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 AtoMaki wrote:


We are trying to beat mechguard, not just a wall of Chimeras. And mechguard includes things like Manticores, Vendettas/Valkyres, Russes, and all sorts of other stuff what isn't really scared to reach your "unlimited range CCS".

And we don't want to beat it with a full-foot guard. Or at least IIRC when I last talked about "foot guard" on this forum, others were quick to reply that "6th ed foot guard = hybrid guard".

Also, twin-linking on a Blast weapon that always scatters is no longer a very cool thing, since you can only re-roll if you rolled an arrow on the scatter dice. No re-rolls for you if you rolled a hit (but you will scatter anyways)!

I think the OP is adamant about using footguard. Nevertheless, the MoO is more accurate than he sounds against vehicles because the entire blast marker now counts as a full strength hit. The 5 inch template has to scatter completely off a big, boxy chimera. So, in reality, the shot has to scatter six inches to be completely off-target. There's some leeway there.


Back to the problem at hand:

I find the most success in getting a solid fire base in the deployment, and then dropping as much distractions and disruption in their gunline as possible, so everything is a threat. This means Marbo, Stormtroopers, Outflanking sentinels, and a solid backbone of long-range shots coming from your deployment. The problem is striking the right balance.

If you're dead-set on footguard, then I really don't know what to tell you other than to stay out of range and bring as many lascannons as you possibly can and hope you roll well. Drop the stormies in and pop what the lascanon's didn't, then advance and clean up the soft infantry with something expendable.

Although, if you're open to some vehicles, I'd suggest the Leman Russ battle tank (or three). It's got range, and they make wonderful AV 14 line-of-sight blockers to advance your troops behind after the enemy's meltas have been removed. They've got ordinance for popping transports, too. Heck, you could even push up a demolisher to try and bait your opponent into driving out from the defence line. If he does, awesome, you can blam away with lascannons, if he doesn't, that's cool too. He can enjoy the Str 10 ap 2 template turn after turn.

I have to agree, the MoO is a great way to make your CCS a high profile unit without actually adding much to it. It's more likely to be killed at than kill anything. Always scattering 2d6 on a hit? 3d6 on a scatter? No thanks.

This is always going to be a tough one for foot guard as a chimera hull is darn cheap for AV 12 and carries guns that are optimized for horde control. For this reason I think trying to outgun it from the front is useless. You will just end up mirroring the army you are facing (with twice as many men on foot as they have in cans).

I guess the main weaknesses of the chimera hull are AV 10 side armor, only 36" range and no AT gun.

The main strength of foot guard is loads of scoring units.

Given the facts I hardly think it is possible for foot guard to "win" the battle, but it could be possible to win the game by KILLING HIS TROOPS!


So far no one mentioned griffons. Wouldn't they do quite well against a chimera spam?

Apart from that I would try outflanking / deep striking forcing the chimeras to show AV 10 to some element of the army.

At 1000 pts...

If you want to go "foot" let Al'rahem and half a dozen plasmaguns show up on a flank, Marbo drop his bomb and some meltastormies try to take out the meanest tank/artillery piece. Add as many PiS with autocannons/lascannons as you can get behind an Aegis line. Pray to the dice gods!

For a more hybrid approach I'd try a pair of griffons, scout sentinels and a LRBT of choice, maybe two. Aegis line + infantry with lascannons/autocannons.

The CCS is already a high value target, it's probably containing your warlord. Unless you're following Ailoroses style of making him choppy you're wanting to keep him away from danger, giving out orders and possibly doing some non LoS damage.

 Blaggard wrote:
The CCS is already a high value target, it's probably containing your warlord. Unless you're following Ailoroses style of making him choppy you're wanting to keep him away from danger, giving out orders and possibly doing some non LoS damage.

I would agree if you didn't need LoS for most of the orders a CCS makes compared to a PCS. Unfortunately you do need LoS making hiding your CCS in a foot list a horrible tactic.

So long as you keep him out of range, which is easy to do against a bunch of chimeras sitting behind an ADL. Keeping it away from danger =/= hiding him out of LoS.

