Deathrollers and orcs

[Requiem of the Wolf]

Ok...So at my local game store,there is an experienced orc player. He loves the DeathRollers on Battlewagons. To date...I have never had anything but horrible experiences with Deathrollers. And I am at a total loss for how to deal with it. He normally runs 2 Battlewagons with 2 trukks behind them. Squads of shoota's in them,with a big mek with custom force field (4+ cover)

 

He rolls them in,and runs over my rhinos and the squads inside them,with his boys shooting anything the death roller leaves behind. Any suggestions?

[littlbitz]

Well, you could stay mounted in your Rhino and get close.

 

Wait for him to come to you, use your ranged firepower to attempt to stop him early (Lascannons will help here), if he makes it to your lines with them, scoot your Rhinos forward 6" right in front of the Battle Wagon and use the hatch to fire your 2 Meltaguns.

 

A drop Pod or two with some Cheap combi-mgs could help too. 3 Wolf Guard with Combi-melta in a Drop Pod. The Pods will help channel his movement. Drop in Close so he can't get an effective ram on the Pod.

[Wildfire]

What's your normal list look like?

[Requiem of the Wolf]

Normal list is one GH squad per 500 points. rhino,Motw,standard,either 2 PG or 2 MG,PF or PW/PP.

Generally 2 Squads of Long Fangs with Missile launchers,Lascannons,heavy bolters...3 Las,3 HB,and 2 ML each.

a Wolf lord on TW with SS and FW.

Generally a Rune Priest,either with LL,TW or JotWW,TW.

And have been toying with continuing the surgical strike team of a Drop pod,7 WG with Combi Meltas and Combi Plasmas or that first round,kill off a unit fun.

 

the problem with the rhino is that he runs over the rhino,and then runs over the squad inside.

[littlbitz]

Thats right,

I forgot about that stupid ruling that the Tank shock works against Vehicles with the Deff-rolla.

 

Well, you could move up to the side of the Vehicle. Get close on the side, stay mounted and shoot from there. Its a bit of a cheap move, but if you are close enough, he wont be able to pivot the vehicle in order to get a Tank Shock maneuver at all because your Rhino will be in the way...

[Coverfire]

Is the Deathroller a weapon or wargear? I was wondering if you could remove it from the battlewagon

[surelock]

I run orcs as well as wolves and BA and tau, and the best thing you can do is to flank ur long fangs for sideshots on his battle wagons and then refuse flank him the direction u want him to go. Keep a central squad of long fangs for a lucky frontal pop (I like to run 2 or 3 lascannons in this squad) but if you keep ur guys in their rhinos until he can hit them next turn, you will have the sideshots on him, an extra bare wolf guard is usually not bad per squad as his lootas can rain down a stupid amount of shots, and usually will on the fangs.

[Blarmb]

Normal list is one GH squad per 500 points. rhino,Motw,standard,either 2 PG or 2 MG,PF or PW/PP.

Generally 2 Squads of Long Fangs with Missile launchers,Lascannons,heavy bolters...3 Las,3 HB,and 2 ML each.

a Wolf lord on TW with SS and FW.

Generally a Rune Priest,either with LL,TW or JotWW,TW.

And have been toying with continuing the surgical strike team of a Drop pod,7 WG with Combi Meltas and Combi Plasmas or that first round,kill off a unit fun.

 

the problem with the rhino is that he runs over the rhino,and then runs over the squad inside.

 

 

-You're paying for options on your GHs that just aren't that useful. Plasma has no targets against his list, and there isn't any reason to bypass armor 6+ with a PW. Drop the PGs and PW/PPs. PPs are far too expensive even against the things they shine against anyway.

-PFs can potenially splat the Mek, but if you've got his shooty units tied up in CC you might not need to.

-Heavy Bolters aren't doing you any favors, run those as more MLs (or Las if you simply must) and put the squads in different locations.

