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So here are some outside-the-box (and therefore probably terrible) ideas.

It seems like your problem isn't killing stuff, but surviving long enough to close with your Wyches. What about some suppression fire, i.e. haywire blasters? You'll have to drop your beastmasters or ravagers to do it, but a hit is a virtually-guaranteed "you can't shoot me." A Talos has about the same chance to damage an AV 12 vehicle as a Ravager, and it's much tougher.

No 4-blaster Trueborn. Switch them out for old-fashioned sniper squads. Still buy them a ride, but have it operate independently. It gives your opponent an extra target at least. Also, the Trueborn might get more than one round of shooting.

Take fewer Venoms and more Raiders. You don't need to kill two full squads of LFs in the first turn. You do need to damage a half-dozen AV 12 vehicles in a turn.

Night Shields. If multi-lasers are giving you trouble, buy some night shields and hug the table edge, maybe even the corners. Won't help much against Hydras, obviously, but you can mostly preserve the alpha strike, even going second.

Did you read his army list? He doesn't have any Wyches in the new Codex.

My critique of DashPepper's list is simple...it's a great idea in concept, but it's really mech IG done as Dark Eldar. IG does the same sort of strategy better, especially with inquisition help (like callidus assassins for word in your ear or inquisitors for psychic hoods)

The problem with the haywire blaster is twofold: 1. Range 24" doesn't get it done considering everything shooting a haywireblaster can only move 6" and shoot. 2. Any platform with a haywire blaster costs more than a simple chimera. You simply can't get enough shots to make glancing everything a viable strategy.

Thumbs up to the sniper squad. Wish it were less points, but it's still really useful.

Night shields don't work against multi-lasers. Why? Well, if YOU are in range to shoot, you are 36" away. So the chimera is out of range. However, chimeras can move and shoot, so it moves 6" into range and shoots you. It wins that shoot way pretty handily. As a comparison, assume that the dark eldar raider was av 12 and not open topped. It shoots a single strength 8 shot at a chimera. The return fire from the chimera is statistically the same as 3 strength 8 ap 1 shots at armor value 12.

Flickerfield or not, the raider is more expensive. Raider vs. chimera is no contest.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fetterkey wrote:Did you read his army list? He doesn't have any Wyches in the new Codex.

Huh? Non-sequitur.

Who's talking about wyches?

Monter Rain is accurate in his assertion. Unless every IG list ever seen will make B&B from every DE list it's hardly a hard counter, is it. You might feel that this is the case - but I'm yet to see it proved. But all things considered this is a Bad Match up yep yep.


Against IG, tools that help - Haywire grenades/blasters, Dark Gates, Enhanced Aethersails, Webway Portals
I avoided Splinter Racks and other things that 'work in general'.
So that's it, from the whole codex there's only one plan that 'works'.
Take Heamonculus & Trueborn, Brides, Wyches or Scourges.

But.
Your list is bad man - really bad (imo naturally)

You've taken trueborn and exercised them in an AT role with a AI shell, cool, they aren't made for assault anyway - but for this example, you could take a unit of Brides, give them haywires, a blast pistol, an agoniser and venom for 195 sure it's 33 points more, but it could fill that hole you're finding - So could 5x scourges with Haywire Blasters or DL if you want to hide them.
You're list isn't geared to engage an enemy - just throw darts - of course this is going to turn IG into a hard counter [u]for your one dimensional list.[/i]
You've made all your venoms dual SC - more expensive than a raider 5 points cheaper than one with a FF. But every single choice in your list is Ranged-AI - your AT is actually closer ranged than your AI - something which you must be aware of, but might not have noticed the ramifications of - for your AT to do the job you need to put your AI as close as it... come on! You know that's not good warfare for 40k.

I feel you need to find points by chopping a trueborne, and a warrior squad. Your heamonculus could be taking a DG so you have a bit more tank popping power once you've dumped the bests hopped in a transport and wisked halfway across the board. Just little things to hone this DE list which at the moment doesn't represent paper origami as much a a blunt club. You've taken a fantastically diverse codex and tried to turn it into a one trick pony that has to hurt itself to perform it's trick.

I know you've played a lot of games, Dash, but you HAVEN'T yet played a lot of games with the new codex. I think people have a point that you're giving up a little too easily and crying "hard counter" a bit too early.

Hesperus wrote:No 4-blaster Trueborn. Switch them out for old-fashioned sniper squads. Still buy them a ride, but have it operate independently. It gives your opponent an extra target at least. Also, the Trueborn might get more than one round of shooting.

Take fewer Venoms and more Raiders. You don't need to kill two full squads of LFs in the first turn. You do need to damage a half-dozen AV 12 vehicles in a turn.