How to deal with a wall of vehicles?? I solve that with one vehicle. The manticore it hits side armor and can hit multiple targets if he brings all the vehicles together. Hide it behind a building and if you worried about it being killed take two of them. If your wanting to stay with all ground forces then take vet squads with heavy weapons and infantry squads with heavy weapons that way you don't have to worry about the ID.

Another strategy is take the aegis and go to ground everytime he shoots you and use orders to get back up each turn.

Missile launchers can deal with either the side armour, or even glancing the front on 4, penetrating at 5 and they can deal with infantry as well. Mortars are also nice for tightly ranked troops and vehicles, 48' range, indirect and barrage as well.

 AtoMaki wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:

I'm sorry, but aren't we trying to beat a wall of Chimeras with Foot Guard? Most of the suggestions I see are how to defeat a chimera wall, but are glossing over the "with foot guard" part.

We are trying to beat mechguard, not just a wall of Chimeras. And mechguard includes things like Manticores, Vendettas/Valkyres, Russes, and all sorts of other stuff what isn't really scared to reach your "unlimited range CCS".

And we don't want to beat it with a full-foot guard. Or at least IIRC when I last talked about "foot guard" on this forum, others were quick to reply that "6th ed foot guard = hybrid guard".

Also, twin-linking on a Blast weapon that always scatters is no longer a very cool thing, since you can only re-roll if you rolled an arrow on the scatter dice. No re-rolls for you if you rolled a hit (but you will scatter anyways)!

It doesn't always scatter, as you do deduct 4" for each scatter roll. With a 5" template firing at a chimera...
The mathhammer is messy, but the brake down is based on:
Ld9 test to bring it down (which gives re-rolls on scatter die)
That passes 30/36 and fails 6/36
If Pass then the scatter die hits 20/36 and misses 16 out of 36.
If fail, then scatter die hits 2/6 and misses 4/6.
A hit is 2D6" - 4" scatter, while an arrow is a 3D6" -4" scatter.
The template is 5", and to totally miss a target chimera, it would have to scatter at least 5", in some cases as much as 7".

Factor all of that in, including angle of scatter, you have a 61% chance of hitting the target chimera. 39% of the time it's scattering pretty close to the target chimera.
Oddly, this makes it almost exactly the same chance at killing, immobilizing or stunning as a twin-linked lascannon (if chimera is in the open).

The advantage of the MoO is that the shot is barrage so it ignores a lot of cover, can hit multiple targets, and even on a "miss" will be coming down pretty close to the primary target, making it likely to splash onto something else.

So, firstly, a MoO is a fine choice, especially now that the center of blast rules against vehicles has changed. With BiD and BS4, roughly two thirds of the times you roll a hit, you still have the template touching the vehicle you were pointing at, and with a scatter, it's a bit better than a third. And given that you get to reroll scatters with BiD, you're really not looking at terrible odds here. Plus, even when they scatter off, they can still wing stuff. Kill a space marine with it, and you've made half its points back already.

Secondly, manticores would be pretty decent against high-points vehicle spam, or if your opponent really likes to castle up. The main problem is that with only Ap4, you're not going to kill that many vehicles outright, so what you're mostly using it as is a tool to peel 1 HP off of multiple vehicles in a single turn. Yeah, not too shabs, but at lower points, opponents are going to be able to spread things out more, and I'm going to have fewer manticores.

Thirdly, I've played two games and an apocalypse game in the last couple of days where I tried lascannon spam in PISs and PCSs, and so far it's done me very well. It peels quantum shielding off of necron vehicles, and that +1 to the damage chart has been absolutely critical. Already in these few games, the difference between causing a vehicle explosion or two early in the game has been pretty pronounced compared to waiting until mid-game for everything to get glanced to death.

That the lascannon has other uses like causing instant death and ignoring all armor saves has even come in handy as well.

 Ailaros wrote:
And given that you get to reroll scatters with BiD, you're really not looking at terrible odds here.

Don't forget that you can only re-roll an arrow on the scatter die, you can't reroll a "hit" even though the MoO still scatters on a hit. So when you roll a "hit" with 10" scatter you're stuck with it, even if all you "hit" was empty table.

