De-mechanizing the enemy

[Venenum]

One of the strategies I've been trying is demechanize the enemy - and thus turn the game into a footslogging battle. I was able to do this today, but at a high cost. I'm presently looking for a more optimal method of neutralizing enemy light vehicles. I've been playing a foot slogging army since the start of 4th Edition and yes I have been stubbornly ignoring the advice that mechanization is the way to go in 5th Edition.

 

What I'm presently considering is running 1-2 dreadnoughts each with two twinlinked autocannons. I was thinking of using the 4 S7 twinlinked shots to target Rhinos / Chimeras and the such from a distance, and then using my attack bikes with multimeltas to target the enemy's heavy vehicles. I'm also wondering about predators with autocannons as they are cheaper, but unfortunately are not twin linked

 

Here is the problem that I ran into on the table today:

Today my army included 2 squadrons of 2 attack bikes, all with multimeltas. Enemy vehicles included two rhinos each with a squad of CSM, as well as two predators, each with autocannon + lascannon sponsons. The enemy deployed with his Rhinos forward and the predators further back. I advanced each of the bike squads to within 12" of the enemy to maximize the kill potential. The problem was once I had destroyed the Rhinos, the CSM popped out and promptly mauled the attack bike squadrons. This of course meant the attack bikes were not available to engage the predators that were further back. I think what I may need for Rhinos is a different tool with a longer reach.

 

The good news was that by destroying the Rhinos in the first turn I was able to force the enemy to play a different game where he did not have the high speed manuever of a mounted force. Also as his infantry was dismounted it was no longer protected against the =I= metalstorm squad or the vindicator that was in my army. The bad news was that 200 pts of attack bikes killed 60 pts of Rhino + 6 CSM.

 

Looking back at it, I could have turbo boosted around the flanks and taken out the predators on the second turn, and then doubled back to reach the Rhinos but by then the Rhino and the CSM squads they were transporting would have been far closer.

[Valerian]

Venenum,

 

Are you in the correct forum? This doesn't look like a Daemonhunters or Witch Hunters issue (although we could discuss how to "de-mechanize" the enemy within the context of either of those two Ordos' army lists.

 

Valerian

[Venenum]

Well, in all honesty my army is slightly homeless. It's an SM parent, with an Inducted Inquisitor Lord + 2 Daemonhosts. It used to be the other way around with a DH parent prior to 5th Edition. I thought I would start here as this forum would recognize the value of the character of running a radically inclined list. That and people in this forum generally have four different armies in their heads (DH/WH/IG/SM) and may come up with some ideas that may not pop up in a strictly marine portion of the board.

 

There's lots of options we could look at here, including SM options, some DH options, and if I read the codecii correctly there are some WH options that could be brought to bear on the problem. For example I could probably hunt Rhinos with Seraphim, but I'm not sure how they would perform compared to the dreadnought option I listed above and/or if they might have the same problem as the attack bikes did in dealing with the contents of the Rhinos.

 

Now I do recognize that shoehorning Marines, Daemonhosts and Seraphim into 1 list is a bit of a stretch. That being said, I'm looking at swapping out the Daemonhost and Inquisitor for some storm troopers a priest and some arcos for a few battles. At that point maybe Seraphim would be less of a stretch, but again I'm not sure if they are the best choice for targetting light vehicles

[KhorneHunter57x]

I understand that you would like the varied input that those of us in the Inquisitorial sub-forum would offer, but I feel that with one exception (Exorcists, which are off-limits unless you use a WH parent) most Inquisitorial options for anti-transport are similar to those in the Marine codex. However, I will do my best to help.

 

Assault Marines are less of a s t r e t c h than Seraphim are, and IMO the Marines are better at light anti-tank.

 

As you mentioned, the "Rifleman" Twin TL Autocannon Dreadnought is pretty good against light vehicles and you could even convert a couple from Penitent Engines if you wanted to retain the Inquisitorial feel.

 

The cheap Autocannon/Bolter Sponson Predator does okay against light armor. However, it is not as good against light vehicles as the Dreadnought, and it has less mobility.

 

You could also use quad Missile Launcher (or possibily even Plasma Cannon) Devestator squads. The Missiles are cheaper, but the Plasma is better after the transports have been destroyed.