Night Shields. If multi-lasers are giving you trouble, buy some night shields and hug the table edge, maybe even the corners. Won't help much against Hydras, obviously, but you can mostly preserve the alpha strike, even going second.

I like some of the above ideas. The point about killing LFs vs. killing AV12 vehicles is a good one. The first thing I thought when I saw your list was "that's a lot of Venoms for a guy who's complaining about not having enough antitank". I love Venoms too, but some more Dark Lances probably wouldn't go amiss. A squad in a Raider is an FO slot that can potentially kill or suppress twice as many enemy vehicles in one turn as you're presently built to.

Just spitballing here- not sure of the points would work, but here's a concept:

The WWP is not necessarily a bad idea. How about taking a stripped-down Harlie squad with Shadowseer (min cost is 120 if you don't give them other toys) as a bodyguard for the Haemonc with the WWP. That way they don't get shot early. Then put a big squad of 12" charging beasts/beastmasters in Reserve. This gives you a unit to control/dominate the center, with sufficient assault threat range and body count to hit multiple vehicles or surround a single vehicle which tries to push the center of the table. Your skimmers, meanwhile, hug table edges and play the range game with Nightshields. If the opponent moves forward to get into range of your skimmers, he comes into range of the WWP beasts.

--------------

Edit: Let's try a list:

1850 DE

Baron Sathonyx
1x Haemonculus with a Webway Portal

5x Warriors (1 blaster) in a Venom with 2x Splinter Cannons
5x Warriors (1 blaster) in a Venom with 2x Splinter Cannons
5x Warriors (1 blaster) in a Venom with 2x Splinter Cannons
5x Warriors (1 blaster) in a Raider w/Dark Lance, Night Shield
5x Warriors (1 blaster) in a Raider w/Dark Lance, Night Shield

5x Harlequins w/5 Kisses, Shadowseer
3x Trueborn (3 blasters) in a Raider w/Dark Lance
3x Trueborn (3 blasters) in a Raider w/Dark Lance

1x Beastmaster Unit of 5 Beastmasters with 6 Razorwing Flocks and 9 Khymera

1x Ravager with 3 Dark Lances and a Night Shield
1x Ravager with 3 Dark Lances and a Night Shield
1x Ravager with 3 Dark Lances and a Night Shield

Okay. This is 1850 on the nose. I've added a WWP and delivery system. The list has lost a bunch of splinter cannons, but increased the total number of units packing antitank guns from 11 to 14, five of which have Night Shields to play the range game. The Beastmaster unit has gotten fully buffed up with the addition of the 5th master and two more Razorwing flocks.

The other possibility for getting some more antitank into the list would be scourges or Reavers, in FA. But it's 140 for five Scourges with a pair of blasters, or 81 for three bikes with a blaster. Pricey. The WWP's a good way to make sure either gets into range to fight, though.

scuddman wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fetterkey wrote:Did you read his army list? He doesn't have any Wyches in the new Codex.

Huh? Non-sequitur.

Who's talking about wyches?

Hesperus was.

Ok so dealing with large mech ig forces is a pain but lets look upon thier advantage as a our target.

Mech IG - so many av12 vehicles - which also means not a lot of space between those vehicles (especially in spearhead)
Mech IG - so many effective guns - majority range 36" and requires static vehicle for full effectiveness.

So my suggestions as to DE units and tactics:

Heliions lead by Baron(haemonculi detaches turn 1) - 3+ cover and 4+ FNP is hard to shift and these suckers are fast multi assault as many of his tin boxes as possible (at best he hasn't moved and you get multiple hits, at worst he's moved and has lost some of his firepower).

Ravagers with Night Shields - the majority of IG shooting that can be done while moving is 36" nightshields allow you to dance your DL platforms at the 30-36" range if he wants a shot he has to move forward (toward your hellions) with reduced shots.

The Strange Dude wrote:Ok so dealing with large mech ig forces is a pain but lets look upon thier advantage as a our target.
So my suggestions as to DE units and tactics:
Heliions lead by Baron(haemonculi detaches turn 1) - 3+ cover and 4+ FNP is hard to shift and these suckers are fast multi assault as many of his tin boxes as possible (at best he hasn't moved and you get multiple hits, at worst he's moved and has lost some of his firepower).

You're really suggesting assaulting tanks with Str4+D6? As a main strategy?
*Looks left*
*Looks right*
*Hides*

Yeah, not so much. It'll work okay once they get a second Pain token and are S5 on the charge, but they have to kill a non-vehicle unit first, and you need to bust open some boxes before you can do that.

Not that my S3 Rending are amazing, but 2/3 of Rends penetrate, and 6 flocks throw 36 of those attacks on the charge. Against a vehicle moving over 6" that's on average 1 rend from the flocks (and another Glance from the Khymera if by some miracle they're all still alive to throw their 36 attacks). Against one moving up to 6" to shoot, that's 3 rends + some glances from the Khymera.

