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Air cav and outflanking sentinels are good for scoring as well.

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
The four to six divination psykers we just discussed in the thread.

Given that they're not guaranteed to get that particular ability (I think), I seriously doubt they're going to be able to cover even half of their army with that spell.

Does it play out differently in reality?

Four LV1 Psykers rolling on the same table means a little over half your games you get it. Add more Psykers and Mastery Levels for taste.

I guess I'm not very familiar with psykers as my main army doesn't actually have any psykers whatsoever.

If one or two of your psykers end up with the desired spell, how does that let you apply it to lots of units simultaneously?

You apply the buffs to huge units. That's the trick.

Okay, but you're still taking a minimum of around as many infantry squads (even blobbed up) as you have psykers, and most of your psykers probably aren't going to have the spell you want.

I'd have two blobs, and put the appropriate psykers in each one. The mech vets don't need the buffs. Air cav doesn't need them. Sentinels outflanking don't need them. Wyverns don't need them. I think the guy uses 6 X LV 2 primaris to virtually guarantee the powers and dice to cast them. That's at 2K , though.

Outflanking Sentinels? they last a turn at best before they are destroyed by Bolter fire. AV 10/10/10 open topped HP 2 does not last.
Aircav is a good idea and a fun looking one, but one that is vastly out of my budget right now.

The who 'Two Blobs' thing still relies upon getting the right power, and relying on a 1 in 6 chance of getting a power (or even 4 in 6 if you take two upgraded Primaris Psykers) is just not a viable option. Sure, you might get lucky and get the powers you need, but other times you get screwed and end up with two blobs of puny, weak, infantry with no method of buffing them.

It works. Almost every divination power is awesome for the IG.

It takes 9 BS 4 bolter shots to inflict a single HP against a sentinel. And they can't shake you. Using multilasers, you can fire from far outside their range or in the range where a 10 man tac squad will inflict about a single HP. It takes a 140 pt marine unit 6 turns to destroy it. And you can chose how far to approach from. It works.

Martel732 wrote:

CSM and BA have many of the exact same problems. Plague marines are better than anything that BA have in a lot of situations. However, the lack of grav is an issue for CSM. I think maybe the cyclopean cabal puts CSM ever so slightly above BA at this point.

"Because you are forced to rely on four very expensive, very squishy and very finicky models that have a chance not to roll the power you need."

Last time I checked, LoS is pretty damn good. I get it, you don't like the idea. But it's a hell of a lot better than rely on Russ hulls. And Primaris psykers aren't expensive. Russes are. Where are your army lists for these BA armies that you claim are whooping you? Earlier you thought BA could take librarian conclave. That doesn't give me confidence that you know anything about BA.

No Martel, Plaguemarines are most definitely NOT better than everything the BA can put on the table...

To field PM's as Obsec, you require a MoN Lord tax. (and the only viable Nurgle Lord build is on a bike w/Power fist + Lightning claw + Sigil, for a minimum of 165pts)
Each Plaguemarine squad is going to run typically 140-150pts + Rhino 'tax' to actually get them anywhere. Also remember that the unit champion is bound by the game's single worst special rule - Champion of Chaos.

On the other hand, BA's (especially post FAQ), can now get cheap Sniper Scouts for a paltry 60pts/squad!

BA Dreads alone are better than MSU Plaguemarines, especially since like all Loyalist Marines, BA's have the game's best idiot-proof delivery system in Drop Pods. (Fragiosos are 'uber tasty now post FAQ 'fix'!)

Death Co. are likewise, a far, far superior unit to Plaguemarines, as are MSU'd Grav Bikers (who will demolish pretty much everything short of Cultists in the CSM codex).

Sang Priests are a solid HQ option, as are Chaplains.
Granted, BA Librarians are *really* hurting due to the lack of Conclave shenanigans, BUT, they did still get a solid boost through access to the new Loyalist Marine psychic powers. Conversely, that "amazing" Cyclopia Cabal, requires the addition of the Black Legion codex, (and paying the added 'Black Legion Tax'), and power-wise, are easily the game's worst psykers as they are left with only Biomancy or Telepathy as viable options, since all the Chaos lores are laughably weak.

And also don't forget, that despite being an army that is supposed to be all about shock assaults, appearing seemingly from nowhere unexpectedly using warp portals/magic, drop assaults, etc..., Chaos Marines have 0 Deep Strike mitigation abilities save for a single 25pts relic, that the bearer has to first kill an enemy model in cc in order to 'activate'!!

