Beating Mobile Armies

[Mustalid]

As a marine player I have had a fair amount of trouble beating fast armies - Eldar and Tau. I wanted to post some ideas on how best to beat them.

 

Marines in general can have some difficulty fighting these armies. Marines can be pretty fast, but catching things like jet packs and jetbikes is, let's face it, hard. What's worked well for me is not trying to match mobility, but come up with a strong support system for locking them down, a combo of scouts, landspeeders and whirlwinds. Whirlwinds don't really worry about LOS, plus they punish those 4+ saves.

 

That's all I have - what do you think?

[Brother Captain Josef]

Multimelta bikes and speeders are some of the best antitank units in the game. Spending a couple of hundred points on these bad boys and that fast army will be footslogging it about like a right chump :wacko:

[minigun762]

I have heard a few times that what fast moving mobile armies fear are units that don't rely on transports for their speed. For Marines this means Bikers and Assault Marines. The reason is that you can't kill a squad's mobility by knocking out their Rhino and both of those armies tend to have above average anti-tank power. Instead, you hit them with a fair number of PA bodies and crush them up close. Meltaguns and Power Fists work well, especially backed up by some Krak Grenades from the rest of the squad.

[thade]

How I fight Eldar depends on the game-type (objectives or kill-points).

 

In a kill-points mission VS Eldar, I porcupine. My entire force as one ball, making them bring the fight to me. I stay in cover, and if there is no cover, well - that's what Rhinos are for. (You do have at least four Rhinos on the table, right? You know how wagon trains would circle to mitagate attacks from Native Americans on the Oregon Trail? Do it!)

 

In Capture and Control, I drive my ENTIRE force save one or two units right to their objective. First turn everything moves as far as it can and pops smoke. Second turn, whatever is still alive finishes the drive and parks in contest-land. Then I proceed to show him what 3+ armor saves and rapidfire can do. In general, if an Eldar unit is kitted out to be amazing at shooting, a handful of marines will END them on a charge. Conversely, any Eldar unit that's kitted out for assaults (Banshees and Harlies) you need to rapid fire first. Or they will kill you.

 

How I fight Tau is much simpler. Any unit they have will buckle in an assault; even their "assault kitted" units. They depend on range and mobility, so I take those things away from them: I spead out and charge in. Whatever Rhinos make it will disembark and rapid fire, or stay parked if I think I can get an assault next turn. No Tau player is going to assault you (I once took down twenty Kroot with a single Librarian, and in another game a power-sword vet and a tech marine chain-routed three fire warriors teams off the board over two turns) knowing they will die. I bet a single drop-podded dread with a HFlamer and maybe an assault cannon would be their worst nightmare behind their lines.

 

Mind the Rail Guns; those things are both awesome and terrible. They will gleefully hammer your Land Raider into a smoking useless hulk. Leave it at home. Bring more Rhinos. Get close. Once you take away their range, you win.

[Jackelope King]

I have heard a few times that what fast moving mobile armies fear are units that don't rely on transports for their speed. For Marines this means Bikers and Assault Marines.

No. Not Assault Marines. Especially not paired with Bikers. One of the earliest incarnations of my Biker Army used Assault Marines, and even they are just too darn slow to keep up with Bikers. And they do absolutely nothing against Mech Eldar to boot, except give the enemy a divided force to fire at, which is exactly what Mech Eldar want. Sorry, but this is just bad advice.

 

Bikers by themselves against Tau or Mech Eldar aren't bad (but I'll admit that I dislike playing Mech Eldar with my Bikers, even if they probably wind up feeling the same way). Bikes can keep up with Mech Eldar (though probably not get close enough to play tag with Melta weaponry which they rely on).

 

However, Mech Eldar and Tau are completely different army types. Tau are not fast. Period. They've got an edge over standard Mech Marines because they lose very little firepower while moving their whole army 12". A typical Marine army beats Tau by rushing forward, while they beat a typical Mech Eldar army by putting out a lot of mid-strength shots and glancing Eldar tanks to insignificance. If you group these two army types together in your mind, you're doing yourself a disservice and weakening your strategy.

[Koremu]

Land Speeder Typhoons are as fast as any Eldar unit, and significantly outrange them.