I must agree with the original thesis of this thread; Mech Guard are the hardest counter to the new Dark Eldar. I've played 30+ games with the new Dark Eldar Codex and at this point I feel comfortable with every match-up presented to me except Mech Guard. Mobility and close combat aside, everything Dark Eldar does, Imperial Guard seems do better.

Trueborn squads with 4 special weapons? IG Troops can fill the same role and are more durable (and scoring).

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances? Vendetta can do it too, and isn't open topped (and it's Fast Attack).

Vehicle / MSU spam? Guard can put out more vehicles with higher armor.

So what can Dark Eldar do better?

Mobility
Close Combat
? (Let me know)

As to my solutions for Guard thus far...

I've had some success with Wracks against Guard as they sill get FNP from Multi-Lasers and Hydras. 5 Wracks in a Raider give you an anti-tank shot, and anti-infantry capabilities from the dudes inside.

Turbo-boosting with assault units Turn 1. The closer you are to Guard before you get shot out of your transport, the better. In objective games, don't wait for Turn 5 claiming shenanigans - get there fast so when you get shot out you don't have far to go.

Vect has been instrumental in getting me the first turn - but his close combat goodness is somewhat wasted on lowly Guardsmen.

Dark Lances are nice, but their unique ability is wasted on AV12 spam.

I'm not sold on WWP's due to Guards ability to manipulate Reserve rolls.

I still need to try out Beasts and Grotesques. The best option against Mech Guard may be sheer aggression, and getting into close combat with vehicles.

ChrisCP wrote:

The Strange Dude wrote:Ok so dealing with large mech ig forces is a pain but lets look upon thier advantage as a our target.
So my suggestions as to DE units and tactics:
Heliions lead by Baron(haemonculi detaches turn 1) - 3+ cover and 4+ FNP is hard to shift and these suckers are fast multi assault as many of his tin boxes as possible (at best he hasn't moved and you get multiple hits, at worst he's moved and has lost some of his firepower).

You're really suggesting assaulting tanks with Str4+D6? As a main strategy?
*Looks left*
*Looks right*
*Hides*

It's not about killing opponent it's about slowing his shooting rate down and stopping him from being effective, it's not a main strategy it's part of an overall strategy. I am suggesting that IG are vunerable to multi-assault and that threatening to do so can give you some breathing room.

Oh and by mathhammer 6 autohits produce 1 glance (nearly always a no shooting result) so lets say attack with 3 hellions per chimera 15 hellions potentially stunning 5 chimeras, not to mention the baron himself at str6. Yes I know it's not some uber-death method nor is it perfect but it is another tool to consider.

Well, I arrived to this dance part late, and most of what I wanted to say had been said but I will say it anyways.

#1. How to counter a hard counter

Well, if you are playing a take-all-comers list you should not have a “hard counter” of if you do, it should be a very rare army.

Late last year I was playing my chaos army and I was doing very well with it, but my army had one weakness and that was Dark Eldar with all of their strength 8 and AP 2 weaponry. So how often do you get matched up against DE? Well a lot apparently because I faced one at Adepticon and your DE at the So CA Slaughter. Bill Kim won the Gladiator one year with a genestealer horde army that would have lost badly to a mech eldar player but he never ended up facing one. If the army that counters yours is rare enough, then you can take your chances that you will not get matched up against it at a tournament. Another example of this is that a Seer Council will get blown away by a Demonhunter player, but if you play a Seer Council how often will you see a Demonhunter army, and if you do what chance are you will have to play it after round #1?

Now if your weakness is a common army, then you have to change your list so that it can beat that type of army. That is one of the reasons why we never see Nob Bikers anymore because Assault Terminators hunted them into extinction. They are such a common unit that the Bikers had no answer for, so the Ork players had to drop them. To give you another example of this back in 3rd edition I could never beat my friends Dark Angels army with my Thousand Sons (It was a long time ago). So what I did was I built my army around just beating his army and what I found out that was that it was really good against everyone else as well. So I would say that you try to make an army that can beat Mech IG, and see if you can take on SW and the other top tier armies that are out there as well.

Note: To beat this Dark Angels army I had to take Chosen which at the time were one of the worst choices in the army. I did it just to unlock a Land Raider in the Elite slot just like I use Terminators for today. It gave me much needed ranged anti-tank, durability, and a delivery system for assault units without taking one of my valuable Heavy Support slots.


#2. How to beat Mech Guard (is that redundant?) with Dark Eldar

So now we have to find a way to do the undoable!

