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Ive been having a horrible losing streak against my brothers ork army. He mainly runs the same units almost every game, they consist of...

His list


Ive been trying to counter it by taking down the battle wagons first to stop the flood of green, however that is seeming to pose a lot of problems. This is the following list I used last night... is posed no treat to him, he was on top of me by turn two...

My list


I rushed up next the battle wagons with both veteran melta squads, both out of range , then i got a hit on bother wagons with the vanquishers... he rolled weapon destroyed on both penetrating results... again. I basically died on round two.I Feel my list is just lacking something, at this point I own every vehicle model blah blah except Valkyries, which is my next purchase. The point of all of this is could you guys help me write up a competitive list against his

So...you had one game...and you already think your list is crap?

Mate, the game doesn't work like that. In order to determine if a list is crap, you have to play several games. It sounds like you just had bad luck from your short report.
Your list seems fine to me; you should have enough long ranged guns to down his vehicles. Just aim for the battlewagons and the nobs first, and then go for the stragglers.

If you want though, you could try making one or two of your LRBT into eradicators (I think those are the anti-cover ones). They should be absolute murder against orks, especially bikers, since they will wound them on a 2+ (3+ against bikes), ignore their armor AND cover.

Get a Leman Russ Demolisher. Wait till the get close, which they will. Melta the vehicles, and shoot the clusters of infantry with Battle Cannons. Save the Demolisher.untill the Warboss is footslogging. Then blast him and da Nobz with the Demo. 2+ to kill.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Everything else can focus on the bikers. Once the Stormboys turn up, hopefully you can target them with a Battle cannon if they deep strike,.or mass Lasgun fire with FRFSRF to finish.

Vanquishers aren't terribly good. They're very expensive, and only hit half the time. You also don't have anywhere near enough bodies in your army. Even though you're not doing platoon Guard, you should have at least one more veteran squad.

If you want to tailor against Orks a bit, a Leman Russ Eradicator is a good bet. They're only strength 6 AP4, but they ignore cover saves. This would ace the bikers and kill any Orks who get out of cover.

You're seriously lacking reliable long range anti-tank firepower, as Vanquishers lack the rate of fire to make up for their inaccuracy. Look into Hydras or the Leman Russ Exterminator, which is the autocannon variant.

Consider a Vendetta or 2.

They are much faster then a Chimera, and because of Scout moves, if you can go first you can ace his battle wagons before he even gets a chance to move- especially since it doesn't look like they have custom force field protection. Basically you can turbo boost 24 inches in the scout move phase- as long as you end 18.01 inches away from your opponent. Then move 12 inches in your turn, and use the 2 inch disembark to get within the 6 inch melta range- on his side armor. Or if you don't want to play so aggressively get your Birds into the side ark of his tanks and blast him apart with your 3 tl las cannons!


The Manticore is also a great option for messing up his day. s10 ordinance, ap4, and multiple large blasts. Its a gun that can chew through battlewagons, and hordes of Orks with equal impunity. The fact that it can only fire 4 times likely won't be an issue.

Brother SRM wrote:Vanquishers aren't terribly good. They're very expensive, and only hit half the time.

At five points more than a standard Russ, the Vanquisher brings an AV14 Strength 8, +2d6 Armor Pen. It's a dedicated AV14 Hunter, and fielding one or two in a squadron is far more reliable than waiting for those 6's from your Las Cannons. And fielding one or two isn't a bad choice.

It's his squadroning that could be shuffled.

You're seriously lacking reliable long range anti-tank firepower, as Vanquishers lack the rate of fire to make up for their inaccuracy. Look into Hydras or the Leman Russ Exterminator, which is the autocannon variant.

Those cannot down AV13-14 reliably. If he squadroned the two together, he wouldn't be wasting a Strength 8 Large Blast on a vehicle.


The downside of his list is that he's playing against Power Klaws, something that easily shreds any Russ Variant to pieces, especially if the Wagon's are equipped with Boardin' Planks. The Bikes are a little nastier to deal with due to their cover saves from moving flat out, so I'd trade in a Russ for a pair of hydras to counter that, and drop another russ for another squad of Veterans in a Chimera, so he's got a little more meat in the sandwhich.