And you have to also account for the opportunity cost of spending BiD on the MoO. Even when it hits it's still only an AP 3 weapon, so is it really going to do more than a combined squad or HWS full of lascannons? More likely you're going to have better things to spend BiD on, so the MoO's chance of hitting anything drops considerably.

Plus, even when they scatter off, they can still wing stuff. Kill a space marine with it, and you've made half its points back already.

Yeah, but killing a space marine or two is pathetic, and those 30 points buy you another two lascannons. The MoO only justifies its cost when it gets a good hit, and it's not very reliable at that.

Here are the MoO probabilities for those who are interested, with a las for comparison. For the MoO I assume LoS, and if 2D6/3D6 scatter is 8 or less hull is still struck. Note here then that the probability will actually be a little bit higher, depending on the direction of the scatter, as some directions will allow for greater scatter distances to still nick a hull.

MoO..............p(Glance)...........................p(Pen)................................p(HP strip)........................p(Explodes!)
AV10.............0.01148834 .......................0.402091907....................0.346564929....................0.067015318
AV11.............0.01148834.......................0.379115226....................0.327417695....................0.063185871
AV12.............0.01148834 .......................0.344650206....................0.298696845....................0.057441701
AV13.............0.01148834.......................0.298696845....................0.260402378....................0.049782807
AV14.............0.01148834.......................0.172325103....................0.212534294....................0.040209191

tl MoO...........p(Glance).......................... p(Pen)................................p(HP strip).........................p(Explodes!)
AV10.............0.014346136.................... 0.502114769.................... 0.432775111.................... 0.083685795
AV11.............0.014346136.................... 0.473422497.................... 0.408864883.................... 0.078903749
AV12.............0.014346136.................... 0.430384088.................... 0.372999543.................... 0.071730681
AV13.............0.014346136.................... 0.372999543.................... 0.325179089.................... 0.06216659
AV14.............0.014346136.................... 0.215192044.................... 0.265403521....................0.050211477

BS4 LAS...... p(Glance)...........................p(Pen)................................p(HP strip)........................ p(Explodes!)
AV10.............0.111111111.................... 0.555555556....................0.481481481.................... 0.185185185
AV11.............0.111111111.................... 0.444444444.................... 0.407407407.................... 0.148148148
AV12.............0.111111111.................... 0.333333333.................... 0.333333333.................... 0.111111111
AV13.............0.111111111.................... 0.222222222....................0.259259259....................0.074074074
AV14.............0.111111111.................... 0.111111111.................... 0.185185185.................... 0.037037037

BS4 tl LAS... p(Glance)...........................p(Pen)................................p(HP strip)........................p(Explodes!)
AV10.............0.148148148.................... 0.740740741.................... 0.641975309.................... 0.24691358
AV11.............0.148148148.................... 0.592592593....................0.543209877....................0.197530864
AV12.............0.148148148.................... 0.444444444.................... 0.444444444.................... 0.148148148
AV13.............0.148148148.................... 0.296296296.................... 0.345679012.................... 0.098765432
AV14.............0.148148148.................... 0.148148148.................... 0.24691358.................... 0.049382716

 Barksdale wrote:
Here are the MoO probabilities for those who are interested, with a las for comparison. For the MoO I assume LoS, and if 2D6/3D6 scatter is 8 or less hull is still struck. Note here then that the probability will actually be a little bit higher, depending on the direction of the scatter, as some directions will allow for greater scatter distances to still nick a hull.

Well that's just sad. Good to see the numbers confirm how bad the MoO is though, even allowing the MoO to hit AV 10 while the LC has to deal with AV 12.

The MoO is a gamble, a gamble that i love taking.
Yes you can miss every single time, but even if you miss you might hit something else. And lile Aileros said, it's really easy to make your points back.

So yes in mathhammer, and against the target you aimed at, it sucks. But on the field it's a rather good.

I don't think that the MoO even benefits from BiD. The order gives Twin-Linked to the squad's weapons, and the MoO uses a special rule to fire his large blast. It is just treated as a shooting attack, and that's all.

