Anti hoard list building challenge

Straight off the bat, I'm normally a fan of list tailoring for a specific enemy.
but let's say you wanted to tailor a list to be pure anti infantry, a list whose aim it is to stop a 300 man conscript guard blob army starting from a normal deployment of 24"away.

So here is the challenge, what would you put in a 1000 point army to take this on and why?

From what came out from previous discussions, i think the answer is : beasts.

Khymeras and CF were pretty similar when confronted to mathhammer. Flocks are no longer up to the task, though.

My suggestion is to keep it simple and keep it choppy.

Succubus, Warlord

Succubus, Blast Pistol

9 wych squad, Hydra Gauntlets, in Raider (Succubus goes here)

9 wych squad in Raider (Succubus goes here)

10 wych squad, Hydra Gauntlets, in a Raider

3 Reaver squad

5 Reaver squad

Total: 999
Preferably I would ditch the 2 Hydra Gauntlets in favor of giving the other Succubus a Blast Pistol, as this army is seriously lacking in Anti armor with only the 3 Dark Lances on the Raiders (points cost accounted for) and the Blast Pistol on the not-the-warlord Succubus. I put the Blast Pistol on not the warlord to make the warlord less of a target. I would recommend drugging your units such that the larger Reaver squad gets +1 A since their attacks are better than Wych attacks and +1 Attack on the 10 strong wych squad to get more mileage out of the Hydra Gauntlets. The rest is up to you. Lead the charge with your Raiders to soak up damage (obviously, make sure you charge) but hold back for as long as you can to build up power from pain and then try to take the blob down fast. Hope this is helpful!

Mppqlmd wrote:

From what came out from previous discussions, i think the answer is : beasts.

Khymeras and CF were pretty similar when confronted to mathhammer. Flocks are no longer up to the task, though.

I have heard CF are better anyway so... if you're going beasts (which is not a bad idea, I just automatically thought about using what I have)

I'm not sure that they survive retaliation of a big 40 dudes conscripts squad. Why not grotesques?

TO take on Horde armies, you have two strengths - weight of fire and morale.

Morale is the great weakness of a horde army (more noteably those with larger unit sizes_ so make use of likes like the Phantasm Grenade Launcher and anything else we have which plays with Leadership and Morale.
Next, your friends are Venoms, Scourge with Shardcarbines, and Talos with Splinter Cannons.
You don't need high strength (maybe a few in case of a few vehicles) but just go for all the shots you can. Talos I would say are an excellent idea with their Twin Splinter Cannons, as the can also eat through units once they're close enough.

I'm afraid I disagree with pretty much all the advice given so far. Any sensible Guard player is going to have Commissars to pretty much ignore the effects of morale. Shooting at them with splinter cannons is really not going to do much (a Venom or Talos only kills 2.67 Guardsmen/turn even in rapid fire range). Beasts are going to get shot to hell before they ever get into melee (50 Conscripts with FRF,SRF kils 18.5 Khymerae or about 3.5 Clawed Fiends per turn). Wyches fare even worse.

Not really sure what to suggest. Conscripts are utterly bonkers at the moment.

Indeed, moral isn't working (unless you field snipers...), and i can't see wyches or poison doing well.

Beasts are the best entry in our army to counter Conscripts. They can be shot to death, sure, but with clever deployment and movement you can bring some into cc, and if you run the numbers you'll see that they are, points for points, our best GEQ killer.

But you're right, of course. We have no "easy counter list" for GEQ.

Sounds a difficult task...

What about loads of Shredder Trueborn in Venoms? Shredders are D3 hits wounding Guard on a 2+ re-rolling. Venom is -1 to hit which for Guard is a pain.

There are loads of ways to kill them but its the points cost...Conscripts simply require far more points to kill them than they cost.

**Please read with heavy sarcasm**

You could always spam reavers with Grav Talons or Cluster Caltops.  And force a 50% chance for mortal wound on the charge or when they try to fall back!


But on a serious note, I REALLY wish that Wyches No Escape rule would be modified to be successful on a 2+ or 3+.  To me it's too much of a literal dice roll right now.  For a unit whose role in the army is to be a tar pit, they rely on a slightly better than 50% chance of keeping a unit tied up in CC.  This needs to be buffed in my opinion.  If we could reasonably rely on Wyches to keep GEQ in CC, then they would be the obvious choice for me.

I agree with Mpp, we have no reasonable options for GEQ spam.  More flamer options would be nice, or if GW were to give our poison weapons a S4 attribute, we would be in MUCH better shape. GW already has a similar rule with the Necron Scarabs.

It takes 216 conscript shots to down a Venom. At rapidfire range (so shredder range...), that's 54 conscripts, so a little more than 150pts (of course, it's actually more than that, since you have to pay for the HQs).

