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 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I am betting Priests are going to go way down in usefulness with the new Core rules,same as Straken. It all depends on what classifies as core now. Bullgryns likely wont, or any other elite.

I do think though squads of light Sentinels with heavy flamers and their scout move, with chain blades make a very effective combo for first turn strikes.

Eh, I doubt it. Straken is there to buff guardsmen, there's no way guardsmen don't get core. SWS and command squads maybe, but if terminators get it I think our specialist squads would be safe. Straken+priests for Catachan should be fine.

Now bullgryns on the other hand, those I doubt have core. We'll see if priests care about core but I'd bet so. Even so, it's hardly the end of the world. Bullgryn get an extra attack on charge anyways and you can just use the points for the priest on an additional Bullgryn. Bullgryn are there to hold things, not kill things. They can absolutely wreck some stuff in melee, but their true value is their ability to just sit on an objective and be annoying to shift. Against true melee powerhouses they're not going to win unless they get a lucky charge, they just need to live long enough to get guns into position to support. They're great at that.

I feel like any guard player for the foreseeable future will want

*6 or so Bullgryn, mix of shields with mauls, perhaps more
*manticore, duh. Probably 2
*Probably need 60 guardsmen minimum, ideally in the 80-100 category, but SWS and HWS can help reduce your reliance on a horde of infantry squads, especially with Bullgryn.

From there it really depends on regiment, your playstyle, and your expected meta. I'd argue you need plasma and melta for infantry, disregard other special weapons entirely. There are lots of options both GW and 3rd party to get lots of weapons. GW actually sells 5 packs of special weapons on their site, but usually it's better to just go through a site like anvil industries, mad robot, Victoria lamb, and get loads of weapons and other bits for cheap.

Think about what you want to do and how you want to do it. Once you've got that solid core you can tailor the rest to taste to support and fill roles specific to your meta.

One half of my homebrew regiment are rather CC oriented lorewise which I so far intended to portrait by them using Death Korps rules for WS3+. Out of curiosity I did some mathhammer to compare this with the "Slum fighters" custom regimental trait. The mean of successful hits is the same as increasing the WS by one on all regimental infantry (which is slightly advantagous as it includes CCs and PCs). But Slum fighters inherits at least a chance to score significanlty more hits than would be expected.
Of course Catachan + Straken should still be much better in CC, but I thought I leave this here for those interested:




Edit: I forgot: this is based on a Standard guard squad without support and a a chainsword on the sergeant. So 11 attacks, no rerolls.

Had a 1000 points against Space Wolves the other day and got badly mauled.He got Turn 1 and reached my lines with his Wulfen the very same turn, tearing through both Bullgyns and Infantry Squads and binding my tanks afterwards.
Due to the abundance of 3+ and 4+ invlns, even my Full Payload Manticore hardly left a mark on him.
Any ideas on how to counter furries for the next time?

 Esmer wrote:
Had a 1000 points against Space Wolves the other day and got badly mauled.He got Turn 1 and reached my lines with his Wulfen the very same turn, tearing through both Bullgyns and Infantry Squads and binding my tanks afterwards.
Due to the abundance of 3+ and 4+ invlns, even my Full Payload Manticore hardly left a mark on him.
Any ideas on how to counter furries for the next time?

Deploy further back, and try to face his fast units with your own. when he moves forwards, pull back. You'll buy yourself an extra turn of shooting. Always avoid deploying as far forward as possible if your opponent wants to make first turn charges! Keep the tanks more than 3" behind the screens, so consolidating doesn't tie them up once the screen's been killed.

Not going to lie, but any game with Wulfen at less than 2k is basically a wash. Even my Custodes can't stand up to the wave of fur and teeth. Shooting is hard if they have a priest. Basically it's the new WAAC list for sub 2k games.

All of eighth edition was this exact problem for me, because my very competitive friends played mostly ravengaurd alpha strike centurion spam, which, mathematically, is going to feel a lot like wulfen in invuln shields ripping your tanks and troops apart with massed bolter fire and then big fists .. before you can move.

Its not by chance that I ended up with a force almost entirely in valkyries and with scions -- but remember those are both things that can't be meleed if they are in planes overhead or if they are waiting to strategic reserve in.

So to, your tanks. If he is charging HERE with wulfen, and you happen to have a basilisk in strategic reseve way over THERE, his wulfen are out of position to charge it. One possible but rare strategy might be to leave the manticores in strategic reserve and bring them out where his troops aren't, buying them a few rounds of shooting at his nasty dogs.

How is he getting all the 3and4 invulns? Is it the priest helping -- or are you referring to -1 to be hit in "cloak of the storm"?

