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when i was playing a straight-forward annihilation game i once managed to win without having to to resolve an assault, i simply repulsed every attack he made while bombarding him from afar with Imperial Guard ordnance weapons. does anyone have ideas on how i can improve and build on this strategy?

Bring more artillery? It's a pretty simple strategy, you put durable scoring units on your own objectives and fill your list with long-range shooting that can kill all of your opponent's scoring units before the game ends.

Thank You But I am mostly thinking about battles that have no objective other than kill your opponents units.

Oh, sorry, can't help you then. I play standard missions where 5/6 missions involve objectives. But it should be even simpler, line up maximum firepower units at the back of your deployment zone and shoot until the game ends. Gunlines aren't really complicated.

What troops should i take and what should i arm them with?

Depends, do you play on a standard board with standard deployment? (if you do then you will always be in CC by turn 3 at the latest against any even remotely competent player)

Do you play with FW? (artillery carriages; 75 pts earthshaker cannons and 50 pts TL-lascannon sabre platforms = alot of dead enemies)

How many and what models do you have? (SITNW conscripts are decent for a good speed bump to deter assault, otherwise do you want to be a mech artillery line or a foot artillery line, and do you have any fortifications)

I have the Following

1x Commissar Lord

3x guardsman squads
3x heavy weapons specialist squads

2x Basilisks
1x Manticore







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I am also Building a Hell-hound.

If you're going down the artillery route with a commissar, it's best to use the FW artillery carriages. They're cheaper and the Lord Commissar negates their only weak points.

However, once you play only kill points games, you'll start to realise that it's incredibly shallow. It's horribly unbalanced to play such games and the 40k rule set is not designed around that. It's basically cheating: you get to spend the minimum amount of points on troops and HQ then splurge on bringing things to destroy your opponent.

Thank you for your advice, i will be getting some of those carriages, and to be on the safe side i might as well get some more hell hounds/ devil dogs.

Put tanks on table. Roll dice. Remove tanks from table as dictated by the rolls.

So much strategic depth.

Actually hellhounds/devil dogs do not sync all that well with artillery. Plan to slow and delay the enemy not close on them with flimsy short range weapons.

The carriages are golden and take some speed bump infantry. Then add a sprinkle of AA and you have a pretty good list.

I agree that the kill points are shallow. I started playing in 3rd edition when there was only kill points and the game gets stale much faster.

Oh, then what tanks should i get for a gunline army?

OnlyWar wrote:
Oh, then what tanks should i get for a gunline army?

Trial and error is the best way to find out for sure. I'd probably go with a Demolisher or 2 if I was to run gunline and wanted to take tanks.
The 24" range won't be as bad if everyone is trying to close with you. Their str 10/ap 2 blast will hurt vehicles, hordes and heavy infantry.

Thanks.