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At 500pts I'd be tempted to go with a gunnery expert Punisher tank commander. That thing will shred what little troops your opponent has, leaving your squads free to hold objectives and win the game. Definitely try and get two more hkm as Pyro says...

Yeah I can def magnetize the sentinels weapon so I'll do one with a Multilaser. Then I can give the other sentinels and the tc a hk too. I like that a lot. Thanks!

^The range doctrine right? That would be pretty savage. I did briefly consider punisher pask myself but I'd have to cut down on infantry. If I were going that way tho, punisher pask, heavy bolter sponsors, fill the rest with as much infantry and heavy bolters as possible.

Interesting to see this idea with a sentinel bomb, I've been thinking about it too. I'm not sure, but wouldn't plasma cannons be good since you're Cadian and re-rolling 1s anyway? Then you can over-charge on turn one, when you're hitting better, and stay a bit safer afterwards if you like. By the way, grouchoben, you're thinking of Weapon Expert for the Punisher right?

Yeah, thanks Cask, spot on the money

The most critical limiting factor in alpha strike 3 sentinals is that you have to get a bead on the enemy's models no matter what, before they can simply shoot your relatively fragile little tanklings off the board.
So scout works best for it, and I prefer the loadout missle launcher + hunter killer on all 3 cadian scoutenals. After flushing the hk and suddenly dropping from 6d6 that almost always hit to 3 krak a round (or 3 frag) it becomes a nicely long ranged, 18 wounds of either antihorde or antiarmor. Not shabby.

Don't you miss the half-damage strat on the armoured sents?

Sentinel with ML and HKM is 55 points on T6 W6 Sv3+ platform.
3 of them is 165, for 18 wounds with stratagem for the half-damage.
So now opponent needs to decide. Either to commit and destroy 3 sentinels which are real AT threat turn one (3x s8 ap-2 d6 and 3x s10 ap-2 d6 hitting on 3s even through dense cover or flyers) or destroy TC or Manticore or other piece of equipment valid for the entire game.
I honestly think that 3x Armoured Sentinels is great distraction carnifex turn one for only 165 points and 2CP (1 for Daft Manouvering, 1 for Strike First Strike Hard).
Minus is, after turn one Armoured Sentinels will hit on 4s at best and with HKM they are not so great anymore

I personally think that even then they can be quite useful as kind of blockers. Especially in the low Point games that are mentioned here, it might not be completely easy to Keep the Leman Russ from getting touched. And in its current configuration (Battlecannon + Lascannon, no sponsons) it most likely loose at least a round of shooting, as the BC cannot shoot in CC and the Lascannon can't remove much.

The Sentinels on the other hand have quite some footprint with their large bases, being able to block enemies when arranged in a tight line or even a cordon surrounding the LR. Or by directly charging stuff that would rater shoot than fight in CC. They won't kill anything, but those 6 T6 3+ wounds for 55 Points are not really easily removed in CC.
It's just a theory, not based on experience, but after that first volley with strike first, strike hard I would aggressivly go forwards to mess with the enemies movement possibilities and charge stuff.

 grouchoben wrote:
Don't you miss the half-damage strat on the armoured sents?

Not really. Being able to scout forward is worth more to me, since it sets them up in better positions to support my army.

What do you all think of the new rules for the Avenger Strike Fighter? Went to bs 4 and lost missiles, but it came down in price a bit and the avenger gatling went up to 10 shots and became 2 damage.

Despire the bs, The damage output on the Cannon seems to have gone up against multi wounds and is about even on single wound models

The bs hurts the lascannons a bit, and no missiles makes tank hunting with it a bit more of a struggle... leave tank hunting up to the lightning I guess?

Looks like it could be a good character/marine hunter.

Avenger worth bringing?

 Smotejob wrote:
What do you all think of the new rules for the Avenger Strike Fighter? Went to bs 4 and lost missiles, but it came down in price a bit and the avenger gatling went up to 10 shots and became 2 damage.

Despire the bs, The damage output on the Cannon seems to have gone up against multi wounds and is about even on single wound models

The bs hurts the lascannons a bit, and no missiles makes tank hunting with it a bit more of a struggle... leave tank hunting up to the lightning I guess?

Looks like it could be a good character/marine hunter.

Avenger worth bringing?

I'm not sure yet. Going down to Toughness 6 is honestly my biggest concern with it, but the loss of extra weapons also hurts. That said the main bolt cannon is a huge upgrade over the old one.

