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Well, there's always the devil dog. Not the greatest choice in the world, but it is cheaper than the demolisher and 3x s. sentinels and has some nice speed. Downside is that Str 8 at 24 inches. It is gonna struggle against the AV13 and up until you get it within assault/death range.
Yeah, I can see your hesitation with going for more sentinels before knowing how much that many will really contribute. Maybe do a few practice games with something.
I would consider trying out the Manticore (maybe even 2) again as many keep suggesting. It might not have the durability or the AP, but it should reliably penetrate things and combined with all your lascannons, the damage should add up.

There is also something else that I and others around seems to forget every time- Krak Grenades. For deep striking stormtroopers with a couple of melta hitting a squadron from the back/side, a Krak is still a 'free' Str 6 attack on top of the meltas, and it at least another trooper might do some damage. Not optimum, but it's still a notch better than just 2 melta shots.

Auto cannon infanty are good weapons, but not for the op. Neither is Las cannon infantry. I still like the manticore as it can strip quantum shielding well and also beat down infanty and character snipe. Melta bomb infanty deals with monsters very well but without a blob or redundant demo vets they become priority targets. Melta bomb infantry also wreck all ground vehicles. What about trying chimeras loaded with demo vets? Flat out turn 1 to close the gap, turn 2 disembark and shoot, tossing charge as needed, turn 3 assault the vehicles. With perhaps 4 such units and with chimeras as blockers, if even one unit assaults a few vees they will all be toast.

No amount of ranged firepower in Las cannons can match the 10 melta bomb charge without massively inflating cost. A rough rider unit hiding behind the chimeras to mop up or just mince a power armor squad, and your golden.

I wish I had the luck everyone else seems to have with artillery. With the new rules not allowing subtraction of BS for LOS, I'm missing like crazy. My dice hate me. I only scored three direct hits from three basilisks my last game in seven rounds of shooting! They were so ineffective, that only one was destroyed on turn 5, and that's because it was in the vicinity of an objective. I might go back to Russes, but those have disappointed me in the past as well.

WhiteWolf01 wrote:Well, there's always the devil dog.

I wish I could like this unit, but I really can't. It's faster than a demolisher, but the demolisher cannon is usually better, and the tank has better armor. It's also faster than a medusa, except that a medusa, with or without BB is way better. I feel like I've got to get pretty low on slots in my army before I'd really take one of these, which is kind of sad.

Inquisitor Jex wrote: For deep striking stormtroopers with a couple of melta hitting a squadron from the back/side, a Krak is still a 'free' Str 6 attack on top of the meltas,

Oh, don't worry, I remember this.

DevianID wrote:Auto cannon infanty are good weapons, but not for the op. Neither is Las cannon infantry.

I've actually been doing pretty well with my melta/lascannon PISs. It's just too much for a lot of stuff that gets real close to handle, and even pretty reliably gets me first blood/is annoying with lascannons at the beginning of the game. The problem, though, is that it's just not enough.

I guess I could always just take more of them, but at some point packing more guys into the same small deployment zone hits diminishing return.

DevianID wrote:What about trying chimeras loaded with demo vets? Flat out turn 1 to close the gap, turn 2 disembark and shoot, tossing charge as needed, turn 3 assault the vehicles. With perhaps 4 such units and with chimeras as blockers, if even one unit assaults a few vees they will all be toast.

I've actually been vaguely thinking about a chimera highland charge. The list being two infantry platoons with melta and lascannons everywhere you can put it, and then some melta vets. The whole army would be more or less troops choices in chimeras. Turn one, everything books it forward. Turn 2, everything is getting meltagunned/heavy flamered.

It's a rather radical departure from what I'm used to and, most importantly, I don't have nearly enough chimeras to pull this kind of list off. Plus, I've never seen a chimera charge before, and I suspect it's for good reason...

Medusa with cammo and bastion breecher shells.
S10 AP1 rolling 2D6 for armor pen kills things.
It's not ordnance, so you can use the hull heavy bolter too.
I've been running PIS squads with lascannons and plasma and use bring it down to help out against flyers. 2 plasmaguns and 2 lascannons, with re-rolls from bring it down has a chance. Having 14 buffer wounds helps too.