To sum it up there are 2 ways to do it.
A) Army
B) Tactics

If your army list is not getting it done, then you need to change it. I see that you are saying that you have a lot of experience with DE, and I will tell you what I have been telling everyone else: You have no experience with DE. The new book is like wiping the slate clean and starting all over again. Sure a few of the names of the units have stayed the same, but that is all. They army works nothing like it does before, so you need to use the new tools.

List breakdown
Let’s take a look at what you have (Note: I am not like Stelek and tell you what you have is crap, and give you my list and tell you to play that, but I will tell you where I think you went wrong and how you can improve)


1850 DE

Baron Sathonyx
100 points for a +1 to go first? That is an expensive Emperor’s Tarot! If you have the Baron flying around why don’t you give him some Hellions to go with him? (Still stuck in the old codex?). Baron+Hellions rock. They are Troops, they move fast, get a 3+ cover save and they can hit hard. You get a couple of pain tokens on them (which should be easy with IG running around) and they can hit vehicles with strength 5 on the charge. Durable, fast, troops, where do I sign up?

1x Haemonculi with a Shattershard

It is too late to go out to my car to see what a shattershard does, but it has to be awesome for you to take it. I like Haemonculi to pass off a pain token to a large unit, but you have no one on your army worth giving one too.


5x Warriors (1 blaster) in a Venom with 2x Splinter Cannons
5x Warriors (1 blaster) in a Venom with 2x Splinter Cannons
5x Warriors (1 blaster) in a Venom with 2x Splinter Cannons
5x Warriors (1 blaster) in a Venom with 2x Splinter Cannons
5x Warriors (1 blaster) in a Venom with 2x Splinter Cannons

4x Trueborn (4 blasters) in a Venom with 2x Splinter Cannons
4x Trueborn (4 blasters) in a Venom with 2x Splinter Cannons
3x Trueborn (3 blasters) in a Venom with 2x Splinter Cannons

Talk about spamming the same units!

Where to start? Remember that this is a take-all-comers list? Well you have a metric ton of anti-infantry shooting and only blasters to take out tanks. So that is why if you do not go first you are screwed because your opponent just blows you off of the table. Even when you go first your range is 42” (12” deployment zone, 12” move, 18” blasters) so anything on the back edge of the table (which any good IG player will be at knowing your range) will still give them a turn of shooting which I imagine will do bad things to you. The Trueborn are ok, but I can’t help but think that you have the roles reversed for the warrior troops. I would put them in raiders for a DL, and then use their rapid fire for anti-infantry.

1x Beastmaster Unit of 4 Beastmasters with 4 Razorwing Flocks and 9 Khymera

Um...ok one assault unit. I guess to give them something to shoot at in the later rounds when all of the venoms are down, or something to do with their anti-infantry shooting. They sure could use some Hellions to keep them company.

1x Ravager with 3 Dark Lances and a Flickerfield
1x Ravager with 3 Dark Lances and a Flickerfield
1x Ravager with 3 Dark Lances and a Flickerfield

Fickerfields? Not a big fan, but ok. I do like Ravagers though.

Tactics
Tactics and list building go hand-in-hand so let’s take them together.

So how to improve the list? I have 2 things for you: Dark Lances and Nightshields.

Although Flickerfields save you on a 5+, the best save is the one that you never have to take. Nightshield are the way of the future! I hear what the detractors say, sure you can move 6” to cover the ground that you lose to the Night Shield, but IG are not known for their moving, and that means that if you have a heavy weapon on board, and either the HW or the Chimera will not be shooting. Also, the point of the Night Shields is to use them in combination with the Dark Eldar's fast movement. If you can move to one side of the board then you can just refuse flank, and all of the weapons on the other side of the table will not be able to range you. Then you can start working your way down the flank. This also helps out when you are going second because you are able to deploy on the table and you do not have to worry about reserve rolls, and you can react to their deployment to stay away from their heavy weapons. And yes, I am aware that they IG heavy support has some very long ranges, but those are generally not what you have to worry about.

So now you are sitting there at range, what are you going to do? Dark Lances! You can take a lot of them, and you only have them in your Ravagers. It is time to beef up your venoms into raiders. You have enough venoms (and them some) for infantry because you have overkill with the splinter cannons, but no Dark Lances? Take-all-comers means just that, and you need to be able to do damage at range. And then when your rides blow up, then you have either a nice crater, or wreckage to keep shooting from with your 4+ cover save when you give you 10 man warrior squads blasters and Dark Lances.

Also you might want to think about infantry squads with Dark Lance. Stick them in cover for a 4+ save and keep shooting!

I was going to write more, but it is 3:00am and I have to get going: Blackmoor out!

