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Martel732 wrote:
But they have kept you in cover the whole time and forced you to choose Raven Guard. Advantage still goes to IG.

BA power units are rarely in cover and that's what I'm worried about.

Why did I just spend 6 pages developing an aggressive strategy for BA based on DC and DoA that wrecks static bubblewrapped gunlines if applied properly. :/

You are learning...

Gotta brave some of that artillery, man. No way around it. If you try to castle against IG you're in a bad place.

Ushtarador wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
What he's getting at is that certain units/armies have a universal counter-to-counter to nearly everything you can throw at them. Again, we're bordering the discussion of tactics again, but when we take the classic combo of infantry squad bubble wrap/board control with 4~6 manticores firing 120' range heavy 2d6 S10 AP-2 D3 with no-LOS needed, it effectively nullifies any potential counters to this strat/composition. Mind you, 6 manticores and 4 infantry squads, which would grant you 100% deployment zone coverage in standard deployment maps, only cost ~1000 points. Now THAT'S efficient!

I don't know, 6 Manticores shooting at Raven Guard tactical marines in cover kill 5.8 Marines on average per turn. 4 infantry squads add maby 1 marine more. Over the course of a whole game, your 1000 points manage to kill about 400 points of Tacticals, assuming they don't shoot back. Not very efficient now...

Aaaaaaand that's exactly where some of us are getting at - you can't castle against castling AM. Sure, RG CT would grant you the defensive capabilities - but are you going to just sit in cover while the manticore shoots at you for 4 turns while not in your LOS?

Aaaaaaand that's exactly where some of us are getting at - you can't castle against castling AM. Sure, RG CT would grant you the defensive capabilities - but are you going to just sit in cover while the manticore shoots at you for 4 turns while not in your LOS?

Well, the scenario you made up doesn't sound like the IG castle will be moving around, so an objective-based game will probably end in a draw, good enough against what is apparently the best army in the game I'd say.

Also, I have yet to see a tournament table where 6 Manticores and 40 infantry models can be hidden out of LOS. And if 1-2 Manticores out of LOS kill 1 marine per turn, I don't care at all.

Still dragging this into a tactics discussion...

It's not that I disagree. I just think its off-topic.

The OP is "what are some competitive units to take in a SM list" not "what units do you need to counter a cheese tactic"

Well, I thought this thread was about competitive Marine lists, and how to win games against AM, which according to some is impossible. that being said, I made a post on the last page about some units and combos I think are always useful, it just got drowned. :(

I just don't believe the competitiveness of an army can be declared to be broken simply by looking at the individual units and point costs. There are huge factors that are much harder to account for, such as unit synergy, the competitive meta at your location, the terrain, etc. If everybody starts building lists specifically to deal with AM gunlines, the AM gunline will become noncompetitive, but other lists will become viable in turn. If everybody focuses on Tyranid hordes, Primaris Marines will become stronger. On the other hand, if you know who you are playing against and what list he will bring, you can always come up with a solution to deal with this specific problem.

Ushtarador wrote:
Well, I thought this thread was about competitive Marine lists, and how to win games against AM, which according to some is impossible. that being said, I made a post on the last page about some units and combos I think are always useful, it just got drowned. :(

I just don't believe the competitiveness of an army can be declared to be broken simply by looking at the individual units and point costs. There are huge factors that are much harder to account for, such as unit synergy, the competitive meta at your location, the terrain, etc. If everybody starts building lists specifically to deal with AM gunlines, the AM gunline will become noncompetitive, but other lists will become viable in turn. If everybody focuses on Tyranid hordes, Primaris Marines will become stronger. On the other hand, if you know who you are playing against and what list he will bring, you can always come up with a solution to deal with this specific problem.

Well that's what I've been trying to assert - that competitiveness to a large degree is synonymous with efficiency. This is because when your force is more efficient, you have more room for errors/bad rolls/bad match ups. And I assert, again, which you had agreed with partially - efficiency is not tactics, terrain usage, actual performance, or a simple pound-for-pound calculations. Here, competitive = efficient = good units to take. We're not discussing win-all, beat-all unit solutions here.

Good, competitive units have less eggs in one basket because this is a game where baskets drop like flies in a single phase of a single turn.