As for dealing with enemy indirect fire, I tried something recently that most people will tell you never to take...
Ratlings. 20-30 Ratlings can put out decent hurt into side armor of AV10. I know, everyone loves storm troopers. But the problem with storm troopers is that they don't hit the table until turn 2 or 3, and by then, you're opponent has had 1-3 turns of dishing out hurt. 30 Ratlings can expect about 3-4 rending hits. While not great against most vehicles, against AV10 side armor of open topped tanks gets it done.
Massed snipers are likewise good against monsters.

Rather than Aegis, I've used bastion, with Company Command Squad (with cloaks). You're high enough up that flyers don't negate cover, so you're a lot safer to man that Quad gun/Icarius.

-Matt

It may be a radical departure for you, but some food for thought and it may fit your narrative.

You could take a Fortress of Redemption, place is close to your deployment zone and fill it with conscripts. Place an objective or two on the Fortress and BAM, regenerating defenders for two objectives with AV 14, a Skyfire gun and a missile launcher.

Now you have your brave little goobers defending the holy relic inside, hoping against hope that the enemy doesn't come to close as the brave soldiers that make you your real force go out and stomp face.

I've got a 2nd one, unpainted, that I just don't need. If you like the idea, I could actually mail you the thing, just to see what you do with it.

I like Medusas with BB shells also, they can move 6" and still fire the main weapon, or stay still and also use the HF for close support. It's essentaily 48" higher power Melta Booms.

S.Sentinels are actually a really good way to get armor in cover. 3 LC S.Sentinels with HK MIssles and Camo Netting in area cover can take a lot of incoming fire. Ofcourse depending on your luck, MMV.

For MC there's a Chimera\PCS squad combination I've been thinking about. Chimera ML\HB w\HStb, PCS with1HW choice and 2 SW choices. I'm thinking AC\GLs for 13 Med to High str shots, 11 of them at 36" MCs will be cleansed. But LC\PG or Melta equipment really gives it some bite.

 thedarksaint wrote:
Place an objective or two on the Fortress

Objectives cannot be placed in or on buildings.

I cannot say I have been successful with pure IG lists in 6th (I'm using SM allies), but here are some ideas that I think could improve your chances:

- Rough Riders with Kamir. He is boss since the latest FAQ came out. With him, RR become a whole different level of a threat.
- hard spamming of HWS behind an Aegis. Take something like 10 HWS and GtG with those that are shot at for 2+ cover. There'll always be plenty standing HWS to put out tons of fire. Those that did GtG can target fliers.
- Not sure if you are ready to use Mech IG? You could go completely against the trend and put out 13 AV12 Hulls at 1850 or the like, including 2+ Hydras to counter fliers
- I still think your old Al'Rahem trick can work with an Astropath to help.
- the Wall of Steel: 4 or 5 Russes and a couple of Blobs with an Aegis. 2x Exterminator is a good choice to help against fliers in this list.

Your opoponents go for the kill, so you can try and do the same (where pure IG have a hard time) or counter with spoiler lists that your opponent can't kill.

Really interresting thread with lots of interresting ideas!

I can relate to not wanting to use certain models/units for whatever reasons and finding an alternative that better suits your style of play/fluff or whatever.

Reading your batreps it sometimes seem that it doesnt matter how good your tactics or armylists are... your dice rolls just arent good enough. And I do not think there's a cure for that.

Here's a few ideas (some of them mayhaps a bit crazy) just to mix things up a bit;

-What about infiltrating forwards sentries harker vets with 3 PG and LasCan in a sweet position to get a good cover save?

-What about bastonne vets with 3 PG and LasCan positioned away from the rest of your army to get different shooting angles and maybe get your opponent to spread out while using his BID to ensure hits even with your bad dice.

-What about taking the aegis defence line with Icarus LasCan as atleast some counter to fliers. Might not work every time but once in a while...

-What about (as suggested earlier) multiple LasCan HWS behind the aegis using GtG when targeted combined with two CCS or maybe Creed and use GBITF if they survive or use BID if you're targeting fliers since they're BS1 anyways that turn.

-What about a platoon in reserve with multiple LasCan HWS targeting fliers with BID on the turn they arrive? (If you're experiencing problems with them getting blown away before beeing able to shoot.) ((maybe combined with al'rahem?))

