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Played a game last night. 20 conscripts in front, 30 infantry with 3 lascannons and a lord commissar. Pyskers battle squad, demolisher, and exterminator, manticore, and a ccs somewhere with master of ordnance. Vendetta in reserves. He had 5 drop pods, first melta shot he was able to kill my manticore and demolisher and probably 10 guys. He then proceeded to flame with 8 combi Flamers. I called it. I usually just cram everything behind the aegis, but some suggested maybe pushing the conscripts out to force meltas and flames back? Any ideas, thanks.

You have the bodies to bubble wrap, thus you control where he lands and what he can kill. Yes, combi Flamers are going to remove that bubble wrap after turn 1, but he will be trading half his squads, rounding up, for that privilege. I run DP wolves, and I hate opposing lists with a lot of cheap bodies. It's pretty easy to push melta outside of 12 inches entirely...

tTanks, lots of tanks. Surround them with expendable guard squads so they can't deep strike within 6" (melta bonus range). or you could fight fight fire with fire, trade out the manticore for a banewolf and flame those combli-flamers right back.

Bubble wrap + you have the ability to make drop pod death traps by arranging your cheap bodies in a hexagon pattern. where the pod can land but with no room to disembark, killing the unit inside.

So keep the regular inf inside spread out and the conscripts just in cohesion outside to push them away? And I would take babe wolf but I'm prepping for a tournament and bane wolf wouldn't help as much in one, unfortunately I can't just list hammer him :p

just make a quick cardboard/plastic whatever template to make the perfect unit cohesion, and spread ALL your conscripts/ infantry into a death trap. it helps against flamers and kills drop pods on occasion. no need to list hammer, just smart deployment

Bubble wrap tactics with IG Blobs (never forget to Combine your IS!) are one of the worst things for me to deal with in some games. I bring more Plasma than Melta personally, but its still no fun having 8-10 bodies in front of your entire army.

Generally speaking what I'll do against that depends largely on the individual game. Where the Objectives are, what the IG is bringing exactly, and so on are all important factors. If I can, I'll use my Drop Pods to form a wall that blocks lines of fire and movement and just hunker down with my Grey Hunters on the majority of the Objectives. That isn't always possible, so I'll have to find the weakest point in the IG lines and throw everything at it.

Basically, what these guys said about deploying smartly is what will win you the game. You can bait me by creating a weak point in your lines where you want one. If the SW player takes the bait, you fall on him hard.

Objectives, Warlord, First Blood, and Linebreaker are the goals now. Linebreaker is easy for DP SW to get, not so easy for Gunline IG unless you have a Vendetta or two. You should be able to take First Blood, and Warlord is a 3 way split (easy to keep both alive; just as easy to lose your CCS or for him to lose his RP or other HQ). The SW player will really have to try for your Warlord and Objectives, so be clever when you place them.

Ok so I like what you guys are saying. I appreciate all the help, so how big do these death traps have to be again? I just want to make sure to get this right. and by weak point what do you mean?

IIRC it is something like 5" in diameter, so you will need to make a pentagon of at least 10 troops a 7" diameter pattern.
there has to be on in between each corners or else the marines can walk between them.

il go draw up an elaborate one later on, but basically there has to be enough room for the pod to land with a 1" buffer zone, that way it is illegal for the guys inside to disembark aka dead on arrival.

 Desubot wrote:
IIRC it is something like 5" in diameter, so you will need to make a pentagon of at least 10 troops a 7" diameter pattern.
there has to be on in between each corners or else the marines can walk between them.

il go draw up an elaborate one later on, but basically there has to be enough room for the pod to land with a 1" buffer zone, that way it is illegal for the guys inside to disembark aka dead on arrival.

That is truely evil. I'm loving it though because that could easily go hand in hand with just spreading out the conscripts out there, however wont it be pretty obvious when i have a perfect drop pod hole ?

Yellohman wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
IIRC it is something like 5" in diameter, so you will need to make a pentagon of at least 10 troops a 7" diameter pattern.
there has to be on in between each corners or else the marines can walk between them.

il go draw up an elaborate one later on, but basically there has to be enough room for the pod to land with a 1" buffer zone, that way it is illegal for the guys inside to disembark aka dead on arrival.

That is truely evil. I'm loving it though because that could easily go hand in hand with just spreading out the conscripts out there, however wont it be pretty obvious when i have a perfect drop pod hole ?

