firepower capable of cracking open transports from afar

You really don't, though. Armies are perfectly capable of handling what comes out of transports when the cargo is nearby, and transports are generally quite easy to blow up at close range.

Grundz wrote:you never really want to assault a transport, it isn't a risk you want to take, and the guys inside can just get out and kick you around anyway.

Why don't you ever want to assault a transport? Meltabombs and krak grenades do wonders to AV10.

And yeah, I'm actually assuming that the guys get out and try to kick you around, which they will do anyways, unless you spend a ludicrous amount of points to just stop the transports. Instead, it's better to assume that they're going to hit your lines regardless of what you're doing to their tin cans, and focus on hitting them much harder than they hit you.

tedurur wrote:When the transport gets close to your melta gun it has already achived what your opponent paid it to do.

So?

This is true of lots of things, like drop pods bringing troops on the field, or scary units causing your opponent to focus way too much firepower on them, etc.

tedurur wrote:Correct me if Im wrong but you take dual HFs on your chimeras right?

I dont' run a mechanized list, myself, and thus don't bring any at all (although if I did, there would definitely be some flamers around). I fail to see what this has to do with stopping transports.

Ailaros wrote:

Illumini wrote:Their lines are going to launch a coherent attack at your forces.

Blowing up their transports doesn't stop this. Furthermore, no army's scariest units take regular transports (they take drop pods, or outflank, or have wings, or take LR's, etc.)

Of course it stops it. If you take out the berzerker rhino in turn 1, those berzerkers are not going to hit your lines in the same turn as the ones that still have a transport

Ailaros wrote:

Illumini wrote:The enemy retains his mobility, allowing him to react better to your moves.

transport armies already have the initiative over footslogging armies. Taking their transports away after turn 1 doesn't really change this. Also, if you're running a mechanized army (or drop pods, or whatever), than it's all moot anyways.

Of course it does. He just lost a lot of his mobility, some squads may be pinned, if you're fighting GEQ, they might even run away as the squad is shredded with S4 hits when you blow the transport up. If the objective is far away, he may not be able to reach it anymore, or be able to put special weapons where they are needed. Another example are mech-vets with meltas - a unit that has a 21" melta-range in a transport. Remove the chimera, and they're down to 12". You just drastically removed your opponents ability to react to your move.

If I didn't have the capability to take out transports, I would have lost the finals of the last tournament I entered, as four chimeras full of guys would have flamed and lasgunned my blob holding the objective to shreds. My opponent could also easily just have parked his 7 chimeras on the objectives and played pillbox.

Ailaros wrote:

Illumini wrote:What when you're up against a shooty mech army that doesn't close with you, then what do you do?

Or what about that combat squad in a rhino that is on an objective on the last turn, far away from your meltagun?

That depends on the game. Sometimes I'd blow it up with artillery, some times I'd charge in. The second point seems to assume that I'm not in control of my own movement and are thus incapable of putting meltaguns near objectives.

These points are both taken care of with movement with regards to the particular mission in the particular terrain. As such, any general advice or concern isn't really applicable.

And then you assume that your opponent is a poor general that can't anticipate your movements and stop them? You don't expect to have all your options open to you in the closing stages of the game? Putting meltaguns on your oppoents objective can be very hard even with transports

Ailaros wrote:

Illumini wrote:You need some long range firepower capable of cracking open transports from afar

You really don't, though. Armies are perfectly capable of handling what comes out of transports when the cargo is nearby, and transports are generally quite easy to blow up at close range.

You seem to think that all transports want to close range. Some transports are pillboxes, others are an extra layer of armour around a scoring unit. If my mech IG army played against your footarmy in a KP mission, I have little reason to drive within meltarange of your guys. I only have to take out your artillery, and then I can just drive away from your footsloggers until I'm ready to hose them down with multiple templates.

Ailaros wrote:

tedurur wrote:Correct me if Im wrong but you take dual HFs on your chimeras right?

I dont' run a mechanized list, myself, and thus don't bring any at all (although if I did, there would definitely be some flamers around). I fail to see what this has to do with stopping transports.

Because taking dual heavy flamers is an extremly poor choice, and a good example of your cost-efficiency thoughs going to far. "oh, multilazors aren't good against most things, the flamer is awesome at killing infantry, so I will go with that instead" - great idea, if it wasn't for the little issue that you will never get to fire both. It has one use - letting you still have a heavy flamer if you face a WD result, but then again, most opponents actually remove the multilaser unless your chimera is ontop of their guys, as it is a threat to their transports.


I know from the autocannon debates that you won't change your opinion until you figure something out yourself, but at least the OP might see that your advice in this thread is poor. Armies NEED a way to stop transports, crippling your opponents mobility is very important in most missions. Have fun playing against mech-eldar or battlewagon orks with only slow-moving meltas Sometimes, transports MUST die

Ailaros wrote:Right. The thing is that most things that are okay against transports are crappy against other stuff (or should be shooting at other stuff), this means that you need to sacrifice from the rest of your list to pay a premium to stop their transports when they're still on their side of the board.