Oh, and we're also the only army in the game bar Sisters who have 0 innate Infiltrate, beyond praying for a 1/6 shot at a damn Warlord Trait. (or else being shoe-horned into taking an expensive named character!)

And despite being stuck with the worst variant, our Land Raider doesn't even function at a basic level, since Jervis decided we didn't need PotMS/Infernal Device anymore.
Meanwhile, our army of mostly close combat specialists have no delivery method beyond Rhino assaults, because apparently Chaos hasn't yet gotten the memo about it no longer being 3rd/4th edition anymore!


Head-to-head, no FW shenanigans or allies, BA's will demolish CSM's 9/10 times.

Chaos Marines are just too inept, and have no ability to mitigate alpha strikes, beyond hiding in metawl bwakes. BA's on the other hand while not stellar by any means, can simply throw everything into Pods and/or Jump Pack the ever-living gak out of the poor Chaos Marines.

Dread spam with those Fragiosos + a couple Death Co. variants, (including that one from Shield of Baal which is a Troops choice!), is actually a really, really mean list to take vs. any 'codex only' CSM army.

Plague marines are much better than DC in most situations.

Drop pods are highly overrated for BA. It turns off our chapter tactic and we have no formations that really take advantage of them. In fact, I think drop pods are highly overrated in general. They force early commitments and most marine units don't have very good firepower. Especially BA units. It's a good way to throw away a lot of points.

Fragnoughts are better, but they still suffer from being vehicles.

As I said, BA and CSM are in a very similar boat, but plague marines and the cyclopean cabal tilt it in the CSM favor.

Plaguemarines are in no way better than Death Co...
Their damage output is entirely tied up with their special weapons, and the best they can hope for in assaults is to tarpit something for a couple rounds, since they have inferior assault stats. (lol! Initiative 3!)
Add to it that the Champion is easy to deal with thanks to the serious knee capping that Champion of Chaos really is.

Death Co. on the other hand are a pretty formidable assault unit, who can actively make it there thanks to innate FNP, plus can take a couple Power fists for dealing with nasty threats.
Sure Invis would put them on a level close to Thundercav, but, against the other dumpster fire books, they're a huge PITA to deal with.


But then, the fact that you claim Drop Pods are overrated is telling... Pods are one of the single biggest assets Marines have, and is what gives them the game's best alpha strike abilities.
Most people readily agree that they're vastly under priced for what they bring, and should easily cost 45-55pts a pop. They are frankly all but idiot-proof, and shoving the majority of a Marine army into them is not only super annoying for the 1st turn fustigation opponents will suffer, but Drop Pods are also frankly ridiculous at outright controlling the entire table for the Marine player.

Seriously, why do you think there were at least 4 hate-threads per day after the Marine FAQ that could be RAW'd into turning them into 12"+ area-denial shenanigans?!

Again, it's true that no Skyhammer/DevCents/Libby Conclave means that BA Drop Pod assaults aren't the same level of auto-fustigation that Vanillas have access to, but massed Fragiosos + a couple min Tac squads w/Melta + Combi-melta and/or MSU Assault Squads w/2x Melta + Combi-melta is a Kobiashimaru scenario for the base CSM codex.

Martel732 wrote:
It works. Almost every divination power is awesome for the IG.

It takes 9 BS 4 bolter shots to inflict a single HP against a sentinel. And they can't shake you. Using multilasers, you can fire from far outside their range or in the range where a 10 man tac squad will inflict about a single HP. It takes a 140 pt marine unit 6 turns to destroy it. And you can chose how far to approach from. It works.

On an average table a lot of Bolters and heavier weapons are going to be in range of your Sentinels as soon as they come on whilst those Sentinels (9 shots) will miss half of their shots (4.5 hits) and fail to wound with a sixth of them (3.75 wounds) and the Marines will save 1/3 of all wounds inflicted (2.5 wounds saved) for an average of half a dead marine for a full squadrons worth of shooting.
In the meantime your average Marine unit puts out 20 shots at close range and if it chooses to assault inflicts 1 S6 attack and 18 (19 if Sarge is attacking too) S4 attacks, both resulting in a dead Sentinel per unit (or 1.5 if they assault). And that is not factoring in heavy weapons like Autocannons and Heavy Bolters.

