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Largo39 wrote:
...So back to my question...What is your non-Storm Talon answer to Flyers? Allies? Go MoF and spam more TL AC Rifledreads? Duality and take 2-3?

A 2 3;las preds might do the trick. The TL las can re-roll hits, and with s9 ap2 can really hurt flyers, even vendettas

Hmm..none of the current suggestions really do it for me. Not that they aren't good suggestions if I need a last minute "OMG I NEED TO SHOOT THAT FLYER DOWN NAOOO" answer...but they aren't really reliable answers to take when building a list to be a fairly reliable anti-flyer threat.

So far the only reliable/close to reliable answers I can see consider Codex SM as the primary detachment are:

1) 3-5 Rifle Dreads (Reliably take out 1 flyer...per turn...)
2) Storm Talon (We already talked about it's huge weaknesses)
3) Aegis Defense Line (Reliable to take out 1 flyer a turn on AV11, two turns if AV12 flyer)
4) Allies - IG's giving a Vendetta, GK spamming TL S7 Assault Cannons and a TL S8 Psyrifle Dread, etc.

My personal favorite anti flyer solution for SM are telion on an Icarus. Reliably hits and pens flyers with BS6 and str 9 ap2 96" range. And if you give his scouts camo cloaks they have 2+ saves behind the aegis.

Icarus?

The Icarus las cannon you can attach to the aegis. It's a lascannon with double range basically. And telion gives it precision shot,it hits on a 2 but you reroll a 1 and on a 6 it hits. So after and before the flyer dies you have a scout squad with T7 and 2+cover saves. That has precision shot with a lascannon....

Chancetragedy wrote:
The Icarus las cannon you can attach to the aegis. It's a lascannon with double range basically. And telion gives it precision shot,it hits on a 2 but you reroll a 1 and on a 6 it hits. So after and before the flyer dies you have a scout squad with T7 and 2+cover saves. That has precision shot with a lascannon....

How do the scouts get T7? I know the cloaks and the 2+ but T7? The Icaus placement gun has T7 but when shooting at the scouts, it doesn't replace them does it? I looked through those sections of the rulebook but can't find it.

Nice clever idea but it's 225 points to get that 2+ cover save and Icarus at BS6 idea. Pretty expensive :(


I guess as far as "cost effectiveness" the Storm Talon or Allies may just be the route we need to take to get decent anti-flyer. I already have 3x Rifle Dreads but that is still not enough and they also function as anti-light/mid AV transports so their role may sometimes be tied up in something else. Man I wish the Storm Talon was maybe 10 or so points cheaper and HP3...

Because artillery rules state that members of the squad operating the gun gain the toughness of the gun. It's the same reason a techmarine gains T7 while he's operating the cannon.

The Aegis guns are not artillery, they're emplaced guns.

So by majority toughness they'd be T4 with any meq on them, so are you sure? Can you give me a page number? Not being argumentative. But I'd like to know if I'm playing it wrong haha.

Emplacements do not count as part of the unit like artillery or another model.

They're their own separate model, their own separate unit if you will that is part of neither army. A model in base contact may fire the gun, but that does not make it part of the unit. The unit manning the gun and the gun itself are separate and must be targeted separately.

I've made a good habit of shooting quad guns off the table with some splinter cannon fire on the first turn to make sure it doesn't threaten my skimmers.

Ha, in that case I've been getting gypped. I've been shooting at a unit on a quad gun using those rules. Ie closest to furthest dying. Not realizing I can just target the gun. Where is a stat line for an emplaced weapon then? And the rules to how a squad works that is operating it? I looked at page 96 and it says nothing about anything useful for this? All I can find is artillery rules?

I said before and now again: Quadgun + tankhunter= fun

I just want to say thank you to the OP for asking all of these questions. This thread has been very helpful.