What gun are you talking about here? It seems like you didn't really say anything besides, "shoot at other stuff, because it needs to die first". I am not following what is meant by a weapon being crappy, because it is meant to shoot at transports, but it is better at shooting other stuff which you shouldn't be shooting at with a crappy 'anti-transport' gun.

Your suggestion that meltas/assault will solve all problems, leads me to believe you play the game in a very specific way.

Given how cheap transports are, and how blowing them up doesn't eliminate the units inside, you're not getting a very good return on your rather considerable investment, relatively speaking.

You know what I want when I get damage on a tank? I want it stunned. I want it to stop moving, along with forcing the unit inside to lose any extension of their mobility. If I blow up the transport the units inside are now stuck in cover, meaning their mobility is not just reduced from losing the transport (by 3-6" depending on the unit), it is also reduced by extra rolled dice for DT (again, depending on the unit concerned)

Blowing up their transports doesn't stop this. Furthermore, no army's scariest units take regular transports (they take drop pods, or outflank, or have wings, or take LR's, etc.)

I am at a loss here, yet again, because I have no idea what you are talking about. If my opponent wants to drive his fancy tank line down the field, in unison, to deal a combined hit on turn 2-3, and I pop half of his tanks; that plan is now fethed. It is even more fethed if I can just manage to stun their whole transport array. The whole thing stopped moving, that is a major blow to any attempt of organizing a coordinated attack mid-game.

Just like any turn-based strategy, you need to break the game into parts, so that you know what matters when, and how much to prepare for a change in plan. Losing mobility on 'cheap' transports, is a big deal because they cost roughly 20% of any unit they are carrying, and in many situations are the only thing between that squad, and experiencing an agonizing death. In many situations the squad can count itself lucky that a transport exploded, instead of ejecting them onto bare soil because of a wrecked result.

You appear to be ignoring nearly half of what takes place in many games, and I have a hard time following what you are suggesting. Transports are a great place to hit your opponent, especially if their army's tactics revolve around their use.

transport armies already have the initiative over footslogging armies. Taking their transports away after turn 1 doesn't really change this. Also, if you're running a mechanized army (or drop pods, or whatever), than it's all moot anyways.

My mind is boggled.

I suggest playing a game where you automatically lose transports on turn two, while playing an army that relies on those transports to win games.

That depends on the game. Sometimes I'd blow it up with artillery, some times I'd charge in. The second point seems to assume that I'm not in control of my own movement and are thus incapable of putting meltaguns near objectives.

You are relying on a weapon that will get, on average, no more than 2 shots over the course of the whole game. You are not talking about MM, you are talking about melta. You will be able to use them, I have no doubt about that; the problem is that it doesn't sound like you are using Eldar, so FD are not at your service to set up camp with 5-10 meltas, holding down flags.

These points are both taken care of with movement with regards to the particular mission in the particular terrain. As such, any general advice or concern isn't really applicable.

What.

You really don't, though. Armies are perfectly capable of handling what comes out of transports when the cargo is nearby, and transports are generally quite easy to blow up at close range.

Where they may be quite easy to take down over the course of one turn, with one shot, from one squad, that would suggest that ranged weaponry is even better. More shots, over more turns, from more than one squad. Long range firepower is essential to taking out transports reliably, one or two meltas aimed at each tank is A.) not reliable, and/or B.) a great way to waste an assault squad for shooting. If you can always get within 6 inches (which you can't), and can always get assaults on units within transports (which you can't, because a D6 doesn't care if you want a 'sploded tank), then your good to go.

I won't go much further into where meltas fail to address many problems associated with taking on transports.

Your post was silly on more than a dozen counts.

Illumini wrote:Of course it stops it. If you take out the berzerker rhino in turn 1, those berzerkers are not going to hit your lines in the same turn as the ones that still have a transport

The berzerkers still move 7-12" per turn when not in a rhino. Furthermore, the rest of their army doesnt' need to move the full 12" every turn. Furthermore, this is ignoring all the other stuff that was never in a rhino in the first place.

Illumini wrote:Of course it does. He just lost a lot of his mobility... Another example are mech-vets with meltas - a unit that has a 21" melta-range in a transport. Remove the chimera, and they're down to 12". You just drastically removed your opponents ability to react to your move.

When you destroy a single transport, you destroy just that, a single transport. The rest of his army's mobility is just fine. Now, he would lose SOME of his mobility (remember, infantry still run), if you destroyed ALL of his transports right away, but the points cost to do that is obscene, and isn't even possible to do against certain mech armies (like guard).

And the meltagunners don't go from 21" to 12" they only go from 24" to 18". Six inches doesnt' seem like "lots of mobility" to me.