[waaanial00]

My standard units of helpfulness

 

Autocannon Dreads

Typhoons

 

Stop the transports from moving by significantly out shooting them and they can have all the mobility in the world. If they are stunned/imobilised then they aint doing much to you. If they have jetbikes Thunderfire cannons is a great way of stopping their bonus mobility and extra saves from turbo boosting, you might just land a few of them in the process as well.

 

Wan

[Mustalid]

I'd love to get some bikers, but hey, a squad of eight is 120$. It be cliched, but it's true, money doesn't grow on trees (If it did that'd be hyper inflation). I'm using ~3 landspeeders and ~3 rhinos, so I guess thats good. The problem with dreadnoughts is that they're slow, and faster units with melta power always get a KP of them.

[Hellios]

Land Speeder Typhoons are as fast as any Eldar unit, and significantly outrange them.

 

Cool how do you get to move 36 inches in one turn and how do you get a range of over 60 inches on your guns?

[Interrogator Stobz]

Hi

Ive been playing a fast army lately to expand my techniques, the thing I have learned to hate is when a mech force owns the middle of the table by turn 2 and cuts my manouverability(sp) down to half the table, then they proceed to push me toward one short edge often dropping reserves in to limit me even more, they (mech SM/CSM) are usually more resilient and even if I get a good couple of early turns I find that late game I have been really struggling to fight for objectives/KPs etc.

 

My point is learn from the enemy, I may have had mobility but on a very small battle field it doesn't always help.

 

Try out their tactics, they work well with most combos but practice practice practice.

 

Lance

[minigun762]

I have heard a few times that what fast moving mobile armies fear are units that don't rely on transports for their speed. For Marines this means Bikers and Assault Marines.

No. Not Assault Marines. Especially not paired with Bikers. One of the earliest incarnations of my Biker Army used Assault Marines, and even they are just too darn slow to keep up with Bikers.

 

Really? I'm having difficulty understanding how 12" + D6" for running isn't fast enough to keep up with most skimmers. They aren't always moving flat out and with proper positioning of your units, it seems hard to be 18" away from everything. I'll fully admit that I don't often use Jump Infantry (not much need to with Chaos) but on paper they seem viable.

 

I'm not mad or anything, just interested in the reasoning behind your statement.

[Jackelope King]

Really? I'm having difficulty understanding how 12" + D6" for running isn't fast enough to keep up with most skimmers. They aren't always moving flat out and with proper positioning of your units, it seems hard to be 18" away from everything. I'll fully admit that I don't often use Jump Infantry (not much need to with Chaos) but on paper they seem viable.

 

I'm not mad or anything, just interested in the reasoning behind your statement.

I mostly meant that Assault Marines can't keep up with your own Biker Marines, as the way you wrote your original suggestion, it appeared that you were suggesting sending Bikers and Assault Marines as a joint force. This is something I've tried several times, and it just doesn't work. Bikers are going to turbo boost 24" on the first turn and leave the Assault Marines in their dust, your force will be divided, and you'll get chewed apart piecemeal. On average, an Assault squad will move 15.5", meaning they're almost 10" behind a squad of Bikers. Against Mech Eldar, a divided force is an ideal target.

 

Further, how do Assault Marines compliment Bikers? Assault Marines are only any good against light infantry as sweepers. And right out of the box, Bikers are good against... light infantry (twin-linked relentless bolters). So they don't add any new strength to your force.

 

And Assault Marines compete with Land Speeders for force org chart slots, which can either be MM/HF or Typhoons, both of which compliment Bikers better (the former by providing strong anti-vehicle and anti-infantry, the latter by providing an effective fire-base).

 

So while they might seem to compliment well, Bikers and Assault Marines really don't mesh. Especially against fast armies which can take advantage of the difference in speed and cut you to ribbons.

[minigun762]

Ahh I see the confusion.

What I was trying to say is that either Bikers OR Assault Marines could work, not both at the same time.

 

I think the Bikers have an easier time at it, since they have access to Meltaguns but while they are faster, they also slowed down by terrain whereas the Assault Marines have the luxury of simply jumping over it. Sadly AM can't take Meltaguns but I wouldn't discount a squad with a Power Fist/Combi-Melta on the Sarge. You could even try PP on the little guys.