So lets talk about favorite tactics with your marines? I find real succes by overflowing a flank and cutting off line of sight and such. Now with vehicle movement the way it is, you can get better vehicle cover(terrain dependant). Then you pop out and get your shots. A few of my opponents are subtly mobile but mostly static so this tactic seems to take them a bit by surprise. I also find for marines staying means dead.


Also lets what are some good ways to run vanguard and assault marines in the marine codex? I want to run a few JP marines without paying BA Allie tax.

RE: assault/vanguard marins. Err, yeah dont.

MUUCCCH better getting BA since ur "tax" is...assault marines, exactly what you wanted to add. Furthermore you can add some sang priests to your BA to give ur assault marines FNP and thus a LOT more survivability. You also get acess to death company who are pretty amazing. (FNP, rage? and a few other goodies amke them terrors)

vanilla SM assault marines are pretty bad in comparison

I'd say the only viable way to use jump pack marines in a vanila list is in a maximum size squad with miniumum wargear, not sure if the PF is even worth it anymore as a sgt with PF will lose the challenge with any half decent CC character. Attach a chaplain and you get some 30 odd attacks with re-rolls to hit if you make the charge 11 I10 HoR attacks, for a mobile fearless counter assault unit that can be used to tarpit stuff you don't want assaulting your gunline.

Vanguard vets are just too expensive especially when you start gearing them enough to actually be effective at their role.

Yah I had been running a small 6 man assault squad with Flamer, and power sword/SS. For like 170 they seemed ok. The storm shield helped immensely in keeping them alive enough to tie stuff up quickly and do a little damage. Was not impressed overall though. And vanguard are stupid expensive. Why do they have to buy their jump packs? That seems so asinine... Idk the one time I ran them in 5th I hit my heroic intervention and wiped a squad of sang guard with like 16ish power weapon attacks haha so that was awesome. But the proce seems way prohibitively expensive. And the AP change thing killed that for me.

And the reason I dot wanna take them as allies is I don't wanna pay for an hq. I want one smallish squad of them to jump around and cause havoc haha.

Chancetragedy wrote:
Yah I had been running a small 6 man assault squad with Flamer, and power sword/SS. For like 170 they seemed ok. The storm shield helped immensely in keeping them alive enough to tie stuff up quickly and do a little damage. Was not impressed overall though. And vanguard are stupid expensive. Why do they have to buy their jump packs? That seems so asinine... Idk the one time I ran them in 5th I hit my heroic intervention and wiped a squad of sang guard with like 16ish power weapon attacks haha so that was awesome. But the proce seems way prohibitively expensive. And the AP change thing killed that for me.

And the reason I dot wanna take them as allies is I don't wanna pay for an hq. I want one smallish squad of them to jump around and cause havoc haha.

For 170 you can get 3 bikes with 2 meltguns, a combi-melta(or 2 PGs) and an attack bike with a multimelta, of the 2 I know which is likely to be more effective 9 times out of 10.

Assault marines are still overpriced.

I used to love my Assault Marines with a jump chaplain (Not a dead tactic I'd argue, but certainly better for BA now), now they see the shelf in favor of things like Sternguard or Terminators. But the speed is still fun to play, despite the ineffectiveness.

Another some times forgotten point on the humble rhino. When being used as mobile cover it can act as an "11th" member of the squad during shooting. A lot players seem to forget that it does come stock with a storm bolter and that + 10 points gives it a pintle mount storm bolter for effectively 2 storm bolters in shooting.

While you would not take the rhino as a main tank, it does still add to your total shooty and the upgrade can be a good thing if you have left over points.

From a real world cost perspective don't buy rhinos, buy Razorback or Whirlwind kits that way you get the choice of 2 tanks for the price of one.

Haha rhinos and pods both. And pods can even snap fire their storm bolters the turn they drop!!!! I love those stock storm bolters. Mega useful as I've seen them kill things all the time!! Excellent point sir.

