How many Rangers

How many Rangers would you take against 2K IG. Assuming it's not total Conscript spam and there is some other stuff in there too.

Also, which other armies are Rangers good against? I'm thinking Orks maybe? Obviously no MEQ.

Forgive me, but what's the angle? Are the Rangers only there to kill off the IG characters?

If you are going to go the sniper route in would sayou for sure take Illic Nightspear and some Rangers.
I am thinking of using him and 5 Rangers. I would say 10 Rangers would be fun, but I think 5 is fine with Illic

I'd probably go with Illic and a couple of squads of Rangers for character sniping, and put them in some ruins somewhere as far away from the guard lines as possible.

Yes, it is to kill off the Characters, to make the blobs actually killable. Illic is definitely in, I just can't decide on 5 or 10 Rangers.

Sadly if you run the numbers neither is a very good choice. They have abysmal damage output for their cost.

Not super relevant, though. Their ability to pick out characters can't be factored into a strict damage/points calculation.

I agree, it's just sooo bad and I wish it wasnt.

Plus it's not too hard for his opponent to just hide the characters. Then they have nothing to stand on except their terrible damage output.

And objective camping to be fair.

In most cases, a hidden character is a neutralized character.

Especially if you have a conscript heavy meta, or one that sees a similar reliance on characters, the Rangers can be quite valuable despite their points cost.

I'm not trying to be negative but conscripts can easily trail back to a commisar stuck in the corner of a building, thus definitely not neutralized.

In a friendly environment, sure rangers are probably great, but sadly rangers will struggle to ever make their points back even under the optimal situation of an important character hanging out in the open.

Against a geq hq standing in the open in range and line of sight to all 10 snipers, you're looking at 2.2 wounds after saves. Now admittedly there will probably be 1 mortal wound as well so we'll call it 3.

That's 200 points taking 2 turns to kill an... 80? Point model. Now obviously his death is worth far more points than his pricetag but if he brings 2 commisars for every 10 rangers you have, he comes out ahead in points and mathematically you'll never kill them all over an average game.

I'm not saying rangers are unusable. I love rangers, but they're in a weak spot combined with the fact that IG characters are in a strong spot (relative to cost/effect ratio) so you may be better off exploring different avenues of victory.

Anyone making headway with Mandrakes or a Solitaire maybe ?

The Red King wrote:

I'm not trying to be negative but conscripts can easily trail back to a commisar stuck in the corner of a building, thus definitely not neutralized.

Which means he has strung out his conscripts, thus you can assault them/ shoot them and only have a small portion of his unit be able to do anything. That already is a big plus.

In a friendly environment, sure rangers are probably great, but sadly rangers will struggle to ever make their points back even under the optimal situation of an important character hanging out in the open.

The Red King wrote:

Against a geq hq standing in the open in range and line of sight to all 10 snipers, you're looking at 2.2 wounds after saves.  Now admittedly there will probably be 1 mortal wound as well so we'll call it 3.

That's 200 points taking 2 turns to kill an... 80? Point model.  Now obviously his death is worth far more points than his pricetag but if he brings 2 commisars for every 10 rangers you have, he comes out ahead in  points and mathematically you'll never kill them all over an average game.

A comissar only has 3 wounds, so 1 turn is enough (a comissar has a 5+ save so you actually deal roughly 4 wounds on average)
And then you shoot about 25 conscripts and the rest dies because of morale, hey your 200 point unit just killed 40 (comissar)+ 75 points in 1 turn including things that the rest of the army would struggle with. Sounds like a reasonable deal to me.
Even if people take the bigger variant, he only has 4 wounds, so you can kill 3 in two turns, which means after 2 turns he should be out of comissars if you can target him, and if you can't that probably menas he has to waste a healthy part of his squads to stand around the backfield out of range and sight as well.

So, 5 Rangers and Illic will be my first test against Guard

Any other armies that these will work against? (Assuming you think they will work at all)

The Red King wrote:

Against a geq hq standing in the open in range and line of sight to all 10 snipers, you're looking at 2.2 wounds after saves.  Now admittedly there will probably be 1 mortal wound as well so we'll call it 3.

Those numbers are wrong.

10 Rangers vs Commissar
10 shots
20/3 hits
40/9 wounds
80/27 unsaved + 10/9 mortal wounds
110/27 = 4.1 damage per shooting phase to Commissar

I see Rangers as doing exactly half the shooting work of a Mandrake for basically the same price. Character sniping is interesting but they aren't efficient units for shooting normal units. They are reasonably resilient if you can get that cover bonus.

My bad, I got the wounds way wrong.

I still find it highly unlikely your opponent can't just hide the HQ out of LoS and still have his blobs exactly where he wants them. It's not like rangers are mobile.

ALL THE RANGERS!

I was planning to build an all ranger army back in 7th when they were 12 points each. I mean with my rolling they're terrible, but I figured that it could be fun and they weren't too overpriced.

This edition? I am unlikely to even touch them unless the codex seriously buffs them.

If you aren't using them, how are you dealing with IG leaders?

Besides IG they are also quite nice against Orks and to a much lesser extent Genestealer cult and Eldar.

|Meavar wrote:

Besides IG they are also quite nice against Orks and to a much lesser extent Genestealer cult and Eldar.

Thank you

No local IG players, so it hasn't come up.

In all fairness I haven't fought IG either and our resident guardsman is much more tanks and veterans, but my vote would be the solitaire.

No one.

Snipers are very cool against Infantry lists of Necrons, because killing the Cryptek is so valuable (5+ inv and +1 to RP aura is crazy good). But you have to do it fast, since they got "living metal"

The question is : what's the most efficient point sink : Illic, or rangers ?

Quote :

what's the most efficient point sink : Illic, or rangers ?

Against a Commissar, Illic will deal 1.39 Normal Wounds, and .14 normal wounds. So 1.53 total for 88 Points. Four Rangers will will deal .89 Normal Wounds and .22 Mortal Wounds. 1.11 Total. Illiac costs 8 points more in this scenario, so when taking that into account..they're really about dead even.

We need Dark Lance Snipers