750 Ynnari vs 750 Guard

Me :

Archon with Blaster, Agoniser and PGL
5 Kabs with a Blaster and PGL
Venom with 2 Cannons. I'll drop a Kab to allow the Archon to ride.
5 Dark Lance Scourges
2 Dissie Ravagers

Him :

HQ Company Commader Shotgun
Chainsword
Frag Grenades

Company Commader Sniper Rifle
Chainsword
Frag Grenades

Elites Commissar Plasma Pistol
Power Sword

Commissar Plasma Pistol
Chainsword

Troops Infantry Squad Plasmagun
Lascannon
Frag Grenades
Sergeant Laspistol Chainsword


Infantry Squad Plasmagun
Lascannon
Frag Grenades
Sergeant Laspistol Chainsword


Conscripts x 40 Lasgun
Frag Grenade

Fast Attack Hellhound Inferno Cannon
Heavy Flamer

Banewolf Chemcannon
Heavy Flamer

Heavy Support Heavy Weapons Squad 3x Heavy Bolter

Basilisk Earthshaker Cannon
Heavy Bolter

Deployment and I was going first.  Scourges were in "reserve".



Attempted to get First Blood from the Hellhound.  So, dropped the Scourges in and moved the Ravagers both into position to unleash.  Just out of range of both the flamer tanks to be able to retaliate.  Unfortunately the Hellhound only dropped to 1 wound.  Move the Venom up to take shots at something and not take many back.  18" is crap.  Killed 4 Conscripts.



He moved his Hellhound away from everything, so when it pops it doesn't damage anything else.  Conscripts and Basilisk shoot at the central Ravager, taking it down to 3 wounds.  My positioning was good, all the stuff on the left, nothing could see anything.



I split the Scourge fire, 2 into the 1 wound remaining Hellhound and 2 into the Banewolf.  I get First Blood from the Hellhound dying.  The 2 at the Banewolf both miss.  Ravagers both run away from the Conscripts (because they actually do loads of damage for basically no points) and dump fire into the Banewolf.  Take him down to 4 wounds.  Venom moves off to the left and shoots everything, vehicle and contents into the top Infantry squad.  Just miss out on killing the Lascannon .. great.  I then charge the other infantry squad.  We do no wounds at all, in overwatch or in combat.  Venoms suck in combat.



He moves the Banewolf up and kills 3 Scourges.  The Basilisk misses with all 6 shots at the wounded Ravager.  The Infantry steps out of combat with the Venom, gets issued an order and just shoots normally.  Seems extremely OP.  They basically don't really have any weaknesses.  Fortunately, no wounds.  Constripts put another wound on the slowly dying Ravager.



Moved my Venom up and put all fire into the larger Infantry squad. Fluffed my Blaster shots at the Commisar in the trees. Killed all but the Lascannon again. Booooo. Ravager on the left misses with everything. Too damaged. The one on the right along with the Scourge removes the Banewolf. I charge the Heavy Weapons team with the Venom. They hurt me, I do nothing to them again.



Heavy Weapons stay in combat with me as he realises he's actually better in CC than I am. Conscripts finis off my Ravager. Everything else fluffs or misses.



I split the Ravager fire to take out the Heavy Weapons Squad in the trees and both Lascannons. Sexy to watch. The Scourge moves up and takes a pop at the Basilisk. 1 shot, 6 wounds. Ha. I made a mistake here, I should have put the Venom slightly closer to his table edge and plonked 2 more Blaster shots on the Basilisk, not that it would have a made a difference in the long run. As it were, all shots from the contents of the Venom shoot at the Commissar in the trees and all of them fluff. The Venom shoots at the Conscripts. I kill 2. Yay.......



Missed a pic here, but he shoots the Venom and it pops, I assault the Commissar and assault him with the Archon. I move the Ravager up to assault the Conscripts and take an objective, but as they can just basically do what ever they want with no consequence, they will just move away again. Pile in is terrible too. He just moves a few models in and keeps a massive string all across the table to score 2 objectives and never be out of range of a Commander.



