KommissarKarl wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:

KommissarKarl wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
BA don't have the bodies to absorb much damage. Take advantage.

I only ever get two turns of shooting against them at best, one if I'm going second. My Demolishers and Executioners are effective but they miss more often than they hit and even a handful of assault marines can easily wreck all of my vehicles and my infantry.

We play on a 4 by 4 table so by turn 2 he can potentially assault the entire table length - his 12" deployment, two twelve inch movements and a 2d6 assault move. I am struggling to find a way of killing his assault marines before they arrive at my army and destroy everything, and I'm struggling to see what would help. I bought the Inquisition codex when it came out and I'm contemplating getting an Inquisitor and allying him in with 10 Death Cult Assassins, using the Inquisitor to twin-link my Executioner and the death cult assassins to kill his assault marines. Only problem is that his jump infantry are much more mobile than the Death Cult Assassins would be so I don't think it's likely I would get the charge, more likely the assassins would be flamed and shot at, then the handful of survivors killed in a one-sided assault.

What do you guys think? Give me a sample list of mech guard at 1000 point that you would use to counter a Blood Angel army that was made up of, say, one squad of assault marines (melta gun, flamer, power fist, melta bombs), 10 death company with a few power weapons and an attached reclesiarch, and a predator with lascannons.

An assault squad, a dc squad, a las pred and a reclusiarch? And you want to run inquisition?
Easy:

Lord commissar (goes in blob)
Powerfist

Platoon (A)
Platoon command squad

Infantry squad

Infantry squad

Platoon (B)
Platoon command squad

4 Infantry squads (combined)
4 poweraxes

Basilisk

LR Vanquisher
Pask
Lascannon

Ordo Xenos Inquisitor (in blob)
Hammerhand, rad granades, force sword, liber heresius

Henchmen squad
1 Priest
4 DCA

1k

Platoon A and the platoon command squad of B, create a bubblewrap line which the BA units have to assault if they want to get to the units behind.
Once BA units have asssaulted these your blob and henchmen can counter assault.

The blob will have 72 st4, 5 st4 ap3, 16 st5 ap2 and 4 st7 ap2 attacks on the charge minus some st 4 attacks for casualties. The marines will be t3 due to rad granades so even the worst attacks will be wounding on 3's. The st7 attacks however will completely ignore fnp due to ID. If the bubble wrap for some reason didn't work you have liber heresius (sp?) to give you counter attack anyway.
The Henchmen squad will have 16 st4 ap3 I6 attacks with ws5 on the charge, rerolling to hit and very likely rerolling to wound. Oh and 4 st3 with the same benefit.

Pask in his vanquisher will love to be shooting at that tri las pred all game. When done he can take out marines here and there too. Bear in mind I am so confident with this list against the BA one you proposed that I am advocating a 220pt unit to take out a 180pt unit.

The Basilisk just shoots and butchers. Just shoots and butchers. (No FnP, armour save, and very likely no cover save due to barrage).

An assault marine, DC and reclusiarch backed up by a tri-las pred shouldn't be too hard to beat anyway tbf.

I used to run lists like that, with a couple of infantry platoons combined into squads. Against Blood Angels you may as well field baby kittens, infantry squads die just as quick as veterans and they don't even have the special weapons to compensate. Honestly your list would be annihilated against my opponent as the only thing you'd have to kill those twenty assault marines is that one basilisk which my opponent would immediately prioritise and destroy.

They will also never, ever get the charge. It is very difficult for a 30 man unit to maneuver at all, let alone getting the charge on jump infantry. They die like flies to whirlwinds and bhaal preditors, I used to spend more time putting them on and off the table than I did shooting or assaulting them.

I also find that the Basilisk will quickly die to lascannons and meltaguns, which is why the only AV 12 I take is chimeras since that is necessary. A Basilisk is just a Leman Russ that is 20 points cheaper and only gets one turn to shoot, if that.

A lot of people have said "Oh it shouldn't be too hard" but I've beaten my friends' tau, necron and eldar fine, or at least have had an actual battle. It's only Blood Angels who can get to my tanks and men so quickly that I don't have a chance to shoot them.

 Red Corsair wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Btw... just to point out - I didn't list tailor in my original guard list as there was no list to tailor against... secondly - the list I did make was a pretty standard guard list.

At normal point levels BA just don't have the slots and pay way too much per specialist weapon. Guard get 3 PG in an AV12 transport for 170. Find me where BA get access to that in their troops section?

 Frankenberry wrote:
I play both armies and I choked on my coffee when I read that BA can outshoot/be on par with IG shooting. That's crap for anyone who's actually played either army.

