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After playing a few games against a friend recently, I've found myself looking at my Rhino's as, well, predictable.

With so many vehicle heavy lists, and transports being seen as pretty much mandatory, list's are becoming tailored to suit.

So, would taking vehicle free lists be such a bad idea? After a 1500 point battle, I realised at least 500 points of my opponents army would have been redundant if I had no vehicles at all.

My experiences may be totally different to those of others, after all, I've never faced SW longfang spam. But has anyone else thought at the end of a battle, "I wish I didn't bring those vehicles."

Play vs guard, or another army with easy access to pie plate ap3/2 weapons. Then you will l-o-v-e rhino's, with a passion. Predictable =\= the units fault.

Some armies can do it quite well. Pie-plate damage can be mitigated by spreading out, using cover, and prioritizing the pie-plate units as high value targets.

Some armies use the no-(or very few) vehicle strategy better than others. Powerful or at least reasonably competitive armies I've encountered with no or minimal vehicles, in no particular order:

1) IG footslogging blob horde backed up by Straken and comissars to make it good in assault as well.
2) Ork horde (usually with bikers and/or nob bikers + Snikrot to add more ability to threaten across the table).
3) Genestealer horde or mixed Tyranids.
4) Blood Angel assault marines with Devastators for fire support.
5) Deathwing.
6) Space Wolf Wolfguard with Logan to make them Troops. Every squad can be led by a dude in terminator armor with a cyclone. Depending on points size you can include long fangs for additional fire support, and lone wolves and/or thunderwolf cav for assaultiness.
7) Foot-dar!

Seriously?

Foot-dar?

Probably the best four are

IG - Al'rahem 50-man blob and plenty of AT in SW teams
BT - Forgot these guys? A BT command squad with attached Marshal and Chaplain outflanking
Deathwing - Goes without saying
Blood Angels - DoA

special mention - Tau can do it with outflanking Kroot backed up by plenty of Crisis suits etc.

I actually think that foot lists can make a comeback in the current state of the game. High kill points has become the norm and even with NoVa style missions, having substantially less KP than your opponent can be a powerful tool. Some things foot lists have to have:

1. Lots of troop choices
2. Some way to deal with range
3. Some way to deal with speed
4. A competent general

Play vs guard, or another army with easy access to pie plate ap3/2 weapons. Then you will l-o-v-e rhino's, with a passion. Predictable =\= the units fault.

These aren't actually all that common, especially in guard. Sure, you will see pie plates, but mostly from Manticores (ap 4). Also, pie plates might actually be less bad for foot lists. Normally, things like the Manticore make their money by landing lots of hits on bunched up troops (usually after a vehicle explosion or disembarkation). With a foot list, there is a strong incentive to spread the maximum 2" when facing these lists and thus never face the true wraith of pie plates.

1) IG footslogging blob horde backed up by Straken and comissars to make it good in assault as well.
2) Ork horde (usually with bikers and/or nob bikers + Snikrot to add more ability to threaten across the table).
3) Genestealer horde or mixed Tyranids.
4) Blood Angel assault marines with Devastators for fire support.
5) Deathwing.
6) Space Wolf Wolfguard with Logan to make them Troops. Every squad can be led by a dude in terminator armor with a cyclone. Depending on points size you can include long fangs for additional fire support, and lone wolves and/or thunderwolf cav for assaultiness.
7) Foot-dar!

I think these can all work. Don't forget Daemons. Also, GK can do foot very well (GK doing something really well...shocker, right? )

This has been discussed to death.

Two-thirds of missions are objectives, and foot slogging sucks. Most units in the game are move or shoot, so moving towards an objective means you do no damage while taking your time to get there. That's if you get there.

Foot units are weak to a large variety of powerful strategies that are easily countered (if temporarily) with a transport. Lash, psyker battle squads, that space wolf power, fear of the darkness, etc etc.

Lastly, foot doesn't really work unless you go ALL foot. Since there are timelimits in tourneys, there is a natural disadvantage to taking a foot list. Infantry take longer to deploy, longer to move, and longer to resolve shooting results both for and against.

Also, imo, firepower has ramped up since the days of 3rd and 4th ed. Remember Eldar? 9 Oblit chaos? Those were the power armies in 4th. Those armies can't hold a candle to the firepower of today's builds. That's only further skewed builds to mech.

Lastly, the effectiveness of foot infantry is often dependent on outside variables, such as terrain or reserve rolls, etc. Imagine playing foot marines vs. imperial guard and there is no terrain to hide behind. What are you going to do? Walk across? You'll be gone by turn 2.

