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Hi guys, I am fairly new to the world of Warhammer 40k and I thought you great peoples at DakkaDakka might be able to help me out. Recently, I was playing a 1500 point game with IG player with an aegis defense line(I was playing Dark Angels). He basically camped in the back corner for three turns with every single one of his troops, and blocking off the ends of the defense line with leman russes, and aptly destroying my two, 5 man squads of deathwing terminators and a 5 man squad of ravenwing bikers with said Russes. Unable to get my tactical squads onto any of the remaining objectives, he charged out of his line and took two objectives in one turn. Anyone have advice to deal with this sort of onslaught from a gun line army, I would love to hear the feedback. Thanks!

take the termes and deepstrike them with th/ss or claws close to them and go all out.
get some bikes with meltas and the landerspeeder with the meltas

they would have to divide there shots and lets face with termes and meltas heading there way...

but its kinda hard as you have to be more specfic on whats ur facing.

Unfortunately, 6th ed very heavily favors gunlines. If you, like myself, find them boring and awful to play against, and are thus unwilling to run a gunline yourself, then things are going to be tough.

Basically, there are two ways to beat the gunline nowadays. The first is to compete in their same league with long-range shooting, while also having your own stuff that can move up. The second is to have some sort of serious mobility to cut way down on the amount of space between your stuff and your opponent's.

The former is things like land raiders that can fire decent weapons while advancing. The latter is things like sternguard in drop pods. Every army has some amount of long-range and some amount of fast mobility. Just start focusing on those elements more, and you'll have an easier time of it.

GrimWhistle wrote:
Hi guys, I am fairly new to the world of Warhammer 40k and I thought you great peoples at DakkaDakka might be able to help me out. Recently, I was playing a 1500 point game with IG player with an aegis defense line(I was playing Dark Angels). He basically camped in the back corner for three turns with every single one of his troops, and blocking off the ends of the defense line with leman russes, and aptly destroying my two, 5 man squads of deathwing terminators and a 5 man squad of ravenwing bikers with said Russes. Unable to get my tactical squads onto any of the remaining objectives, he charged out of his line and took two objectives in one turn. Anyone have advice to deal with this sort of onslaught from a gun line army, I would love to hear the feedback. Thanks!

Drop Pod flamers, drop pod sternguard, more bikes to hit his lines, or (IMO your best option) a Whirlwind or two.

Since you're DA and don't have access to Stern/Vanguards what I've found to be effective against IG gunlines is investment in multiple RAS/RW Knights and Chainfists on your Termies.

Consider using a T2 DWA instead of turn 1. Turn 1 get your bikes in cover and turbo boost. Even if he's got is back to the table edge 36" of total movement in one turn should have you in position to drop the termies exactly where you want them. After that it comes down to target priority. You're only going to be shooting the turn they drop so pick your targets carefully. An Assault Cannon CAN drop a Russ even from front armor, but it's substantially easier if you can get to the side/rear. IG can tarpit you, but with a round of shooting you should be able to thin their numbers. If they don't charge you in their turn just rip them apart. If they do charge the termies should be fine, I keep a power sword on my Sgt so he fights at Init in challenges.

The whole idea behind this is that you get so close to his lines that shooting anything with a template has a reasonable chance of hitting his own guys. Gunlines require that you keep the enemy in front of you, with models packed that tight your opponent is giving up a lot of maneuverability, take advantage of this and make him regret bunching everything up

Hi guys,

I'm the guard player he faced, my list was composed of three blobs of 20 men led by commissars and all with plasma/Lascannons, 2nplatoon command, 1 company command with regimental and Lascannon, vendetta, pask punisher, executioner, and ADL.

As you can see I sat back and blew him apart, first time I used the ADL and this static of an army and was surprised at how effective it was. But I thought giving you guys an idea of what the table looked like and what he fought could help you counter it, because he's fairly new and I don't know anything about DA so I can't give him much advice.

deep strike some combat squadded units right next to his aeigis, you do risk losing one or two, but most will hit, or scatter in a way as to not die out right.

roll to RUN in shooting phase, if you do it right,

you now have a couple units at his aegis using it for cover, and close enough to not let him use it for cover (you BOTH might be close enough to deny the other person cover as well)


next turn assault him and wipe him out (or shoot him to death now that your close enough to negate cover)


this tactic works wonders with GK teleport shunts, not to mention they often forget I can shunt up and use their quad gun

barring that, deep stike and flank them, if they are all tied up in one corner they wont be able to bring the whole army over to one side right away, so you can deny most of their shooting that way.


so you either need MORE mobility, or need to utilize the mobility you have more effectively.

Im assuming you dont want to counter his gun line with a more gunny gun line of course, but that is also a decent (if boring) strat

one or two barrage weapons go a long way to ruining an AEGIS parking lot players day as well

 iheartlargeblasttemplates wrote:

As you can see, trying to get near that will result in a lot of deaths. However look at the displacement, barrage and flamers would tear those platoons a new one. Being that close to the edge means running squads means dead squads too.

 iheartlargeblasttemplates wrote:
Hi guys,

I'm the guard player he faced, my list was composed of three blobs of 20 men led by commissars and all with plasma/Lascannons, 2nplatoon command, 1 company command with regimental and Lascannon, vendetta, pask punisher, executioner, and ADL.

