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You really ought to provide a comprehensive definition of what a gunline is, and what a gunline unit is. I mean, you say that you don't like playing gunlines but even in 5th edition you played a lot of units like heavy weapons teams and artillery units that seem like 'gunline units.' It is pretty confusing.

 Ailaros wrote:

Kingsley wrote:No, I mean dual firebase. This can be as simple as a las Predator or Broadside team in either board corner and is separate from your maneuver elements. I don't really understand why you insist on calling many non-gunline things "gunlines."

Since when is broadsides parked in cover not a gunline unit?

"Gunline" generally refers to an army that just lines up and shoots. Having long range fire support doesn't make you a gunline-- gunlines are when the WHOLE army is long range fire support. If you don't take any long ranged units at all because they're "gunline," you're unnecessarily handicapping yourself. I believe that a balanced composition that includes both long range and short range fire support, numerous scoring bodies, disruptive elements, and assault threats is generally going to be most successful.

Further, to use your terminology, long range units often allow you to effectively concentrate your forces by exerting threat across large areas of the board regardless of their own position. For instance, a Thunderfire Cannon can basically shoot whatever it wants whenever it wants.

 Ailaros wrote:
More importantly, how is a pair of predators going to dismantle a serious gunline? Those couple of units will be neutralized right away, leaving your army in the same predicament it was in before, but now with fewer points spent on it.

You might be surprised at how resilient AV13 units that don't have to move up to get in range can be. I only really ever take side armor hits on Predators from barrage weapons, and with good terrain, other immediate threats to shift threats away from the Predators (advancing Rhinos and Marines threatening midfield), and adequate defensive elements, you can shield units by manipulating target priority.

Further, the Predators don't need to "dismantle" the enemy army-- just make advancing treacherous. They're there to take out enemy transports moving into midfield so I can dominant the center of the board with my Troops and control the game.

 Ailaros wrote:
Of course, you could go as far as was mentioned on the last page and say that you should do basically a gunline with a single unit or two that's not, but I don't see how a mostly-gunline is a solution to an all-gunline. And even then, it sort of defeats the point. Defeating a mech gunline with a 90% gunline instead of a 100% gunline is still 90% not what I'm looking for here.

I'd say much the reverse-- try an army that's mostly not gunline with some long range fire support to threaten enemy backfield units and constrain enemy midfield mobility. For example, I have a Tau army and a Space Marine army. Both are organized in roughly the same way in my head:

-Heavy Support selections provide long range fire support (Predators, Thunderfire Cannons, Broadsides, Skyrays)

-Line Troops focus on dominating midfield, threatening enemy Troops, and securing objectives (Tactical Squads in Rhinos, Fire Warriors).

-Support Troops disrupt the enemy and force them to dedicate unnecessary resources to protecting their backfield (outflanking Kroot/Scouts).

-Fast Attack units provide extra focus on areas of the battlefield that need more attention (Stormtalon Gunships, Pathfinders).

-Elites choices are the heavy hitters that constitute the main thrust of my attack (Ironclad Dreadnoughts, Riptides)

-HQs either synergize with other elements to make them more effective (Ethereals, buff Commanders) or are killing machines (combat Commanders, Chapter Masters, etc.).

Do my lists have "gunline" elements? Sure. However, my overall focus when building a list is not on taking as many guns as possible but rather taking guns that support the rest of the army in capturing midfield and winning the objective game. The only truly dedicated gunline elements I usually take are in Heavy Support; and while Fire Warriors or Tactical Squads (I always take a heavy weapon) can certainly sit back and shoot if they want, that's not their focus.

 Ailaros wrote:

Kingsley wrote:Flyers greatly add to force concentration because in practice they come in wherever you want and attack whatever you want-- unlike Deep Strikers, who are very constrained by smart deployment and play.

But fliers arrive late, and they'll concentrate your army for roughly 1 turn before they're forced to fly off the board, turn to face not where you want them, or drop into hover mode and get blown away. Depending on the situation, they're not even that great at efficiency either, especially as more AA comes into play.

My experiences here differ dramatically from yours. Have you tried playing with flyers? If I recall correctly, you're somewhat averse to Vendettas-- but I think you may find them more effective than you think.

 Ailaros wrote:

Kingsley wrote:Tesla destructors, autocannons, assault cannons, and both Tau and Imperial missiles generally produce good results in my experience, with meltas, lascannons, grav weapons, heavy rail rifles, etc. to pinch hit. These are readily available on mobile units.

Most of them are available on gunline units, you mean.

No, I mean "mobile" units. 24" range weapons like Tesla destructors and assault cannons generally aren't very effective in a gunline! Grav weapons are even shorter ranged and most commonly seen on bike squads-- if you think bikes are gunline units now, I don't know what to tell you!

 Ailaros wrote:
Plus, you're talking about one possible strategy that, in perfect situations might do the job against one part of the mech gunline.

Start talking more generally, and about the problems of efficiency, time, and concentration, which just saying "take meltaguns" or "take grav weapons" doesn't address, and we'll be getting somewhere.

I think this discussion is overly general as it is. I'd advise that you stop pointing to vague principles-- where anything can be conjured up as an excuse or potential counter-- and start addressing situations that you've actually encountered. We can maneuver around one another's points forever and accomplish little of merit-- in my experience, the more specific a tactical discussion, the more useful it is. That's why I've been trying to primarily discuss specific units and tactics rather than general principles.

ITT: Everything is a gunline. Khorne berzerkers have pistols? Gunline unit. Tanks can't assault? They're all, every last one, a gunline. Planes? Gunline. Motorcycles? Mobile gunline. Mono-Khorne daemons? Bloodthirster has shooting attack. Gunline.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
At least that's what it feels like reading this thread.

I actually have a similar desire to play a non static army. Right I've come up with two armies that rely on tough units with powerful midrange shooting. One is a farsight bomb with 3 riptides. Unlike most tau lists with riptides, they move up, providing cover to the farsight bomb, and the bomb is geared towards getting 12 inches from your opponent, shooting the gak out of him, and kiting back. Getting the range correct is fun and challenging.