 

Either way, my point was more about the difficulties of trying to catch up to Tau/Eldar in Rhinos or Raiders because both of those armies are good at killing tanks.

 

I also have to agree that a strong firebase is very helpful against both armies (and most armies in general) with the RifleDread and Combi-Predator being at the top of that list in my mind.

[Ookami_81]

I love bikes and I use them often. But if you're facing a fast biky army, here's what is giving them hell: subterranean rounds of Thunderfire cannons. Facing an Ork bike and footslogging army, they are just plain deadly: bikes will fail dangerous terrain and die, running units will be slowed down. Add something to kill truks, LS typhoons for example (or combi-pred) and you'll see a green-of-anger face soon. ;)

[Mustalid]

Mech armies don't bug me a lot as everything in my arm that can have melta bombs has them, and I've got the Rhinos to back it up. What's hard is Pulse rifles 30" range and the speed of stealth suits. They say you can ignore kroot, which you can, but it's hard to when there's 40 of them.

[Captain Idaho]

My standard units of helpfulness

 

Autocannon Dreads

Typhoons

 

Stop the transports from moving by significantly out shooting them and they can have all the mobility in the world. If they are stunned/imobilised then they aint doing much to you. If they have jetbikes Thunderfire cannons is a great way of stopping their bonus mobility and extra saves from turbo boosting, you might just land a few of them in the process as well.

 

Wan

 

I can vouch for that, seeing waaanial00 take apart an Eldar army with his superb fire control. I have also been on the receiving end of his fire control, so much that I have to include Typhoons in my own armies now! If only I had points spare I would put a Rifleman Dread in too.

[Arnil]

vanguards with melta-bombs and plasma pistols? OR Dual Lightning claws even for anti heavy infantry(I run a 500 point squad in apocalypse battles). Thunder hammers work against vehicles also. Expensive but effective with their assaulting deep-strike rule.

[thade]

No one has mentioned this, so it bears saying:

 

The reason you want to porcupine against an Eldar list (esp. a mobile one) is that if you are spread out as a marine-player, you are playing their game. They are mobile because each of their units is super-specialized to kill one (and only one) of your unit types. Banshees = your melee guys will die. Dire Avengers = your ranged guys will be shot to pieces. Etc. If you are spread out, they will use their superior mobility to focus their specialist guys on their favorite targets, and they'll tear you apart.

 

If you stay together, they can't do this nearly as effectively..and it allows you to play a bit of their game (or at least makes their game much more difficult). If you have high mobility (e.g. typhoons) those guys can wander for their cover save and LOS...but in general, stay together!

[Captain Idaho]

Well said thade.

 

I would like to add that beating Eldar is not just about matching their mobility, in much the same way beating Orks is not about matching their numbers or Tau by matching their shooting abilities.

 

No, its a case of countering their strength so it is either negated or just plain a disadvantage. In the case of Eldar, they need their mobility to beat our Marines, as thade said, on their own terms. We need to reduce this so they can't choose the terms of combat so easily.

 

Matching their mobility with your own may work, but making their mobility a disadvantage will win you the game. How can you make it a disadvantage, you mad monkey, I hear you cry? Well if you take out the transports whilst they are miles away where the Eldar player is under the assumption they are safe and ready to use their mobility when they are ready, then having such mobility became a disadvantage as the Eldar player paid extra points for the priviledge and moved into a position that becomes detrimental to him in following turns as you removed the mobility suddenly and painfully (hopefully).

 

So this is a long winded way of saying taking long range firepower enables you to reach out and touch the Eldar army whilst they muster (normally in their safe zone) for a strike. Taking out their mobility here forces them down to your level or worse (with your own transports) and more importantly means they aren't protected by transports.

 

Rifleman Dreads are awesome at this, as all you need to do is get a shaken, stunned, imbolised or destroyed result and you severely reduce Eldar effectiveness. Remember most of their heavy weapons come from their transports. ;)

 

Typhoons also contribute to this nicely, with 2 Krak missiles a turn at long range.