The Load-out you're suggering is 175pts, and will kill 5 conscripts at 12", + 1-2 from the poison, +1 from morale.

So it takes 1 turn for a typical conscript squad to down your 175pts configuration, and it takes 8-10 turns for you to down a single squad (that is less expensive than yours).

I would have thought two squads of Wyches would do some damage to a Conscripts blob...stock Wych squad with the +1 attack drug and then a stock Wych squad with +1S maybe.

Those two squads if at full strength would take out 12-15 Guard in one round of combat. If they got a round of shooting with their pistols then add a further 4 dead Guard. Guard will hit back of course but Wyches have an invul save in combat and can potentially tie them up.

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

I would have thought two squads of Wyches would do some damage to a Conscripts blob...stock Wych squad with the +1 attack drug and then a stock Wych squad with +1S maybe.

Those two squads if at full strength would take out 12-15 Guard in one round of combat.  If they got a round of shooting with their pistols then add a further 4 dead Guard.  Guard will hit back of course but Wyches have an invul save in combat and can potentially tie them up.

I haven't played against a conscript blob yet, so I'm not 100% positive, but I'm pretty sure that they can receive orders allowing them to fall back and shoot. This will wipe the wyches (and just about anything else you throw into CC with them) pretty quickly.

Yes, they can. So every turn you have 50% chance to keep them in CC, and 50% chance to be destroyed.

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

I would have thought two squads of Wyches would do some damage to a Conscripts blob...stock Wych squad with the +1 attack drug and then a stock Wych squad with +1S maybe.

Those two squads if at full strength would take out 12-15 Guard in one round of combat.  If they got a round of shooting with their pistols then add a further 4 dead Guard.  Guard will hit back of course but Wyches have an invul save in combat and can potentially tie them up.

Those two squads cost 100 points each. If it's turn 3+ AND there's a Succubus nearby (another 72 points) the 2 squads kill 55 points of Conscripts! The survivors will kill ~4 of your Wyches and you could well fail your morale test for that. Wyches, sadly, are not a good bet for pretty much anything.

The unfortunate reality of blobs is generally a game of 'keep away' while trying to whittle down support/the blobs and/or playing to objectives.

But it's not a pretty sight on average.

I've found Dissies and Razorwings to be useful, as well as trying to work fairly oblique charges even if just to slow down the marching mooks. It *is* often an advantage to obligate them to fall back and shoot your assault unit/vehicle rather than allowing them to continue advancing and gaining board control.

CptMetal wrote:

I'm not sure that they survive retaliation of a big 40 dudes conscripts squad. Why not grotesques?

I haven't tried grotesques against a conscript squad yet. However I have used them against 20 man chaos cultist. They had a haemonculus nearby giving them t6 which made the grots hard to wound with the cultist only having s3. The grotesques chopped them down quickly without taking much damage in the process.

Still, its points expensive and grotesques just don't seem to have the same punch this edition. Not having the rerolls to wound t4 and lower stinks. They do have 5 attacks with the cleaver though.

(Edit) Sorry for the wall of text, didn't think I'd spend this much time on it, whoops.

IF you know for certain that it's going to be conscripts and only conscripts without melta or anti vehicle weapons of any kind then I would like to humbly suggest the Talos. I forget the exact number I calculated but it should take ~300 lasguns to down a single Talos. Reason being T6 on the Talos (without a Haemonculus) against S3 guns. And while they might not exactly be that great for munching through them, you can certainly keep them locked in combat. Otherwise, I'd suggest Raiders or venoms for rushing and keeping them locked  

If you want to actually kill the guardsmen, I believe that Razorwing Flocks and Bloodbrides are our current best, point-wise, for taking down guardsmen.

---

---

Using your math hammer calculator I compared RWF, Talos, Cronos and Blood Brides. (tossed in more later)

Talos is equipped with 2SC, 1 MS, and 1 TLL, 148 points causing 7.81 wounds after shooting and charging. Sustained Melee would only be another 2.31 wounds per turn. This increases to 3.38 sustained with a cronos nearby and from Turn 3 (+1 WS) onward. The points/wound is as follows: 18.94 P/W standard. 16.67 P/W at its best.

