Gate way of infinity strike squad

[Fatuous]

Been jealously eyeing up a librarian for a while. Have seen the gate, lib, stern guard unit, appearing and dissapearing tactics disscussesd and had a few questions for those that have used it.

 

My initial thoughts were to take gate and some offensive shooting spell (smite and the template both look good for this), and upgrading to use them both (altho a bit expensive tbh), so can gate, then flame or hit with AP2 shots.......... Now of course, he needs a unit to go with him really, stern guard seem a good choice, but terminators look like could be good too...... but I am not keen on loosing them to the random mishaps even tho that looks unlikely.

 

Had thought a few telehomers scatter thru my troop choices might make a cheap way of ensuring no mishaps, no scatter, and get the 'Strike force' to any troop units that need a rapid response unit as back up......... Until I realised this simply wont work!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Which has brought me on to either drop pods (pretty cheap way of getting homing beacons) or scout bikers.......... bit more expensive, but can start the 'Stirke force' on the table at deployment, inf then scout move the bikers and turn one, get the stirke force in position to unleash hell with no risks of scatter.

 

So questions????? Has any one tried this sort of tactic? Can you see it working? Or just too expensive by the time u get the beacons in? Or perhaps the beacons really are not such an issue. If using tac terminators, can be a bit more conservative with the DS landing zone, but of course, then loose out on the librarians shots..........

 

Over all I'm not sure. but I love the idea of using scout bikers to 'call in' the lib and retinue where ever u want them...... of course, u'll need to be thinking a turn ahead to get them in place, an dhope they don't die in the process..............

 

Pods could work, drop in an IC dread on turn one, then follow up with a hard core unit in support would make it much less of a suicidal unit, maybe supported by a scout unit or 2, so have a bunch of units right in your opponents face start of turn 1, diverting fire fromt eh rest of ut units as they advance..........

 

Anyway, enough ramblings, hope the basic idea is clear, and any thoughts or if possible, experience with this sort of thing would be much appreciated!!!!!!

 

Thanks (Will put a bit of work in to what sort of army this would look like, and post more later).

[DarkGuard]

After getting a Drop Pod for Christmas a couple of years back I made it, filled it with a Dreadnought and dropped it into the mist of a Tau gunline. I then eagerly rolled both of my Libby's psychic powers, hoping to materialise my two Tactical squads next to the Drop Pod which I has cunningly concealed in the Drop Pod and cut down the Tau army in righteous gunfire. One Libby passed, the other failed, and as a result my army arrived piecemeal and got shot to bits.

 

So yes, I've tried that sort of tactic, and it bred in me a deep love of Rhinos over psychic powers for transport. That being said, if used well it can work well. Have a couple of Drop Pods with locator beacons, and spread them out to give you options. Chuck a couple of melta units in them (MM Dreads or Sternguard with combi-meltas), take another Pod with a Tactical squad without locator beacon, and drop the LB Pods first turn. Melta tanks, and roll for Tactical squad as usual, hoping it arrives late to secure an objective in the last couple of turns.

 

In the meantime, Libby and killy unit Gate around the two Drop Pods, maybe the third if you have 10 points spare, answering threats or leading the attack. You want a shooty unit, so Sternguard may be better as they are better at shooting for cheaper compared to Terminators.

 

Just a word of warning, you can't use teleport homers for Gate of Infinity, only locator beacons, and even some find that debatable. Teleport homers only work on units arriving by Deep Strike in Terminator armour, so there is an argument for it working if your Libby and the squad he is with are all in Terminator armour. But a single power armoured model and it won't work.

 

It's a tactic, and one that can work well. That being said, when it doesn't work well it can cost you the game, so use with care.

[maturin]

Fatuous,

 

I think I posted up one of those Libby-Gate-Sternguard discussions a while back. I did indeed end up using the setup you described in a 1700 point tournament with 30 people, and came in 3rd place (generalship only). You can find my batreps and army list here.

 

To sum up though, I had a libby (Gate, MoA), 8x Sternguard (various combi-weapons & HF), 5x Scout Bikes (locator beacon, PF), and Drop pod with beacon (carrying a MM dread).

 

My impression of the tactic? It can work - but you must be very, very disciplined about where you put the drop pod and/or bikes. In this tourney, and in previous games, I often found that I'd want to use the dread and bikes as disruption forces deep within enemy lines, dropping in to melta something in the back (dread) or infiltrating/turboboosting/autohitting turn 1 (bikes). And those tactics work well - but they leave both your locator beacons out of the 24" range of Gate. So the Sternguard were forced to footslog into range, by which time the bikes were usually dead.