I'd say think about the price. It's 10pts more than a kitted out Manticore with full payload or even with a leman Russ. What are you getting for the price? Is that mobility worth the durability hit? Can you make it's shots count? I feel like you have to snipe characters to make it worthwhile, otherwise you're plinking a few wounds off a tank and a few marines or something each turn. If my math is right bolt cannon kills a couple of marines in the open and probably does 2 damage to a tank. Combined with the lascannons, it's probably enough to guarantee dropping a generic character but I wouldn't trust it to take out a tougher named character or dreadnaught.

I'll probably run mine in fun games with my two vultures just because they look cool, but I would expect you'll still get more mileage out of tanks and artillery.

Question, if I take Yarrick and make him my warlord, can I sacrifice his warlord trait to take a tank ace, as per PA rules? Or does he absolutely have to get the Master of Command trait?

 Esmer wrote:
Question, if I take Yarrick and make him my warlord, can I sacrifice his warlord trait to take a tank ace, as per PA rules? Or does he absolutely have to get the Master of Command trait?

I think you can sacrifice it to get the tank ace. Unlike Guilliman, he doesn't HAVE to be your warlord, only if you do have him get a trait he has to have Master of Command.

Cyclops tanks look ace now with a fixed 16" threat range.

If I take a Tempestus detachment with Valkyries and a Catachan detachment with cyclops tanks, can I load one of the tanks and a squad of scions in a Valkyrie? Or is it not allowed to use another detachment's transport (with the right keywords)?

 Singleton Mosby wrote:
Cyclops tanks look ace now with a fixed 16" threat range.

If I take a Tempestus detachment with Valkyries and a Catachan detachment with cyclops tanks, can I load one of the tanks and a squad of scions in a Valkyrie? Or is it not allowed to use another detachment's transport (with the right keywords)?

Detachments have no bearing on transport capability, only keywords. A Valkyrie can carry any ASTRA MILITARUM INFANTRY.

The Cyclops is one of the only units in the AM roster to significantly benefit from the new Krieg doctrine, which I rather like.

If you kill it it needs a 5+ to explode (nerfed from 3+), and if that fails you get another chance to fire its weapon on a 4+. Fairly reliable really, makes it feasible to choose to advance it as a tactical judgment.

Sentinels, funnily enough, are also big winners, which is nice as I use 3 with lascannons and HKMs.

Hellhounds and the Infernus too, but they don't really suit my playstyle as much.

How viable is a mobile guard army? Clearly not super competitive but am I gonna have a bit of fun with it or just get ruined?
I was thinking going catachan with lots of flamer chimeras, hellhounds and sentinels for early board control. Maybe some scions in Taurox Primes as well. Hopefully keep my troops alive for a round or two in their transports then spill out obsec on objectives for late turns to hang on.

I think it's viable as hell, but would be harder to pilot to a top table than a lot of other armies. Going into guard is a multi-edition prospect - it's a long haul and has to be done, somewhat, for the love of it. I reckon the code, when it drops, will be pretty sweet.

Alright so if our goal is to build a competitive guard list to take on tournaments, have we settled on footguard to be the most viable option?

Against AM, the enemy is going to easily max their secondary objectives, so if we want to win we need to win on primary and also max out our secondaries. And if so, what secondary's would we build around?

How viable would it be to take 2-3 astropaths with the sole goal of doing the psychic actions to try and max out one secondary? Seems a minimal impact on list building and wouldnt be tooo hard to get 12-15 points off their actions.

What would be the best other secondary to build around, something objective related?

As for the list Im thinking 2 battalions, 10-12 infantry squads, 3 heavy weapon squads, and 2 tank ace manticores form the core. Normally Id run the infantry squads all bare bones, but maybe its worth throwing a lascannon/plasma in each squad, as it gives these guys some level of threat at least.

Then maybe special weapons squads thrown in? Bullgryn maybe? Demolisher Tank Commanders? All feel potentially strong.

Goal being to flood the board in obsec bodies that the opponents list will struggle to kill (generally lists that are tailored to beat space marines struggle to deal with this many bodies).

(Also, I think maybe the 40+ Death Rider list might be the most competitive option, but most don't have access to that amount of resin and we have already discussed their prospects. Still a squad or two might be key in getting some outflanking if that's the kind of secondary we want to go after?)

I hope Guard get a drastic overhaul in their codex - even a few nudges would help, like making tank aces just straight up 1cp upgrades, rather than being locked (so you can burn 6cp pregame if you really want to).

Until then I do think we need to avoid showing too much hull. Grind them down is hard to max out in a lot of games whilst bring it down is so trivial against mech lists... And the new melta is terrible news for them.

