Astra Militarum Woes

So maybe a little less than a year ago I got my friend into 40k. He chose to play Astra Militarum. Now this guy gets obsessed with things quick and he makes good deal of money, so suffice it to say he is well up to speed on things. We have played a dozen games together or so and he has started to crush me pretty regularly. Now granted...his list is a bit anti-dark kin specific since I think he probably plays me the most. But regardless. He's basically running a big mass of infantry with a lot of auto cannons mixed throughout. He has 3 hydras, 3 hellhounds, a crusader knight, and I think 2 or 3 mortar teams. Some characters for good measure. I am getting blasted off the board by turn two pretty consistently so I decided to come here to try to get some help.

After reading a bunch of articles, watching videos, and reading posts here I built a new list and was wondering if you all had any thoughts:

Battalion Detachment - Black Heart
Archon (Warlord) - Writ of Living Muse, Blaster
Archon Blaster

Troops
10 Warriors with 2 blasters and a dark lance X3

Heavy Support
3 Ravagers with disintegrator cannons

Flyers
2 Razorwing Jetfighters

Spearhead Detachment - Prophets of Flesh
Haemonculus - Vexator mask or whatever its called

Troops
10 Wracks with 2 ossefactors

Heavy Support
2 units of 3 talos
2 units of Reapers


Some weapon upgrades sprinkled in there but you get the idea. Basic play is to put one squad of talosi in the webway with the haemonculus. Turn 1 move other 3 talos up the board while doing my best to blast his tanks off the table. Turn 2 deepstrike in the wracks with the black cornucopia stratagem and the HQ and talos with the webway. These will hopefully charge the hydras in the back.

I must admit guard are one of my nemesis armies in this edition. I quite often seen an opponent's army on the board and immediately have this sinking feeling that I just don't have enough stuff to kill him. Especially if I have a bad turn or make mistakes. Your opponents list is incredibly tailored to face dark Eldar as well three hyrdras is mean! Are your list and potential tactics limited by what models you own? Personally I don't rate the reaper for what you are asking it to do. The disintegrator ravagers and archon combination is always solid. But I am Les convinced by your kabalite squads with all that fun they are very soft targets for a guard army to hurt. The fliers are again solid. I don't personally play coven but I know they are brutally tough and you may be better served having all of it on the table it's primary job will be to soak up all the firepower and keep it away from your guns rather than actually cutting through stuff. I have found raiders are very useful against guard in the sense of shutting stuff down and absorbing overwatch. It is also worth looking at cult stuff like reavers for first turn charge possibilities and wyches to lock up infantry difficult though they will be to deliver. Scourges with haywire blasters will also do a number on his vehicles.

Hi,

some comments ...

1.) You can't deepstrike talos with webway portal as they are monsters.

2.) Ravagers, Razorwing Jetfighters, ... are easy targets for hydras. Anyway hydras are great against all of our vehicles. I'm pretty sure he optimised the list to beat you as hydras are not that good against other armies. You could try using screaming jets to deepstrike the 3 ravagers. Also I would use dark lances on the ravagers because hellhounds and hydras have 6 and 7 T and a 3+ save. That is on average 3.3 wounds per ravager with dissies against 4.7 wounds per ravager with DLs.
EDIT: and if you use command re-rolls just re-roll damage rolls. with this DLs are even better.

3.) The two units of 3 talos are a good idea, although they also have fly wych is good for the hydras. I would defenitely put haywire blasters on all talos'.

4.) If you need something resilient for CC against him you could try grotesques. Grotesques can make use of the webway stratagem.

Hopefully I could help you a little bit.

Man that is a rough list you're facing, hellhounds and especially hydras are really good against DE. Unfortunately I just don't think there's a way around not taking units vulnerable to hydras, DE are best played somewhat vehicle heavy, and all our vehicles are fliers.

Ravagers are definetly ideal, I'd do a mix of dark lances and disintegrator cannons. As Ragnos suggested you could deep strike them in, guarantee they survive a turn to hit his hydras/hellhounds. I wouldn't just rely on the ravagers though, warriors with blasters can do some good work, they just can't be on foot as you have them as they'll die far too quickly. I'd not bother with a dark lance, make them units of 5 in venoms. Yeah that means more fliers for the hydras to target, but there's not really any way around that, if you just overload on fliers he can't hit them all.

I would not bother with wracks, any smart guard player is going to have hordes of guardsmen to chew through around his hydras so you won't be able to deep strike anywhere near them, and our horde removal won't be nearly good enough to handle that. Instead just rely on shooting to handle the hydras, mix of ravagers, razorwings and blasters from warriors should do the trick.

Lastly talos are pretty solid, but reapers are pretty meh compared to ravagers. I'd drop those to pay for the transports your warriors need.

Ragnos wrote:

Hi,

some comments ...

1.) You can't deepstrike talos with webway portal as they are monsters.

