Deployment against Imperial guard/Tau/Ignores cover

Played a game today against imperial guard with my dark eldar and harlequins. My opponent had first turn and had so much ignore cover orders on the board just from the orders and giving it to the Earth Shaker guns on the artillery and his auto guns I decided to leave half of my army off the board. I almost got board wiped in his second turn None of my units on board got to fire.

Second turn my Archon and Succubus bomb with a shadowseer with mask of secrets feared the earthshaker off the board and hurt other surrounding units badly. Ended up with a tie at the end of the game on turn 5 with maelstrom cards. I had a couple units left that would have been wiped if the game went on one more turn.

Any suggestions on how to deploy against that? I had a game simular against Tau and a 2 riptide and broadside highyield ignores missle spam. I thought about deploying everything but that would have just disabled/destroyed most vehicles in deployment.

A null deploy zone with a Scalpel Squadron?

Not enough line of sight blocking terrain maybe? I don't play games on planet bowling ball.

There was tons of terrain, I stayed away on the other side of the field turn 1. Earthshakers are forgeworld, S9 AP3 Large blasts artillery that can fire 170". Give them an ignores cover order and they kill everything. His 50 man blob also was given the ignores cover order and killed everything with autocannon spam. My harlequin formation, Hero's path, was okay for most of it because the raiders were getting hit.

I have played with scalpel squadron in the past and it was excellent but poor survivability and I dont want to tailor to my opponents army. Im trying to run well balanced lists.

Aren't those earth shaker tanks? Artillery tanks to be precise that can't get any orders...

No, artillery pieces.  Not tanks.

Any advice out there other than null deployment, that can potentially cause me to be killed by piece meal if my reserve rolls are bad.

shadowseercB wrote:

No, artillery pieces.  Not tanks.

Any advice out there other than null deployment, that can potentially cause me to be killed by piece meal if my reserve rolls are bad.

A partial null deploy? With more Scapel Squadrons. They come all at the first turn, then shoot shoot shoot.
The rest of the list can be deployed on the table.

Or spread out? You're basically noting some pie plates and a single squad as being a major threat. Arguably you could have deployed in such a way as to regulate those to being able to kill, at most, one vehicle each.

I am not trying to downplay 'ignores cover' though - it is a pain, but barring line of sight blocking it is more about recognizing how they can kill you and deploying in a way to counter that. In this case, it sounds like spreading out was the answer - pie plates like you bunched up.

Which officers can give the order to ignore cover? Only the commander?

Yes only the company commander squad, which is a HQ choice.
He must of been getting damn lucky with those orders in the earthshaker artillery, they only have a LD of 7 and no re rolls.

I got my game against a guard army in Thursday. 1500 points:

Archon with Blaster and Armour of Misery

5 true born in Raider with 4 Blaster and night shield

5 Warriors in Venom with dual canon and blaster and Sybarite with Phantasm launcher and Haywire Grenades and chains for the Venom

2x 10 Warriors with the same equipment in a Raider with night shields and chains and lances and Splinter racks with Blaster Sybarite and Haywire Grenades and Phantasm launcher

A grotesques formation consisting of two three men units of grotesques with one Liquifier Gun each in a Raider with night shields and an Haemonculus with a crucible of malediction and am archangel of Pain.

I'm not sure on the crucible but I took it because he was talking about his Astropath and his primary Psioniker all the time.

I am not sure if I should try to switch the two Raider units for three Venom units.

The raider will be larger thus making it harder to hide from the inevatble ignores cover.
But twin linked fire from the splinter racks is tasty.
Just remember that only his company command squad can issue the ignores cover order, so make him a priority target.
As for the crucible- I probably wouldn't bother, as at 1500 points he will unlikely take many magic men.

Buying more chain snares instead?

Yeah could work
But guard can take a commisar per command squad and assign them wherever they want. Personally I always put them in my large combined(blob) squads. A commisar confers LD9 and stubborn on the unit and when the unit fails it's LD check after any re rolls, the commisar can execute a member if the squad to pass the test automatically.
So if you are going to tank shock units, I would advise the smaller lower LD units, like heavy weapon teams and the like.

Priests are worse.

True
But commisars are a more easily acquired model, and in my gaming circle(myself included) tend to use commisars more
Plus LD9 for orders is pretty solid aswell as not been fearless so going to ground behind an aegis line is an option(and a favoured tactic if mine, espjcally coupled with order get back in the fight).

But heavy weapon squads can't take those and I want to get rid of them as soon as possible. I want to tank shock the Haemonculus and the Archon into the middle of them and profit from Armour of Misery and the archangel of Pain. And the grotesques leadership modifier.

Freackish Spectacle with its 12" range helps a lot to keep the Ignores cover from happening. Other LD tricks can be used as well but the 12" radius is great. Also being ringt next to those Artillery units helps as they don't always want to shoot nearby targets if they are too close. I suggest Sails for Raiders to get to those guns as fast as possible.

Remember when you charge those artillery units and win combat they autofail sweeping advance if they break.

Auto fail sweeping advance? I'm not sure what exactly you are talking about. I'm from Germany and have a vastly different nomination for rules in this game. Could you explain?

CptMetal wrote:

Which officers can give the order to ignore cover? Only the commander?

Yarrik gives the ignores cover order also and when he is in the middle of a 50 man squad its impossible to make him run.

And yeah he rolls amazing, he uses the same dice pool and rolls high or low or what ever he needs except when I add modifiers , pretty crazy. With my archon, succubus and shadowseer in the same unit and deep struck with -6 to archangle of pain and -4 to all other leader ship tests made the earth shaker crew run off the board. He saids now he will put a Commissar with the Earthshaker crew...

In another game I did the same thing against Eldrad. I killed the Avatar first then Archon bomb with shadowseer.

Vasara wrote:

Freackish Spectacle with its 12" range helps a lot to keep the Ignores cover from happening. Other LD tricks can be used as well but the 12" radius is great. Also being ringt next to those Artillery units helps as they don't always want to shoot nearby targets if they are too close. I suggest Sails for Raiders to get to those guns as fast as possible.

Remember when you charge those artillery units and win combat they autofail sweeping advance if they break.

I forgot the leadership modifiers affect orders.  That fact definitely has me thinking I should have started on the board even though I was going second.  That and thor's comment.  Thanks guys.

Well flat out into his lines. That is their biggest thing, they cannot stand out overwhelming speed. Now as far as tau.....target priority. Kill marker lights first then long range weapons. Kk f you manage to get into hand to hand with warriors, expect to look like a hand to hand master.

@cpt Metal: you can't buy items from the Codex for an Haemonculus Coven. No Archangel :-/

CptMetal wrote:

Auto fail sweeping advance? I'm not sure what exactly you are talking about. I'm from Germany and have a vastly different nomination for rules in this game. Could you explain?

It says so under rules for artillery that they always fail to get away from beeing sweeped if thay lose combat and fail morale.

@Cerve are you sure? No archangel for the coven Haemonculus? Perhaps one bigger unit of grotesques instead of two small ones to enable him to have the archangel. That would mean no freakish spectacle for me though. But I could bomb him nevertheless with a -4 modifier for the archangel and -2 for normal Phantasm launcher weaponry. Could it work?