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Playing against my regular BA opponant, last few battles have seen descent of angels, with 4/5 jump pack squads, death company, sanguiney guards etc, all deep striking turn 3.
Thus far i've been successful thanks to unlucky opponant rolls stopping him deploying them all on turn 3.
Being IG I usually get a good volley on him, with Leman Russes and mass lasguns, but they're tough buggers and there's usually enough left on the board to charge me next turn.
Problem is, he's not ALWAYS going to get unlucky, so I need a more reassuring way of beating him. I'm thinking of ogryns with a priest, but that'd be a good candidate for the unit that can deepstrike THEN assault (I think sanguiney guards? Possibly a special charector).
My army list today way:
Platoon with three squads and commissar, fielded as blob
2 veteran squads with lascannons
2 leman russes, no upgrades
I was playing with eldar ally, hence no HQ, with 750 points each.

First, i'd load up on Plasma in the vet squads.

You could try spilting the blob up. give him a sacrificial squad to kill,
leaving him in the open to take alot of massed fire.

I would castle. Keep everything together with the infantry on the outside keeping his troops away from melting the russes and charging your vets.
If you can force them to try to land near scenery that is always going to be good.
Also make sure he plays the assault rules properly with him getting as much base to base contact as possible this limits the squads that can enter cc which dramatically limits the damage the army can do.

I guess you are struggling with FNP. Otherwise the angels will land in open enough terrain for you to have LOS and blast with lasguns. Lasguns will munch through a good number of marines, that number if halved however if they have FNP.

FNP is the reason for plasma guns more than the power armour or T4.

DoA always arrives in drips and they need to get close to you to attack so each turn you'll have your entire shooting at only a fraction of their army.

So for 750 points i'm thinking

CCS w/master of the fleet for orders and reserve malus-80
*3 plasma=45
power fist-15
total-140
edit-might it be worth swapping this for a Lord commissar to make sure my troops don't run away once they're shot at? It'd also give me a few more points to play with on the LR.
leman russ-150
veteran squad with 3*plasma guns-115*4=460

Keep veterans in a square with LR and CCS in middle, use the LR to deny them space to manouvre (and as a back-up in case he sees my list and decides not to deep strike), and use the plasmavets with FRFSRF or the re-roll cover saves order, to obliterate enemy troops.

I myself play DoA and guard is one of those matchups that can be great or can be really bad. As always with DoA a lot depends on the terrain, the mission and who gets the choice of first turn.

If the terrain is denser on one side, deffo go for that for yourself. DoA hate terrain as it can snipe important characters out of their groups by forcing Dangerous terrain tests. Not only that but if you land in terrain and then want to move you need to take more dangerous tests. Use terrain to your advantage when deploying, guard your flanks with it and watch your opponant struggle to place well.

Other things to note
1) In KP missions he can't combat squad. This makes his 10 man squads have a larger DS footprint and therefore more dangerous to land. He'll need more space and you can use this accordingly.

2) If he wins the dice roll he'll most likely take 2nd turn. This lets him minimise your shooting at him. However, there are things you can do about this.

Either reserve yourself (it's nasty for DoA to have to DS when there's no target to hit, it makes them sitting ducks for when you come on the board next turn)

Castle up. Leave non-DSable gaps between your units. Put your tanks in the middle, infantry on the outside and make him land awkwardly before shooting him a lot.

Spread out. In KP games he has to keep his combat squads together. This means he probably has 4-6 squads in total. If you spread your army out across the board (using your 1st and 2nd turn movement) you allow him plenty of landing space, but also lots of targets. Sang priests only give fnp to those within 6" of them, so if he's only got a two priests and you spread out, a hell of a lot of his guys won't have fnp. If he has lots of priests or lots of squads (for objective games) this doesn't work so well.