2.) Ravagers, Razorwing Jetfighters, ... are easy targets for hydras. Anyway hydras are great against all of our vehicles. I'm pretty sure he optimised the list to beat you as hydras are not that good against other armies. You could try using screaming jets to deepstrike the 3 ravagers. Also I would use dark lances on the ravagers because hellhounds and hydras have 6 and 7 T and a 3+ save. That is on average 3.3 wounds per ravager with dissies against 4.7 wounds per ravager with DLs.
EDIT: and if you use command re-rolls just re-roll damage rolls. with this DLs are even better.

3.) The two units of 3 talos are a good idea, although they also have fly wych is good for the hydras. I would defenitely put haywire blasters on all talos'.

4.) If you need something resilient for CC against him you could try grotesques. Grotesques can make use of the webway stratagem.

Hopefully I could help you a little bit.

Talos don't have the fly key word in the codex, was that changed in an faq? If they did have fly couldn't I screaming jets them? That does suck you can't webway them though.  

I always found the DL's to be better against the people I play against too, but I thought I would give the DC a try since so many people swear by them.

Thanks for the tips!

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

Man that is a rough list you're facing, hellhounds and especially hydras are really good against DE. Unfortunately I just don't think there's a way around not taking units vulnerable to hydras, DE are best played somewhat vehicle heavy, and all our vehicles are fliers.

Ravagers are definetly ideal, I'd do a mix of dark lances and disintegrator cannons. As Ragnos suggested you could deep strike them in, guarantee they survive a turn to hit his hydras/hellhounds. I wouldn't just rely on the ravagers though, warriors with blasters can do some good work, they just can't be on foot as you have them as they'll die far too quickly. I'd not bother with a dark lance,  make them units of 5 in venoms. Yeah that means more fliers for the hydras to target, but there's not really any way around that, if you just overload on fliers he can't hit them all.

I would not bother with wracks, any smart guard player is going to have hordes of guardsmen to chew through around his hydras so you won't be able to deep strike anywhere near them, and our horde removal won't be nearly good enough to handle that. Instead just rely on shooting to handle the hydras, mix of ravagers, razorwings and blasters from warriors should do the trick.

Lastly talos are pretty solid, but reapers are pretty meh compared to ravagers. I'd drop those to pay for the transports your warriors need.

Yeah he basically built this list (with my help) to beat me. Which is fine, he is new and I want him to win a bit. But blasting me off the table turn 2 is no fun for me either lol. I'll have to think it over. I think my list is in a better place than it was. Some more tweaking to come I suppose.

Yeah talos/cronos were given the fly keyword in the faq, however screaming jets only works on vehicles so you cannot use screaming jets on them.

DLs and DCs are both good, I prefer to have a mix of both. My current usual build is one DL ravager, two Dissie ravagers.

Yeah no one wants to consistently be blasted off the table turn two, time to turn the tables against him a bit more often. Your list definetly seems like it would do alright, I'm mainly just not a fan of reapers since ravagers are so much better.

running a red grief patrol might not be a terrible idea?

big 20x blob of +1 attack wyches
and a 9x blob of +move/toughness bikes

deep strike the wyches, and move+advance+charge with the bikes.

should let you shred the infantry, and tie up the vehicles if you can get to them which sounds like it might counter his list. you say he is new, but if he is building his list to fight you and crushing, its time to step it up. noobie confidence is good, but sounds like he needs it checked with a thrashing lol

Nogrim wrote:

running a red grief patrol might not be a terrible idea?

big 20x blob of +1 attack wyches
and a 9x blob of +move/toughness bikes

deep strike the wyches, and move+advance+charge with the bikes.

should let you shred the infantry, and tie up the vehicles if you can get to them which sounds like it might counter his list. you say he is new, but if he is building his list to fight you and crushing, its time to step it up. noobie confidence is good, but sounds like he needs it checked with a thrashing lol

I have an alternate list that uses a wych cult instead of the coven units basically to do this. I'll have to revisit that.

Deepstriking 20 wyches is risky. The probability to make the charge with a re-roll is just around 60%. And if they don't make their charge they will be dead before they get a second chance. And in this case you just lost 170 points.

EDIT: I often use a venom to bring my HQs into CC as they don't do much otherwise.

If he's going to list tailor then you should too. Grotesques are pretty much made to fight this, throw about 16 or so down range and watch everything melt. You an also deep strike them. If you're not averse to running Eldar then I'd say Eldrad with a pair of Warlocks for Jinx and Doom. Crimson Hunters might not work as well against this list, idk the rules for Hydras, but -2/-3 to hit with 4 S8 shots a piece and agile movement rains on the parade of most armies.

I play guard regularly - and have a pretty good time at it.

Whats your points? I tend to stick at 2k

I also tend to ally in some Altioc to help, especially with doom on a bike-seer

My 'backbone' though is two raiders with 3 5man warrior squads in it. Two Blaster Archons go in the one with on 5 guys. 3 Ravagers (2 Diss, 1 DL, PGL) also help out with target saturation. Good use of LoS terrain and our speed can really restrict shooting lanes.

Typically my Ravagers take a lot of firepower and are gone by turn 2 or 3. But the Raiders are what win me my games. I run them with a blaster and PGL (Or marshmallow launcher as I call it) if points are avail. Their strat is, imo, one of the most under-valued ones. Between it, a smite or two, and executioner, I get a ton of mortals pushed through.