Killing an individual priest is a trick, but I note that you can snipe surprisingly well with a loaded commisar + an astropath + a malleus inquisitor set up the way I always use them.
astropath = strips cover and fires malstrom at victim.
commisar = moves a bit closer, shoots pistol 3 times s4/-1/2 as a sniper (yep, that relic pistol nobody remembers, I almost always take)
malleus inquisitor casts castigate (also hits directly the target like malstrom would) and then fires his combimelta as a sniper weapon (probably just the melta part if the priest is causing a -1 to be hit).

Sure, that's an expensive little pack, but if you have a single boss behind enemy lines that is stopping your whole army shooting, you drop 2d3 mortal wounds and then shoot it abotu 4 times in a round, all of it without the benefit of cover and with significant armor penetration. The best part of this is, these 3 guys can rinse and repeat every turn, potentially killing way past their points level in enemy (very surprised) marine captains or tyranid whatever those brainbugs are.

I don't know if wulfenpriests come with invuln, but I bet they don't like meltas.

Once the priest is down, I bet the wolves would be less of a nightmare to shoot -- and shooting is your only real chance in a non-catachan army.

Once again, your troops are only there to die and hold the line. Have them stop the wulfen at the half way point and then fall back, then have the tanks, wyverns, manticores, and basalisks open up on the exposed wulfen, or the priest if they can't keep up. Also, MW spam the hell out of them if nothing else. You can take three primaris Psykers for roughly nothing, and they can drop a few wulfen before they go down. Finally, if you really wanna good tactic, just don't play wulfen players at that point scale. It's inherently broken towards Wulfen Lists. There is nothing short of a double shooting Storm Lord that even does enought to make it worth it. Even Punishers with double shooting only kill 2-3 on average. And that's with the new Storm shield rules.

Played my first game in a year... against marines. Wasn't a fun experience in the slightest.

Cover, pointless. Too many dice to survive statistically. Armor, pointless. Same reason: Too many dice. Opponent had a dreadnought with four lascannons hitting on 2+s that was taking out a vehicle each turn. Was tabled by turn three.

Reading through this thread, I'm seeing a few things. It's looking like a thicker line of chaff up front to stall the enemy advance, followed by heavy hitters mopping everything up. Mixing in some Astropaths could help with some of the harder targets.

Maybe some heavy artillery to soften up the targets before they hit my front line? It's really hard fighting at range when nearly every enemy unit is literally killing an entire one of my units each turn.

Other words, rant aside, tips for fighting Space Marines?

Dukeofstuff wrote:

How is he getting all the 3and4 invulns? Is it the priest helping -- or are you referring to -1 to be hit in "cloak of the storm"?

Wolf Guard Battle Leader with Storm Shield 3+ invln
Wolf Lord with Belt of Russ 4+ invln

Relic Dreadnought 5+ invln
Wulfen with Storm Shields 3+ invln

About the only things that didn't have invln were 2 MSU troops of Intercessors and a MSU squad of Longfangs

For the next 1000 pts game against him, I'm thinking about a pure Lambdan Lions Plasma spam list, like so:

HQ

Tempestor Prime, Command Rod, WL Keys to the Armoury
Tempestor Prime, Command Rod, Relic Field Generator
Tempestor Prime, Command Rod

TROOPS

10 Scions, Sergeant PlasPistol, 4 PlasGuns
10 Scions, Sergeant Plas Pistol, 4 PlasGuns
5 Scions, Sergeant PlasPistol, 2 PlasGuns
5 Scions, Sergeant PlasPistol, 2 PlasGuns
5 Scions, Sergeant PlasPistol, 2 PlasGuns

ELITES

4 Scions Command Squad, 4 PlasGuns
4 Scions Command Squad, 4 PlasGuns

TRANSPORT

Taurox Prime, Battle Cannon, 2 Autocannons
Taurox Prime, Battle Cannon, 2 Autocannons

Thoughts? I am thinking about the deploying the two 20 man squads and one babysitting Tempestor as gunline, with the two Taurox as stationary battle platforms 6 inches behind them, and airdropping the MSU Scions at suitable locations during Turn 2.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Once again, your troops are only there to die and hold the line. Have them stop the wulfen at the half way point and then fall back, then have the tanks, wyverns, manticores, and basalisks open up on the exposed wulfen, or the priest if they can't keep up. Also, MW spam the hell out of them if nothing else. You can take three primaris Psykers for roughly nothing, and they can drop a few wulfen before they go down.

That seems a really good idea for MW. What's the most reliable MW Psychic Power against Marines, Maelstrom, Gaze of the Emperor or just good old Smite?