True, hellions can assault up to 24", but I don't think most of the time that will result in a first turn assault against guard. Yes enough hits should stun some tanks, in the cases where one doesn't have a turn one assault, a guard player going second could take measures - upto and including reserving his army. I think a unit of 345ish points is a bit much to throw at a wall of templates! Even as a partial plan

@Therion: Earlier in the year, when motivation was higher, I wrote a lot of battle reports. Each link in my signature isn't to a single batrep, but to an entire tourney/GT/etc - with links in each post linking to each batrep to the other games in the event. Feel free to read through some of them to see how my DE have performed. I'm not going to make any grandiose statements about who I'm better than or anything - I *do* think a lot of my abilities, and am not as modest in demonstrating them as some would wish me to be. My entire purpose for attending events is to solicit a humbling. For me to take something that I think is an excellent army (traditionally my orks), combine it with my generalship, and see if anyone out there is capable of besting me. I took a beating at my last tournament against Mech IG - but I'm not humbled by it; it wasn't generalship that won the day, it was having the initiative seized against me by an army I can't come up with a ready answer to. Even going first against Mech IG is an uphill battle.

In terms of your second point...about my outrageous claims about what is a hard counter to what - it isn't my job, nor the purpose of this thread to personally educate you about 40k, prevailing trends, competitiveness of various armies, commonalities in the GT circuit, or anything else. So yes - your question is background noise, when the answers you want from me are so readily available everywhere across the internet, especially here on Dakka. Make a thread titled, "Why are Spacewolves a good counter to Mech IG?" and see all the answers that show up.

I haven't heard of any accomplishments by you that qualify you to act and speak like you do. About your outrageous claims though, we know that it isn't your job to write messages here on Dakka, but when you do make posts that make you look like Stelek v2.01, I'll ask you to back up your statements. If you don't back them up all you really are is a whiny DE player who is unable to make an against all comers list and as a knee jerk reaction calls the whole 40K game rock paper scissors. Since you're unable to do what I asked, everything you say here falls to the category of background noise. I do appreciate you admitting that you don't understand the distinction between a hard counter and a soft counter though.

See Blackmoor's writings above for an example of a brilliant post. He could've said: "You suck and the game sucks because it's just rock paper scissors and I don't need to explain myself because I've played in tournaments and in truth I couldn't explain myself even if I wanted because I don't really have an argument" but he wouldn't be him then, he'd be you.

Nurglitch wrote:I agree. When in doubt, give up and move on. That's what winners do, right?

Winners or whiners?

Dash, I have no solution to this problem.
I played a game with my DE vs. Tau. (2000 pts). I went first and killed most of his army, while mine was almost intact. At round 4, he had 3 skimmers, made fast, left , contesting the 3 mission objectives. I had trouble to take down these tanks. Dark light weapons are nice but cover saves and the modified armor penetration table will help tanks to survive longer. At the end, I won 1 to nothing but it was frustrating to see that DE infantry has a hard time vs. tanks, too.

Fetterkey wrote:
Since when do mech IG armies take heavy bolters instead of heavy flamers on Chimerae? Also, a multi-laser performs significantly worse against Raiders than a twin-linked lascannon and slightly worse than a single lascannon. I still don't really see what makes mech IG distinct from other shooting-based armies here, especially if you're not fielding Reavers, which are extremely weak against mech IG thanks to the prevalence of Heavy Flamers (and perhaps Hydra autocannons) but otherwise a good choice. What's the difference between a Rifleman Dreadnought shooting 4 autocannon shots at your Ravager and a Hydra doing the same, for example?

This is actually incorrect. A single regular lascannon on a BS 4 model has a little over a 50% chance of achieving a glance or pen. A multi-laser on a BS 3 model has about a 75% chance of getting a glance or pen. A twin-linked lascannon gets closer, but (unless my math is terrible, which is quite likely) doesn't quite get to that 75% level. The multiple shots of the multi-laser trumps the higher chance of hitting and penning of the single shot lascannon. As a DE player, I've feared multi-laser chimaera more than anything for a long time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mannahnin wrote:
Okay. This is 1850 on the nose. I've added a WWP and delivery system. The list has lost a bunch of splinter cannons, but increased the total number of units packing antitank guns from 11 to 14, five of which have Night Shields to play the range game. The Beastmaster unit has gotten fully buffed up with the addition of the 5th master and two more Razorwing flocks.

The other possibility for getting some more antitank into the list would be scourges or Reavers, in FA. But it's 140 for five Scourges with a pair of blasters, or 81 for three bikes with a blaster. Pricey. The WWP's a good way to make sure either gets into range to fight, though.