-What about a commissar Lord to keep your HWS on the table and making sure they succeed recieving orders?

See the problem with the heavy weapons squad is that they just don't have enough wounds to go around. It doesn't have much to do with their leadership so putting a Lord Commissar in a single heavy weapons squad isn't a great idea. What kills them is not running off the board generally, but the fact that it is basically a 6 wound unit with a 5+ save. Spamming them on the other hand is a different story. Say 5-6 HWSs.

Well, behind an aegis defence line while GtG they'd have a 2+ cover save and should be able to take about 36W before going down unless they take a couple of wounds and fail their Ld 7. The Commissar Lords 6" Ld 10 bubble should be able to help keeping them on the board.

HawaiiMatt wrote:Medusa with cammo and bastion breecher shells.

So, I'm kind of back and forth on these guys. On the one hand, yeah. Hella killing power against vehicles. On the other hand, they don't get barrage, so more problems with cover. I LOVE their Ap1, but I really don't love their small blast. I feel like it would handle like half of what I'm looking for, but not the other half. I feel like having multi-shot weapons is going to be more necessary unless I've got large blasts, but is a non-BB medusa worth taking?

I don't know, I feel so conflicted about this unit. I like it for obvious reasons, but I also don't like it for subtle ones.

HawaiiMatt wrote:Rather than Aegis, I've used bastion, with Company Command Squad (with cloaks). You're high enough up that flyers don't negate cover, so you're a lot safer to man that Quad gun/Icarius.

Don't you find bastions to just be death traps?

thedarksaint wrote:I've got a 2nd one, unpainted, that I just don't need. If you like the idea, I could actually mail you the thing, just to see what you do with it.

Hah! I'll always take free stuff, but I'm having a bit of a hard time seeing how useful it would be. I feel like my problem is that I'm not able to kill things, moreso than that I'm having a problem with durability and survival.

Gibblets wrote:S.Sentinels are actually a really good way to get armor in cover. 3 LC S.Sentinels with HK MIssles and Camo Netting in area cover can take a lot of incoming fire. Ofcourse depending on your luck, MMV.

You know, this is actually an interesting idea. I think I'd want to do it with armored sentinels more. It would be a LOT to pay for a few lascannons, but they would be pretty tough to displace, what with AV12 and with a 3+ cover save behind an aegis. Plus, they'd be able to hang back and score on scouring missions, and wouldn't be worthless in the rare close combat either.

I also like the idea because we're back in the world of multi-shot and something that can actually target fliers.

Aleinikov wrote:Not sure if you are ready to use Mech IG.

I'm starting to take an interest, but I'd be nowhere ready. I only have a few chimera hulls, and, knowing me, I'd need many, MANY more than that. Instead of mechvets, I'd probably use armored fists and mob the other side of the field. Need a lot of models for that, though.

Tony2BIG wrote:-What about a platoon in reserve with multiple LasCan HWS targeting fliers with BID on the turn they arrive?

Now that's actually an interesting idea too. Having a melta or a plasma reserve platoon that I just always start off the board. Hmmm...

WhiteWolf01 wrote:See the problem with the heavy weapons squad is that they just don't have enough wounds to go around.

Right, the main problem is that they're 3 scatterlaser or autocannon wounds away from being wiped out altogether, leadership or no. Spamming doesn't actually solve this problem, especially in a foot list where my opponents wouldn't have anything else worth shooting their heavy weapons against.

Tony2BIG wrote:Well, behind an aegis defence line while GtG they'd have a 2+ cover save and should be able to take about 36W before going down unless they take a couple of wounds and fail their Ld 7.

But this is a terrible idea. Unless I get orders, we're talking about spending 210 points to throw down one lascannon hit per turn. I might as well take vanquishers.

Furthermore, you have to spend a bunch of points on a lord commissar, who can only help SO many HWSs, and the cost quickly begins to escalate. If you're talking about proper spam, then you're running into problems finding cover for them all, or giving them good fire lanes. An aegis can help, but it won't solve the problem altogether, and unless those lascannon guys are at the front, I'm going to be giving my opponents their own 4+ cover save...