And the Manticores are best used with Vendettas:
1st turn: Manticores suppress stuff with pens (auto-penetrates AV10)
2nd turn: Vendettas come in and wreck 3 vehicles, Maticores keep suppressing the rest
3rd turn: Vendettas enter Hover Mode, vets/SWS bail out, mop up begins
4th turn: at this point you probably wrecked 8+ enemy vehicles, the enemy is in disarray, so you can move out to capture objectives or whatever you want

I agree with atomaki. The penetration of the chimeras is really important. Your opponents firepower will be reduced most times you do or you can get an explosion which will probably kill most of the guardsmen inside. Penetration on chimeras is more important than on rhinos or razorbacks because the resulting explosion can kill the troops inside quite effectively. Of course in a perfect world we'd always aim for pens. It's just more likely that the glance wreck will happen first.

The thing to remember is that it's a barrage weapon. So whatever is on the receiving end doesn't get the benefit of a cover save. That's 4+ cover for vehicles (3+ if they have camo cloaks). A smart opponent will be hiding his vehicles behind an ADL, ruins, or something.

I run my CCS with a lascannon and a MoO. Here's the difference: The Lascannon shot gets soaked up by a 4+ save, and the MoO gets to penetrate, strip off a hull point and roll on the results table.

 kestril wrote:
The thing to remember is that it's a barrage weapon. So whatever is on the receiving end doesn't get the benefit of a cover save. That's 4+ cover for vehicles (3+ if they have camo cloaks). A smart opponent will be hiding his vehicles behind an ADL, ruins, or something.

I run my CCS with a lascannon and a MoO. Here's the difference: The Lascannon shot gets soaked up by a 4+ save, and the MoO gets to penetrate, strip off a hull point and roll on the results table.

Barrage weapons do not ignore cover. Lets say they're in terrain. They would still get their cover saves. Or say the dot on the blast marker is on the wrong side of the ADL, they get cover.

Only looking at the Explode column is misleading.
I'd be perfectly happy with a stun, immobilize or a destroy, of which the lascannon only has a 4 to 3 advantage.

~75% hits on a the chimera will be coming down from behind the ADL, ignoring the 4+ cover.
Also, scatter of 8 or less doesn't fully account for hits on the chimera. The chimera is a box, so it isn't that tough to do a weighted mean with direction of scatter.

Ignoring factors like cover, range and the scatter still hitting on a 9" scatter makes the lascannon look better in the match up than it is.

Most important of all, the MoO shot does come down even on a 12" scatter. If aimed at center mass, you'll still get a hit.

-Matt

Seriously, Allies...
A Necron Doom Scythe would cover most of his parking lot in STR 10 AP 1 Goodness...multiple kills in one shot....use the rst of the army to take down what you didn't get.

Peregrine wrote:

Barksdale wrote:Here are the MoO probabilities for those who are interested, with a las for comparison. For the MoO I assume LoS, and if 2D6/3D6 scatter is 8 or less hull is still struck. Note here then that the probability will actually be a little bit higher, depending on the direction of the scatter, as some directions will allow for greater scatter distances to still nick a hull.

Well that's just sad. Good to see the numbers confirm how bad the MoO is though, even allowing the MoO to hit AV 10 while the LC has to deal with AV 12.

Wait, how do you get that conclusion from that data?

Against a chimera, the master of ordnance does better than the lascannon (assuming BiD in both cases). Remember, that MoO is very likely hitting AV10, while the lascannon is stuck with AV12. Plus, the MoO shoots OVER cover, which means that they're likely not getting a cover save against the MoO shot either, so there's a pretty good chance that you have to reduce the killing power by 1/3 or 1/2 of the lascannon to make it realistic.

And it can hurt heavier armor better. And it can take off HP from multiple tightly packed vehicles. And it can hit infantry with a large blast.

This thing is a steal.

Plus, there's something really important to consider here. A lascannon HWS has the unfortunance of being on a HWS. That means that while you're stuck on a roughly 50-50 chance for the lascannons to take orders, the MoO gets to pass those same orders in Ld9, which is rather more likely. Plus, HWSs are notoriously easy to kill, what with having instant death problems, and having really low leadership.

 AtoMaki wrote:
I don't think that the MoO even benefits from BiD. The order gives Twin-Linked to the squad's weapons, and the MoO uses a special rule to fire his large blast. It is just treated as a shooting attack, and that's all.