Vehicles can no longer enter play via the WWP; this is a huge nerfing of the WWP in this edition. This seriously limits the ability of a single WWP to effectively deliver your forces against a highly mobile enemy. The portal is deployed in your shooting phase, and the opponent then moves his mechanized forces away from the portal, leaving your 6" moving Infantry out of position and vulnerable to the enemy's next turn of shooting. The only unit in the army list you gave that really benefits from the WWP is the beasts.

Spamming anti-infantry doesn't auto win against Mech Armies? I'm flabbergasted.

An entire new codex and you're using four or five units out of it, only three models of which have any sort of ranged anti-tank, with nary a heat lance to be seen, and you're saying that IG is a hard counter based on that?

Facepalm.jpg

How about a move towards an army that has FNP, taking Wracks as troops?

Take all comer deals in flexibility as well. This army doesn't seem to be very versatile, just very mobile. Surely there are other units more suited to absorbing fire or hitting tanks? Dash, your Ork army taught me that multiple threats with different capabilities is even more effective than the maximum number of the mathematically 'best' unit for the task. Apply those principles to the DE- you need a more inventive mix of units.

Saly, I can't help you with what those units are. I'm not a Dark Eldar player. Variety is almost always more competitive against a hard counter than spam. When you spam, you have to worry about running into the hard counter for a unit type, which is much more common than an armywide counter.

With 5 different unit types I fail to see how your army is a TAC list.

Saldiven wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:
Since when do mech IG armies take heavy bolters instead of heavy flamers on Chimerae? Also, a multi-laser performs significantly worse against Raiders than a twin-linked lascannon and slightly worse than a single lascannon. I still don't really see what makes mech IG distinct from other shooting-based armies here, especially if you're not fielding Reavers, which are extremely weak against mech IG thanks to the prevalence of Heavy Flamers (and perhaps Hydra autocannons) but otherwise a good choice. What's the difference between a Rifleman Dreadnought shooting 4 autocannon shots at your Ravager and a Hydra doing the same, for example?

This is actually incorrect. A single regular lascannon on a BS 4 model has a little over a 50% chance of achieving a glance or pen. A multi-laser on a BS 3 model has about a 75% chance of getting a glance or pen. A twin-linked lascannon gets closer, but (unless my math is terrible, which is quite likely) doesn't quite get to that 75% level. The multiple shots of the multi-laser trumps the higher chance of hitting and penning of the single shot lascannon. As a DE player, I've feared multi-laser chimaera more than anything for a long time.

Fetterkey is correct.

The odds of a Multilaser shot getting a glancing or Penetrating hit are 1 in 4. Thus, the odds of getting at least one such shot are 1-((failure rate of a single shot)^3). This gives us a 58% chance of a stun or shake. It's a 66% rate for a single Lascannon. The odds equalize to about 33% for both assuming a 4+ cover save, where the Multilaser would win due to a higher damage potential.

I've been using a core of:
3 units of 5 trueborn w/ 2 darklances ea. + raiders w/ DL
3 Ravagers w/3 DL +NS

Gives you 18 darklances on 9 units for 855 pts. Does a good job of popping enough tanks at range that the assault units then have something to hide in when the foot troops come out.
I've also found that 5 trueborn in cover at 30" tend to live a lot longer and do more damage than 5 in av10 open topped rushing toward 18".

I think that the base premise of this thread is what is getting a lot of people in an uproar. I ran into a similar problem a few months back with my Templars/SOB thread. If the question you are asking is disputed, you're not going to get the answers you want. So this thread will devolve into chaos based on the following:

1) Some people don't agree that IG is a Hard Counter.
2) Some people don't agree that Dash's list is the best available.
2) Dash believes he is right/more knowledgeable and is slow or unwilling to change that view based on his experience with other/prior codices.

The lesson I learned in my thread is don't ask a question if you don't want an answer for that and all adjacent questions.

If you cant beat em, join em.

But seriously you have very few lances and an over reliance on 1st turn vs shooting armies and generally medium range guns. You built a medium range anti-infantry firefight army going against a wall of steel.

Saldiven wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:
Since when do mech IG armies take heavy bolters instead of heavy flamers on Chimerae? Also, a multi-laser performs significantly worse against Raiders than a twin-linked lascannon and slightly worse than a single lascannon. I still don't really see what makes mech IG distinct from other shooting-based armies here, especially if you're not fielding Reavers, which are extremely weak against mech IG thanks to the prevalence of Heavy Flamers (and perhaps Hydra autocannons) but otherwise a good choice. What's the difference between a Rifleman Dreadnought shooting 4 autocannon shots at your Ravager and a Hydra doing the same, for example?

