HELP! Which list for Throne of Skulls this weekend?

Ok everyone - currently have a game lined up with my mate on Wednesday. I have requested that he bring a fully mechanised Guard List, with the intention of wrecking my army. Providing there are no external factors stopping us from playing, I will post up the results and tactics afterwards for your analysis.

I have also decided that I will proxy the Void Ravens in this game - as that is what I will use when they are available to me.

Wish me luck

I wish you the best of luck! I'm eager to see what happens!

Luck? You are going to annihilate him by cunning and willpower young Archon!

Hehehee, De version of luck is that they don't die right away and you have something left to torture when you're done.

Quote :

Ok everyone - currently have a game lined up with my mate on Wednesday. I have requested that he bring a fully mechanised Guard List, with the intention of wrecking my army. Providing there are no external factors stopping us from playing, I will post up the results and tactics afterwards for your analysis.

I have also decided that I will proxy the Void Ravens in this game - as that is what I will use when they are available to me.

Wish me luck

Good luck I look forward to the report. Also ive been considering the two flyers and I believe of the two your call on the jetfighter was the right one, unless of course you have points to spring for missiles on the VRBs.

On your list, why not make one other small tweak and change the brides for HWG totting splinterborn? IMO this is the dukes optimal bodyguard and does everything the brides do and then some.

Hello!

So... as promised, I'm back with the report. John and I played at GW Covent Garden this afternoon. I apologise for the lack of pictures, as I had planned to use the software that Mushkilla had linked me to draw up diagrams - only to discover that it is not Mac compatible

First off the Lists - Mine:

Duke
4 Brides
1 Venom
Night Shields
Splinter Cannon

5 wyches
Haywire grenades
Venom
Splinter Cannon (x6)

Void Raven Bomber
Flicker Field (x3)

1500pts

My friend Johns Mech Guard list, to bring me the pain...

Marbo

Command Platoon with Master of the Fleet etc.

2 Vendettas

1 Punisher Tank with a Special Character in it. Something like 25 shots a turn with tank hunter at Str 6.

2 Hell Hounds (squadron)

2 vet squads with 3 flamers each.
2 chimeras

2 Hydra tanks

1 Defence Line with Lascannon

Mission: The Scouring (Fast Attack Scoring)
Hammer and Anvil setup

I won first turn.

Setup was my standard. I deployed every venom on the back line mid field. First turn was simple everything moved up 12" towards the enemy and then started to fire from left to right until the Defence Line Cannon was destroyed. In this instance I destroyed it with the first Venom I fired (it usually takes me 2), upon which I proceeded to Flat Out move right into his lines.

John set up his Hydra tanks at the back left (from my pov) of the board with his Chimeras in the centre and his Punisher in between. As his Hellhound were now Scoring Units in this mission and because they could also concede victory points he decided to reserve them as he knew he would have them in on a 2+ with his Master of the Fleet in Turn 2 anyway. John's first turn was suitable brutal. The Hydra Tanks both popped venoms open as did his Punisher. Whilst his Chimeras struggled to do more then a Hull Point due to my 4++ Flat Out Cover saves.

My Turn 2 saw his Master of the Fleet shenanigans bring on only 1 of my Void Bombers. As I knew that his Vendettas would be on next and likely toast my Bomber I decided to move the full 36" on to deploy my bomb as early as possible. I brought it on at a slight diagonal, just passing over a Chimera and dropping the bomb, whilst still in a position to bring both my Lances to bear on the side armour of the Punisher.

The Bomb, wrecked the chimera, and the venoms finished off the vets inside. Whilst the Lances stripped off stripped 2 hull points off the Punisher and then all but 2 of my scoring Wych units were now on foot and came across his vehicle line like a wave. He had of course moved his vehicles but with me both throwing a Haywire grenade and then assaulting afterwords. My turn 2, left 5 wrecked tanks but 1 full squad of vets left unharmed.

