Hoping for some advice

[Obeliske]

So my wife and I are playing a few 500pt games to learn the rules.

 

I'm fielding 2 units of 10 infantry a tank ( can't remember the name right now but its the one that ignore's cover) a hydra and a commisar as my HQ (we've ruled this is ok as I don't currently have an HQ to use).

She's fielding a flyrant with a metric tonne of upgrades inc. regen and evolutions and I'm not sure what, 3 warriors and 3 swarms.

 

My issue is that after 3 games I havn't won a single one I have no serious trouble with anything on the board but that flyrant is devastating me and I don't seem to be able to hurt it. Everything snapshots at it as it's flying except the hydra. When I do hit it it has a 2+ or 3+ save depending on what evolution it has this turn.

 

I'm trying to figure out how I can kill the damn thing. Does anybody have any advice?

[WarriorFish]

You could run your Commissar as a Lord Commissar as a valid HQ, though he'd be more expensive. As far as 'nids go I've not fought their current codex so I'm afraid I can't offer specific advice. First thing to say that if your aim is to learn the rules then bringing the pain like this isn't very nice, second thing to do is give the 'nid codex a good read to find out exactly what you're up against. Does it use guns or is it combat based?

 

Since you're mostly up against the flyrant and not much else that's where your focus should be, you'll be able to deal with the others easily enough with whatever you have. The Eradicator or Hellhound (cover ignoring tank) is a great tank and will obliterate the hordes for you but it's useless here, so those points can be better spent. Your best bet is to either blast it with dice to force saves and therefore wounds or load up on plasma to take it down. Are you running your troops as Veterans? They'd be a good plasma delivery system.

[GrandMasterAralia]

Maybe a vendetta to take out the flyrant and transport some flamer vets to roast what's left on the ground after you gunned down the monstrocity.

 

And you need to check the wording on the "ymgarl factor" upgrade - the one that gives improved save. I'm early certain that it ONLY works in close combat.

 

Not sure on the AM points but a cheap HQ, 2x vet squads (preferably with carapace and missile launchers that will instakill warriors) and a vendetta... I'd try that out. :)

[Obeliske]

First I have to ask which of us is "bringing the pain"? :P Cause she's wooping me cause of that leader she does have it equiped with a ranged weapon. I will definately take a look at that Ymgarl upgrade to check that.

 

I hadn't thought of the hellhound TBH or the plasma. I kinda looked at the gets hot rule and said nuh uh, though if its the difference between winning and not I guess I aught to rethink that :P

 

Also looking at the Hellhound and Devil dogs what are your thoughts on the Devil Dog? 

 

A Vendetta is out of the frame right now not enough cash to pick one up at the moment although it is on the "to buy" list :P though I don't think I'd feel comfortable bringing it to our 500 pt game :P A set of heavy troopers for missile launchers is actually next on my "to buy" list.

[hendrik]

missile launcher heavy weapon teams will not help you that much.

there are a couple of methods how to deal with the flyrant:

1) hydras, and lot's of them, although you will still be shooting in your turn.

2) aegis defence line/bastion with quad gun/icarus lascannon

3)snapshot volume of fire (not so optimal,as you have discovered)

4) flyers

5)forgeworld units: sabre platforms, hydra platforms, forgeworld flyers (a vulture with twin linked punisher canon will eat that flyrant)

6) hide a forceweapon in a squad and hope you can score a wound in close combat...

7) ignore it and take out the rest of the army

 

what weapons does she have on the flyrant? and how much dammage does it actually do?

unfortunatly at low point levels it's very hard to deal with a flying monsterous creature,without dedicating your list to it. However, i feel that a vendetta (or a vulture/thunderbolt if you feel up to converting) could help out a lot.

 

on hellhounds and devil dogs, against the list she's using hellhounds will be the best option. her swarms are very sensitive to fire and a torrent flamer template can put some hurt on those warriors too.

[Obeliske]

I have the Astra Militarum Codex and your #2, isn't mentioned in it anywhere though reading online I have seen many refrences to both aegis defence line and the quad gun where can I find info on them (updated for 7th).

