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So, one of the players at my FLGS has been taking a break from his GK army to play with his leafblower guard again. I've yet to face off against him, but I've been thinking about what I'm going to do when eventually I do. Back in 5th, foot and mech guard were roughly equal in power, and how to handle the situation was obvious. Now neither of these statements are true anymore.

I've been thinking about a lot of things, but haven't come up with an obvious answer.

- Firstly, HWSs are going to be a bust. A chimera is cheaper than an HWS, and causes instant death with their multilasers. Throw in some heavy bolter shots, and morale becomes a serious problem in a hurry as well. Plus, as said, HWSs are more expensive, and not even good enough. 3x autocannons, on average, puts down a glance a turn against the chimera, and the chimera is going to be able to kill or drive off that HWS before then.

- Melta stormies are usually pretty good, but against AV12 spam? Seems like they'd drop in, ace a manticore or a russ, or some other high-profile target, and then have a dozen other vehicles shoot/heavy flamer them to death instantly. They're certainly not going to do the job on their own, and, like the HWS, they're just going to be wasted attacking chimeras.

- Other vehicles. I'm a big fan of taking a foot list and blending a couple of HS choices in, but I'm a bit leery here. If I'm just showing up with a couple of medusas/basilisks/colosusses, it seems like the saturation is going to be poor enough against a mech gunline that they're just going to get blown up right away. The closest thing I can think of to make this work is a foot list that has three demolishers in it, as they've got the firepower to actually explode chimeras, allowing them time to kill more than one chimera per game if they survive. Still... 165 points to beat up on 55 point chimeras...

And yes, you could throw in a bunch of your own vehicles in, or a bunch of vendettas in, but then you're not really playing a foot list anymore.

The best thing I can think of at the moment is throwing a bunch of lascannon PISs around, but this doesn't seem like a great solution, honestly. the requisite 4 are going to be good enough to handle a chimera every other turn or so, but it's still not great.

My first thoughts are:

Aegis line with your choice of weapon. I know you hate the AC, but I like the rate of fire.
Plus, it kind of keeps well with the foot IG.

Marbo. No more to say really.

I like the idea of 3 ST sqds, min/maxed with 2 Melta sqds and 1 Plasma sqd.

I like the idea of Artillery over HWS. At least Artillery may last longer hidden until
you have to direct fire.

Let us know how it goes!

Yeah, but marbo's only doing a one-shot as well. I think I'd rather have melta stormies for the multi-shot Ap1.

Likewise, that's the problem with the aegis. It's expensive, and I can only take one. Could I take several pieces of foot-borne artillery I might consider it, but as it is...

Something else I'm reconsidering is manticores. They're not going to blow up anything, but they're able to throw down glances on several vehicles simultaneously. The main problem I have with this is that the only other thing they're going to be good at is hordes, and I already think I rather have that covered with my own horde.

 Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, but marbo's only doing a one-shot as well. I think I'd rather have melta stormies for the multi-shot Ap1.

Likewise, that's the problem with the aegis. It's expensive, and I can only take one. Could I take several pieces of foot-borne artillery I might consider it, but as it is...

Something else I'm reconsidering is manticores. They're not going to blow up anything, but they're able to throw down glances on several vehicles simultaneously. The main problem I have with this is that the only other thing they're going to be good at is hordes, and I already think I rather have that covered with my own horde.

Ignoring the fact that Manticores really shouldn't even really be deployed on a 40k battlefield due to such short ranges (fluff-wise), they're without a doubt your best bet against Chimera spam, plus they will liquefy the teensy 10 man units that come out from the wreckage!

Manticores are great at messing up vehicles, but to be honest I think they're pretty great against even non-horde armies. At Str10, they are causing instant death to a lot of models. Even the venerable Plague Marine loses his FNP. Yeah you might not kill as many, but with D3 large blasts you're bound to get enough wounds to make Paladins start sweating a bit.

Alternatively, look at Sentinels with Lascannons. Armored gives AV12, but the lighter-armored ones have Scout so you can have all of that Outflanking from Scout goodness. I'd also be curious to see how a Devil Dog with its melta blast cannon would fare.

All I can think are lascannon HWTs inside infantry squads/ vet squads. That will let you get a lot of Heavy Weapons on the table while also getting lots of bodies.