-The Wolf Lord is sitting there all on his own feeling very silly. Use his points on some mobile ranged firepower. Such as Speeders a Ranged Dread. Compounded with splitting up your long fangs and giving them a bit more bite, you'll always have multiple angles of fire. This is important because a Battlewagon only has one front, and AV12 open-topped isn't tissue paper but it isn't all that hard to crack either, even with a cover save.

[DV8]

Deffrolla's are upgrades (much like Dozer Blades) and cannot be removed by Weapon Destroyed results.

 

Think laterally. Literally. Battlewagons are AV14 on the front and tough beasts to crack, especially if there is a Big Mek obscuring them. But they're still only AV12 on the side and AV10 on the rear. If you can land units around and behind them, they'll pop quite easily. Units like Land Speeders or packs in Drop Pods work wonders (especially if you can get behind them with Heavy Flamers that ignore his cover/obscured save).

 

One neat and dastardly combo you can pull off. Identify which vehicle the Big Mek is in, and make that your priority target. Once it's destroyed, fire off a Jaws targeting the Mek and take him out. With him gone, the vehicles are suddenly no longer obscured. You can then finish off the rest of your shooting (in that sequence, so your firepower in a single turn will become far more effective).

 

 

DV8

[Requiem of the Wolf]

The problem is that these are lists used for local game store tournaments...So I won't just be using it against his list but other lists as well. Including a couple Blood Angels and Tyrannids. So I guess Im trying to figure out things that would work well against the Death rollers in general,but without losing my utility lol.

 

I suppose the drop pod of Wolf guard would work decently in that situation....The Land Speeder with MM/HF maybe.

Honestly Im not worried about the Big Mek off the top of my head. The Deathrollers are what lets him roll over most of my army right off the bat.

 

His tactics have been roll over my vehicles and the squads of hunters inside it. Drive trukk up,unload shoota boy's and blast long fangs with insane amounts of fire,use shoota's on anything still standing.

 

Ideas that I have had: Using Wolf scouts with sniper rifles to set up behind his death rollers. 5 sniper rifles and a Missile launcher seemed like it would have a decent chance to Inconvenience one of them. A Land Raider Redeemer perhaps,using it as a rolling Ram with a Iron Priest inside. That tactic has worked very well for me in the past and I think it might work well in this case too.

 

I will also look at the possibility of the Land Speeder. The biggest problem I have is needing to have a all comers list rather then a specifically anti-ork one.

 

Hmmm...RP with TW,SC,IP with Saga of the Iron Wolf and 3 Servitors. Land Raider Redeemer. And give him a taste of being ran over.

[DemetriiTZ]

So he runs into a Rhino and maybe kills it, then you disembark, then he runs over those guys, and gets.. what, d6 S10 hits? Who cares? You lose 1 Marine on average from a Deffrolla tankshock, so it may even be worth nailing him with a MeltaGun Death or Glory. You auto-hit, 2d6+8 against AV14 has fairly good odds of penetration, and THEN, you get +1 from AP1, and another +1 from Open-Topped. Roll a 3, and his vehicle stops moving. Roll a 4, and it dies.

 

Them's good odds for risking 1 meltagunner.

[Requiem of the Wolf]

Yeah..That might work out fairly well actually.

[Skalver]

So he runs into a Rhino and maybe kills it, then you disembark, then he runs over those guys, and gets.. what, d6 S10 hits? Who cares? You lose 1 Marine on average from a Deffrolla tankshock, so it may even be worth nailing him with a MeltaGun Death or Glory. You auto-hit, 2d6+8 against AV14 has fairly good odds of penetration, and THEN, you get +1 from AP1, and another +1 from Open-Topped. Roll a 3, and his vehicle stops moving. Roll a 4, and it dies.

 

Them's good odds for risking 1 meltagunner.

 

If you Death or Glory vs a Deathroller then your unit takes 2d6 S10 hits instead of just d6 S10 hits, plus the guy making the Death or Glory attack is instant killed, so you will lose on average 3 or 4 Space Wolves if you fail to stop the battlewagon which is probably half your squad.