Martel732 wrote:
I'd have two blobs, and put the appropriate psykers in each one. The mech vets don't need the buffs. Air cav doesn't need them. Sentinels outflanking don't need them. Wyverns don't need them. I think the guy uses 6 X LV 2 primaris to virtually guarantee the powers and dice to cast them. That's at 2K , though.

Ahhh, okies.

I was thinking about needing a minimum of 4-6 Troops choices for 2-3 CADs. Didn't know mechanized Veterans wouldn't be receiving them.

Now it makes sense. : D

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It works. Almost every divination power is awesome for the IG.

It takes 9 BS 4 bolter shots to inflict a single HP against a sentinel. And they can't shake you. Using multilasers, you can fire from far outside their range or in the range where a 10 man tac squad will inflict about a single HP. It takes a 140 pt marine unit 6 turns to destroy it. And you can chose how far to approach from. It works.

On an average table a lot of Bolters and heavier weapons are going to be in range of your Sentinels as soon as they come on whilst those Sentinels (9 shots) will miss half of their shots (4.5 hits) and fail to wound with a sixth of them (3.75 wounds) and the Marines will save 1/3 of all wounds inflicted (2.5 wounds saved) for an average of half a dead marine for a full squadrons worth of shooting.
In the meantime your average Marine unit puts out 20 shots at close range and if it chooses to assault inflicts 1 S6 attack and 18 (19 if Sarge is attacking too) S4 attacks, both resulting in a dead Sentinel per unit (or 1.5 if they assault). And that is not factoring in heavy weapons like Autocannons and Heavy Bolters.

So shoot Rhinos with them. Or predator hulls in the side. Plus, not all opponents are marines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Experiment 626 wrote:
Plaguemarines are in no way better than Death Co...
Their damage output is entirely tied up with their special weapons, and the best they can hope for in assaults is to tarpit something for a couple rounds, since they have inferior assault stats. (lol! Initiative 3!)
Add to it that the Champion is easy to deal with thanks to the serious knee capping that Champion of Chaos really is.

Death Co. on the other hand are a pretty formidable assault unit, who can actively make it there thanks to innate FNP, plus can take a couple Power fists for dealing with nasty threats.
Sure Invis would put them on a level close to Thundercav, but, against the other dumpster fire books, they're a huge PITA to deal with.


But then, the fact that you claim Drop Pods are overrated is telling... Pods are one of the single biggest assets Marines have, and is what gives them the game's best alpha strike abilities.
Most people readily agree that they're vastly under priced for what they bring, and should easily cost 45-55pts a pop. They are frankly all but idiot-proof, and shoving the majority of a Marine army into them is not only super annoying for the 1st turn fustigation opponents will suffer, but Drop Pods are also frankly ridiculous at outright controlling the entire table for the Marine player.

Seriously, why do you think there were at least 4 hate-threads per day after the Marine FAQ that could be RAW'd into turning them into 12"+ area-denial shenanigans?!

Again, it's true that no Skyhammer/DevCents/Libby Conclave means that BA Drop Pod assaults aren't the same level of auto-fustigation that Vanillas have access to, but massed Fragiosos + a couple min Tac squads w/Melta + Combi-melta and/or MSU Assault Squads w/2x Melta + Combi-melta is a Kobiashimaru scenario for the base CSM codex.

Alpha strike is over rated. When it goes wrong, you have no back up plan at all. I'd rather face a pod list than a straight up Gladius. Although the reverse is probably true for IG. But for pod lists, mechanization kills the alpha strike and then kills them. Bubblewrap is also extremely unfortunate for them. Drop pods would be a lot more horrifying if we played with secret lists. But you can see them coming, so just adjust accordingly and punish them.

People were having to defend SW grey hunter drop back in 5th. Now that assault is even worse, and armies have 7th ed toys, BA dropping in your face should be more amusing than anything else. Skyhammer is a different beast, but if you can neuter the grav cannon drop, skyhammer dies too. The assault marines are NOT scary.

DC are actually pretty garbage in 7th. FNP on T4 is pretty fragile in the scheme of things. They can't turbo boost, or jink, either so they are pretty easy to deal with. A simple spoiling attack ruins their scheme completely. Or you can just shoot them to death pretty easily with a shooting list.

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It works. Almost every divination power is awesome for the IG.

It takes 9 BS 4 bolter shots to inflict a single HP against a sentinel. And they can't shake you. Using multilasers, you can fire from far outside their range or in the range where a 10 man tac squad will inflict about a single HP. It takes a 140 pt marine unit 6 turns to destroy it. And you can chose how far to approach from. It works.