It's been said here before on this and other forums...the motto of the Imperial Guard is "If it's worth taking it's worth taking 3 of". I honestly think that part of your problem might be that you simply don't have "enough" of a single method of fighting. You have a few conscripts, but not enough to overwhelm their firepower. You have some rough riders, but not enough to ensure that some survive an enemy round of shooting. Same with sentinels...

I'm not advocating spam by any means here (though it might be the answer you're looking for), but simply suggesting that you have a unified way your army fights. For instance, if you want your army blasting away at 12" then forget lascannons and optimize everyone for rapid-fire/melta combat (rough riders, stormies, vets, demoliser, etc). If you like the feel of your troops pouring volleys of fire into the advancing enemy at 18"-24" then focus on your HWS (and basic guard in general) and hide behind an aegis line with some basilisks and LRBT for fire support. You want to make their army fight your ENTIRE army, not just pieces of it at a time. Another way to think about it is in terms of points; in a perfect world a unit could kill its points worth. Therefore, if you try to engage 600 pts of tanks with 200 pts of storm troopers it might go badly for you. Every unit has it's strengths and weaknesses, all I'm saying is to try and focus your strengths in one direction. Figure out how you want your army to fight, then read through your codex and pick what matches that style. You have quite a few options, and IMHO a lot of good ones have already been suggested.

I'm not quite as seasoned as a lot of these guys so I may be completely wrong here though.

Well, if your fighting some heavily armored units, I do have a solution. Take a Lord Commissar, and then take everything else as a HWS with lascannon, minus some minor blobs of infantry to hide for when you need to score. You will see dramatic improvements in your anti armor capabilities.

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
Well, if your fighting some heavily armored units, I do have a solution. Take a Lord Commissar, and then take everything else as a HWS with lascannon, minus some minor blobs of infantry to hide for when you need to score. You will see dramatic improvements in your anti armor capabilities.

Unless of course your opponent is able to spam guns with str:6 and above. Which pretty much every codex can. Also they're only guardsmen, with the LC you don't get BID.

And look at the cost. 3x lascannon HWSs and a lord commissar costs you a cool 385 points, which will quickly become 400 with any gear on the commissar. 400 points gets you 9 lascannons on very, very fragile chassis.

Meanwhile, consider that 400 points in scout sentinels gets you 8 lascannons, on a chassis that is immune to small arms fire, and can outflank, making them more survivable and do more damage. They can even take searchlights. In a contest between the two of these, I'd much rather take the sentinels.

I'd even much rather take 400 points of medusas as 3 AV12 vehicles is going to be a lot harder to kill than what will amount to 9 guardsmen, and they either splatcannon paladins or they at LEAST keep up with damage against vehicles.

 Ailaros wrote:


I'd even much rather take 400 points of medusas as 3 AV12 vehicles is going to be a lot harder to kill than what will amount to 9 guardsmen, and they either splatcannon paladins or they at LEAST keep up with damage against vehicles.

And deny FNP, ID obliterators and their melee version, nob bikers, regular bikers, and well, anything else without EW and t5 or less.

STR10 AP2 is tits.

Regarding the mech spam list -
I also am against adding flyers and allies to my army, since I feel that a guard army can handle everything on its own. I typically run 4 chimera plasma/melta vet squads and 2 hellhounds/banewolfs in my list, supported by 4-5 squads of guardsmen with AC or LC. The guardsmen hold the home objective while the chimeras usually rush out 1st or 2nd turn and start wrecking face. I keep everything cheap, and numerous. Upgrades will only take up space for more valuable SWs and HWs.

By the end of the game, most likely none of the chimeras will have survived, but there wont be much of an enemy left, while the surviving vets/guardsmen mop up and take objectives. I've found it to be very effective. It operates on the idea of taking not just 3 of everything, but 4 of everything, and being very aggressive.

I can say that although I've never directly dealt with flyer spam, the amount of fire from the chimeras, vets, and guard squads have been able to handle 1-2 flyer lists pretty easily. Tyranid MC lists with 5-6 MC have been troublesome, but I've found that the combination of the ridiculous amount of plasma/melta in the list (10 PG, 8 MG) and autocannons can handle them pretty well.