 

My question on the Devil Dog wasn't relevant to this particular army matchup though now I have to ask what a "torrent" flamer template is and why they are sensitive to it? Reading through the Tyranid codex I'm not seeing any refrence to being weak to flamers. If your refering to Tyranid armis tendancy to swarm she's not playing that way she wants a couple big guys and thats er. When I said swarm above I was refering to Ripper Swarms. She has no intention of getting termagaunts or hormagaunts at all whatsoever in her army.

[hendrik]

I have the Astra Militarum Codex and your #2, isn't mentioned in it anywhere though reading online I have seen many refrences to both aegis defence line and the quad gun where can I find info on them (updated for 7th).

stronghold assault, p.20, but i'm 99% sure it's still exactly the same as in the 6th edition rulebook.

as for the torrent:

special rules 7th ed.

Torrent

This weapon fires massive gouts of flame, gas or lethal fluids across the battlefield.

A weapon with this special rule is treated like any other Template weapon, but when

firing it in the Shooting phase, place the template so that the narrow end is within 12" of

the weapon and the wide end is no closer to the weapon than the narrow end.

so this gives the hellhound a lot of range to place its template

as for the ripper swarms:

special rules 7th ed.

Swarms

These creatures are so multitudinous that they cannot be picked out individually and

must be fought as a group.

If, when allocating Wounds to a unit with the Swarms special rule, two or more models

could be chosen as the closest enemy, the closest enemy is always the model with the

least number of Wounds. If a model with the Swarm special rule suffers an unsaved

Wound from a Blast (any size) or Template weapon, each unsaved Wound is multiplied to

two unsaved Wounds unless that Wound has the Instant Death special rule. However, a

unit entirely composed of models with the Swarm special rule is not slowed by difficult

terrain, but must test for Dangerous Terrain as normal.

thus making the hellhounds flamer template even more deadly!

[Bionicman]

Weak to flamers because flames ignore cover and are AP5 (or better) and will ignore also the armour saves of the small bugs - so one less dice (or layer of protection) to worry about. No need to hit (because templates hit automatically), no armour save allowed - you just need to wound.

 

Torrent...do you have the rulebook?

 

Aegid was written out of the 7th ed codex...sadly. The emperor knows why...

 

Last bit of advice - don't buy any models unless you are sure you need them. When playing with a friend just proxy your models until you are certain about their abilities.

 

Oh and while I don't know the exact stats of the flyrant or which Leman Russ tank you are fielding, what about an Exterminator? It is not as specialized as a hydra but a decent tank (twin linked 4x S7 AP4 shooting + addons!) and easy to proxy as yo already have a tank.

[Obeliske]

Doing some reading today now that you fine gentlemen have guided me to I've learned some new things :) Thank you all muchly.

 

I had missed both the torrent special ability and the swarms bit I appreciate your calling those to my attention. I'm currently using the Eradicator and thinking my next tank purchase will be the Punisher as it will be useful as a snap shotter for air (kitted out with sponsons its rolling 29 shots (20 24'' S5 AP- and 9 36'' S5 AP4) averaging 4.8 hits to air per turn as snap shots and giving me some nasty anti-infantry support) and after that I'm thinking of getting Pask for tank orders. Without Pask this would net me 4.8 hits to air or 14.5 shots on ground targets for 160 pts. Compared to the Hydra which nets me on average 4.5 shots to air or 2.5 to ground targets (because of snap shotting vs ground for 70 pts even bringing 2 to even out the points cost I think the Punisher is far more likely to be useful because while hitting less air targets it will mow down more infantry. What are your thoughts?

 

Both the Aegis Defense line and Quad Gun emplacements have been written out of the codex at this time.

 

I have a further question about infantry as well please. Looking at my squad of 10 I can make one hold a vox caster, two use a heavy weapon, and "One remaining Guardsmen that has not been upgraded with one of the options above may replace his lasgun with one item from the Special Weapons list. In regards to that last statement it simply means one further guy may take a weapon not that each further un-upgraded guy can. I ask simply because perusing e-bay there are a massive number of people selling units with 4+ special weapons and it confuses me as to why. Also as a further question I bought a heavy weapons team and made them morters, I'm very much regretting that as the scatter dice do NOT like me and so I will  be replacing them. I've decided to have a single squad of lasgunners for anti-tank/heavy infantry but the heavy weapons that go in my squads of infantry I've no clue what to include might I ask what you use and why?

