The good assault units of 40k

[knife&fork]

This discussion is lacking in focus.

 

What is that you want to kill? 

 

DC can eat basic infantry but without a generous helping of power weapons and rerolls they don't threaten tough units.

 

The Furioso Lib is death incarnate to anything expensive but they obviously struggle if faced with hordes or massed good invul saves. 

[Frater Cornelius]

Actually Furioso Lib is hilariously bad. Sure, in CC he packs awesome punch and will liberate every top half from its respective bottom half. But he is slow as heck and very easy to stop. One Grav 6 and he won't be killing anyone anymore.

Sure, stick him in a Raven, but he will charge T3 at best (sometimes T4) and you give up plenty of ground control for the first two turns. You know, the make or break part of a game.

Shame really, because I love the concept.

 

As for the focus here? Just comparing CC units to see where DC are standing. There are plenty more factors then knowing what to kill. Besides, what's with the moderator Zeal over here? I feel like in the BT section over here :D

Is it really that bad that people discuss assault units? It is something that concerns BA very much because they are, in essence, a CC army. At the very least people will know what to look out for and what not to engage in melee and better shoot to death.

[knife&fork]

You need some context for the discussion to be meaningful. 

 

If you don't talk about what you actually want them to go after then how are going to compare their respective merits? 

[Frater Cornelius]

Well, first and foremost, what most people miss, is their means to get into combat.

12" movement is paramount. Beasts and Cav are the best assault unit types, but JP are not far behind.

But I guess most have already realized that JP is the only valid way to run DC. Land Raiders are just so painfully mediocre.

 

After that you want to discuss survivability outside of CC and finally what you want and don't want to engage in melee and their survivability in CC.

At the end you might discuss character inclusion to counteract weak points in the unit.

 

This thread seems to be about what they want or don't want to engage. They do not want to go toe to toe with the top CC units in game, that is for sure.

Potential threats are important to know.

[knife&fork]

You are on the BA forums, do you really think most people here doesn't understand the importance of mobility? ;)

 

The issue with this is that BA doesn't have any good shooty hammer type units, and are quite capable already of dealing with rank and file. So if you are going to spend a lot of pts on a CC unit it needs to be able handle scary CC enemies as well. 

 

Contrary to what many seem to think even our old WS5 DC with double rerolls were not unnecessary overkill. 

[Duke Danse Macabre]

I have to agree, a big part of the game is knowing how to deal with certain threats best and when you should and should not charge.

This is the find of for sight that wins games and makes for dramatic fun matches.

 

Makes me wonder though, what is the hardest to kill unit with the highest CC output to face?

I would be tempted to say thunder wolves.

[Raktra]

I begrudgingly have to agree. God :cussing dammit all to Hell I HATE Space Wolves.

Though if 30k counts too, Gal Vorbak are up there...

[Remtek]

I have to agree, a big part of the game is knowing how to deal with certain threats best and when you should and should not charge.

This is the find of for sight that wins games and makes for dramatic fun matches.

 

Makes me wonder though, what is the hardest to kill unit with the highest CC output to face?

I would be tempted to say thunder wolves.

That's really hard to say, they have their fair share of counters like all units. 

[Remtek]

Actually Furioso Lib is hilariously bad. Sure, in CC he packs awesome punch and will liberate every top half from its respective bottom half. But he is slow as heck and very easy to stop. One Grav 6 and he won't be killing anyone anymore.

Sure, stick him in a Raven, but he will charge T3 at best (sometimes T4) and you give up plenty of ground control for the first two turns. You know, the make or break part of a game.

Shame really, because I love the concept.

As for the focus here? Just comparing CC units to see where DC are standing. There are plenty more factors then knowing what to kill. Besides, what's with the moderator Zeal over here? I feel like in the BT section over here

Is it really that bad that people discuss assault units? It is something that concerns BA very much because they are, in essence, a CC army. At the very least people will know what to look out for and what not to engage in melee and better shoot to death.

A turn 3 charge is not bad considering you can assault wherever you feel like. It's cheap compared to the dmg it does and makes for an easy return on investment. I'm not saying it's amazing, but it's a stretch to call it flat out bad. You don't have to fly into the anti armor. MC's can only do one smash now. You get to snipe something you don't want to deal with. If it only kills 10 meq it's still making its points back. VS a pure assault army you can always start it on the table. and use it for turn two counter charging + buffing other units.