Alternatively. If you win the role you can make him go first or second. If one side has much better terrain for you to defend from, then just go and take it. Let him go second and play as above. Alternatively go second and then hold everything in reserve. With the reroll from reserves a DoA unit has a 75% chance of doing what the player wants (either turning up or not). However, even with this reroll it's unlikely he'll be able to keep his whole army off the board. If he has the first phase of the second turn then he'll be DSing onto the board without a target, which is very bad for him. If he just brings everything on as normal then they're be badly placed and when you turn up next turn you can drive on far away from his troops and shoot him. Alternatively he can try to keep his troops off the board which on average will force him to put a 25% of his army onto the board. This is just as bad as he has troops unsupported, with no target and ripe for the picking when you come on next turn.

3) If he DSs then you have lovely gathered up units for you to hit with pie plates.

4) Only Vanguard vets can assault from deep strike. And they are either REALLY expensive, or really quite mediocre.

5) Sang guard are good, but have no invulnerable saves.

6) He rolls for reserves turn 2, not turn 3. Nothing about BA says they can all come on turn 3.

7) It's always better to charge them than have them charge you. BA AM are only good on the charge. If you have a blob. Charge them, tie them up and then kill them with weight of attacks. Lasguns won't do as much as denying them mobility but making them kill 40 guardsman to do anything.

8) Pick the priests out in assault

9) Not sure if vet squads with lascannons are a good idea in any list, but I don't play guard so I don't know!


hope that helps

So try to play the terrain to my advantage?
Are tanks any use whatsoever? I don't like taking to the field without them, but it seems like they get one, if that, shot at the enemy before they charge.

Pie plates pie plates pie plates.

The turn they land the DoA angels are perfectly clustered to be wiped out by a single S8+ AP3- shot.

So bubble wrap your vehicles in infantry squads and make sure they can't get within 6" for the melta. Odds are vanishingly low that an 8+1d6 melta shot glances a Leman's front armor and blows up the battle cannon. And after that... Bang.

Take a look at these pictures and deployment descriptions for anti-deepstrike:

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2010/10/spacecurves-tactics-class-deployment.html

Which one you use depends on terrain and your opponent's army.

You should be able to use your infantry to screen your tanks on the drop and then for a turn or two after that. Move the tanks every turn (combat speed) to cut the number of assault hits he gets in half. The lumbering behemoth rule lets you move combat speed and still fire both the turret and the hull weapon.

lunarman wrote:Spread out. In KP games he has to keep his combat squads together. This means he probably has 4-6 squads in total. If you spread your army out across the board (using your 1st and 2nd turn movement) you allow him plenty of landing space, but also lots of targets. Sang priests only give fnp to those within 6" of them, so if he's only got a two priests and you spread out, a hell of a lot of his guys won't have fnp. If he has lots of priests or lots of squads (for objective games) this doesn't work so well.

Actually I have seen this lose people games. If you spread out you play to DoA strengths of mobility and against their weakness of concentration. If there are multiple sites to attack DoA has to attack each one with everything they have got, they can fly across and get another target later. If you leave a tank unguarded sure they'll try to land a squad separately to kill it off but after that the squad has earned its keep so it matters less that it will be left in the open.

Against DOA there are a lot of things to be aware of. He can only reroll failed reserve rolls. They only scatter D6 instead of 2D6. Vanguard vets will be sent against targets to tie them up or destroy them. Keep vehicles moving for this reason and spread them out to prevent multi assault. With 5 vv I got two rhinos and a storm raven in assault. They normally all have melta bombs.

Anti tank will be useless. Also take the side with no cover if you are against doa. Main reason? After assault he will consolidate into cover and get a save against you. He can walk out with out using the jump pack to a avoid dangerous terrain tests. You can maneuver your squads to debt him cover but you can move buildings he's hiding in or behind.

Also doa will not drop on his side. It will be about.getting close. Use out flankers to get into his side. Castle on two flanks and move the castles to prevent assaulting damage. His range us short but you don't know where her will be. Yours is long.

I would probably say tanks are bad. Assault them and the enemy gets to hit your rear armour, and seeing as they have Krak grenades, there is a alright chance to penetrate and do some damage.
The whole point of DoA lists is to catch the enemy unawares. However, simply staying inside ruins and things like that will provide a good defense.
DC may be tough, but normally they are quite few in numbers and anything that would ignore any armour save is going to take them down.