 

And lastly, porcubining up for a couple turns in your transports lets you fire your heavy weapons at range to contribute to this weakening up/slowing down, increasing your chances of success.

[Brother Evar]

I can't speak for fighting eldar but against the Tau I find a few things really mess them up.

 

DS tactical termi's w/ HF or AssCannon- I wiped two full fire warrior squads with shooting. My opponent freaked about the chaos termi's in his lines and I got another turn of full rhino movement without using smoke. 10 termi's were the distraction- 40 CSM's and the prince were not.

 

DP dreads- Get in there and melta the tanks with ironclads. Or use reg dreads with ass cannon +HF for his suits.

 

DP infantry- Pretty much anything that can take a DP and land near or in their lines. I found DP assault marines with twin flamers PW sarge and libby force dome, scourging/ machine curse to disrupt a tau gunline well.

 

Bikes/ speeders- to play cat and mouse to go after suits and their hover tanks. The more terrain the more of a chance you have of getting there.

 

JP VV/assault marines- can DS near tau units + use cover to launch an assault next turn hopefuly. BA DoA, SoB w/ stormraven ect

 

Tailored armies- WS Khârn outflank list, Shrike mech fleet list, Vulkan DS list. These should be fairly self explanatory in what they can do and what their comp would be.

 

Pretty much if you can get them all before they deploy properly or be too spread out their game is ruined. DS and CC ruin tau and the only shooting you should be doing is close with your DS units. Don't play the long range game with them we just cannot pull it off well enough. IMO marines work best in the 36-12 inch range followed by careful assaults to mop/sweep weakened enemy units.

[Wildfire]

I would say it very much depends on the enemy. In general, against a fast opponent I want to control the center of the board. This gives you a radius of threat that will significant cut down on their ability to utilize their superior maneuver.

 

I don't consider Tau to have true speed, they just move 12" like everyone else. It's just that they can still shoot while they do so. Standard anti-Tau tactics apply: advance and assualt.

 

With Eldar, who do have real speed and can move up to 36" and fly over your units, it's much harder. In kill point missions, control the center of the board and kill whatever is most vulnerable. In objective missions, you want to control the center of the board in the initial few turns, then move to control the objectives on turn 5. Usually this means starting to move out on turn 4 (possibly even earlier, but this is likely to lead to isolated and destroyed units). Make sure you have counter assualt units to back up units vulnerable to assualt, then pray there's a 6th turn. In objective missions, Eldar rely on assualting and clearing the objectives on the last round so they can avoid retaliation. There's usually nothing you can really do about this, other than hope that 6th or 7th turn comes around and you can counter that last movement. Also, always take 2nd turn against this type of list.

 

I'd be curious if anyone's had enough games against the new BA to give advice there. They're not as mobile as skimmer-spam eldar, but with every vehicle being fast I'd be willing to bet they'll soon be considered a "fast" army.

 

Also, bikers. I think these guys are pretty dang fast, but no one in my area plays much with bike lists. Anyone with a lot of experiance against bike lists want to chime in here?

[ShinyRhino]

Also, bikers. I think these guys are pretty dang fast, but no one in my area plays much with bike lists. Anyone with a lot of experiance against bike lists want to chime in here?

 

I know bikes. I've run a pair of max-sized biker squads with attached attack bikes in every list I've fielded for several months.

 

The best way to beat my bikers is to crowd them. My turbo boosters provide no protection whatsoever against an assault. So, choppy units that can catch me make me cry tears of bitter defeat. I really like moving my full 12" move, and firing out my twin-linked boltguns, either rapidfire or single-shot.

I'd never, ever throw my bikers into close combat against anything that's dedicated to close combat. I keep a powerfist in one squad, and a power weapon in another, and that's it. I don't get a bonus for two close combat weapons, so my sergeants are capped at 3A on the charge, and 2A after that. T5 helps, but not against power weapons/fists. Volume of attacks also chews through my guys due to failed saves.

 

Mechanized lists aren't tough for me to handle, mostly because of the limitations of non-Assault vehicles. You have to choose between moving and shooting. I don't. If you hold still, I strap meltabombs and krak grenades to your transports and giggle, that is if my plasmaguns and meltaguns didn't pop you out of them first.

