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I played a game last night, 2000 points, against a Catachan Imperial Guard list. He was using:
2 big units of Bullgryn with Slab Shields (10 in one, 8 in the other, with the Mauls),
Bullgryn Bodyguard with maul, shield, and plate,
a primaris psyker with psychic barrier and nightshroud,
a Company Commander as the warlord with a power fist,
a company commander with power fist,
a priest, An astropath with psychic barrier,
and an inquisitor with Terrify.

He also had 12 assassins:
1 Callidus
1 Culexus
3 Vindicares
7 Eversors

I don't know all the specifics, but I come out to under 2k by 20 points with this list.

He started with 6 Command points, had the ability to get a command point when I used one, and get his back on a 5+.

I was running Dark Angels, with 2 Leviathan Dreads. One dread as a melee loadout with 2 claws in a Stormraven, with a librarian with jump pack and mind worm/righteous repugnance.
The other had 2 storm cannon arrays.
I also had the classic Azrael with 7 hellblasters, primaris ancient, lieutenant, darkshroud, lascannon devestators, and 3 units of scouts (2 had sniper rifles).

Over the course of the game, I was able to get one unit of bullgryn down to 4 models, killed 2 eversor assassins and the callidus,
killed his company and platoon commanders, and was wiped from the table by the end of turn 3.

We were playing an objectives game, but my draws were terrible, so I know I pretty much lost the scenario because of that. But...

I have had some pretty good success with my Dark Angels against Space Wolves, Chaos Marines, Tau, and regular space marines. Still have yet to beat this guy in any game.

So I put it to you, how would you deal with this army? Remember that each bullgryn has a 0+ save and he was switching barrier and nightshroud based on what he thought would get shot.

That's a list with 35 footslogging models as far as I can see. Bullgryns are melee only. So that leaves about 3 vindicares to watch for in range?

Seems pretty obvious to me. Completely ignore his army, go grab the objectives. Shoot down the vindicare assassins if you don't want him shooting at all.

He literally has two melee, footslogging units in the whole army. Basic cheap ObSec troops (brimstones / cultists / termagants / you name it) and the game score will probably be like 10-1 by turn three.

That would work for armies with cheap troops.

What about elite armies? I primarily run space marines of different flavors. Scout are great this edition, but it is hard to run a lot of them.

I had some screens setup with my 3 scout units, but the assassins just killed them before the ogryn even got close to my lines.

Then a bunch more of assassins just killed the rest of my army by tying it up in cc the rest of the game. I'm going to have nightmares with eversor assassins exploding when they die...

 broxigar200 wrote:
That would work for armies with cheap troops.

What about elite armies? I primarily run space marines of different flavors.

Same deal. Get MSU bikers / raptors and just keep hopping around the objectives while ignoring the bulk of his army. Get some mass bolter fire to nicely kill the assassins from far far away. CSM have the doombolt spell which can halve the target unit's movement and deny advance moves. Does wonders to force deathstars to a halt. Do the imperials have something equivalent? i don't know. (No, definitely not a heretic here, keep looking).

In short, mobility wins games

Yeah, I am thinking about switching back to the dark talons and talonmaster I was using before the leviathan dreads. I'm kinda bummed that my Azrael castle did not do much to anything though. I get that I only had 7 hellblasters, but they usually do so much damage! That silly 0+ armor...

FWIW, only one of the two bullgryn units at a time can get the buffs. why not just shoot the other one and avoid the first? At the end of the day, a bullgryn is 2 autocannons in melee, 1.5 if you charge them. They aren't all that spooky, even to basic marines. They hit you on 3s, wound you on 3s, and you get a 4+ save. A bullgryn kills less than 1 marine on average. They can't get orders or non-defense buffs for the most part. A squad of 9 on the charge takes all of 4 wounds off a rhino.

I'd think Dreadnoughts would be the perfect thing to fight them with, thanks to that flat 3 damage fist with (IIRC) S10.

Also how do they get 0+ armor? Isn't it 1+ armor with the power?

the_scotsman wrote:


Also how do they get 0+ armor? Isn't it 1+ armor with the power?

Probably with "Take cover!"

I second the dreadnoughts. Str 10 and 3 fixed damage means it wounds on 2+ and every missed save = one dead bullgryn.

Side question. How much does a bullgryn with slab shield and a maul cost?

Either way it sounds like it's all infantry. Even with a 0+ save it still fails on 1. You can use landspeeders / talon masters to unload shots into them, or vets on bikes with storm bolters and just pound them with hits. Some saves will fail.

You could also use the "flaming speeder" tactic vs the assassins. Land speeder with 2 heavy flamers = 2d6 auto hits that wound on 3's, that should be enough to kill a few assassins. And what are they going to do? Charge you? Ha. And if you do end up in cc and don't die you just fly back and torch them again.

His list is a trick pony, the way to beat it is to not play it's game. It wants close combat. Make that not an option is my suggestion.

Yeah, his saves on the bullgryn were average, but the Leviathan only has 4 attacks in cc. He did enough hits and I failed enough saves to take it down in two cc phases. Then failed to explode...

He had -1 to hit with shooting from nightshroud on one unit and the other was a 2 up invuln due to barrier. Passed the psychic stuff consistently all game.

I like the idea of the speeders with the heavy flamers. If I find the points, I might try to include at least one for deepstrike denial.

If you take the land speeder you may want to throw in a whirlwind for the strategem that gives it auto hits from telemetry link. Not usually great but would ruin a culexus' day and give the finger to -1 to hit. Plus no LOS needed.

 broxigar200 wrote:
That would work for armies with cheap troops.