So I think 3 sents, no-LoS firing, and flanking/reserved tanks are all viable still, so it doesn't have to be strict footguard...

I do think some chunky units are necessary - whether Bullgryns, Deathriders, or allies. Something to contest the centre and buy your squads some breathing space.

I am following this thread with great interest, and don't have enough playing experience to really comment on your ideas for competitive play, Ninjafiredragon. To me it seems rather strong indeed to flood the board with cheap bodies, especially if the codex gives us some better tools further on. I guess just a minor thing such as increased infantry survivability would have great importance. Still, I've been thinking mostly about the mechanized route, doing some basic mathhammer. My conclusions (again, take it with a grain of salt) offer some support for a heavy flamer-based list with Gunnery Experts and Pyromaniacs. The unit that really shines with that combination is the double flamer chimera, which does +40% damage, versus the Catachan one with +21% damage. I guess most people would prefer playing Catachan, but I'm stuck with the idea that the melee infantry doesn't synergize with the heavy flamers, as both prefer to kill low-armour targets, so the ideal complement would rather be plasma. What if I built a list with sentinels and chimeras armed to the teeth with +40% flamers, and then added a detachment of Lambdan Lions with plasma, to counter high-armour units? Please tell me your thoughts!

Chimeras should be carefully compared to the taurox sentinals in the lambda lions list .. which can benefit from a 5++ save aura emanating from their lambadian warlord's relic field generator.

When you throw in the reroll 1's and the extra than normal AP, each individual 120 point taurox can put out 28 shots, bs3+, so you expect something like 18 hits minimum (this compares pretty well to the dual flamer) and the shots range in ap down to -3. Also, with reroll 1's, my bad! you expect about 21 or so hits. Also, these thinner (through a tight map) tauroxprimes are FASTER than chimeras, and can still also use all their guns in melee range combat.

A few drops from a transport is also a huge force multiplier for scions, because that transport itself (valky, usually) can bring some decent firepower to bear (2d6 S5/-1/1 and 6 s5/-1/2 and a lascannon at bs3+, for example) and also it is a great distraction carnifax. The ability of a badly wounded bird to zip off a board edge and thus be unavialable for follow up shooting to kill, is not to be despised -- and can seriously throw off someone's calculations about how to get to a thin the ranks or bring it down victory max.

So yeah, Chimeras are not bad per se (seninals are, they don't transport, they are slower, they don't have decent firepower for cost compared to chimera or sentinals after they flush their missle first turn punch.

Whew.

Regular gaurd might be happier in chimera, but small scions groups of 1 officer/1comman dsquad/5scions fit nicely in a t'prime.

That's an interesting point, taurox primes really outdamage flamer chimeras. I hadn't compared them really, this is how it looks I guess...

2 x Flamer Chimera with Gunnery Experts and Pyromaniacs against guardsmen-equivalents: 2 x 4,25 (hits, with re-roll type) x 0,78 (wounds with re-roll 1s) x 0,83 (AP-1) = 5,5 unsaved wounds.
20 Gatling shots and 8 Hot-Shot Volley Gun shots with Lambdan doctrine against guardsmen-equivalents: 20 x 0,67 x 0,67 x 0,83 + 8 x 0,67 x 0,67 x 1 = 11,0 unsaved wounds.

Then I didn't include any re-rolls for the Taurox, since it depends on the warlord trait and seems a bit more situational. All in all, you could say +100% damage and only +26% cost (120 p versus 95 p). Without the Lambdan doctrine it would be +70% damage. I guess the survivability is where the chimera is better, and the idea of maximising its weapons is not that good after all? Would the jury-rigged repairs work better then, to get a steady stream of wounds back? Or just go for the Spotter Details which people seem to do in the tournament lists, to improve the Demolisher Cannons? To clarify, I'm thinking of a list with both chimeras, sentinels and demolishers, backed up with scions.

IMHO I would run for battalion + spearhead configuration.

Throw infantry body to battalion and give them wilderness survivors and whatever else you fancy. Unless playing against IF or IW guardsmen rocks +4 sv which can be bumped to +3 using take cover.
Go to dense cover for those sweet -1 penalties and maybe (MAYBE) guardsmen will survive something. There isn't many terrain pieces which combines desne and light cover so going for dense cover with wilderness survivors can yield some gains. For 5ppm it seems reasonable.


In spearhead I'd put commissar for cheap HQ tax and 2 manticores + wyvern or basilisk for some artillery support with gunnery experts or cadia (overlapping fields of fire). Other idea would be go for catachan and buy Harker to act as better Master of Ordnance. Full Payload Manticores with reroll attacks and 1 to hit rolls are kinda scary.

