Mech Imperial Guard... is there actually a way to beat them?

So I play against Imperial Guard quite a lot. In fact 3 friends collect them. 1 uses a blob marine army which I find simple to destroy- 12 Reavers with bladevanes and cluster caltrops excell here; the second uses a more balanced list with about 50/50 Tanks and bare Infantry which again I can deal with about.

The third runs an almost entire Vehicle list with usually only 2/3 squads of men who are usually in 2/3 chimeras. The rest of the board is taken up by squads of punisher tanks (assault 20 st4 and 3 of them) Lemun Russ's, Demolishers, Hydra flak tanks, Valkyries, Vendettas and what ever else he can fit in. Once you crack open his lunchboxes the men soon die but I never seem to be able to do it.

Managed to scrape a draw by holding an objective with my remaining 3 Warriors recently but every other time I just get demolished. On the odd chance that I don't roll a 1 on the damage table I may be able to destroy 1 or 2 vehicles but usually all my raiders and ravagers are useless by 2nd turn due to the shear amount of anti-everything in that army. Once the transports are cracked the men just get wittled away by templates while blasters fail at doing anything.

In the past I have reserved everything but pretty much the same happens. When there are so few infantry models you find yourself just trying to keep out of los! So has anybody found anything to cope with these guys other then hoping for bad dice rolls? Deepstriking all vehicles may work but I still feel that it would just result in the same thing happening, any suggestions?

Talosock? :p
We've always struggled against medium-armour, and we're just unlucky that one particular army out there has the ability to spam that weakness of ours beyond all hope. As for more useful suggestions, I'll leave that to the more experienced generals out there.

I have managed a consistent run of wins against a similar list.

Basically you will need to semi tailor the list - a WWP with 2 talos specifically. Your lances should start on anything that will deny the talos their saves. Then the hydras

The talos will destroy a mech line very quickly. Wyches with haywires will do the same.

Does he concentrate his tanks or spread out?

Depends on game type and deployment. If I deploy first I tend to force all my units quickly down a flank to overwhelm half of his, he often has his units relatively spread, usually just over 12" away. A lot of this is because this guy knows his IG incredibly well, been using them for 15+ years and how to exploit DE weaknesses.

I do use plenty of Wyches with Haywire grenades, useful but again the hard part is getting them at them, if they are in raiders the raiders get shot down instantly if they come out of a WWP he tends to give the portal a very wide birth- Talos's have come out before and wrecked him though.

On the subject of Talos I currently have 1 in my list and it pushes well above its weight, the issue I always come to is AP1 and AP2 weapons denying the FnP. Might try it next time, what would you give the talos? Heatlances? Haywire blasters?

If you're doing well versus infantry but are struggling versus mech - the usual answer is that you need more ways to kill mech.

Also, how does he always deny your Wyches? Surely you go first versus him sometimes, yeah?

Thor665 wrote:

If you're doing well versus infantry but are struggling versus mech - the usual answer is that you need more ways to kill mech.

Also, how does he always deny your Wyches? Surely you go first versus him sometimes, yeah?

I imagine that he can't assault in his first turn and then in the guard players turn it goes something like BOOM. Then it is a question of how many wyches can make it to the armoured line.

Yeah thats right, of coarse wyches will go first but they have a hell of a way to get there, the way he plays is to keep just out of range from my vehicles and portals so I can not reach him for assault, he also seems to always pop the raiders off quicker then you can say Fail-a-flickerfield-save-again. He knows how painful a DE assault can be so he just out ranges and keeps as far away as possible.

I will be able to reach his line with a handful, I run 30+ wyches and usually manage to get 5-10 to the line, if you've never played against a Hydra or 3 punisher tanks before don't. Hydra denies skimmers any speed saves and 60+ shots from the punishers mean what ever is coming at the line will drop dead.

I can pop off a few tanks with the ravagers but only if I can go first and get into range but they will drop next turn. I run a LOT of AT in my army but still can not get rid of everything he fields even with perfect rolls. 30+ warriors with DLs and Blasters, 4 Raiders with DL, 2 Ravagers with DLs, 12 reavers with 4 heat lances, Talos with Heat lances, Scourges with Haywire blasters, 4 Blasterborn in venom and 30+ Wyches with Haywire Grenades, not sure what else I can put in? A big issue is that as their are no exposed infantry you can't get pain tokens so its hard to stop units losing big time, Ive experimented with Haemis but it doesn't seem to make much difference.