Mannahnin wrote:Some armies can do it quite well. Pie-plate damage can be mitigated by spreading out, using cover, and prioritizing the pie-plate units as high value targets.

Some armies use the no-(or very few) vehicle strategy better than others. Powerful or at least reasonably competitive armies I've encountered with no or minimal vehicles, in no particular order:

1) IG footslogging blob horde backed up by Straken and comissars to make it good in assault as well.
2) Ork horde (usually with bikers and/or nob bikers + Snikrot to add more ability to threaten across the table).
3) Genestealer horde or mixed Tyranids.
4) Blood Angel assault marines with Devastators for fire support.
5) Deathwing.
6) Space Wolf Wolfguard with Logan to make them Troops. Every squad can be led by a dude in terminator armor with a cyclone. Depending on points size you can include long fangs for additional fire support, and lone wolves and/or thunderwolf cav for assaultiness.
7) Foot-dar!

But cover has no effect against template weapons. (I know, if you really want to argue, one or two guys who are obscured by rocks or tree trunks from the center point of the template might get a save, but in my experience that leads to so much arguing about exactly where the models are and where the center point of the template is that a 1,500 point game drags into four hours.)

scuddman wrote:Two-thirds of missions are objectives, and foot slogging sucks. Most units in the game are move or shoot, so moving towards an objective means you do no damage while taking your time to get there. That's if you get there.

1. You just need to hold more objectives than your opponent does. Given the rules for placing objectives in the rulebook, generally at least one objective you won't need to move at all to hold, and 2/3 more will be within a turn or two's movement to reach, particularly when you factor in Running.
2. It's not a coincidence that most of the units/armies I listed have move & shoot capabilities. The BA devs (who are cheap), the IG heavies, and the SW long fangs are the non move & shoot elements in the seven armies I mentioned. Each represents a small enough percentage of the army in question's points/power that they're not crippled by Dawn of War, which is certainly a bigger factor than Objectives.

scuddman wrote:Lastly, foot doesn't really work unless you go ALL foot. Since there are timelimits in tourneys, there is a natural disadvantage to taking a foot list. Infantry take longer to deploy, longer to move, and longer to resolve shooting results both for and against.

This is a better point. You do need to be practiced with the army and use techniques (like keeping your dice batched, and your units clearly marked) to help you play faster. That said, running out of time isn't always a drawback in terms of winning. If you;re sitting on most of the objectives by turn two or three, and your opponent doesn't have enough time to kick your horde off the objectives he needs to, then you win.

scuddman wrote:Lastly, the effectiveness of foot infantry is often dependent on outside variables, such as terrain or reserve rolls, etc. Imagine playing foot marines vs. imperial guard and there is no terrain to hide behind. What are you going to do? Walk across? You'll be gone by turn 2.

No terrain = no game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

warpcrafter wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Some armies can do it quite well. Pie-plate damage can be mitigated by spreading out, using cover, and prioritizing the pie-plate units as high value targets.

But cover has no effect against template weapons. (I know, if you really want to argue, one or two guys who are obscured by rocks or tree trunks from the center point of the template might get a save, but in my experience that leads to so much arguing about exactly where the models are and where the center point of the template is that a 1,500 point game drags into four hours.)

Within the 40k rules, "template" = the teardrop-shaped thing used for flamers. Pie plate = large blast marker. Cover works fine against blast markers and large blast markers. Cover is only determined from the center on blasts from Barrage weapons. And you can usually get cover from them too, especially using area terrain.

Hey Mannahnin,
Are you still running that hybrid Chaos army you were using to great effect up at the Bangor Maine, second round 2 years back? Just curious, that was one hell of a smorgasbord list if i've ever seen one but it worked well. I was the one playing mech eldar that came in 2nd. You like me probably can't wait to get new books next year, tough seeing eldar get out psykered and chaos being out assaulted by grey knights... that will change in time.

Yes, I'm mostly still running that same sort of hybrid chaos, and it's still doing pretty well (though I got knocked out of advancing out of AB Prelim this year by getting drowned in terminators which just wouldn't fail enough 3+ saves). I am in the middle of building a Blood Angels army as well, though. Hybrid, again.

If you're tired of mechanized games (many people like it, cause they love tanks) you can still agree with your opponent and set up a campaign (or single table) that favors footslogging. It might be the terrain, it might be special rules... just whatever you like.

Aside from that I agree that in a mech-heavy environment only the above mentioned armies will be competitive against vehicle armies.