You have far too many tanks. Never squadron Russes unless you're at very high points levels.
I play mech vets myself, and I have played against orks, so I would recomment scrapping ALL those Russes, maybe keep one if you like.
Your meltavets will waste his tanks close up so you don't really need any vehicle AT, especially with the ork's lack of long-range tanks.You want things that can take out the nobs (Hence why you want 2 or 3 manticores) and the boyz (1 or 2 hellhounds, maybe an Armoured Sentinal with Heavy Flamer).

KplKeegan wrote:
It's his squadroning that could be shuffled.

What would be a better way to match up the tanks? I do feel this list could work, however it defiantly does need a little tweaking. I really like the idea about hydras and Novas cannons.

Thank you all for the help. I will report back with a second round of results, i challenged him to a rematch with his same list again.

eyebone wrote:

KplKeegan wrote:
It's his squadroning that could be shuffled.

What would be a better way to match up the tanks? I do feel this list could work, however it defiantly does need a little tweaking. I really like the idea about hydras and Novas cannons.

Vanquishers are a dedicated tank-hunter and Standard Leman Russes are built for anti-infnatry and anti-heavy infantry, so the two don't synch up weapon wise.

If you want good synergy with a variety of tanks, they need to perform well in a similar task, because the entire squadron is shooting at a single target.

KplKeegan wrote:
The downside of his list is that he's playing against Power Klaws, something that easily shreds any Russ Variant to pieces, especially if the Wagon's are equipped with Boardin' Planks. The Bikes are a little nastier to deal with due to their cover saves from moving flat out, so I'd trade in a Russ for a pair of hydras to counter that, and drop another russ for another squad of Veterans in a Chimera, so he's got a little more meat in the sandwhich.

I'm still not onboard for Vanquishers (especially since a KFF or a decent amount of cover will reduce their effectiveness greatly) but your argument definitely beats mine. Good advice!

KplKeegan wrote:It's a dedicated AV14 Hunter

Yeah, but not a good one. I agree that the OP could make things a little easier on himself by dropping these in favor of other stuff to take down AV14.

Testify wrote:You have far too many tanks. Never squadron Russes unless you're at very high points levels.

The problem here isn't the squadrons, the problem is the russes. I'd agree, though, that you've got too many for this points value. It makes it so that you don't have enough stuff to protect the russes from close-range killing power (like klaws in assault).

CthuluIsSpy wrote:So...you had one game...and you already think your list is crap?

Mate, the game doesn't work like that.

Also this. Don't make serious list decisions based on your personal experience until you've got a lot of experience (like 10-20 games with a single list with only minor changes).

As far as not sucking in general, I'd start by figuring out a way to get more anti-AV14 shots in. Spending all those points for BS3, non-Ap1 vanquishers is your list's current black hole. If there's any way you can drop them so that you can field more melta (either in the form of vets or stormies), or more lascannons, you'll probably be better off. Likewise, the overall quality of your list would probably improve if you dropped some of the russes so that you could just get more stuff in. Your opponent's list is going to be good against a list that only has a few, expensive units (like yours), but if you broke apart those few expensive units into lots of cheaper units, you'd have more durability (through numbers), and more killing power.

Also, try to get your Lascannon's to get shots onto the side armor of a battlewagon. at AV 12 they will not last long.

Also, as others have said, 6 Leman russ tanks are probably 3 or 4 too many.

Though if you are going to keep this setup, use your lascannons to pop the BW's and trukk and then melt the squishies with the main battlecannons after the orks have disembarked.

Wait a minute...how many points are you running?

It's looking to me like you have at least a couple of hundred more points of stuff to the Ork player...

One game is not enough of a sample to declare your army sucks or that you suck. Dice rolls can swing games as well as terrain, tactics, forgotten rules, mis-interpited rules, etc...

First ensure you are playing the same points level. If he has even as little as 5 points over you, it may swing things into his favor.

Second make sure your table has 25% terrain with a good amount of LOS blocking.

Lastly, play more games!!! If you are getting curbed stomped after few games still then look at you list, tactics, and strategies.

Trust me 40k is not one of those games you play one time and have it down pat. Even after playing for 5 years I still learn from every battle.

Just let the orks assault a vehicle or two and then when they kill it, just blow his guys to pieces. Spread your army out.

marv335 wrote:It's looking to me like you have at least a couple of hundred more points of stuff to the Ork player...