[Duke Danse Macabre]

I hate the cheesynes of Wolves, in the grim future there is only hover chariots and wolves?...

It ruins it... Brin back the wolfen!

 

Wish 30K counted.

 

You could always could still take a Lucius pattern Drop pod as well and Assault straight from that, costs a little more but for getting stuck in turn one I can't pass that up. ;)

[Karhedron]

Since we are on the topic of great assault units how would you deal with thunder wolf cavalry? These guy have been a pain to me since 5th edition. Anyone have any idea on there weakness and such?

The lack of any real weakness is one of the problems with dealing with TWC. Vindicators are not a bad option as they can score multiple hits. Even though some (or even all) of the TWC will have storm shields, any failed saves will ID a doggy. Downside is you will struggle to get more than one turn of firing before they are chewing the faces off things.

 

MSU is one option and BAs with our numerous jump pack units can pull this off quite well. If the wolves charge (and they will), they can only kill a low-value unit per turn. Their overkill can work to your advantage as they will normally wipe out 5 MEQs on the charge and then be left exposed to your shooting again next turn. The downside is most TWC units include one or more ICs meaning they can threaten more units. At least if the IC leaves the unit then they have usually lost their 2+ tanking save which means your basic weapon fire has just doubled in effectiveness.

 

Death Company are the closest thing in our army to a hard counter for TWC. A large unit led by Astorath can actually kill 75%+ of their own points in opposing TWC but only IF they the charge. This relies on their bonus attacks, strength and init on the charge combined with rerolls to hit and wound. This can require carefull screening of the DC by more expendable units which is slightly unfluffy. If the TWC charge then they will eat the DC with little effort. DC need to charge to pull this off.

 

10 DC with jump packs led by Astorath come in at around 400 points. For the same points, you might expect to face 5 TWC with a few storm shields and maybe a tooled up WGBL. The IC must challenge which you accept with Astorath to keep his higher I attacks from killing the DC. The DC then strike first with 50 attacks hitting on 4s and wounding on 4s with rerolls to both. That gives 29 wounds or roughly 9 failed saves which don't care about storm shields or any other fancy protection. So the TWC are pretty much removed as a threat leaving just Astorath and the WGBL to slug it out and the DC to finish off the last TWC in the next turn (although they will probably lose a few along the way).

 

These figures actually hold up quite well even if you vary the wargear of the units on both sides, provided you retain roughly equivalent points. If you give one side a points advantage then the outcome skews in their favour but that is only to be expected. As others have pointed out, pulling off a charge against a unit as fast as TWC is a bit tricky but it can be done. A lot of SW players are actually a bit careless with their TWC since they are keen to get them into combat and rely on their Counter Charge to keep them safe if the enemy dares to charge them.

 

There are few units in the game that can hard-counter TWC for a similar points value but Death Company can do it provided you get that vital charge. If tooling up your DC for this fight, I would keep them light on upgrades as you need weight of normal attacks. Avoid power axes or fists as you will need to strike first. A few power weapons would not hurt but expect your opponent to take any hits from these on his Storm Shield bearers so don't go overboard.

[Bartali]

I think the best thing to set up a charge from Astorath/DC is... more DC.

Use five man bare bones jump DC to bait your things like Thunderwolves, whilst also screening your big DC unit.

 

If your opponent charges a screening unit (and at 115pts they're just about cheap enough to be throwaway) they'll either blow through them, or get locked in combat. Either way it leaves your opponent ripe for a charge in your turn

[Duke Danse Macabre]

Problem I'm worried about there is they normally take the max unit possible so we will always be at a disadvantage now we are capped at 10 men.

I supose if we throw Mephiston in there as well but 2 HQ having to go in to deal with this is not idea.

 

What i would give for the old rules for destroyer weapons. :P

[Karhedron]

DC can go up to 15 strong I think. TWC max-out at 6. If you play the numbers game, we should be able to out-roll the wolves although they can throw in more ICs than we can.

[Karhedron]

Mephiston is interesting as a source of S10 hits, especially with Blessings but with no invulnerable save, I do not think his 3 wounds would last very long against that volume of Rending hits.

[Raktra]

Yeah, it's up to ten additional, not max.

[knife&fork]

TWC are good, but not that good.

