Slaying the Astra Militarum

Imperial Knights are terrible. 400 points of *anything* else in the IG book will do better, especially against DEldar (with Haywire, as that negates the big bonus of an AV13 Superheavy Walker with the Stomp rule--being nigh invincible in CC).

A strong list against DEldar is either more armour than you can point a Darklight at (easily done) or more infantry than you can wound on a 4+. Both of these have the range to stick it to DEldar speed/manoeuvrability and the strength to punch through paper vehicles with ease.

Throw in a couple of 4x Flamethrower PCS and have you ever seen what happens to T3 5+/6+ save infantry that charge 4d3 Flamer hits? It's not pretty at all.

IG have more than enough tools to give DEldar a bad day. Don't underestimate them because you played against an army that, seemingly, decided their threat range should be 24".

Devilogical wrote:

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

Me? I play AV12 Elite Mechanised Infantry (who are by no means optimised) so DL are nothing special and Poison is a boon for my over-equipped 4+ save Guardsmen. I also have Plasma out the wazoo due to a TEQ & MEQ heavy meta. Plasma makes short work of DEldar Vehicles. Though I haven't played against DEldar with these folks since 5th.

U sound like u say before: "I have scissors, rock and paper, and my opponent have nothing".

Both mec and infantry rosters are easy countered by DE. And balanced list would have problems with numbers of this two tactics.

I gotta agree well played IG are one of the harder match ups for us, in fact id say its a poor match up. Add eldar allies and things get much better though, maybe even equal depending on other factors. Fact is we give up secondary objectives easier, have worse range worse psychic ability less firepower less resilience nearly across the spectrum not to mention the lack of anti air. Am I missing anything?

However as ligs and vasara stated getting in their face, especially with a fully tooled beast pack is really our best option, especially against mechanized infantry, which I see quite a bit of across multiple armies.

Multi assaulting armour to reduce their mobility and firepower is key. So is terrain especially multi story buildings for cover from TL barrage and placement of objectives. Blobs just aren't fun (I guess thats how my opponents feel about beasts heh) but with our own 'blob' with Hit and Run and a couple units of EJBs among other things we do have the ability to win.

Maybe it's time for the long abused "Shredderborn" to shine ;-)

MyNameDidntFit wrote:

Imperial Knights are terrible. 400 points of *anything* else in the IG book will do better, especially against DEldar (with Haywire, as that negates the big bonus of an AV13 Superheavy Walker with the Stomp rule--being nigh invincible in CC).

Don't underestimate a well played IK, they are in fact a very good unit...pricey? sure but definitely usable...see my IG list in the TDC blog on this. An IK will charge your lines and if you happen to kill it, it will explode and it will take out a ton of units with it if you let it. It is a moving bomb and should be played as such...if it explodes among your own line then you did it wrong.

DE are some of best equipped though to take them out but be wary with other armies as well.

Just had a great game vs the NEW AM. Maybe some tactics can be taken from the batrep. 1500pts and its against BLOB guard.

https://youtu.be/wApNHqJmWME

MyNameDidntFit wrote:

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.

Im not buying on this kind of matchup thinking on either side of the coin. Maybe the Quad cannon works, maybe it doesn't. And maybe it doesn't. And maybe the Quad gun is done for by the time it matters. I know I might be invested in that happening.

If a force is content to hide behind that Aegis line, and many are, then they take away any reasons NOT to either shove the entirety of the enemy force down their throat, take it for a round and then Disorganized charge the units into oblivion. Even exploded Raiders carry shock troops that can assault out of the wreckage.

Dark Eldar can and should be Nightshielded 31-37" (depending on what weapons the enemies are taking) away and exposed troops deployed in circles from the enemy in round 1. Thus nothing short of 48" enemy range matters enough to mention. In round 2, you're on top of the opponent with relatively little if anything lost. What you do lose will cost them most of their effort to accomplish in round 1.