And the Manticores are best used with Vendettas:
1st turn: Manticores suppress stuff with pens (auto-penetrates AV10)
2nd turn: Vendettas come in and wreck 3 vehicles, Maticores keep suppressing the rest
3rd turn: Vendettas enter Hover Mode, vets/SWS bail out, mop up begins
4th turn: at this point you probably wrecked 8+ enemy vehicles, the enemy is in disarray, so you can move out to capture objectives or whatever you want

Master of Ordnance is a weapon. It's got a listed range, AP, heavy, Ordnance. That makes it a weapon.

That break down is a little optimistic.
1) Manticore can scatter off target. Counter barrage fire might gimp the manticore preventing it from shooting at all. Still a great weapon, but not a 100%.
2) Vendettas will have to worry about the quadgun. Also, if you think you're wrecking 3 vehicles, you need all 3 vendetta choices coming in. 3+ for reserve means that is not likely.
3) Vendettas entering hover mod is dependent on the first few turns of firing. If the opponent isn't properly weakened, going into hover mod too soon may cost you the vendettas. Likewise, if you have to stay in zoom mod to stay alive, you might be forced off the table.

A final point, take MoO with the Manticore and Vendettas.
Having another S9 ordnance on turns 1 and 2 along with the Manticore will help to soften up the enemy for the vendettas.
The games I win against vendetta based guard are games where the non-vendetta half of the army can't put me into disarray.

-Matt

 Ailaros wrote:

Plus, there's something really important to consider here. A lascannon HWS has the unfortunance of being on a HWS. That means that while you're stuck on a roughly 50-50 chance for the lascannons to take orders, the MoO gets to pass those same orders in Ld9, which is rather more likely. Plus, HWSs are notoriously easy to kill, what with having instant death problems, and having really low leadership.

And the MoO is with a CCS. What is a high-piority target anyways (because of BiD), so an attached MoO is just another eason for yoopponent to concentrate his fire on the Command Squad. And it is quite unfortunate, as losing the CCS in a foot-guard army is a big deal.

But I1m more concerned about the MoO's "friendly fire effectiveness". There are only a few things that are worse than a loose MoO shot landing right in the middle of your objective-holding troops .

Master of Ordnance is a weapon. It's got a listed range, AP, heavy, Ordnance. That makes it a weapon.

I think a model's weapons are in its wargear section. I mean, a weapon is what a modell actually carries into battle and fires it. The Artillery Bombardment is just a special rule that allows the MoO to make a special shooting attack. Since it is a shooting attack, it should have a profile.

That break down is a little optimistic.

Well, it isn't less optimistic than this whole MoO scenario where it survies everything, hits everytime and blows stuff into the sky without problem (and not just scratch vehicles while making your CCS into a no1 target for everything that can reach it) .

HawaiiMatt wrote:

3) Vendettas entering hover mod is dependent on the first few turns of firing. If the opponent isn't properly weakened, going into hover mod too soon may cost you the vendettas. Likewise, if you have to stay in zoom mod to stay alive, you might be forced off the table.

I see this idea a lot. Why is it the most disastrous thing in the world to lose a vendetta if it's in hover mode? I've used vendettas as bait before, people love shooting that thing in hover mode, they get some weird satisfaction only to ignore the fact it has jink and that my chimeras snuck out of cover to blow their load onto an objective. It's pretty amusing how often people go for the vendetta. It's only 130pts, I'd rather lose that than a chimera and leaving my vets at best stranded, at worst badly mauled by the explosion. Of course this perspective is from a turn 4+. The vendetta has done its damage by then.

 mayfist wrote:
it's really easy to make your points back.

This is barely a relevant argument for stuff.

If you shoot a BS3 missile launcher at a squad of marines; it's pretty darn likely to make it's points back in two or three turns. It's still bad.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
3) Vendettas entering hover mod is dependent on the first few turns of firing. If the opponent isn't properly weakened, going into hover mod too soon may cost you the vendettas.

I really don't see why this was such a problem. Vendettas were awesome in 5th edition as fast skimmers, and dropping into hover mode just gives you a 5th edition Vendetta that now has a free 5+ cover save. Sure, it's nice that 6th made them even more powerful with zoom mode, but a hovering Vendetta is still a very good unit.