Medusas might be the answer. Throw them behind an Aegis, give them Breacher shells and pop tanks on every shot. Could add on camo netting for an improved cover save as well, if you really wanted to.

An Aegis line with no guns (~one squad in points IIRC) with some squad-borne Lascannons and some medusas/demolishers would work alright.

Or you could just run a DKoK list and take that foot artillery you've always wanted.

Leafblower is not what I would fear as foot guard.

I would fear this. Armored fist guard. With an aegis defence line thrown in for good measure.

Thats roughly 9 or so chimeras hiding behind that aegis, with 2 Medusae with camo netting. Without a doubt, the most hilariously frustrating game I have ever played, for both players (great guy though, lots of fun to play against). I couldn't knock him off his objectives without giving up killpoints (as it was a tourney and killpoints was the main objective) but he couldn't leave his line or else he'd take approximately 9 lascannons, 18 autocannons, and 3 leman russes to the face. So, I sat there all game at 37" and shot him.

After what I learned from that, I can't see any leafblower/armored fists player not taking an aegis. That much AV12 is just rediculous to try and kill when literally half your shots are eaten by cover saves. Throw in a likely 2+ save thanks to nightfighting, and the fact that if his transports pop, he can just have the survivors to ground, means it's an insanely tough list.

With that, the quite literally worst case scenario, in mind, I'll take what I learned into account. Marbo, regardless of him being a one shot, is incredibly helpful. He popped up, killed 2 chimeras with his demo charge, and knocked a HP off of 2 others with a single demo charge. The fact that he has to be removed or else he can wreck havoc doesn't hurt. Stormtroopers will kill a transport, but the likelyhood of them getting annihilated the turn after is pretty high. If you can figure out a way to keep them alive (for example, deepstriking them in near the edge of a formation of tanks so only a few can draw line of sight) you might be able to keep em alive another turn, but I don't see a clever opponent letting that happen.

Other helpful things will be things like manticores, deathstrikes, or even basilisks or the other artillery pieces. They'll ignore the aegis, and while probably not going to one shot those chimeras, will be hitting them on AV 10 and shaving HP off like crazy (in the case of the manticore, autopenning them)

Simply put, you're going to have to throw literally everything and the kitchen sink at him. If it's S6 or higher, it needs to be shot at something (s4 if you can get side arc) I was even having my stormtroopers chucking krak grenades alongside the meltagunners, I was that desperate. Other than mass heavy weapons fire, artillery, and deepstrikers, the only other idea I've got is maybe going second, and taking advantage of the fact that he has to disembark to take objectives. Then you try to kill them while they're in the open. But I'm not really confident with that plan either.

So yeah, I'm still figuring out how to deal with it as well.

I would say go with heavy weapon teams in infantry squads and a gunline. I run a fairly decent gunline and my opponent this past week ran a leafblower list. My heavy weapons teams did great with their orders and my opponents chimeras didnt get close enough for his vets to even rapid fire. He ran 2 basilisks and a manticore for heavy support which was annoying but my battle tanks flanked and took them out. by the end i managed a guard victory!

I would say go with the heavy weapons teams in infantry squads and get a aegis defense line. you can go to ground and save troops and then roll with 2 CCS so you can order get back in the fight so they can get back up and shoot!(if im correct) Regimental standards will also help your trrops from running back.

My lord commissar manning the quad gun with an infantry squad dropped a chimera a turn which was outstanding!

Twin linking the heavy weapons teams and trying to get side shots anytime a unit can is basically how i won. He lost 3 chimeras turn 1 and it just halted his whole column as each turn my teams just fired away.

Do you know if your opponent is brining Heavy support, especially artillary? Because that would be the biggest threat too me using gunline but as you run stormies as i assume you could take care of them turn 2.

MrMoustaffa-I have not played against a guard player thats done this but ive read about it on here and its nasty. I dont think I would want to play aginst that. If most of those were vets and they added lascannons or autocannons thats just a huge threat. Ive hid 3 LRBT behind the defence line before against necrons and i was surprised when at the end of turn 4(game ended due to time) all 3 were still alive and only 1 lost a hull point. and each turn they took heavy fire but the cover just proved to good! The defence line and any HS with camo netting is really hard to deal with and is a huge problem if its got its sights on an objective.