 

You could probably do some nice cheesing by taking a couple of lone wolves with melta bombs to stand in front of your rhinos though. You might find it hard to get great use out of them vs other armies but for 25 points its one very cheesy way of stopping battlewagons and its hard to imagine a more heroic end than facing down a tank full of orcs with just a single grenade in your hand :)

 

Doing Death or Glory with Lukas the Trickster vs a fully loaded Battlewagon could be quite amusing too, though I don't think it would really justify the points cost, would be more for entertainment sake.

[Marshal Wilhelm]

KFF is a 5+ cover save? or is he getting 4+ because he obscures the Wagons?

 

Wagons are quite good if they are only engaged via the front AV. They are very long, which is bad for the Ork player. Long sides and narrow front means it is easier to get side AV shots than if it were more square. :P

Deploy your firebases apart from one another, either way one of them will be getting flank shots and the other front shots. Fire the flank firebase first, so that those who have to deal with the front AV then have the chance to frag the passengers or fire at the Trukks behind the now "I'm a crater" Wagon.

 

Rolling Razorbacks should also be able to gets shots against the side AV.

 

Get rid of the Plasma pistols and Heavy Bolters from your list. Wolves kill Orks quite well. You don't need more anti-infantry shooting.

 

Tau have great success with move-blocking. Basically Tau need to shoot you a lot to win, as they don't get to do any killing in the assault phase. How Tau extend the amount of shooting they get at you is to make you have to drive a longer distance.

Piranhas achieve this. Speeders are the same.

 

I don't know what the Death Roller rules are as my Codex isn't handy.

To ram a vehicle you need a solid run up. Put your Speeder right up in the face of the Wagon. He won't be able to damage it and so needs to go around. This is all adding precious time which allows you to destroy the Wagons.

 

HF MM Speeders can MELTA the Wagon once it goes past, either in the side or rear AV. Wagons being open-topped and Meltas being Ap1 gives +2 on the damage roll. 4+ will destroy-explodes the Wagon, killing lots of Orks for you too. :tu:

 

Dreadnoughts are also gold against Orks. i4 s10 means Nobz go pop before those Powa Klawz massacre your Greys [because you assault Orks with Dreads+Greys, not just Dreads by themselves] Heavy flamers are solid against those massed Orks, wounding on 3s and ignoring nearly all of their Saves.

A MM or AC works well against Orks. The AC is a generalist whose reasonable anti-AV fire is great against those flimsy, open-topped trukks, whilst MM absolutely destroy them and still get good kills against Nobz and Koptas, etc.

 

In a generalist sense [so you are not tailoring against Orks] buy the Dread a pod. You can drop the Pod in the way of anyone's LRC, etc. or actually Pod the Dread in and HF infantry or MM a vehicle. The accuracy of the Pod, combined with being able to deploy somewhere around it makes for a very accurate method of delivery and is ideal for a single model unit like the Dread.

 

I have a big post in my sig on Dreads, which should translate completely into a Wolf context.

[Requiem of the Wolf]

Well,with the death roller,he gets the d6s10 attacks on any vehicle or unit even if he only moves one inch.

 

But the Drop pod Dread might not be a bad Idea. I think I should actually get a Drop pod in my army anyways,just to have the option of the WG combi squad or the Dread...Thanks Wilhelm.

[Rune_Priest_Rhapsody]

Still got a bad taste in your mouth from the Ork pirate ships I see...

 

I have a D Pod that I am not currently using if you'd like to borrow it for the next couple of weeks.

 

-R_P_R

[Skalver]

Possibly worth pointing out is that a ramming (or Tank Shocking) vehicle can't turn beyond the initial pivot so if you get a "wrecked" result on your transport you can emergency disembark your unit to a position outside the direction of travel if that is possible and avoid being hit altogether though I suspect most people know this already.

[Requiem of the Wolf]

Still got a bad taste in your mouth from the Ork pirate ships I see...

 

I have a D Pod that I am not currently using if you'd like to borrow it for the next couple of weeks.