You don't find these big tough units just sorta waste their time killing guardsmen? I mean, they tend not to score and tanks don't contest. The other ones would feel like a waste dealing with 55 points of chimera blocking them or sandbagged for a turn fighting 50 points of guardsmen after getting getting close enough.

Mobility or finding ways to block/ move In tarpits can be rough for guard without the obvious inclusions. Maybe some allies could help. Blasts aren't cost effective vs MCs and high av.

CCS, camo, vox, lascannon, astropath, MoO

This unit it to help with orders for the bloob, as well bring it down has a two fold for this unit. MoO gets a reroll so you can assist and or try to off target a unit close to a vehicle. As well the lascannon will punch holes threw units with bs 4. On top of that you get the re roll sides as well as the plus 1 from the astropath. Camo to help the unit stay around as you can always find a spot for a small unit like this. Vox is a needed item because when your running a bloob you hate to fail an order...

5x storm troops, 2x melta guns, deep strike

Simple, drop in and wreck face for a unit that off on the side or something you need busted up.

CPS, auto cannon or lascannon and vox
auto and or las is fine either way. I normally set this unit off to the side to function on its on.

5x PS, 5x lascannon, 2x vox, commissar
5x lascannon up front because of base side. That way if something does assault you. You can almost certainly be in the 2" range of the big base with all your small bases. 2x vox in case somebody has a sinper, as well as the commissar to hold the unit together... 5x lascannon with reroll will be able to do what you need... You might think its over kill, but you will have that option to break this unit up as you see fit.. 3 PS 2PS, which gives you the option witht he two vox to split it even

Vet squad, Harker, 3x melta guns, chimera, out flank
Best all around unit, objective grabber, late game arrival, or placing a unit in the enemies deployment for bonus points etc.. If the chimera blows up, the guys in side with harker get a 3 plus I because of camo.. If the tank is still on the board, then just place your guys in a fashion that most of them are behind the chimera while the few are out in the open. IE your three melta guns ..

Vet squad, 3x plasma guns reserve
How many times I have watched that marine player come rolling up the board.. Then its plasma to the face and watch everything die....

3x sents with mutli lasers out flank
9 dice with 36" range, you should have np getting rear armour with this unit.-

LRBT hull lascannon
LRBT hull lascannon

Two tanks just driving around and taking out the enemy from range.. Battle cannon with 2d6 pick the highest plus a lascannon shot will assist in wrecking face...



Nuff fire power to kill MC/vehicles plus troop killing power pie plates to the face.

Edit,,

I have seen your list a few times and as several people have noted,, your list seem to be a little of everything. Putting a 50 man squad on the board is not something people like. They will attempt to shy away from it as best they can. Then again you will have the few that try to charge it only to find that first rank fire will cut them to shreads..

Note,,do not put a short range weapon in the 5x platoon squad. It will force your deployment set up so that you set closer which is a no no... range unit pounds the enemy into the ground via range......


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh ya camo on the tanks never hurts either. I normally run camo on my tanks because you can always find some type of terrian to work your tanks around. That or you can use your tank stacking them in a way to give cover to the ones behind them... I normally put chimera in front of my tanks to keep them at a 3 plus I...

Tarval wrote:

Vet squad, Harker, 3x melta guns, chimera, out flank
Best all around unit, objective grabber, late game arrival, or placing a unit in the enemies deployment for bonus points etc.. If the chimera blows up, the guys in side with harker get a 3 plus I because of camo.. If the tank is still on the board, then just place your guys in a fashion that most of them are behind the chimera while the few are out in the open. IE your three melta guns ..

Harker squads are for infiltrating killy stuff into ruins. Having a squad with camo and stealth in a chimera is ridiculous. Having a 200pt squad run at tanks with meltaguns is even more ridiculous. 1 Flamer and you're down 200 points.

3x sents with mutli lasers out flank
9 dice with 36" range, you should have np getting rear armour with this unit.

Except against any commander worth his salt with tank positioning.

And Multilasers? What? Even against AV10 rear armor, what; you'll get a couple glances on a transport and get shot off the board?

LRBT hull lascannon
LRBT hull lascannon

Two tanks just driving around and taking out the enemy from range.. Battle cannon with 2d6 pick the highest plus a lascannon shot will assist in wrecking face...