The other list is a necron army with 2 monliths, 2 squads of wraiths, and 2 warrior blobs. The monoliths slowly creep forward, weathering thee other army's fire, and when they get 18 inches they gate in the warriors or the wraiths, who do close range rapid fire shooting and assaulting. Once again , getting the distances right for rapid fire and assaults is a lot of fun.

Sorry if i got too specific, but I just wanted to show you there are armies that can balance mobility, firepower, and resilience that are not pure mech. I know you want general army types, but those armies depend on skills that are specific to the armies themselves. But they are definitely too mobile to be considered a classic gunline. I think the marine equivalent would be bikes. I know you were criticizing bikes earlier, but the new marine codex just dropped, and a white scars bike army with grav guns to immobilize transports may be the right mix of speed and shooty for you. You could even put some spikes on them and pretend they're CSM !


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
ITT: Everything is a gunline. Khorne berzerkers have pistols? Gunline unit. Tanks can't assault? They're all, every last one, a gunline. Planes? Gunline. Motorcycles? Mobile gunline. Mono-Khorne daemons? Bloodthirster has shooting attack. Gunline.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
At least that's what it feels like reading this thread.

I agree, we need to define gunline. My definition: Any army in which over 80% of the army relies solely on shooting to do damage and moves no more than 6 inches a turn.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
ITT: Everything is a gunline. Khorne berzerkers have pistols? Gunline unit. Tanks can't assault? They're all, every last one, a gunline. Planes? Gunline. Motorcycles? Mobile gunline. Mono-Khorne daemons? Bloodthirster has shooting attack. Gunline.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
At least that's what it feels like reading this thread.

This seems to be an accurate assessment of Ailaros' argument so far. I can't understand what he thinks a non-gunline is anymore.

Armies that rely predominantly on long-range shooting. Not EXCLUSIVELY on long-range shooting, but that's their main modus operandi. I've already given several examples of what I'm talking about. It's not a bike army or a deepstriker army or a horde army or a transport rush army (among others), with a tiny bit of long-range support.

The issue here is what's the point of a little bit of long-range support? It's just going to get wiped away by your opponent's lots of long-range support, leaving the rest of your units to tackle the exact same problems they had to tackle before. Except now you don't have as many points to spend on them because you spent them on long-range units.

And I'd note it's particularly duplicitous to assume that you'll always hit chimeras on side armor of 10, but you'll only ever shoot at predators on front armor of 13...

 Ailaros wrote:
Armies that rely predominantly on long-range shooting. Not EXCLUSIVELY on long-range shooting, but that's their main modus operandi. I've already given several examples of what I'm talking about. It's not a bike army or a deepstriker army or a horde army or a transport rush army (among others), with a tiny bit of long-range support.

The issue here is what's the point of a little bit of long-range support? It's just going to get wiped away by your opponent's lots of long-range support, leaving the rest of your units to tackle the exact same problems they had to tackle before. Except now you don't have as many points to spend on them because you spent them on long-range units.

And I'd note it's particularly duplicitous to assume that you'll always hit chimeras on side armor of 10, but you'll only ever shoot at predators on front armor of 13...

That's still a little vague imo. What is long range shooting? Grav centurions at 24"?

And what is predominantly? 50%? 80%?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And, if you ask me, the point in a little bit of ranged support is the same reason you'd take a lot of ranged support: it's better than not taking any ranged support at all. I'm actually quite confused by the question.

As for what you should do to beat the people that use ranged support, many qualifying answers have been introduced, including drop pods, bikes, and I've had success with Land Raider spam.

Hmmm. After some consideration, I think there might be a different problem.

You seem very discouraged about this, Ailaros. While several viable options have been presented, you seem about as optimistic as Eeyore on Chantix towards finding a solution. I'm not trying to be mean, but is there a possibility that the problem is less about the predominance of static-to-low-mobility armies with a concentration on long range firepower, and more a problem of hobby burnout? I'm not trying to drag your thread off topic (I know how frustrating that is) and if you think I'm off base I'll shut up about it, but at this point in time it seems like a valid question to be asking.

 Ailaros wrote:
The issue here is what's the point of a little bit of long-range support? It's just going to get wiped away by your opponent's lots of long-range support, leaving the rest of your units to tackle the exact same problems they had to tackle before. Except now you don't have as many points to spend on them because you spent them on long-range units.

That depends on what you take. There are many resilient long-range support options in the game.

 Ailaros wrote:
And I'd note it's particularly duplicitous to assume that you'll always hit chimeras on side armor of 10, but you'll only ever shoot at predators on front armor of 13...

No, it isn't. The battlefield role of a Chimera is completely different than that of a Predator. A Predator sits in the back and shoots. A Chimera carries units into small arms range. Basic geometry indicates that the more you move upfield, the more of your sides are relevantly exposed. A Predator can basically sit in a corner and not have any side arc visible at all-- if a Chimera does this, it's basically taking itself out of the battle (Company Command Squads aside). The Chimera model also has physically larger sides than the Predator.

These sorts of remarks are why I think general principles are often less helpful than specifics. Whether or not you can get side armor is not a general principle that can be applied to all vehicles equally, but rather one that is extremely dependent on situational factors. Without specifics, a lot of detail and nuance gets lost.

I don't think there are any gunlines that can stop the Ten Tervigon list. Within a few turns there is absolutely no room on the board for the enemy to move and everything is caught up in a sea of termagants until everything dies. Anything the Termagants can't kill can be handled by the Tervigons, and there just isn't enough firepower to stop everything from crashing into you.

At points values higher than 2k, just add more stuff as it suits you. Make them choke on monstrous creatures and a swarm of termagants until they start screaming in terror every time they see a Tervigon out of PTSD after how long it takes for you to complete a single turn.

