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I got to play a few games at my FLGS on Saturday, two against the new Ravenguard and one against a 7 Drop Pod/3 Razorback/allied IK Gladius Strike Force. I ran a Craftworld Warshost using the Guardian Warhost/Aspect Host/Avatar/Wraithknight.

First game I did not reserve anything and tried to take the incoming first turn alpha strike from the Ravenguard. I lost a good number of models as expected, and it was a slugfest pretty much the entire game. I ended up losing on turn 7.

The second game was against the Gladius Strike Force. I saw 7 drop pods and lots of Melta/Flamer type weapons. The Avatar was relatively safe, but I could lose tons of bodies to this kind of list. Therefore, I opted to reserve nearly my entire army. He gave me first turn and essentially, he had one turn to try and kill the Wraithknight, Avatar and a single D-Cannon Vaul's Wrath. He took a couple of wounds off of the Wraithknight. However, what was hugely important was how much was near my board edge. My turn 2 was scarily effective and Marine units were disappearing. He was able to counter and kill 2 Guardian squads (90 points each) with his remaining Drop Pods coming in, but my turn 3 cinched the game as he'd gotten a bit too close with his IK and my Avatar assaulted and blew it up in a single assault phase. He was down to a 5 man Devastator squad, a Razorback and 7 empty Drop Pods.

The third game was against the same RG army and I utililized a null deploy again. He killed off my D-Cannon and put some wounds on the Avatar and Wraithknight, but my counter strike was fairly efficient. Guardians are super squishy but when they get to fire at full strength, they can be quite scary. By turn 4, the game was called as I'd pushed forward and the RG was left with remnants of three Scout squads and a SM Captain. I'd lost very little in return.

Locally, I'm seeing significant numbers of armies that are trying to alpha strike and I've learned I simply cannot try to weather the incoming shots. Rather, selecting units to put in reserve and choosing units to stay on the table that should be able to survive via durability, lack of range or lack of line of sight worked out very well in the two games. Predictability as to where my units would arrive definitely gave me an advantage. When I can target my opponent's army from multiple angles due to Deep Strike, Outflank and coming in from my own board edge, it can create very lopsided shooting matches.

There are always counters to this, such as Inquisitors, Land Speeder Storms and others, but these are always game time situations and you have to look at target priority and workarounds to said challenges.

Anyways, just a few random thoughts to put down in the Tactics section.

The only answers to reserves (especially pods) is Tau's interceptor spam, and to do the same back to them.

Seriously, drop pod is the most absurd mechanic in the game. zero risk, zero thought and zero counterplay.

Well, I described a counter tactic to drop pods.

 Sarigar wrote:
Well, I described a counter tactic to drop pods.

Tbf, the counter tactic was to mirror the reserves, and place units that are absurdly tough against his list.

Melta and flamer spam is great against a lot of targets, but the Avatar doesn't care, and the WK practically requires Grav in many builds.

When using Eldar, deploying just your Warp Spiders can be an effective way to no-deploy provided you have some decent LoS blockers.

Reserving large chunks of your army, especially the most valuable units, is the best way to counter heavy alpha-strike armies. For Eldar, cheap infantry blobs like Guardains and Rangers are actually a lot more survivable than Scatbikers due to better cover saves and more wounds. They're also cheap enough to where your opponent has no good ways of making their points back, but dangerous enough to counter infantry up close.

 BoomWolf wrote:
The only answers to reserves (especially pods) is Tau's interceptor spam, and to do the same back to them.

Seriously, drop pod is the most absurd mechanic in the game. zero risk, zero thought and zero counterplay.

...Really? Drop Pods? In an edition with Invisibility, Stomps, and 2+ re-rollable?

Drop pod units are only dangerous if you have high-value targets on the board or are blobbed up in a corner. You can counter drop pods by trapping the pods between spread-out units, forcing bad deployment. Spread your units out and don't give your opponent good targets to shoot at, and drop pods are a lot less threatening.

Yeah IMO good use of reserves is a large part of any strategic content there is in the game 40K. It is sad how little the average player actually uses reserves outside of very specific instances like drop pods. I always builds my lists to incorporate the idea that they will either get alpha striked or the opponent will fight from reserves. If it doesn't happen then I am ahead of the game.

There are more counters to reserves and null deployment strategies (not mutually equivalent btw) than just mirror null deployment. There is castling, interceptor, dispersion, turn 1/2 durability, etc. tactics. I actually wrote a small thread topic that included reserves strategies a while back due to the multitude of alpha strike armies in the current game meta. Though there was very little response (probably due to the extremely long thread topic).
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/651763.page

ansacs: Thanks for the link. It is a good read. I've faced the War Convocation only once, but it was not allied with Flesh Tearers, so no massed Drop Pods. There is a group of us that tend to self regulate to keep the craziness down to only a 9

TheNewBlood: I run the Guardian Warhost, so I have 3 x 10 Guardians at 90 points each. With the strategy applied over the weekend, the Gladius army did wipe most of them out, but only after they hammered a few units first. Your point absolutely stands, especially with a MSU style build.