Illumini wrote:If I didn't have the capability to take out transports, I would have lost the finals of the last tournament I entered, as four chimeras full of guys would have flamed and lasgunned my blob holding the objective to shreds. My opponent could also easily just have parked his 7 chimeras on the objectives and played pillbox.

I'm sorry you couldn't figure out how to handle this some other way. I'm glad you won, though.

Illumini wrote:And then you assume that your opponent is a poor general that can't anticipate your movements and stop them? You don't expect to have all your options open to you in the closing stages of the game? Putting meltaguns on your oppoents objective can be very hard even with transports

You seem to think that all transports want to close range. Some transports are pillboxes, others are an extra layer of armour around a scoring unit. If my mech IG army played against your footarmy in a KP mission, I have little reason to drive within meltarange of your guys. I only have to take out your artillery, and then I can just drive away from your footsloggers until I'm ready to hose them down with multiple templates.

You seem to think that all transports want to close range. Some transports are pillboxes, others are an extra layer of armour around a scoring unit. If my mech IG army played against your footarmy in a KP mission, I have little reason to drive within meltarange of your guys. I only have to take out your artillery, and then I can just drive away from your footsloggers until I'm ready to hose them down with multiple templates.

To take down transports you will need light to medium long range anti-armor weapons. These would be weapons with a STR of 6 or above. Good tools for this would be autocannons, MLs or LCs.

Two of my favorite tools for this purpose are Dreads with TL ACs. Those are listed as heavy support in your list. That gives you 2 weapons each with a ~18.75% to destroy AV 11. Despite what was claimed earlier, these are multi-purpose. 4 long range STR 7 shots are useful vs bike armies, insta-killing eldar characters, putting wounds on MCs, etc.

Baal Predators are another solution for you. The TL AC on that vehicle has a ~18.4 chance of destroying AV 11 per round of shooting. While they have to get within 24" to use that gun, they get a scout move to help. If you throw heavy bolters on it, then it can act as anti-infantry as well, and can be used vs bikes, etc...

Another solution would be land speeder typhoons. While it has a ~21.1% of destruction on AV 11, they are a lot more fragile than Baal Predators. I use these in my vanilla marine army, but that is only because I cannot field Baal Predators.

This does not include melta weapons, as destroying a transport when it is in your face does not prove to be valuable Melta weapons are better for cracking high armor types, usually tanks like a Russ or a Raider.
This is not to discount the importance of melta! Melta weapons are how you can stop battlewagons or LRs before they drop troops in your face.

You can use this tool to test out your weapons to see what works best for you.
http://uma-musado.com/cgi-bin/mathHammer.cgi

Wrexasaur wrote:Where they may be quite easy to take down over the course of one turn, with one shot, from one squad, that would suggest that ranged weaponry is even better. More shots, over more turns, from more than one squad. Long range firepower is essential to taking out transports reliably, one or two meltas aimed at each tank is A.) not reliable, and/or B.) a great way to waste an assault squad for shooting. If you can always get within 6 inches (which you can't), and can always get assaults on units within transports (which you can't, because a D6 doesn't care if you want a 'sploded tank), then your good to go.

I won't go much further into where meltas fail to address many problems associated with taking on transports.

Your post was silly on more than a dozen counts.

In any army balance is the key to success. A commander who puts his faith in heavy weaponry alone will be outmanoeuvred. A commander who relies on close combat without support will lose his force to enemy fire. Each element must work in harmony so that the effectiveness of the army is greater than the sum of its parts. - Tactica Imperium.

Alirous, I'm curious, how do you take out Tau Mech armies with meltaguns? Tau won't be moving forward, they will be kiting away.

labmouse42 wrote:This does not include melta weapons, as destroying a transport when it is in your face does not prove to be valuable

But it's really cheap.

The alternative is to spend a lot of points and FOC slots in order to slightly slow your opponent. Why is this worth the expendiature?

Slarg232 wrote:Alirous, I'm curious, how do you take out Tau Mech armies with meltaguns? Tau won't be moving forward, they will be kiting away.

Firstly, I have guard artillery. Secondly, I have lots of meltaguns/other close ranged nastiness that outflanks with Al'Rahem.

For those who are not so blessed, and don't run transport armies of your own, or don't have any deepstrikers or outflankers in your codex (and for everyone else, actually), you have to look at the objectives.

If you place meltaguns on objectives, and your mech tau opponent wants to take the obejctive from you, they need to get in melta range. There is simply no way around this. Remember, this isn't a 4th ed shooting war. OBJECTIVES matter, not casualties.

But what about kill points? In order for a mech tau dude to do damage, they're going to have to be moving at regular, slow speeds rather than at freakish skimmer speeds. If they ARE moving fast (thus preventing me from getting my meltaguns in with slow foot squads), then they're not shooting, thus no one is doing damage. Eventually, a mech tau opponent will either get pinned into a corner, and I can slag them or they will have to gun it past my guys, in which case I melta them.