Why are razorbacks good units to take? Because it comes with decent firepower on a very sturdy platform relative to its cost. So you can either have it firing all game, or have your opponents try to dedicate a good portion of their firepower trying to shut it down. Why are scouts good units to take? Because they're essentially the "insurance" units - with clever deployment, you can deny your opponents good positions for alpha strikes. They are a good throw away units to deny/mitigate opponent's first turn advantage. Why is G-man good unit to take? Because abilities he grants your army are pretty damn good. Why are fireraptors good units to take? Because they're the new stormravens.

Razorbacks do hurt your CP, which sucks for BA especially. Otherwise, twin lascannon razors are pretty effiicient.

The problem is there are a few gate-keeper lists that if you cant' deal with you can't really be a competitive army.

They are the armies that define the current meta. And they are brutally efficient against marines (which is why competitive marines are suffering.)

30 reapers is a hard counter to marines. IG gunline is a pretty hard counter to marines.

The lack of mobile firepower really hurts marines. Most anything in our army that shoots well suffers -1 to hit for moving (hellblasters, inceptors, storm raven, repulsor, land raider? Am I missing anyone.)

And of course a repulsor backed by a captain and lt is threatening, but not efficient. You're sinking around 500 points into a model, it better be effective. The problem is it isn't effective compared to what other armies get by spending that 500 points (morty/magnus anyone?). Without an invuln it is crushed by other army anti-tank power because the current meta revolves around being able to kill another current gate-keeper list (morty+magnus). If you can kill one of those guys in a turn your repulsor is a joke. As part of a mechanized force he maybe okay because you can saturate your enemy with targets but predators are so far down on the survivable tank list it's really hard for them to get past the current meta gatekeepers (sicarians are just better and t7 3+ isn't as survivable as it should be with all the t8s, 4++s, 1+s, quantum shielded and -1 to hits that armies are equipped to deal with.)

Cover is great but without non-los shooting and with the requirements to bunch up to take advantage of our auras it is hard in practice to keep enough power-armor dudes fully within cover to be effective.

Intercessors are bad because they just don't put out enough damage. Enemies are better off just ignoring them. They really need rapid fire 2 weapons to really become a replacement for tacs. 5 s4 -1ap shots isn't killing much (what 1 guardsman? 3 -> 2 -> 1 ?). So we're not taking intercessors for offense, the problem with their defensive ability is they just don't take up enough table space. They are too easy to ignore, can't properly screen (due to lack of volume) and are pretty much only good for camping objectives (which for everyone but ravenguard they lack speed/transport to get to).

In all respects they are inferior to less points spent on real screening units (which we unfortunately have access to and are then expected to use, which I hate but whatever)

The marine army seems to be a conceptual mess. They seem to be costed like they are moving towards the enemy, while not moving, spread out in cover, but clumped up enough to take advantage of all the auras. They are priced for the best case scenario but are too easy to push into the worst case.

Then we take a look at our strats and they, IMHO, are the worst. I'd kill for deepstriking like guard or CWE, minuses to hits or pluses to save, the ability to redeploy a couple units after deployment, +1 damage to plasma, please!!! Our strats are situational at best, bad for the most part and useless in others. Killshot requires 450 point investment and goes away as soon as one of our easy to kill tanks gets popped. So you're better off spending 6-750 points to have some sort of redundancy but then if you're sinking that many points into armor you really are better off playing guard (or souping it up, but then you end up replacing everything with guard).

This is exactly why raptors/ravens are so good for marines. They are highly mobile dakka platforms that can stay within a bubble, can use range tanking to survive turn 1 alpha and are tough/hard to hit enough that guard just don't artillery them off the table.

The CWE comparison is disingenuous because they have a host of other good units (wraithblades, wave serpents, shining spears, hell their rangers are really good too, not to mention amazing strats and psychic powers) that people would bring to the table (and do) if reapers disappeared off the face of the earth.

So to the point, competitive marines are running other armies honestly but those who are sticking with it are trying to run things that can get past the gate-keepers of the meta at the moment.

Nids/guard with bodies + indirect fire (mobility, minuses to hit, dakka)
morty+magnus (lots of dakka, proper screens, objectives, redundancies)
deepstriking melee bombs (screens, counter chargers, dakka, flyers)
dark reapers at -1 to hit (no idea, mobile volume of dakka)
ork/nid hordes (dakka, screens, flyers)
cultists + deepstriking oblits (screens, counter deepstrike, dakka)

The only units both resilient, shooty and mobile enough to deal with all of the above seems to be raptors/ravens in gmans re-roll bubble backed up by tiggies additional -1 to hit.