And mike712 I completely agree those are more useful. Sometimes you just wanna use models you have though haha. And I find when people see your running assault marines out of the vanilla book. they aren't sure what your gonna do with them and i found it let my little squad run amok and clean things up as I shot them.

What is the typical amount of anti-flyer you guys use for your C:SM? I'm talking about medium-great reliability. No single MM or LC responses please Things with TL/Skyfire etc.

I'm thinking of:
3x TL Rifle Dreads
2x Stormtalons Gunships (REALLY don't want to use these as they are quite overcosted and have are extremely fragile. Experience of them surviving torrents of fire for 5+ turns aside, mathhammer shows that 3x rifle dreads can reliably take 1x out a turn. A psyrifle dread can take possible 2x out a turn...however if it's really one of our only reliable choices then I'll have to bite the bullet)

If there are any other suggestions that are cost effective I'd like some advice. Trying to iron out my list for an upcoming tournament and it keeps coming up short on anit-flyer firepower.

What allies provide the best assistance for this? Thinking maybe IG and a Vendetta? BA and a Stormraven? Ignore them? I feel it's hard to ignore them because those lists that bring 5+ will really be hard to deal with but IF this is a reliable tactic and someone could shed some light on it that'd be great.

Note: Aegis Defense Line is not a good answer because of the way terrain is placed. I know its a real WAAC dick thing to do but some people WILL place a giant mountain smack dab in the front of my Quad-Gun/Icarus so it has no LOS whatsoever...

Take some Thunderfire cannons. They are great.

syypher wrote:
What is the typical amount of anti-flyer you guys use for your C:SM? I'm talking about medium-great reliability. No single MM or LC responses please Things with TL/Skyfire etc.

I'm thinking of:
3x TL Rifle Dreads
2x Stormtalons Gunships (REALLY don't want to use these as they are quite overcosted and have are extremely fragile. Experience of them surviving torrents of fire for 5+ turns aside, mathhammer shows that 3x rifle dreads can reliably take 1x out a turn. A psyrifle dread can take possible 2x out a turn...however if it's really one of our only reliable choices then I'll have to bite the bullet)

If there are any other suggestions that are cost effective I'd like some advice. Trying to iron out my list for an upcoming tournament and it keeps coming up short on anit-flyer firepower.

What allies provide the best assistance for this? Thinking maybe IG and a Vendetta? BA and a Stormraven? Ignore them? I feel it's hard to ignore them because those lists that bring 5+ will really be hard to deal with but IF this is a reliable tactic and someone could shed some light on it that'd be great.

Note: Aegis Defense Line is not a good answer because of the way terrain is placed. I know its a real WAAC dick thing to do but some people WILL place a giant mountain smack dab in the front of my Quad-Gun/Icarus so it has no LOS whatsoever...

I tend to just ignore flyers, 1-2 can simply be ignored, if you're up against a flyer spam list there's nothing you can do within the vanilla codex to counter them all anyway, any counters you do take will be taken out immediately.

The stormtalon is the worst flyer point for point in my opinion, there's no way I'd include one in my list, it's a gakky model too and I don't pay almost £30 for a gak model.

1 AA emplacement will do nothing against multiple flyers, and you're right they can be countered with terrain too.

My counter to flyer spam is decline games against them, this means not playing in major tournaments where flyer spam is likely to happen as I don't feel like investing in an entirely new list/different army. My army mostly dates back to 3rd/4th edition, I've always played roughly the same sort of list, tac squads with transport, sniper scouts, dreads and termies with some bikes and it has always been somewhat competitive against pretty much everything and I don't intend to change that just becase GW with their money grabbing ways introduce flyers for which their shiny new and expensive models are the only counter, screw that.

There is no highly available and effective counter to flyer spam other than your own flyer spam, chaos flakk missiles, guard with hydra AA tanks, forge world stuff(not aloud in some tournaments) or if you're orks/nids where weight of fire negates the effect of snap fire.