On an average table a lot of Bolters and heavier weapons are going to be in range of your Sentinels as soon as they come on whilst those Sentinels (9 shots) will miss half of their shots (4.5 hits) and fail to wound with a sixth of them (3.75 wounds) and the Marines will save 1/3 of all wounds inflicted (2.5 wounds saved) for an average of half a dead marine for a full squadrons worth of shooting.
In the meantime your average Marine unit puts out 20 shots at close range and if it chooses to assault inflicts 1 S6 attack and 18 (19 if Sarge is attacking too) S4 attacks, both resulting in a dead Sentinel per unit (or 1.5 if they assault). And that is not factoring in heavy weapons like Autocannons and Heavy Bolters.

So shoot Rhinos with them. Or predator hulls in the side. Plus, not all opponents are marines.

No, but most of them either are or have equivalent firepower.

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It works. Almost every divination power is awesome for the IG.

It takes 9 BS 4 bolter shots to inflict a single HP against a sentinel. And they can't shake you. Using multilasers, you can fire from far outside their range or in the range where a 10 man tac squad will inflict about a single HP. It takes a 140 pt marine unit 6 turns to destroy it. And you can chose how far to approach from. It works.

On an average table a lot of Bolters and heavier weapons are going to be in range of your Sentinels as soon as they come on whilst those Sentinels (9 shots) will miss half of their shots (4.5 hits) and fail to wound with a sixth of them (3.75 wounds) and the Marines will save 1/3 of all wounds inflicted (2.5 wounds saved) for an average of half a dead marine for a full squadrons worth of shooting.
In the meantime your average Marine unit puts out 20 shots at close range and if it chooses to assault inflicts 1 S6 attack and 18 (19 if Sarge is attacking too) S4 attacks, both resulting in a dead Sentinel per unit (or 1.5 if they assault). And that is not factoring in heavy weapons like Autocannons and Heavy Bolters.

MoO I know this isn't a tactics thread but one of the guys I recently played at a tournament runs Guard, he actually has a pretty good number of guard answers to higher tier armies that you might be interested in.
In an 1850 point match he runs a lot of cheap chaff, a good number of Chimera, two Russ Tanks decked out for different types of firepower, a few other smaller, cheaper tanks and statics for variety of firepower.

*Deep Strike tactics - He starts his stuff outside their transports and spreads the chaff units to make it impossible to get anything bigger than a Space Marine Land Speeder within 15' of his tanks on the first turn, you'd be lucky to drop a pod inside his deployment zone, and that's on a six terrain piece 8x4 table. Everything advancing is forced to go through ranks of MSU which will usually die or break in the first round of combat, leaving the 'victorious' unit sitting in a kill-zone.

*Deathstars - If he gets first turn he opens fire on the deathstar with as much as possible before it even gets to start piling the buffs, if not he uses the MSU to force the deathstar to move the way he wants it to, fires on it every step of the way with small fire while killing everything else off with the heavy blasts, has a pretty good rate of 'accidentally' scattering those large blasts on the deathstar as well, his team tells me they've never seen a deathstar get to his tanks within five turns and they've only seen two get to him at all. One was too crippled to win and the other would have ripped him a new one but the game ended after the sixth turn.

*Eldar - Pretty much the same strategy as the deathstars but rather than hiding the transports at the back he brings them forwards and uses them as fortifications, catches a lot of players by surprise when they spend their first turn trying to shoot around the transports at the MSU which apparently don't have cover only to have the transports respond by tank-shocking through their ranks. Eldar have great leadership so he rarely kills anything with the shocks but it gets squads of his boys deep into Eldar territory and when he bails chaff out and they open fire on everything it usually forces the jet-bikes to waste a turn or two going back and cleaning them up.

Tau can be a hard counter to Guard as neither of them really likes taking the initiative but they're also the only army that has no real answer to being tank-shocked and suck at close combat almost as bad as Guard do so he sends chaff carrying Chimera through their ranks, if the dice roll his way he can actually deny a Tau army their marker lights by turn two by locking them down in melee.

His belief is most Guard players play their guard too much like Marines and spend too much time trying to keep them alive.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It works. Almost every divination power is awesome for the IG.

It takes 9 BS 4 bolter shots to inflict a single HP against a sentinel. And they can't shake you. Using multilasers, you can fire from far outside their range or in the range where a 10 man tac squad will inflict about a single HP. It takes a 140 pt marine unit 6 turns to destroy it. And you can chose how far to approach from. It works.