Also, to mitigate Assassinate secondary vox-casters seems as better piece of equipment right now. Hide CC outside of LoS with IS or CS with vox caster and order everybody within 18'' with inpunity

Also

 Pomander Cask wrote:
I am following this thread with great interest, and don't have enough playing experience to really comment on your ideas for competitive play, Ninjafiredragon. To me it seems rather strong indeed to flood the board with cheap bodies, especially if the codex gives us some better tools further on. I guess just a minor thing such as increased infantry survivability would have great importance. Still, I've been thinking mostly about the mechanized route, doing some basic mathhammer. My conclusions (again, take it with a grain of salt) offer some support for a heavy flamer-based list with Gunnery Experts and Pyromaniacs. The unit that really shines with that combination is the double flamer chimera, which does +40% damage, versus the Catachan one with +21% damage. I guess most people would prefer playing Catachan, but I'm stuck with the idea that the melee infantry doesn't synergize with the heavy flamers, as both prefer to kill low-armour targets, so the ideal complement would rather be plasma. What if I built a list with sentinels and chimeras armed to the teeth with +40% flamers, and then added a detachment of Lambdan Lions with plasma, to counter high-armour units? Please tell me your thoughts!

I've given my 2c on the competitive pressures to build around a few pages back [specifically, on page 6].

I'm looking at something maybe like Brigade [Regular] + Patrol [Scions].
The Brigade would have infantry, Hellhounds, Manticores, Scout Sentinels, Artillery, and lots of infantry. The patrol has drop units that can accomplish secondaries easily and threaten to snatch objective from the enemy, forcing a response.

Another question that came up during my last game: If an IG Commander is performing an action during a turn, can he still dish out orders? My impression was that yes, since it's not explicitedly an aura, but on second thought, I am not so very sure about that.

I will note that I used 2 tank commanders (and 2 similar units, redempter dreadnaughts) in a combined marine/gaurd list last weekend and learned a painful lesson. (Also, I learned that my local GT is crazy competitive, way worse than local FLGS casual tourneys.)

The good players could block my movement with trivial tiny infantry units by placing them in the only spot my tanks would be able to advance, so that I could only get rid of the blockers AFTER my move phase. Result? I had one game where a tyranid horde player literally hid his entire army on his side of the board, and just fed me tiny numbers of termagaunts each turn to block my advance in two of the 3 lanes between terrain that my tanks could fit.

Since the third lane was in my deployment zone, this meant he could keep me off his half the board AND unable to target his half. Note that he clearly outgunned me at non-line of sight shooting, too, with his hivegaurds. It was a rough game. I threw the kitchen sink at him, aggressors dying beside incursors to the horde, but couldn't bring my tank or dread guns to bear on any worthwhile target all game. (and I note, for you manticore users, his ENTIRE ARMY was -1 to be hit for shooting, from one HQ, that's a power we gaurd need to be able to nerf.)

If, however, you were to use tallarn leman russes, perhaps armed with a demolisher and 3 heavy flamers and a stormbolter each, and back them up with a pair fo tallarn tank commanders to issue orders, you might could sort of offset this strategy by strategically deploying a pair of them (the squad) for 3 cp .. and using tank orders to push the others up the alleyway after or before firing (so you make 7 inches, not 1, per turn, till you get out of it.). It wouldn't help move things like hellhounds any faster, but it could get your front edge able to move -- and force the enemy back aroudn the corner so your flood of stuff could get into line of sight. Obstructing terrain with line of slight blocking outer walls was my NIGHTMARE, because the tournament was large enough that the game store used all their 8th edition terrain. So 3/4 of the tables had gigantic ruins on the tiny little 9th edition tables, and there was one table I played on that literally didn't have room to advance the leman russes across the board except in a 6 inch wide alleyway down the center. (Which my opponent blocked with a different 5 man squad each round, of course).

Note that I won that game but it was hard. The result of the "bigger terrain" meant my tanks lost a couple turns in each game trying to get line of sight to the enemy. This isn't going to be less a problem with something like a hellhound, or a sentinal (which is actually slower in some ways) but of course stuff like bully and infantry can cross ruins, so to them, the midfield of the game board is open. Its also why I would never take a chimera as a transport, EVER, when a stripped down valkyrie is so cheap and can deliever stuff to the far wall of the tournament on turn 1.

