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Just came back from a rather interesting game with a regular opponent of mine. He just started running Imperial Guard, and I'm trying to get back into my Space Wolves.

It was a friendly match, and I ran some random units I haven't really played with - 15 blood claws with a Wolf priest in a land raider, a couple vindicators, two groups of Grey hunters and some razorbacks. I'd never run either of the mechanized units before and I figured a wolf priest would be an interesting change of pace.

I was met with two squads of 3 Leman Russ, one with the silly Heavy 20 guns, and one squad of three fully kitted out LR Executioners? In addition to chicken walkers with (you guessed it) more plasma.

I'll admit, I wasn't prepared for the sheer amount of plasma template spam I had to deal with. My 16 man LR payload got in range of his warlord, disembarked..and promptly failed a five inch charge. The next turn they were completely wiped off the table.

Now, because so many of my points was put into mech, it wasn't the complete and utter wipe that it would have been. On the other hand, I normally have very few (if any) vehicles - usually just a couple rhinos to get me where I need to go. Or I drop pod.

After seeing how much rape the executioners put out, I have a suspicion he will be running them more frequently. Any ideas how I should deal with this in the future?

So he ran a squadron of 3 leman russ punishers(the 20shot ones) and then a squadron of 3 executioners with the 3 plasma blast each but kitted out?

How many points were you playing because that's just a huge sink of point and I can't imagine he had much else.

Dont get out of the LR until your close enough to not fail that charge. With his points heavy into vehicles, focus on killing his troops and if he has nothing that can touch AV14, keep a unit of your troops in your LR until its time to get an objective.

Russ' are getting alot of buzz lately with the meta shifting from AV14 killing stuff. You might consider something like a DP to come down and have meltas (etc) for side armor shots.

 tankboy145 wrote:
So he ran a squadron of 3 leman russ punishers(the 20shot ones) and then a squadron of 3 executioners with the 3 plasma blast each but kitted out?

How many points were you playing because that's just a huge sink of point and I can't imagine he had much else.

1500. He really didn't have much else, save for armored chicken walkers (with plasma guns), then two vet squads (with plasma!) and then a ..Lord Commissar? Not sure.

The vet squads sat on back objectives. while the the steady stream of plasma fire kept me busy.

Fragile wrote:
Dont get out of the LR until your close enough to not fail that charge. With his points heavy into vehicles, focus on killing his troops and if he has nothing that can touch AV14, keep a unit of your troops in your LR until its time to get an objective.

I was thinking the five inches was pretty good odds, but apparently not good enough. Something to keep in mind in the future.

I'm assuming in the future he's going to remember to pick something up to take care of my AV14.

I was considering a drop pod termie list for later, but since Wolfguard can only grab combi melta, im honestly not sure that they will have enough punch to handle triple squadrons like that.

Take Logan Grimnar in your next list against him. Sub out razorbacks for drop pods and grey hunters for wolf guard in power armour.

Now take nothing on the WG but combi melta's and maybe a flamer or two. Drop one squad next to one Leman Russ group, one next to the other. Unload... what, 8-10 melta shots into each group and watch him take 700 pts off the table per squad shooting.

Drop Pods are awesome against guard.
Fire all meltas on tanks when you land and charge whatever is left next turn

Logan bomb is perfect against parking lot IG. 5 relentless Multimelta that can target 2 tanks + a combi melta on a Wolfguard out of a pod make quick work of tank squadrons. Especially since afterwards they have to deal with that squad or it gets dirty.

As an IG player drop pods can be some on the scariest things to deal with. If I don’t have a quad gun as a little deterrent all of a sudden I have troops right in my lines that if armed with meltas can pick off any target of their choosing.

First off, if you can kill the vets (20 T3 models) then you're going to win anything but will points, as the huge amount of points in walkers and tanks can't score.

Russes will die in CC to anything in your army if you can get close enough, Krak grenades will hurt them a lot. Meltas are also a great investment, especially in a drop pod. Bringing 3 of the plasma-Russes seems pretty heavily tailored against MEQ, but seem to be a rather unwieldy tool. Yes, 15 plasma blasts is very scary, but it can only hit one target, so a lot of those shots are going to be wasted. Same with the 3 Punishers, that's around 500 points for 60 shots on one target. Of those, 30 hit, 20 wound, around 7 die. So 500 points is killing 105 points of wolves. They'd have to roll that every turn of a 5-turn game to equal their investment. With a 24" range, they should be fairly easy to avoid with mobile units like Rhinos (and they will tear Rhinos apart if they catch them, so you do need to keep your distance until you're in striking range, this is where multiple drop pods come in handy.)

I'd bring a whirlwind to deal with the vets, even 2 if you have the points. As I say, kill them and win the game (unless it's Big Guns, in which case go for the Russes for extra VP. He doesn't seem to have anything capable of hurting the Land Raider, so maybe try playing him at his own AV14 game and being another. Motor both towards the Russes and take out both squadrons as fast as possible, then get back in and shoot up the vets.


Hope that helps.

At 1500 pts for 3 punisher russes and 3 executioner russes that's basically his whole army. Then if he has a lord commissar and 2 vet squads with x3 plasma there isn't much room for any kitting out on those russes. He has maybe like 60-70 points left. So with almost no anti tank left I would have just driven the land raider up and assaulted the russes.

Russes die to to close range melta and assault. From a distance lance weapons are about your only effective way to taking a russ out.

So with your previous game that was just bad luck not making that charge roll. I wouldn't blame your army, It happens. Lol

If you want to improve your list I would also recommend drop pods, either grey hunters with melta or plasma guns or wolf guard with combi weapons, preferably melta.

Make sure if you use grey hunters you give them that banner. Wait until your opponents shooting phase and activate the banners. Your marines should take little casualties from the punishers fire but there isn't anything you can do about the executioners. Since all the executioners have to shoot at one target you will luckily only lose one squad a turn. But say you have 3 squad come in from pods you should still have a good amount of guys to last the next turn to assault the tanks and destroy them.

The banner is for grey hunters, not wolf guard btw.

 tommse wrote:
The banner is for grey hunters, not wolf guard btw.

Thanks! I updated it, I only ever ran grey hunters so idk why I said wolf guard lol.

Scouts might also work well vs. squadroned Russes. A melter, combi-melter, 2 plasma pistols and a thrown krak could kill 2 at once. And if you stand behind his executioners he might have problems drawing LOS to them with anything else.

Drop pods for marines are great. they don't mishap. the thing is if your going to go that route, go all out so that you have at least 2 or 3 of them dropping down on turn one.
squadrroms of russes are actually weak in a way in that all models in it have to fire at a single target. Likewise, damage done to it carry over from one tank to the next.

Remember mission objectives. Go for first blood, make his commander a target for slay the warlord and if you have a random guy all on his lonesome, try to sneak him to their deployment zone. He will have to decide whats the bigger threat to shoot at. That lone guy or the land raider coming at him. get that guy there and hide him out of sight for linebreaker.
find out where the mission objective markers are (if there are any) and deny them to the enemy so they cant claim them.