 

-R_P_R

You saw that cluster....you know how badly I got roflstomped by those things...they were really the only ones that did any destruction to my guys lol.Not to mention,with only one objective to fight over,the death rollers were not easy to avoid =(

 

But yeah That would be incredibly awesome man. And it turns out that It would have been better to get saga of the bear on the wolf lord,rather then the assault cannon. Then the damn death roller wouldn't have insta killed him :)

 

But yeah If I could borrow that Drop pod for next week and after that would be helpful,would mean I could actually use them.

[Requiem of the Wolf]

Possibly worth pointing out is that a ramming (or Tank Shocking) vehicle can't turn beyond the initial pivot so if you get a "wrecked" result on your transport you can emergency disembark your unit to a position outside the direction of travel if that is possible and avoid being hit altogether though I suspect most people know this already.

The problem with that was the fact that he had two deathrollers side by side. And the first one breaks the vehicle,and if it stops,then the second one rolls over your guys. If the vehicle is destroyed then the deathroller keeps on going. Its a broken peice of wargear that I hope gets updated into a ...well...less bull:cuss variation.

[Silvtalon]

Okay.. I guess fast reply does not work out well... =p

 

Anyhow...

 

I play tau, orc and space wolves, but I am honestly my tau game play is extremely solid...

 

Lets break this down for a moment, you said your friend is running...

2 battle wagons

1 big mek

2 trukks

Boyz (shootah's)

 

That seams a little light... Is your friend also using nobs and ghazghull? What point listing are you running at 1500 or 1850?

 

I'll assume your running at 1850 listing maybe 1500. Here is how I would handle your friend.

 

 

Set up: Make sure your units if you go first have good fire lanes. Make sure you can provide good support fire.

Your enemy will set up as close as to the edge as possible thus ensuring they will usally be with in 24inches for bolter fire. A really smart orc player would stay least half an inch from the deployment line so that way your bolter fire wont hit. Then again it depends on how you friend plays.

 

If you have first turn

1st turn:

movement, dont bother moving since your all set up, make sure all your guns are to bare if he is placing directly on the deployment line so that all bolter shots can take some pot shots at the weak vehcials or troops.

 

Shooting, Target the transport most likely the battlewagon the big mek is in. Take it out with all heavy firepower you got or at least immobilize it. All you have to do is stop that one for the first turn ensuring it can not provide its cover save while on the move. But if you do blow it up you turn the hull of the vehicle's six inch radius effect to from the models base effect. This will allow you to hammer other vehicles close by with out having that pesky cover save. If any heavy firepower is still open focus it on the second battle-wagon. All other lighter firepower should focus on each trukk focus on one till its taken care of then move onto the next.

 

assault phase, If you have anything to do.. Meh do it.. =)

 

2ed turn:

Movement phase

This will be the most critical part of your turn if your not sure if your in range of assaulting or will be able to then don't move forward only move forward if your sure you can and will be able to deal with what you assault. Other wise take advantage of counter assault at worst. If movement is required get your lighter tanks moving to try to take side shots or position themselves with troops to be good counter assault units.

 

Shooting Phase

Focus all heavy fire on the only moving trukk which would be ghazy... (if he has him) All lighter firepower on troops if no trukk is active..

 

Assault phase

Mop up any close units and try to get get into cover with some of your models expect to be charged with wahhh!

 

That's how I would handle that type of listing as presented, in most cases you should be able to tear though his fast moving vehicles with ease and be able to handle the foot sluggers much easier. The faster you remove the orc vehicles the easier time you will have with them.

[Marshal Wilhelm]

Glad to be of help :)

 

Tau have great success with move-blocking. Basically Tau need to shoot you a lot to win, as they don't get to do any killing in the assault phase. How Tau extend the amount of shooting they get at you is to make you have to drive a longer distance.

Piranhas achieve this. Speeders are the same.

 

I don't know what the Death Roller rules are as my Codex isn't handy.

To ram a vehicle you need a solid run up. Put your Speeder right up in the face of the Wagon. He won't be able to damage it and so needs to go around. This is all adding precious time which allows you to destroy the Wagons.