Well first of all - dont know if you know but il remind anyway - concentrate on supressing enemy targets. Meaning if you make one tank unable to fire, go to another, forget about actually destoying them. Prioritise your fire.
Judging by your roster you can do it extremely well.
First raider lances, then warriors lances , then scourges, then ravagers and trueborn.Better just reserve reavers.

Look at this guide by dashofpepper, look at his wyches deployment , this deployment is very good for your first turn.
guide

Talos...well better just take ravager.I at least find that best Heavy Support against IG is Ravager/Razorwings in any combination.

Do Wyches have Haemunculi? By taking 3 you are relying on them to do AV work, meaning they will be shot and eat explosions.They need Feel No Pain.

Maybe you should drop warrior squad for another trueborn.

Actually deploying second is not so bad against IG. You get the opportunity of reactive deployment and somewhat forces enemy to concentrate more in one area. Yeah i know, Hydras will get you anyway , but you will minimise damage from other things.

Azdrubael wrote:

Well first of all - dont know if you know but il remind anyway - concentrate on supressing enemy targets. Meaning if you make one tank unable to fire, go to another, forget about actually destoying them. Prioritise your fire.
Judging by your roster you can do it extremely well.
First raider lances, then warriors lances , then scourges, then ravagers and trueborn.Better just reserve reavers.

I tend to do this, the amount of times you roll a 1 or 2 on the damage table is just ridiculous though! I will try another trueborn squad in future though, they can be quite effective.

I often find that the talos though does kill more then a ravager does against IG. My ravagers seem to only ever be able to take 1 shot while the Talos can take 3 and if you can get it out of a wwp mid game then your on for a few dead tanks!

Wyches do get FnP when I start against IG but the shear amount that hits them (60 st5 Ap0 shots come to mind) means that even with it the unit is dead or running!

Also cheers for the link to the guide, seems quite good

I played against mech IG the other day, with me allied with Eldar. It was awful. 3000 points a side, and for that he gets something like twelve tanks, two Vendettas and a fifty strong platoon. We had a block of tanks rolling towards us, a Manticore in both corners of his deployment, Vendettas outflanking us and some officer who directs large blast templates all over the place. Looking back on it now, probably the best thing to do would have been to attack one part of his line en masse to give him too many targets, but my Eldar ally was a little slower getting to the lines than me, so we came through in dribs and drabs. Or I was too quick! I ended up using my beloved Scourges and Razorwing as suicide units. My list suffers from a severe deficiency of AT, which didn't help. Playing a mech IG list without my Ravager (still in bits at home at the time) was a really silly idea!

Really, I suppose it depends what you mean by "beat". If you're playing objectives, you probably stand a better chance (if the roll for placing them is favourable), because you're quicker all round than them. The problem is that although you can get there first, you can't hold them for long. I'd go for the risky tactic of holding your own objective, then attempting to rush his around turn 5 to contest his and deny him the points for them. This does rely on enough stuff surviving to do that though, and the game ending soon after. Perhaps Reavers would be good for this? They can rush around your deployment holding your line from deep striking/outflanking stuff, then charge at his objectives. Or hurl Wyches at them to keep them in combat, and maybe even sweep them off it. Beating them in a straight up fight? No idea. Outranged and outgunned, all we have is our speed. Our poisoned weapons are redundant, our close combat neutered by the fact that the stuff it can hurt is inside something it can't. Maybe WWP, but whatever is carrying it will be a very tempting target for all sorts of long ranged, indirect fire nastiness. A tough, Coven heavy list is something I'm considering. Grotesques with Urien Rakarth for a tank busting assault is very tempting, with Wracks as a third or so of the troops composition.

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I tend to do this, the amount of times you roll a 1 or 2 on the damage table is just ridiculous though!

GW dices are low quality, there was research regarding them , the probability to roll 1 is 29%.