This is actually incorrect. A single regular lascannon on a BS 4 model has a little over a 50% chance of achieving a glance or pen. A multi-laser on a BS 3 model has about a 75% chance of getting a glance or pen. A twin-linked lascannon gets closer, but (unless my math is terrible, which is quite likely) doesn't quite get to that 75% level. The multiple shots of the multi-laser trumps the higher chance of hitting and penning of the single shot lascannon. As a DE player, I've feared multi-laser chimaera more than anything for a long time

At least pen-wise, the lascannnon is better:

3 multilaser shots * 1/2 hits per shot * 1/3 pens per hit = 0.5 pens on average
1 lascannon shot * 2/3 hits per shot * 5/6 pens per hit = 0.55556 pens on average
1 twin-linked lascannon shot * 8/9 hits per shot * 5/6 pens per hit = 0.74074 pens on average

If you factor in glances:

3 multilaser shots * 1/2 hits per shot * 1/6 glances per hit = 0.25 glances on average
1 lascannon shot * 2/3 hits per shot * 1/6 pens per hit = 0.11111 glances on average
1 twin-linked lascannon shot * 8/9 hits per shot * 1/6 pens per hit = 0.14814 glances on average

So if you count both pens and glances, then the multilaser indeed looks better than the single lascannon, with 0.75 expected results to the lascannon's 0.66667. The twin-linked lascannon, on the other hand, is still significantly better than the multilaser, with 0.88889 expected results (since every hit will inflict a result). However, you also have to factor in the fact that glances are worse than pens. Let's say we're going for the immobilization or kill, which is generally what you aim to do with transports. Since Raiders are open-topped, glances can still destroy them as well as immobilize, so each glance has a 1/3 chance to score a desired result, and each pen has a 2/3 chance.

Chance to destroy or immobilize:

1/2 of a multilaser pen per volley * 2/3 of pens inflicting desired results + 1/4 of a multilaser glance per volley * 1/3 of glances inflicting desired results = 0.41666 desired results
5/9 of a lascannon pen per volley * 2/3 of pens inflicting desired results + 1/9 of a lascannon glance per volley * 1/3 of glances inflicting desired results = 0.48148 desired results
20/27 of a twin-linked lascannon pen per volley * 2/3 of pens inflicting desired results * 4/27 of a twin-linked lascannon glance per volley * 1/3 of glances inflicting desired results = 0.54321 desired results

Technically, the multilaser is slightly better than these statistics would indicate, since it can potentially inflict immobilizations via multiple "weapon destroyed" results in one volley, but the chances of this are very low versus Raiders and almost not worth discussing versus Venoms. Also keep in mind that Razorbacks equipped with lascannons also sport a twin-linked plasma gun, which greatly adds to their anti-AV10 potential if the target is within range. The lascannon's extra 12" of range also allows Razorbacks to engage vehicles from farther away than Chimerae, and is additionally a great boon (beyond its normal qualities) against vehicles equipped with night shields.


Overall, I would say that the Chimera is slightly inferior to the Stronos-pattern (lascannon and twin-linked plasma gun) Razorback and markedly inferior to the twin-linked lascannon Razorback against Dark Eldar vehicles (and Ork Trukks). Whether the Chimera makes up for that in general vs. Dark Eldar via its hull-mounted heavy flamer is an open question, but either anti-tank variety of Razorback fares better than the Chimera against DE vehicles. Keep in mind that against Ravagers, Void Ravens, and Razorwings, the Razorbacks' lead will continue to grow, as their weapons scale better with target AV than those of the Chimera and their reduced reliance on glancing hits makes them better against vehicles that aren't open-topped, where glances count for less.

hus, the odds of getting at least one such shot are 1-((failure rate of a single shot)^3).

In fact, this is the correct formula for multiple shots.

Saldiven wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:
Okay. This is 1850 on the nose. I've added a WWP and delivery system. The list has lost a bunch of splinter cannons, but increased the total number of units packing antitank guns from 11 to 14, five of which have Night Shields to play the range game. The Beastmaster unit has gotten fully buffed up with the addition of the 5th master and two more Razorwing flocks.

The other possibility for getting some more antitank into the list would be scourges or Reavers, in FA. But it's 140 for five Scourges with a pair of blasters, or 81 for three bikes with a blaster. Pricey. The WWP's a good way to make sure either gets into range to fight, though.

Vehicles can no longer enter play via the WWP; this is a huge nerfing of the WWP in this edition. This seriously limits the ability of a single WWP to effectively deliver your forces against a highly mobile enemy. The portal is deployed in your shooting phase, and the opponent then moves his mechanized forces away from the portal, leaving your 6" moving Infantry out of position and vulnerable to the enemy's next turn of shooting. The only unit in the army list you gave that really benefits from the WWP is the beasts.

