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Generally, I understand the use of the lance but I'm feeling like I'm missing something with them.

Forced to keep them close together is self explanatory but the difficulty I'm having is when should they be broken apart?
Lacking alot of other units (I'm more used to MSU) I keep finding myself tempted to grab different malestrom objectives and thus the whole reroll thing goes away along with opening my flanks to other units


After a few games, my opponents are also wising up. I'm seeing more split deployments with less concentration of forces and also dividing their anti-tank to seperate sides to force me to make shield facing decisions. It's better to shoot a titan with just a 5+ cover vs a 4++ reroll. This is in combination with placing objectives near the middle to force me to decide which to go for.

I've been trying to counter this by typically rolling down a flank but that makes my knight errant pretty useless for a few rounds (good tactic on my opponet's side) - if I deploy first in a flank, they usually go denied flank by going to the other side.

Do you guys just go after the main enemy strength/right up the middle in these cases?


Allies are also something I keep experimenting with and so far have been somewhat mixed all the time.
As most of the points are in the knights, it's hard to have effective allies. I've been focusing on getting air support for the most part but have experimented with a few varients.

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So far my experiences at 1850 (more like 730 points left over - I run 2 pld and 1 errant - fairly standard I think) . (Tried some stuff at 1500 also and was kind of funny for how little choices there were for allies but that's a different discussion)

With IG/AM w/e its called now - I went with a fearless blob squad and it's good for camping but was not fast enough to keep pace and provide any support. Threw in some vendettas for anti-air but with points limits, I didn't feel like I had enough board presence with 2 vendettas

SM allies worked well so far with bikes (no points for capt smashfether though and no command squad) and 2 storm talons for anti-air. Some games they got shot down pretty fast (tau/necrons/eldar) but generally good enough.

Sisters - had enough for 2 sister squads for ground pounding with repressors for some av 13 saturation, but my long range and anti-air was not effective.

GK - I only got to try this once and I'm pretty sure I played it wrong but I had to go first and got refused flank and I ended up dropping the 1 termy + librarian squad near the enemy and shunted the single DK near them also but my knights arrived too late to actually support the rest of the force and I had a nasty scatter on a battle cannon that hit my own guys lol. What would make these guys work? (also is there a way to do anti-air?)

Inquisition - probably played this wrong too but took a static bunker and had some plasmacannon servitors with ammo dump and coteaz. Was emperor's will so they were able to hold the home objective but the rest of the henchmen in chimeras got wrecked fast though I did have good presence with minimal squads in rides. It was a bad match up though as the enemy was tau with a really high rolling missle broadside team that got master of the ambush into the middle of the map inside ruins on hammer and anvil.

Space wolves - I went two games one with grey hunters in pods ( fairly good at holding objectives actually and was able to suicide melta a sciarian in the backfield but died gloriously the next turn) Kind of felt like no anti-air marines, and one with champions of fenris which was very fun but so few models hahahaha. Again, board control and anti-air didn't exist.

necrons - heretical but with mostly an airforce build, it had lots of synergy with the knights though I'm usually not able to react well with different malestrom if I drop off the guys too early. I kind of liked it but some tournys I understand don't allow these kinds of alliances.

Tau - wasn't enough points to let me take all the fire power I wanted, I sorta like the supporting fire but I didn't have enough points for marker lights and couldn't build the buffmander properly as I went with double riptides and minimal troops. Maybe I'll go missle broadsides instead?

chaos - went with cultists and double heldrakes but didn't work out as I ran into cron air on that matchup again and I went with baleflamers instead of the autocannon. I might try it again but with chaos fire raptor with reaper turrets instead. But cultists are so slow >.<

Eldar - I actually liked this one with wave serpents and minimal squads. Anything particular I should be doing with this? I'm also tempted in eldar play to just drop the knights and get more wraith knights and more wave serpents lol.

More knights (different kinds) - I don't have the models and haven't tried but if anyone has, please share experiences.
blood angels - haven't tried yet
DA - haven't tried yet
daemons - haven't tried
orks - haven't tried
Dark eldar - haven't tried
Nids- haven't tried

People are torn over Adamantine Lance. They either love it, because they are using it, or hate it, because of the damage it is causing to their enjoyment of the game. As such, getting advice on how to use it better with Allies might gain little traction.

Personally, I've been struggling with a good support detachment for an Ad Lance formation. Yes, I too have found best synergy with either Biker Marines or mini-Cronair. Unlike yourself, though, I ignore objectives and just go for missions (its a Grey Knight thing). I also tend to ignore Flyers, other than moving so that they either have to fly over my units or risk dying if they ground.

Now what I'd like to do is either AM Rough Riders for a knightly cavlery theme, or go for an air-drop shock trooper theme. Still working on both.

For my playstyle, Sister are great with Immie Dominions, Battle Sister screens, and Exorcist fire support.

As to actual Grey Knights, it's better to use the Ad Lance to support them rather than the GK to support the Ad Lance. Go NSF, use the Librarian as a force multiplier, the NDK to force tough choices on your opponent, and the GKT/Strikers to handle mission objectives.

SJ

1. AdLance
2. Imperial Guard with 2 large conscript blobs & priests to make them fearless. LasCannons everywhere else.
3. Here's the kicker: Void Shield Generator with 2 extra shields.