 Ailaros wrote:
I'm a big fan of taking a foot list and blending a couple of HS choices in, but I'm a bit leery here. If I'm just showing up with a couple of medusas/basilisks/colosusses, it seems like the saturation is going to be poor enough against a mech gunline that they're just going to get blown up right away.

This is going to be your biggest problem. In all-mech IG Medusas can be awesome, they're a glass cannon but they're sitting next to a bunch of other AV 12 vehicles full of melta/plasma, and your opponent doesn't really have any good options for target priority. On the other hand if you just add 2-3 vehicles, even with AV 14, to an all-foot list you don't really have that kind of saturation. The rest of your list is weak against Chimera spam (as you said), so that makes your opponent's target priority very easy: focus everything on the few anti-Chimera threats and remove them, then move on to cleaning up the rest of your list.

So, what you have to ask yourself here is whether it's worth it to accept the drawbacks of a hybrid list in exchange for improving your anti-Chimera firepower for a turn or two, or would it be better to keep the all-foot strategy to bring, say, more of your SITNW conscripts and focus on winning the objective game while those Chimeras fail utterly at dealing with respawning conscript blobs.

Or you could just run a DKoK list and take that foot artillery you've always wanted.

Of course if you abuse it you're going to have a hard time finding anyone to play against. A single Earthshaker isn't so bad, but if you spam nine of them (with heavy mortars in your elite slots) your opponents are going to be justifiably annoyed that you're exploiting a broken* unit.


*The Earthshaker guns used to be fragile and completely immobile (can't even pivot to shoot new targets) and it was a reasonable question whether you take the cheap fixed gun or the more expensive but more effective Basilisk. Then the new 6th edition artillery rules arrived and effectively turned them into dirt cheap MCs with tons of cheap extra wounds and 360* firing arcs, but didn't change the point costs to reflect this upgrade. It's something that will inevitably be fixed eventually, so spamming them is just taking advantage of GW's slow update cycle.

Vladsimpaler wrote:Manticores are great at messing up vehicles, but to be honest I think they're pretty great against even non-horde armies. At Str10, they are causing instant death to a lot of models. Even the venerable Plague Marine loses his FNP. Yeah you might not kill as many, but with D3 large blasts you're bound to get enough wounds to make Paladins start sweating a bit.

Meh, not really. A missile hits 5 paladins. Let's say it wounds 4 of them. The squad passes 4 2+ saves. No problems. The longer I go in this codex, the colder I get on this unit, especially now since 6th ed made it much tougher to wreck vehicles outright with Ap4.

Vladsimpaler wrote:Alternatively, look at Sentinels with Lascannons. Armored gives AV12, but the lighter-armored ones have Scout so you can have all of that Outflanking from Scout goodness. I'd also be curious to see how a Devil Dog with its melta blast cannon would fare.

Yeah, I've actually been pondering non-vendetta FA options recently, even running a pair of lascannon scout sentinels in a recent game. My basic verdict on them at the moment is that they're virtually identical to melta stormies, except they do less damage, but at less risk (they'll likely have SOMETHING to shoot at, regardless of what side of the board they arrive on, but a mishapped stormie squad is a mishapped stormie squad). In this case, I'm not quite sure that I'm sold, for the same reason as melta stormies. You spend 100 points to show up, blast a 50 point transport, and then get blown off the board yourself. If only they could still charge the turn they arrived...

As for the devil dog, I made a serious attempt to not loathe it, but ultimately failed. In short, on turn 1, they get a lascannon shot (S8 Ap1 outside of melta range having the same chance to wreck AV12 as a S9 Ap2 shot), then on turn 2, they get one melta shot. Compare that to melta stormies which do nothing on turn 1, and get 2 melta shots likely on turn 2 (without getting shot at first), or compare it to the lascannon sentinels which does nothing turn 1, and likely 2 lascannon shots turn 2 (also without getting shot at first), and it's tough for me to like the devil dog, especially when you consider that the devil dog is much, much more likely to be shooting at front armor than the other two options, and stormies can even get linebreaker to boot.

Happygrunt wrote:Medusas might be the answer.

I may take another look at the BB medusa, though. I took it briefly, but dropped it because it can't shoot at fliers. Now that I'm no longer so concerned about that, I might well give them a try again. What's better than a demolisher cannon? A longer ranged melta demolisher cannon!

