Slaying the Astra Militarum

After scouring The Dark City I have been unable to find anything about how to take down the smug imperial guard 6th edition. Now in I think it's time that we have a meeting of the minds and discuss the 12 ton Leman Russ in the room. They are good. They are very good against US. They just got a new codex which makes them better. According the the most optimistic rumors I have managed to find we have over a year--probably more--before we see an update to our own codex. GW isn't going to come to our rescue any time soon.  We are on our own... just like we've always been.

As I see it, this new Imperial Guard Codex has one of two builds going for it: heavily buffed fearless Blob armies and Heavy Mech.  I am sure there will be hybrids of those two as well but both got good this codex. I call a meeting of our greatest Archons to participate in this war council to slay the newly renamed Astra Militarum!

I haven't read their new codex yet so what I'm going to say may be pretty dumb but I'm not worried about fearless blobs. They will still die to mass splinter fire like they used to do and they tend to make juicy targets for my Razorwings.

Mass tanks already were a problem in 5th, their new codex won't be worst I guess.

Great topic, great thread! I didnt read their codex yet, though it seems they got a lot of ignore cover/barrage stuff? Are reaver squads a good choice (9man with arena champion and 3 lances/blasters)? Good against meq and those blobs, except that ignore cover stuff makes the reaers suffers

Wyverns deal with reavers pretty quickly.

Astra Militarum got an order that allows the ordered the ability to ignore cover. I don't know that their barrage options have changed much.

I have found the reaver Jetbikes do best when they are purchased with one goal either anti-infantry or anti-tank. They are already a fire magnet due to 36" turboboost and i have found they die very quickly after doing so.

In theory reavers are great to park in reserve hope they don't come on till turn 4 and then use to contest objectives late game but i have never yet done so. As far as anti tank goes in the fast attack my money has to be on haywire blasters on scourges. best anti tank range save for the ridiculously overpriced dark lance, and you have a chance to glance side armor/rear armor before you even roll for the haywire effect. A group of 10 with 4 haywires costs 5 points less than 10 reavers with only 3 blasters. Not a great chance for spectacular explosions but a chance to score 2 glances off of one weapon is worth serious consideration.

The mathhammer for haywires comes out to an 11% chance to glance from the strength of the shot on AV 10 and 56% chance of success with the haywire effect regardless of AV.

Heat lances from 10-18" will only Glance AV 10 33% of the time and will glance the magic AV 12 only on a six (11%) if you can manage to get within 9" chance of success skyrockets to 61% vs AV 10 and 48% vs AV 12. That said 9" is a little too close for comfort.

I tend to take 12 blasterborn in 3 venoms for my elites section and it seems a waste to add even more in the fast attack slot, but here is the math anyways:
AV 10 56%
AV 12 33%

you have to get as close as you can as fast as you can with stuff that can hit turn 1
deep strike ravagers
los block with raiders
wwp up and drop lance/haywire/talos
I like to use my DL trueborn in high cover (give them venoms but run them off without trueborn)
IG rules air with Vendetta still so a jet fighter or bastion/AG line works( Bastion for los block)
IG IMO is the bane to DE and needs to be dealt with
Lets enjoy the Marbo free IG while we can

ulijikaru wrote:

The mathhammer for haywires comes out to an 11% chance to glance from the strength of the shot on AV 10 and 56% chance of success with the haywire effect regardless of AV.

I found this funny. who besides us has the paltry AV 10 LOL. (yes i know that if you manage to get on the rear you're good)

But your mathhammer was good otherwise!

Razorwings > Blobs, as usual. However, watch out for those russes, especially the autocannon and the one that fires 20 str5 shots eat venoms for breakfast, those tank commanders can also splitfire.

My plan is to pack some more darklight and engage those wyverns aggressively using fliers(also for blobs) and reavers.

The new AM. No experience against them so far. But, they are not far off from their previous incarnations. Using eldar allies.is a good way to mitigate their power. A few waveserpents to take down covered units... farseers to buff ours. If running a standalone army rush em. Haywire are great, but watch for firebarrels.