The goal is for the DP to scatter there, and let auto correct work against him. It's not a gurantee, but it can work, and it doesn't cost you anything but some planning

The difference between pod traps and just spreading out is that the trap will heavily punish your opponent from getting to saucy trying to deep strike close. if they scatter anywhere into your troop holes. if he was to scatter into just a blob, he will un-scatterer towards the nearest open slot via the drop pods stabilizer rule, which will puts him in prime distance to flame you.

 Desubot wrote:
The difference between pod traps and just spreading out is that the trap will heavily punish your opponent from getting to saucy trying to deep strike close. if they scatter anywhere into your troop holes. if he was to scatter into just a blob, he will un-scatterer towards the nearest open slot via the drop pods stabilizer rule, which will puts him in prime distance to flame you.

Ok I see now, or to scatter perfectly into the hole. Damn thanks alot man, this was a lot of help!

I am in no way calling anyone a TFG or anything of the sort, however, the above advice just leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth. It would be very easy to make a bubble screen to protect your tanks, but to deliberately make traps for drop pods, even going as far to make templates as to where you put your guys just sound like your taking a lot of the fun out of the game.

Its very much playing the rules vs playing the game. Its not illegal, its not even being a dick, but I clearly feel that it is strictly playing to win in a very unpalatable way. This sort of set up is almost (to me) as distasteful as list tailoring.

Just throwing this out there, I'm not calling anyone out or making any judgements of character, but to go at it at this level, I wonder if your actually playing the game for fun anymore.

Oh absolutely, but it is a tactic that people show know and understand. and from what i understood OP was planing on going to a tourney where there are no holds barred.

But on the other foot, op's opponent is playing a supremely aggressive and hard to deal with list which almost seems to be tailed considering nothing but combi flamers. so no sympathies.

usually im too lazy to do the pattern though in normal pick up or fun games just blob up the kroot and get on with it.

I'll agree that if the SW player is bring a unit of combi flaming wolf guard and thats all that there was in the squad, its pretty much tayloring against horde armies. I can see one squad in an army because even marines fall to massed flamers, but if there was more than one squad or even more than 5 combi-flamers in the squad, it would raise an eyebrow or two.

 Jayden63 wrote:
I'll agree that if the SW player is bring a unit of combi flaming wolf guard and thats all that there was in the squad, its pretty much tayloring against horde armies. I can see one squad in an army because even marines fall to massed flamers, but if there was more than one squad or even more than 5 combi-flamers in the squad, it would raise an eyebrow or two.

Well a good TAC Logan Wing should always have one 6Combi Flamer/1 Heavy Flamer pod...

 Desubot wrote:
he will un-scatterer towards the nearest open slot via the drop pods stabilizer rule

They would have to land in your "holes" almost perfectly or overshoot them.

Inertial Guidance System: Should a Drop Pod scatter on top of
impassable terrain or another model (friend or foe) then
reduce the scatter distance by the minimum required in order
to avoid the obstacle.

It doesn't change the direction of the scatter, just reduces the distance. I'll still give it to you though, that is going to be one hilarious situation to see a DP land right in a hole.

ah was going off memory on that one .

ether way though the pattern should also help against flamers too so its a win win.

Yellohman wrote:
Ok so I like what you guys are saying. I appreciate all the help, so how big do these death traps have to be again? I just want to make sure to get this right. and by weak point what do you mean?

A weak point. A place where you look vulnerable. Maybe there's less models right there and it looks like I can dent your lines by focusing a lot of troops and shooting there. May involve the intentional sacrifice of a unit you normally wouldn't do that with, such as a LRBT. The point is to lure me there. Once I'm down, I'm just on foot. Once SW boots hit the ground, you swing your army into action. Units that were advancing suddenly turn and fall onto the SW units. Usually a lot of heavy hitters that didn't look like it had clear line of sight will shift suddenly have clear shots at my guys (eiher because the LRBT was blocking line of sight and exploded to a million pieces, or because you only had to move 6" to have good lines on me).

It is a tactic that's been used for ages. It is even in the Art of War. The enemy isn't going to go straight for your strongest unit. He's going to go for your weaker ones. The ones that are vulnerable to what he can dish out.

Absolutely, and yes it is prepping for a tourney as he may be one of my bigger threats since hes up in my face turn 1. but yes I see what your saying lure him into melta range of something i dont need and then blow the gak out of them correct?

Basically. That's one way to do it for sure.

Make no mistake, its hard to figure out how to make a trap to bait another player with without it obviously looking like a trap. But if you can pull it off the pay off is unbelievable. Just be sure you can handle whatever it is you are trapping!

Nothing bad can really come of it as long as I do it correctly? unless you mean as far as faking a weak point