I think whats needed in some cases (not all) is an injection of tactica. There simply ARENT unlimited enemy units to deal with your force. 10-12 is average for IG. They have more KP than that, but many of those KP's never leave the unit. When someone is cheeky and takes the 9 Leman russ'es with 45 Plasma Cannon shots (and yes, there will be people who try it because: Plasma Cannons) we have answers and they have less total units (as a rule)

I'm not saying you're wrong on a technical level. Everything you just mentioned COULD indeed happen. The question, to me, is always: Now how do you plan to counter it? ARE you starting at the right distances? ARE you forming circles (which defangs blasts). Are you giving your force enough elements that matter against tanks, such that the loss of one or two makes you sad but ultimately makes them dead? Are the antitank choices you have useful against infantry too? Dark eldar are blessed with numerous ways to kill tanks in melee (rending Wings, Grotesque STR 7 on charges, enraged, damaged Clawed Fiends, allied Wraith knights with Fortune and a host of other fun stuff)

I know this is all very basic stuff and not at all rocket science. But if you are not cautious against IG, you WILL be burned to the ground. Caution, I feel, will be rewarded heavily. Its that first round that your plans can go so badly awry by poor position because the second round is too late for the Astra Militarum if round 1 goes well. So take a few less shots at first and 1: let them make a mistake and 2: don't make one yourself. Sometimes it IS that simple. get them moving forward, get them doing what is in YOUR best interests that they do. Not every Ig opponent gets to win by showing up with an army box that reads Astra Militarum.

Razorwings are almost certainly the best bet against blob forces. Practically impossible for the large blast to miss a unit of 50-odd, and you're killing on 2s. No cover (as you're above the ADL), no feel no pain if they find a way of farming it out as Monoscythes are S6. The trick is pumping poison into the quad gun first turn so that it's dead before the razorwing show's up. Or send in a Talos, and they have literally nothing that can touch it unless there's a priest using his battle hymn to smash...in which case he's wounding on 5s.

Unorthodoxy wrote:

Im not buying on this kind of matchup thinking on either side of the coin.  Maybe the Quad cannon works, maybe it doesn't.  And maybe it doesn't.  And maybe the Quad gun is done for by the time it matters.  I know I might be invested in that happening.

You may have misjudged the point of my post because what you've said here is what I was trying to say by showing that the listed counters to any IG force have hard counters themselves within that very IG force. Hence the "Rock, Paper, Scissors" comment.

I've not played enough DEldar to pretend I can give tactical advice on that front, but I have played enough IG to know that "easy" isn't in the vocabulary.

MyNameDidntFit wrote:

Unorthodoxy wrote:

Im not buying on this kind of matchup thinking on either side of the coin.  Maybe the Quad cannon works, maybe it doesn't.  And maybe it doesn't.  And maybe the Quad gun is done for by the time it matters.  I know I might be invested in that happening.

You may have misjudged the point of my post because what you've said here is what I was trying to say by showing that the listed counters to any IG force have hard counters themselves within that very IG force. Hence the "Rock, Paper, Scissors" comment.

I've not played enough DEldar to pretend I can give tactical advice on that front, but I have played enough IG to know that "easy" isn't in the vocabulary.

I think "easy" is only true when the opponent is a bad general. Definitely.

Well good because the response sounded LIKE an RPS argument and I guess probably wasn't. So my apologies. My comments still stand, of course, but I now better understand the posts intent. My bad.

7th edition Cons against the AM:
The nerf to Night fighting makes things harder. It no longer limits firing distance and offers a flat measly +1 cover save if we are lucky enough to get night fighting in the first place. A Cover save the AM can give an order to their units for for free every turn to ignore.

The order of battle setup now has placing terrain BEFORE you decide on deployment maps. Hard to set up turn 1 cover (for all the good it will do us against AM), when you dont even know which way to set up cover for.