 Pyroalchi wrote:
One half of my homebrew regiment are rather CC oriented lorewise which I so far intended to portrait by them using Death Korps rules for WS3+. Out of curiosity I did some mathhammer to compare this with the "Slum fighters" custom regimental trait. The mean of successful hits is the same as increasing the WS by one on all regimental infantry (which is slightly advantagous as it includes CCs and PCs). But Slum fighters inherits at least a chance to score significanlty more hits than would be expected.
Of course Catachan + Straken should still be much better in CC, but I thought I leave this here for those interested:




Edit: I forgot: this is based on a Standard guard squad without support and a a chainsword on the sergeant. So 11 attacks, no rerolls.

Slum fighters + Lord's Approval is the superior melee choice for the guard, warranting the inclusion of Power Swords and Power Fists on Sergeants/Characters and making your 10man infantry squad with a Priest + Officer nearby (which you should have between Company and Platoon Commanders) no slouch in combat and actually capable of damaging things. Catachan for a melee infantry is VERY overrated since S4 alone is inferior to miniTesla + -1 additional AP combo and Straken CAN'T BE EVERYWHERE on the board, so the additional +1 attack is for the most part only available to few units

Scions and custom doctrine gaurd "wolfhunters" suggestion. Cause he was nice enough to teach you his force mix and its all marines.

strategic reserves and deepstrike half your army. Don't bother with armor at all, he has easy answers for it and you can't win in melee, so concentrate on killing him with plasma.


Basically, your enemy can't screen. He has a few intercessors on the board, but is he goign to keep his longfang/dread safe? or is he coming after you?

You kill whichever he doesn't screen well.

Now on board you need "anchor guys"
1 platoon commander (cause you have to) (already paid for above)
1 manticore with full payload (casuse why not, you can shoot it at the dreadnaught or rip up a few intercessors, do NOT target anything with invuln, Except shoot oyur hunter killer missle wiht full payload at the big, bad dread.) Other than that, your mission is to strip away everything elseso he is left unable to easily kill all your stuff with his stuff. I expect its possible you will end up targeting his dread with indirect manti fire, which is still a reasonable kill chance.
150.
The wolfhunters can bring also up to FIVE elite, so you can put a squad of 3 plasma wielding special weapons on the board in the back, tucked in cover somewhere. That's for the platoon commander to order into action when it comes out of hiding to avenge the nearby manticore. (45pts)

Now, you need 5 units more, and oyu have


so, basically, you scatter the manticore near the board edge, and the other scion squads all over the frigging board so the enemey is left unsure where he wants to attack. If he goes after the manticore, you know where his main force is -- and when you drop in turn 2, you kill the dreadnaught and the longfangs in the back and hide from his return fire. Now he has to jog all the way home to kill you, while your 16 plasma and 3d3 mortal wounds pretty much wiped his backfield. In the frontfield, he kills the manticore, but when it dies, your remaining MSU plsams units step into position to plink, plink, plink at his lead elements, and something gets through. Each hit is powerful.

If you prefer, you drop all that @#$ on his lead element turn 2, and crush it. then you can bring your entire army up using cover to suddenly step where you can eradicate the longfangs and any intercessors, and leave his dreadnaught dangerous -- but unable to shoot all the different things oyu have still alive scattered all over.

What do you think? I know its only 26 plasma and that's not a lot, but its also got the manticore and the ability to force the enemy to split means you can concentrate (theoretically) 26 plasma on half his army, if you finesse it right, and pull a nice psyker strike out as well.

@Kurtangle: thanks for the headsup. I did not recognized it that way. In that case I have another way of simulating what I want my regiment to be.

Dukeofstuff wrote:

Spoiler:

Scions and custom doctrine gaurd "wolfhunters" suggestion. Cause he was nice enough to teach you his force mix and its all marines.

strategic reserves and deepstrike half your army. Don't bother with armor at all, he has easy answers for it and you can't win in melee, so concentrate on killing him with plasma.
[spoiler]3 wyrdvane psykers (spells known smite, malstrom)
1 aradia madellan psyker primaris character (spells known smite, and +1 to hit for one gaurd troop shooting unit's shooting. wc8)
1 company commander (custom regiment, wilderness survivors and disciplined gunners. Lets call them the wolfhunter clan)
1 command squad wolfhunters with 4 plasma (range 18 can put out 8 shots at bs3+, or bs3+ +1 from madellan)
1 command squad wolfhunters with 4 plasma (ditto)
These guys are going to go after the longfangs, then after intercessors. Ignore his officers for now.
deepstrike
1 tempest prime lambdas with command rod and laurels of command
1 command squad scions lambdas with 4 plasma
1 command squad scions lambdas with 4 plasma
that's only 8 units so far, and around 23 or so powerlevel.
1 platoon commander (wolfhunter) is left on board to justify the extra command squad.
So far, that's 462 points, a whopping total, but your wyrd/psyker duo can put out smite (3+ on 1 d6), smite (wc6, roll at +2), malstrom (wc7, roll at plus 2) and grant a infantry unit +1 to shoot (plasma!) wc8 (but +2) if you spend the 1 cp to double fire their powers. They must be near each other, too.
The command squad scions are going to roll out of deepstrike and kill a dreadnaught -- so --
The order you pass is to reroll all wounds against the dreadnaught, and (4+) a second order to shoot and reroll 1's to hit (safer).