BA shooting isn't nonexistent, they're marines remember. But saying that an old 5th edition codex built around an assault based army can shoot just as well as a codex/army built for shooting is just silly. If you want a shooty marine list take a Codex Marine chapter and stop wasting your time with an outdated 'dex written to support an army based 80% on assaulting.

 Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, BA are a pain for guard armies. Always were, and likely always will be. Their current codex's combination of nearly as good shooting with much better speed and assault generally outclasses.

Are you finding that your chimeras are getting destroyed before the assault troops hit? If so, keeping them a little safer should be a higher priority for you. Done right, you should get a turn to drive up and shoot the assaulters, then a round of overwatch as he assaults the transports, then another round of shooting, and then another round of overwatch when he charges. That SHOULD be enough shooting, assuming that you're bringing enough firepower.

Also, what's probably going on is a matter of concentration. If you keep your whole army together, you'll be able to really focus down his assaulters, especially at this low points value where space isn't so much of a premium, and he's not going to be bringing as many assaulter.

Creating a castle of mechvets and artillery, or a tortoise of mechvets and russes should do the trick. Perhaps throw in a squad of melticide stormtroopers to bring the fight to his exposed support units mid-game, and you should be good to go.

Otherwise, I can't give more advice without something akin to a battle report (showing lists, how you moved, which targets you prioritized, etc.)

 bocatt wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Btw... just to point out - I didn't list tailor in my original guard list as there was no list to tailor against... secondly - the list I did make was a pretty standard guard list.

At normal point levels BA just don't have the slots and pay way too much per specialist weapon. Guard get 3 PG in an AV12 transport for 170. Find me where BA get access to that in their troops section?

Don't really care about most of this, but:
5 assault marines, plasma gun
Razorback, Lascannon and TLplasma gun
170 pts

It's a much more diverse unit but same points cost. You lose AV12, gain fast, lose 5 bodies but go from GEQ to MEQ, lose 7 lasguns but gain bolt pistols and CCWs, lose two plasma guns but gain a twin linked plasma gun and a Lascannon. Pretty comparable units. Both troops. the Chimera does have firing ports and some guns of it's own. Multilasers or heavy bolters or heavy flamers but just like the HF/HB razorback, they're situationally useful. They can be great and they can not really do anything. It depends on the game.

It's my personal opinion, and I'm not going to try to tell you which is better, that I would prefer the Razorback unit. especially since I can add an extra body, FnP and FC for only 50 pts with access to even more wargear (we were talking about efficiency so I left the wargear differences out of the equation)

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
So nobody else runs tons of Sanguinary Guard?
2+ armor, jump packs, power weapons, backed up with libarian for the invul power and priests for feel no pain.
It basically turns BA into an army of terminators wearing jump packs.
I've done really well against guard with it.

Poly Ranger wrote:

KommissarKarl wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:

KommissarKarl wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
BA don't have the bodies to absorb much damage. Take advantage.

I only ever get two turns of shooting against them at best, one if I'm going second. My Demolishers and Executioners are effective but they miss more often than they hit and even a handful of assault marines can easily wreck all of my vehicles and my infantry.

We play on a 4 by 4 table so by turn 2 he can potentially assault the entire table length - his 12" deployment, two twelve inch movements and a 2d6 assault move. I am struggling to find a way of killing his assault marines before they arrive at my army and destroy everything, and I'm struggling to see what would help. I bought the Inquisition codex when it came out and I'm contemplating getting an Inquisitor and allying him in with 10 Death Cult Assassins, using the Inquisitor to twin-link my Executioner and the death cult assassins to kill his assault marines. Only problem is that his jump infantry are much more mobile than the Death Cult Assassins would be so I don't think it's likely I would get the charge, more likely the assassins would be flamed and shot at, then the handful of survivors killed in a one-sided assault.

What do you guys think? Give me a sample list of mech guard at 1000 point that you would use to counter a Blood Angel army that was made up of, say, one squad of assault marines (melta gun, flamer, power fist, melta bombs), 10 death company with a few power weapons and an attached reclesiarch, and a predator with lascannons.

An assault squad, a dc squad, a las pred and a reclusiarch? And you want to run inquisition?
Easy:

Lord commissar (goes in blob)
Powerfist

Platoon (A)
Platoon command squad

Infantry squad

Infantry squad

Platoon (B)
Platoon command squad

4 Infantry squads (combined)
4 poweraxes

Basilisk

LR Vanquisher
Pask
Lascannon

Ordo Xenos Inquisitor (in blob)
Hammerhand, rad granades, force sword, liber heresius

Henchmen squad
1 Priest
4 DCA

1k

Platoon A and the platoon command squad of B, create a bubblewrap line which the BA units have to assault if they want to get to the units behind.
Once BA units have asssaulted these your blob and henchmen can counter assault.