 Kain wrote:
I don't think there are any gunlines that can stop the Ten Tervigon list. Within a few turns there is absolutely no room on the board for the enemy to move and everything is caught up in a sea of termagants until everything dies. Anything the Termagants can't kill can be handled by the Tervigons, and there just isn't enough firepower to stop everything from crashing into you.

At points values higher than 2k, just add more stuff as it suits you. Make them choke on monstrous creatures and a swarm of termagants until they start screaming in terror every time they see a Tervigon out of PTSD after how long it takes for you to complete a single turn.

Out of curiosity, how many points is this hypothetical list? (We've got a few real WAAC wastoids who play tyranids that occasionally troll our regional events, so I always like to stay prepared.)

Again, I really want to stress that (barring maybe the very-similar loyalist MEQ codices) there is no general solution for all/most to this problem. Tau tackles gunlines by out gunlining them, whereas Dark Eldar or Space Marines can't hope to challenge a gunline through weight of long-range fire alone. The armies are too different to rely on the same tactics beyond vague (and unhelpful) notions of 'disrupt them,' 'swarm them,' 'outscore them,' etc. (again, the loyalist chapters with their own army books may be an exception to this). Also, Ailaros, back when I kept my dakka'ing strictly to lurking you were one of the first people whose posts I started to follow and I've always loved your Foleran First writings/batreps (every time I read them I yearn to start writing up my own batreps...yet somehow I never get around to it). Bear in mind that I have the utmost respect for you when I say that I think you're stuck thinking about things in a vacuum in which circumstances always favour the gunline, and it's rather disheartening to see you so thoroughly convinced that a battle vs. a mech gunline is a hopeless feat (I will admit that they are very hard-to-beat lists, but I disagree as to the degree of just how uncounterable they are) .

Thinking back to the reports on your site, I remember that a lot of the pics seemed to show that massive portions of the board were devoid of terrain--infantry hate this much more than vehicles do in my experience, and if that's the usual board you play on then the huge chunks of terrain-less land could be one of the reasons your footguard gets slaughtered...and, granted, this could be why I don't share the same opinion about how beastly mechlines are as 9/10 of the games I've played have involved cramming as much terrain onto the board as possible (often we try to create city streets...which sort of funnels vehicles around the board). Another factor is you play a particularly aggressive-seeming footguard build (and I'm assuming that your CSM are very khornate in their approach to the game, too...purely based off your sig), which is playing the game on Dwarf Fortress difficulty against a defensive vehicle-based list.

I would also like to defend my assertion about DA termies being a good way to screw with a mechline. While I haven't fought a Wave Serpent spam list that I felt counted as a gunline, I have still fought massed serpents and won with my termies. With Deathwing all my terminators--the only units in my army--arrive on the first turn with twin-linked weapons (and with Belial's unit not scattering at all). And time and time again no matter who I'm fighting a massive blob of Hammernators falling into the enemy's midst always wrecks face and controls a good chunk of the enemy deployment zone (these are particularly hilarious to drop on the relic, too). Sure, they draw a ton of fire...but every AP2 pie plate that gets chucked at them is one that's not getting thrown at my less-durable guys. The Hammernators usually survive the whole game, too. It's by no means a 'general' solution, but I've already stated how I feel about that concept. Every army just needs to figure out its cool/weird trick that works.

On a side note I mentioned getting side shots on Chimeras and it was someone else who brought up predators, so I don't think anyone was being duplicitous.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Kain wrote:
I don't think there are any gunlines that can stop the Ten Tervigon list. Within a few turns there is absolutely no room on the board for the enemy to move and everything is caught up in a sea of termagants until everything dies. Anything the Termagants can't kill can be handled by the Tervigons, and there just isn't enough firepower to stop everything from crashing into you.

At points values higher than 2k, just add more stuff as it suits you. Make them choke on monstrous creatures and a swarm of termagants until they start screaming in terror every time they see a Tervigon out of PTSD after how long it takes for you to complete a single turn.

Out of curiosity, how many points is this hypothetical list? (We've got a few real WAAC wastoids who play tyranids that occasionally troll our regional events, so I always like to stay prepared.)

Exactly 2000, I posted it on the first page.

 Ailaros wrote:
The issue here is what's the point of a little bit of long-range support? It's just going to get wiped away by your opponent's lots of long-range support, leaving the rest of your units to tackle the exact same problems they had to tackle before. Except now you don't have as many points to spend on them because you spent them on long-range units.

If you have a single unit in cover that has long-range support, and it takes your opponent half of their firepower to bring it down, then that buys you a lot of time to get dudes across the field un-accosted.

Ten SS/Hammer terminators takes 36 plasma Hits (54 BS 4 shots or 27 guns in rapid-fire range) to kill on average. Even Guardsmen have trouble getting that many guns into a list. And then what points are left to engage anything else that turn? Blasts are inconsistent, and could scatter onto your own troops, so while they could do some damage, they aren't going to be a hand-wave of a solution.

I think one of the other posters was correct in thinking that there's definitely some burnout. When discussing an opponent's unit, Ailaros, you're always imagining every weapon of theirs hitting all of the time and you fail all of your saves. And when discussing your own units, it's always that you're paying SO MANY points for JUST A CHANCE to MAYBE GLANCE your opponent's transports. And then they have a deathstar of 20 plasmaguns inside!.

Obviously I'm exaggerating, but a lot of your arguments are coming across this way. I think it's evidence that your outlook is overly negative. I won't deny that gunlines have a huge buff these days, and that some are even more super-worse than others. But there are a lot of valid ideas that are getting hand-waved as "too much like a gunline" or "too easy to kill".

I will say that it's pretty certain that the playstyle you've obviously enjoyed in the past (massed charge over the hill to drown the enemy in bodies) doesn't work anymore. In 5th, you could still reasonably use flat-out number of bodies to overcome a lot of obstacles but I don't think it's valid anymore. Challenges, new ways of removing casualties, random assault range, and the prevalence of better anti-infantry weaponry just tipped the scales. Running just boots on the ground is currently dead.