You just need to hold more objectives than your opponent does. Given the rules for placing objectives in the rulebook, generally at least one objective you won't need to move at all to hold, and 2/3 more will be within a turn or two's movement to reach

Yes! Totally! I'm glad at least one other person sees that. Hold two, contest two and you win the 1 game in 9 that has 5 objectives. And in 4 objectives, you just need to hold 2 and contest 1.

Capture and Control is tricky with a foot list, granted, as your opponent will likely place his quite near his edge. But you should get a draw at worst.

But foot lists with Fleet, Infiltrate and/or Scout can have a little edge in objective games too.

There are one of two approaches to take with a foot army.

Shooting Army
Your goal is to put the majority of your army down and then just fire. IG do this very well. You can also do a similar thing with orks through the use of 45 lootas and shootas. Another shooting army (that I use) is C:SM bikes. This is a very mobile shooting footslogging army.

Assault Army
Running across the board is not as bad as people might lead you to think. You start off 24" away from the other player in 2/3 of the games. Running, the average unit will love 9.5". With a 6" assault, its very possible to be in the other deployment zone on turn 3. If your orks and can waaagh, then you can be on them on turn 2. Orks also can use a nob bike squad to soak up a lot of attention helping their footsloggers get to the fight.

Overall Suggestions
- You need movement trays to be effective. I was playing an IG player at 'ard boys who brought over 200 IG on foot. He created movement trays with 2" between each model in the blob. This allowed for him to put his models on the table quickly -- one of the most time intensive aspects of setting up 200+ models.

- One of the strategies of massive horde armies is to blob over the objectives and slowly spread across the board. It makes it hard for 'fast armies' to maneuver when there is less room on the board.

If your running a footslogging army, make sure you flood the field with targets, don't just ball up into two big units. You die that way. And remember to stick to cover.

I footslog my marines and I do just fine. i use no transports, and my tac squads make it across the board every game. You just have to be willing to not shoot. Leave that for devs, vindiators, dreadnaughts, etc.

I love footslogging. Nothing is more satisifying then saying to my opponent, Wow such a big railgun/autocannon, whatever. You killed one whole Guardian.

If you see some of Ailaros' Blood Conqueror series of battle reports of his Foleran 1st regiment, you see some whup-ass in the form of foot slogging, even with enemy pie plate death.

juraigamer wrote:If your running a footslogging army, make sure you flood the field with targets, don't just ball up into two big units. You die that way. And remember to stick to cover.

I ran a ork horde army during 2009-2010, and during that time I learned a trick to help give cover.

................(The Enemy).........................

.....ggggggggggggggggggggggg......
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO.......................
......................OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

g = grots
O = Ork squad 1
O = Ork squad 2

The idea is to congo-line the unit across the board. Your grots are the first squad thats not in cover. The ork squad O gets cover from the grots. Ork squad O gets cover from ork squad O. This same concept works with pure orks too, the trick is to make sure that your front squad has over 50% of its models in cover.

Actuly the Eldar can do the same thing whith Harlequins scince they cant be shot att.

Mannahnin wrote:That said, running out of time isn't always a drawback in terms of winning. If you;re sitting on most of the objectives by turn two or three, and your opponent doesn't have enough time to kick your horde off the objectives he needs to, then you win.

That's cheating in my opinion. I know you said it in the context of giving tips on how to play faster, but it should be discouraged so thoroughly why even bring it up?


I disagree with people who say all foot or all mech. Every army is so different and local metas are so different it just depends. I think 9/10 what people think is good is based on what is effective against the best player in the areas preferred army.

But I do think for most armies a rhino or some sort of transport is HIGHLY desirable. 12” is MUCH better than 6+D6. Plus twelve, unloading and shooting adds a huge threat range to your units. And a 35 pt rhinos adds SOOO much more survivability to unit than spending those 35pts on two more marines.

Usually the biggest reason to have a strong foot element is to throw a wrench into the meta, which can be extremely valuable. But for most books models + transport is just plain better than models on the ground.

I run my Grey knights all footslogging. I'm just tired of tanks, so when I started GK I decided to avoid all vehicles for a while (I'm sure I'll get some eventually as my army grows). 60-70 Power armor GKs is just hard for opponents to deal with and is a threat to everything, especially nice when their expensive anti-tank weaponry has no good targets. A Grand Master or two with skulls brings flexibility to the list and makes it good for all missions, and a mix of Strikes, Interceptors, and Purifiers has all the firepower and CC ability I've needed. Drives DoA and Pod armies nuts too.

Its not an 'easy' army to run, because the tactics with it can vary so wildly it does take insight and experience to know what to use, and when. But seeing opponents try to figure out how to play against horde GKs is kinda funny.

I love my footslogging Orks. They have worked very well for me.