He spreads out all over the table, uses a combat charge to get to the objective by my Archon, obviously putting many more models in range than I can. Game ends 7-4 to Guard.


I cannot even contemplate a list that could beat this. I don't even think it's a very good list. Just lots of dross. I seriously don't see Drukhari as actual contenders in 8th. Spam troops and HQ buffers and win. Which we suck at.

Ummm... who won.

Sorry, wasn't finished when u posted :_)

Yeah I look like a jerk now lol.

Venoms should work well against armies like this. The -1 to hit is huge. No clue what that conscript blob is hitting on normally, but I'm guessing 4+ at best.....against the Venom it's 5s, that's a huge advantage and it sounds like it performed well, just not enough of them.

You killed everything except the Lascannon? Shouldn't the morale phase kill it when you inflicted 8 wounds?

He can only issue orders with officers nearby. Have you applied the -1 to hit against the venom? He only hits those with 5+ at best.

The -1 to hit the Venom was applied every time.  He always had an Officer in range of ALL of his infantry, so they can only lose 1 model maximum a turn in the Morale phase.

merse24 wrote:

Venoms should work well against armies like this. The -1 to hit is huge. No clue what that conscript blob is hitting on normally, but I'm guessing 4+ at best.....against the Venom it's 5s, that's a huge advantage and it sounds like it performed well, just not enough of them.

The Conscripts, with First Rank Second Rank Fire and rapid fire, were mostly putting out 70 or so shots a turn. Even on 5's and 6's that's enough to put wounds down.

I know it's not pure DE but is taking some Eldar Rangers and/or Illic to snipe out his characters an option for you? Once he loses commanders and commissar his conscripts are likely to have a hard time doing anything.

Venoms and Jetfighters worked fine for me, when I played against 150 of the buggers. A full unit of 50 conscripts, all in rapid fire range, and with a First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire order will put an average of 5.5 Wounds on a Venom.
Play aggressively with your Venoms, and charge the blobs. It may not seem to do much, but at least they have to spend their orders on something other than double shooting. Add Wyches or a Succubus if them leaving turns out to be too annoying. The No Escape rule actually works more often than not.
Beeing up close and personal adds the benefit that when just the smallest opening appears next to one of the characters, you can go there and fill him with poison (or blasters). Once the commisar is down, the entire army crumbles, but even loosing the commanders hurt a lot, and 4 Wounds with 5+ save is fairly easy to remove.
Once you get close enough to his vehicles, you can assault them as well. First of all, these cannot move away and shoot, and if you can assault from several angels so he cannot move away, you're safe from his shooting as well.

Wow you have few models on the board.
Dropping some of the heavy weapons and getting a bunch of anti guard killers, wyches, kabalites, incubi and mandrakes probably also work? Something that is a little bit less overkill then the dark lances and dissies?

And yes killing those characters in guard is important. They make the normal troops worth it, without them they become much worse. (No double shots, losing things from morale etc, no shooting after falling back etc)

|Meavar wrote:

Wow you have few models on the board.
Dropping some of the heavy weapons and getting a bunch of anti guard killers, wyches, kabalites, incubi and mandrakes probably also work? Something that is a little bit less overkill then the dark lances and dissies?

And yes killing those characters in guard is important. They make the normal troops worth it, without them they become much worse. (No double shots, losing things from morale etc, no shooting after falling back etc)

How are they overkill when I still couldn't manage to kill the 3 tanks?

|Meavar wrote:

Wow you have few models on the board.

he's got few models on the board because its a 750? point game. dissie ravagers are some of our best ai, along with razor wings(admittedly he should have took 1) and venoms with troops, which he took as well. overall, guard spam is good, especially with commissars and stuff.

Its a shame because my main opponent wanted to play something underpowered instead of tau so at the end of 7th he chose blob guard, because he actually likes their fluff. now he will be running 400-600 conscripts in a 2000pt game and there will be no room for me on the table. also, guard have an order that lets them move twice and advance twice, letting them move an average of 19 inches a turn. they can't shoot. but still, HOW IS A GAURD SQUAD RUNNING FASTER THAN REAVERS, VENOMS, AND RAIDERS/RAVAGERS??????

wormfromhell wrote:

also, guard have an order that lets them move twice and advance twice, letting them move an average of 19 inches a turn.