 

Now during the tourney I was more disciplined and resolved to drop the pod into enemy lines, but leave the scout bikes in the midfield (turboboosting for cover saves) in order to allow the Sternguard to Gate to midfield turn 1, and then be in range of the 2nd beacon on turn 2, if necessary. I think I was able to pull this off once in the 3 games. The other times I had the initiative seized from me or the bikes were killed by shooting first turn. Overall I'm re-evaluating the utility of this tactic, as a LOT of things have to come together perfectly for it to work. And we all know von Moltke's old adage about longevity of battle plans...

 

Note: I am still very, very leery of Gating without the use of a beacon - especially when the 300+ point centerpiece unit of my army is involved. My luck with the scatter die is atrocious, and in one game I lost the libby due to a deepstrike mishap while attempting a last-turn objective grab. In another episode my drop pod scattered off the table (boxcars, pointed directly at table edge).

 

Now all this said, I still did manage to do very well and the sternguard were very, very killy. They were also big targets, usually down to one or two models by the end of the game. But they took a lot of the heat off the rest of my (relatively fragile) army. They do need a babysitting unit as they will die in close combat to anything remotely choppy. The librarian is similarly fragile, without an invulnerable save and a mediocre stat line. Might of Ancients did come in handy a couple of times as a backup power. I have to say that I did not encounter a situation where Null Zone or the Avenger (the other powers I considered as a backup) would have been more useful, due to the limited role the libby had. His psychic hood was useful in shutting down the Grey Knights more than half the time, though in the end it probably didn't matter that much.

 

The scout bikes didn't do as much as I had hoped - they inevitably attracted a lot of fire, and despite getting frequent cover/turboboost saves, were invariably my earliest casualties. What they did do was distract the enemy, but is a 200+ point unit worth it for that sole purpose? I'll be re-evaluating my use of them in the next few months.

 

In summary, using Gate as the centerpiece of your strategy requires discipline in sticking to your plan, some good luck, and a willingness to be very flexible when your plan falls apart. I'll be sticking with this list (or a 1500 point variant of it) for the near future and will post more observations as I get more games in.

[Fatuous]

Hi guys, thanks very much for your input!!!!!! This was exactly the sort of info, and experience I was looking for.

 

Few comments.

 

Deffo can not see anyway of using teleport homers, so it deffo has to be beacons. The telehomers are v specific for teleporting, so deffo wouldn't cover gating aswell. So yes that just leaves pods, or scout bikes.

 

Really interesting to hear about the bikes, it confirms what I had half expected (and had hoped would not be the case, but good to know, even if just to rule them out), too expensive, too fragile, and not the best option.

 

So that really just leaves pods.

 

I'm still reletively new to using marines in 5th ed, so finding my way, but basis of my list so far is MOF, dreads and terminator heavy. So need to try to get out of that mindset if I want to be able to fit everything in to make it work........... as yet, I do not have a lib.

 

I do love Stern guard, and am in the middle of building some, but for this I do worry they are too fragile when compared to terminators, who would shield the lib better too. So I think I will aim to include a 10 man termie squad to go with the lib. They loose out on the special ammo, which is a big hit, but the extended range should up their chances of being able to be part of the battle....... altho the points freed up on taking stern guard instead would mean I could up the lib to 2 spells a turn...... so could gate in close enough for the SG and avenger power.............

 

That is something I think I'll need to play test out a bit... cheap lib, or go thet whole hog and take an Epistolary in terminator armour with a storm shield.

 

I am quite keen on trying out a regular lib, 10 terminators, and take gate and Null zone......... Gate in T1, then T2 fire up null zone in time for the termies to rock in with their power fists...... not much if anything is going to surive that................

 

Just not sure what to take as the rest of my list.

 

I'm a big fan of scouts, and storms, just need to make sure I don't shoot myself in the foot with their beacon jammer ;)

 

But I think I need to include a tac squad really................ maybe in a second pod for later game objective holding and additional beacon for the lib/termies to home in on and add support.

 

Hmm back to the drawing board for now I think till I can sort out a list....... I've just gotten a Land raider redeemer finished, and really want to get that on the table, but I think 10 terminators, dreads in pods, and a LR is probable asking too much to fit in 1 list :yes:

 

Thanks for all your ideas and experiences.

[maturin]

I would encourage you to give the Sternguard another look. It's much more of a glass hammer, but nothing else in our codex can match its utility in shooting & midfield action. Cheap combi weapons make it deadly against a wide variety of targets, and hellfire rounds are good against all non-vehicle targets. Storm bolters are better than bolters, but their damage output really pales in comparison to Sternguard special ammo.

 

Consider also that Gated termies will die almost as quickly as Sternguard when your opponent has plasma/plasma cannons. And with Grey Knights popping up everywhere, you can expect to see more plasma around.