 

Just a few thoughts.

[Venenum]

Thanks.

 

I noticed that while the Riflemen brings a lot more than the very basic pred, do you think its effectiveness is near double that of the predator? I was just wondering because depending on the options the points cost approaches double

 

I like the penitent engines converted to dreadnought idea that's pretty nifty.

 

My idea for Seraphim had been members of a warrior cult descendant from a group of frateris templars who refused to disband after Vandire's reign. i had been thinking something to the effect of chaos knight models with jump packs, bolt pistols and maybe a head swap - perhaps some different shoulderpads. Again a stretch - but may fit the radical theme

 

EDIT: if I do the project I think I know how to do frateris templars now. Chaos marine bodies, bolt pistols, inferno pistols, and fantasy flagellant heads.

 

 

-Venenum

[number6]

One of the strategies I've been trying is demechanize the enemy - and thus turn the game into a footslogging battle. [...] I've been playing a foot slogging army since the start of 4th Edition and yes I have been stubbornly ignoring the advice that mechanization is the way to go in 5th Edition.

Well ... there's only so much to be done then! :P You must realize that the biggest reason mechanization works is because it gives your army the ability to move. You get more choice about when and where you will engage the enemy. You note this yourself in your posts here. Every time you de-mech the enemy, you're back on even footing because you're running a foot army. You implicitly recognize that running a foot army against your common 5e army means you're at a significant disadvantage from the outset, a disadvantage that you must overcome before you can even begin to compete in the game.

 

The only real, actual solution is to mechanize your army. Then it becomes a war of generalship as opposed to a war of unequal rules (where one army has rules to its advantage at the expense of the more limited rules available to your army).

 

Unless you significantly mechanize, any armour you do bring to the table -- such as dreadnoughts -- become the obvious first targets for your opponent. Again, in your posts here, you implicitly recognize the difficulties when facing a properly mechanized force because you were forced to choose between enemy transports (Rhinos) and enemy mainline battle tanks (Predators). Going either way presented risks to you. So for your army, bringing along just a couple of dreads doesn't actually force your opponent to take any risks with target priority. You have gifted him with the obvious target priority.

 

Again, the only real solution that will consistently work is to embrace 5th edition and play it. ;)

 

All that aside, you have several options available to you.

 

I think mortis TL autocannon dreads are fantastic units. Bring three if you bring any at all. Especially in your army, two won't cut it. You need to spam your armour/anti-armour units.

 

"Shooty" land speeders with typhoon missile launchers and heavy bolters are decent in the same role as well. Keep them at distance, just move them 6" per turn, and you've got something quite effective.

 

Dakka predators -- turret autocannon, HB sponsons -- are dirt cheap and threaten enemy transports just fine.

 

Bike units -- including attack bikes like you're using -- are also great. But you require an assault threat to be paired with them for it to actually work well. Otherwise, as you discovered, once they've done their job they themselves just get scraped off the table. You need a threatening hammer to go along with your bike melta weapons to distract dismounted enemies. Minimally, a bike unit with an attached bike captain with a relic blade can do that. A kitted out bike command squad -- while brutally expensive -- is also just plain brutal. (Be wary, however, if bringing that big a hammer to the table. If you bring just one such hammer, you have once again merely telegraphed to your opponent his target priority. If you bring one hammer, always bring two! Redundancy is vitally important.)

 

Ally in some WH ISTs with 2x meltas in a Rhino. Cheap and effective melta delivery/sacrifice/blocking unit.

 

Sisters are "better", in that you can still bring 2x meltas and the Rhino but on better troops. But they are "worse" in that they require a greater minimum points investment. ISTs are bargain basement deals that go well with any Imperial army. Sisters sorta require you to actually care about their survival in ways that ISTs don't.

 

Hopefully this will help.

[Inquisitor Fox]

Well ... there's only so much to be done then! :lol: You must realize that the biggest reason mechanization works is because it gives your army the ability to move. You get more choice about when and where you will engage the enemy. You note this yourself in your posts here. Every time you de-mech the enemy, you're back on even footing because you're running a foot army. You implicitly recognize that running a foot army against your common 5e army means you're at a significant disadvantage from the outset, a disadvantage that you must overcome before you can even begin to compete in the game.