In any case, this is once again a question about movement and deployment which is once again dependent on the specific field conditions, which general advice can't help with.

And on a final note, yeah, you lose guys to gunfire in this game, transports or not. Get over it. Even if you can't, then remember that it's cheaper to take more guys to account for the casualties than it is to take more anti-transport - the more-dudes option also being much better for if your opponents don't bring transports, while the anti-transport list falls on its face.

Ailaros wrote:Six inches doesnt' seem like "lots of mobility" to me.

That is the problem then.

6 inches is the difference between getting a second die for your melta, and it is the reason your troops won't be able to jump onto a flag. A 1/2 inch is enough to wreck your gameplan, while 6 inches is enough to mangle it beyond repair.

We will call transports a flat 40 points, and with three of them, you may be able to afford something else on foot instead. When that extra movement, extra protection, and tactical advantage is necessary, it doesn't matter if you have 4 squads on foot versus 3 in transports. Transports are the reason many armies are competitive, and fractions of an inch can determine whether you can even tie games, let alone win them.

A longer range for a gun, means it's margin for error is larger, as compared to a gun with a shorter range (3-4x less in most situations). Long-ranged AT is a very important part to most armies, and for those who do not have access to it, make up for it in different ways. This does not stop most armies from needing that long-range stopping power, just to balance their force.

And on a final note, yeah, you lose guys to gunfire in this game, transports or not. Get over it. Even if you can't, then remember that it's cheaper to take more guys to account for the casualties than it is to take more anti-transport - the more-dudes option also being much better for if your opponents don't bring transports, while the anti-transport list falls on its face.

Your argument boils down to footslogging being better...

Transports are cost effective to the point that replacing them with more units, can be no less than a waste of points. None of your units will have a transport, and they will pay the price for that. You are discounting a large part of the game, simply because it doesn't agree with your style of gaming.

+1 Wrexasaur

I think Ailaros is trolling. His theories are so totally off-base, and he's trying so hard to convince us otherwise he probably is lying to pass theory off as game experience.

@Ailaros: Yes, I give examples of things that happens in games, but those examples are pretty general, and are things that your army should be equipped to handle. Pillboxing, objective-camping, kiting, ability to launch coherent assaults or to react well to your opponents moves are all important facets of this game.

And the meltagunners don't go from 21" to 12" they only go from 24" to 18". Six inches doesnt' seem like "lots of mobility" to me.

I said "melta-range", meaning the 6" you get the extra mile out of your meltagun, but it doesn't really matter. With a transport, you get an extra 6" movement +2" disembark + almost 1" base = 9" more range. You can also often get another 1" from free pivots. That is a pretty decent extension of range on a short range gun like a melta or a flamer, and often means the difference between a destroyed and an alive land raider/demolisher/infantry squad/etc.

I fully agree that causing your opponent to have less mobility is preferable to causing your opponent to have more mobility. The question is "at what cost?" and "to what end?" Your arguments seem to answer these questions with "at any cost" and "it IS its own end", respectively.

I do believe that some of your pts allowance has to be spent on things that can disable transports. It depends on the army how much is needed. For orks, some deff-rollas, deffkoptas and boarding planks can be enough, others need to spend more pts on it. You should note however, that most anti-transport weapons have a dual use. I suggested Baal Predators, las/auto preds, vindicators, speeders, attackbikes and devastators earlier. All of them can do dual action, they may be able to take on heavier tanks, they may be capable of shredding infantry, but they all have a use against transports as well. An example from my current IG army is my squadron of 2x hydra. Fully capable of taking on transports, but also just as capable of putting tons of wounds on infantry. I would say that your idea, with "just don't bother, let them do their thing and rely on meltaguns and close combat" just don't cut it. There are too many scenarios and armies that will end badly with this train of thought.

and the second belies a lack of objective-based thinking.

Taking out your opponents mobility is very important in objective missions, especially in a capture and control mission. Take out your opponents transports, and he will struggle very hard to take/contest your objective. Against some armies, ability to take out transports can also mean the difference between being tabled and tabling the other guy. (ie: Battlewagon orks)

Illumini wrote:@Ailaros: Yes, I give examples of things that happens in games, but those examples are pretty general, and are things that your army should be equipped to handle. Pillboxing, objective-camping, kiting, ability to launch coherent assaults or to react well to your opponents moves are all important facets of this game.

Yep.

I said "melta-range", meaning the 6" you get the extra mile out of your meltagun, but it doesn't really matter. With a transport, you get an extra 6" movement +2" disembark + almost 1" base = 9" more range. You can also often get another 1" from free pivots. That is a pretty decent extension of range on a short range gun like a melta or a flamer, and often means the difference between a destroyed and an alive land raider/demolisher/infantry squad/etc.