 Ailaros wrote:
Wait, how do you get that conclusion from that data?

Just look at the numbers. Even if you compare the MoO against AV 10 to the LC against AV 12 they have an equal chance of removing a hull point, and the LC is far more likely to explode the Chimera in one shot. And that's not even considering the fact that the MoO is more expensive.

Plus, the MoO shoots OVER cover, which means that they're likely not getting a cover save against the MoO shot either, so there's a pretty good chance that you have to reduce the killing power by 1/3 or 1/2 of the lascannon to make it realistic.

Of course the MoO doesn't help against smoke saves, so if the mech player decides to rush you and get into flamer range your MoO doesn't have any advantage.

And it can take off HP from multiple tightly packed vehicles.

Which it isn't going to do in this scenario. At 1000 points you can easily spread out your Chimeras enough that it's impossible to hit more than one with a large blast, and even if you're staying closer to maximize terrain-based cover it's still fairly easy to keep enough of a gap that it requires a lot of luck with perfect scatter distance and direction to drop the template right in the middle between the two.

And it can hit infantry with a large blast.

IF it hits. Infantry aren't all or nothing like vehicles, and the MoO is not exactly reliable at getting direct hits. Hitting a token marine or two might make its points back, but that still compares poorly to its points in other weapons.

Plus, there's something really important to consider here. A lascannon HWS has the unfortunance of being on a HWS. That means that while you're stuck on a roughly 50-50 chance for the lascannons to take orders, the MoO gets to pass those same orders in Ld9, which is rather more likely. Plus, HWSs are notoriously easy to kill, what with having instant death problems, and having really low leadership.

Except orders are a non-issue. If you've lost so many of your heavy weapons that you're giving BiD to the CCS itself instead of a combined squad with multiple LCs or a LC HWS you've already lost the game.

Gonna have to side with Peregrine, if you need to kill vehicles, MoO is probably not the best choice. If you're writing a Take all comers list, he's still not a bad idea as he gives you a cheap way to get more templates for fighting hordes, but if your primary goal is to kill leafblower, I wouldn't take it.

I'm also pretty sure I'm contradicting something I said earlier in this thread, but I can't find it. Oh well, if I am, my mind has changed since then.

To be perfectly honest, chimera spam guard is probably the toughest matchup I've ever had with my infantry lists. Everything else I've felt like I could've played better or just lost due to luck. Chimera spam lists make me think it may just be a bad matchup.

Also, assuming a vendetta is dead the moment it hovers is kind of silly. If you're at turn 3/4 with a vendetta, and entering hover mode with it is certain death, then there are probably more glaring problems with your list that you should be worried about. It's still basically a flying tank with a free cover save. At the very worst case scenario, you at least distracted all your enemy's AT fire for a turn.

if you want to beat him in his extreme just guard blobs with krak grenades would do it. You would out number him 4 to 1 and the bodies would get there.

 Ailaros wrote:
And it can hurt heavier armor better. And it can take off HP from multiple tightly packed vehicles. And it can hit infantry with a large blast.

Pretty much this. Yes, there is always a chance that it will not do anything, but this is true for ANY weapon. Its still a Str9 Ap3 large blast, for 30 points.

I put up the las probabilites not because in they are in competition with eachother, but only for a relative comparison. If you want to take an additional heavy weapon, you need to have an open slot. If you are taking a CCS anyway, which in foot guard is pretty much a given, the MoO does not require to purchase an additional CCS/PCS/PIS/vet or whatever if you have no slots open. So they are not in competition with eachother, but actually complement eachother. There is really no reason why you cannot take both (points permitting).

 AtoMaki wrote:

But I1m more concerned about the MoO's "friendly fire effectiveness". There are only a few things that are worse than a loose MoO shot landing right in the middle of your objective-holding troops .

Which I find odd for somebody in favor of a Manticore.
2D6" scatter, with a 5" template flop for the 2nd and 3rd blast isn't all that much less friendly than a 3D6 inch scatter.
You simply don't want to use barrages for close fire-support, unless those shots are coming from a griffon.