Basically, your enemy can't screen. He has a few intercessors on the board, but is he goign to keep his longfang/dread safe? or is he coming after you?

You kill whichever he doesn't screen well.

Now on board you need "anchor guys"
1 platoon commander (cause you have to) (already paid for above)
1 manticore with full payload (casuse why not, you can shoot it at the dreadnaught or rip up a few intercessors, do NOT target anything with invuln, Except shoot oyur hunter killer missle wiht full payload at the big, bad dread.) Other than that, your mission is to strip away everything elseso he is left unable to easily kill all your stuff with his stuff. I expect its possible you will end up targeting his dread with indirect manti fire, which is still a reasonable kill chance.
150.
The wolfhunters can bring also up to FIVE elite, so you can put a squad of 3 plasma wielding special weapons on the board in the back, tucked in cover somewhere. That's for the platoon commander to order into action when it comes out of hiding to avenge the nearby manticore. (45pts)

Now, you need 5 units more, and oyu have

Spoiler:

second tempest prime (warlord relic and trait of lambda lions. He brings the 5++ shield and the reroll 1's) and a rod of command
5 man scions squad with no 2 plasma
5 man scions squad with no 2 plasma
5 man scions squad with no 2 plasma
5 man scions squad with no 2 plasma
5 man scions squad with no 2 plasma
987 points, enouhg to give your tempests and company commanders each a powersword, I guess.

so, basically, you scatter the manticore near the board edge, and the other scion squads all over the frigging board so the enemey is left unsure where he wants to attack. If he goes after the manticore, you know where his main force is -- and when you drop in turn 2, you kill the dreadnaught and the longfangs in the back and hide from his return fire. Now he has to jog all the way home to kill you, while your 16 plasma and 3d3 mortal wounds pretty much wiped his backfield. In the frontfield, he kills the manticore, but when it dies, your remaining MSU plsams units step into position to plink, plink, plink at his lead elements, and something gets through. Each hit is powerful.

If you prefer, you drop all that @#$ on his lead element turn 2, and crush it. then you can bring your entire army up using cover to suddenly step where you can eradicate the longfangs and any intercessors, and leave his dreadnaught dangerous -- but unable to shoot all the different things oyu have still alive scattered all over.

What do you think? I know its only 26 plasma and that's not a lot, but its also got the manticore and the ability to force the enemy to split means you can concentrate (theoretically) 26 plasma on half his army, if you finesse it right, and pull a nice psyker strike out as well.

Aren't Wyrdwaves really bad at the whole Psychic thing? At a Warp Charge value of 6, a trio of Wyrdwaves will fail at casting Maelstrom 2 thirds of the time. Wouldn't an Astropath be better?

I should also clarify that at 1000 points, I only use a single , so fielding both a custom regiment and Lambdan Lions won't be possible. Spending 2 CP for a second detachment and another CP for Strategic reserves would mean starting the game with only 50% of CP, which seems to hefty a price.

I respectfully submit that with the new changes to Melta guns, All Melta murder squads of Tempestus Command teams is now viable.

I would bet money that the only guard infantry that don't get core are conscripts and ogryn/bullgryn.

I agree about the meltasquads. Command squad with 4 meltas in the doctrine "iotan gorgones" can also use their strat to land right beside the target, and often get to fire at short range as a result, even, and proc extra on natural sixes at the closest target. Obviously, its a smart move to let them fire last!

Wyrdvanes casting get a +2 on their cast to fire off a spell when they use the strategy paired with a psyker, and (if oyu don't cheap out like I recommended) you get ANOTHER +2. So at +4, even a lousy roll is often a hit with malstrom. they are good as the FIRST smite, which has a low WC, or for any spell with a low-ish wc, if you are using that strat.
If you don't plan to do that, a lone astropath with malstrom is much stronger -- but I got 3 of them in a thematic "scions and psykers" army and have enjoyed using them a great deal, simply because they can squeak out a dual cast, and let the psyker cast twice, too, so 2 smites+2 other spells. I confess that army usually has multiple primaris, so I have a lot of flexibility in the spell selection, and I didn't consider too strongly the implications of their craptastic psy power when I made my recommendation.