I think that tallarn would have served me far better than the regiment I had, and of course, my usual scions and flyers (I use them almost all the time I play, actually) I would never have NOTICED these effects. For scion infantry you either drop out past the terrain, deepstrike where you feel like, or march through the ruins in a straight line. Liuke scions, tallarn tanks can cheaply get offboard to ambush in later, and like scions, they are thus harder to pick a bottleneck to impose.

It was very painfully eyeopening to see how choked the ground is to tanks in this edition. Last edition much of the same terrain (literally, I remember playing it) on the same boards was used -- but blue tape now covers the edges of the board, and the play area is just smaller enouhg that its hell on mechanized gaurd's critical need to acquire line of sight. ESPECIALLY horrific were the 14inch by 14 inch obstructing terrain pieces, two of which were in the middle of every game board, which were ruins infantry could walk through, and physically blocked line of sight into their interior from more than half the board, each.

@dukeofstuff was that just the tyranid game you had that experience with, or did you feel clogged with your other games as well?

And boys it looks like the warhammer community meta watch article supports our whining. Boy do AM have a low tournament win %. Yeesh.

So, my first game was on fairly open terrain, and I lost against a really good player -- but scored a respectable 68 points. My second game was the nids, and he brought some 120 or so little guys to use specifically to inhibit people moving. Also, I was told he was among the top 4 nids players on earth, so my hard loss to him was utterly not a surprise. He was an overt master of movement with the nids pieces, in and out of combat. I still scored over 50, but it was definitely skill that locked me in on that relatively (compared to later) open terrain.

My third game was against a scions only army, utterly set to alpha strike. His 5 valkkyries dropped wave after wave of melta and plasma on my innocent tanks. I did blow two up, but terrain had almost no factor in the whole game, it was entirely "react to alpha strike at point blank range" on my end.

Game four, you couldn't move a tank across the board, if you walked from one edge to antoher, there was NO non-ruins (counts as tanks can't cross) non obstructing spot wider than 3 inches. When those terminators finally reached center (and could charge with their special sauce marine advance and charge stuff) they wiped me in a turn. Until then, my army (with 4 tank commander or dreadnaught but NO indirect fire) could merely wait to die.
Seriously, never try to outmelee 25+ terminators with 2 tank commanders. No matter what. Had I been able to move aroudn the board, my opponent could have blocked my movement with a few incursors carefully steppiong out of the walls at the right moment. I lost fairly gallantly, but I lost.

Game 5 was against a deathly iron hands deathball. He set it up (ferrios, apothecary, chaptermaster, lieutenant) with his hellblasters, etc, in a forest exactly 1/2 the board across on his deployment line. The only spot on this terrain one could cross with vehicles was the firing lane his hellblasters had (and his other infatnry heavy units) .. but as a result, he was all in one place. I let my tanks sit back on my side of the big ruins divide to keep him over THERE, and used small units to snake the win out from him.

Gaurd regulars won me that game out of strategic reserves, even though I got slaughtered firing at his 6+++, 5++, 3+, 3W wonders from my side.

So yeah, had I brought (for example) three manticores with 2 tank ace? it would have been a very different firght against the terminators or the nids. but as it was, it gave me inspired the idea of the using tallarns to leapfrog through the tight spots by firing the back tank, advance the second through the hole you just made, then fire the front tank. And rinse and repeat.

While a sqaud of them pops in from the strategic reserves.

 grouchoben wrote:
...
I do think some chunky units are necessary - whether Bullgryns, Deathriders, or allies. Something to contest the centre and buy your squads some breathing space.

Along these lines I just bit the bullet on ordering 10 crusaders. Will put them together with a missionary to create another ball of annoyance and block/hold strategic points.

The last few games I played my armor was just getting melted from distance due to the heavy weapons people are brining, so I figure I'm going to try to null that out with quantities. As a result, I'm building up to do waves of conscripts and trying to toughen them up with an inquisitor. As I understand it Commissar is not an OFFICER, and unless it got FAQ'd somewhere, his orders shouldn't be affected by the conscript roll for orders.

Eventually I'll probably run a sisters /conscripts /armor combo. Just to keep a lot of bodies and decentralize/toughen some of the dakka. Trying to build up 4 or 5 mini forces to go after objectives or try to take out something dangerous.

We'll see how it works when I get things built. For 8th edition I had built out a nice Armaggedon style force with 6 Chimeras and and 5 Russ tanks, and it got absolutely pillaged by some blood angels that were across the board and in my face on pretty much the first turn. May revisit later but right now I'm focused on trying to reduce the 2ndaries the adversary can max, while trying to focus on getting the balance on the main objective points.