[HH1.0] Raven Guard Tactics

[Nusquam]

To clarify, i ran decap strike in the game. Thats why i thought of the scorpius. So it would have been firing max turn one.

 

A grav levvy would have died from interceptor too if it got too close. It might have worked if i set it on the far side of the havocs. Scatter would have determined it.

[SkimaskMohawk]

How would he have killed the Levi? They're pretty much the most frustrating thing ever to kill. Just deep strike the pod so its obscured from the few units that get to intercept it for a 2+ cover save and bombard the rapiers without disembarking. There should be no way for them to get through a 3 AV 12 2+ cover and then 4 AV 13 4++ from intercept

[Hesh Kadesh]

Being fair, a Tank Hunter Lascannon Iron Havoc Squad has a decent chance if rolled above average. Hitting on 2's, penetrating on 5's with a reroll (or glancing on a 4 with a reroll). 

 

88.8% chance to hit, 75% chance to glance/44.4% chance to penetrate, 16.6% chance to blow up, 50% chance to save.

 

It has a chance to survive, of course! And while it expensive, each shot has a 33.3 %chance to glance. All it takes is one extra hit or glance. 9 hits, rather than 8, 7 glances rather than 6, only 3 passes, rather than 4, boom!

 

Of course, that's 95 for the Siege Breaker, and 460pts for the squad on top of that, but hey ho. Any vehicle NOT rocking a 4++, that's capiche, brother - I've seen one nix a full health knight (that rightly switched shields) to the lascannons, thanks to a couple of good penetrate rolls.

[Nusquam]

He had some sort of buff that let units reroll 1s to shoot in their deployment and the rapiers themselves had interceptor. So between cognis upped rapiers rerolling 1s with sunder and the havocs with BS5 rerolling ones and tank hunters they overkilled the pod and overkilled the cortus. They were right next to each other. I might have been able to stay out of the havocs intercept range if I dropped on the far side. But they were on top of a derelict skyshield with no good cover to drop into and stay in range. Admittedly I didn't know the rapiers had interceptor via the MoS. Plus they didn't have to destroy it outright, one shaken result would've made it dead in the water anyway. It was the perfect storm. Had the deployment been different or he had the opposite side I would have had lots of room to land and hide for a 2+. That derelict skyshield was a bad idea ha.

Edited February 19, 2016 by Nusquam

[Hesh Kadesh]

Khy Vhalen. He's rapidly becoming more effective. I nearly wrote him off. That said, I still think in an Ironfire list, Golg is better, IMHO.

 

And did you really expect a shooty army to not take the high ground with good lines of sight and an objective beneath them XD. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Sky shields are easily the most cancerous thing ever made. Even when there was real terrain rules they didn't follow any of them, they can't be killed and are stupid strong buff wise.

[Slips]

If anything, they shouldnt be able to get cover saves from weapons with the barrage rule.

 

Its a landing pad: theres no potential roof to shield you from ballistic-trajectory weapons like Mortars.

 

But no...

Edited February 19, 2016 by Slipstreams

[defl0]

I think all terrain should be destroyable... Is a problem with them game really.

[Slips]

Not absolutely all terrain since that penalizes cover based armies in long games.

 

If by turn 4 youve levelled everything and replace it with "rubble" board is a bit less interesting as well as some armies getting clear benefits for there being no real terrain left while others get some pretty severe disadvantages for the same reasons.

[Nusquam]

It's not that I didn't expect him to take it. It's that setting up his aegis line and making it a minifort in the center of his deployment gave him a huge advantage. We just shouldn't have included it on the table, derelict or not.

[Nusquam]

So I've been brainstorming tactics against artillery heavy enemies, particularly ironfire lists because no scatter phosphex rapiers will gib anything they touch barring 2+ void armor. So glad they didn't make it AP2.

 

First thing that comes to mind are bikes in a ReCo. Poisoned 3+ means they'll get the hurt on but if you space them well enough it should max out at 24 hits due to crawling fire. But that even results in 4 dead, 3 if they have a primus. But if you scout 12", move 12", and turboboost 12" you may be able to get closer than their minimum range. As the phosphex is 12-36" they'll have to be relatively central to work. Speaking of which I know weapons can't kill beyond max range, but what about under minimum?

 

Outside of ReCo, Scimitars have a base 2+, but trade scout for deepstrike. Deepstrike close to min and turbo boost into it. Though medusas and such still exist, but on your turn two you should have some flyers or something coming in to put a hurt on them. Even then, 5-6 wounds is better than 72. Just beware augery scanners. If there's one inside the rapier unit and you deepstrike 12-18" away, that 2+ isn't going to save you. With a vox getting up close you might be able to land 19-23" away and turbo into minimum, but how it would survive phosphex rain I don't know.

 

Back to Darkfire Praevian. The huge range will really help pick them off and a lucky blind never hurts.

 

Typhons obvious.

 

Infiltrating, scouting proteus with seekers or destroyers with moritat. In a ReCo it'll have shrouded so you can pop smoke for a 3+ against medusas and havocs. I've been wanting a proteus and it's hard to pass up shrouded, infiltrated ones with scout delivering a payload.

 

Leviathan as mentioned before, not all games will have an almost perfectly stacked deck against you like mine did. Phosphex launcher and grav flux and claw.

 

Whirlwind scorpius outside a ReCo to try and pick off crew.

 

Kaedes Nex. He can pick out crew but they'll still be T7 despite precision shots. Though with enough hits some rends should go through.

 

Mor Deythan in rhinos. I had no approach to them in my game. He had blockaded the skyshield with rhinos.