 

The only real, actual solution is to mechanize your army. Then it becomes a war of generalship as opposed to a war of unequal rules (where one army has rules to its advantage at the expense of the more limited rules available to your army).

I actually must respectfully disagree with you here, number6. I believe his theory is sound in practice with a few provisions. The reason it may work is that he is already planning on footslogging and has deployed (I assume) in a manner condusive to doing this. His opponent is planning on taking a bunch of vehicles, and has deployed in a very different manner. His opponent has also invested a great deal of points in vehicles for all his units. If he can destroy his enemies points invested with a lower value of points invested in anti-vehicle firepower, he now not only outnumbers his opponent with booted feet on the ground, but has nullified his opponents gameplan by removing the very assets that used to allow it to work.

 

Basically then he's playing a lopsided points game against his opponent (as an example, in a 2000 point list, if you destroy all your opponents transports you could now be essentially playing 2000 vs 1700 or so), especially since most anti-light vehicle weaponry is also anti-infantry firepower. He then simply switches the guns to annihilating enemy infantry instead. Part of the benefit of an all infantry or mostly infantry army is nullifying available targets for the enemy anti-tank weaponry. Yes, they can turn a lascannon against an infantry model but it's mostly a waste of points.

 

You can consider even simple solutions: A combat squadded 10 man devestator squad armed with heavy bolters or missile launchers. Put 2 heavy weapons in each 'team' and target different transports.

 

Scout squads with Telion and a missile launcher or heavy bolter (3 shots at BS5? Yes please!).

 

If you have access to IA2, consider the Land Raider Prometheus. Theoretically a command vehicle, I am willing to wager that the armament of 4 twin-linked heavy bolters (that's a total of 12 shots, all twin-linked boys and girls! At Ballistic Skill: Space Marine that's 10 and a fraction hits per shooting phase at it's target, which even with a heavy bolter armor pen value is a couple of decent shots) will do a lot of good against transports. The downside is against enemy Rhinos of AV11 you're stretching it, but you could conceivably immobilize the transport which is just as good as it forces the enemy troops to become footsloggers as if the Rhino was dead.

 

The key I think is to immobilize and destroy the enemy armor at the far end of the table, such that he now has to walk across the table towards you, when you have more guns than he does as you didn't mechanize. Then it becomes an attrition game. This is even better if you have some say in terrain setup... an infantry heavy army piled into terrain for cover saves that can 'channel' the oncoming attackers into concentrated firelanes.. well.. ouch time.

 

That being said template weapons may work also. There is something to be said for simply using Vindicators to blow itsy bitsy holes in his Rhinos then eating the infantry inside for lunch.

[Justicar Valius]

all as said before and i must say I agree with No.6 on this one. The real problem is these days to crack the armour you need the might of the melta, which is a very short range weapon. Lets face it, his strategy could very well end up rock paper scissors style. Orks: you win, Dh with 2 LRC: you lose.

Mechanized armies are simply the best in the end (although not many people at my GW understand this <_< ) and with the best tank busting weapon out there needing to be in assault range to be effective you need to be mech to face mech.

 

It's why DH have wethered the storm of fith reasonably well, 4 meltas and 2 multimeltas in my 1500 points, Easy!

[KhorneHunter57x]

I disagree. Venenum already has melta in his force, but he is looking for anti-Rhino Rush weaponry.

I noticed that while the Riflemen brings a lot more than the very basic pred, do you think its effectiveness is near double that of the predator? I was just wondering because depending on the options the points cost approaches double

The Rifleman Dread is more accurate, has more high-strength shots, and can move and fire to full effect. I feel that it is superior to 2 sponsonless Predators, and is almost as good as 2 Autocannon/Bolter Predators. If I were you, I would get a couple Riflemen and a couple Autocannon/HB Preds.

 

EDIT: Also, the Rifleman is more resistant to assault (being an AV12 Walker) than a Pred, and the Dread is better in terrain.