Which is why Fire Dragons are so blatantly awesome. Good price, fantastic weapon choices, and access to what is usually the most agile tank in the game. You pay upwards of 3 times the points (compared to a 40 point transport) for the WS that makes them so awesome, and while I think that Eldar tanks are overpriced, it gives a very clear example of why transports are so damn important for many armies.

I do believe that some of your pts allowance has to be spent on things that can disable transports. It depends on the army how much is needed. For orks, some deff-rollas, deffkoptas and boarding planks can be enough, others need to spend more pts on it. You should note however, that most anti-transport weapons have a dual use. I suggested Baal Predators, las/auto preds, vindicators, speeders, attackbikes and devastators earlier. All of them can do dual action, they may be able to take on heavier tanks, they may be capable of shredding infantry, but they all have a use against transports as well. An example from my current IG army is my squadron of 2x hydra. Fully capable of taking on transports, but also just as capable of putting tons of wounds on infantry. I would say that your idea, with "just don't bother, let them do their thing and rely on meltaguns and close combat" just don't cut it. There are too many scenarios and armies that will end badly with this train of thought.

The one thing that I really appreciate about standard Eldar weaponry, is their access to S6 spam. Taking 6-7 shots on a tank (half of which are TL), makes for a very practical way to counter light AV targets.

Taking out your opponents mobility is very important in objective missions, especially in a capture and control mission. Take out your opponents transports, and he will struggle very hard to take/contest your objective. Against some armies, ability to take out transports can also mean the difference between being tabled and tabling the other guy. (ie: Battlewagon orks)

BW orks will be in big trouble if you can keep them stationary, at range. 2 turns of movement is absolutely vital to many tactics concerning Orks, and they won't do very well w/o the aid of a transport to buff their movement, along with keeping them from being flamed to death.

Mmmm... War muffins.

DarkHound wrote:I think Ailaros is trolling. His theories are so totally off-base, and he's trying so hard to convince us otherwise he probably is lying to pass theory off as game experience.

Why did you post this? As best I can tell, you're trying to shut down dialogue with personal insults. How is this not the very definition of trolling?

Wrexasaur wrote:. A 1/2 inch is enough to wreck your gameplan, while 6 inches is enough to mangle it beyond repair.

Wow, if you're strategy is so fragile that a half inch of movement will completely destroy you, then I feel bad for you. Perhaps you would consider changing over to something less fragile?

Illumini wrote:I do believe that some of your pts allowance has to be spent on things that can disable transports.

CAN be, but why? There is a serious cost involved in stopping transports very early. Either you're not spending enough points, and your opponent's transports are getting through basically unmolested, or you're spending a lot of points to take them down, leaving the rest of your army lacking...

Illumini wrote:You should note however, that most anti-transport weapons have a dual use.

... or an uncomfortable middle ground between the two. Dual use weapons are either very expensive for what they do to transports, or they are pretty ineffective against transports (because they're also good against something else), which means that you need to take a lot of them to be effective, which means that they're very expensive for what they do to transports.

Illumini wrote:Taking out your opponents mobility is very important in objective missions, especially in a capture and control mission.

Mobility is important, but to what end? The whole point of mobility is to get more stuff on objectives faster. If you have stuff that utterly destroys stuff that comes out of transports onto objectives, then what does the transport really count for?

You can talk about transports sitting around, or flitting about the board just out of reach all you want, but that kind of behavior loses games. The point of an army's movement is to complete it's objective. If the transports aren't completing their objective, then why does it matter what your opponent does with them?

No, the point of transports is to get things which are killy close to their opponents, and for getting scoring units onto objectives. If I'm on the objectives, then the whole point of transports is to get units close to my stuff. How convenient that meltaguns work best at short range, given that the whole point of his transport is to close range.

Wrexasaur wrote:Your argument boils down to footslogging being better...

No, there are lots of ways of handling transports, footslogging being only one possible way. Pretending like you can stop them before them before it's too late is not a way I'd recommend.

Illumini wrote:Yes, I give examples of things that happens in games, but those examples are pretty general, and are things that your army should be equipped to handle. Pillboxing, objective-camping, kiting, ability to launch coherent assaults or to react well to your opponents moves are all important facets of this game.

So my point with all this is that you could come up with a hypothetical situation with certain units starting in a certain place (deploying), and moving in a certain way. I could then come up with an equally hypothetical list of units that start in a certain place and move in a certain way to counter. How does the individual cases of movement and shooting form a general picture of how to deal with transports?

My point is just this - transports need to be dealt with in the deployment and movement phases. This is because there aren't wonder-guns that can just point-and-click the problem away. The only way to create this illusion is to spend a detrimental amount of points. As I refuse to do this, I'm left with the understanding that there is no way to stop your opponent's stuff from hitting your lines when they run transport armies.