Cronos comes stock with Syphon and Dangly-bits, added Vortex for fun. Total of 115 pts. Even with shooting and Melee, the cronos causes a stunning 3.60 wounds. .97 wounds in sustained melee, 1.3 after Turn 3. P/W is as follows: 31.97 P/W standard, 29.33 P/W Turn 3 onwards

Razorwing Flock comes as is. I did factor in that it's now 14pts per base instead of just 7, didn't do other factors because I'm lazy. (also, I did the math myself, 5+ to hit, 5+ to wound and 2/3 get past armor right? I put in "8" attacks and the Calculator gave me 2X what I myself calculated) either way, 14pts, causes 0.59 wounds, 23.63 P/W

Blood Brides, Standard 2 attacks, plus 1 from blade, no drugs, no special powers, no nothing. 13 points per model, causing .67 wounds per phase, 19.5 P/W. With a Succubus to give reroll 1's to hit, and either +1 attack or +1 strength, it ends up being 1.04 wounds per model or 12.54 P/W. With Pistol factored in, causing 0.22 Wounds, it's 10.32 P/W. 1.3 wounds in sustained melee after turn 3. final result of 8.56 P/W. (8.37 for Wyches)

Hellions @ 17pts, with nothing special, cause 0.44 wounds shooting, 0.59 in sustained melee, with +1A drug, succubus aura and Turn 3+ they become 1.3 sustained, or 9.77 P/W from an original 16.39 P/W

Incubi 13.5 -> 10.8 P/W from Turn 3 onwards.

Grotesques 1.85 sustained melee, 16.74 P/W -> 2.70, 11.48 P/W with Cronos and Turn 3+. (with a haemonculus nearby, +1T, takes 2X wounds Talos does from small arms fire)

TL;DR: + Results


Standard: Best to Worst:
13.5   > 16.39    > 16.74         > 18.94 > 19.5            > 23.63> ~30
Incubi > Hellions > Grotesques > Talos > Blood Brides > RWF > Cronos


Best Situation possible (excluding RWF)
8.56            > 9.77      > 10.8    > 11.48        > 16.67 > 23.63 > ~29
Blood Brides > Hellions > Incubi > Grotesques > Talos > RWF > Cronos

Avg position [(rank1 +rank2)/2]
Talos (4.5)
Cronos (7)
RWF(6)
BB(3)
Hellions (2)
Incubi (2)
Grots (3.5)

Edit2: RWF with Beastmaster nearby are just under a single wound going through per model at
14.175 P/W

and as requested Khymerae alone deal 0.89 wounds per combat, 1.185 wounds with a beastmaster nearby.

so 11.25 P/W and 8.4375 P/W respectively.

Putting Khymerae as the winners of the most killy to GEQ.

For DE anti-guard blob is very hard...

Our poison sucks against them
Our Lances do too
Dis cannons are to costly for blobs of T3 6+ saves

Honestly i would go with melee.

I know he did the math, just from many games and experience without the math out best AI is melee

I really think GW completly missed the point with conscripts. They are immune to moral, immune to being tied in combat, immune to T values (since they have enough shots to wound on 6's reliably), and immune to being killed since almost nobody can kill them for cheap enough.

I stated in another thread that a solution to fix Conscripts would be to ignore them when considering whether you can or can't shoot at an HQ. I think it would go a long way in fixing them, because it would force you to play Conscripts with Regular (more expensive) guards, that people tend to forget about nowadays. And in my vision of the IG, a Commissar would never go to war guarded only by newbies conscripts, and would probably surround himself with more determined, at least voluntary, guards.

So you would have the conscripts for the sheer volume of power, but you'd need the trusted guards to protect the HQ.

I think an easy fix would be to make the conscript squads take a mandatory officer to represent the difficulty of controlling a large group of untrained soldiers. This would increase the points cost and even it out and would also add some character to the unit.

The fact that orders are automatic and Wyches need to win a roll off to use their special ability is unbalanced.

Has their been any chatter from GW regarding the points cost of this unit?

I think they carefully wait for all Conscripts boxes to go "sold out" before they announce any nerf

Just having the Commissar's Summary Execution ability not apply to Conscripts would go a long way towards helping. Or maybe change it completely so that it halves the number of casualties inflicted following a failed morale test.

Melee seems like a dangerous solution to me - 300 conscripts are going to shred anything before it can get into close combat. Outranging could be the way to go, but the only anti-infantry gun we've got that has a range larger than 24" is the Splinter Cannon. Unfortunately, 4+ to wound them isn't great.

If we're happy to pick from outside a pure Dark Eldar list, Scatter Laser Windriders might be a relatively good solution. 35 points for 4 shots that wound on 2+, can't be hit by return fire if you've got enough room to move back, and can be buffed by a Farseer or Yvraine to deal more damage.

The real answer, of course, is "conscripts are massively undercosted", but there's not much we can do about that.

It's really funny to compare, for the same points, Grots (orkz) and conscripts.

For 3pts, Grots have +1 (or +2 if in numbers) to BS, but half the range, no rapid fire, T2/S2, and a worse save.
Conscripts have a better immunity to moral and can double their efficiency through orders.

But they cost the same...