Anyone else find Agressors completely broken? (from an ork perspective).

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**grouchoben**

The Newman wrote:

I know it's slightly off-topic, but do they get the Special Issue Ammo bonuses on the Autobolter Gauntlets? I don't have the book handy to double-check what BattleScribe has listed.

Nope, that would be bonkers. but they do go so well with assault bolter fortis teams - 142pts buys you 5 with an aggressor, or 211pts is 5 with 3 aggressors, with everyone advancing every turn and firing with no penalty.

That movement allows you to get the aggressor(s) in place early so they can lock down and double shoot, whilst Intercessors provide the much-needed meatshield - they also have SIA, so an effective 30" -1ap 2 shots each, double the number of a normal intercessor at that range.

**bibotot**

They are good against hordes. Against heavy infantry and vehicles, they are mediocre for their cost much like the Obliterators back in the old days.

**BrianDavion**

bibotot wrote:
They are good against hordes. Against heavy infantry and vehicles, they are mediocre for their cost much like the Obliterators back in the old days.

not nesscarily a bad thing mind youa s a lack of anti hoard was something people noted was a Marine problem back in the index days.

**ERJAK**

The game doesn't have enough anti-horde options as it is, agressors are one of the few unit in the game that CAN wipe out an entire blob of boyz or guardsmen in one hit. Nerfing them just opens up even more room for ACTUALLY OP horde units to dominate even more.

**Latro_**

Perhaps the issue here is that they are deploying so close?

Did you try investing in grots (50+) and setting them up so they lock down your deployment zone.

He has to deploy them before turn 1 over 9" away... with a bit of careful placement you should be able to make his deployment of them fairly inefficient.

Best counter i can think of then is to overwatch soak something that might survive it then budle in as many boyz as possible.

**The Newman**

BaconCatBug wrote:
The Newman wrote:
First, you can really use Strike from the Shadows more than once? You're restricted to one use of a given strategem per turn, seems really strange that you could use that one multiple times during deployment
Where did you get the idea you're restricted to one use of a stratagem per turn? Even the matched play rules are once per phase, and explicitly exempt stratagems used before the battle.

I probably read it wrong the first time and then never rechecked it since not many of the Marine strategems are useful in more than one phase anyway.

**Bharring**

For clarity:
In this case, it's not more than one phase - it's 0 phases.

Stratagems used outside of any phase are not affected by the 1 stratagem per phase (as a specific rule - this isn't just how it worked out or some technical gakkery).

So if you have a stratagem that, say, gives you relics, unless it specifies that it can only be used a certain number of times, you can use as often as you want.

SftS, and its equivelents, are during deployment - which is before any phase.

**grouchoben**

I don't really like games against full-horde opponents. They bore me a little. I get to watch my opponent shuffling hundreds and hundreds of often unpainted dudes around for a large part of the game.

And they are the only unit that isn't countered by an appropriate class of weapons, unlike heavies, multiwounds, elite, etc.

So the suggestion that we should nerf one of the only units in the game that can put the fear of god in a horde-player's heart is one I disagree with quite strongly.

**Kap'n Krump**

The Newman wrote:
First, you can really use Strike from the Shadows more than once? You're restricted to one use of a given strategem per turn, seems really strange that you could use that one multiple times during deployment.

Second, the banner only lets a model counter-attack on death if you roll a 4+, (3+ with a relic) and then only fire one gun or make one melee attack. Even with Storm of Fire and making every single one of those banner roles, five Aggressors only get 60 shots. And then they have to hit, and wound T4 Orks, and it's an AP - weapon. Statistically that should be only 11 wounds with the relic and 8.5 without it. 40 Orks with return-fire shooting is either phenomenally unlikely dice, or someone was cheating.

(And if you had 40 orks within 18", why didn't you walk up and charge without shooting them? That's a serious, non-sarcastic question. Yeah they get a lot of overwatch fire, but weathering that and 5 potential counter-punches from the banner is a lot safer than their counter-shooting.)

I'm not trying to claim that Aggressors with the Raven Wing strategem isn't pretty darn good, and very much a hard counter for orks, it just sounds like mistakes may have been made.

As for countering them, I'm not sure what to tell you. Storm boys seem like a natural counter since they can cross 18" with a normal move and charge, obviously shooting something other than the Aggressors on the way in. I don't know if you have access to the Lifta Droppa from the Lifta truck on any non-Forge World models, but if you do that gun shreds an Aggressor squad like paper and auto-hits so the -1 vs Raven Guard is negated. Really, getting something fast into melee so they can't leverage all that dakka seems like the best overall approach. Maybe focus all the BS 4+ grot guns on the Aggressors while you're still outside that 18" threat range. I mean, Grot Tanks with the default cannon can pepper them from too far away for the Aggressors to ever get a chance to return fire, and those are Assault 3. It's a thought anyway.

Well, spoiler alert, I guess he was using the relic, and all 5 got up and shot.

And 60 shots v orks is 20 wounds, unbuffed, and these guys were buffed.

And to answer your question about charging them - for one thing, I was unfamiliar with the banner and aggressors, so by the time his shooting phase was done in my shooting phase, I had nothing left with which to charge. In addition, he has tons of screeners. In addition to THAT, starting distance of 18" is kind of a long charge, even for orks. And even if you do bring something fast enough to engage them, they can still deploy away from your fast movers thanks to their stratagem.

Despite all of that, I'm not going to say I didn't make mistakes. But the problem is that I still have no idea how to engage them, other than bringing like 10 KMKs. Which maybe I should just do anyways.

I think that part of the problem, besides agressors appearing completely broken v. orks, is that imperium can bring cheap IG batallions to farm CP to fuel the SM stratagems. I kind of feel like CPs should only be applicable to the detachment that earned them, you know? I mean, he uses the 'strike from the shadows' stratagem like 6 times before the game begins, and if that HAD to all be used from the marine detachment, he'd pretty much be out. But he has like 15 from the IG regiment, so he's got points to burn.

**The Newman**

Even with buffs and the relic banner 40 wounds is a lot more than 5 Aggressors should expect under those circumstances, but it sounds like your troubles owed as much to cp-farm battalions as it did to the Aggressors themselves. That, and going on tilt and continuing to shoot the Aggressors instead of switching to the screening models after the first time the banner went off, but we've all been there.

For some reason I had it in my head that you started with 40 orks within 18" of the the Aggressors, which was silly of me.

**Ice_can**

The thing is while a foot ork list may have issues thr best tactic against agressors is ignore them as they only have a 18inch range most armies can just shoot them from outwith that range. At which point the ancient does nothing also if they move they lose the double shooting and are a lot less scary to charge.

As for Orks a KMK or 2 would probably be a good idea but you might want to wait for the codex if your not keen on the KMK model.

**Insularum**

Ravenguard Aggressors are not broken (in general) - they are just in their perfect niche vs Orks who have the unlucky combo of presenting a target rich environment to the Aggressors and also having few effective counters to high toughness units in cover.

Offensively probably the best counter would be bringing a small cheap fly unit that can charge the infiltrated units from out of sight (Zagstruk?) to enable a risk free slugga boyz charge - should be able to either wipe or at least surround the Aggressors without impacting too much on the bread and butter da jump on another boyz mob into the backfield.

Defensively Grots probably won't help at all - 18" isn't that short ranged after infiltration so will just shoot past them. It might be better to just stick to your guns and take all boyz, but spread out enough so that the Aggressors cannot split fire and wipe multiple units if you go second.