Troops inside open-topped vehicle transports (all of ours) are now susceptible to templates. The rule makes sense but still hurts. The upside is most of these are still only 8" range except for a few of the tanks who get 12" + the template. Either way there is a pretty easy fix, dont let flamers get close (easy considering how fast we are) and dont keep your troops inside them. More on that below.


Pros for 7th edition:
As the undisputed runner up of speedy armies (looking at you eldar) I think that the Tactical objectives gives us a huge leg up on most of the competition, especially against AM army lists that are content to sit behind their defense lines. We can run the board, grabbing victory points every round and make great use of our speed. To add strength to our use of this new game mechanic ALL the units that we have in our codex (except the fliers if I'm not mistaken) are scoring units. Now we can use our paper thin vehicles to fly around without troops picking up objectives. In the end a dark lance snap firing is a small price to pay when you can pickup a victory point (or 3+ as the case may be) just by doing something we do second best.

Played a 2500 game against am last weekend(6th ed), he had a bane blade, 10 russes, tech priest with servos, a payker and 2 vet squads.
I was pretty soft list with some Templar allies.

Game ended turn 6 with a win for DE. I did not find it overly challenging but lots of fun.

On a side note. Both armies had about 800-1200 points of models left on the table at the end of the 6th, little bit of whiffing here and there but not too much.

Devilogical wrote:

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.

Heavy mech is easily countered by DE? Please enlighten me as to how, because in a mech heavy meta, I've had a rough haul at it ever since starting this army.

Played against the IG last night, and barely lost. It was an extremely narrow game though, and I'd like to have a better grasp of how to fight them, especially the armored core lists.

Jimsolo wrote:

Devilogical wrote:

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.

Heavy mech is easily countered by DE? Please enlighten me as to how, because in a mech heavy meta, I've had a rough haul at it ever since starting this army.

Played against the IG last night, and barely lost.  It was an extremely narrow game though, and I'd like to have a better grasp of how to fight them, especially the armored core lists.

Only one of AM in my club using blobs, so other 3 is tanks, valkyres and so on... And usualy they have DA or Inquisition as ally. Or both.

Well, my "Reaper" and wyches are pretty good  at slaying those stupid tanks (i only have 4 blasterborn and one ravager, so didn`t count them), and flayers with veterans squads almost never do dmg to my vehicles (cuz i almost  always go to the frontline as fast as i can, so flyers can only target some troops, holding objectives).

But i must admit, those 20shotsminigun Russes and "Manticore" are quite nasty things.
Oh, and did i mention, that i lose to them only when i start to acting like idiot   
Like, when i go to charge with my warp spiders on last turn and die, instead of just holding point    

not really worried about infantry against us but the mech is what they excel at

wyvrens-dont know how to deal with these, a smart player parks them behind cover and with a big tank friend or troops

also i always hear about blasterborn in a venom how exactly are these being used, they have to get up into the line first, then next turn disembark to shoot...how are they not being killed before this?

I would say first turn involves 12" move and Flat Out, Jinking like crazy through that turn and then unloading Darklight from T2 onwards?

You don't need to disembark to shoot your Blasters, either.

Venoms and Raiders are open-topped.  So the Blasterborn never need to leave their car to fire.  All can fire from their transport, just measure from the vehicle's hull to check range.  If the vehicle is within 18" of the target all occupants can fire (assuming the Venom/Raider moved 6" or less) or Snapfire (assuming the Venom/Raider moved 7-12").  They're like Al Capone's thugs shooting people while driving by.

They won't all survive.  Probably 1 or 2 will get shot down.  But a venom with extra splinter cannon and 3 Blasterborn is 146 points.  If you take 2 detachments you can easily field 6 squads in a 1500 pt. competitive army.

The tactical reasons for why you'd pay the extra 41 points over the Ravager is A) you already are taking 3 Ravagers B) the Venom will put out 12 poisoned shots per turn C) You have potentially 2 scoring units D) A Venom is significantly smaller than a Ravager/Raider and is thus easier to hide and get outside of Line of Sight.

