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Hi,

I'm a very new player, and have a small army of Imperial Guards. In small 500-750 point games against new Space Marine players I have had a nice time. The games seem quite even, with my mass of Infantry Squads, Veteran squad, Command Squad, Heavy Weapons Squads and sometimes a Chimera standing up well against Terminators and Tactical Marines. Some games end up quite close, especially as I take advantage of the ruins laid out on the battle maps.

When a Space Marine player and I teamed up against another Guard player, I was surprised to see that his Hellhammer had a high strength AP Massive Blast Ignores Cover shot. It shot through the ruins and hit several squads of my men, taking out a huge chunk of my army with no saves. And that was just one shot from one of it's weapons in turn one!

I'm not sure what I can do about attacks like this! Can you guys help?

Thanks,

The Hellhammer is an apoc weapon, they are made to dish out horrific damage, they, sadly, make mince meat out of our poor guardsmen.

Best thing to do is either bring something as tough or dedicate a lot of your firepower at it. Or remember your playing guard and feed it infantry while you play the res of the game .

Havent checked the hellhammer rules in a longgggg time, which weapon ignores cover?

Huge Blasts are nasty like that. However, the key thing to bear in mind is that your units can be as far as 2" apart within a squad, so take full advantage of this, and spread out so the enemy can't get as many guys under the template. Similarly, keep your squads a good distance apart, so he can't hit more than one squad at a time. Thirdly, Guardsmen are cheap! It may seem disheartening to lose 5-10 guys to a single hit, but that's still only 25-50 points of basic minis, meaning the 450+ point tank will be struggling to actually pay for itself in casualties caused.

Also, remember that blasts with that kind of power are only usually found on super-heavy vehicles, which you likely won't face that often. Take the advice above, and you'll find more regular blasts a lot more manageable.

That's the best advice anyone can give a guard player to deal with blasts! +1 to that!

aronthomas17 wrote:
The Hellhammer is an apoc weapon, they are made to dish out horrific damage, they, sadly, make mince meat out of our poor guardsmen.

Best thing to do is either bring something as tough or dedicate a lot of your firepower at it. Or remember your playing guard and feed it infantry while you play the res of the game .

Havent checked the hellhammer rules in a longgggg time, which weapon ignores cover?

The main gun it has ignores cover. I had no more infantry to feed it, I basically ran out on turn one. All of my anti tank is quite short range, meltas and melta bombs. I'm pretty sure my anti tank will fare just as well as the Space Marine Land Raider and Rhino lascannons did. They didn't do a single point of damage over the course of two turns.

Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure the same thing would happen to any Space Marine.

 Paradigm wrote:
Huge Blasts are nasty like that. However, the key thing to bear in mind is that your units can be as far as 2" apart within a squad, so take full advantage of this, and spread out so the enemy can't get as many guys under the template. Similarly, keep your squads a good distance apart, so he can't hit more than one squad at a time. Thirdly, Guardsmen are cheap! It may seem disheartening to lose 5-10 guys to a single hit, but that's still only 25-50 points of basic minis, meaning the 450+ point tank will be struggling to actually pay for itself in casualties caused.

Also, remember that blasts with that kind of power are only usually found on super-heavy vehicles, which you likely won't face that often. Take the advice above, and you'll find more regular blasts a lot more manageable.

Sadly I was playing on a small map. I spread out my men as much as I could but the huge blast still got everyone. I was hoping I would have the 3 or 4+ save but instead it took down my entire expensive Veteran squad except two guys, an infantry squad, a platoon command squad and some of another infantry squad. I'd guess that was around 200 points worth of guys.

Well, if you were playing against a auper-heavy on anything less than a 6x4' board then that's just bound to be nasty, and there's not a lot any army could really do about it. I'd suggest trying to find a larger playing space, and/or politely asking your opponent to not use the Hellhammer on small boards, as really that's no fun for anyone.

How many points was the game you were playing? If you're working from a limited collection of models that you normally only play small games with, and suddenly someone busts out the superheavy on you, that's not exactly something to be ready for, anyway.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
How many points was the game you were playing? If you're working from a limited collection of models that you normally only play small games with, and suddenly someone busts out the superheavy on you, that's not exactly something to be ready for, anyway.

I had around 750 and my ally had 750 of Space Wolves. He had 1500.

So I shouldn't be worrying about ignores cover, large+ blast, AP4 or better type attacks from other sources?

Colehkxix wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
How many points was the game you were playing? If you're working from a limited collection of models that you normally only play small games with, and suddenly someone busts out the superheavy on you, that's not exactly something to be ready for, anyway.

I had around 750 and my ally had 750 of Space Wolves. He had 1500.

So I shouldn't be worrying about ignores cover, large+ blast, AP4 or better type attacks from other sources?

Off the top of m my head, and outside Super heavy vehicles, the only things that fit that description are:

IG Manticore (S10, AP4, Large Blast, Ordnance Barrage, D3 shots)
IG Leman Russ Eradicator (S6 AP4 Large Blast, Ignores Cover, 1 shot)
IG Basilisk (S9 AP3 Large Blast, Ordnance Barrage)

Tau Ion Cannon (S8/9 AP3/2 Large Blast, 1 shot, can be given Ignores Cover by Markerlightrs)

Space Marine Whirlwind (S5 AP4 Large Blast, Barrage)

That's about it, I think.

Griffon st6 ap4 barrage ordnance tl
Heavy mortar (same as above but not tl)
Medusa st10 ap2 barrage ordnance
Colossus st10 (ap1/2?) Ignores cover barrage ordnance
All only FW since 6th AM dex.

