Betrayal: dealing with Legion "meta"

[depthcharge12]

Hello Brothers,

 

Today I would like to start thread about tactics and dealing with commonly seen units unique to Horus Heresy: Betrayal (and hopefully others in the future ;) ).

 

Very few battle reports are taped so far (thanks Massaen and sorry about your EC) and I would like to ask anyone experienced with playing legion lists to contribute their tactics, blunders, and batreps to this thread to enlighten us.

 

Now for a little bit about moi: I LOVE strategy and was what drew me to 40k and now 30k. I still think I represent a majority of players who create a purpose and "fluff" to their army but enjoy the thrill of outsmarting the opponent with superior tactics without the use of so called overpowered under costed units. I feel that both players should enjoy the match and be happy in victory and humble in defeat, ready to outsmart their opponent the next match.

 

Now for the tactics:

 

I have compiled a list of what I see most people have in their lists between 1500 to 2000 points, which is where the majority of us will be playing for a while. Legion lists have a certain cookie cutter aspect to them which I am guilty too of using. This is not to say Legion lists aren't varied, which is actually an understatement. I just want to help you guys build a better list to compete against what we will see and shake things up a bit.

 

1) The Praetor.

C'mon guys, everyone loves him. He's what one would expect of a chapter master would be like, but his real punch is the gear and rites of battle he can choose. It's fair to say that everyone has included one in their list (even Loken has comparable traits and war gear).

 

The usual load out we see with this guy is a paragon blade, digi lasers, and some form of invuln save. Now I can see this guy and his retinue coming to blows with a similiar retinue and equipped praetor which will become almost as boring as 2 20 man tac squads with apothecaries fighting in CC. It will come down to the praetors fighting one another, which a lucky roll of a 6 for ID and an unlucky invuln save for your opponent will decide who wins.

 

You need your praetor elsewhere chewing up marines like lho leaf instead of getting bogged down in a "cinematic" duel that might last the rest of the game rather than winning his points back. Here's what I suggest: if you have a contemptor dreadnought (which most do and I'll get to that), use him to charge the praetor and co. as his AV 13 is unaffected by the paragon blade or man reaper scythe. And if that squad is packing a PF or Cmdr. Shepard who packs 7 weapons on his praetor, one of which being a thunder hammer (I didn't forget about you buddy ;) ), then you have that 6++ save to help out, which isn't much but better than nothing. Even better is if they do destroy your contemptor, he explodes an extra inch or two, hopefully taking a few marines with him!!!

 

Also cati termies with a 4++ can possibly take him down

 

 

2) Land raider Spartan.

Another well favored unit FOR SPARTA!!! Ehrm....well...it is definitely appropriately priced and means business. This beast takes up a nice chunk of your opponents points and would be wonderful to destroy. Capping out at around 300 points most lists equip this bad boy out with at least a flare shield and/or cerimite plating, which pushes destroying this unit to unreal levels.

 

Most people don't want to dish out lots of points for a suicide melta squad that will get burnt fast, pun intended, especially when cerimite plating is common. Missile squads are unreliable at best and take 5 glances to take a Spartan down, so taking spamming missiles till they blot out the sun ;) is inefficient and again the flare shield makes them useless.

 

"So how do we take it out?" you may ask, "can't we just ignore it and make a spartan taxes?" A horrible idea at that. 300+ points is nothing to ignore when it carries dual quad Lascannons and can tank shock 20 man marine squads off the board.

 

I may sound like a broken record here but you have to go back to your trouble shooters (contemptors and termies). They both, yes I was surprised dreads can too, take chain fists. Catiphractii armor is probably the best way to deploy chain fists and even a combi melta or two in case the spartan doesn't have plating.

 

I field a screen of cati termies with my contemptor to take out both aforementioned units. The termies destroy the spartan and then the dread rushes in to beat faces.

 

 

 

If you guys like this I can continue and tell my views about how to take out termies and contemptors effectively too but I don't want to waste time posting ridiculously long paragraphs if unpopular. Please any advice or experience is welcome!

 

Depth charge away!

[Reasonable Commissar]

I find a Predator Executioner is nice when dealing with a lot of meq and if you play against 40k armies with your HH list giving it the interceptor upgrade can be really nice to popping deepstriking terminators.

[depthcharge12]

I definitely agree with you Commissar. I had one in my list but took it out because if you don't want it getting popped, two or three was necessary for a squad.

 

I was also conserned that a pair of HBs was needed to avoid losing the plasma destroyer, although I thought about taking the optional sponson HB instead.

[Massaen]

Thanks for the mention! I have another battle recorded and being edited... Deathguard legion vs 40k SM codex...

 

My EC suffer from being built in 4th ed (prior to FW kits so fully converted) and built for the chaos SM dex at that.

 

They kinda work for the legion list (with pride of the legion) but are average at best...

 

Aiming for my drop WE force to be ready soon!

[Cmdr Shepard]

Thanks for the mention! I have another battle recorded and being edited... Deathguard legion vs 40k SM codex...

My EC suffer from being built in 4th ed (prior to FW kits so fully converted) and built for the chaos SM dex at that.

They kinda work for the legion list (with pride of the legion) but are average at best...

Aiming for my drop WE force to be ready soon!

So I'm not the only here who plays Legiones Astartes verus 40K Codices

In my experience such matches are among the most fun I even played. I'd like to read yout battle record. Let us know when you post it

The only issue I encountered is my own fairness which made me to rarely play Primarchs (every time I played Angron against a 40K army I always gave my opponent some bonus like additional points, additional FoC choices etc) even though Primarchs are not so overpowered: they have just MC-like stats with cool gear and a very high cost

My Legiones Astartes armies have never been defeated so far, even though I must say they have some disadvantage when they fight 40K SM. My most recent game was WE lead by Angron versus Minotaurs with some bonus point and 4 Heavy Support slots. Angron killed Moloc, Enkomi and Chapter Champion plus an hanful of "lesser" models. Moloc was very unlucky with invul saves

EDIT:

Cmdr. Shepard who packs 7 weapons on his praetor, one of which being a thunder hammer (I didn't forget about you buddy )

Well I'm honored to have been remembered... ;) Honestly the Shepard Pattern Praetor (since you were to polite to mention my build I decide to use that name ) is quite expensive since you pay a lot for the Thunderhammer. However it makes the Praetor able to deal with nearly every threat he can encounter. If he is fighting characters with higher I he can use the hammer and make sure every attack instant kill T4 models. I also noticed a jetbike for T5 is essential since he lacks EW...