I hope that doesn't sound condescending, I never meant it to be.

i've played 2x against my IG friend. His list has all BS4 guys, 2 wyverns 1 basilisk 1 hellhound rest is chimera and 1 huge blob. He has so many flamers that if i come anywhere close im toast !
First game he tabled me after 3rd turn. Last game was relic old missions and i had some 100pts left with the relic as game ended on turn 6. If it had gone to turn 7 he would have tabled me too
my razorwing put all 4 missiles on the blob scoring some 30 hits, he just went to ground for 3+ save and then next turn used a command to make them stop being to ground ... all those commands drive me crazy   

Simple, Outflank your Anti Tank it worked amazingly. Guy brought 6 Leman Russes 2 in each squad. Then brought lots of flamers and hellhounds/Banewolves.

Step 1 : if he has no artillery, stay out of range and/or stay out of line of sight.
If he does ignore this step

Step 2 : Depending on firepower, either Flank him and/or Rush him. Ex.( My 6 Venoms Got to his face close enough so if he had shot, his templates might have hit his own as well) Split his forces and pressure his weakest flank ( if balanced get very close although i wouldn't do this with Reavers)

Step 2.5: Roll Reserves, Pick your best anti tank preferably Reavers ( because shooting a heat lance the rear of a leman russ is devastating) kill cover threatening units ( Barrage and etc...)

Step 3 : Engage into Close Combat unless the unit is Fearless. IG dont really defend themselves that well. Plus we are I5 and above ( not Pain Units ((Wracks and etc...))

Step 4: Drown the Opponent in LD and morale checks/ Saving throws and cause them to break and run.

Step 5 : Take Objectives before Turn 5 while Attrition plays role.

Remember, we are masters of taking objectives not holding them

Hope that helped ;D

That is some very solid, no-nonsense advice. This just me but I would take all of it. No salt required. Thumbs up to Dat Other Guy.

Drowning ANY army in morale checks is solid advice. I have done my utmost to make sure it's a feature of as many armies as I'm allowed to attempt it in.

Tounguekutter wrote:

That is some very solid, no-nonsense advice.  This just me but I would take all of it.  No salt required.  Thumbs up to Dat Other Guy.

Thanks

Not necessarily any army, drowning Morale checks is effective. necrons across the board have LD 10.

And we boast probably more shooting than Gunline Guard have to offer

This is what won me that game

Kabalite Trueborn with 2 Splinter Cannons, 3 Shardcarbines inside a dual SC venom with night shields. Now times that 6 times. 33 x 6 = 198 Poisoned 4+ shots altogether. Not mention 2 6 man reaver squads with 2 Cluster Caltrops and 2 Heat Lances coming from the flanks.

I had an archon with a webway portal, in a venom with incubi zoom into his Deploy zone turn 1. Reavers came in via portal on turn 3 while attrition played role.

I always play with BLOS terrain, Make max use of our Awesome Eldritch Tech of jumping after shooting

Wyverns squads...hellhounds...russ squads with punisher...you can rush a blast gunner tank with a properly placed blob or tank squad in front

cant#

Please remember next time that spelling errors can be corrected easily with edit function. Mod ///Vasara

Dat_Other_Guy wrote:

Tounguekutter wrote:

That is some very solid, no-nonsense advice.  This just me but I would take all of it.  No salt required.  Thumbs up to Dat Other Guy.

Thanks

Not necessarily any army, drowning Morale checks is effective. necrons across the board have LD 10.

~~~
Ah. Well the fundamental difference here is that if this was my strategy, I would make certain that the Necrons DON'T have LD 10. I'd also make sure they have to re-roll them. and I'd make sure they get lots of chances to roll them. If this was my primary strategy.

The one worry with heavy mech list is if the opponent is smart and takes flame barrels. It's d6 s4 ap 5 (Not absolutely possitive on ap or strength but it kills wytches easily) the first time the tanks are charged. Other than that I find ig an easier opponent than flying circus or tau