[Venenum]

Thanks all for the replies

 

Inquisitor NicolePyykkonen is on the right track for what I'm thinking about. Another way to phrase it would be that if most players embrace mechanization then there should be a way to exploit that. Think of playing Daemonhunters against daemons - my though process is more along the lines of armour hunting.

 

Take for example a LRC loaded with assault terminators, if I can destroy, or even just immobilize that vehicle on the first or second turn I can effectively take those assault terminators out of the game for the next several turns while they're footslogging around. In this way my goal is to turn my enemy's strength into a liability. I'm still spending the types of point that other armies are spending on vehicles. The difference is that I'm spending points on choices that are designed to target the abundant supply of vehicles.

 

If anywhere I went wrong in my recent battle on the maneuver side in attacking the transports straight away without having proper support in place. I may be retasking my vindicator to follow up behind the bike to provide support with the demolisher cannon. That should be a good pair. Either the enemy bails out of the tank in a nice small grouping with 2" of the hatch, or the bikes don't destroy the rhino and I get to hit it with an AP 10 weapon.

 

I like 6's idea of an assault hammer unit. I may implement this with a small assault squad (or maybe a vanguard squad) and a captain or Chaplain with Jump pack. The more I think about the hammer concept, the more I like it. I've been focused primarily on killing vehicles, the better approach may well be the hammer of kill the vehciles, then kill what's inside..

 

I think the next step after implementing a hammer of some sort will probably be the Mortis. Based on everything I think it's going to be the right combination of range, accuracy and maneuverability. Even better, it's a dual use weapon system that I can use to target infantry as well.

 

...As far as my personal dislike of mechanization goes, I played wolves followed by Templars in 3rd Edition. For me, the Rhino rush is a case of "been there, done that." As an army type, mechanization just doesn't hold any appeal for me.

[Aidoneus]

I like the concept. How well it'll work... might be another question. I think you're golden when it comes to Rhinos, Chimeras, Valkyries, Wave Serpents, etc. Anything with AV 12 or lower can be easily dealt with by autocannons and missile launchers, both of which Space Marines can get in abundance. The problem is that Land Raiders have also become more popular, and those represent a much tougher nut to crack.

 

Now, one way or the other, you'll need some melta in your army no matter what. So one thing to do with Raiders is just aim your melta at them instead of at main battle tanks. Indeed, if the enemy is taking Raiders, they most likely don't have points for non-transport tanks anyway. So in this case, some cheap attack bikes or ISTs could very well be used as a sacrificial unit to take care of the Raider.

 

If the enemy has multiple Raiders... well, best of luck to you. Unless you spam melta, that's really not going to be easy anyway.

 

Of course, along with eliminating his mobility directly, you can also use various strategies to reduce the effectiveness of said mobility. Keeping your army tightly packed prevents him from using his speed to isolate and destroy portions of your force. Also, footslogging forces can make better use of cover. You might also take a look at the Water Warrior advice on playing against Air armies, as that will probably include some useful tips.

[number6]

I believe his theory is sound in practice with a few provisions. The reason it may work is that he is already planning on footslogging and has deployed (I assume) in a manner condusive to doing this. His opponent is planning on taking a bunch of vehicles, and has deployed in a very different manner. His opponent has also invested a great deal of points in vehicles for all his units. If he can destroy his enemies points invested with a lower value of points invested in anti-vehicle firepower, he now not only outnumbers his opponent with booted feet on the ground, but has nullified his opponents gameplan by removing the very assets that used to allow it to work.

 

Basically then he's playing a lopsided points game against his opponent (as an example, in a 2000 point list, if you destroy all your opponents transports you could now be essentially playing 2000 vs 1700 or so), especially since most anti-light vehicle weaponry is also anti-infantry firepower. He then simply switches the guns to annihilating enemy infantry instead. Part of the benefit of an all infantry or mostly infantry army is nullifying available targets for the enemy anti-tank weaponry. Yes, they can turn a lascannon against an infantry model but it's mostly a waste of points.