On an average table a lot of Bolters and heavier weapons are going to be in range of your Sentinels as soon as they come on whilst those Sentinels (9 shots) will miss half of their shots (4.5 hits) and fail to wound with a sixth of them (3.75 wounds) and the Marines will save 1/3 of all wounds inflicted (2.5 wounds saved) for an average of half a dead marine for a full squadrons worth of shooting.
In the meantime your average Marine unit puts out 20 shots at close range and if it chooses to assault inflicts 1 S6 attack and 18 (19 if Sarge is attacking too) S4 attacks, both resulting in a dead Sentinel per unit (or 1.5 if they assault). And that is not factoring in heavy weapons like Autocannons and Heavy Bolters.

MoO I know this isn't a tactics thread but one of the guys I recently played at a tournament runs Guard, he actually has a pretty good number of guard answers to higher tier armies that you might be interested in.
In an 1850 point match he runs a lot of cheap chaff, a good number of Chimera, two Russ Tanks decked out for different types of firepower, a few other smaller, cheaper tanks and statics for variety of firepower.

*Deep Strike tactics - He starts his stuff outside their transports and spreads the chaff units to make it impossible to get anything bigger than a Space Marine Land Speeder within 15' of his tanks on the first turn, you'd be lucky to drop a pod inside his deployment zone, and that's on a six terrain piece 8x4 table. Everything advancing is forced to go through ranks of MSU which will usually die or break in the first round of combat, leaving the 'victorious' unit sitting in a kill-zone.

*Deathstars - If he gets first turn he opens fire on the deathstar with as much as possible before it even gets to start piling the buffs, if not he uses the MSU to force the deathstar to move the way he wants it to, fires on it every step of the way with small fire while killing everything else off with the heavy blasts, has a pretty good rate of 'accidentally' scattering those large blasts on the deathstar as well, his team tells me they've never seen a deathstar get to his tanks within five turns and they've only seen two get to him at all. One was too crippled to win and the other would have ripped him a new one but the game ended after the sixth turn.

*Eldar - Pretty much the same strategy as the deathstars but rather than hiding the transports at the back he brings them forwards and uses them as fortifications, catches a lot of players by surprise when they spend their first turn trying to shoot around the transports at the MSU which apparently don't have cover only to have the transports respond by tank-shocking through their ranks. Eldar have great leadership so he rarely kills anything with the shocks but it gets squads of his boys deep into Eldar territory and when he bails chaff out and they open fire on everything it usually forces the jet-bikes to waste a turn or two going back and cleaning them up.

Tau can be a hard counter to Guard as neither of them really likes taking the initiative but they're also the only army that has no real answer to being tank-shocked and suck at close combat almost as bad as Guard do so he sends chaff carrying Chimera through their ranks, if the dice roll his way he can actually deny a Tau army their marker lights by turn two by locking them down in melee.

His belief is most Guard players play their guard too much like Marines and spend too much time trying to keep them alive.

I'd be genuinely interested to see his list. Also, how is anyone dying from tank shock?

 greatbigtree wrote:
My experience, playing both IG and BA [until I wisened up and switched to Red Vanilla Marines] was that I could potentially win any game with BA, but I could not potentially win any game with IG, as the strongest builds in IG require you to mostly sit still and then have a few objective snagging units to leave your DZ.

My objective snagging units were invariably targeted for destruction, so were wiped out, leaving me to only be able to effectively score points in my DZ. If there were 0-1 objectives in my DZ, I could predict a loss in every one of those games.

I was more successful in playing BA, than I was playing IG, and I've been playing Guard since the Eye of Terror campaign. Loved me those plastic Cadians. I'm not saying that I won much with BA, but I did win on occasion, while I lost every game with IG [in 7th].

You said it perfectly. Those talking about buffing blobs with divination and so on, yes, this does indeed work very well. Throw a Xenos inquisitor with Rad/Psychotroke grenades and divination in a blob with a priest and you have one really good melee unit...and you will still lose because that unit is static for all intents and purposes. It's a unit that relies entirely on your opponent engaging it first for it to work. If they don't charge you, your unit does nothing because it will never reach anyone to do it. You will be whittled down by small arms fire or templated and once that blob is gone, you are basically finished because you just lost a Baneblade worth of points. People say Baneblades are sub par because of how many eggs are in one basket. A kitted out blob (the only kind worth anything) is exactly the same with one crucial difference, it is, unlike a Baneblade, a unit that is nearly entirely reactive. Once your TWC toting friend has charged that blob once and had his TWC literally kill themselves in the ensuing melee without killing a single guardsman (yes this has happened), he will never ever make that mistake again.