I concede they have some real drawbacks in ninth in usual games, just figured at 1000 points oyu would be cramming every effect you could into the list to stop these specific werewolven.

As far as having enouhg cp, I am much more comfortable playing with too many plasma and not enough cp, than the reverse!

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I would bet money that the only guard infantry that don't get core are conscripts and ogryn/bullgryn.

Conscripts have been nerfed to oblivion anyway. Ogryns and Bullgryns not getting core would be a shame though, as they are tailor-made for a Priest's aura. What I could see is that Ogryns get core but Bullgryns don't, so people won't always choose Bullgryns by default.

Wyrdvanes casting get a +2 on their cast to fire off a spell when they use the strategy paired with a psyker, and (if oyu don't cheap out like I recommended) you get ANOTHER +2. So at +4, even a lousy roll is often a hit with malstrom. they are good as the FIRST smite, which has a low WC, or for any spell with a low-ish wc, if you are using that strat.
If you don't plan to do that, a lone astropath with malstrom is much stronger -- but I got 3 of them in a thematic "scions and psykers" army and have enjoyed using them a great deal, simply because they can squeak out a dual cast, and let the psyker cast twice, too, so 2 smites+2 other spells. I confess that army usually has multiple primaris, so I have a lot of flexibility in the spell selection, and I didn't consider too strongly the implications of their craptastic psy power when I made my recommendation.

Psyker I assume means Primaris Psyker.

Am I missing something with Wyrdwave rules? I thought it's +1 for units of three or more and +2 for units of six or more, so you will always need at least a 4+ under the best circumstances to cast Maelstrom?

EDIT: Nevermind, I wasn't aware that there's a specific stratagem for Wyrdwaves.

Its a sort of neat stratagem, but you are probably right that malstrom isn't ideal for it. Something WC 5 or so would be safer. I was trying to squeeze everything in at minimum price -- and you could as easily use a standard psyker primaris as the other half, and cast malstrom off that, instead of the WC8 +1 to hit shenanigan that aradia madellan brings to the table. (I just note that I play against ravengaurd so gosh darn often, beating -1 to hit is part of waking up for breakfast.)

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:I respectfully submit that with the new changes to Melta guns, All Melta murder squads of Tempestus Command teams is now viable.

You'd have to be the tempestas regiment that has the stratagem for a close drop, but maybe. It's a very tight thing there, and I'm not certain you'll find a place within 6" of the tank you want and more than 5" from the enemy.

If I'm that far in on stormtroopers, I'm not sure I'd go for that doctrine, over the one for +6", but then again, I'm planning to use my suicide stormtrooper squads for setting up scramblers, so maybe.

Esmer wrote:Had a 1000 points against Space Wolves the other day and got badly mauled.He got Turn 1 and reached my lines with his Wulfen the very same turn, tearing through both Bullgyns and Infantry Squads and binding my tanks afterwards.
Due to the abundance of 3+ and 4+ invlns, even my Full Payload Manticore hardly left a mark on him.
Any ideas on how to counter furries for the next time?

I'd probably use Scout Sentinels and lots of infantry to catch their charge earlier up on the board before they can get to your other stuff, and then shoot them to death.

You can't give ground freely, because you need to get up and take objectives if you want to win, and you have to be really aggressive about denying the enemy primaries if you want to overcome your inherent weakness against Space Marines on secondaries.




Personally, I've been having a hard time seeing where to go and how to make wins with my IG too. I haven't really had the games in to make full conclusions, but the combination of the overwhelming power of marines and the secondaries being badly stacked against us is rough.

The fact that there are three secondaries that hit us for near full points [Bring it Down, Thin Their Ranks, and Grind Them Down, all of which are trivial to max out against most IG lists and are in 2 different categories, meaning only a third non-gimme needs to be taken [though this also often tends to be a gimme like Scramblers or Engage]] while there's really nothing we can take for and easy full secondary points, or even full points at all, against marines is already tough, and puts us in a position of having to aggressively play the primary for full points for us and deny it to the enemy as much as possible [which could mean taking as many as 5 objectives for most of the game in half the missions, which is a tall order in my experience].

The math on this is:
Our "easy points" are Deploy Scramblers [maximum 10], and Engage on all Fronts [maximum 15, though I think it might be generous to assume we can score fully since we can only have suicide units score those points for so long]. After that, we're kind of spinning our wheels for a third. We could go for Ritual, but it's iffy. We could go Assassinate or Bring it Down, but both are hard and require the enemy to have brought enough 5+ of the unit, which is pretty unlikely for Bring it Down and still not that likely for Assassinate. There's basically nothing in No Mercy No Respite we can do.