Lascannons have to snap shoot. A bs1 lascannon for 15 points is...well...I can't use those words here.

But it's bad.

Ok holy crap did I miss out on a thread (friggin night shift at amazon) I'll make a quick post and then read over the thread to see what i missed before I edit in relevant thoughts.

So to start, foot IG has ALWAYS had this problem, at least since I started playing back towards the end of 5th. Horde armies in general have problems with force concentration, but with IG I think we can dance around it better than orks or nids might. Simply put, IG lacks a deathstar unit of our own to go toe to toe with these often 500+ point facesmasher beatsticks. I found the best thing to do was to simply refuse to play their game. I tried to find a way to slow said deathstar down, and then feed it disposable units as I whittled it down. This is tricky though, and i agree there needs to be a better way of doing it.

My two solutions are tanks (leman russ variants) and elite infantry (stormtroopers, marbo, vets) Tanks are pretty straightforward, you need a big gun to kill a big threat. Demolishers and Executioners are the only two I'd even look at for this, punisher gets an honorable mention though. The plasma storm executioner in particular has proven its worth several times because while an enemy can spread, most situations where a foot guard runs into them they cant (just deepstruck, fresh out of a combat, transport blew up, etc) I havent done demolishers yet out of laziness, but they'll soon be tried as well.

As for infantry, I think you should give combining you "duravets" style a try with the conscripts idea. Simply put, a core of cheap infantry in platoons backed up with some kily vet squads mixed in to provide more firepower. If you think about it, vets have firepower, but dont have the numbers to keep you alive. Conscripts give you numbers, but no killing power. By combining the two ideas, one could theoretically have the best of both worlds. Tons of cheap scoring troops with thunderheads of high firepower hidden within. Keeping the vets hiding in ruins or near the back of your line will help keep them alive, while providing even more infantry and keeping up target saturation. If your oponent ignores them, he risks losing his heavy hitters to cheap vets. If he focuses them down, the rest of your line is given the time it needs to reposition andtget revenge. Vets in this point become a slightly more defensive unit, who wait till the midgame to break out and try to snag objectives. Harker's camo cloak vet squad is awesome at this. I've been infiltrating them into a ruin halfway up the field to slow the opponent down and they've been working wonders. Stormtroopers and Marbo are no brainers of course, which leaves me with the duravets themselves. I'd try carapace and camo cloaks and see which works best, but simply hide them from main areas of fire and run them out when the enemy is stupid enough to get close. x3 plasma/melta with demolitions would work great, and since chenkov is chilling nearby they may even have stubborn and be able to charge MC's to wreck their face in close combat with meltabombs.

MrMoustaffa reminded me of a combo I have in mind when I can max out Force Slots. 3xConscripts with SITNW, each wave rushes and is accompanied by a SWS 3xDemo Charges. For a total of 6 trios of counter charge firworks. (Is it possible to flood the board with enough conscripts to pen in the enemy?)

Another potentially fun but untried unit is a ChimeraHF/HF with 3x Demo Charges. If the Chimera survives the carnage it can pick up some slack with the double HF, although it is 150 pts. It's up to you if that can be as effective as melta stormies for 105 pts.

Maybe even the Str8 no armor save attacks of Techpriests and Servitors might be useful to your army 6 str 8 attacks on 11AV give you 50% to pen +16% to glance. Melta bombs for the techpriest are an option.

I think it was suggested, but how much of your army can start off the board? The more the merrier. It would suck to take Big Toys and have no one to shoot at for 2-3 turns, big waste.

Sigh. I was going to leave this one alone, but the amount of bad advice since my last post is just driving me insane. Anyway:

I play armies like the ones Ailaros is having trouble with: light on troops (veteran squads that are often used as suicide plasma delivery), heavy on firepower units. It's great at killing stuff. For example, last game I played saw almost 800 points of my 2000 point army destroyed or immobilized out of the fight before it could do anything, and I still came close on kill points with my opponent commenting on how frighteningly effective my units were at wiping his off the table. On the other hand, it usually struggles to have scoring units alive and on objectives at the end of the game, with even the games I win being decided 1-0 on objectives. So, this means you have two realistic ways of opposing the army:

1) Take your losses, and win the objective game. In 5/6 missions you can take horrible losses but still win as long as you have more objectives, so focus on killing the firepower list's scoring units and protecting your own. It takes a certain amount of mental toughness to take losses and not give up, but you can often win even when you're way behind on surviving units. However, there is one problem here: Ailaros has tried this approach and it has failed. Even against an army with effectively zero scoring units it failed completely, so it is not a viable plan anymore.