I run them with nob bikers and snikrot, lootas, lobbas and shoota boys. For 'ard boys I added in a unit of koptas

2500pts of orks. 12 killpoints.

I find time really isn't an issue, even with 170 models on the table only one game stopped at turn 5, the other 2 finished fully.

I too have been playing more a foot slog Ork army lately. Originally I was meched up in trukks and BWs but not so much anymore. I really seem to like have just too many bodies for my opponent to do anything with. And Ive got enough rokkits/pks/lootas in my builds that I dont really worry about armor, AV14 is really the only thing I cant handle well enough with my current builds, but thats not a huge suprise to Orks anyways. Im building Kans (blog if your interested) so those will help out big time for that, but like most Orky generals, I tend to ignore more LR and the like anyways.

GK is a natural foot army if you want it to be. Paladins anyone?

Or take 15 TH/SS BA Terminators each with a FNP Priest attached. Great fun without massive hordes to move around.

I play Tyranids. I have to footslog.

NeutronPoison wrote:I play Tyranids. I have to footslog.

Well...you could drop pod/DS a good portion of your army

Though its not the most reliable route I suppose

Most/all of the time, space marine and there varients are not good for footslogging.
Orks, and IG are fine at footslogging, but this is because the troops are so cheap you will be spending a big percent of your points on the transports themselves!

After playing a few games against a friend recently, I've found myself looking at my Rhino's as, well, predictable.
With so many vehicle heavy lists, and transports being seen as pretty much mandatory, list's are becoming tailored to suit.
So, would taking vehicle free lists be such a bad idea? After a 1500 point battle, I realised at least 500 points of my opponents army would have been redundant if I had no vehicles at all.
My experiences may be totally different to those of others, after all, I've never faced SW longfang spam. But has anyone else thought at the end of a battle, "I wish I didn't bring those vehicles."

I believe that you should accustom your army to whatever you think. If, after playing a few games with vehicles you think they are overated don't get vehicles. If you get powdered because your 500 point squad made it halfway across the board before being obliterated by a thunderfire cannon, maybe you need vehicles.

Ork Kan Wall... nuff said.

No seriously, its pure fun, and feels epic without the model count going to the obscene amounts.

I run 2 KFF Meks, 90 footslogging boys(both shootas and sluggas), around 16 Lootas, and 9 Kans and sometimes a deffdread. If I have points, I add deffkoptas, Kommandos, and fun units like that.
Its a walking geen horde with 4+ saves, decent shooting(my Kans have Kustom Mega Blastas for termies), and full on epicness. And it plays like nothing else out there.

That being said, you DO need to optimise your playing to cut down on time. If its an informal game, maybe roll for running at moment and do it at the same time. Or do what I do, when you are not gonna shoot, just move the first line of orks, and then finish moving the rest of the boys after you done shooting etc, while your opponent is moving.

Actually, 3 of my 4 armies are footslogging. The other is daemons, where is does not matter, and Grey Knights, where it IS actually feasible, since I am running a Dreagowing and want to maximise psycannon shooting.

Wildstorm wrote:GK is a natural foot army if you want it to be. Paladins anyone?

Or take 15 TH/SS BA Terminators each with a FNP Priest attached. Great fun without massive hordes to move around.

You don't need Paladins to make a footslogging GK list. I was considering running this for Ard Boyz Semis:

Grand Master
-Psycannon and Sword
-3x Servo Skulls
-Rad Grenades
-Blind Grenades

Vindicare

Purifier Squad x10
-3x Psycannons
-5x Halberds
-1x Sword (KotF)
-1x Daemonhammer

Terminator Squad
-1x Psycannon and Sword
-2x Halberd
-1x Daemonhammer
-1x Sword

Strike Squad x10
-2x Psycannons
-Psybolt Ammo

Strike Squad x10
-2x Psycannons
-Psybolt Ammo

Strike Squad x10
-2x Psycannons
-Psybolt Ammo
Strike Squad x10
-2x Psycannons
-Psybolt Ammo

Interceptor Squad x10
-2x Incinerator
-Psybolt Ammo

Interceptor Squad x10
-2x Incinerator
-Psybolt Ammo


(I might drop the terminators entirely for a 7-man unit of purgation squad with 4x psycannons, or also drop the psycannon on the grand master and turn the terminators into another Strike Squad so that I can run all PAGK). My GM goes with the Purifiers, in an objective game I have a minimum of 5 scoring units with Grand Strategy, and with deep strike and jump/shunting, I can get anywhere pretty quickly (psychic communion helps with that too). I probably won't run this since I don't own the models, but it seems like it might do alright.