There have been some outlier wins but, IMHO, the point of a competitive list is to maximize your effectiveness and not to field something that might get lucky (matchups, actual dice, terrain layout). We are looking for an advantage over other armies, not something that another army can do better because when it really comes down to it if another army can do it better just play that other army if you really want the best chance of winning.

Now, we can talk about how to make the best of a less than optimal situation but I think we need to be honest and at least admit that it is not an ideal situation. (which is why I made that marine Christmas wishlist)

"Most anything in our army that shoots well suffers -1 to hit for moving (hellblasters, inceptors, storm raven, repulsor, land raider? Am I missing anyone.)"

WTH ?!

Yeah, I saw that, too. But everything that doesn't suffer the -1 is either super duper expensive or has crappy range.

Sigh, there are plenty of things that have good shooting in marines, are mobile, and don't suffer -1 to hit. Way more than most guard armies honestly.

Inceptors
Helblasters
Bikes
Scout bikes
Aggressors are decently mobile

Breng77 wrote:
Sigh, there are plenty of things that have good shooting in marines, are mobile, and don't suffer -1 to hit. Way more than most guard armies honestly.

Inceptors
Helblasters
Bikes
Scout bikes
Aggressors are decently mobile

You just pay out the ass for them. Except the scout bikes.

Martel732 wrote:
Razorbacks do hurt your CP, which sucks for BA especially. Otherwise, twin lascannon razors are pretty effiicient.

To build up on the above, do you know what's not efficient? Twin lascannon predator. For 20 pt, you gain 1 extra wound.

This is what is "efficient" and the importance of pricing - A twin lascannon razorback costs 20 pt less for 1 less wound than a Twin lascannon predator.

 skchsan wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Razorbacks do hurt your CP, which sucks for BA especially. Otherwise, twin lascannon razors are pretty effiicient.

To build up on the above, do you know what's not efficient? Twin lascannon predator. For 20 pt, you gain 1 extra wound.

This is what is "efficient" and the importance of pricing - A twin lascannon razorback costs 20 pt less for 1 less wound than a Twin lascannon predator.

But doesn't generate CP and can't use killshot.

Martel732 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Razorbacks do hurt your CP, which sucks for BA especially. Otherwise, twin lascannon razors are pretty effiicient.

To build up on the above, do you know what's not efficient? Twin lascannon predator. For 20 pt, you gain 1 extra wound.

This is what is "efficient" and the importance of pricing - A twin lascannon razorback costs 20 pt less for 1 less wound than a Twin lascannon predator.

But doesn't generate CP and can't use killshot.

Killshot sucks unless you go first

Not if you use 4 preds.

Martel732 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Sigh, there are plenty of things that have good shooting in marines, are mobile, and don't suffer -1 to hit. Way more than most guard armies honestly.

Inceptors
Helblasters
Bikes
Scout bikes
Aggressors are decently mobile

You just pay out the ass for them. Except the scout bikes.

I don't consider any of them terribly expensive for their damage output. But scout bikes are definitely the most efficient. They might be the best chaff clearing unit in the game.

Martel732 wrote:
Not if you use 4 preds.

Or just bring a baneblade variant.

 Marmatag wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Not if you use 4 preds.

Or just bring a baneblade variant.

I own 6 preds and zero baneblades. So preds it is! Plus the pred autocannon with kill shot is pretty hot.

Breng77 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Sigh, there are plenty of things that have good shooting in marines, are mobile, and don't suffer -1 to hit. Way more than most guard armies honestly.

Inceptors
Helblasters
Bikes
Scout bikes
Aggressors are decently mobile

You just pay out the ass for them. Except the scout bikes.

I don't consider any of them terribly expensive for their damage output. But scout bikes are definitely the most efficient. They might be the best chaff clearing unit in the game.

Shining spears put them to literal shame though.

The problem with the inceptors/hellblasters is they fall apart too easily to the gate-keeper lists. The rest of the list (sans stormravens) is too expensive/fragile to pass the ppw test.

Problem I have with the bikes is they are too fragile and have to get too close in order to clear chaff properly (w/in 12 for rapid fire = dead next turn in my exp) so unless you are clearing your points in chaff in 1 turn (which isn't happening with 18 shots + 7 close combat attacks @ 3+) or achieving some important tactical objective it is hard to justify the cost. I guess if they are shooting your bikes the are not shooting your primaris though...