By the way, you will still lose the game in such a scenario because you are totally unable to pursue distant objectives or move around the board as the situation requires. Why? Because none of your mobile units are self sufficient, they all require extensive support from others to function, which means more points spent then your enemy has to spend in order to do the exact same thing. How will you move around the board, chimera vets? Chimera and Vet alike are erased by common bolters, or swept by 1-2 tac marines in melee. How exactly are you going to remove that backfield dev squad, even SCOUT squad, from their objective when they will crush you in melee and slaughter you when shooting? Will you use outflanking sentinels? Same thing AND they aren't ob sec. Deep striking Scions? Dead the turn after arrival.

 Pouncey wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
That are twin linked and can actually take hits and have double the rate of fire. On the surface they look mediocre, but when used have proven (to me at least) deadly.

...while also costing around twice as many points as an Imperial Guard Heavy Weapons Squad that puts out more shots per turn.

An Exterminator is absolutely more durable, but is it really worth all those extra points while sacrificing raw firepower?

The answer is no, not when you're trying to take out vehicles. And the thing may as well not exist when facing foot spam.
I love my exterminators, but they are just so useless. And the durability of them never particularly impressed me. Usually gone by T2.

ExFideFortis wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It works. Almost every divination power is awesome for the IG.

It takes 9 BS 4 bolter shots to inflict a single HP against a sentinel. And they can't shake you. Using multilasers, you can fire from far outside their range or in the range where a 10 man tac squad will inflict about a single HP. It takes a 140 pt marine unit 6 turns to destroy it. And you can chose how far to approach from. It works.

On an average table a lot of Bolters and heavier weapons are going to be in range of your Sentinels as soon as they come on whilst those Sentinels (9 shots) will miss half of their shots (4.5 hits) and fail to wound with a sixth of them (3.75 wounds) and the Marines will save 1/3 of all wounds inflicted (2.5 wounds saved) for an average of half a dead marine for a full squadrons worth of shooting.
In the meantime your average Marine unit puts out 20 shots at close range and if it chooses to assault inflicts 1 S6 attack and 18 (19 if Sarge is attacking too) S4 attacks, both resulting in a dead Sentinel per unit (or 1.5 if they assault). And that is not factoring in heavy weapons like Autocannons and Heavy Bolters.

MoO I know this isn't a tactics thread but one of the guys I recently played at a tournament runs Guard, he actually has a pretty good number of guard answers to higher tier armies that you might be interested in.
In an 1850 point match he runs a lot of cheap chaff, a good number of Chimera, two Russ Tanks decked out for different types of firepower, a few other smaller, cheaper tanks and statics for variety of firepower.

*Deep Strike tactics - He starts his stuff outside their transports and spreads the chaff units to make it impossible to get anything bigger than a Space Marine Land Speeder within 15' of his tanks on the first turn, you'd be lucky to drop a pod inside his deployment zone, and that's on a six terrain piece 8x4 table. Everything advancing is forced to go through ranks of MSU which will usually die or break in the first round of combat, leaving the 'victorious' unit sitting in a kill-zone.

*Deathstars - If he gets first turn he opens fire on the deathstar with as much as possible before it even gets to start piling the buffs, if not he uses the MSU to force the deathstar to move the way he wants it to, fires on it every step of the way with small fire while killing everything else off with the heavy blasts, has a pretty good rate of 'accidentally' scattering those large blasts on the deathstar as well, his team tells me they've never seen a deathstar get to his tanks within five turns and they've only seen two get to him at all. One was too crippled to win and the other would have ripped him a new one but the game ended after the sixth turn.

*Eldar - Pretty much the same strategy as the deathstars but rather than hiding the transports at the back he brings them forwards and uses them as fortifications, catches a lot of players by surprise when they spend their first turn trying to shoot around the transports at the MSU which apparently don't have cover only to have the transports respond by tank-shocking through their ranks. Eldar have great leadership so he rarely kills anything with the shocks but it gets squads of his boys deep into Eldar territory and when he bails chaff out and they open fire on everything it usually forces the jet-bikes to waste a turn or two going back and cleaning them up.