You know what's interesting, I just realized that any army that can will turn into a gunline when facing a horde. I've never considered myself to have created a "gunline" list. In fact, I usually plan on advancing. But when playing against 40 Khorne Berserkers, why would I do anything tricky? Is it possible that you see gunlines everywhere because it's the rock to your scissors, and anyone who can pull off this change in tactics will? You flat-out win any assault my army would get into with you (except one, obvious exception), so why would I do anything but back away and shoot? So what we're really seeing is that you force your opponents to gunline or lose, and haven't made a list yet that can handle it when they do.

It's easy to be negative with the Wave Serpent in the game.

Martel732 wrote:
It's easy to be negative with the Wave Serpent in the game.

I believe the standard phrase here is "Quoted for Truth"

Ok I have been reading this thread for 3 days now.

OP heres the deal. The army you want doesnt exist. You want to beat a gunline? Play a gunline army. You dont want to play against a gunline army? Find a different group of people who dont play gunline armies. Play casual, not competitive. 5th Edition was all about the assault. Shooty armies had to deal with that. 6th edition is all about being shooty and now the assault armies get to deal with it.

Maybe you need to take a break from 40k for this edition and wait for 7th because you are shooting (pun) down everything anyone tries to tell you. Stick to the modeling and painting and wait for the rules to cater to the assault again.

 Xerics wrote:
Ok I have been reading this thread for 3 days now.

OP heres the deal. The army you want doesnt exist. You want to beat a gunline? Play a gunline army. You dont want to play against a gunline army? Find a different group of people who dont play gunline armies. Play casual, not competitive. 5th Edition was all about >cramming 21 Chimeras into a single army<. Shooty armies had to deal with that. 6th edition is all about being shooty and now the assault armies >still< get to deal with it.

Maybe you need to take a break from 40k for this edition and wait for 7th because you are shooting (pun) down everything anyone tries to tell you. Stick to the modeling and painting and wait for the rules to cater to the assault again.

Corrected for (tongue-in-cheek) accuracy. I still disagree with this, though. Playing a gunline army is hardly the only solution to a gunline. There are ways to win with a heavy assault focus (my DE still, somehow, manage to massacre shooty opponents with Wych/Hellion rushing)--those ways to win just happen to not be 'just walk right up to the enemy and start punching.' 5th edition was all about the shooting,too, it's just that general consensus seems to be that assault was much more viable back then (and yet I'm having more success with CC DE now than then).

Jimsolo wrote:You seem very discouraged about this, Ailaros. While several viable options have been presented, you seem about as optimistic as Eeyore on Chantix towards finding a solution.

It's not a matter of mere encouragement. I'm genuinely trying to find an answer here, which requires more than subjective guessing. I'm down on hammernators, for example, not because I don't want there to be a solution to mech gunlines, but because hammernators are a bad solution to mech gunlines.

Kingsley wrote:A Chimera carries units into small arms range.

Chimeras are a defensive weapon. They only move forward at the end of the game to move onto objectives after you've been all but tabled.

I've never seen a leafblower player load up on a bunch of static artillery and then start the game by charging his two or three chimeras forward in front of everything else. For good reason.

Unit1126PLL wrote: the point in a little bit of ranged support is the same reason you'd take a lot of ranged support: it's better than not taking any ranged support at all. I'm actually quite confused by the question.

If some ranged support is better than no ranged support, then it stands to reason that more ranged support is generally better than less ranged support.

If what makes you strong is the amount of gunline, you will therefore be weaker the less gunline you have. Which creates this problem I've been describing. If you're only doing a little bit of gunline, then that little bit of gunline isn't going to beat a lot of gunline, while the rest of your non-gunline now have fewer points to spend on themselves, weakening your overall non-gunline strategy. On the other hand, the more and more gunline you add, the closer you become to just playing a gunline.

Likan Wolfsheim wrote:I think you're stuck thinking about things in a vacuum

I'm simply trying to keep things abstract. If there are general principles that make this problem difficult to solve, then there are general principles which will provide the answer.

Now, if you want to assert that there are no general answers across all armies, that's fine, but whatever specific army counter is going to have to come to grips with the principles behind it.

Because otherwise it's going to devolve into "Oh yeah? Well, once when I played a game in MY basement, THIS happened. So there."

Likan Wolfsheim wrote:I remember that a lot of the pics seemed to show that massive portions of the board were devoid of terrain--infantry hate this much more than vehicles

Well... yes and no. Infantry do get cover saves, but infantry RELY on cover saves more, so all these new cover-ignoring weapons are harder on them. Meanwhile, vehicles can be immobilized on terrain, but most of the time they can just move clean through it, up to 12". Infantry, on the other hand are ALWAYS slowed by terrain, so they're moving, at most, D6". And then some vehicles, like skimmers, aren't slowed by terrain at all. And that's not to mention the few barrage weapons who want to have LOS blocking terrain as much as possible.

Terrain does block fire lanes some amount, that's true, but mech mobility, and the above means that terrain isn't just a straight win.

Unless perhaps, as mentioned, you play a total cities of death board with 80% terrain, or, like bocage, or something.

Likan Wolfsheim wrote:Sure, they draw a ton of fire...but every AP2 pie plate that gets chucked at them is one that's not getting thrown at my less-durable guys.

I don't get it. How many "other guys" are you bringing? If you're bringing a lot, then you're not bringing many terminators, which means they probably should be getting killed faster than being let on. Meanwhile, if you're bringing a lot, then there isn't going to be much to withstand a weakened gunline at the end of the game.

ElCheezus wrote:If you have a single unit in cover that has long-range support, and it takes your opponent half of their firepower to bring it down, then that buys you a lot of time to get dudes across the field un-accosted.

This still brings up the problem of how a bit of gunline can beat a lot of gunline. A single long-range support unit isn't likely to do THAT much damage, much less in time.