So, we need to lead by at least 5, plus whatever the deficit on the third objective will be, in my experience around 10-12 points between the third objective and Engage. So we have to limit the enemy to 30 points on Primary.
On 2/3/More missions, this is a little tough. We absolutely must contest at least 4 objectives and hold 3 for ourselves for at least 3 out of 4 scored turns.
On 1/2/More missions, this feels practically impossible. We absolutely must contest at least 5 objectives and hold at least 2 for ourselves for 3 our of 4 scored turns, and this is doubly hard because these missions tend to have more than one objective in or near the deployment zones so we have to take and hold ground in their deployment zone for basically all game.


Then there's the fact that Scout Sentinels and such are slower than Invictors and Infiltrators and Incursors and such, meaning that we're already starting behind on the primary positioning and starting on the back foot being pushed against in our own deploy zone, which makes it harder to push out and take those objectives we need to early.

And then there's the problem of "how the f*** to I take and hold this damn objective in the first place?" Infantry are thus the obvious choice, but against Intercessors or even just Tactical Marines [especially once tacs go to W2] just don't stand a chance out there and can easily have it taken away from them. It takes about 20 rifles to just hold a point against a single minimum-sized squad of Intercessors [more, much more if the squad has stratagem and character support and you can kiss any chance in hell of holding the point good by if there are Aggressors], and they lose a lot of their number in the process to do pretty minimal damage to the Intercessors. This just isn't a winning proposition to keep up turn after turn, since you can really only keep it up on 3 contested objectives for about 2, if even, before you run out of guys in your Brigade, and I sincerely doubt that we're going to have killed off the Space Marines objective capturing ability by then.




Personally, right now I'm thinking something like Brigade of Catachan with a decent number of Conscripts and a Battalion of Scions. The Scions can drop to score "Deploy Scramblers" and also harass and contest the backfield, pulling units back to clear them, and the infantry can swarm up the board supported by NLoS artillery fire targeting the most critical of enemy units.
Conscripts and Infantry provide enough bodies to suffer the casualties contesting and taking the objectives for turns 2, 3, and 4, and with Catachan we might be able to charge onto objective and force the enemy off of them to further contest and hold those points.
I don't really got anything else, except maybe Scout Sentinels for pushing back the deep strike and Basilisks and Manticores for the hitting power, since the terrain is getting in the way of the Leman Russes really bad.



I don't know. Sorry to be a little negative right now. I just feel like I don't have anything in my court as Guard right now.

I can see where you come from ... its probably why I am so far red shifted into scions and (lately) a dkok patrol to add another 12 plasma and 9 hotshotlasguns for 200 points. (That being, I am converting in some other company plastic models that are easy and cheap to work with. I am thrilled!)

So, back to reality, and "gaurd is in trouble in this edition". I think tallarn's ability to move six inches before, or after, shooting, is a huge thing that people are undervaluing as the terrain gets in the way. A 5 inch move isn't huge, but another six inches to round that corner -- or to back away AROUND one after you pop off the cannon .. is HUGE, and can leave you able to shoot and potentially be not shot back. It won't also get you reroll 1's, but you can pair it up easily with the full fire on enemy vehicle stratagem to make a demolisher tank commander into a nasty shock, 12 shots = usually 8 hits = usually 6 saves = most tanks blow the hell up. .. that then scurries out of sight. You can even use it to get your flamertank special (punisher gatling cannon with tank ace ap-1, and 3 heavy flamers and storm bolter) into range to go "fwoosh". Its not single handedly making leman russ great again, but it IS making leman russ more survivable, and some of the tricks like 5 tank commanders orders from 2 tank ace strats == 5 leman russ in a wall moving that extra mile to fire their barrages. You can potenetially bring "enough" firepower to bear with that, and leave it to your enemey to have the problem of getting their remaining units into position to avenge the fallen.


My friend looked at that 1000 point list in battlescribe after he laughed that it was impossible. He was wrong (but he was also right). Just to clear it up, with 5 wulven and the relic dread, you can only fit all that (2 msu intercessors, 1 long fangs, etc) into a list by arming the longfang support troops with actual bolters (cause you can't afford any weapon upgrades at all) and the dreadnaught with only ONE of its two potential guns. He mentioned the wulven were not well equipped wulven either, and that anyone who started more than 3 inches back from their battle line would get to shoot the wulven with everything they had before the wulven could get in range to charge them -- on turn 2.