Tau can be a hard counter to Guard as neither of them really likes taking the initiative but they're also the only army that has no real answer to being tank-shocked and suck at close combat almost as bad as Guard do so he sends chaff carrying Chimera through their ranks, if the dice roll his way he can actually deny a Tau army their marker lights by turn two by locking them down in melee.

His belief is most Guard players play their guard too much like Marines and spend too much time trying to keep them alive.

I'd be genuinely interested to see his list. Also, how is anyone dying from tank shock?

I'll see if I still have a copy with my tournament stuff. As for dying to tank shock, by failing a leadership test and not being able to legally fall back far enough to get out of the tank's path, actually succeeding in killing stuff with the tank shock isn't part of the plan so much as rolling to wound from inside the opponent's ranks, it's just a bonus if it happens.

It appears that 17 pages into this topic most of the posters are arguing for their own faction. Of more interest are those opinions from players already playing powerful armies and what they consider to be the ones needing the most help.

After playing as BT for a bit, my view is that guard either need VASTLY more offensive rolling (or a way to increase shot strength), or they need to somehow skip a step in to-hit, to-wound, roll-saves.

 Huron black heart wrote:
It appears that 17 pages into this topic most of the posters are arguing for their own faction. Of more interest are those opinions from players already playing powerful armies and what they consider to be the ones needing the most help.

*shrug* I don't think my army is weak. In fact, my girlfriend's ex-army was among the weakest (CSM), and my side army is rather weak (Nids).

 Huron black heart wrote:
It appears that 17 pages into this topic most of the posters are arguing for their own faction. Of more interest are those opinions from players already playing powerful armies and what they consider to be the ones needing the most help.

That's to be expected though as people love to believe they win through skill, which is why you often get Space Marine players claiming not to be top tier, or to be bottom of top tier when they're actually either joint first or a close second in power now

 Huron black heart wrote:
It appears that 17 pages into this topic most of the posters are arguing for their own faction. Of more interest are those opinions from players already playing powerful armies and what they consider to be the ones needing the most help.

I hope you're not talking about me because I recall arguing that my favorite army - Sisters of Battle - actually have some decent options and aren't the worst.


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SGTPozy wrote:

 Huron black heart wrote:
It appears that 17 pages into this topic most of the posters are arguing for their own faction. Of more interest are those opinions from players already playing powerful armies and what they consider to be the ones needing the most help.

That's to be expected though as people love to believe they win through skill, which is why you often get Space Marine players claiming not to be top tier, or to be bottom of top tier when they're actually either joint first or a close second in power now

I generally tend to believe I lose through a failure in my own skill and that my victories come from having a unit meet a favorable matchup for once out of random chance (or occasionally a misinterpretation of the rules in an unclear situation not covered by the rules).

This comes from examining my actions on the tabletop and coming to the only reasonable conclusion - that I am just plain terrible at playing the game well.

I cannot exalt this enough.

@Selym: I have some pretty good results with my Exterminators when I use them.They usually provide a tough target for my opponents AT firepower and the two tank squadron can pop a transport each turn or hurt a unit. I tend to give them camo gear and a pintle mount to increase the survivability and damage output. Nothing is better than a heavy tank sat in a ruin with a camo net for a 3+ cover save (or behind an Aegis for a 2+).

"Nothing is better than a heavy tank sat in a ruin with a camo net for a 3+ cover save (or behind an Aegis for a 2+)."

Okay. Keep losing. And by your battle reports, it seems a lot of things are better. The firepower on Russ hulls is rather embarrassing for their points cost and they have no external method of gaining ignores cover. As long as you keep coughing up for ignorable Russes whose armor is ignored by D weapons, you are at a huge disadvantage.

You still have not coughed up any BA ideas.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Huron black heart wrote:
It appears that 17 pages into this topic most of the posters are arguing for their own faction. Of more interest are those opinions from players already playing powerful armies and what they consider to be the ones needing the most help.

I hope you're not talking about me because I recall arguing that my favorite army - Sisters of Battle - actually have some decent options and aren't the worst.


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SGTPozy wrote:

 Huron black heart wrote:
It appears that 17 pages into this topic most of the posters are arguing for their own faction. Of more interest are those opinions from players already playing powerful armies and what they consider to be the ones needing the most help.