Having something in cover does help with the efficiency problem, though, but only if your opponent shoots at them. I mean, let's say I was playing DA. Who would you shoot at in the beginning of the game, the mortis dread with techmarine in 3+ cover, or at some of those 40 ravenwing bikes charging at you?

ElCheezus wrote:Ten SS/Hammer terminators takes 36 plasma Hits (54 BS 4 shots or 27 guns in rapid-fire range) to kill on average. Even Guardsmen have trouble getting that many guns into a list.

Ten hammernators costs, what, 500 points? That's the same cost as three plasma mechvet squads. If you start talking about more expensive terminators, like DA, you can afford to give the mechvets plasma pistols as well. In full rig, the guard player is putting out 24 plasma shots in a turn, plus whatever armor saves heavy flamers, multilasers, and the stray lasgun puts down.

That's half the terminator squad when they land, then they charge the chimeras and eat, say, 20 plasma shots of overwatch causing another to fall. Even if they wreck all three chimers (which is super unlikely, it's then three squads of somewhat singed plasma vets against only four terminators (assuming they haven't lost another from vehicle explosions either).

The terminators don't win this, and that was with generous parameters, like assuming that they land on target, and that the guard player doesn't have allies with interceptor, and that the guard player lets all of his chimeras get charged, rather than staggering.

And even then, it's not that disruptive, as all of the long range guns can do something else, because the vets have it covered. Or worse, they have other defensive weapons that you've given them good targets to shoot at now. The termies wont do well against three plasma mechvet squads and a punisher - those kinds of force concentration issues being sort of the point of playing mech lists in the first place.

If it looks like this isn't a good solution, it's because it isn't., not because I'm being overly dismissive.

ElCheezus wrote:You know what's interesting, I just realized that any army that can will turn into a gunline when facing a horde.

Well, when facing anything not a gunline.

And that's certainly true. I've seen hard-charging DE armies get suddenly skittish around me. Well, I suppose that was in 5th ed when you could play hard charging DE, but I digress. Anyways, assuming this to be true, what's the answer? Whenever I don't play a gunline, I'm up against a gunline, so the only way to get people to come to me is to play a gunline? It would be a defeat of a mech gunline (because they wouldn't be playing it as a gunline anymore), but it would be defeating it with a gunline, which is the opposite of what I'm trying to achieve.

Likan Wolfsheim wrote: (and yet I'm having more success with CC DE now than then).

How?

 Xerics wrote:
Ok I have been reading this thread for 3 days now.

OP heres the deal. The army you want doesnt exist. You want to beat a gunline? Play a gunline army. You dont want to play against a gunline army? Find a different group of people who dont play gunline armies. Play casual, not competitive. 5th Edition was all about the assault. Shooty armies had to deal with that. 6th edition is all about being shooty and now the assault armies get to deal with it.

Maybe you need to take a break from 40k for this edition and wait for 7th because you are shooting (pun) down everything anyone tries to tell you. Stick to the modeling and painting and wait for the rules to cater to the assault again.

Not sure what 5th edition you played. It catered to IG leafblower just fine. Many lists never got to assault IG leaf blower lists.

I have been following this thread for a couple of days and have some thoughts/advice to share.

First, in regard to the picture in page 1, what exactly was the plan here? You have foot mobile infantry with absolutely no long range fire support engaging vehicles. Meltas are an excellent anti-vehicle weapon, but you can't realistically expect your opponent to willingly drive his vehicles within melta range, nor can you expect to successfully chase down a vehicle on foot. If your going to rely on destroying vehicle at close range, you have to incorporate a delivery mechanism. Deepstriking stormtroopers, veterans in vendettas, veterans in chimera; doesn't matter what it is, as long is it can close in on the enemy vehicles quickly. Outflanking isn't a bad idea, but is insufficient alone because he must be near the board edges, and based on the picture, it appears you outflanked along the wrong board edge anyway, whether by choice or by luck. You needed your outflankers on the other side of the board to surround his vehicles and make it more difficult for him to evade you.

I also agree with a great many posters here that the definition of gunline being used in this thread is far too broad. I would not consider a fully mechanized list a gunline, nor would I considered mechanized veterans, and up close and in your face sort of unit, a gunline unit. And it seems a lot of problems being encountered stem from a desire to avoid using longer range weapons under any and all circumstances, even when they would be warranted.

Consider one of the main problems that have been referred to in this thread, veterans in chimera. Veterans are nasty units that are incredibly dangerous at short range while being cheap to field, and the chimera transports they are in are similarly cheap. Neutralizing the chimera does not eliminate the danger of the veterans because they can still disembark and shoot you. If you insist on getting close to them, you are probably going to take some serious casualties from massed BS4 plasma, melta or flamer fire, and given the low point cost of veterans, this could easily inflict more damage in terms of points than the veterans themselves cost. This has nothing to do with the gunline centric nature of 6e, it is simply the nature of IG veterans, and they have always presented this problem since the day the last IG codex dropped.

There are two ways to deal with veterans without suffering massive causalities in return

1.) Have sufficient firepower to destroy both the chimera and the veterans to the last three men (since that is were all the firepower resides) within the space of a single turn so they cannot retaliate.

2.) Use longer range anti-tank weapons to disable the chimera while keeping the veterans at arms length, thus preventing return fire the following turn.

Needless to say, option 2.) is considerably easier and safer, as it requires less firepower to execute and does not get your AT unit killed should you roll badly and fail to destroy the chimera in a single turn. But you have to use an AT weapon that keeps you outside of 18" of the chimera, such as an autocannon or missile pod, and you have been defining almost everything along these lines as either a gunline weapon or simply declaring it impractical. And this situation really isn't even a problem with an enemy gunline; the reason you are destroying the chimera at range is because the veterans are dangerous at close range, the exact opposite of a gunline. You would adopt a similar strategy against a ork truck filled with slugga boyz to avoid getting charged in the following round, and I don't think any level of twisted logic can be used to define those as a gunline unit.