Of course, the problem with the medusa has always been that it's only a REALLY good anti-vehicle unit with BBs, but it's pretty worthless against non-vehicles when you take it, though...

MrMoustaffa wrote:

Spoiler:

Forgive my army, I'm still settling on a paint scheme, hence a large amount of unpainted models

Thats roughly 9 or so chimeras hiding behind that aegis

Yeah, that's more what I'm talking about. Just too many vehicles to handle.

Your picture is really interesting, though, because it does point out a pretty glaring weakness, at least of this kind of deployment - outflanking. Al'Rahem, for example, could do some pretty brutal stuff to this list, even without being able to charge in off of the board edge with S4 frag grenades anymore. As you mention, in that kind of a parking lot, it's going to be pretty easy to get some cover saves.

And that's interesting, because when I've come across gunlines like this, they tend to deploy more like:



... precisely to avoid outflankers. I wonder if the existence of aegis lines is making people deploy more in corners.

Actually, now that I see this picture, I have no idea how I'd beat it in 6th ed. If I'm taking my 2x conscript squads at 1500 points, that's only leaving about 500 points worth of stuff for support units. I don't even know what I'd do here.

Peregrine wrote:So, what you have to ask yourself here is whether it's worth it to accept the drawbacks of a hybrid list in exchange for improving your anti-Chimera firepower for a turn or two, or would it be better to keep the all-foot strategy to bring, say, more of your SITNW conscripts and focus on winning the objective game while those Chimeras fail utterly at dealing with respawning conscript blobs.

... hmm. You suggest doubling down? My local escalation league is going up to 1000 points very soon, and my initial instinct is to finish off the core of my troops. That's my CCS, an infantry platoon with chenkov, 2x melta/las PISs, one squad of SiTNW conscripts, and then a second platoon that's a copy of the first without chenkov.

The problem is that this comes in at roughly 900 points. A great, solid core, sure, but it's leaving me very scarce on offensive power, as it's basically just 7 lascannons, 4 meltaguns, and a LOT of lasgun fire.

At some point, I've got to be able to knock my opponents off of objectives, or else every game is going to be a draw with my unkillable conscripts against his chimera wall which I'm incapable of hurting. Well, no, it will probably end in a lot of losses, as I'm not very likely to get first blood.

 Ailaros wrote:
The problem is that this comes in at roughly 900 points. A great, solid core, sure, but it's leaving me very scarce on offensive power, as it's basically just 7 lascannons, 4 meltaguns, and a LOT of lasgun fire.

Hm. I'm not sure what you can do at that low a point level, the only way to get enough anti-tank weapons to take on Chimera spam at 1000 points is to do mech vets yourself. So you're kind of trapped between two unappealing options:

1) Bring a hybrid list and be mediocre at doing two things (area control foot blobs and melta/plasma delivery tanks/vets), which leaves you vulnerable to your opponent focusing on the one relevant half and wiping it out.

or

2) Throw everything into doing what you're already good at and attempt to win the game on your own terms, which leaves you vulnerable to stalemates where you don't have enough strength to get into midfield and claim enough objectives to break the draw.

The only other alternative I can think of is to go heavy on the Vendettas and/or Vultures and hope that 1000 points isn't enough to remove a couple outflanking Vendettas before they blow up the Chimera wall with lascannons (or punisher cannons!) into side armor.

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On second thought you could keep the all-foot theme and bring Hades drills! All the damage is done when it arrives, so you don't need to worry about AV 12 saturation to ensure your delivery method survives, and a squad of melta/plasma vets deploying right into the remains of the Chimera castle is going to do a lot of damage (and maybe even survive to claim an objective). And don't forget that they have explicit permission to charge once they arrive, which overrules the "no assault out of reserve" rule and lets you deliver 10x melta bombs if the guns don't get the job done.

And since they're cheap and you aren't dumping tons of points into tanks with your list you can bring 2-3 of them and still keep a good foot blob presence on your "home" objectives.

Creed + 3 Demolisher Squadron.
Infiltrate (not outflank) lets you move 12" before the game starts.
Move up 6 and unload. You should be dropping that S10 AP2 ordnance all over his parking lot.

-Matt

Get your normal hydra battery and don't forget to leave the wrecked vehicles on the board. With luck and turn 1 you have the chance to trap him in his own parking lot.