It doesn't let them advance twice. Second move and advance is INSTEAD of shooting, and they can't shoot if they advanced the first time around.
Your point still stands, though. They're hella mobile when they want to be.

It seems to me reading this list, that your army is too much of an anti space marine army, low rates of fire, dissie cannons. I think scourges.place is in bigger armies now, where they can focus down that centre piece which the enemy has spent 300+ points on.

You can't put out enough anti tank in a list like that, you need to specialise a bit more, so dark Lance's on your ravagers and that pack out your venoms with either trueborn with blasters or kab with a single blaster, use the points from the scourges for an anti horde troop, so something like wyches, in a raider, or even mandrakes to deep strike I'm behind their lines so you can box them in.

Just a suggestion.

Britishgrotesque wrote:

It seems to me reading this list, that your army is too much of an anti space marine army, low rates of fire, dissie cannons. I think scourges.place is in bigger armies now, where they can focus down that centre piece which the enemy has spent 300+ points on.

You can't put out enough anti tank in a list like that, you need to specialise a bit more, so dark Lance's on your ravagers and that pack out your venoms with either trueborn with blasters or kab with a single blaster, use the points from the scourges for an anti horde troop, so something like wyches, in a raider, or even mandrakes to deep strike I'm behind their lines so you can box them in.

Just a suggestion.

I'm thinking vanilla scourge could be deadly AI. 15 shots 18" and you can shoot ANYTHING you want t1-3 and you won't be shot before you shoot. guaranteed 15 splinter shots with minimal cover (because you choose where they go) could be golden.

hellions also, especially if they can DS(can they?) because they've got decent shooting and cc.

Sadly: they can't

15 shots = 5 wounds. Before saves ..... 4 dead guardsmen? Not good enough. Then that 80point unit is dead. So you have traded 20 points for 80 and not gained anything. We don't have anything in our army to deal with Hordes. The removal of Blast templates has screwed us. We can't even do it ourselves as our HQs are so weak compared to most other races. Disappointed.

Razorwing flocks as an answer to spam? Possibly hellions as well.

Splinter shooting seems weak now for dealing with hordes. 3+ to hit, 4+ to wound even t3, and reduced SC output makes splinter weapons seem to not be a good option.

Exception: a list where you have a lot of splinter shooting, but that is basically one list that likely has nothing else but lances to balance out.

For any other type of list, the volume of poison shooting seems like it won't be high enough to deal with hordes.

Yeah my friend is planning on running gigantic conscript blobs buffed by characters too and I've been struggling to find an answer to it. Our army seems pretty good at taking out big, tough, multi-wound units but there don't seem to be very many viable options to mowing down hordes. Like you said, that many lasgun shots are sure to take their toll now they can damage our vehicles.

Wych Cult units seem like our best bet for that (which is kind of a pain because I don't currently own any). Also, like Adhemar said getting a few rangers in to snipe the ones buffing the conscripts could leave them open to massive morale losses. Honestly I think that's what I'll end up doing. A small unit of snipers with a whole bunch of venoms and a couple of jetfighters. Combining the -1 to hit with the conscripts abysmal BS seems like a good plan.

Yep go venoms with heamy buffs all the way.
6 to hit 6 to wound 4+ means even at rapid fire range and FRFSRF means a unit of 20 will just do a tiny bit over 1 wound. Remember that if you have to engage them to keep at maximum distance (so he can only get 1 guy in cc/rapid fire range and effectively needs 2 units of 20 to deal 1 wound to your venom).

If you want to assault (to stop him from reaching objectives easily) try to assault from behind los blocking terrain so he cannot shoot you and try to get as far away from as many guys as you can so he can only get a few models into combat.

Kill comissars first, so he suffers from morale, because then it suddenly goes down much faster.