The pictures on page 1 were a response to someone saying "take al'rahem", and me saying that it won't work (for much the same reasons you note), except was also using pictures to explain the point.

For the definition of mech gunlines, I've been giving examples. Guard leafblower. Eldar serpent spam. GK ranged killing power (psyflemen, coteaz with a bunch of plasma cannons, psyker henchmen, etc.) combined with henchmen in chimeras. Razorspam, especially with fast BA preds. Necron ark spam or an ork battlewagon+lootas list. Most armies have some way of creating the kind of list I'm talking about.

As for the "take a few gunline units in a non-gunline list", I'll direct you to my previous two posts.

And no, a list made up of just veterans likely isn't much of a gunline. The poblem, as has been mentioned, is that you can set up a gunline, and chip in a couple hundred points to have great defensive units in there as well.

 Ailaros wrote:

Kingsley wrote:A Chimera carries units into small arms range.

Chimeras are a defensive weapon. They only move forward at the end of the game to move onto objectives after you've been all but tabled.

I've never seen a leafblower player load up on a bunch of static artillery and then start the game by charging his two or three chimeras forward in front of everything else. For good reason.

If they don't move up, I win-- my Marines take midfield and then I win on objectives. Few armies have enough firepower to eliminate my scoring units, and against those that do my firepower can generally neutralize the problem units (most commonly HYMP Broadsides) before they get effective.

 Ailaros wrote:
If what makes you strong is the amount of gunline, you will therefore be weaker the less gunline you have. Which creates this problem I've been describing. If you're only doing a little bit of gunline, then that little bit of gunline isn't going to beat a lot of gunline, while the rest of your non-gunline now have fewer points to spend on themselves, weakening your overall non-gunline strategy. On the other hand, the more and more gunline you add, the closer you become to just playing a gunline.

Your fire support elements aren't there to defeat the enemy gunline single-handedly-- they're to get in shootouts with enemy gunline elements and either draw their fire (allowing your scoring units to move up safely) or neutralize them (if they focus on your scoring units). It's a win-win-- if the opponent focuses their efforts on taking on your gunline elements, your scoring units get into position to win the game. If the opponent focuses their efforts on engaging your scoring units, you can start picking off key units.

 Ailaros wrote:

ElCheezus wrote:You know what's interesting, I just realized that any army that can will turn into a gunline when facing a horde.

Well, when facing anything not a gunline.

And that's certainly true. I've seen hard-charging DE armies get suddenly skittish around me. Well, I suppose that was in 5th ed when you could play hard charging DE, but I digress. Anyways, assuming this to be true, what's the answer? Whenever I don't play a gunline, I'm up against a gunline, so the only way to get people to come to me is to play a gunline? It would be a defeat of a mech gunline (because they wouldn't be playing it as a gunline anymore), but it would be defeating it with a gunline, which is the opposite of what I'm trying to achieve.

I think this may be your problem. Overall, most of your armies seem to be "infantry charging across the board" (though there were some "vehicles with short-ranged weapons charging across the board" lists in there too), with limited fire support. Against that sort of army, I would likely elect to stand back and just try to shoot them off the table. Horde armies without good long range fire support suffer from a lack of force concentration that makes it easy to take out their relevant units one at a time. I honestly think your best bet would be to add more long range elements to your lists.

Kingsley wrote:If they don't move up, I win-- my Marines take midfield and then I win on objectives.

Or they table your army, and they win. Or they kill off your scoring units (how is this difficult to do against marines?) and they win. Or they blow your units off the objectives and make a late game dash for them, and win. Or they go for a draw and win on secondaries with first blood. Or you play Purge, Relic, or Will missions where it doesn't really matter. Or a big guns game, where their big guns score. Or big guns or crusade with an uneven number of objectives and you didn't get to place first, so they just win.

I don't know if there's a purely tabletop solution to losing so many guys so quickly you can't effect a tabletop solution.

Kingsley wrote:If the opponent focuses their efforts on engaging your scoring units, you can start picking off key units.

But not as fast as they're picking off your scoring units.

I mean, you could look at this exactly in reverse. Your opponent has forced you to waste points to bring gunline units that are going to try and dig your units out of cover while you're free to shoot at everything else.

Whatever advantages there are to a little bit of gunline, you get more of by bringing more gunline.

And it IS a bit silly, right? I mean, if 40k is a game of rock paper scissors, then the best solution to getting beaten by scissors is to take more scissors?

Not more siccors... Scissors made of harder material that cut their weak materialed scissors.

 Ailaros wrote:

Kingsley wrote:If they don't move up, I win-- my Marines take midfield and then I win on objectives.

Or they table your army, and they win.

I've never been tabled in 6th edition. Realistically, it's not going to happen unless you have terrible rolls on Morale checks or just get completely overrun-- which usually happens with assault armies, not gunlines. The closest I've ever been to it happened in a game where I simply couldn't wound an enemy Wraithknight despite repeated las and melta hits-- but now that grav-guns are in the game I don't envision that happening again anytime soon.

 Ailaros wrote:
Or they kill off your scoring units (how is this difficult to do against marines?) and they win.

I start taking 30 Tactical Marines at like 1000 points and scale up from there. With enough investment in Troops, killing off your scoring units becomes very difficult-- and if the opponent does try to focus on that, I can always use cover, terrain, and transports to mitigate their firepower, while my Heavy Support units continue to pick them off.

 Ailaros wrote:
Or they blow your units off the objectives and make a late game dash for them, and win.

Again, this tends not to realistically happen with enough of a scoring presence. To be clear, I think the vast majority of 6th edition armies don't field enough Troops.

 Ailaros wrote:
Or they go for a draw and win on secondaries with first blood.

First Blood is by no means guaranteed.

 Ailaros wrote:
Or you play Purge, Relic, or Will missions where it doesn't really matter.