Selym and Boomwolf: You are correct that Grav does stop a WK. But, I also get to choose what I want to put in reserve as well. What if a Cent-star and Skyhammer Grav Devs come down and there only real targets are Guardians and/or Rangers? The Wraithknight can Deep Strike into your opponent's weaker back ranks as he may have overcommitted with his alpha strike. Drop Pod spam is really nothing new and has been around for quite awhile.

With all the new craziness in 40K, it can get to a point of feeling overwhelmed with al that is out there. All I can really advise is to play with like minded folks regarding what you all think a fun game is and have fun. The games from this past weekend were extremely fun and extremely challenging as I had to problem solve two very different, yet similar armies.

Sarigar: NP

I personally prefer to play with the ITC rules in effect. They curtail the craziest stuff.

 BoomWolf wrote:
The only answers to reserves (especially pods) is Tau's interceptor spam, and to do the same back to them.

Seriously, drop pod is the most absurd mechanic in the game. zero risk, zero thought and zero counterplay.

If only. There is actually tremendous risk, just not the risk you are thinking of.

 Sarigar wrote:
I got to play a few games at my FLGS on Saturday, two against the new Ravenguard and one against a 7 Drop Pod/3 Razorback/allied IK Gladius Strike Force. I ran a Craftworld Warshost using the Guardian Warhost/Aspect Host/Avatar/Wraithknight.

First game I did not reserve anything and tried to take the incoming first turn alpha strike from the Ravenguard. I lost a good number of models as expected, and it was a slugfest pretty much the entire game. I ended up losing on turn 7.

The second game was against the Gladius Strike Force. I saw 7 drop pods and lots of Melta/Flamer type weapons. The Avatar was relatively safe, but I could lose tons of bodies to this kind of list. Therefore, I opted to reserve nearly my entire army. He gave me first turn and essentially, he had one turn to try and kill the Wraithknight, Avatar and a single D-Cannon Vaul's Wrath. He took a couple of wounds off of the Wraithknight. However, what was hugely important was how much was near my board edge. My turn 2 was scarily effective and Marine units were disappearing. He was able to counter and kill 2 Guardian squads (90 points each) with his remaining Drop Pods coming in, but my turn 3 cinched the game as he'd gotten a bit too close with his IK and my Avatar assaulted and blew it up in a single assault phase. He was down to a 5 man Devastator squad, a Razorback and 7 empty Drop Pods.

The third game was against the same RG army and I utililized a null deploy again. He killed off my D-Cannon and put some wounds on the Avatar and Wraithknight, but my counter strike was fairly efficient. Guardians are super squishy but when they get to fire at full strength, they can be quite scary. By turn 4, the game was called as I'd pushed forward and the RG was left with remnants of three Scout squads and a SM Captain. I'd lost very little in return.

Locally, I'm seeing significant numbers of armies that are trying to alpha strike and I've learned I simply cannot try to weather the incoming shots. Rather, selecting units to put in reserve and choosing units to stay on the table that should be able to survive via durability, lack of range or lack of line of sight worked out very well in the two games. Predictability as to where my units would arrive definitely gave me an advantage. When I can target my opponent's army from multiple angles due to Deep Strike, Outflank and coming in from my own board edge, it can create very lopsided shooting matches.

There are always counters to this, such as Inquisitors, Land Speeder Storms and others, but these are always game time situations and you have to look at target priority and workarounds to said challenges.

Anyways, just a few random thoughts to put down in the Tactics section.

Reserves is a strong play often.

It is a simple truth: They cannot hit what they cannot see. They cannot kill what they cannot hit.

So when and if you find yourself anticipating the Alpha strike, two things can happen.

1. You take things like a Grey Knight Strike Squad to help nerf it as an ally, or some other form of nerf depending on the army, like Coteaz and Servo skulls and so on.
2. You reserve, lure them where you need to go and concern yourself with the mission and less about killing stuff.

Those are the options basically. I think if you built nothing into the list itself to defend that alpha strike then you're down to one choice. Nothing wrong with that choice in my opinion.

I love fighting drop pods with the green tide. My favorite was when I went up against a null deploy list and infiltrated the tide onto all 6 objectives. I took a beating turn one and then slaughtered everything on my turn in assault. I did learn to reserve stormboyz if they bring drop pods though because otherwise they get roasted. Actually now thinking about it I have normally done well against pods with orks but I either run hordes, kommandos, or the dread mob. The dread mob struggles against lots of grav in pods but is okay against most others.

I have some restrictions in my own list building so I will not have access to allies in my Eldar army. With that it does create some situations which are not in my favor which forced me to look at various ways to try and out play my opponent.

With how well it worked out, it has me thinking how do I counter this with my Ravenguard army.

This may interest you:

stuff that might interest you

 Jancoran wrote:
This may interest you:

stuff that might interest you

That did quite interest me lol

Excellent. I thought it might. Very appropriate content for the discussion.

=)

Would you like to see a batrep wherein i did it?

EDIT: Ah heck here it is just in case i get busy:

Batrep wherein I actually did it

In 5th, I did null deployment with my mechdar and two Autarchs. Worked very well but now having to keep something on the table on turn one rules that out. Now, I have reserves, deep strike and outlank which makes things very interesting.