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So I'll be facing CSM/Demons, and I've never played against them. What are the nasty things, what should I except, what should I shoot first?

I'm planning to run a blob with lascannons, some mech vets, wyvern, vendetta, pask, some PCS/SWS with flamers, so nothing special.

Maulerfiends/Bikes/Spawn making it to your line really really fast will be a problem. When they reach you you will not have much that can take them on in combat. Soulgrinders can also be very fast and hard as nails with an AV13 on their front.

MoT or MoN obliterators will cause you problems. These can teleport in behind your lines as can all of the deamons and lots of the CSM codex.

Yeah a good list will be on top of you before you know it.

Shoot the quick things, have tonnes of flamers to overwatch and toast anything deep striking. I would get as many lascannons into the PCS and CCS. When your blobs fire they don't want to be wasting Lascannon shots on weak targets (deamons are not very tough) or vice versa; make them all count.

Good Luck.

Be ready to meet some powerful mellee that can be either fast, durable or both.

If you have conscripts - it's a good idea to field them.

 koooaei wrote:
Be ready to meet some powerful mellee that can be either fast, durable or both.

If you have conscripts - it's a good idea to field them.

I want to run both a blob and conscripts, I just don't have enough bodies assembled. What's the minimum size of conscript squad that's effective? Do I need other than a priest for them? I'm planning to ally inquisition for cheap warpcharges and prescience, maybe a rad grenade Inquisitor on either the blob or the conscripts?

From my experience, the more - the better. I'd not go below 30 with conscripts. But if you have 50, i'd take 50. Both priest and comissar will work for them. Priest is more preferable in mellee cause he gives extra choppiness and potential for rerolling armorsaves. Comissar allows to accept orders at ld9 and g2g.

Platoon needs a priest and i'd take power weapon sarges - 3-4 is enough. Power axe is the most versatile weapon for them. Also, take krak nades - at least 20 - and a few melta bombz. They'll help tremendously vs mc and vehicles. Also, a vox might be helpful.

If you have an inquisitor - make him xeno with rad, psychostroke nades and liber heresius for a scout move, counter attack, etc.

Preferred number of guardsmen in such platoon is 40-50.

So I received a pretty bad beating. While both my opponent and me agreed that the dice were against me (lost Pask and his buddy in first turn of shooting, intervening unit and camo net gave them 4+ cover save, I managed lose all of them except for one or two; out of 4 prescienced, tank huntered lascannon shots while 3 managed to hit, 0 managed to glance or penetrate; I had like 2 lucky rolls the whole game among one was a full set of 5-6s to hit succeeding with all of them, followed by all 1-3 to wound, failing all of them, so I'll burn the dice I used that game), but I still have the feeling my army list lacked the punch. Enemy brought 2 Sicarans, one with all rending heavy bolter, rending Heavy 6 auto cannon, which were twin linked (why is that even legal? I can put rending only on Pask, which is unique, only on S5 AP-, and it costs more than those tanks, not to mention the mandatory buddy. So the two sicarans cost less then my Pask squadron, not unique, and more effective. And that's supposed to be the best unit in the entire codex.), some Big spawn with T6 W4, some saves, a lot of Nurgle heralds in dreadclaw, nurglings, some CSM in a rhino and some cultists, some artillery unit with some special Conversion beamer (48" top range, S10 AP1 large blast at the lend of the range).

My feeling was that everything the opponent brought is an immediate threat while only 2 units I brought are useful, but far from really powerful. I brought Pask (gatling + plasma), dropped first turn, blob with 4 lascannons with Coteaz, priest, 3 psyker sqauds from Inq for warp charges, Plasma vets in chimera (in reserves so they won't get shot first turn as Pask did), Vendetta with full flamer pcs (reserves), scout sentinel with multi laser, armored with plasma cannon for fun, SWS with flamers and sniper (this one useless). CCS with MoO, Astropath. Whatever was in reserves never saw play, because I couldn't manage a single 3+ there neither.

So I'm lacking long range punch, apart from the 4 lascannons in blob, I can only do anything in the 24"-12", where cc is a pretty imminent threat. I'm pretty sure that I feel the sicarans seems OP because I rolled crap and couldn't handle them, but those two (1 with 3 rending HB and the rending autocannon, the other with lascannons instead of HB, and the autocannon) seemed like a rape train (along with the T7 BS4 lot of wounds artillery that drops S10 AP1 large blast that IG can only dream of, and the oversized spawn and Heralds that I couldn't handle).

Any advice? What I'm missing, where my list sucks, etc?

FYI, I don't have much experience with therunning the current IG/AM codex or Forge World personally. But from what I have seen and heard Forge World can be an issue, especially if you don't know the army in the first place and don't know what's coming. IRC sicarans were a unit that are debatedly undercosted for what they can bring (granted I am not familiar with them). They might be 40k approved but I would talk to your opponent about scaling back the number of Forge World items he brings, even more so if you don't have any yourself. If that doesn't work sounds like a new set of dice and some extra AT might be in order if he runs the same list again. Tough to say without knowing exactly ehat you had

General Duf wrote:
FYI, I don't have much experience with therunning the current IG/AM codex or Forge World personally. But from what I have seen and heard Forge World can be an issue, especially if you don't know the army in the first place and don't know what's coming. IRC sicarans were a unit that are debatedly undercosted for what they can bring (granted I am not familiar with them). They might be 40k approved but I would talk to your opponent about scaling back the number of Forge World items he brings, even more so if you don't have any yourself. If that doesn't work sounds like a new set of dice and some extra AT might be in order if he runs the same list again. Tough to say without knowing exactly ehat you had

I used the list I wrote a bit before, I think nothing important is missing. My lascannons were sitting on top of a ruin for 4+ cover, Pask was surrounded by the blob, giving him a 5+ cover, which was 4+ from camo net. I kept the plasma vets in chimera in reserve, so they won't blow up first turn (the same way Pask did), along with Vendetta, so that's two units that could have hurt the Sicarans.

Well, I looked up most of the FW stuff, and yeah that's just not fair against a codex only army. Against normal CSM I feel you would have faired much better. Next time around clarify with him on the books you guys are including, and if they truly insist upon using FW borrow a friends baneblade/super heavy. Alternatively take so many guys he can't possible kill them all and see about taking more AT that is more mobile (in a vendetta/valkyrie for example) and more easily hidden in a swarm of bodies. You could even saturate the field with armor yourself take pretty much nothing but vehicles with decent AT themselves. The more dice you can throw, eventually the odds will even out. Sorry its not more specific.