I'll choose my games for now and wait for flakk missiles in the next codex, I have plenty of marines with launchers.

In cases where forge world is legal to use this is your best option http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space-Marine-Dreadnoughts/CONTEMPTOR_PATTERN_DREADNOUGHT_BODY.html it's a beautiful model, not overly expensive to buy and has skyfire.

AA is definitely a tough one for us. The Talon is, in fact, quite well costed and balanced, especially compared to most of the FW flyers/doom scythe/raven. (dunno as much about the ork flyers but i believe it's relativly comparable)

The problem is that compared to the vendetta and night scythe it's... less than ideal. Given that those 2 flyers are the bulk of what constitute flyerspam this is an issue. The non FW answer is to get an IG ally and get vendettas. Veterans are dirt cheap as is the leader, so you can make a pretty solid little IG ally for cheap and just put most of them behind an aegis line with quad gun. That with a detta or 2 should cover all AA needs and give more needed lascannon firepower.


If, on the other hand, you DO allow FW thennnn our options become a lot more interesting.

First is the hyperios defense platform, 35 points a pop, takes an FA slot, twin linked missile shot with interceptor/skyfire. VERY handy and very very good (compares to the sabre for IG which, admittedly, is better and undercosted but still, meh, damn thing really should be 65). That + the contemptor dreadnought already mentioned (dont leave home without kheres assault cannons. they're amazing amazing things) gives a very solid (albiet static) AA base which should be able to handle flyerspam reasonably well and sans allies or talon.

Notes about the Mortis Contemptor dreadnought: 180 with 2 of the kheres assault cannons (6 shots instead of 4), BS 5, Front Armour 13, 5++ save vs ranged. Can also give it a 2 str 8 ap 3 missile shots (though honestly i just get another platform instead, i dont like all my AA in ONE guy, though i do lose another missile shot). More importantly though he is bs 5 and has skyfire/interceptor when standing still, so he makes a great candidate to put on a icarus lascannon. Sure you give potentially give up one of your AC shots if you fire it, but it mitigates the range issue of the cannons and you can use them instead of anything gets close ( I try to have a squad also in BTB with the icarus so i can choose who fires it).

I'm looking for this role to be the Storm Eagle over Storm Talon (maybe throw in that contemptor dread now that you mention it. Thanks guys!): Storm Eagle has 13 FA, 12 SA, 11 RA, and 4 hull points; the model itself is also bigger which means more transport ability; and better overall weapons means that this is basically 2 Storm Talons in one Storm Eagle(in points and cost), not to mention its more durable, so you might actually have it by turn 2.

I want this flyer so badly, 6th edition makes these so appealing that it would hurt me not to have one. My army was partly trashed by a heldrake that I couldn't shoot down, because it killed my devastators and I rolled badly on my las pred. Having a flyer would make my army much better, and this would be true for more armies than not.

I think one of the best allies Vanilla Marines can take is Dark Angels led by Belial. Two squads of scoring terminators with TH's and CML's.

I myself have been thinking of using the badab war seige list I dont know the points, but my wish list is:

x1 siege master w/ relic blade and plasma pistol

x1 Mortis Contemptor dreadnaught

x1 siege mantel tactical squad in an land raider Achilles
x3 tactical squads w/ all bolters in rhinos
x1 Siege breaker assault squad in maybe a rhino or land raider

x1 stormtalon

x1 squadron of 2 Vindicators, both with stormbolters
x1 squadron of 2 predators, one with Lascannon sponsors and autocannon and the other with HB sponsors and TLLC
x1 squadron of Thunderfire cannons

Aegis defesne line w/ quadgun


This is something i am drooling over


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Add-on: I know about the siege objective, so I think I may have to build a list to go get it.

No one has any experience with this list, dont they?

I don't have much experience with anything imperial armor. Sorry. Except a few apoc things lik contemptors and bane blades and assault drills.