As you can see I sat back and blew him apart, first time I used the ADL and this static of an army and was surprised at how effective it was. But I thought giving you guys an idea of what the table looked like and what he fought could help you counter it, because he's fairly new and I don't know anything about DA so I can't give him much advice.

As a player who runs DA with bikes and termies the biggest thing I see there is the gap between your heavy weapons squads and your blobs. Not knowing the full list, but knowing he had two termies and one bike squad I'm not sure there's much he could have done against you in this situation. Personally I'd have minimum 6 bikes for 2 squads of three. Scout up to the center ruin, first turn gun it for the woods right in front of the ADL and hope to survive a round of shooting. Provided a bike survived I'd drop a five man termie squad in that gap (no scatter from the bike) and then there's five guys in your gut, for me it'd be an Assault Cannon into the Russ and SBs into a squad. Of course you may not have left that big of a gap, in that case I'd have pushed hard at your (IG) left flank, trying to get the termies in the side arc of the Russ.

The major response is get into close combat as soon as possible or use ignores cover/barrage long range anti infantry fire power.

Do not forget that both sides can and often do get cover saves from the aegis defense line. If you never got a cover save from it you were probably playing it wrong. The ADL is neutral and will work for anyone. Also keep in mind all those back squads on the hill should have been without cover as they are above the defense line and thus not obscured.

You as DA can do either option but you should probably focus on one.

(Dualwing) Ravenwing scout+6" deep strike Deathwing should get you within assault range as long as you deploy second. If you deploy first split the ravenwing into two small squads and deploy them at each side of the board in ~6" this will force the enemy to deploy close to one and allow you to go back into scout+deep strike plan. Make sure you bring enough deathwing to survive the fire storm and I would recommend at least 2 storm shield termies in each squad that will attempt this. Even if only 2 squads of 2 terminators survive you will completely wreck his gunline deployment.

(Greenwing) Tougher option but you can take the cheapest whirlwind in the game. This is the game where that unit is actually really good and will wreck his gunline as barrage LoS is from the blast template hole so you often ignore his fancy defense line. Drop pods and land raiders are you friends.

(Deathwing) just ouch, this is tough and you really should play dualwing until you are really good at deep strike placement and have a solid grasp on cover movement and overall tactics of this army. Not forgiving

(Ravenwing) Actually with black knights this can be a pretty good match up turbo boost up to point blank range and weather the hail of fire then charge every squad you can. On your opponents assault phase hit and run out of combat and charge again. Feel free to ignore the leman russ tanks until you have broken his gunline.

It would help if you post exactly what you have to work with and iheartlargeblasttemplates be nice and don't change to a SW/IG list next game...or do and make your friend cry.

Heres the list I was playing with, to be honest i didn't quite utilize it very well.

Hq: Azrael- 215

Hq: Librarian 65

Troop: Two 10-man Tactical Squads 280
-2 flamers 10
-lascannon 20
-plasmacannon 15

Elite: Two Deathwing Terminator Squads 440
-chainfist 5
-2 Assault cannons 40
-Storm Sheild with Thunderhammer 5

Elite: Command Squad 100
Apothecary- 15
Champion-15
Three Storm Bolters-9

Fast Attack: 5-man Ravenwing Squad(I only had 5 models) 134
-2 flamers 10

Fast Attack: 5-man Assault Squad 85
-2 flamers 10

Heavy Support: Devastator Squad 70
-4 multimeltas 40
-Drop pod 35

Haha I know man I feel mean enough with this list, I think it is very strong, good tips you guys are giving! He need me

Yea, the ADL is pretty cheesey paired with IG range. With the exception of Tau Railguns, IG bring the highest str, AP, and range guns to the table. I find bikers work wonders, and deepstriking termicides do well. Close the gap and hug cover. Also flyers and templates are the bane of this bunched up playstyle. 3 helldrakes would have this guy peeing himself.

My bro played against a freaky 1950 point gunline army.

The enemy was IG, and he had a fu**load of Heavy Weapon teams, about 3 Leman Russ's. a vendetta, several chimeras. I still don't know if you can get that much for 1950 pts but oh well. anyways, my brother (noob) deployed in closely packed blobs (city terrain). Needless to say he got killed, but his main mistake is

DO NOT SPREAD OUT YOUR FORCES. spread out the men in their squads, but hit a warhammer with a warhammer, and direct all your force on one bit at a time.

MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE! get closer as much as you can. if you are not a gunline army, even if you are necrons you need to move up, get some in close combat and blast them the F*** off this planet.

IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
FLYERS. flyers will be good. Necrons flyers win. Tesla would dominate this closely packed formation, the transporting ability will work well, and a Doom Scythe would be able to eliminate a large amount of a gun line. 2D6" S10 AP1. Where have you been all my life?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Drop Pod Assault

Howdy GrimWhistle! First things first, you'll want to edit your last post because they don't want you to post individual point values of upgrades.

Now, on to facing the gunline. Want to root out a large group of lightly armored troops from behind cover with a DA army? Try a Whirlwind (or two...)! They are dirt cheap in the DA codex and can fire a cover save ignoring shot and with your opponent being so densely packed, he'll have to either change his deployment or risk losing a handful of models on every shot as long as you can keep the Whirlwind out of sight. Devastators are also cheap and can provide support fire, don't put them in a drop pod and instead put them into cover and keep the Librarian (also dirt cheap) with them to act a Prescience bot. Also consider a Techmarine (again, cheap) who can bolster the cover saves of one piece of terrain by +1, if you don't want to run your own ADL.

Azrael is nice but can't really interact with either of the squads he unlocks as scoring. He's not in Terminator armor and therefore cannot participate in a DWA, and he's not mounted on a bike so he can't join your Ravenwing Squads without slowing them down. The best way to run him in a pure DA army (IMO), is to stick him with either a Command Squad (banner + Apothecary, never take the regular command squad champion as his weapon is awful) or a Veteran Squad and put him in a Drop Pod so that he can bolster your Deathwing Terminators and Ravenwing Bikes (who have a Teleport Homer).

A few other helpful ideas would be to include Rhinos or Razorbacks for your Tactical Squads. You can take a Razorback for even a 10-man squad even though you can't transport 10-models, just Combat Squad them and leave 4 Marines plus the Heavy Weapon in cover to provide support while the Sergeant, Special Weapon and remaining Marines mount up in the Razorback and move forward. Combi-weapons cost only 10-points for your Sergeants and can provide a powerful punch when it's most needed (for example, a Melta shot on a particularly pesky Leman Russ) however it's possible for those special shots to miss (aside from the Combi-flamer) so YMMV. Some people swear by them, others would rather spend the 10-points elsewhere.

I hope some of this helped or gave you ideas!

6th ed favors the crap out of gunlines, its kinda annoying as its so damn stale to me (im an ork player thats why i wanna charge yo face not sit back and go Come at me Brah!)

Unfortunately the only way to deal with them is either have multiple deady yet somewhat survivable and fast missiles flying at him, forcing him to pick his poison as to which he wants to hit him, a better gunline, or deepstrike/infiltrate/outflanking units. The problem with the last 3 is they cant charge for a turn, and you'll probably get charged first by the bazillion guardsman sitting there. However if your models dont want the charge and are there for shootin' its a good idea because you can usually appear far enough to avoid counter-charge and still spit your dakka out.

I dont know DA very well, but if you have anything with a 2+ save you can drop close enough to his tanks so he doesnt want to pi plate them that usually causes a lot of issues. I do it with a meganob boss and kommandos...turn 2 a random MANz boss, 10 kommandos (3 with burnas), and Snikrot appear right behind him and hes forced to deal with it or face da wrath of da WAAAAGH! (LOSing any AP2shots of course).

If you go with Deepstriking remember you can potentially scatter 12 inches. My friends absolutely hate deepstriking because they usually scatter ~8inches and either end up too far to do anything or mishap.

GrimWhistle

What models do you have? Also, how do you feel about allies?

Azrael is good in a large IG blobb but other than that I feel he is just too many points for too little in games under 2000 pts. He needs a big hard hitting unit to give his 4+ invulnerable to be even close to worth it. So a large expensive command squad in a land raider or IG blobb work well. Otherwise stay away.

Either of the other two special IC that unlock deathwing or ravenwing are much better. Did you realize that with Azrael as HQ deathwing and ravenwing are troops choices and not elite and fast attack as you indicate.

Do you happen to have two more drop pods, 2 heavy flamers, and two combi-flamer sarges? That would be a good start to denting his gunline.

What point level is this? I got 1389 when I added it up. Overall you are going to have a tough time with this list and throwing in a vendetta on top of any IG gun line will gut you.

I have a strategy for this list but if you have more models it would help, alot.

Ah - the good old 'Gun Line'. Favoured by one of our group regulars IG army. A bucket load of guys, as many autocannons as possible and a tank or two. He hasn't changed his list or tactics since the start of time. Very tedious and forces you to tailor your list which is a bit annoying. It is hard to take on a gun line with TAC list but no impossible.

Everyone has given you some sound tactics so far -

1) Blast/Template weapons will simply wipe him off the face of the Earth. More the merrier.

2) Target Priority. I normally find that IG start to wobble when you take their Tanks and Heavy Weapons Platoons down. I always go for them first IF possible. Their Command team isn't a bad idea after that because of those damn orders.

3) Deepstriking is risky but one that can and will pay off. Fortune favours the bold.

Hmm - I find the sweet spot for all armies is still around 1500. At lower points you will find IG coming out on top still as the points don't really matter.