AV 12 spam can be a real pain and the mobility makes it difficult to out maneuver with foot guard. Gun lines with lots of orders, aegis fort, and HWS to your flavor can put the hurt down just don't forget that you can go to ground then order the unit to get back in the fight next turn and they will fire like normal. You will be going against his 4++ AV12 but he will have to deal with 2++ which will even the odds out a bit.

Death Korps is pretty cool but are they even still legal seeing how 5ed codex should have replaced them...or is there a more recent DKoK rule set out there?

 ansacs wrote:
Get your normal hydra battery and don't forget to leave the wrecked vehicles on the board. With luck and turn 1 you have the chance to trap him in his own parking lot.

How exactly is a Hydra going to work here? Or did you forget that Hydras can only snap fire at Chimeras?

Death Korps is pretty cool but are they even still legal seeing how 5ed codex should have replaced them...or is there a more recent DKoK rule set out there?

The IA5 list was updated for 5th edition in a pdf, and if you use the other 6th edition update pdfs (hull points, heavy artillery) and a little sense about applying IG FAQs to DKoK the list works just fine in 6th rules-wise.

Is this not a job for Al'rahem? Seems like a smaller platoon filled with melta guns might do the job nicely.

What about just add krak grenades to the infantry platoons?

Then move across the table and assault his parking lot.

I know that's been the biggest change for me playing mech guard is that I can't let anything with krak grenades get near any chimeras anymore. Guard armies can spam cheap krak grenades better than anybody.

 Flavius Infernus wrote:
What about just add krak grenades to the infantry platoons?

Then move across the table and assault his parking lot.

I know that's been the biggest change for me playing mech guard is that I can't let anything with krak grenades get near any chimeras anymore. Guard armies can spam cheap krak grenades better than anybody.

How is he going to get there? PIS are not the most survivable lot once outside of cover.

How is he going to get there?

http://www.ailarian.com/folera/batreps/index.html

Looks like he typically does it through a combination of running forward in a dispersed formation and outflanking.

Yeah, that's the problem. I don't know how a PIS is going to manage to make it across an entire table worth of multilaser and heavy bolter fire, only to eat heavy flamers once I get close and then deal with overwatching vets once I try and assault the transport. This idea may have worked against parking lots in 5th, but I fail to see how now.

That said, I'm not that worried about the mobility thing. Getting into charge range with PISs is going to be very tough, but getting within 18" of chimeras with meltaguns isn't. Plus, defensively, the melta hedge is still very much alive.

My biggest problem with the creed+demolisher thing (other than the fact that it costs a LOT) is that it's still just one unit, so it can still only target one thing at a time. It seems like I'd be relying a lot on exactly the right kind of poor scattering to be able to break open other targets.

You know what i would do at this low points level? Screw the second platoon. One wave of conscripts is plenty for your objective needs at such a low level. For your second troops, take a cheap vet squad (maybe even harker vets with plasma) and then i'd get a few russes. Notice I didn't say one. I said multiple ones. You'll have enough infantry to hold the line, and a chimera wall isn't exactly running at you turn one. Maybe an exterminator, and a couple of regular russes or some other mix between the two. Put your tanks behind your infantry, and he has to come to you to kill them. If he does that, your infantry with meltaguns and heavy weapons will tear him a new one, and thats if he even makes it through the Leman Russes firepower. I've run an exterminator and a regular russ before in 1,000pts games and it's really hard for people to take out that much AV 14 when you've bubble wrapped the tanks with infantry.

And yes, normal russes arent exactly anti tank monsters, but there's a key reason why you would take them. They'll rarely miss, since you only need part of the template on a vehicle to hit it. They've got S8 ordnance to get through that armor to pretty much guarantee a hp is coming off. And finally, it really punishes your opponent if he castles up. Now your russ goes from dinging an hp from one chimera to possibly 2 or 3. you basically force him to spread out, screwing over his force concentration. as for exterminators, well, we know what they do to light armor already

At least, thats what I'd see myself doing.

Why not take some allies? Have your foot guard supported by some foot slogging marines, C:SM, BA and SW all give your list some options, while still not taking any tanks or other kinds of vehicles. C:SM, Take Sicarus and a Tactical Squad, and hand out a special rule to the squad that is useful that match(IE Tank Hunters, Scout, Infiltrate), and/or take Devastators, nothing says bye bye AV12 like Missile Launchers and Las Cannons.