In Purge, I'll gladly hide my transports and deploy my Tactical Marines as expensive 10-man lascannon squads on foot. Is it efficient? Hell no. Does it yield kill points easily? Also no.

 Ailaros wrote:
Or a big guns game, where their big guns score. Or big guns or crusade with an uneven number of objectives and you didn't get to place first, so they just win.

My group typically either plays the BAO scenario or enforces that one objective goes in the center if an odd number of objectives come up to avoid that situation. If you allow uneven numbers of objectives with rulebook objective placement, there are indeed situations where you can end up being pretty screwed-- though with proper investments in mobility, perhaps not as many as one might think.

 Ailaros wrote:

Kingsley wrote:If the opponent focuses their efforts on engaging your scoring units, you can start picking off key units.

But not as fast as they're picking off your scoring units.

I don't find this to be the case. My scoring units are usually resilient (Tactical Marines), numerous (Kroot) or both (I often run 48 Fire Warriors + allied Marines or Kroot). Firepower dedicated to entirely eliminating them is very inefficient, whereas my specialist fire support units are extremely efficient against their chosen targets.

For instance, let's say there's an exact mirror match and my opponent decides to use his Broadsides and Riptides to kill all my Fire Warriors. Are they effective at doing this? To some extent, yes, especially if he also dedicates his Pathfinders to the job-- but in the meantime my Riptides are going for his Broadsides, and my Broadsides are shooting his Riptides. Riptides kill Broadsides faster than Broadsides kill Fire Warriors.

 Ailaros wrote:
I mean, you could look at this exactly in reverse. Your opponent has forced you to waste points to bring gunline units that are going to try and dig your units out of cover while you're free to shoot at everything else.

Those points aren't wasted. Fire support elements are very useful in balanced armies-- I don't know why you think they wouldn't be.

 Ailaros wrote:
Whatever advantages there are to a little bit of gunline, you get more of by bringing more gunline.

Yes, but your weaknesses are also compounded. That's why balanced lists are IMO more effective.

 Ailaros wrote:
And it IS a bit silly, right? I mean, if 40k is a game of rock paper scissors, then the best solution to getting beaten by scissors is to take more scissors?

40k is only rock paper scissors when both players play with unbalanced lists.

There are a few of my points in an earlier post by the OP that were addressed and I'm a touch too pressed for time right now to derp around with the quote function.

On Hammernators:

I typically squeeze somewhere between 30 and 40 terminators into my Deathwing army, with the 'less-durable' guys being guys without the shields (and still these ones tend to survive for a very long time). So 1/3-1/4 of my army is the 10-man Hammernator blob (granted I don't tend to do this as often as it probably sounds like I do), with the rest usually being shooting-oriented 5-man Deathwing groups (I had a hilarious game vs. CSM where I just ran 3 units of 10...it went pretty damn well, actually). Not having any solid support units kinda hurts, but have troop terminators and not having anything on the board to get shot up if the enemy goes first usually makes up for it. I've never fought IG with it, but I've beaten Serpent Spam consistently with it and the one fight I had against Tau I won, too (I realise, though, that one fight isn't sufficient to make any assertions). Not to mention it absolutely wrecks Nidzilla and CSM. I'm not quite sure what the big difference in force composition there is between Wave Serpent Spam and Wave Serpent Gunline (really, they almost seem to be the same armies, played differently) is, but WS-spam is perfectly beatable by dropping terminators all over the place and then marching around the board krumpin' stuff. It's by no means the easiest way and the games get very tense and exciting (and this is a good thing) towards the end, but it has pretty much always worked.

On terrain and/or the game board in general:

I really think the sort of terrain/board layout that one usually plays on is a huge part of what sort of lists do well in the local meta. A battlefield reminiscent of a flat prairie with just a few structures/hills is going to greatly favour an army comprised of durable, shooty vehicles, whereas a battlefield with big pieces of LoS-blocking terrain that put huge bind spots in the firing lanes (forcing either spread out firebases or constant, awkward movement to get those good shots) is going to favour armies that can quickly advance behind the safety of the terrain and aggressively go for the kill. It might be worth a shot to radically switch up the sort of terrain (and terrain density) on the board and just see what it does for the game. Using terrain is *not* ever going to be a 'straight win' unless there is some really brokenly good piece on the board--but using the terrain available to its fullest potential can certainly swing a game in an army's favour.

On CC Dark Eldar:

As to how I win with CC DE...well I just keep doing what I've been doing. Deploy in sideways boats and try to make sure there's some sort of terrain piece (even if it's further down the board) blocking them, pivot forward for 3", move 6", disembark 6", charge 2d6" (rerollable w/ Fleet) inches) (The Hellions take a couple turns to get into assault but they usually make it). Most my opponents don't play castled-up and actively try to grab objectives so in most games there's something right on their deployment zone I can conceivably charge--and when there isn't then I just dart between terrain pieces and wait. This works much better when getting first turn...but pretty much all DE builds I've seen really shine with first turn. Heck, in one really crazy 2.5k game I lost 1000pts in the first turn of shooting and still managed to table my brother's CSM in the end with a (what I had believed to be) suicide rush at his force ('I'm toast, why not?'). Overwatch rarely does more than kill the odd wych and the random charge range, when given rerolls w/ fleet, usually come out in my favour (I have had horribly fatal failed charges, though, and admit this is always a very real risk). Aside from that 6th edition prompted a massive decrease in scary CC units within my local meta, so it tends to be very easy to overpower the enemy once I actually get to them.

I'm still not understanding the deathwing thing. Terminators are expensive for their damage output (well, unless you're CSM, but that's another matter), and they still suffer from the one-two problem of defensive units in transports as described above. In the case of wave serpents, it seems even stranger, because either you're spreading your termies out, in which case skimmers have the ability to focus them down, or else you're deploying all in one spot, in which case the skimmers can fly over your terminators and flat-out far away and start a new gunline game turn 2.