I've played some games against 6th IG and i must say that when You see HQ Leman Russ+ one additional leman in sqauadron (commander Pask is an HQ and must take a tank and his "body") immediately i said to him, My HQ is a tank, beat it. And it's annoying especially when Pask is in punisher and spits 20 S5 shots+ rerolls 1 'cuz of trait (preffered enemy) rly destroys any thing. Even when I played with Tyranids it was pain in the a**, but against our belowed DE, no comment...
Or 30 man guard blob doing "first rank fire, second rank fire" + rerolls from Psyker (yep IG psykers finally have acces to divination) also is a big deal.

As for Wyvern, still Manticore better or even Hydra. Two small blasts are not that hurting, Gryphons were buch better.

So We need more Lances and more blasts

Wyverin is 4 blasts. Twin linked, shred and ignore cover ... So much better at AI than gryphonne.

Yes, oh looks like I missed that :)Sry my bad. Yet, even 6th ed. dex, We still can smash or slice them in cc.

A real blob wouldn't go down in cc easily. Rerollable saves and rerollable 2+ save from marine character, rerolls to hit, reorlls to wound. (So you need a large beastpack with fortune and misfortune perhaps)

Wyvern is 4 blast from 2 different weapons so if it moves just two blasts.

And yes i took a beating yeasterday from 1850pts AM/AS list with my Vect/Beast/Venom list.

DarkCycu wrote:

I've played some games against 6th IG and i must say that when You see HQ Leman Russ+ one additional leman in sqauadron (commander Pask is an HQ and must take a tank and his "body") immediately i said to him, My HQ is a tank, beat it. And it's annoying especially when Pask is in punisher and spits 20 S5 shots+ rerolls 1 'cuz of trait (preffered enemy) rly destroys any thing.

I think your opponent might have misunderstood. the rules. Tank commander as an HQ gets to bring 2 other tanks with him in the squadron.  He should not have gotten to take a full squadron of 3 tanks + the HQ tank all in a single squadron.

From experience i agree that Pask in a punisher is ridiculously over powered. To beat it there are two options for us (thankfully)
The first is the direct route and most obvious: Kill it first and it kill it first turn 1. This will get rid of that annoying prefered enemy rule which is really great. In a previous game i killed Pask turn 1 and almost died laughing as i watched my opponent pull his hair out as he self destructed a Leman Russ Executioner with glances from the plasma cannons--all of which would have been able to re-roll had pask been alive. Yes Chimeras and Turox (turoxes? Turoxi?), need to be popped open to get at the juicy bits inside. Yes you need to clear off Manticores, Hydras and Wyverns (in that order). But Prefered enemy is a huge problem and should not be ignored.
Unless you decide to avoid it which brings us to option 2.

Punishers are one of the few guns IG has that have such a pitiful range that it actually makes night shields look good. (thats right I'm looking at you Manticore with your 10 foot range and you Basilisk with your 20 FOOT RANGE!) Avoiding punishers shouldnt be too difficult. Problem is any decent general with the Astra Militarum codex knows there are far better tools to take DE out: practically any other tank, particularly Exterminator Leman Russ and just about every other Heavy Support they have.

Add to that the fact that they now can mitigate their lousy BS with Psykers (they can take 3 that don't even take up force org!) with divination (who is the idiot at GW that thought IG needed that! Maybe we should give it to orks too!) being able to essentially bestow twin-linked on 3 separate squadrons--provided they need it (again looking at you Exterminator!)

One my opponent when going on tornament, ask me to test some DE list. It was venom spam (with lots of splinter weapons).

We played 1850 pts., he has two big platoons with Dark angels ally, Imperial knigth and some leman russes with 20shotthing.
I almost beat him (acting stupid last turn and let him capture objectives). But it was pretty easy.

Oh, and i forget some miniatures, so i played 1700 pts, instead of 1850 ))))
Me noob   

"We are on our own... just like we've always been."

It's quotes like that that reinforce my decision to play D.E.

I play both Astra Militarum and Dark eldar.

1. The VoidRaven Bomber can take out any tank the Imperial Guard have. It's harder to kill than any other vehicle in the Dark Eldar Arsenal. I see these as kind of a necessaity anyways since it presents a mismatch against those Astra Militarum without dedicated anti-air. Those with are an expense and an expense that Dark eldar can incapacitate. Shatterfield Missiles take out Chimeras pretty nicely also, and the plane can usually get side shots.

2. Reserves Ravagers when going second, or just Ravagers when going first. Again, equipped to silence the Astra Militarum at an affordable price.