BA, take Assault Marines with a cheap JJ hero, and maybe a Priest to give them FNP, or take Dante and a squad of Sanguinary Guard with a Priest(2+ Armor, FNP and with Dante the squad doesn't scatter, can be armed with Melta Pistols, Dante gets one as part of his gear), I am thinking this will be a huge thorn in his side as it will take a good deal of fire to kill this squad, just hide Dante and Priest, Scatter Lasers and Heavy Bolters will bounce. For more trouble simply bring more.

SW, this books gives you lots of options for dealing with armor, Wolf Scouts(one squad can show up behind them), Wolf Guard Combi Spam, Grey Hunters with Two Plasma or Melta Guns, Long Fangs(like Devastators but can fire at more than one target and get an extra heavy weapon), Thunder Wolf Cav.

MrMoustaffa wrote:You know what i would do at this low points level? Screw the second platoon. One wave of conscripts is plenty for your objective needs at such a low level. For your second troops, take a cheap vet squad (maybe even harker vets with plasma) and then i'd get a few russes.

Yeah, I've been considering doing that to lighten up points. The 2+ harker of doom squad costs 190 points, does free up a bunch. The question, though, is when to switch over to adding the second platoon back in.

With how I'm currently arranging things, that's leaving me with a bit over 200 points left in a 1000 point game, and, assuming the second platoon goes in and harker goes out, 500 points in a 1500 point game. I guess at 1500 we're talking about eeking in 3 165 point units, but what about at 1,000? Just one of said units and some other upgrades?

It's been too long since I've played at 1,000 points, I'm feeling like I'm having a hard time judging what kinds of threats I'm going to come across.

Garuss Acine wrote:Why not take some allies?

I'm sure there are some great options, but I'd kind of like to find a solution in-codex. Not everybody has the disposition or the models for allies.

I'd plop your own aegis at mid field then buy a camo-cloak lord commissar and attatch him to some ogryns and move them up the table. Ogryn with a 3+ cover save minimum should be able to move up the field against the chimera hedge, and all of those high strength multi charging attacks should decimate ths chimera wall. As long as you know the chimera player isnt' fielding manticores, if he is, probably won't work.

Do barrage weapons hit side armour? I forget. If they do, then just load up on mortars and hide them behind objects Enough of them should ruin a chimera's day, especially if your opponent clusters up as you might get multiple vehicle hits at full strength. Also they're cheap and can't be gotten at easily.

Alternatively, what about using a couple of CCSs with MOOs. Basilisks without the vehicles Also ideal for hitting large parking-lot type targets.

This might be a situation where Special weapon teams are worth using. You can get a special weapon squad with 2 meltas and a demo charge for close to the same price as a naked vet squad. If you run 4 of them and Marbo that's 5 demo charges that can be flung. If you want to make them a less appealing target run them with only 1 demo charge and keep them in cover as much as possible. If you run them on conjuction with the storm troopers you will at least give your opponent a dilema when it comes to target priority. Go ahead and use heavy weapon squads and lascannons in your infantry squads and some of them may just live long enough to kill something.


I know you want to do all foot but what I enjoy doing with them is taking three special weapon squads with 2 demo charges and either a plasma or melta gun and droping them out of valkaries. They drop in, throw their charges and then they are just dangerous enough that they can do a bit of damage if they are ignored and not dangerous enough to be a main threat so they cause some frustration in the backfield.

Also, what about trying out Mortars on your HWT's? Since they are barrage they hit on side armor. Sure, that means they need 6's to glance but they ingore cover and can sit out of line of site so as not to get shot at while chucking blast markers at the parking lot. If he bunches his Chimeras up then even if you scatter you still stand a decent chance of hitting 1-2 of them. Throw in a Master of Ordanance for good measure and watch him try to close with you and hop out of those steel boxes of death ASAP!

If you add a Captain Al' Rahem to a platoon with 2 SWS they can outflank to chuck three charges each. You can equip the 2 manadatory squads krak grenades and a melta/plasma as well for added punch. Throw a Commissar with power fist in the comand sqad with 4 mela/plasa guns and you have a tank killing beast. Might be a nice little supprise to loose a whole flank of vehicles. Granted Al'Rahem and his platoon are usualy best deployed in Chimeras but you could do it on foot and he may work as well.