What about elite armies? I primarily run space marines of different flavors. Scout are great this edition, but it is hard to run a lot of them.

I had some screens setup with my 3 scout units, but the assassins just killed them before the ogryn even got close to my lines.

Then a bunch more of assassins just killed the rest of my army by tying it up in cc the rest of the game. I'm going to have nightmares with eversor assassins exploding when they die...

Look, you were only bringing 3 squads of scouts? And two of them were handicapped with sniper-rifles even... Bring 8 squads of 5 next time, they are the best unit space marines has access to. Don't give them cloaks or sniper rifles just a sword for the commander. They are super frustrating to play against.

I would also remove the stormraven, azrael, dark shroud, and ancient from your list. Instead bring some jump-infantry, some scout-bikes, some intercessors, and some rhinos for your dudes. A rhino with something ded-killy inside, what is he going to do about that?

And how exactly did he get 0+ on the bullgryns again?

pismakron wrote:

 broxigar200 wrote:
That would work for armies with cheap troops.

What about elite armies? I primarily run space marines of different flavors. Scout are great this edition, but it is hard to run a lot of them.

I had some screens setup with my 3 scout units, but the assassins just killed them before the ogryn even got close to my lines.

Then a bunch more of assassins just killed the rest of my army by tying it up in cc the rest of the game. I'm going to have nightmares with eversor assassins exploding when they die...

Look, you were only bringing 3 squads of scouts? And two of them were handicapped with sniper-rifles even... Bring 8 squads of 5 next time, they are the best unit space marines has access to. Don't give them cloaks or sniper rifles just a sword for the commander. They are super frustrating to play against.

I would also remove the stormraven, azrael, dark shroud, and ancient from your list. Instead bring some jump-infantry, some scout-bikes, some intercessors, and some rhinos for your dudes. A rhino with something ded-killy inside, what is he going to do about that?

And how exactly did he get 0+ on the bullgryns again?

they start at 2, barrier gives them 1, and they can Take Cover using 1 of the 4 CPs the list has to get 0 vs shooting.

Classic 40k. Tactics: get other units.

I was running Dark Angels, with 2 Leviathan Dreads. One dread as a melee loadout with 2 claws in a Stormraven, with a librarian with jump pack and mind worm/righteous repugnance.
The other had 2 storm cannon arrays.
I also had the classic Azrael with 7 hellblasters, primaris ancient, lieutenant, darkshroud, lascannon devestators, and 3 units of scouts (2 had sniper rifles).

How to deal with this using the same list you had:

1) plan for the bullgryns: ignore and inconvenience. Assuming the Bullgryns are in two big single-file lines, you should be able to use the Flyer to seriously mess with the movement of one of the squads by sitting 1" away from the very center of the line. The middle can't move forward, and the edges are basically put on a leash by 2" coherency. Even better if he stupidly deploys 2 ranks of bullgryns, but I find that to be unlikely.

2) Snipers may get one round of shooting before they get tied up by assassins. If they do, kill the guy with nightshroud. Without that spell, your opponent has no way to increase bullgryns' durability vs Dakka type weight of fire weaponry, like say hurricane bolters on a stormraven.

3) nobody in the flyer. That melee dread is a vital assassin-bouncer. The only unit I might put in there is the libby, to keep him safe until you can figure out where the culexus is, and then hop him out when convenient to kill a vindicare or something.

4) Everything, everything that can target an assassin, go for it. They are your #1 priority to remove. #2 priority to remove is the bullgryn squad that does not have the psychic buffs on it (the buffed one should have a plane parked in front of it). Lacannons etc are fine to shoot at those guys.

Those are the tactics I would use to combat this list.its tough, because your list is somewhat against the skew curve here. Any kind of gunline would probably shred this guy's list.

 broxigar200 wrote:
I played a game last night, 2000 points, against a Catachan Imperial Guard list. He was using:
2 big units of Bullgryn with Slab Shields (10 in one, 8 in the other, with the Mauls),
Bullgryn Bodyguard with maul, shield, and plate,
a primaris psyker with psychic barrier and nightshroud,
a Company Commander as the warlord with a power fist,
a company commander with power fist,
a priest, An astropath with psychic barrier,
and an inquisitor with Terrify.

He also had 12 assassins:
1 Callidus
1 Culexus
3 Vindicares
7 Eversors

Do you know how he had the detachments laid out? He wasn't giving the Catachan bonuses to anything in the army other than the company commanders, right? He also wasn't ordering the Bullgryn, either, right?

As others have said, don't fight him in melee. He needs to be shot to death. Buckets of bullets.

As an Assassin player my suggestion for you castle list is this.

Use your scouts to screen the hellblasters and Lascannons so the Deedstriking assasins can't tie them up. Use your snipers to pick of the Primaris and Astropath. Leave the bullgyrns for last as they are literally there to absorb your fire.

Khadorstompy wrote:
As an Assassin player my suggestion for you castle list is this.

Use your scouts to screen the hellblasters and Lascannons so the Deedstriking assasins can't tie them up. Use your snipers to pick of the Primaris and Astropath. Leave the bullgyrns for last as they are literally there to absorb your fire.

tbf he's probably looking at about a 40% chance to get a single round of shooting off with the sniper scouts (in which case, great, kill one psyker). But thats only if he goes first. If he goes second theyre almost certainly going to be engaged by multiple assassins, and htat's what they're for. Hence the other poster's saying he wasted sniper rifles on them.