3. Clawed Fiends and Grotesques with the Master Haemoncuale upgrades. Both units can overwhelm Astra Militarum tank armor. Getting their is the challenge but once there, its real effective. STR 7 on the charge and a boat load of attacks By Grotesques is great. you can kill a Squadron with that. Likewise the Beasts can do serious damage if you take the Clawed fiends, which I actually do.

4. Blasterborn. Yet another cheap and highly effective tank killing mechanism.

5. Massive Dark eldar troops with Dark lances and Blasters. You can have a lot of them and they are a serious hedgegog.


I have a question: with that many answers, what seems to be the concern? What are we seeing out there that is causing us problems?

As an Imperial Guard player:

Void Raven: shot down in its first movement phase by the Quad-Cannon.
Ravagers: 3+ Cover from the Aegis and Camo Netting.
Fiends and Grotesques: Tough. Drop their transports and focus on other units.
Blasterborn: Shoot Venom, shoot T3 5+ models that cost 27 points, profit.
Troops with DL/Blasters: T3, 5+, expensive. Nothing to worry about. Hit them with a Wyvern for best effect.

Not to mention that all 5 of the above are terrible against infantry in any numbers. I *loved* playing against DEldar with my Guard until our resident player (my mantle, now, I suppose) moved away.

'course, I don't mean to say that DEldar have no chance, I just mean to say that you can't just say "Rock beats Scissors" when your enemy also has access to Paper.

The problem is that the AM don`t have anything beside troops blob with DA ally, or heavy mech.
Both varianths are easy countered by DE forces.

P.S. Tanks won`t get cover from aegis, so ur camo is only confer a 6+ cover on the open ground.

Devilogical wrote:

P.S. Tanks won`t get cover from aegis, so ur camo is only confer a 6+ cover on the open ground.

Unless they've released a new and much larger model for the Leman Russ then there's no reason they wouldnt' get cover from an ADL as it easily covers 25% of the relevant facing.

25% is not much of a vehicle chassis to obscure with an Aegis (or other cover). Try it. True Line of Sight makes it easy. Worst case you put an infantry model or three in front for 4+.

Secondly, the list you described as 'easy' is... quite bad. Where's his ranged superiority? I think he forgot the army he was playing! (though I can't speak, I play Mech. Infantry who work best at 12").

Again, I don't mean to imply that DEldar cannot (or should not) beat Guard, because they certainly can, but I really don't think I could make a list "easy" to beat for DEldar if I tried.

And wich list will u sugest as strong AM list?
Or wich list u usualy use against DE?

P.S. we tryed to put Leman russ behind ADL, its too big, from LOS of infantry - ADL block only part of tracks, wich is not 25%. So it doesn`t get the 4+

Or we desided so...

Devilogical wrote:

And wich list will u sugest as strong AM list?
Or wich list u usualy use against DE?

P.S. we tryed to put Leman russ behind ADL, its too big, from LOS of infantry - ADL block only part of tracks, wich is not 25%. So it doesn`t get the 4+

Or we desided so...

You can't center it in the lower part of an ADL, put two sections together that have the higher part and then put the russ behind that and presto you should get the cover.

Blobs are super strong currently and given a nice array of viable support options in the book. The problem with DE against guard is that generally poison is actually a hindrance compared to anyone with a str4 gun. However, we do at least have AP5 to cut through the foot sloggers. I ally in Eldar with my DE and I beat my friends IG all the time. It's all about getting up their faces at the right time and killing those tanks when you can. Use cover to the best of your ability, they can only give out that ignore cover order so often (which will get less over powered in 7th edition).

I find the new AM very tough opponent for DE. Like Ligs said blobs are very difficult to remove. (Consider 2*50 blob that are both fearless and add then 2x 40 fearless conscripts). Add in Wyverns and Hydra (Yes the skyfire tank hits Skimmers too). Fortune and misfortune Beasts is the easy button perhaps.

I cannot imagine why Leman Russ wouldn't get cover from Aegis. 25% is not a lot when its from the bottom of the tank.

As i mentioned above, when i played against new Ig, it was pretty fine with 2 blobs under 4+ inv. But his Manticore was realy annoying, i must say. And those leman russes with 20shotsminigun was badass too. I`m glad i killed them fast.

And imperial knight... nah, i wasn`t impressed.