Use your storm troopers to pop transports, have LRBT then blast the troops that survive, that should make your storm troopers a threat as your blob runs up the field. Might be a bit of points but it isnt a bad strategy, only problem is hopefully your templates dont scatter into your own troops but aside from heavy weapons teams not much i can think of.

 Ailaros wrote:
It's been too long since I've played at 1,000 points, I'm feeling like I'm having a hard time judging what kinds of threats I'm going to come across.

This is the real problem, at only 1000 points you don't have the ability to split your list between different counter tactics. There's always going to be a pure spam list that you're vulnerable to, and at some point you have to just concede that you're not going to be able to fight that spam effectively without compromising the primary plan of your list. So you either stick with the primary plan and hope to complete your own goals and win (objective camping, etc) or dump the entire primary plan and go with something different (mech IG of your own).

Of course if you have access to FW models then things get a lot easier, and you can run a mix of Medusa guns (the artillery, not the tank), heavy mortars, and platoons with Sabre guns to form a foot blob and hold your "home" objectives, while melta/plasma veteran squads with Hades drills attack the Chimera castle. I haven't used the exact mix of units (more tanks, no platoons), but the basic strategy is one I've had success with, the big guns force your opponent to move up and spread out or lose their tanks, while the drill squads smash isolated units once they're out of mishap range away from the table edge.

Had amazing post written up, explaining my idea in smart words in great detail. Twas a glorious post. Family member walks in "hey can I borrow computer?" "Sure". Come back, post is gone.

So, bear with me here Ailaros, but I'm not really convinced SITNW conscripts are entirely necessary at this points level. I've been playing 1k IG games at the store a lot lately as we've been getting used to 6th, and haven't really felt a need for SITNW conscripts at all. Only lost a couple of times, and in both situations, the conscripts wouldn't have done anything to turn it around. Foot IG is still very strong at 1k from what I've seen, provided you take the right units. This would be something I would take at 1k.

I've got more infantry than your conscript list would have, more firepower, and I've got 2 leman russ battle tanks. After messing around with conscripts at low points levels, I wouldn't add them till at least 1,500pts. At lower values, we have plenty of guardsmen so that unless someone brings 100% pure anti infantry weapons, you'll wreck them. The key is killing stuff that can kill your infantry turn one, and then just wearing them down from there. It's been working great for me so far.

For example, those leafblower lists would have either a manticore, a couple of basilisks, a leman russ, or some other heavy support choice to kill your infantry. You've got enough guns (and orders) to kill just about anything to minimize it's damage. At the very least, you can force it to hide from you all game, and then just kill his transports as quickly as possible.

Melta with autocannon ? you want to scare him away from your deployment zone, correct ?
I really don't see that working any otherway I like the idea.

And I'll give the lip as long as you don't tell me why you are going for HF on the LR on a list made for taking on mech heavy opponents
If you can flame the guardsmen they are in range to shove various grenades in your ass.

I've never played against another IG player, how odd is that ? It's interesting to see what people come up with.

 mayfist wrote:
Melta with autocannon ? you want to scare him away from your deployment zone, correct ?
I really don't see that working any otherway I like the idea.

And I'll give the lip as long as you don't tell me why you are going for HF on the LR on a list made for taking on mech heavy opponents
If you can flame the guardsmen they are in range to shove various grenades in your ass.

I've never played against another IG player, how odd is that ? It's interesting to see what people come up with.

Well, simply put, a heavy bolter that can only snapfire is borderline useless. A heavy flamer is free, and gives me options if the guy gets too close, or he brings stormtroopers etc. Simply put, it won't fire very often, but when it does, it'll inevitably do more damage than a bolter would. That's the plan at least. We'll see if it's worth taking down the road.

As for melta/autocannon, think of it like a line of pikemen. Ailaros calls it a melta hedge. Same thing basically. I don't want him coming close too quickly. Plus, meltas are cheaper and do a good amount of damage against everything but hordes. And they won't kill the operators like certain weapons.

And this isn't just for killing armor. This is a take all comers type list that I would take, just with the added thought of "What if I draw the leafblower guy". I probably don't need this much AT in my area, but I still think a list like this would serve you well in most situations. Only real problems I see are fliers and maybe massed termis/deepstrikers, but that's about it. And besides, those are rough matchups for foot IG in general, so that's something I'm used to dealing with.