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I played my first game today with this list and lost by 1 point. I thought it'd do well, but I had a lot of difficulty against the opponent, but perhaps his list was an unusual/rare type? Any pointers would be awesome.

CCS
-x1 Lascannon
-Master of Ordnance (this guy did the most damage)

PCS
-x4 Flamers
-Chimera

VETs
-x3 Meltagun
-Chimera

IS
-x1 Lascannon

IS
-x1 Lascannon

HWS
-x3 Lascannon

HWS
-x3 Autocannon

HWS
-x3 Autocannon

2 Scout Sentinels
-x2 Autocannon




So I'm trying to differentiate between whether my build itself is weak or it's weak against a specific scenario/opponent/situation or I just don't know how to handle it.

In this case, my opponent had 3 Leman Russ Battle Tanks, all with heavy bolters and lascannons. I would've assumed all my lascannons would do a good job against them, but due to the terrain setup (and the fact that I deployed first, so he had knew where to position things) all of them were behind cover a vast majority of the time. The rest of his forces were a mix of infantry with vets, and some meltas and plasmas scattered throughout.

Another huge issue was that a good 1/3 of my forces were deployed on the other side of the map. There were 3 objectives there, so my assumption was that he'd try to go in and take them, letting my forces sit back and shoot them up. However, he simply deployed all his forces on the opposite end, outgunning my remaining 2/3 and forcing my very slow HWSs and ISs to run around trying to flank.

Surprisingly, the 30 point Master of Ordnance did the most damage to the enemy, simply because he didn't require line of sight. I was very surprised at how massively terrain played a part in this game. Should i reconsider this list (being that it's mainly made to stay stationary) or do you guys have some coaching tips on how I could better handle my men next time?

Maybe you should have pulled back the 2/3 forces to stay with your original plan, but that wouldn't be the 'nature of war.'

This build would probably do well against Orks or 'Nids, but what about Blood Angels or other MEQ with their Drop Pods?

More Plasmas I think...

Yes, against SM I was thinking of replacing the Demolisher and two Scout Sentinels with an Executioner with Plasma sponsons.

What did you mean by "not the nature of war"?

I heard many times how your original plan will never stay intact, what with random terrain and such.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Demolishers are actually better know, with more Termies being used... I see the Executioner as a viable option now. Thanks actually. Maybe because the MoO worked well, Basilisks would do well. Something to consider.

Yeah, a butt-ton of basilisks sounded like lots of fun, but that'd add a couple hundred dollars to my cost. :(

Yeah, it would lol. Today I'm picking up the 6th ed rulebook and
trying to get one infantry squad. Still expensive.

Going to use extra WHFB state troops for CCS. Farming bitz now.

If you are wondering how you can break apart his Leman Russ formation, and you find that your Las Cannons aren't working out for you, here are some options.

First, adding a Lord Commissar to your list will give you a nifty leadership 10 bubble. This is useful for bringing those HWS to heel, since it not only makes them less likely to break after taking some casualties, it also makes them more likely to pass orders, and BiD or FoMT are really nice when trying to shoot up enemy tanks. That said I don't actually like HWS. I find that they are incredibly susceptible to strength 6+ fire, and that they go down way to easily for my tastes. I always try to stick my Heavy Weapon Teams into Infantry Squads, or Veteran Squads, where the ablative wounds make it harder for my opponent to silence my guns.

5 Storm Troopers with 2 Melta Guns. Take the doctrine that lets you re-roll your deep strike, and slip in close to those russes and blow em to bits. Very nice for a precision strike.

Vendettas. You can put your Melta Gun Veterans in them, zooming Vendettas can't be hit by blast templates of the russes when zooming, and if he doesn't have any birds of his own, or Hydras or Forts he will have a hell of a time dealing with them. They can drop melta vets right into his tank formations and use their movement to deny cover with their 3 tl las cannons.

Manticores. d3 s10 ordinance large blasts. With the buff to blast weapons you can even afford to scatter a little bit and still peg those pesky Russes with the full force of s10 on their side armor. Manticores are the best general artillery piece that the guard can bring to the table.

Hm? What is the buff?

Decio wrote:Hm? What is the buff?

in 5th edition, if the center of the blast marker was not over the hull of the enemy tank, the attack was resolved at half strength. Under 6th edition rules this restriction was removed. So if ANY part WHATSOEVER of that Large Blast from the Manticore is over ANY PART of the enemy tank. They are looking at taking a s10 ordinance hit. This increases the accuracy of Blast Weapons by a large margin against enemy tanks, and allows units like Manticores or demolisher cannons to hit multiple tanks at full power with their shooting.

Well one of my main questions is whether or not my enemy's build was, for 1000 pts, a relatively common build.

Should I anticipate having to take apart large, heavily armored tanks like that again, or is my list going to fair better against other opponent's, assuming they don't use a lot of LRBT?

The Storm Trooper squad sounded good. I was thinking during the entire game that deep striking a squad would be awesome there. What units should I remove to make room for those Troopers?

ArthurDubya wrote:Well one of my main questions is whether or not my enemy's build was, for 1000 pts, a relatively common build.

Should I anticipate having to take apart large, heavily armored tanks like that again, or is my list going to fair better against other opponent's, assuming they don't use a lot of LRBT?

In short by 1000 points you should anticipate everything. Whether its 3 Big Tanks, or over 50 Shoota Boyz hurtling towards your lines, or even a fleet of Eldar Skimmers dumping s6 death into your Heavy Weapon Squads (which left such a bad taste in my mouth that I stopped running HWS entirely...) Once you get up to 1000 points or so you need to be ready for anything! So it can be a good idea to shore up your weaknesses.

For instance, my 1000 point Imperial Guard army has a large focus on Lascannons and Auto Cannons for destroying enemy vehicles and medium-heavy infantry, I quickly noticed that I was having trouble against Ork and other light infantry hordes that came sweeping across the board- so I added a Griffon Heavy Mortar to help shore up that weakness with its accurate Large Blast of s6 ap4 death. At 1000 points I added a Vendetta and a Bastion with an Icarus Las Cannon to help counter enemy fliers.

What you need to do is figure out what your list is strong against, and focus on shoring up your weaknesses so that you can handle any enemy that tries to meet you in the field!