[WarriorFish]

Ebay is full of rubbish, from the "OOP model" that GW still sells to "pro painted" that looks like it was attacked by a 6 year old... Veterans can have up to 3 special weapons but you're not on ebay to buy squads - you're there to buy cheap models for refurbishment so look at it purely on a model basis :)

 

With the flyrant of doom the other squads aren't going to be much work to kill, so while a Hellhound would be great for munching the swarms do you really need to dedicate the points to that? If you're up against a flyrant in 500pts then you shouldn't be worried about a Vendetta at 500pts because your opponent clearly isn't giving it any thought :lol: A Punisher with the aim to run as a Pask would be good, volume of fire should do the trick especially supported by some strong weaponry to finish the job.

[Obeliske]

Heh it does seem to be yes :P but I thought I'd ask. Your right about the Hellhound but it does give me some options. Before ever having played the game I decided to give my guys Grenade Launchers and made my heavy weapons team mortars.... REALLY regretting that now. Gonna order up some of those 5 packs of guys and build em for flamers and conscripts to bubble wrap my tanks I think I'm gonna go with the armored division in the long run.

[hendrik]

a paskunisher is definetly a bit threat. but don't order the pask commander model! ,just use the tank commander supplied in the kit, maybe do a head swap for a more commander looking head and use that one.

also, get some small magnets so you can magnetise the entire leman russ tank. there are plenty of tutorials out there how to magnetise the kit such as this one:

http://gamingblog.lnh.id.au/?p=602

this will make you save money long term as you don't need to get a new tank everytime you swap configuration ;)

[hendrik]

paskunisher; HB sponsons 230 pts

veteran sqd: mortar 65 pts

veteran sqd: mortar 65 pts

vendetta: 170 pts

total: 530 pts. perhaps you and the misses want to increase the game total to at least 750 pts?

 

in that case, based on your model availability i'dd field:

paskunisher; HB sponsons 230 pts
-joined eradicator, HB sponsons 150 pts

veteran sqd: grenade launcher or mortar 65 pts

veteran sqd: grenade launcher or mortar 65 pts

vendetta: 170 pts

hydra: 70 pts

750 pts exactly

 

tactics: hide the veterans in some terrain to sit on an objective while providing some long range support with the mortars(i would prefer these over grenade launchers) while the armoured elements in your list do the real killing

[Cap'm Heckus]

That first paskunisher list need another Russ added to it to be legal.

 

Honestly I'd go tons of Flamers and a couple priests to handle the little guys. 2 vets squads with 3 flamers and a priest each (maybe make one in each unit a heavy flamer). Stick them in cover and wait for them to get close (assuming you have no chimeras).

 

EDIT: maybe flamers and an auto cannon. That with an eradicator and a hydra to harass the flyer until you can mop up the ground troops.

[Obeliske]

More and more I'm regretting equiping my units with GL's LOL. Honestly I thought they'd work a lot better then they do but really they are only any good against blobs. Only a very small chance to hit anything because of scatter.

 

Looking at HW's I notice you cannot snapshot a blast weapon which means morters and RL's probably aren't the best options for infantry to carrey around especially if they have to move as such what in your opinion would be the best option for HW's for my foot sloggers?

[hendrik]

i rarely give my infantry heavy weapons anymore, but prefer them mounted in a chimera with a meltagun. if i do run objective sitting units i always take the mortar, due to it being capable of hiding out of line of sight, and still hit something. all my heavy lifting is usually done by my tanks, especially my wyverns and russes

[Obeliske]

i rarely give my infantry heavy weapons anymore, but prefer them mounted in a chimera with a meltagun. if i do run objective sitting units i always take the mortar, due to it being capable of hiding out of line of sight, and still hit something. all my heavy lifting is usually done by my tanks, especially my wyverns and russes

This is actually exactly what I'm considering doing. Though I figure I aught to decide what HW's to run just in case I have extra points or need them for some other reason.

[WarriorFish]

Mobility is very useful on heavy weapons which is why I really like mine on tanks. HWTs aren't useless though, they just need a place. Some cheap mortars will be great to hold a friendly objective in safety and lob death - just not at 500pts!

