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typical horde melee i dont think are terribly difficult, ork boys and weak tyranids drop like flies to wyverns and hellhounds and the multitude of template weapons

my specific fear is an army of tough melee units, i dont know all the armies well enough to name off a bunch of examples, but basically MEQ or even worse TEQ melee focused units, even more scarily deployed via drop pods or outflank or other shenanigans.


what can AM players do against such armies?


my knee jerk reaction is kamikaze special weapons teams with demo charges, run everyone else away and pull the pins surely there will be death...

but what other good options are there?

as much as i love the look and lore and even playstyle of ogryn units - the friggin points man ... i just cant bring myself to do it, a unit of 3 just seems like a waste and 5 would be what 225pts?(from memory) thats just crazy to me

Go mellee yourself. IG can be pretty scary in close quarters with some allies. Inquisition comes to mind. Those nades and some buffs/debuffs from your psychers can be deadly even for toughest of foes.

Laugh at them for being stupid enough to bring assault in 7th. Unless they have the special snowflake units like TWC or Wraiths. Then you're boned.

My am list fares very well against melee units. I field inquisition allies but that is not entirely necessary (I think of inquisiton as a subset of Astra Militarum anyway) as you can accomplish most of what I do with regular am.

I run one big blob squad of infantry with 20 conscripts in front of it. The blob has a priest, the conscripts a commissar. The blob packs 5 flamers.

I also add a Primaris psyker with force axe, inquisitor Coteaz, and a regular inquisitor ordo Xenos who comes with a force sword.

The ordo Xenos let's me take servo skulls, which stops my opponent from infiltrating or scout moving towards me-more time to shoot at them. He also buys Rad Grenadss, which reduces the toughness of enemy units in melee with me by 1, very nice for wounding those tough enemies. And inquisitor Coteaz in addition to his force hammer brings I Was Expecting you, letting my whole blob unit shoot anyone who deep strikes within 12" of Coteaz, so I can use him to defend my tanks and artillery vs drop pods

That is a very rough unit for pretty much any melee unit to face. The priest can beef them up and with the rad grenades you cause a ton of wounds, but you also have a bunch of force weaponry ready to instant death any big multi wound mothers trying to tie you up.

If your area isn't terribly competitive and you're just worried about TEQs and the like, consider that kind of infantry blob but leave out Coteaz and Pal but use his points to give a couple power axes to your sarges. Just having that infantry bubble wrap with hidden ap2 will help protect your lines against basic melee threats.

With Infantry-heavy lists, the best solutions are setting up a Defence in Depth and using Tarpits.

The former basically means that instead of just deploying one long, thin line, you instead have 2-3 lines ready to take the enemy on, preferably with the expendable, cheap stuff at the front and the juicer units in the rear ranks. The enemy will hit the front rank, and either lose time chewing through it (giving you time to redeploy, score objectives or prepare a defence) or punch straight through and be left sitting helpless in front of your bigger guns.

Tarpits revolve around large, Fearless units that basically do their job by keeping a dangerous enemy unit out of the game. Conscripts are the best option here, with the addition of a Priest they aren't going anywhere until they're killed to a man. This forces the choice on your opponent; do they go in anyway, in which case a dangerous unit is going to be out of the fray for at least a couple of rounds of combat, or do they try and go around, leaving you essentially unthreatened for a similar period? Forcing this choice takes the impetus away from the CC army, and gives you more time to react.

An example of this in practice might be 3 lines set up thus:

First line- a pair of long, thin Conscript blobs with Priests. These spread out to cover a larger area, then close up to delay threatening units when charged.

Second Line: Platoon Command Squads with 4x Flamers (to roast whatever gets through the first line), accompanied by Infantry squads with some threatening weapons, probably unblobbed if the enemy are using powerful CC units as it limits the casualties they can inflict per turn. Add Commissars, Priests, Power Weapons with relevant AP or other buffing units to taste.

Third Line:This is the scary stuff, that you want to protect. Russes, CCS, Veteran Squads, Artillery; the idea is that whatever you have here (preferably sitting an Objective or two) has the firepower to paste whatever comes through your first two lines, which will likely be in a weakened state or at the very least, have little time to wipe you out.