 

If you go with termies after all, I would reconsider whether you need a librarian at all. They can deep strike in on their own. Once there, their storm bolters will allow them to play a part if the battle without the need to get really, really close. Teleport homers are cheap, and available on a much wider variety of units (like tac squads!). Null zone is overkill when power fists are involved (except against assault termies), and the librarian otherwise isn't adding much additional capability to the unit.

 

If you want to run an uber-librarian (say with Gate,Vortex,epistolary,and TDA), then consider running him around with a combat squad strictly for ablative wounds. Now all your eggs aren't in one basket if you get a Perils of the Warp.

 

Out of curiosity, how many points do you usually play?

[Fatuous]

Thanks for all the tips and suggestions.

 

First up, I often end up playing 400-500 point combat patrol mostly due to time, but all other games are 1.5k, or 3k team games. So this idea is aimed with 1.5k list in mind, with the possibility of trying something similar in CP.......... (in CP, it would be lib, and either tac squad, or cheap SG unit)

 

Would deffo agree that SG are superior as far as fire power goes.

 

The main reason I'm leaning towards terminators instead, dispite their own ability to DS, and easier options for telehomers is............

 

My basic plan here, is to have some serious damage out put T1. I love the dread pod option, and it really can work v well, but I hate the suicide nature of it, as usually that dread kills something, but dies horribly next turn.

 

So drop an iron clad (or a regular MM dread, or heck go the whole hog and take a ven) in on T1 with a beacon. Then at the start of my turn as the pod is down, use that to gate in the lib and a large squad of terminators (I want 10 really, to be a huge threat, but have some servivability, of course, a plasma cannon could ruin that).

 

With an IC and the termies on their doorstep, maybe with a scout squad near by too for support, that is a huge threat right in their face, beginning of my T1, that can not really be stopped from getting there (as long as the lib doesnt roll badly), but while on their own, the dread or termies are easier to counter, both hitting from T1 is going to be pretty tricky to shift........ U'll need to use all ur low ap weapons on the termies and still have something with enough punch to try to take out the IC. I need to think a bit how my IG or other Marine lists would fair in such a situ and see if I have enough damage out put to cripple what they are near, and how I would try to counter this.............

 

With another pod in reserve, with either another dread or a tac squad (prob the tac squad as I wont have enough points for all the dreads I want in this sort of army), that can come down on another objective later game, any terminators that are still kicking, can gate off and suport that objective instead, after hopefully crippling what they gated near to on T1.

 

That at least is the plan....... just trying to work out what to take in such a list, but over all, I suspect it is going to end up have to be cheap options across the board to ensure I have enough points.

 

So maybe a barebones lib, regular MM dreads with just a heavy flamer to pod in T1, etc.......

 

I'm certainly not discounting the SG as think they would be awesome, but aiming to use what I have for now, and one the lib and my SG are compelted, could swop out and see what works.

 

As a basis, I'd need:

 

Lib

tac squad with pod 230

10 termies, 2 heavy weapons 460

dread, h flamer and pod 160

=950

 

So just under 1k. I still need a second troop choice, and something for long range support, either a rifle man (double twin linked AC), a typhoon, or poss both.

 

Maybe it is just too expensive, and should focus on a smaller SG unit, and have this as a possibility rather than a battle plan lol.

 

Thanks

[maturin]

One problem I can point out right away - you can't use the locator beacon to Gate the termies in on turn 1. The beacon must start on the board at the beginning of the turn for it to be used.

 

:lol:

 

So if you really want turn 1 in-your-face firepower and assault, your options really are to go fully drop-pod in your armybuild, or go with scout bikes and land speeder storms. You could still Gate the termies in closer, but the risk to your expensive unit goes way, way up.

[Fatuous]

Doh!!!!! I really do not know how I missed that lol :) As I knew that rule for when re-enforcements arrive, but some how thought it wouldn't affect it..... think left my brain behind or something :)

 

Well back to the drawing board, but was a fun mental exercise while it lasted. Still liking the idea of adding a lib, and using gate, but deffo seems more useful to have a small SG unit, cheap lib and do it that way......

 

Anyway, on a totally unrelated note... I have a game tonight against a buddies new guard list. Certainly not optimal as trying to use a few new units that just got painted up and been wanting to try a mixed scout squd for a while now. Here is what I'll be taking ;)

 

Master of the forge

10 Tactical marines, flamer, missile launcher

10 Tactical marines, plasma gun, missile launcher (really would prefer another flamer, but using what I have painted up atm)

10 scouts, 4 snipers, 1 Missile launcher, power fist and combi melta on the sarge

5 CC terminators

Land raider redeemer (as a heavy)

2 Dreads, Multi melta, DCCW, heavy flamer, extra armour

Dread, 2XTL Autocannon, extra armour

 

And that is it...... I dropped out all the power weapons for the extra armour, so be interesting to see how it works out.

 

Cheers again for all ur help.