Johns Turn 2, saw all his reserves roll on. Suffice to say the Vendettas went for my Void Raven but were unlucky to not destroy it. It still was near the edge of the board however and had to fly off next turn. His Hell Hounds roasted a couple of units as did Marbo with his Demo Charge and finally the vet squad toasted a 4th unit to oblivion.

My turn 3 saw the damaged Bomber fly off and another 1 fly on, engaging a Vendetta and like wise, stripping it to 1 Hull Point but not wrecking it. So the luck balanced out there for John. Now on the table I had left, 4 Venoms, 2 with full wych units in and I had 1 remaining wych on foot, as well as Sliscuss and 1 Blood Bride. I made sure hang near his table edge with the remaining units so that his flyers would be forced to go into hover mode if they wanted to engage me. Between these units I wrecked the Hell Hounds and Sliscuss even instant killed Marbo with his Blast Pistol. It. Was. Epic.

John's turn 3 left him with few options, his Vendettas not wanting to face wyches assaulting them with haywire if going into hover mode, ganged up and wrecked my fresh Bomber.

My turn 4 saw my last flyer come on automatically with my damaged one coming in from ongoing reserves at the same time. Between them, I destroyed 1 vendetta and I scurried my fresh scoring units into venoms to move over objectives.

John's turn 4 saw the last Vendetta (the one with his command squad) go into hover mode over an objective in my deployment zone (fast attack are scoring remember) and take another pop at one of my Bombers.

My turn 5, I still had angle on his Vendetta with 1 Bomber and subsequently wrecked it, with the 4 venoms finishing off what was left of the command inside.

VOID STALKER CORSAIRS VICTORIOUS.

I know it's not the prettiest of victories with most of my scoring units destroyed etc, but hey, that's how the army works and yes, it seems quite effectively works against mech guard. The fact of the matter is that, once my turn 2 hits, it really doesn't matter how many venoms they've wrecked, as my Haywire Wyches and Bombers are just going to chew through any armour they have on the table, leaving exposed units to be poisoned.

I hope that's been informative enough for you folks here, I did get a picture of my setup and of the table at the end of the game, so I will try and post those...

Here is my deployment for the game.



And here is the end shot.

Hey nice report thanks for sharing and good play beating that list.

I took all wyches for a spin this past weekend and I really liked how it worked. I've had good results with warriors too. My main conclusions: go all one or the other not a mix, with my preference actually changing to wyches for sheer versatility.
I also noted that a couple units just doesn't function the same as 5+ units does, its a different animal. Anyway ya thanks for sharing since your thread in part convinced me to try a similar approach.

Void Stalker wrote:

only to discover that it is not Mac compatible

Ahh didn't realise you were using a mac If you want Mac compatible Vassal is cross platform (what I use on my linux box), however it take a lot more time to write reports (they look better though).

Congratulations on the victory and more importantly thanks for doing this in the first place.

Now I'm going to be brutally honest, as you are clearly a good player and I know I appreciate when people are honest about my reports as its how I learn the most.

The list

His list is bad. Here's why:

1) Two troop choices, this means he should lose almost every objective game. No small 5 man scoring units of weapon specialist with flamers to jump out of his vendettas and capture other objectives means this list can't push out. Not to mention only having 20 guardsmen means he has absolutely no infantry to protect his tanks when things get close.

2) He took a punisher tank, these are terrible. If you are going to bring a leman russ bring an exterminator. However the more important thing is AV14 does not bring anything to an AV12 spam mechanised guard list. To compound this he wasted a tone of points on a bad vehicle upgrade character. Tanks unlike a chimera full of guardsmen, they can't overwatch.

3) These are rarely taken and initially come across as tailoring against your list. However they weaken his list against you as hell hounds are expensive and don't bring multi lasers to the table. Squadronning these makes them even more of a liability, as they are now more vulnerable, can threaten less targets and are more likely to inflict unnecessary overkill against MSU armies. Again unlike a chimera full of guardsmen, they can't over watch.

3) The Hydra tanks. Another bad choice, he already has AA covered with vendetta why does he need these? They can't effectively shoot ground forces(skyfire no interceptor) and don't bring anything to his list. Again unlike a chimera full of guardsmen, they can't over watch.