So the quesiton sort of shifted to "what kills 5 wulven and their friends at range" and it became almost a joke (as we discussed the implications of lots of plasma to the face.) The one relic dreadnaught is hard to kill -- but not THAT hard to kill, relative to its firepower, and pretty much, your armor can run away from 1 squad of wulfen for a time.

Option 1. Weight of frigging fire., Tallarn style.
A pair of leman russ and a manticore is a VERY gaurd army -- and the wulven won't handle it well at all.
An army similar to the scions and psykers style also would work, something like


The problem killing a lot of invuln shields is really usually that you have to kill .. a lot ... of dice worth of enemy. Don't give them easy targets. Break your gaurd up into multiple things and run the poor wulven all over the board, something like

My crazy plasma force with all the deepstrikers does a similar thing -- deny them a first turn target, then kill even 10 or 15 of their support group, and they are suddenly unable to hold more, unable to take you out, and the wulven if they survive are left running after tanks .. that move 10 inches (or if tallarn 16 inches a round) while firing back at them. Its hard to catch something like that especially if its just .. running away.

like .. .. well, customs, again, but indie fire crazy customs who don't sit still.


I just am having trouble seeing how these wolves survive gaurd .. .unless its the first time you met them and they just plain bum rushed your front lines, where you couldn't see it coming in your head cause it seemed really ridiculously overpowered of the marines to be able to DO that. Its like your friend built an army just to screw with gaurd. So build one to screw with wulves!






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


You'd have to be the tempestas regiment that has the stratagem for a close drop, but maybe. It's a very tight thing there, and I'm not certain you'll find a place within 6" of the tank you want and more than 5" from the enemy.

If I'm that far in on stormtroopers, I'm not sure I'd go for that doctrine, over the one for +6", but then again, I'm planning to use my suicide stormtrooper squads for setting up scramblers, so maybe.

don't have anything in my court as Guard right now.

1. flyer supportAs long as you have ANY stormtrooper detachment, even a patrol with a command squad and 1 measley tempest prime .. with access to a valkyrie, you have the close drop option as well, which does the same range but doesn't allow enemy auspex scan, and will let you do "it" with any doctrine you want. I usually put them all together, but if you are clever you can drop your squads out against SEPARATE targets all over the board, with a hovering flyer and mulitple squads, and then deepstrike in the tempestor primes behind them to support their shooting, and deepstrike in more soldiers to make a "second front".
Its a big part of my lambda lions initial punch, dropping 3 command squads with plasma really close in and firing 24 shots into .. something. I believe a lot of that could be simulated more cheaply by putting plasma in the +6 RF range custom regiment, and letting them come from the board's edge to doubletap 24 inches in from either side. (six from the edge + 18 range for x2plasma). Seriously nothing to sneeze at, you can buy 3 regular gaurd style command squads for a mere 192 points and salt them into any larger gaurd force pretty cheaply. Viola, sneak attack on the cheap.
2. timing. If its not the first thing you drop from a plane ... like my lambdas, again, first turn, I rush forward 10 plain jane scions in a plane with a tempest in support, and they step out at 6 inches. FRFSRF = 37 hotshot shots, with a cp to turn them into S4, they suddenly can clear a lot of screens from the enemy. (and the flyers help). Then turn 2, the enemy maybe is down a bit in what they can block off, and especially if you have another such unit in another such flyer, you can drop it into play and put "gifts of the mechanicum" on it. Instead of doing the nasty that the 4 meltas deliver, its going to fire its stuff, rerolling all wounds, and fishing for mortal wounds. That's why my secondary relic "laurels of command" is handed to a scion, as well, in hopes of FRFSRF/gifts/laurels proc execution protocol.
OR you can precision drop the 3 command squads -- and pass only "excecution protocol" to them, to unload a whomping big plasma or melta barrage at pointblank range, if the enemy left something exposed .. anywhere .. on the board.

I can only agree about your analysis about 9th and the difference between the Astartes and the Imperial Guard... They have more tools suited to 9th than us. They can answer quickly to a change and go grab objectives easier then us...

Guys, what do you think about demolishers in 9th ? I like the
power, the blast weapon and the "speed" without any malus anymore. However, how to equip it ? If I play Voystraya, idk, maybe a barebone one ? But if I play Armageddon, with heavy flamers ?

So just a quick question:

The guy who said go with Tallarn Punisher tanks;
You know even with double shooting a single Tally Punishers only kills about 1 wulfen right? It takes a ap3 to force them to use their 4+ invuln, which is lilkely a 3+ with a priest against shooting, and they have 2 wounds each, so D1 weapons waste a LOT of wounds.