 

Also hendrik forgot to mention to best reason not to get the official Pask - the model isn't very good. Does no justice to the awesome artwork either.

[Obeliske]

I dunno havn't checked yet though I do have to say he's gotta be better then some generic tank commander I appreciate the link to the magnetizing guide though thank you. Also I havn't seen any rules on hitch guns but I've seen a few people talk about them and they do seem to be on my tank models (hitch's) where can I find some rules on them? I checked my codex and the rule book... I kinda feel like they've hidden a lot of awesome info all over the place LOL

Also am I the only person who likes the Taurox model as is? LOL I had planned on picking some up to be Taurox Primes but having talked to you guys and learning some more of the rules I'm seeing the Chimera is definately the better choice. Though I do have a question in that regard. I read soemwhere that the Taurox is faster then the Chimera but I can't find any refrence to this is the codex am I missing something or was the post I recall mistaken?

[WarriorFish]

Pask is good, well worth the upgrade over the normal Tank Commander if you have the points. Just do the model and your wallet a favour and kit bash him :P

 

The Chimera isn't better than the Taurox (appearance aside... :P ) - just a better generalist and easier to use. Use the one that suits your needs best. Regarding the Taurox's speed it can re-roll failed dangerous terrain tests which helps but you're probably thinking of the Taurox Prime which is a Fast vehicle (and not for standard Guardsman use, sadly).

[Obeliske]

I'm gonna argue! I like the way the Taurox looks better. The Chimera just looks like another tank to me. I love how the Taurox has 4 treads its very unique and differs from anything I've ever seen in the way of troop transport.

 

The Taurox is cheapest and has 3 dismount points allowing you to deploy farther forward when dismounting it also has lighter armor then the Chimera (by 1 in the front arc IIRC)

The Chimera is next with 1 dismount spot in the rear but it has lasgun arrays allowing for 6 lasgun shots as well up to two models may shoot through the hatch in the top (and a HW only counts as 1 though it must snapshot) as well it comes with its own weapon.

The Taurox Prime is the most expensive along with the Taurox bits above it also has IIRC a second gun and its own cannon.

 

Taurox may also have the lasgun arrays and top shooting ability I don't recall

Taurox are capable of carrying 10 while the Chimera is 12 (allowing a full squad + attached hero/commisar)

 

Anything labeled IIRC is things I'm not 100% on as I'm currently at work and do not have the codex here to look at everything else I'm possitive on.

 

Overall it really does look to me like the Chimera comes out ahead because of its points cost and sheer volume of available fire power. Though the 3 dismount points for the Taurox are very good as well if your correct about the Taurox Primes Fast Vehicle status it may be an excellent vehicle to keep safe filled with vets to do a last (2) turn board assault to get far side objectives. I'll have to look into this when I get home.

[hendrik]

my problem with the taurox is both the model, and it's rules. having only 1 hatch to jump out of doesn't hurt the chimera that much, but it's improved armour keeps it alive a lot longer then a taurox IMO. However, this is the imperial guard, so do as you please, heck, 10 billion souls are at your command, noone will notice a few more dying! give it a try and share your experiences with us!

 

However, at 500 pts, and given the problems you are facing now, i would hold off in investing in a taurox. get a valkyrie kit instead and convert it into a vendetta (you can use the lascannons from the heavy weapon teams, you just need to find 1 extra lascannon!). it will help your list a lot more!

[Obeliske]

I'm not argueing that the Chimera is better. I'm just argueing that the Taurox looks awesome :P and pointing out how the Taurox Prime could be used.

[WarriorFish]

Appearance is entirely subjective though, so nobody is wrong :lol: I'd be a bit happier with the Taurox if it had Rhino grade armour (or better yet AV11 all round). The Prime isn't that bad (armour aside) but is restricted to Scions.

[Obeliske]

Is it? I missed that, I guess I wont be using the Taurox's after all :P I don't want to use the Scions as they have their own codex now and I think they might be becoming their own team or something because of that and I don't want to end up have an allied detachment... We humans are the superiour race and will stomp out those damn dirty xeno's!