4) Defence line? Why? Sure cover is nice, but it also causes difficult terrain to your vehicles and prevents the guard army using its mobility. Worse when you enemy closes they can take advantage of it. Why did he bring the las cannon? Is he seriously going to deploy his warlord and only infantry unit on foot next to a cannon against all that splinter fire? Again a waste of points.

5) The command squad has no transport, this is asking to give away warlord victory points and first blood. unless he runs them in a vendetta, which is a waste when they could have brought another chimera to the table.

6) No artillery. Not even a single cheap griffon mortar. Artillery is what give guard their reach, it's the back bone of a good mech list and prevent you hiding out of line of sight. This list has none.

Now lets go over two of list building criteria you mentioned earlier.

1. REDUNDANCY: He has no redundancy in his troops (two fragile scoring units), this means he has no saturation the chimera are easy and obvious targets. Kill his troops and he can't win the game. Most of his AT seems tied up in his vendetta, though the hydra and punisher can be used as AT against Dark Eldar armies again lacking redundancy. As for saturation, it's ruined by a foot bound unit manning the icarus lascannon presenting unnecessary and obvious targets for anti infantry weapon in a list that is supposed to saturate you fire with only armoured targets. I could go on but you get the idea.

2. DUALITY: Most of his units didn't bring duality, punisher good against light vehicles and infantry who are not in cover. Vendetta good AT but as they don't have flamer weapon specialists in them they don't bring any anti infantry. Hell hounds no duality even if he took a single hull mounted multimelta at BS3 it doesn't bring much to the table. Hydra flak tanks can only shoot aircraft and skimmers no duality here, it can't even use its main weapon against ground troop reliably, though a hull mounted heavy flamer could help a little up close I doubt the hydra will be around late game in order to use it. This list has terrible duality, unlike chimera filled with vets or platoon squads who are the definition of duality.

John's list fails to satisfy your own list building criteria!

This list has a total of two chimeras and 20 scoring guardsmen, not only is that poor list design but it massively reduces the number of multi lasers, auto cannons (a lot of guard like to take cheap auto cannons on their squads to fire out of the top hatch of chimera's), flamers (to overwatch out of the top hatch of chimera's), and heavy flamers he brings to the table.

After reading your opponents list I'm not surprised you won. John's list was a terrible list, not much more to it (sorry john ).

Sorry for being brutally honest but beating around the bush doesn't help anyone.

EDIT: For reference this is what I would call a solid mech guard list (one a friend is currently running). Most mechanised guard lists follow a similar template, two vendetta, three artillery pieces and a tone of chimeras, some favour vets over platoons but that's down to personal preference.

HQ
Command squad, flamer, autocannon, Master of the Fleet
Chimera, heavy flamer - 130

TROOPS
5 Platoon command squad, flamer, autocannon
Chimera, heavy flamer - 100
10 guardsmen, flamer, autocannon
Chimera, heavy flamer - 120
10 guardsmen, flamer, autocannon
Chimera, heavy flamer - 120
10 guardsmen, flamer, autocannon
Chimera, heavy flamer - 120
10 guardsmen, flamer, autocannon
Chimera, heavy flamer - 120
10 guardsmen, flamer, autocannon
Chimera, heavy flamer - 120
6 weapon specialists, 3 flamers - 50
6 weapon specialists, 3 flamers - 50

FAST ATTACK
Vendetta - 130 (specialist weapon teams go in here)
Vendetta - 130 (specialist weapon teams go in here)

HEAVY
Griffon, heavy flamer - 75
Griffon, heavy flamer - 75
Medusa, heavy flamer - 160

Total: 1500pts

It has saturation with 10 AV12 ground vehicles and two flyers. It has reach and serious damage potential thanks to the artillery, this also means you can't hide from it. It has a 8 scoring troops, who are disposable. Everything is in an AV12 box. It brings masses of S6-7 long range shooting (7 multilasers, 7 autocannons), its vehicles can defend themselves from charges (deploying screening squad, or over watching with the flamer form the top hatch), and it has horde clearing capability (10 heavy flamers, 13 flamers). It brings heavy AT and AA in the form of two flyers (6 twinlinked lascannons), who can also drop scoring units to contest and flush out objective holders as well as capture objectives and get line breaker. It doesn't bring terrain to obstruct it's own movement.