Yes, thank you, I'm aware. In this draft army, as I described in the paragraph right above the list, the WWP is mostly there as a delivery system for that unit of beasts, which has a 6" + d6" + 12" move & assault range, and before it starts taking damage throws 82 attacks on the charge and has 44 wounds. It's a significant threat all by itself. If the opponent wants to get aggressive, you can even attack the Baron, who doesn't have 12" assault, but gives them +1 to their cover saves, which makes them a nightmare to kill unless you've got a LOT of s6+ assault capability, or have Lash + plasmacannons.

Further, depending on terrain and the situation, it may be worth putting some of the Blaster-toting infantry into Reserve too, while their vehicles operate outside.

I also suggested that the WWP could have additional value if he wanted to try working in some antitank FA units, like Scourges or Reavers.

Still, one doesn't have to think of Warhammer 40k as a game of Rock-Scissors-Paper.

Don't think of Warhammer 40k as a game of HQ-Elites-Troops-LightSupport-HeavySupport.

Think of it as Flexibility-Redundancy-Synergy. As resources you have an army and you have units. Your army is your army list, and units are you could have on the table at any given time.

Your army must be able to engage and destroy another army. Previous edition of 40,000 tended to get hung up on the destroying part, losing the fun part of suppression and control. But units can be controlled: They can be pinned, fall back, be stunned or shaken, have their line of sight blocked, be screened from close combat, or be locked in close combat.

If you have one spectacular anti-tank unit in your army, then you're going to have to figure out how to preserve it so it can munch one unit per turn, using the rest of your army to control the enemy's position so that you can leverage your attack. Might as well call this scissors, or redundancy.

I guess that makes paper the equivalent of flexibility. At the army level, redundancy can mean multiple units of specialists, or even more units of generalists. At the unit level this is epitomized by the Tactical Squad configuration. Flexibility isn't just redundancy of units and models though. Flexibility includes the army's ability to rearrange itself, to refuse flanks, and to basically avoid a point of weakness.

Which seems very much like synergy, except synergy is producing an effect in addition to mere combination. A Rhino can move 12" but not fire effectively. A Tactical Squad can move 6" but fire effectively. Hopping out of a Rhino lets them fire effectively and move 14". That's tactical synergy, stuff that works well together because of their respective rules and hence capabilities. A Sanguinary Priest conferring Feel No Pain and Furious Charge would be direct synergy, or rules-based synergy. One unit explicity synergizes with other models somehow.

I would liken synergy to paper, but it depends on your battlefield and opponent, and that you have to fold your army to maintain points of contact.

What is this hold? That's what I'd call tactics, with the former being strategy. Tactics are resources, strategy is the plan, and thus the goal to which resources are tied. I'm point this out because I know this isn't shared and it helps to gloss what I'm saying.

Mechanized Imperial Guard suffer from combining some of the softest units in the game to create a kind of unit-toffee that sucks out your fillings and murders them.

They have points of weakness. The first of which is they are small squishy units in AV10 vehicles. They have AV12 on their narrow front and a big'old AV10 ass sticking out like that. They only have one exit from the vehicle. They can't fire if the vehicle is Shaken or Stunned. So you can suppress infantry and vehicle both at once.

The weakness of the Chimera chassis is echoed throughout the army. What business has a Manticore being on the field if your entire army is flanking or deep striking from reserves?

A more immediate threat is the Multi-Laser. Why bother coming at the front? They have weak flanks. You don't necessarily have to outflank; you may choose to move Flat Out! to one or the other side of the board. Turning to blast you with hull-mounted weapons exposes their flank to the front, and their rear to the opposite flank. A Dark Lance is always better against AV10.

ChrisCP wrote:True, hellions can assault up to 24", but I don't think most of the time that will result in a first turn assault against guard. Yes enough hits should stun some tanks, in the cases where one doesn't have a turn one assault, a guard player going second could take measures - upto and including reserving his army. I think a unit of 345ish points is a bit much to throw at a wall of templates! Even as a partial plan

I never said anything about a first turn charge. If you are looking to charge, there is always turns 2-5+ to do it.

Guard counter measures? Like what? Wait...did you say that a Guard army reserve their army and so they can come on piecemeal? Yes please!

This is what you do with your Hellions: You start behind cover. Turn #1 you fly up behind more cover. Then your dark lances should have popped a few tanks and there should be some infantry running around and you go after them. After killing them you take your pain tokens and you hide in the wreckage of the dead Chimeras. Then if you want to you can go after their Chimeras, or anything else you choose to.

And if you think it is wise to shoot a "wall of templates" at Hellions with a 3+ cover save instead of my vehicles, I would be very happy with this.

Blackmoor wrote:

And if you think it is wise to shoot a "wall of templates" at Hellions with a 3+ cover save instead of my vehicles, I would be very happy with this.

Hiding in Chimera wrecks can be a very bad idea, because every surviving Chimera should have a heavy flamer that can ignore the 3+.