Azdrubael wrote:

Quote :

I tend to do this, the amount of times you roll a 1 or 2 on the damage table is just ridiculous though!

GW dices are low quality, there was research regarding them , the probability to roll 1 is 29%.

Haha that does make a lot of sense! I usually play with 3 sets of GW dice and the amount of 1s is incredible, the other day I assaulted 5 devastators with 10 bloodbrides with +1 Strength, out of 40 attacks I caused 1 wound which he saved then killed 3 of mine... got to get me some new dice!

HA HA thats funny I have a set of GW dice that i let friends use if they dont bring there own for that reason

Except those dice seem to forget the "1's" and "2's" when it's time to roll leadership and morale checks - they just only suck, they are cursed against xenos!

Well, the black GW dice roll quite well for the Dark Kin. Not so well when I was playing Tau, though...

Anybody think that deepstriking all the vehicles close to his line would work, I know it would scupper the assault from the wyches but it does close the range issue down?

I still can't figure out how range is such a punishing issue for you. I'm not sure if DS is the answer as it feels like the problem can't simply be 'getting there'. Raiders can move 12-24" a turn and the board is only 4' wide.

Could you give a turn-by-turn situation of the "normal" first two turns you experience versus Mech IG?

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Mech Imperial Guard... is there actually a way to beat them?

In short. Yes
In long. I do feel that a well played IG is one of the toughest match ups that DE can face, lots of High rof weapons, with good range and decent strength. Everything is a threat in an IG army. There are a few things that are key that each aspiring Archon should keep in mind; when you are playing imperial guard target priority and target denial are key. First of all, if you are playing on an open table then you should make sure that there is some good LOS blocking terrain, if not its just another turkey shoot. Being able to take out the targets that we need to take out, while at the same time minimizing the targets that he can take out in response is very important.

So, what are on the key "kill now" list?
Hydras, Vendettas, anything that ignores cover(hellhouds, hfl), chimeras, then russes (depends what ones).


Because each IG list is so unique to the player you will have to give us more insight as to the area you play in, terrain available, lists being played, you available models. Then we can actually create a guide that specifically targets the IG in your area with what you have at your disposal.

Cheers!

Can't say for certain, this guy has pretty much everything in the codex and changes regularly making it quite hard to tailor, what I have:

30+ warriors with DLs and Blasters
4 Raiders with DL
2 Ravagers with DLs
12 reavers with 4 heat lances
Talos with Heat lances
Scourges with Haywire blasters
10 Trueborn- any weapons
30+ Wyches with Haywire Grenades
Archon
Lelith Hesperax-(never use her against this IG list!)
Going to get/make some Haemis soon for the flexibility

As I said hard to pin down what he uses unfortunatly, I can give you the staples but what he uses on the day could be anyones guess! I can always expect these though:

Chimeras with flamers
Predators
Manticore
Punishers
Hydra
Vendettas
Shock Troopers
A couple of squads of men with flamers/bolters/lascannons etc

and every now and again:
Hellhounds/devil dogs
Lemun russ's (most of the variations)
basilisk
the one with a mortar
Ordinance and heavy weapon teams
Sentinals
Heavy bolters and a lot of them...

I do argue though that as the Hydra is forge world its unfair to use it so he doesn't use it if were being serious but if were just having a game its always on...

Terrain? well it varies we play a wide variety from desert ( very sparse and my least favourite, City, narrow roads and short LoS (my favourite) and countryside middle LoS some cover.

Target Priority: I don't overkill a tank, if it cant shoot I move on... but usually try to get rid of the ones with templates/ ignore cover and those with plenty of mid strength shots. Not to worried about the lascannons as they can only fire 1 at me while the mid strength ones can fire plenty- more chance of me failing. Also it gives my infantry a better chance with less shots being fired. The punishers and Hydra are number 1, followed by the manticore or basilisk as early as possible- that thing hurts a lot, The vendettas are next and if all goes well the chimeras should be close enough to be able to assault the people inside if they break. I tend not to worry about sentinals and the lemun russ's depend on the variations.