I don't typicallyuse meltaguns against transports that contain assaulty units. Popping that transport from within Melta range leaves me with the option of assaulting a choppy unit that just spilled out, or being assaulted by the choppy unit that just spilled out. I don't like either option.

 

My Bike Captain is a monster in close combat. I give him a relic blade, arty armor, and hellfire rounds. 2+/4++ keeps him pretty safe against most non-instakill attacks, especially when he's attached to a squad. Against S3 models, he's a god. 6s to wound, 2+/4++ to save, 3 wounds, and he's hitting you first. I've had him carve swathes through IG squads for several turns without ever taking a wound. All the power weapons failed to hit, or failed to wound.

 

I don't run a pure bike list, however. I back my bikers up with mech tacticals, Dreads, and an Assault Squad. This keeps me from being 100% reliant on my bikers, who have their glaring weaknesses.

[Jackelope King]

Also, bikers. I think these guys are pretty dang fast, but no one in my area plays much with bike lists. Anyone with a lot of experiance against bike lists want to chime in here?

I run a biker list very different from Shiny Rhino's, but the experience is fairly similar as far as how scary they can be.

 

I run three minimum-sized Bike squads (four bikers and an Attack Bike) as my troops, and load each squad up with 2x Meltaguns and 1x Multi-Melta on the attack Bike, giving the army some serious teeth against mech. Forming the core of my army alongside these guys is the Biker Command Squad. Three vets with Lightning Claws, one vet with a Thunderhammer, and everyone but the Apothecary with Storm Shields and Meltaguns... and the Captain with a Relic Blade. There's very little this squad can't squash in close combat, and they have the right weapons to shoot before charging nearly anything.

 

Around this core, I have 3 Rifleman Dreads, 3 Dakka Preds, and 3 Typhoon Landspeeders with Heavy Bolter, all of which provide me with a pretty healthy fire support. First turn my Bikes usually turboboost towards a flank while my fire support lights up nearby support elements of the enemy army, minimizing his ability to respond to my bikers the next turn.

 

Once the game gets going, my bikers aren't afraid to turboboost to redeploy themselves. They have a lot of mobile firepower, sure, but having long-ranged, high rate-of-fire fire support gives me the option of when and where to turboboost.

 

Like Shiny Rhino, I usually feel fairly confident chewing up Mech lists with this army. Early shots from the fire base rip open transports in the center of my opponent's deployment zone while the bikers go screaming towards one of the flanks. My bikers stick together, hunting as a pack whenever possible, with the Command Squad screening the rest of the bikes while on the move. The bikers soften up targets for the Command Squad, opening up transports and exposing units, especially assault-happy units for the Command Squad to get mixed up with. The rest of the Bikers do better when they stay out of range, only moving into 12" to rapid-fire / use meltaguns when I can be sure that enemy retaliation on assault will be minimal.

 

The bane of Biker armies are torrent units, like Lootaz. Mid-level strength, high rates of fire... you'll lose bikers to these guys more than standard anti-infantry weapons or anti-tank weapons. My fire support are my answer to these guys, and I'll usually focus on removing that sort of enemy on turn one if at all possible.

[ShinyRhino]

The bane of Biker armies are torrent units, like Lootaz. Mid-level strength, high rates of fire... you'll lose bikers to these guys more than standard anti-infantry weapons or anti-tank weapons. My fire support are my answer to these guys, and I'll usually focus on removing that sort of enemy on turn one if at all possible.

 

Agree 100%. Lootaz can eat bikes at range. They have that really long shot distance (36 or 48"?), and a d3 shots per model. You just end up taking a bucketload of saves, and will fail some.

 

I like deepstriking my Assault Marines in front of the Lootaz, and shooting them with flamers and pistols. Roasted Orkflesh. Harder to do if they're parked in a Battlewagon or Trukk, though. Deepstriking Tac Termies with a heavy weapon might do better with that one.

[Thor{DoH}]

Yes, 48" range on a deffgun. Most Ork players won't put Lootas in a vehicle because a 1-2 result means no shooting, as does a 5-6 with the potential to be pinned and lose a few from a possible explosion.