How do I handle this? Well, just look at drop pods (or deepstrikers in general, or outflankers, etc.) In this case, there is literally nothing I can do to stop them before they show up, unmolested, with their units. What is the advice that everybody gives for handling drop pods? It's advice that has to do with movement and deployment. The same is true for transports. Just because you can't effectively bring them down before it's too late doesn't mean you sit there and pout, it means that you practice the appropriate counter-tactics on the field, just like dealing with drop pods.

Ailaros wrote:

DarkHound wrote:I think Ailaros is trolling. His theories are so totally off-base, and he's trying so hard to convince us otherwise he probably is lying to pass theory off as game experience.

Why did you post this? As best I can tell, you're trying to shut down dialogue with personal insults. How is this not the very definition of trolling?

Well, here's the problem: your theories are rubbish. What I'm doing could be called flame-bating, not trolling, and I don't have much else to add to the conversation; the proper way to deal with transports and the serious power their mobility and protection gives you is being covered well enough by others. I posted because what you're writing is wrong and won't hold up in a real game, and the more people who post against it, the less likely it is a newb will try it. Thus we save him time by preventing him from losing terribly, then starting a thread about it where we'll go through the same old song and dance. I think I had a point in posting it, but I'll let the mods judge me anyone cares.

Anyway, to help the BA player, you have a bunch of great multi-function units. Your Devastators are priced great: take Missile Launchers or a Plasmacannon or two. Landspeeder Typhoons are awesome. Dreadnoughts are great with a TL-Autocannon, or two, although keeping a single close combat weapon is also very viable. Predators are great too. Blood Angels, like Space Wolves and, to a lesser extent, CSM, get great anti-infantry and close combat units from what they are required to take. That leaves them more points for ranged anti-tank; don't be afraid to only have anti-tank outside of your Troops and HQ. On the other hand, don't feel forced to take what you don't need. Only you can find the balance that fits for you.

I don't follow most of what you are saying Ailaros, it is difficult to understand what you mean, besides your opinion that you can get by w/o long-ranged guns.

Some armies can get by w/o, and are no less than forced to make that decision some of the time. BA have access to some very nice tanks, and you can even use Landspeeders or Dreadnoughts given your preferred style. There are plenty of choices for BA, MM and Asscans happen to be suited to the armies style of play. You want to coordinate your army, so you can plan to assault units after a transport has been wrecked (which you can force if through multiple damage results, with an Asscan). There is no simple way to explain this, but it does boil down to letting each part of your army do what it does best, by allowing each unit to perform a role, keeping your entire army as one unit. There are ways to split an army into 'separate' parts, giving you roughly two of the same thing; this generally isn't the case and you will need to use your army as a multipurpose tool. I want my army to be a swiss army knife, because most games require it.

Maybe not a fancy swiss army knife, I would probably settle for a solid leatherman. Multi-tools are actually a great analogy for an effective WH40k army. You will find that armies lacking a basic set of tools, will face more losses in general. Note that this is not true for all codices, as Orks will attest to; they are the machetes of WH40k, great multi-purpose tools in themselves.

I like Orks better as the AK-47's of 40k. Rugged, reliable, and able to fix any situation that requires the enemy dead. You can get an AK anywhere in the world (galaxy). Anyway, that's beside the point.

Anyway, to further explain what Wrexasaur was saying I'll provide an example from my army. My Predator, my Noise Marines, and my Slaaneshi Bikers. My Predator is equiped with all Lascannons to let it engage targets big and small, but it makes it almost over-kill at opening transports. Once the transport is opened, the Noise Marines get to reach out with their 24" of infantry death. Now, rarely is this ever enough to kill a squad, although it softens them up. That's where the Bikers come in. They roll up, fire their TL-Bolters, then Assault at I5; they're only a 4 man squad, so getting all their attacks in before the enemy can retaliate is essential to keeping them alive. Now, each of these squads is very specialised: Predators only kill transports, Noise Marines only kill infantry, and the Bikers can't engage large squads. However, when they work in concert they all get a peice of the action.

That's a very perfect scenario, and obviously it rarely plays out like that in a single turn. Given a turn or so, it does work.

... or an uncomfortable middle ground between the two. Dual use weapons are either very expensive for what they do to transports, or they are pretty ineffective against transports

The middle ground weapons that are not very effective against transports are often cheap weapons that you add to units that you already take for some reason or another, f.ex. a multilaser on a chimera, an autocannon on an infantry squad etc. They are not great at their job, but they add a threat-level, and they can do something. Your opponent doesn't want to expose chimera sidearmour or a raider to a multilaser or an autocannon, a rhino can often be stopped cold by an autocannon etc.

Multi-purpose is also another way to ensure redundancy without resorting to direct spamming.

Many multi-purpose units are also highly effective at all their roles for their pts cost. F.ex: Manticore, hydra, attack bikes, long fangs etc. etc.