You're saying THAT you've won against mech gunlines, but I'm asking HOW you're winning (or why) you're winning with this, given all the problems described.

As for terrain, I'll reference a few posts ago. Foot gunlines may be hindered by terrain, but mech gunlines are less so (and sometimes benefit from it, thanks to mobility, etc.).

As for DE assaults, the reason you can get there is because your opponents are moving a bunch of stuff forwards, rather than just piteouslessly gunning all the flimsy boxes open?

 Ailaros wrote:
I'm still not understanding the deathwing thing. Terminators are expensive for their damage output (well, unless you're CSM, but that's another matter), and they still suffer from the one-two problem of defensive units in transports as described above. In the case of wave serpents, it seems even stranger, because either you're spreading your termies out, in which case skimmers have the ability to focus them down, or else you're deploying all in one spot, in which case the skimmers can fly over your terminators and flat-out far away and start a new gunline game turn 2.

You're saying THAT you've won against mech gunlines, but I'm asking HOW you're winning (or why) you're winning with this, given all the problems described.

As for terrain, I'll reference a few posts ago. Foot gunlines may be hindered by terrain, but mech gunlines are less so (and sometimes benefit from it, thanks to mobility, etc.).

As for DE assaults, the reason you can get there is because your opponents are moving a bunch of stuff forwards, rather than just piteouslessly gunning all the flimsy boxes open?

I really should not be constantly checking back here as following discussions is proving to be a very time-consuming activity.

I'm talking about big clusters of terrain mid-field with small courtyard-esque pockets between the ruins (a lot of our ruins don't have bases, either, so infantry mobility is much less affected than it may sound) and a few narrow channels between the clusters. Aside from a few prime across-the-board firing spots (which don't accommodate an entire army's worth of shooty stuff) the only way to get clear shots on infantry using the terrain is to move down the channels between the features and move the turret (or, G-d forbid, pivot the entire vehicle) to face down an alleyway and fire on the infantry. Until now I have not really given the terrain dynamic we have going on here much though and, regrettably, I cannot give a much better analysis than 'something about the terrain here forces vehicles to advance if they want to make a difference.' People have tried castling up with vehicles or playing shoot-and-scoot in their deployment zone (myself included) and it simply does not work.

With Deathwing there's not really a big secret as to how to squeeze out a victory from Wave Serpent Spam: the entire army deepstrikes and pops as many serpents as it can with T-L missiles (and assault cannons to the rear). The Hammernators also get the most fire directed towards them and they usually weather it very well. I'll admit that I think psychology in my meta works in my favour here because there is a vastly disproportionate amount of fire that gets thrown at my TH/SS unit (even the more-common group of 5 + Belial tends to last for a long time) and the other units tend to go fairly unmolested for a turn or so. After the initial strike the termies march through terrain, shooting at the remaining serpents or killing the units robbed of their transports. The Hammernators tend to stay prominently in the open, which may actually be a big part of why they take so much of the fire--they're more readily visible and being obviously menacing.

It's not so much that the enemy is moving towards me when I play DE (I usually get first turn, the Baron makes quite a difference sometimes!), but rather that they have something charge-able right on the edge of their deployment zone which I can make a crazy wych charge against on the first turn. It typically takes 2 rounds of CC for the Wyches to kill/break a given unit, so they're safely locked in close combat on the enemy's shooting phase and usually free by my next turn to find something else to kill. I do find it odd that *most* people keep deploying things forward and don't try to castle up further into their zone...but I guess that's just the general approach to the game here. I have had some pretty abysmally bad enemy shooting phases (DE definitely loses much more games than Deathwing, I'm not trying to make it sound like an unbeatable army), but usually the terrain setup saves my sorry bum from losing too much on the first turn. There is also a distinct lack of terrain-ignoring weapons in my meta which aren't flamer templates (and it's a little too late for the poor soldiers if I'm that close) in addition to a ton of 4+ cover, making the journey across the board much safer than it could be. Markerlights still exist, but they're not as spammed as they are in some of the horror stories that I hear.

Interesting discussion so far.

I don't think there is a general recipe on how to cope with the "best" gunline builds. They are after all the "best" right now and you should not expect a good win ratio against them.

A question to the OP. What win ratio are you looking for? As far as I know you generally dislike flyers and from what I've seen in your reports you haven't really been tapping into using allies (I agree with you btw, so this statement is not meant to start an argument) which means you are kind of handicapping yourself from the start by removing some list building options.

Ok trying to generalize a bit...

I think there is a lot of truth in saying if you have a very cc oriented army, then all opponents will try to transform themselves into gunlines as best they can. After all if defeat in cc is certain then postponing it for as long as possible must be the best tactic.

The same to some extent goes for short ranged weapons like plasma and melta. If your army is stronger in this area then your opponents optimal tactic would be to keep out of range for as long as possible.

Personally I don't think pure cc is viable in 40k (was it ever?) so I think any non-gunline "solution" needs to dominate at close range shooting AND close combat without over investing in either. There is some synergies in this as sometimes you will get to hurt your opponent twice in the same turn. It can be as straight forward as first shooting then assaulting a unit, but with skill and luck it is, as far as I know, possible to first pop a transport and then assault the guys that falls out of it.

Then you need to use all mobility options available, including meching up, even if this means loosing first blood as the first Rhino get's blown to bits. There has been some good army specific suggestions already in this thread!

The biggest reason is what has been labeled force concentration and timing above and this is probably what makes this type of list so much harder to play than a gunline. You need to make sure you can't be gunned to bits piece wise. This means your army must be designed to reach/start hurting the enemy roughly at the same time.

There is another big upside to being mobile as you will get area control as you know your opponent doesn't want to be within X" from you. The faster your unit is the bigger X will be.

I also still think LOS blocking terrain is essential. Sure, the gunline can use it as well, but it does reduce fire lanes and the game is no longer in point in click mode. Every time a unit moves a mistake can be made!