We are both running at 1540, I don't have his exact list in my hands it was more of a rough of what he played.

One thing is I am not entirely sure if were playing enough scenery. I'm going to snap a picture tomorrow please let me know what everybody thinks about the layout.

I wont give up and will try to re-run this list and see the second results. I defiantly need to keep in mind keeping my russes further apart so my entire squadron is not in cc range. Thank you all for the advice is has been very helpful.

Please if you guys could let me know if this does qualify as roughly 25% coverage. Ive been confused about that portion still

Sorry for the crappy pic only have my camera phone at this moment.

No.

Take a tape measure and "cut" the board in half.
Line that measure with dice, then use the tape measure to "cut" the board in half the other way - you now have 4 quarters.

If the terrain you have can fill one entire quarter that's enough terrain for 25%. I'd bet that's around 15-20%.
And remember - 25% is the minimum. I like closer to 30% but that's just me.

Wow that is not much terrain, I would love to play on a board like that with my Blood Angels.

My tyranid friend would hate it.

Do the 4 quarters thing Rigeld said, that is how we do terrain usually.

we also usually have 12 pieces of terrain, each roughly 9" by 8". and we usually have a few LoS blocking pieces and a few partial LoS blocking pieces.

That's like 10% coverage at best. If you pile all the terrain into a corner of the table, it should take up a quarter of it. That's 25% coverage. Here's a picture from one of my battle reports of a table with good terrain coverage:

Yeah mate, that table is empty. Stick some cardboard building or something on there.

That terrain should gaurentee a win as Imperial Guard anyway.
The main problem is your list. You have most of your points invested in useless tanks.

So...empty... How are guard losing to orks on this table?

But about the terrain. One thing to also keep in mind is you want various types of terrain too. You have 6 pieces of terrain on that table with half of them being craters. You should try and add things like hills, trees, buildings instead of just ruins, towers, sand bags. You want to have a mixture of terrain so that different situations can come up.

As for helping you "not suck" that is something that just has to be learned over time as you figure out the various ins and outs of your army. But I will give one piece of advice. Just from taking a few of your sentences I see an issue.

"he was on top of me by turn two"
and
"I rushed up next the battle wagons with both veteran melta squads"

You are playing guard while fighting orks. You should have two guaranteed shooting phases with all of your long range weaponry. Your melta vets shouldn't be rushing anything. They should play line defense. You get a turn to fire into him see his movement and then have them adjust to be where they will be needed over the next two turns.

You want to let him come to you. Once turn two-three comes around then your vets can pop whatever vehicle made it to your lines.

eyebone wrote:
I rushed up next the battle wagons with both veteran melta squads, both out of range , then i got a hit on bother wagons with the vanquishers... he rolled weapon destroyed on both penetrating results... again. I basically died on round two.I Feel my list is just lacking something, at this point I own every vehicle model blah blah except Valkyries, which is my next purchase. The point of all of this is could you guys help me write up a competitive list against his

Well, I can see one problem, you rushed to get close to orks. Your scoring units got rushed in and were probably clobbered easily. The only things in a guard army that can reliably stand up to assault are "power blob" platoons and ogryn, two things which you currently don't have. In which case, you want to stay as far away as possible, since getting close is exactly what he wants you to do.

Also, I'm not sure if vanquishers are a good idea for your list, as you have 1 vanquisher and 1 LRBT in 2 squads. You're firing two very different weapons at the same target, so no matter what, odds are you're wasting a shot. I would make the vanquishers all normal battle tanks, so you have three 2 vanilla russ squadrons. Then, I'd put a lascannon on every russ. It'll get you more reliable antitanks, and you'll still be able to handle hordes. To be honest, once you do that tiny tweak, I think your brother will be in serious trouble, because that list won't just stomp orks, it'll crush just about whatever it goes up against (what I"m trying to say is it'd be a more decent TAC list)

EDIT: Read the rest of the thread after I posted this. 6 tanks seems like a little overkill at roughly 1500pts. I probably wouldn't run any more than 3 max at that level. There's just more important things you need to get first like troops and maybe something like vendettas to help you get some mobility on the table.

If you want to stop sucking, then stop sucking, and start blowing.