6 bolters and 3 shotguns for 75 points. I'd rather 7 mortar teams and not have to worry about LOS and actually get off more than one round of shooting (18 shots @ 3+ vs +/- 24 shots @ 4+...) but if you can find a way to keep them alive or if they serve as a distraction to keep the rest of your army safe then I could see the value.

I did just buy 9 dakka ceptors though, in gmans bubble they are really shootie and with their 10" fly and small squad size they can usually be deployed out of LOS and then converge on a captian/LT/gulli and provide some good generalized dakka. I wish we had more units like them honestly. I'm curious after CA if these guys will start popping up at tourney tables (I still wish they were 125 vs 135 but that's probably just me being greedy)

Dakka ceptors are probably the best bet (deepstrike, 18" range + fly) If there was a reasonably priced primaris transport or a way to deepstrike them (not SfTS) hellblasters would be awesome but as it stands now they need to survive a round of shooting to put proper dakka on a target and that's a coin-flip at best.

I find it tough to hide 10-15 primaris out of LOS vs mobile armies. Static gunlines not so tough but most gate-keeper armies don't worry about LOS or are mobile enough that catching the hand of one primaris sized model is not that hard. Even if I can hide one unit completely it really hard to get all 3 out of LOS and in cover while maintaining anti-deepstriking zones and proper screening.

Aggressors, meh. In order to be "mobile" they need to advance (even then 5+d6 doesn't get you very far) and then they really don't start to perform for their points until they stand still and shoot. They shine if you can park them in cover and stand still (SfTS!!!) but need wound-re-rolling support for sure.

Yeah, and you probably need 5 preds to keep 3 alive if you don't go first. I'm not sure 750 (AC+HBs) points to use a strat one time is worth it (2 die turn 1, probably 1 dies turn 2 at least).

Remember those 30 reapers (10 ynarri) are putting 36 shots down range. Are immune to your alpha and netting 36 wounds vs t7 3+ so you know, 3 preds gone at avg (maybe you should bring 6...)

I'm not planning for dark reaper. The hammer is coming.

Martel732 wrote:
I'm not planning for dark reaper. The hammer is coming.

There is no evidence of that.

Guard have been broken since release, to the point where some armies are flat out unplayable in the meta *because* of IG.

 Marmatag wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I'm not planning for dark reaper. The hammer is coming.

There is no evidence of that.

Guard have been broken since release, to the point where some armies are flat out unplayable in the meta *because* of IG.

The hammer came for Conscripts. It hasn't come for Manticores yet, but the hammer may well be waiting.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I'm not planning for dark reaper. The hammer is coming.

There is no evidence of that.

Guard have been broken since release, to the point where some armies are flat out unplayable in the meta *because* of IG.

The hammer came for Conscripts. It hasn't come for Manticores yet, but the hammer may well be waiting.

It should come for:

Manticores
Wyverns
Heavy Weapon Teams
Guardsmen

All together.

And seriously, I'm getting tired of white-knighting for marines. I'll just agree with you guys that marines are fine and the fact that i stomp them so hard their souls bleed is just because i'm an excellent player and a very stable genius. #BioMass

IG won't get the hammer because they are the hammer... of the Emperor.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Sigh, there are plenty of things that have good shooting in marines, are mobile, and don't suffer -1 to hit. Way more than most guard armies honestly.

Inceptors
Helblasters
Bikes
Scout bikes
Aggressors are decently mobile

You just pay out the ass for them. Except the scout bikes.

I don't consider any of them terribly expensive for their damage output. But scout bikes are definitely the most efficient. They might be the best chaff clearing unit in the game.

Shining spears put them to literal shame though.

That is not true at all. I have no problem dealing with SS - they are highly overrated.

 Primark G wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Sigh, there are plenty of things that have good shooting in marines, are mobile, and don't suffer -1 to hit. Way more than most guard armies honestly.

Inceptors
Helblasters
Bikes
Scout bikes
Aggressors are decently mobile

You just pay out the ass for them. Except the scout bikes.

I don't consider any of them terribly expensive for their damage output. But scout bikes are definitely the most efficient. They might be the best chaff clearing unit in the game.

Shining spears put them to literal shame though.

That is not true at all. I have no problem dealing with SS - they are highly overrated.

Haha. You should know that your words have the opposite effect you think they're having.