One caveat about all my commentary on matters like this. I always assume games played between 1500 pts and 2000 pts. I always assume standard 4'x6' tables. And I also always assume standard, BRB-recommended 25% table coverage with a mix of LOS and non-LOS-blocking terrain, area terrain, etc. And I also assume standard BRB missions. Which is to say: I assume the baseline standard in the core 40K rules. If any of these conditions are different, then at least some of what I am normally recommending would not be so helpful. For example, I understand that Venenum sometimes -- often? -- plays just 1000 pt - 1200 pt games on 4'x4' tables, which makes for a dramatically different game! And you, INP, have previously stated that a good portion of your games are Cities of Death. Again, a non-standard game on non-standard tables with non-standard terrain.

 

Which is to say: I advocate mechanizing over footslogging based on basic vanilla 40K. Variant flavors will definitely require variant approaches.

 

Given that, here's why, in my experience, this doesn't usually play out like the theory you're proposing. And it's especially true when the foot army has to deploy first. The mech army can simply deny a flank and roll up just one half of the army. The foot army is not mobile enough to relocate its weaponry or combat troops to effectively stop a mech army from getting to your lines HERE or perhaps THERE and taking apart your army one small piece at a time. Again, it's all about the mobility and speed. The mech army gets to decide who it fights and when, not the foot army. (See ArmouredWing's batrep against White Scars for an example of how a mech army -- with far fewer models than the foot army -- nevertheless is in control of the game.) A mech army can "redeploy" itself. A mech army can stay at range OR come close as the situation demands. A mech army is more capable of taking advantage of terrain to its best advantage. A foot army relies much more heavily on good deployment, but that can only take you so far if you don't have the mobility to react to changing situations from game turn to game turn.

 

Space marines -- especially a variant like Venenum's where significant points are invested outside the basic SM codex -- simply cannot bring enough long-range firepower on foot troops alone to make an effective gunline. Only the IG can do that. SM heavy firepower is mostly concentrated on vehicles (and bikes, while technically not vehicles, have the mobility and heavy weapons to effectively bring nearly all the same benefits to the table, so I count them in this category). Most armies (IG included) also share this trait. If your most threatening firepower is on foot troops, your opponent will just focus on them first. Clearly it is easier to remove infantry from the table than vehicles, so what's stopping your opponent from prioritizing your heavy weapons foot units over everything else?

 

Mechanized infantry is more difficult to remove because it takes at least two swipes to do it: once to remove the vehicle, once again to remove the infantry. Transports are so cheap anymore (our old Inquisition codexes being an exception ;) ) that they impose no significant cost to the army that uses them.

 

Three Rhinos is more useful and more survivable than the single Tac squad that can be bought for the same points. So given the option of buying either 4 Tacs or 3 Tacs and 3 Rhinos, the choice should be obvious. Given the option of buying 2 Tacs and a dev squad or buying 2 Tacs, 2 Rhinos, and a land speeder, the choice again should be obvious. The latter choice gives your tac squads true threat status (with their melta weaponry) and the same is true with the speeder. Foot tacs with a single lascannon are not terribly effective or threatening.

 

This is what foot armies are up against. The opponents have better protection than you and vastly superior mobility as well. Unless you can spam lascannons and autocannons on foot troops like the IG can, the only way to reliably deal with enemy mech forces is to mechanize your own army. Both to bring similar numbers of anti-armour weaponry to the table AND to be competitive in the Movement phase of the game as well.

[Inquisitor Fox]

All very fair and valid points, number6. It is true that most of my games, while often not being official Cities of Death games, have been on fairly dense cityscape tables. It serves my own force fairly well, and I also have to admit to now looking at mechanizing the foot heavy collection of models I've been acquiring over the years :jaw:

 

Your comments about superior mobility are well observed and backed up by my own experiences with my all (or nearly all save a unit of skirmisher archers) cavalry Bretonnian force in Warhammer Fantasy. There is a distinct advantage to controlling the mobility aspect of a battle, particularly in deployment. As the more mobile power I've often split my army in deployment only to redeploy all my assets to one half of the board in the first movement phase, rendering my less mobile opponent now drastically out of position. There's definate risks to forgoing the mobility war.

 

Have I mentioned how awesome our particular section of the forums are, in that we can have these sorts of discussions in a nice, polite, flame free manner? ;)

[ArmouredWing]

Heh heh heh, No.6 I can't but admire your determination when it comes to your passion for mechanisation however my game against the white scars doesn't necessarily demonstrate the effectiveness of mech.

