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Hello.

I have only played a couple of 8th edition games and I am having a lot of trouble killing characters - I play space marines my friends seem to build their armies around characters but I have no clue how to counteract as I cannot target them.

Case in point, I faced my friend also with space marines in a mission where I had to capture an objective he was holding and he had an couple of apothecaries, a captain and a lieutenant all supporting sternguard and a lascannon devastator squad and I couldn't do anything against them.

It seemed like whenever I could wittle either one of those squads down they would get rezzed by the apothecaries and would never miss due to the bonuses given by the other characters and just spent the entire game sniping me from range.

Am I missing something obvious? One of my other friends said he wants to play Adeptus Mechanicus and I dread to face Cawl with all of his rules and weapons.

Get up in their face and punch them in the mouth, there are no restrictions on charging characters.

Also, use overwhelming firepower to erase the unit they support.

 timmythetool wrote:
Hello.

I have only played a couple of 8th edition games and I am having a lot of trouble killing characters - I play space marines my friends seem to build their armies around characters but I have no clue how to counteract as I cannot target them.

Case in point, I faced my friend also with space marines in a mission where I had to capture an objective he was holding and he had an couple of apothecaries, a captain and a lieutenant all supporting sternguard and a lascannon devastator squad and I couldn't do anything against them.

It seemed like whenever I could wittle either one of those squads down they would get rezzed by the apothecaries and would never miss due to the bonuses given by the other characters and just spent the entire game sniping me from range.

Am I missing something obvious? One of my other friends said he wants to play Adeptus Mechanicus and I dread to face Cawl with all of his rules and weapons.

The few options you have is to ether
A) Ignore them and shoot whatever they are buffing as a character buffing a dead unit is kinda worthless
B) Take snipers (kind of a crap shoot honestly) or Burn through the front lines that are preventing you from shooting the characters
or
C) use a Melee focused unit. if possible attempt to get as many guys on them as possible and whatever unit he is surrounded by so you can get some swings in on them,

For space marines, a captain with jump pack, thunderhammer and storm shield is an effective character assassin.

The jump pack allows him to move quickly into assault range, the storm shield lets him roll decent saves against other characters’ attacks, and the thunderhammer does the consistent, predictable multi-wound damage that is needed to take down characters.

You might also have good results with a slightly cheaper chaplain with jump pack and powerfist (hits on 3s with the fist and rerolls misses, but less consistent damage), or with both a captain and a chaplain, or some other combination of jump pack, buffing characters.

The jump pack also allows your character to drop into any unscreened spot your opponent leaves near the character, although your character will also need a unit of dropping bullet catchers (vanguard vets with storm shields or terminators for example) to screen him while he gets close to the target.

Or if you play Ravenguard, you can sometimes use a small squad of powerfist-armed vanguard vets accompanied by a chaplain to use Strike from the Shadows to slip up on an unscreened character and jump him first turn.

Not sure how i feel about the storm shield.

considering a chapi already has a 4++ save. its a little more insurance but not sure if the price is right.

Snipers are excellent for picking off IG characters.

They're quite easy to kill in melee.

In all honesty, they're too easy to kill in melee. I wish there was still look out sir rolls, or something. Warbossi are almost a liability to have in combat, except maybe mega armor ones.

If i play an impirium faction I use Vindicare Assassins. They hit on 2+ wound infantry on 2+ do s3 damage or d6 if you roled a 6 on the to would roll. It has minus -3 AP and it igonres invulnerable saves.

 nordsturmking wrote:
If i play an impirium faction I use Vindicare Assassins. They hit on 2+ wound infantry on 2+ do s3 damage or d6 if you roled a 6 on the to would roll. It has minus -3 AP and it igonres invulnerable saves.

All i know is any single shot weapon will ALWAYS fail to hit

its just my luck but yeah that could work pretty well against most things.

 Desubot wrote:

 nordsturmking wrote:
If i play an impirium faction I use Vindicare Assassins. They hit on 2+ wound infantry on 2+ do s3 damage or d6 if you roled a 6 on the to would roll. It has minus -3 AP and it igonres invulnerable saves.

All i know is any single shot weapon will ALWAYS fail to hit

its just my luck but yeah that could work pretty well against most things.

^^ I know. I just had game were my Vindicare Assassin failt to roll 2+ ^^ but thats just bad luck if you roll average it will work quit good.

 Desubot wrote:
Not sure how i feel about the storm shield.

considering a chapi already has a 4++ save. its a little more insurance but not sure if the price is right.

If your captain is fighting mooks and hordes who only do 1 damage per wound, I would agree 100%.

But when fighting character enemies who have 4+ attacks, all of which typically do multiple damage per wound, then that 16% increase in successful invulnerable saves multiplies into many, many more wounds that you're not taking.

The things that work ordered from best to worst

1) Play for objectives, ignore his characters and shoot whatever surrounds them

2) Assault his army. In close combat you can freely target his characters and they go down pretty easily

3) Snipers can target characters, but they are generally too expensive for what they do.

I think several of the assassins sounds like a good plan. I also like the jump pack plan now that I know about it. Although a bike might get you there as well. Back in 5th I had a jump pack powerfist character with the sitting pose, as when he smashes his powerfirst. Just hide him behind terain. It is more easy in 8th edition.

Based on your suggestions, I think I shall give Telion with a 10 man squad of snipers a go.

It will mean that I will have to play ultramarines so Calgar + terminators for CC? They are slow moving so am not sure how good they would be as I'd teleport them 9" in then my target would just move out of range...

A flying hammer captain is one answer, particuarly if you are playing Blood Angels who can take Death Visions of Sanguinius for +1A and Artisan of war for a 4Damage thunder hammer.

I find snipers unreliable. I do not think I have rolled a single mortal wound with mine in 8th edition. They have done well in other regards though such as snagging objectives.