No, the point of transports is to get things which are killy close to their opponents, and for getting scoring units onto objective

That is an extremly narrow PoV on transports, they fullfill many other roles in armies, many of which I have already discussed.

You can talk about transports sitting around, or flitting about the board just out of reach all you want, but that kind of behavior loses games. The point of an army's movement is to complete it's objective. If the transports aren't completing their objective, then why does it matter what your opponent does with them?

Not all games are objective games. In a KP game, my army would be quite comfortable with hugging the table-egde vs an opponent with little long range anti-tank.

So my point with all this is that you could come up with a hypothetical situation with certain units starting in a certain place (deploying), and moving in a certain way. I could then come up with an equally hypothetical list of units that start in a certain place and move in a certain way to counter. How does the individual cases of movement and shooting form a general picture of how to deal with transports?

The hypothetical situations were examples on things that often happen in a game, including several common tactics/builds. They were used to point out flaws in your way of dealing with transports, because you can not deal with it efficiently with slow moving meltas and close combat. Dismissing them as something that can't be discussed because I provided examples of said common situations/builds does little to dismiss the point that your logic is flawed.


You have very much focus on taking stuff that kills the things inside the transports, but if you can't crack the transports, how effective are really those guns? You loose a lot of shooting while the enemy stays inside his metal BAWKSES. If you had the firepower to take out several in turn 1, all your guns would have something to shoot at the entire game. Also, if the opponent is fully mechanized and shooty, and you can't crack those transports at range, then he will simply outshoot you. If he has his entire army left on turn 5, you will probably not have much of yours left, seeing as you have taken an army's worth of guns for 5 turns. He will probably be in a superior tactical position when it comes to taking objectives. (and with his transports still intact, he can make 16"-36" objective grabs in the late turns.)

I will change my mind based on sound reasoning

Easy to say when you only believe that your own reasoning is sound

Ailaros wrote:But it's really cheap.

The alternative is to spend a lot of points and FOC slots in order to slightly slow your opponent. Why is this worth the expendiature?

Thats simple. In a game that lasts 5 to 7 turns, slowing down a squad by 1 or 2 turns can remove them for up to 40% of the game.

In addition to transports there are many other threats that melta weapons are not the best tool for. Here are some examples.
* Valks shooting 3 TL LC
* 3 typhoons hovering 40 inches away
* War walkers with scatter lasers and guide/doom

As you can see, light AT has multiple uses that grant it worth a slot or two in your FOC. One dual TL AC dread costs 125 points, and can easily earn that back in 1 turn off raw points, in addition to the soft value of destroying transports. Is one or two worth it? Definitely. Are 8 worth it in a 1500 game? No. Like all things in a well rounded army, it's about finding balance.

Again, that is not to discount melta. They are great tools.

Wrexasaur wrote: BA have access to some very nice tanks, and you can even use Landspeeders or Dreadnoughts given your preferred style.

That are expensive for what they do, yes.

Wrexasaur wrote: You want to coordinate your army, so you can plan to assault units after a transport has been wrecked (which you can force if through multiple damage results, with an Asscan). There is no simple way to explain this, but it does boil down to letting each part of your army do what it does best, by allowing each unit to perform a role, keeping your entire army as one unit.

I could not agree with this more. Our point of divergeance appears to be you favoring spending lots of points on relatively low-effectiveness guns, whereas I do not.

DarkHound wrote:My Predator is equiped with all Lascannons to let it engage targets big and small, but it makes it almost over-kill at opening transports.

See, here's the problem. A lascannon pred isn't a guarantee for taking down transports, given that competent players will make it so your only shooting it at cover (say, through smoke), before it offloads its cargo.

Furthermore, you can easily take many transports in your army. I can take three transports for the price of just one lascannon pred, which the pred will certainly be unable to stop before its too late. Furthermore, you can only take 3 preds, which means I can always take more transports than you can preds.

I understand the point of your fictionalized situation. Combined arms are good, I agree. The divergeance is that I believe you should only combine arms which are good at their jobs, whereas you're advocating spending lots of points to combine arms which are bad at their jobs. The reason I say they're bad is because of the numbers. If you can come up with some way to make long-range anti-transport work with the numbers and the game as a whole, I'd like to see them.

Illumini wrote:The middle ground weapons that are not very effective against transports are often cheap weapons that you add to units that you already take for some reason or another, f.ex. a multilaser on a chimera, an autocannon on an infantry squad etc. They are not great at their job, but they add a threat-level, and they can do something. Your opponent doesn't want to expose chimera sidearmour or a raider to a multilaser or an autocannon, a rhino can often be stopped cold by an autocannon etc.

Okay, yes. I agree that things like lascannons play a psychological factor. That said, better players will be able to ignore the fear factor, especially if they're savvy about how the statistics work out.