2) Beat them at their own game. Bring more firepower, pray you get the first turn, and wipe them off the table. You'll have a bloody and decisive game, but if you're the better player with the better list you should win more than you lose.

Since #1 has been tried and conclusively rejected, this leaves option #2 as the only choice. So, what does this mean for list design?

1) Every unit must have maximum firepower for its points and FOC slot. Forget durability, forget scoring, forget anything that isn't killing the enemy as efficiently as possible. Don't bother wasting time on anything that isn't immediately and decisively affecting the game, or providing a point-efficient boost to units that are (transports, divination psykers, etc). If you waste those points and FOC slots you won't have enough firepower to fight back.

2) Every unit must have immediate impact. There can be occasional exceptions for things that stay in reserve to deliver a more effective alpha strike, but if you're holding back units defensively you're doing it wrong. A unit that is hiding out of the fight is effectively dead without your opponent firing a single shot.

3) As many units as possible should be effective against multiple target types. When you have to take on a wide range of spam types with a single list you need to have multi-role killers. Having three different specialists to deal with tanks, flyers, and hordes means that in each game 2/3 of your specialists aren't doing anything useful and you won't have enough firepower. This is why rejecting Vendettas and Sabre guns hurts so much, they have good point efficient firepower but losing the only units that combine effective AA and and anti-tank into the same unit is crippling. Single-target firepower can be replaced with other units, duality is rare and needs to be used wherever you can get it.

4) Every unit must be at least as efficient as the one your opponent is bringing. If you both spend X points but your opponent gets better firepower for those points you aren't going to win. For example, if your opponent is bringing Vendettas bringing LC Sentinels is a bad idea, since your Sentinels cost more and do less. Your Sentinels can't match up effectively against the Vendettas (no skyfire), and they can't kill your opponent's other units as fast as the Vendettas will kill your other units. No matter how you look at it, it's a losing situation for you. While there may be alternatives to bringing Vendettas of your own, they certainly aren't going to be a unit which is just plain worse than your opponent's Vendettas, and you need to leave the LC Sentinels at home and look elsewhere in the codex for something to spend those points on.

5) You have to accept losses. There is no "stay safe" option against a maximum-firepower list. You have to accept that your units are going to die, and not get lured into violating rules #1-4 to take defensive upgrades to protect them.


So, what this means for units that have been posted recently:

Conscripts are garbage. They eat up points (especially with SITNW), and offer essentially zero firepower against the threats a maximum-firepower list uses. If you brought conscripts, save yourself the effort of deploying them and just leave them in your case, you'll get the same results.

Infantry squads with heavy weapons are garbage. For every useful gun you take you have to spend 50 points on worthless bodies. You can not match a maximum-firepower list when you're wasting that many points per gun.

Static CCS with heavy weapons are garbage. You have a 50% chance to give each of two HWS an order which adds 50% more firepower. A LC HWS, the most expensive static unit you can give an order to, costs 105 points. This means that your minimum 50 point CCS is adding barely 50 points worth of firepower across two squads, IF you can use BiD or FOMT against a given target, so just buy more HWS and use the CCS to deliver melta/plasma.

MoO is garbage. See the part about a static CCS being garbage? A MoO has terrible accuracy even when you get to use it, and requires you to take a static CCS. Spend the 30 points on more melta/plasma.

Duravets are garbage. 30 points for an upgrade that gives a slightly better armor save? No. Spend the points on more guns, or demolitions (which gives you a weapon that can remove half a marine squad in one shot).

Duravents hiding behind other units are really garbage. Taking a bad unit and keeping it out of the fight for several turns doesn't make it better. Veteran squads deliver melta/plasma, they don't hide.

Techpriests, especially melee techpriests, are garbage. They have no ranged weapon, so they contribute nothing. Don't take them.