The times I have come close to winning/drawn have been because once he's lost his troops he can't claim but he tends to sit them back to mop up everything after the tanks.

Any suggestions would be appreciated?

The Hydra is a FW model, but is in the regular codex. It is very bad news!

The Hydra is in the main Codex - it's not FW only anymore.

I'm still curious about the core question of why you have so much problem closing the distance. In Pitched Battle the *most* distance he can have is 30" away from you unless he's deploying sideways or something.

Blaster strike range for Trueborn/Warriors = 33" (35" if you allow the rotate trick/cheat)

Assault range for Wyches = 22"-27" which means unless he's just in a perfectly shelled up line right against his board edge you ought to be able to manage an assault Turn 1, and have assured assault Turn 2 even if he pops your Raider)

The only thing I can think of that might be hurting you from your stated list is the amount of points you're lobbing into the RJBs - which are a substandard unit on the whole when packing heat lances (in my opinion - others may scream at me...but, hey, I beat mech IG ) who do have a limited ability to hurt mech IG on Turn 1 and are basically useless points spent at that stage.

Field Baron Sathypants. Get first turn. Focus your lance/Blaster fire first on the Hydras and Vendettas (and Punishers, I suppose if he takes them) and just try to at least stun/shake them then move onto other targets.

Turn 1-2 get off assaults with your Wyches - if he's backed up on the board edge it's *great* because then it's super easy to insta-kill any passengers he has because he'll have nowhere to disembark. Keep shooting up everything.

Rinse/repeat.

Does that help, or is some part of this plan not working for you in practice? You've got to provide me info on where things are going bad for you. I personally don't care what he's fielding unless 1-2 options are totally eating your face magically every time. What matters is how much damage the DE are inflicting and when - if your first turn shooting isn't doing damage and/or you can't manage an alpha assault that's when IG become problematic. If you don't have that problem you get to eat IG for breakfast. So the question is - where's the problem for your boys. Do you not get assaults? Why not? If it's because of his shooting...then what is your shooting doing? Do you need more of it to protect the assault elements? Are any parts of your army not doing anything to help you on Turn 1? If so they're probably too slow to keep, you need things that have a threat bubble that can hurt the enemy Turn 1 pretty much regardless.

Its usually a combination of not causing enough problems from the shooting if I go first, don't think I've gone first for a long time. When the wyches get into assault they either kill themselves in the explosion or do bugger all and get torn up next go. When he goes first (not if but when) he has enough raw firepower to bring down most of my vehicles or make them useless which is the main reason I can't get anything up to his lines for a while.

It usually goes really bad 1st or 2nd turn. Plans are great but don't work in practise. Its hard to beat a mech list when your only AT is a handful of warriors and a few footslogging wyches turn 2. Last time I went first it was a draw by the end, managed to pop off a few of his tanks and hold on through nothing more then great positioning to get a draw by the end.

If he goes first and gets average rolls its the end of my army, even with NS/FF/Cover you name it. Once he takes down the vehicles only thing I can do is stay out of LoS from his army. If I go first, i may get the alpha assault, depending on fleet roll, may if i am VERY average with dice rolls break a few of his tanks but never enough to stop him demolishing everything next turn. I usually get my reavers out of a wwp mid game, not always that effective though accepted, bladevanes anti infantry is what they are best for granted.

Ive got target prioritisation down, i know all the sneaky deployment tips, I can put down a lot of fire but at the end of the day that doesn't matter because mathammer don't work. I prefer realhammer: 20 DLs shots first turn, hitting on 3s but sods law so you only hit with 11max. Next you need a 4+ to glance so you glance 2 and maybe penetrate 1 and the rest do nothing. He then takes any cover saves and your left with 1 glance and 1 penetrating. The penetrating rolls a 1 or a 2 and the glancing rolls a 6. however you got to know that the immobilised vehicle will always be the basilisk that never moves anyway. That's just how the game works. Then he comes back with maybe 10 lascannons, hits with 8, penetrates with 7 glances with 1, you pass 1 FF on the glancing, the vehicles all blow up and the people inside get chewed up by bolters, demolishers, manticores whatever and then everything remaining runs away. That's just how it always seems to go.

wow, rant over...