Dark Eldar hell as far as I'm concerned.

Hope that helps.

@Brom Thanks pal. I'm glad it helped - I agree that the army also only works with one or the other, mixing doesn't give you the saturation.

@Mushkilla Perfect analysis and yes he didn't meet my own list building rules! It is not the list I would build with guard, but in his defence I learned that he didn't have access to more the 3 chimeras so was unable to spam them.

Ironically the Hydras weren't too bad against me as they can also engage skimmers and ignore jink saves, so I didn't get my flat out cover turn 1.

Your guard list is good and would likely give me some nasty problems - if not it being slightly tailored against our style armies. Personally, I think the list needs at least some melta vets (perhaps in the vendettas) to be able to deal with AV14/13 targets more thoroughly, plus I would go all out and have a third vendetta for an all comers tourney

Either way, I agree with you. I would like to play the above style list but don't know anyone that owns that many chimeras. However, if anyone on this forum does have this style list and wants a game at GW Covent Garden, consider yourself challenged

Void Stalker wrote:

@Mushkilla Perfect analysis and yes he didn't meet my own list building rules! It is not the list I would build with guard, but in his defence I learned that he didn't have access to more the 3 chimeras so was unable to spam them.

I'm sure it was still a great game either way, and you both learned something from it. I also appreciate that you play what you can get at a gaming club (lists and play styles vary a lot). Sometimes I find if you can (if your group allows it) it's good to proxy stuff (eg: count hydras and hell hounds as chimera's etc) especially to practice against some of the power builds out there. That being said if someone is playing a list they are not used to playing it blunts the edge a bit. At tournaments you will get someone who has 20-30+ games with his optimised guard list and that's where the real pain begins. But if you can at least play a practice game against the list you will get a good idea of whether you would be able to handle it in the hands of an experienced player.

Void Stalker wrote:

Ironically the Hydras weren't too bad against me as they can also engage skimmers and ignore jink saves, so I didn't get my flat out cover turn 1.

Agreed they seemed more like a tailored choice. Must have presented an interesting challenge (same with the hell hounds).

Void Stalker wrote:

Your guard list is good and would likely give me some nasty problems - if not it being slightly tailored against our style armies. Personally, I think the list needs at least some melta vets (perhaps in the vendettas) to be able to deal with AV14/13 targets more thoroughly, plus I would go all out and have a third vendetta for an all comers tourney

Most AV13-14 will have soft side armour so I think the las cannons are adequate (considering they are on highly mobile platforms). At the end of the day the specialist weapon teams can be flavoured to choice, if you know landraiders are the new black it might be worth sprinkling in a few meltas. The third vendetta in my opinion leaves you with too much in reserve (it's effectively an extra chimera with a squad starting on the board). Interestingly, the chimera's and squad autocannons provide a lot of AA, as they can move 12" and snapshot at aircraft as they would be firing snapshot anyway (letting volumes of fire do the work whilst they relocate at the second time).

To be fair, I'm not trying to go out of my way to illustrate that your list is bad, it isn't, it's a good list, and you got a fantastic result with it! I'm more trying to illustrate that it suffers against Mechanised Guard the same way most DE lists do.

When I ran wyches against mechanised guard I found my opponents just split their army into two armoured castles, meaning I had to split my forces and lose saturation, even if I take out a single castle the surviving wyches are stranded and have to foot slog to other side of the board.

Honestly I have yet to play my friends latest mechanised monstrosity and have no idea how I would beat it with my current list, but I do feel some turn 1 ranged AT will give me a chance as long as I can get side armour (and I can keep it alive past turn 1).