 

HF MM Speeders can MELTA the Wagon once it goes past, either in the side or rear AV. Wagons being open-topped and Meltas being Ap1 gives +2 on the damage roll. 4+ will destroy-explodes the Wagon, killing lots of Orks for you too. ;)

 

So I just looked at the Codex and FAQ. Wowee! What a brute of a thing!

 

Things of note in my mind:

d6 s10 hits. Runic armour on the Lord?

 

2d6 s10 hits for DoG?! ;)

 

Check out pg 71 BBB.

Ramming a skimmer.

"1-2 collision occurs as per normal. 3+ the skimmer avoids the tank, neither vehicle suffers any damage, and the ramming tank stops in its tracks!"

 

Use the Speeder for The Greater Good^TM ^_^

 

Just checking, are you keeping wrecks on the TT as per BBB pg 62?

That will clog him up and slow his advance.

 

That is part of what makes using Piranhas as move-blockers effective. Well, you blew it up, but it is still holding you up! :D

[Grey Mage]

Id bring in a couple Typhoons, and see how his side armor likes taking the hits. Sure, hes got a KFF in the list *or so Ive gathered* but its a 5+ save, and your going to get damage in their.

 

And of course, as Wilhelm mentioned you can always 'marchblock' with it. 1 strength for being a tank, 4 for AV, means he needs a 5 to glance... not bad.

[Requiem of the Wolf]

He does use nobs,he also had a squad of lootas...but it was only at 1250.

 

Yes im keeping wrecks on the board,but they are only dangerous terrain so as long as he doesn't roll two ones on his difficult terrain test,he is fine. He has something I cant remember what off the top of my head,that lets him reroll difficult terrain.

 

So Speeder's to stop his Battlewagons...good to know.

 

He sets up on the back of his deployment usually,with the trukks,one of which has the big mek in it,behind the Battlewagons so its out of sight.

So shooting the vehicle with the big mek without being able to deploy scouts on his table edges (which would be possible) Is not going to happen without a drop pod.He rolls the two deathrollers so they spend most of the game side by side,so you cant get side shots on them unless your on the far sides.

 

Now...witha fast vehicle,if they move 12,they still cant have the guy's inside fire correct? and if they move only 6,they can be hit on a 4+ in HtH correct?

[Marshal Wilhelm]

Id bring in a couple Typhoons, and see how his side armor likes taking the hits. Sure, hes got a KFF in the list *or so Ive gathered* but its a 5+ save, and your going to get damage in their.

 

And of course, as Wilhelm mentioned you can always 'marchblock' with it. 1 strength for being a tank, 4 for AV, means he needs a 5 to glance... not bad.

 

Because the KFF says vehicles get obscured, people play it as 50% cover [which is called obscured] which gives you a 4+ cover save.

 

Q. Can you use the Deffrolla when Ramming

vehicles or does it only work when Tank

Shocking non-vehicle units?

A. The death rolla does indeed inflict D6 S10 hits

against vehicles, as Ramming is just a type of

Tank Shock.

 

Whilst that seems silly to me, and all for the cost of 2 Fenwolves, unfortunately the Speeder will take d6 s10 hits, if it fails the 3+ skimmer dodge save.

I still think it is worth it ^_^

 

But yes, it works very well against Raiders, etc. Get right up close to them and they usually have to go round, as a s5 ram is poor against AV10 and then you get the skimmer save :D

[Requiem of the Wolf]

Well,the book says it gets a 5+ cover save,so thats what Im giving him next time. Because in the rule book,it says obscured is a 4+ cover save Unless specified otherwise in the codex Which is on Page 62 of main rule book and page 34 of the Ork Codex.As far as Tank shock or Ram,Im going to make him declare which he is doing,because if he says Tank shock,then it stops within 1 inch of my vehicles.

 

As far as it goes,the book says this can include vehicle upgrades that function as weapons...so would that include the death roller?

Now is that in a Errata somewhere? Because honestly,I am going to tell him when we play next if he doesn't have the errata on hand,it don't count. As that is store rules.

 

Though I am curious to know how you were getting the S5 hits on the skimmer,just by running it up on top of him?