Note that this does rely on a large infantry presence and on a very defensive setup and strategy; there's not a great deal of room for manoeuvre with this kind of deployment. The units themselves can be reconfigured to be more offensive, but you'll want to deploy and act differently if you want to take the fight to the enemy.

Or you could tarpit them. But it all mainly depends on the army.

If you're running tank-heavy, there's not really all that much you can do against fast tough mellee armies. In this case you should either have at least some bauble-wrap to hold them up a bit or go full-out on as potent shooting as possible. Maybe, some FW stuff that's superior. Or things that ignore cover with powerful shots. Like a baneblade with apoc blast - it can put a dent in a biker list quite nicely. Or new cool artillery formation that recieves orders. Bauble wrap is still recommended.

Armored sentinels tarpit anything without haywire or meltabombs(and str 6 or less) quite nicely. Marines have free krak grenades so they cannot "our weapons are useless" out of combat(any str 6 equipped melee units suffer from this). Str 7 has only a 1/3 chance to hurt them also, so even a big choppa gets stuck for longer than it would like, especially against 2 of them. This is one of the reasons I always like to take at least 2.

Big blobs with axes, fists, or mauls do exceptionaly well if there is a commissar in the unit(priests help too), people always look at me funny for taking power weapons on my commissars and sgts in gun-line blobs; until I counter-assault or just tarpit their units(after having spent the whole game not moving those units).

Finally, there is weight of fire. Always bring some anti-infantry guns and shoot assaulty units before they reach you.

big blobs with priests in them and supported by psykers are amazing against melee.

I had 20 orks get the charge on 20 guardsmen. I lost that combat and he still had like 14 guardsmen left. It was pretty rough. A full ballistic skill overwatch and then battle hymns meant it was a rough day for the orks.

And whats funny is on the other side of the board he had his leman russ tanks and the Paskisher. I completely destroyed the leman russes with minimal losses. But the IG blobs did the most damage to me.

 Icculus wrote:
A full ballistic skill overwatch and then battle hymns meant it was a rough day for the orks.

Full ballistic skill overwatch? How is it possible?

I dont know. I felt like it was full ballistic skill, it could have been something else. He definitely had a couple flamers in there too though.

But I remember him having some psychic power to assist with it.

"Foreboding" is the divination power that grants Counter Attack and full ballistic skill overwatch.

Mallich wrote:
"Foreboding" is the divination power that grants Counter Attack and full ballistic skill overwatch.

That was it. Totally destroyed me.

Isn't the general rule, "attach bayonets"?

Makarios wrote:
typical horde melee i dont think are terribly difficult, ork boys and weak tyranids drop like flies to wyverns and hellhounds and the multitude of template weapons

my specific fear is an army of tough melee units, i dont know all the armies well enough to name off a bunch of examples, but basically MEQ or even worse TEQ melee focused units, even more scarily deployed via drop pods or outflank or other shenanigans.


what can AM players do against such armies?


my knee jerk reaction is kamikaze special weapons teams with demo charges, run everyone else away and pull the pins surely there will be death...

but what other good options are there?

as much as i love the look and lore and even playstyle of ogryn units - the friggin points man ... i just cant bring myself to do it, a unit of 3 just seems like a waste and 5 would be what 225pts?(from memory) thats just crazy to me

If someone drop pods on me, all my fears go away. Lol.

Learn to beta strike. Give them bait, wait for the drop, then bring the rest of your force in. They are out of position and you are IN position. =)

Just because you're used to deploying everything doesn't make "being used to" something a virtue. It isn't.

40 soldiers (4 Power axes+Meltabombs if you wish) + 3 Psykers + 3 Priests. Mix. Pour. enjoy. It is potent.

Also, reserves. Astra Militarum have a ton of things that can outflank and deep strike themselves. Use them. Vendettas are not an uncommon unit and they allow you to take units anywhere you like. The new Sintinel Formation is interesting for this purpose, as you can envelope the enemy. For counterattacks, there are a number of options, though none are better than the combination I mentioend already.

Good luck.