That's to be expected though as people love to believe they win through skill, which is why you often get Space Marine players claiming not to be top tier, or to be bottom of top tier when they're actually either joint first or a close second in power now

I generally tend to believe I lose through a failure in my own skill and that my victories come from having a unit meet a favorable matchup for once out of random chance (or occasionally a misinterpretation of the rules in an unclear situation not covered by the rules).

This comes from examining my actions on the tabletop and coming to the only reasonable conclusion - that I am just plain terrible at playing the game well.

I wasn't actually referring to anybody specific nor trying to sound high and mighty (apologies if I did) I also voted for my own faction (CSM) but was trying to say that our views are skewed naturally towards the army we know the best (our own) and those people picking an opposing force aren't seeing it through rose tinted glasses (or should that be the opposite of rose tinted?)
The bottom three for me would be CSM, Orks and Guards. Nids seem to beat me quite easily but then I'm also not a very good player.

Sorry, but Tyranids can't be the worst just because they have Fly rants and Mawlocs.

Is the codex poorly written? Absolutely. However it has tools to deal with anything outside maybe Wraithknights. Mawlocs are seriously good.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Sorry, but Tyranids can't be the worst just because they have Fly rants and Mawlocs.

Is the codex poorly written? Absolutely. However it has tools to deal with anything outside maybe Wraithknights. Mawlocs are seriously good.

The codex doesn't have tools to deal with Wraithknights. They could when it wasn't a GC.

Mawlocs are good, but from my personal experience, they have a lot of possibility for error. The only way to guarantee things is by using Lictors, and even then that can be hit or miss.

The codex as a whole, outside those two units, is garbage. That's like saying CSM are good because of Oblits and Heldrakes.

Martel732 wrote:
"Nothing is better than a heavy tank sat in a ruin with a camo net for a 3+ cover save (or behind an Aegis for a 2+)."

Okay. Keep losing. And by your battle reports, it seems a lot of things are better. The firepower on Russ hulls is rather embarrassing for their points cost and they have no external method of gaining ignores cover. As long as you keep coughing up for ignorable Russes whose armor is ignored by D weapons, you are at a huge disadvantage.

You still have not coughed up any BA ideas.

Well, when I encounter D-weapons regularly Martel, I will let you know. It is the one upside to playing against Marines, they have no integral D-weapons.

In the meantime come up with a replacement for the Russ that has survivability and the capacity to deal with transports and infantry.


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Oh, and a BA idea Martel? Codex Space Marines with Furiso's counting as Ironclads, Librarian Dreads as Venerable's, The gold dudes as honour guard and the Black ones with the red cross (name slips my mind) as Vanguard.
Go from there.

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Nothing is better than a heavy tank sat in a ruin with a camo net for a 3+ cover save (or behind an Aegis for a 2+)."

Okay. Keep losing. And by your battle reports, it seems a lot of things are better. The firepower on Russ hulls is rather embarrassing for their points cost and they have no external method of gaining ignores cover. As long as you keep coughing up for ignorable Russes whose armor is ignored by D weapons, you are at a huge disadvantage.

You still have not coughed up any BA ideas.

Well, when I encounter D-weapons regularly Martel, I will let you know. It is the one upside to playing against Marines, they have no integral D-weapons.

In the meantime come up with a replacement for the Russ that has survivability and the capacity to deal with transports and infantry.


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Oh, and a BA idea Martel? Codex Space Marines with Furiso's counting as Ironclads, Librarian Dreads as Venerable's, The gold dudes as honour guard and the Black ones with the red cross (name slips my mind) as Vanguard.
Go from there.

He's right - it's objectively better than anything you've been fielding.

That's not a BA list. If you have to swap out my codex for a list, you've already conceded the debate. And managed to work in your bitterness over C:SM. Well done.


Russes aren't survivable and their firepower is mediocre. They are slightly better land raiders. Obviously the Russ isn't getting it done or you wouldn't be complaining about losing to the worst lists in the game.

Martel732 wrote:
That's not a BA list. If you have to swap out my codex for a list, you've already conceded the debate. And managed to work in your bitterness over C:SM. Well done.


Russes aren't survivable and their firepower is mediocre. They are slightly better land raiders.

How so? I just made a suggestion that will allow you to continue to play your BA, but do so at a completely higher level.
Russ's are survivable, IF you use them right. Big if there, but the 3+ cover save is a nightmare to my opponents. As others have said, it is the lack of ability to catch objectives that really lose a Guard player so many games. The real problem with the Russ is the cost vs damage output, but as the Guard codex lacks anything better in the Russ's role, you have to keep using it.