 

The WS list I played against wasn't totally mechanised in the strictest sense of the term. My opponent fielded 1 rhino, 1 razorback, 1 LS storm and the only thing that made anywhere near my objective was the storm which was dispatched and followed by the scouts shortly after. The real problem was an outflanking khan on a bike accompanied by a jump pack squad with Sgt & chaplain (fast moving infantry) & a bike squad of 5 bikes again outflanking (fast moving infantry).

 

The problem really was the outflanking and the fact that both units came on early in the game on the side of my opponents choice (a 2/3 chance but just 1 on the wrong side would have made a real difference).

 

So to a degree the manvoverability did work against me but that manouverability came from outflanking infantry rather than vehicles.

 

40K isn't a 1 trick pony, that's the important thing to remember.

[number6]

Hey, AW! :D

 

I sincerely hope you don't think I'm picking on you. I just thought your tourney batrep was particularly instructive. I actually do qualify the WS list you played a "mech" list. Every unit save the assault marines are truly mech. As I noted in my previous post, bike units are "mech" in every way that matters (speed, mobility, weaponry). They just don't happen to have an AV. And even the one non-mech unit you list -- the assault marines -- can move 12" per turn, so they can, at least, keep up with a mech force.

 

The Khan-enabled army being able to outflank is only providing the mech army general one additional mobility tool in the toolbox. Outflank doesn't make or break the mobility superiority of a mech army when compared to a foot army. As you just noted, it was that very mobility that led to your army's defeat. That's the major point I've been making about the benefits of mechanizing. There are other ancillary benefits as well (e.g., having an AV is its own kind of protection, as it nullifies at least some of the weaponry of the opponent; usually able to mount heavy weaponry and be able to fire it on the move), but for me mobility is where it's really at.

[Gentlemanloser]

Transports are so cheap anymore (our old Inquisition codexes being an exception ) that they impose no significant cost to the army that uses them.

 

The only semi balancing act I can see to this is that one third of the time, your ultra cheap (but a little fragile) transports become easily won Kill Points for your opponent.

 

But it's not much of a comfort. ;)

[ArmouredWing]

Hey, AW! :)

 

I sincerely hope you don't think I'm picking on you. I just thought your tourney batrep was particularly instructive. I actually do qualify the WS list you played a "mech" list. Every unit save the assault marines are truly mech. As I noted in my previous post, bike units are "mech" in every way that matters (speed, mobility, weaponry). They just don't happen to have an AV. And even the one non-mech unit you list -- the assault marines -- can move 12" per turn, so they can, at least, keep up with a mech force.

 

The Khan-enabled army being able to outflank is only providing the mech army general one additional mobility tool in the toolbox. Outflank doesn't make or break the mobility superiority of a mech army when compared to a foot army. As you just noted, it was that very mobility that led to your army's defeat. That's the major point I've been making about the benefits of mechanizing. There are other ancillary benefits as well (e.g., having an AV is its own kind of protection, as it nullifies at least some of the weaponry of the opponent; usually able to mount heavy weaponry and be able to fire it on the move), but for me mobility is where it's really at.

Ah, I think we might be coming to an understanding.

 

I agree that mobility is an essential element of a battleplan and I now understand why you advocate their use with such passion but what happens when the transport capacity has been removed and you're left with your troops on foot?

 

One thing I did pick up at the UK GT was adusting my target priority. The first game you'll notice I failed to pop the transports when I got the chance early on, that cost me dearly and prior to playing against the CSM list I had a chat with the 3rd sisters player about what my target priority should be, his response was pure and simple "kill the transports first".

 

So, where as I agree to a certain degree that mobility is a key element for any successful list transports only aren't going to cut it. The khan list was so succesful because stuff could come on stage left and right and that stuff was infantry, not vehicles. You've still got to maintain that distinction between vehicles & infantry because in the majority of lists outflanking vehicles are not something that can be fielded and the big thing to consider is the potential for an 18" move + run/assault by infantry. Transport vehicles generally don't pose the same threat, well apart from LR's of course.

 

So manouverability is a key strength to a list or maybe that should be the understanding of how important manouverability can affect the performance of your list and tactics and to butcher one of Sun Tsu's philosophies, if an army has been designed to do one thing then victory can be acheived by making it do another.