 

I really wish we could deepstrike our terminators. RG had the tech and used it in stories from book 3, but we still can't use them.

 

Xiphons ML force reroll on cover saves. Mine was hunting tanks for the objective but in other games. Flyers in general really, but you want to make sure they come in T2 because you don't want to hang back outside the phosphex too long.

 

Dropping the Nemean Reaver right behind them would be scary haha. Perfect deepstrike, only snapshots against when he arrives. Then he takes it to the paint. I might have to try this one next time. Or a generic KE with psychic shriek. Did the perfect deepstrike with the KE attached to a unit ever get resolved? Seems too good to be true that you place the KE perfectly then the unit around him.

 

Then there's the Drop Vanguard RoW, but interceptor is still at full BS for some reason. The wrote the timing strangely on it.

 

That's all I can think of. Anyone else got something?

[defl0]

What about a good Old fashioned tar pit. Can't shoot if you're are stuck in hth.

 

Against IWs I find they take all guns. Aka too many guns. Counter attack tends to be like a contemptor...

 

With recon you should be able to go infantry heavy. Weather the turn one shooting and just tie up his army and grind it out.

 

That's usually how I win against IW. Don't let them shoot.

[Nusquam]

The problem is getting close. I tried it, but no scatter phosphex and medusas killed most of my units by turn three. Infantry heavy does not want to fight no scatter barrage weapons. Even with a 2+ cover, 3+ if havocs shoot at you, unless you're in a straight line with max coherency 12 phosphex shells with no scatter is going to kill the whole squad in one turn. You might be able to get away with one unit stretched out like that, maybe outriders so they can get into CC turn two. But anything else is not going to have a good time. They're going to get one or two turns of shooting, and I can't stress enough how bad 12 AP3 poisoned(3+) crawling fire blasts without scatter is. I tried to space out my destroyers but the crawling fire still put 72 wounds on them.

 

They're going to shoot you at least once, all they have to do is fire some large blast barrage to generate one ironfire counter and it's all over unless you're inside a vehicle, because it's going to rain pinpoint phosphex on your troops.

Edited February 21, 2016 by Nusquam

[TompiQ]

Check out the Barrage special rule - the only thing being inside minimum range does is force the artillery unit to fire directly, i.e. draw Line of Sight. Thus getting close isn't going to protect you in and off itself.

[Hesh Kadesh]

I think the only reason Ironfire was made was because the resident FW IW player got sick of having to work out how to place his 48 Quad Mortar blasts, 3 Medusa Templates, and his 2D3+2 Whirlwind Blasts each turn. Or rather, his opponents got sick of him having to roll and work out around 60 Scatter Tests a turn.

[Nova_chron]

That is a beautiful image Hesh

[Nusquam]

Ah well there goes half the things I thought of unless you can stay out of LoS.

Welp fighting that RoW is going to be painful going forward.

[TompiQ]

Ah well there goes half the things I thought of unless you can stay out of LoS.

 

Welp fighting that RoW is going to be painful going forward.

 

Well, if you're close enough to be within 12", you're close enough to assault. I suspect that might be key. 

[Nusquam]

Not if you scouted to get that far or deepstruck, so no assault. Which is half of the tactics I listed. So you'll just get shot to pieces with no scatter since you'll be within 12" of an IW unit. The idea was to get in minimum range to avoid getting shot, traveling normally otherwise exposes you to at least one more round of shooting.

Edited February 21, 2016 by Nusquam

[defl0]

Hmmm... It's a tough nut to crack, but I still feel like Mor deythan with combi flamers in rhinos are really the answer against artillery. With maun + recon you are very likely to go first. So as long as you are not seized on, you are going to be erasing a ton of artillery. 

 

And even if you don't you are 2+ on the rhinos if they are in cover. 

 

In some way's recon ROW is great as a rhino rush :)

[SkimaskMohawk]

2 leviathans in pods and a dread claw to get both in turn 1, Bombards eats the artillery. With careful placement you should be getting 2+ cover from his interceptor unit (3+if its Havocs), but there should in no way be enough intercepting anti tank to kill a shrouded pod in cover and then a leviathan, let alone 2

[Nusquam]

I do want to pick up a leviathan. Next game won't have a derelict skyshield with no cover around it, that's for sure ha. Also realized that Ironfire can't take forts. So if he didn't have an aegis up on that unfurled skyshield, that would've changed some things. We didn't exactly swap lists either, we just wanted to get to rolling. Oh well.

 

I just read the Army of Dark compliance theme. Even that is a better 'Liberation Force' than the actual Liberation Force RoW. With a more positive spin on the special rules titles it could make for a great alternative. It's not like you can just bust themes out at pick up games anyway. Or if you already run traitor RG. Really the biggest thing holding me back on the Liberation RoW is that they use the ally slot instead of just being in the primary detachment. Forcing an ally to use all of its benefits, mechanically, makes for a really weak RoW.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

there arent any grav rapiers in that list , need ALL the grav

 

Funnily enough I am now sold on grav weapons as the superior anti armor its time to pester WLK into buying a bunch of them for his ravenguard

Trust me, I'm already rocking grav weapons on every dread and building 5 speeders to spam more.

 

WLK

[defl0]

How you guys running recon marines? Bolters? Shot guns? Ccws?

 

Thoughts on what's best?

[Nusquam]

Ive yet to test them but the lists ive built has one max squad with sniper rifles and two min with shotguns and MBs.

 

I figure I might as well take advantage of fleet by running the smaller ones into better positions rather than take 5 pot shots beyond 12".

 

The smaller squads are also running behind higher threat units like Mor Deythan and podded dreads so theyre relatively low on the must shoot list.