Illumini wrote:Multi-purpose is also another way to ensure redundancy without resorting to direct spamming.

Another way? Yeah. A BETTER way? I can't see how. Spamming weapons that are worse in lots of roles doesn't seem to me to be better than spamming weapons which are good at roles, at least as whole-list composition is concerned.

Illumini wrote:Many multi-purpose units are also highly effective at all their roles for their pts cost. F.ex: Manticore, hydra, attack bikes, long fangs etc. etc.

Long fangs are specialized by their gear and bikes are really expensive for what they do.

The only one I agree with is the manticore, but that's just one unit, not "many".

Illumini wrote:That is an extremly narrow PoV on transports, they fullfill many other roles in armies, many of which I have already discussed.

... but none of those other roles matter if they don't help you win the game.

Illumini wrote:Not all games are objective games. In a KP game, my army would be quite comfortable with hugging the table-egde vs an opponent with little long range anti-tank.

... and you wouldn't kill anything, at least not with the transports or the dudes inside.

Plus, having no long range anti-tank only matters if your opponent has no mobility of firepower, which is easily achieved through artillery, transports, drop pods, outflanking, etc. etc. 5th ed is the rules version of mobility. There is no way that your opponent is going to let you stay out of melta range unless they're a special weapons gunline that doesn't move, in which case they deserve to loose a kill point game to a transport army.

Illumini wrote:The hypothetical situations were examples on things that often happen in a game, including several common tactics/builds. They were used to point out flaws in your way of dealing with transports, because you can not deal with it efficiently with slow moving meltas and close combat. Dismissing them as something that can't be discussed because I provided examples of said common situations/builds does little to dismiss the point that your logic is flawed.

I agree, attempting to take down transports on a kill-points mission with just slow-moving meltaguns against a target that is capable of infinitely running away with transports IS a stupid idea, and believing that it's good would require flawed logic.

As it is, I'm not advocating for anything of the sort when it comes to kill points. When it comes to objectives, your opponent needs to drive at you in order to have any chance of winning, so mobility of meltaguns is moot.

Illumini wrote:You have very much focus on taking stuff that kills the things inside the transports, but if you can't crack the transports, how effective are really those guns?

I'm actually advocating that people take guns that are effective against transports. As such, I'd always expect transports to be cracked in the rare circumstance that my opponent spends his entire game hiding in his transports.

Of course, this is kind of a side track argument as most of the time you need to get out of the transports in order to win.

Illumini wrote: Also, if the opponent is fully mechanized and shooty, and you can't crack those transports at range, then he will simply outshoot you.

With transports? I'm sorry if I'm not quaking with fear for the damage output of rhinos. The only transport that can do decent damage is a falcon, but that's a whole other metagame can of worms. With the exception of chimeras, everyone has to get out of their transports to shoot, which means that they're not outshooting me.

Or they're getting out of the transports, and I kill them. What's the problem?

Aside from everything said above, as far as points are concerned, I field free ML's in my tac squads, as the open up transports with krak, then they get killy on the squad inside with frag. All for free...as cheap as it gets.

Ailaros wrote:I could not agree with this more. Our point of divergeance appears to be you favoring spending lots of points on relatively low-effectiveness guns, whereas I do not

Our point of divergence, the place which we disagree, is in the fact that you seem to be a huge fan of meltas. I like meltas as well, but I would be kidding myself if I thought I would be better off using ONLY melta. That is what I have gathered from your posts, which are getting more and more confusing.

What you have said so far has been convoluted for the most part, and lacking in substance. I like meltas as well, but they don't solve every problem; you need other types of ranged weaponry to fill in the gaps. If you don't feel that way, it is entirely up to you, it's your army and your game-time.

DarkHound wrote:I like Orks better as the AK-47's of 40k. Rugged, reliable, and able to fix any situation that requires the enemy dead. You can get an AK anywhere in the world (galaxy). Anyway, that's beside the point.

Sigged. Thank you very much.

Ailaros wrote:

Illumini wrote: Also, if the opponent is fully mechanized and shooty, and you can't crack those transports at range, then he will simply outshoot you.

With transports? I'm sorry if I'm not quaking with fear for the damage output of rhinos. The only transport that can do decent damage is a falcon, but that's a whole other metagame can of worms. With the exception of chimeras, everyone has to get out of their transports to shoot, which means that they're not outshooting me.

Or they're getting out of the transports, and I kill them. What's the problem?

Raiders

Wave Serpents

Razorbacks

Dual heavy weapon rhinos

I have a big problem with the last line of that quote.

-----------------------------------

As to the OP:

Do you have jump packing blood angels? or mechanized blood angels? That can be a big difference of advice.

Or drop podding/ foot slogging.

As for mechanized, razorbacks with medium-high strength weapons are a good choice. Assault cannons usually make transports cringe.

Jump packs, dual melta & melta bomb assault squads.