 Paradigm wrote:

Colehkxix wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
How many points was the game you were playing? If you're working from a limited collection of models that you normally only play small games with, and suddenly someone busts out the superheavy on you, that's not exactly something to be ready for, anyway.

I had around 750 and my ally had 750 of Space Wolves. He had 1500.

So I shouldn't be worrying about ignores cover, large+ blast, AP4 or better type attacks from other sources?

Off the top of m my head, and outside Super heavy vehicles, the only things that fit that description are:

IG Manticore (S10, AP4, Large Blast, Ordnance Barrage, D3 shots)
IG Leman Russ Eradicator (S6 AP4 Large Blast, Ignores Cover, 1 shot)
IG Basilisk (S9 AP3 Large Blast, Ordnance Barrage)

Tau Ion Cannon (S8/9 AP3/2 Large Blast, 1 shot, can be given Ignores Cover by Markerlightrs)

Space Marine Whirlwind (S5 AP4 Large Blast, Barrage)

That's about it, I think.

Hm! I thought you could still get cover saves from Barrage weapons if you was in a ruin or other terrain?

I was thinking of getting a Manticore or 3 myself to tackle problem units like that Hellhammer. Or the Eradicators he would have taken had I requested he didn't take a Lord of War. It takes away from the feel of my army a little, but I suppose that's all I can do to defend against weapons like that?

Honestly, you shouldn't be playing against Superheavies when you only have a 750pt list and an ally. The amount of wasted points trying to cover your bases while the ally does the same thing means a lot of Jacks, no Aces. Very little is actually specialized whereas someone with an army that can have a Superheavy can devote 100% of the rest of their army to do what the Superheavy can not.

I suggest that the next time you do that, really get with your ally and plan everything out. For instance, you do mechanized Infantry designed to take out squads and such and your Wolf ally has nothing but Drop Pods and many squads meant to kill tanks. Something to that effect so you don't have the redundancies you get when you just combine two lists.

Other things that have high Str, at least AP5 and Ignores Cover and Blast or Torrent:
Stormsword
Greater Brass Scorpion
Lord of Skulls
Typhon
Hell Drake
Hell Talon
Soul Grinder
Skull Cannon
Tomb Blades with Nebuloscope
Hellhound
Knight Acheron
Noise Marine Blastmaster
Eldar Lynx / Cobra / Vampire, Revenant, etc. super heavies with Sonic Lance or D-Weaps
Tau weapons with Markerlight or Smart Missiles
IG Orders
Cult Mechanicus Elimination Maniple
Various Psychic
D- Weapons on a Wound roll of 6

My advice would be to not play against the kind of jerkbag that brings a Superheavy to a 1500 point game. What a tool.

something else to remember is that the weapon still needs Line of Sight to shoot at a target. If you are in ruins, and there is no LoS, then your models are safe.

Did you let your opponent select the table you played on? A masterful (if douchebaggedy) plan, a 4x4 table and a superheavy with Str10AP1 Ignores cover, 36" range gun.

Hellhammer. was that the baneblade variant (with the 7" turreted) or the super vindicator (with the 10") one?

Spread out. Use psy buffs. Use different stuff like outflanking, scout moves, etc to close the distance and be so close he can't shoot effectively.

If the table's small enough that you're forced to bunch up to the point where a single hellhammer blast can wipe out your entire infantry formation, you need to put stuff in reserve.

Also invest in a vulture or vendetta to rip that monster apart. Vendetta might be better because you can put a melta command squad in it and drop them down behind the superheavy.

 carldooley wrote:
something else to remember is that the weapon still needs Line of Sight to shoot at a target. If you are in ruins, and there is no LoS, then your models are safe.

Did you let your opponent select the table you played on? A masterful (if douchebaggedy) plan, a 4x4 table and a superheavy with Str10AP1 Ignores cover, 36" range gun.

Hellhammer. was that the baneblade variant (with the 7" turreted) or the super vindicator (with the 10") one?

He had line of sight after he moved. We played on the smallest table in the Games Workshop because that was all that remained. It has the 7 inch massive blast, but that's still a huge area! It also still has the bolters, lascannons and demolisher to shoot after that.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
If the table's small enough that you're forced to bunch up to the point where a single hellhammer blast can wipe out your entire infantry formation, you need to put stuff in reserve.

Also invest in a vulture or vendetta to rip that monster apart. Vendetta might be better because you can put a melta command squad in it and drop them down behind the superheavy.

Putting half of my army in reserve might have helped a little. I don't have a Vendetta yet as I've just started out. Perhaps in time I shall have everything I need!

It sounds like you've just experienced the joy of meeting TFG or "that fething guy".

TFG doesn't want to play Warhammer 40k, he wants to construct a pantomime fanfiction of his mighty army gloriously defeating some other chumps, and he will ignore any rules that get in the way.

Here's how to spot TFG:

1) he plays an unbound list that's mostly Superheavies/tanks or mixes two completely different factions like 3 Riptides and 3 flyrants.

2) he insists that you should just ignore many rules of the game to make things "simpler". Examples include "let's just play kill points", " I'll just throw a couple pieces of terrain on here", and "let's use a smaller table/let's just deploy on table halfs to make it more fun!"

3) he uses obscure rule sets purely because people don't know what they do so he can cheat, and never seems to have them on hand. "Oh this is a forge world so and so from imperial armor something, and this is from stronghold assault, I had the rules on my iPod but the battery's dead but don't worry I remember them."

The best thing to do about TFG when you find him is to just politely decline games against him in the future. Stick to 750 point games against other new players for now-you'll have a lot more fun doing that than trying to figure out how to fairly best someone's precious "I win button"