Issue Ignores Cover or Bring it Down (or whatever) orders for the LasCannons.
Spend your first two turns killing what can kill your knights.
Stomp to taste.

Profit.

Edit: This is at 1850.

Ally depends on point level and mission pack. And meta.

If you play with malstrom or a modified malstrom you need something fast on ground.

Overall i find eldar the best ally. Eldar CAD and a Lance formation.

Always take 2 wave serpents with minimum dire avanger. From there its several options:
- autarch on bike, fusion gun, and a wraithknight
- or miks in a standard sumonering farseer, and maybe some jetbikes

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
People are torn over Adamantine Lance. They either love it, because they are using it, or hate it, because of the damage it is causing to their enjoyment of the game. As such, getting advice on how to use it better with Allies might gain little traction.

Personally, I've been struggling with a good support detachment for an Ad Lance formation. Yes, I too have found best synergy with either Biker Marines or mini-Cronair. Unlike yourself, though, I ignore objectives and just go for missions (its a Grey Knight thing). I also tend to ignore Flyers, other than moving so that they either have to fly over my units or risk dying if they ground.

Now what I'd like to do is either AM Rough Riders for a knightly cavlery theme, or go for an air-drop shock trooper theme. Still working on both.

For my playstyle, Sister are great with Immie Dominions, Battle Sister screens, and Exorcist fire support.

As to actual Grey Knights, it's better to use the Ad Lance to support them rather than the GK to support the Ad Lance. Go NSF, use the Librarian as a force multiplier, the NDK to force tough choices on your opponent, and the GKT/Strikers to handle mission objectives.

SJ

You always have the best advice SJ. I know where you are comming from since I've seen it too. I only ever use it now a days on friends of mine that want a challenge and they tend to be the hardest to beat too. They've tabled me quite a few times and are not the timid ones with soft lists. I generally truck around with hard core and much softer lists deliberately since I firmly believe that all should have a good time. I generally tell my opponents ahead of time what to expect so there aren't any surprises and I'm kind of like those hard core friends of mine that actually invite you to play a hard counter to me so that I can learn what will work and what won't. Not surprisingly, those friends number 2 while there's more like 6-7 other guys that dread the lance but they do exist and I tend to like facing tougher crowds so I can improve myself.

I'm honestly just kind of surprised I don't find as much on dakka which I usually traditionally associated with the tourney scene level discussions on the tactics threads.

Well anyways, I do appreciate the other feedback from yourself as well as the other folks that have posted. It sounds pretty much like what I've found out too which is good in that I think I can be a contender if I ever got a chance to go to a major tourney.

The hard core group has been playing by BAO rules for the most part but for soft core, we usually just use the book rules and or malestrom (roll offs). I tend to perfer a highlander/no spam list for those softer games (only duplicate are 2 troops and at most 2 DT's). But I don't use lance in those soft games so I guess it doesn't matter as much lol.

I like the looks of the Lance Formation and am actually trying this saterday at a tourney. My tourney is 2000pts and this is actually going to use either SM or AM to support. My ideas are,

SM
Chapter Master with ES/TH/Bike

2 Bike Squads with Grav Guns

2 Stormtalon

Thunderfire Cannon

AM
Lord Commissar

3 Vet squads with 2 Plasma Rifles in Chimera

2 Vendettas

Which one do you guys think would work better?

Armored Battlegroup:
1) Lots of anti-armor
2) Long-range firepower means they're never out of support range
3) Good access to air defense including gunships, fighters, AAA and SAMs.
4) Tough to kill
5) Good synergy with Knights at disrupting target priority for opponent.

Happy to be of assistance, Sudojoe. When I get it finished, I'll post my WWII Themed German-UFO-Iron Giant Ad Lance + Necron list (with pics). If you can tell in joke with it, why play? : p

SJ

Marshall Ragnar wrote:
I like the looks of the Lance Formation and am actually trying this saterday at a tourney. My tourney is 2000pts and this is actually going to use either SM or AM to support. My ideas are,

SM
Chapter Master with ES/TH/Bike

2 Bike Squads with Grav Guns

2 Stormtalon

Thunderfire Cannon

AM
Lord Commissar

3 Vet squads with 2 Plasma Rifles in Chimera

2 Vendettas

Which one do you guys think would work better?

I think for general purposes, the SM one is slightly stronger. While you have 4 potentially obj secured squads of vets and chimeras, I've not had them able to spread out far enough from eachother to be as effective. And if I deploy them seperate from eachother, I find that the vets are too squishy to not occupy enough of the enemy's firepower for long. Parking an empty chimera on an objective is kind of nice though and people often ignore av 12 with 2 guns than the big wall of lance their way. However, chimeras side armor and pretty mobile armies make them not survive for long if focused on though.

Also the thunderfire cannon is just so good. I love that thing lol I'd totally take it if I was at that point level. Rest of the SM list looks like mine alot cept I don't have the points for the super CM build.

For the SM complement, I take only a power fist instead of TH. I also sometimes just take a captain but same builds essentially. I have also tried to save some points by dropping the combi weapon from the bike sarge and take at least 4 or 5 man bike squads also with the storm talons, I lothe drop lascannons as I find them to be quite useful for different target priorties though the heavy 3 helps vs anti-air at times (but with more penta-flygrants (I have one guy that knows how to play it fairly well in the hard group now), I think I may like the AP2's better to force jinks)