 

For those of us who are fielding 'hunters forces we're at a further disadvantage because of the limited amount of special rules we have access to. Sisters were slightly improved with the introduction/clarification of the DS rule being applied to all jump packs but as for our rank and file being able to do lots of weird and wonderful things? Well we have to manage with what we've got available. From my perspective the one of the biggest improvements to my game has been through the use of holding units in reserve to deploy as the game progresses. This enables me to place a few units on the table and then decide how my other resources would be best placed later on to acheive the optimum results and on the whole this has been an effective tactic.

 

Just to finish and going back to the White Scars outflanking I've heard an interesting and somewhat amusing tale of a tournie where a Tau player was faced with a WS player who had held everything in reserve to use his outflanking rule. Unfortuneately the WS general didn't account for the maxed out kroot squads which were also placed in reserve and managed to outflank on both edges of the table effectively preventing the WS's player from deploying anything and so the game was won without a shot fired.

Now whether this story is true or not I can't say, I'm assured it is but regardless of the facts it highlights that no strategy is 100% foolproof and faced against someone who really knows their lists capabilities anything is possible.

[number6]

I agree that mobility is an essential element of a battleplan and I now understand why you advocate their use with such passion but what happens when the transport capacity has been removed and you're left with your troops on foot?

How easy is it to demech a well and truly mechanized army when you are a foot army? In my experience, not easy at all.

 

Sure, a foot army can likely get rid of a couple of transports with reasonable reliability in a single game turn. Maybe even three if it gets lucky. (Anything over three and the usual anti-armour weaponry a typical non-IG foot army can field is performing well above the odds.) Now throw in other vehicles that aren't transports that a mechanized army is also fielding. Things like mainline battle tanks and support vehicles like dreadnoughts, land speeders, hellhounds, tau "warfish"-equipped devilfish, etc. Or perhaps an additional Chimera or Rhino or two (or three) and two land raider crusaders -- as in the pure DH army lists I've advocated. Even other mech armies struggle to nullify that many AV targets inside of the one or two turns you have before they are in "effective range" (either for firing, say, multi-meltas or psycannons out the top hatch, or for dropping terminators on your doorstep). And I've seen only a bare few foot armies capable of doing it. (Only IG and the new SWs to date.)

 

Especially considering that the mech army has the mobility advantage and can deploy or redeploy to best advantage to nullify your foot-based anti-AV weaponry. Armoured choo-choo trains with chaining use of smoke (any version) does much to restrict how much damage can be inflicted upon armour by any enemy army. Almost no foot army is capable of getting past that kind of speed and protection -- at range -- with any kind of reliability beyond what I just described.

Just to finish and going back to the White Scars outflanking I've heard an interesting and somewhat amusing tale of a tournie where a Tau player was faced with a WS player who had held everything in reserve to use his outflanking rule. Unfortuneately the WS general didn't account for the maxed out kroot squads which were also placed in reserve and managed to outflank on both edges of the table effectively preventing the WS's player from deploying anything and so the game was won without a shot fired.

Now whether this story is true or not I can't say, I'm assured it is but regardless of the facts it highlights that no strategy is 100% foolproof and faced against someone who really knows their lists capabilities anything is possible.

Totally true story. Here's the pic of that event.

 

I'm not saying mech is foolproof. You still have to play the game! What I am saying is that all other things being equal, mech >> foot. The 40k rules and unit capabilities make this quite apparent to my way of thinking.

[Inquisitor Fox]

I think the important realization is that mechanization is but one type of mobility :) Mobility is the important part... there are other ways to achieve or remove this though other than just transports. Seraphim definitely count, as do inducted rough riders, teleporting FA Grey Knights (can we say last minute objective contesters?), teleporting Termies, etc.

 

There are several things to do to combat a highly mobile list: remove the aspects of mobility (transports, specific units, etc), deploy or alter your game plan to counter their mobility (like the tournament scene in Gladiator against the chariots), etc. It's a move and counter sort of game, cat and mouse. Everyone has to figure out the solutions that work for them, and everyone's brains work differently to find that magic approach and unit combination.