The blob will have 72 st4, 5 st4 ap3, 16 st5 ap2 and 4 st7 ap2 attacks on the charge minus some st 4 attacks for casualties. The marines will be t3 due to rad granades so even the worst attacks will be wounding on 3's. The st7 attacks however will completely ignore fnp due to ID. If the bubble wrap for some reason didn't work you have liber heresius (sp?) to give you counter attack anyway.
The Henchmen squad will have 16 st4 ap3 I6 attacks with ws5 on the charge, rerolling to hit and very likely rerolling to wound. Oh and 4 st3 with the same benefit.

Pask in his vanquisher will love to be shooting at that tri las pred all game. When done he can take out marines here and there too. Bear in mind I am so confident with this list against the BA one you proposed that I am advocating a 220pt unit to take out a 180pt unit.

The Basilisk just shoots and butchers. Just shoots and butchers. (No FnP, armour save, and very likely no cover save due to barrage).

An assault marine, DC and reclusiarch backed up by a tri-las pred shouldn't be too hard to beat anyway tbf.

I used to run lists like that, with a couple of infantry platoons combined into squads. Against Blood Angels you may as well field baby kittens, infantry squads die just as quick as veterans and they don't even have the special weapons to compensate. Honestly your list would be annihilated against my opponent as the only thing you'd have to kill those twenty assault marines is that one basilisk which my opponent would immediately prioritise and destroy.

They will also never, ever get the charge. It is very difficult for a 30 man unit to maneuver at all, let alone getting the charge on jump infantry. They die like flies to whirlwinds and bhaal preditors, I used to spend more time putting them on and off the table than I did shooting or assaulting them.

I also find that the Basilisk will quickly die to lascannons and meltaguns, which is why the only AV 12 I take is chimeras since that is necessary. A Basilisk is just a Leman Russ that is 20 points cheaper and only gets one turn to shoot, if that.

A lot of people have said "Oh it shouldn't be too hard" but I've beaten my friends' tau, necron and eldar fine, or at least have had an actual battle. It's only Blood Angels who can get to my tanks and men so quickly that I don't have a chance to shoot them.

This list was specifically tailored to the one he suggested. The only thing he has to shoot the basilisk with is the tri-las pred which will easily go down to pask. Even without the basilisk the infantry squads absorb the charge thus giving the blob behind them the oppertunity to charge as sweeping into combat is no longer possible. Even IF the marines somehow kill the speedbumb squads and you fail the charge - it doesnt matter as the blob has counter attack anyway.

 Red Corsair wrote:

 bocatt wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Btw... just to point out - I didn't list tailor in my original guard list as there was no list to tailor against... secondly - the list I did make was a pretty standard guard list.

At normal point levels BA just don't have the slots and pay way too much per specialist weapon. Guard get 3 PG in an AV12 transport for 170. Find me where BA get access to that in their troops section?

Don't really care about most of this, but:
5 assault marines, plasma gun
Razorback, Lascannon and TLplasma gun
170 pts

It's a much more diverse unit but same points cost. You lose AV12, gain fast, lose 5 bodies but go from GEQ to MEQ, lose 7 lasguns but gain bolt pistols and CCWs, lose two plasma guns but gain a twin linked plasma gun and a Lascannon. Pretty comparable units. Both troops. the Chimera does have firing ports and some guns of it's own. Multilasers or heavy bolters or heavy flamers but just like the HF/HB razorback, they're situationally useful. They can be great and they can not really do anything. It depends on the game.

It's my personal opinion, and I'm not going to try to tell you which is better, that I would prefer the Razorback unit. especially since I can add an extra body, FnP and FC for only 50 pts with access to even more wargear (we were talking about efficiency so I left the wargear differences out of the equation)

There is no hatch and the av is worse, these ARE the two deciding factors though. The AM plasma gun doesn't add much of anything and being fast still doesn't help the Razor in regards to snap firing one weapon, plasma or las canon if it moves 12, nothing if flat out. Its not bad, but no where near as good as a mach vet squad which is pumping 3 s7 ap2 shots 3 s6 shots and either has a hB or hF as well. At closer quarters it is even worse since now that chimera throws down 6 s7 ap2 shots plus the chimera. Sorry but the IG have the edge. Its way worse when you look outside troops btw since IG can get everything in 3's per slot.

 bocatt wrote:
It does also allow you to flat out 24" instead of 18" but the most important reason we take Fast Razorbacks is because with Las/Plas you can move 12" nd fire both weapons at full ballistic skill.