Even a Storm Lord firing only takes out half a squad....thats if it dedicates ALL it's guns....

I think you can get a lot of use out of this setup for your "big guns"
Custom regiment spearhead .. spotter details and gunnery experts (so sort of, the vostroyan range and the catachan rerolls)


I think you can do ok with a "mere" 35 inch threat range, especially cause in a pinch, you can forge ahead the full 10 inches and call it 40 inch threat, by firing only 1/2 the shots from the demo gun. A sacrifice of power for speed may occasionally make sense, and there are few places on the modern game board that careful deployment and a 40 inch threat can't reach at all (and the plasma).

That's probably a stronger answer in this edition than conquerer battle cannons (which are actually still available till officially legended, but somewhat lackluster to shoot primaris in cover, and especially crappy to shoot at heavy intercesser in cover).
I think that is my best shot at a real tank threat in ninth. Honorable mention goes to the plasma executioner gun as well, and (in theory) to punisher gatlings on both of the forward leman russes (and make them tank aces to -1 ap). That setup has better odds to whack a lot of primaris but it ends up being only about 1 more per salvo, and anything with 3 woudns, your firepower is cut in half. Demos are much better, and the new heavy primaris, the aggressors and eradicators you have to aggressively eradicate, the 3 wound terminators, the occasional centurion from the people who were top o the food chain 7 months ago with lots of centurions, all mean, you do better I think with the demo tanks.

That's all I got, and I type all this halfway cause I am curious what you folks think of it.

 godardc wrote:
I can only agree about your analysis about 9th and the difference between the Astartes and the Imperial Guard... They have more tools suited to 9th than us. They can answer quickly to a change and go grab objectives easier then us...

Guys, what do you think about demolishers in 9th ? I like the
power, the blast weapon and the "speed" without any malus anymore. However, how to equip it ? If I play Voystraya, idk, maybe a barebone one ? But if I play Armageddon, with heavy flamers ?

I like them. They definitely feel like they have an effect on target when everything else isn't.

I run them bare bones, because that's how mine are built. Depending on how aggressive you are and how well screened you are, either bare bones, all heavy bolters, or all heavy flamers all sound like options for it. I'd go bare bones anyway since I expect to have enough screening for any forward pushing tanks because it's still pushing behind the infantry swarm, but we might want the HB's depending on their cost once they go to D2 for killing Primaris.

Note: a Leman Russ with 3x D2 heavy bolters kills only approximately 1 space marine with the entire suite of heavy bolters. I would probably default to running them bare bones unless they're tank commanders, because those points would definitely be better spent on plasguns or something.


Also, a full suite of heavy bolters kills about 3 models of light infantry, so they won't be killing you out of close combat to free your main gun any day. Heavy Flamers improve that to an average of 7 models, though definitely won't be killing space marines. If you're going to try to kill yourself out of melee and then fire your gun, I would only accept Heavy Flamers, and even then I'd be hesitant to do so.

How does the new blast rules effect the Baneblade? I feel like half it's weapons are now blast or at least d2. Jesus, the stock cannon alone is 12 shots of S9 AP3 3 damage. Then add in the Demo cannon, the auto cannon, the 9 HBs, and 4 Lascannons.

The banehammer is a bit meh in terms of killing titans, but if you are looking for ninth edition stuff, its ability to slow an enemy charge unit might actually give it some legs, and a few special weapons squads full of grenade launchers can cheaply give it some anti-infantry firepower -- that can also hop out and grab for an objective.

With respect to the IG super heavies, remember that to field a Shadowsword, Baneblade, Stormlord, or etc. will cost you 3 CP in addition to the price of the tank. That's a fairly hefty price, so make sure it's worth it.

I don't see guard as a MUST have CP Army. Not like my Custodes, who eat CP like a fat kid in a Chinese Buffet. A loss of 3cp to us isn't that major, especially when several of our characters have CP regen abilities.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I don't see guard as a MUST have CP Army. Not like my Custodes, who eat CP like a fat kid in a Chinese Buffet. A loss of 3cp to us isn't that major, especially when several of our characters have CP regen abilities.

If, in addition to your Baneblade, you're also fielding a Patrol or Battalion of Scions, as has been generally bandied around and I definitely think is a good idea, and then you're fielding a Tank Ace Manticore, you're already down to 5 or 6. Precision Drop on your scions and your down to like 3.

Strictly speaking, Precision drop is 1 per use, and you are earning 1 per round just by living. I have fought many battles with fewer CP as guard, and as long (in eighth) as you didn't bring in a basilisk, you were fine. Basies sucked CP dry with their doubletaps, though.