Harker squads with camo cloaks are garbage. Harker alone is semi-decent for outflanking a melta/plasma squad into something vulnerable, but camping in ruins with a 2+ save is a waste of a unit.

Now, for some good units:

Medusas and Demolishers are awesome. They're one of the only multi-role killers you're allowing yourself to take: STR 10 AP 2 kills elite infantry, kills characters and death stars, kills vehicles, hurts MCs, and even does decent damage to hordes. The only thing it doesn't kill is flyers.

HWS are necessary for foot lists without FW. So what if they're fragile, they're the only way you're ever going to get enough weapons on the table if you reject FW units (specifically Sabre guns). You won't like them, but any other way of bringing heavy weapons just costs too much per gun.

Veteran squads are awesome. 3x melta/plasma, maybe a demo charge. Efficient and deadly.

Melta/plasma CCS are awesome. Even more efficient and deadly than veteran squads, and scoring doesn't matter.

Chimeras are good. They deliver your guns and add some firepower in the process. Every unit should have a Chimera to ensure target saturation.



So there's a good starting point. The situation is probably hopeless without Vendettas or FW units (mostly for the AA/anti-tank duality problem), but at least you'll die trying more effectively than if you throw away points on bad units.

Your statement would be true if the question had only two answers. It does not.

For your answer to the initial questions you point out a number of good logical points. If the OP wants to play a maximum fire list then this is a good start to the decisions he will need to make.

However the alternate path is kill the scoring and mission critical units and win with victory points. This requires a mix list of durable units and enough firepower to kill scoring units and the units that can wipe out your scorers.

I agree that HWS are probably a significant part of solving the OP's problem of being under whelming when he needs to overwhelm with fire power. These units are much better per points in term of damage output than the infantry squads. SINW conscripts and camo cloak vets are two very different answers to durable scoring units. (Mech vets work pretty good too they just are a whole different beast and require a hefty investment in chimera)

Really the OP will probably not be able to deal with both fliers and MC/AV without FW, vendettas, or allies. He can however mitigate one of those enemy times making its contribution trivial and double down on the threats that will then threaten him.

There are a number of ideas here that could help.
-Saturate high AV can work as most fliers do not get enough turns shooting to finish all the tanks IG can bring and fliers are the only thing a demolisher can't handle.

-Saturate body count works great if you want to ignore most fliers as the vast majority of fliers are AV specialists or geared toward such. This is however frustrating as your strategies will almost always end up being reactionary.

-Saturate AV 12 chimera...see above post. It works pretty well unless your opponent hits the outer rim of your parking lot first turn.

Notice though that normally the response to target saturation is saturation of your own. You could however come up with some new strategy and shock us all...if you could find a strategy that made ratlings, rough riders, armored sentinels, and dura vets into a tournament winning army I would acknowledge you god of 40K and make a sacrifice to your idol (cause that would be awesome) then rip your idea off...sorry.

Sorry for the text wall.

 Cursed Dice wrote:
I wish I had the luck everyone else seems to have with artillery. With the new rules not allowing subtraction of BS for LOS,

That's the opposite of how Barrage works. You only don't subtract your BS if the target is out of LoS or within minimum range.

Just wanted to say I respect the no forgeworld stuff.

Vendettas = OP

Have a nice day

Voxick wrote:

Vendettas = OP

Lovely contribution. It seems to me that this thread has put forward examples as to why the Vendetta isn't op. The unit itself, without the context of a codex sure as hell looks over powered, but when you see that Ailaros is having major trouble dealing with heavy fire-power lists using the IG codex, and no Vendettas, it makes the Vendetta look necessary.
If there is a huge problem in the IG codex that can only be fixed with a Vendetta (as it currently seems, because no one has provided a good substitute except for FW) then I'd say the Vend is important in balancing the codex as a whole.

It is saddening that the codex seemingly relies on one unit to make it work against heavy fire-power lists, including Av13/14 and fliers, but it makes IG great, plus is a cool looking model.

I don't use FW units mainly due to being introduced into 40k before FW was considered official (and the prohibitive cost). So I feel like I'm cheating, although for no real reason. Yes that's right, FW is official. I have no problem playing against them, just like I have no problem playing against other 40k units. It's all the same.