 

soften them up a bit with shooting, it's only a T5 3+/3++ unit. Like bikers that cant jink. Force terrain checks as much as you can and finish them off with a heavy hitter.

 

TWC are fairly priced but get quite expensive if the SW player tries to make a death star out of them.

[Frater Cornelius]

DC can go up to 15 strong I think. TWC max-out at 6. If you play the numbers game, we should be able to out-roll the wolves although they can throw in more ICs than we can.

 

It is not the number of ICs, although it is a factor. It is the quality of said ICs. Do not try doing toe to toe with a fully geared Thunderwolf Lord. You will regret it.

 

TWC are good, but not that good.

 

soften them up a bit with shooting, it's only a T5 3+/3++ unit. Like bikers that cant jink. Force terrain checks as much as you can and finish them off with a heavy hitter.

 

TWC are fairly priced but get quite expensive if the SW player tries to make a death star out of them.

 

TWC are solid, but what makes them so good is that they can get ablative wounds into the unit by having an Iron Priest mount a Thunderwolf and buy 4 little wolves to run with them, and their ability to get solid tanky ICs.

Easy access to Endurance or invisibility via allied Tigurius or Sevrin Loth is just icing on the cake.

[knife&fork]

invisibility in general is a problem, yes. It's something that needs an answer no matter what.

 

Buffing up TWC with extra characters and wolves makes them better of course. But they also start to really rack up the points and leave the wolf players list with holes. I'm sure you noticed this when you tried massed TWC?

[Frater Cornelius]

Indeed I did. My current setup is rather minimalistic. I run 5 TWC with 2 SS and a Fist (on three separate models) and a Lord with one of the setups mentioned above. Tigurius rolls on Telepathy more often than not to fish for Invisibility. In the last few games I have only lost 1-2 bases while tabling the other side. But then again, I run a very well optimized and very cheesy SW/UM list.

 

As for invis, there is an answer, and it costs 165 points. Culexus. SW and BA have an advantage of FA slot pods. You can deliver him safely if you do not want (or can't - damn servo skulls) infiltrate.

[knife&fork]

he could also hitch a ride in the storm raven. Huge mobile bubble for shutting down powers .

 

I think that having a free FA pod could be useful in many BA lists. Not as dedicated transport, but for targets of opportunity. That empty pod can be great for almost any unit as an alternative form of deployment.

[Shaezus]

Hmm. Those wolf dog-horse things...let's be frank: who in their right mind is going to go toe-to-toe with them without giving them a good ranged hosing down first? Rock, paper, scissors and all that. As knife&fork said you need to consider what you want your cc unit to kill, and if you're aiming them at a full-strength killy cc unit then you must be completely doolally :)

 

The best CC unit is the one which complements your army and does things your other units can't. I found DC with chaplain were overkill vs MEQ but give them a TH and PF and they were perfect for anti-WK, riptide and general MC. Now Dante is our best, but he needs the best escort which IMHO is now Sanguinary Guard.

[ThatOneMarshal]

Guys I was thinking since the mods have come on here and said we need focus maybe we should talk about how we deal with these scary assualt units. A lot of these a good ole vindicator or DC units will take care of them.

[Karhedron]

Hmm. Those wolf dog-horse things...let's be frank: who in their right mind is going to go toe-to-toe with them without giving them a good ranged hosing down first? Rock, paper, scissors and all that. As knife&fork said you need to consider what you want your cc unit to kill, and if you're aiming them at a full-strength killy cc unit then you must be completely doolally :)

While there is certainly some truth in this, the general problem is that TWC are very hard to counter with shooting before they hit your lines and start chewing through your units. They are T5 2W with a 3++ save and usually a 2+ tanking character who can LOS any AP2 hits onto a cheap wolf etc. For small-arms fire you are looking at 30-ish bolter shots to put a single wound on that unit.

 

If you want to look at heavier weapons, even lascannons will not ID them due to T5 and they will normally get their 3++ storm shield save so you need on average 11 lascannon shots to drop 1 TWC (and that is assuming none of those shots get LOSed onto a cheap fenwolf). The only thing that stands a chance of stopping them is volume S10 fire. Eldar can do it with massed Wraithguard but even Vindicators will struggle to get more than 2 or 3 hits if the opponent spaces his models carefully.

 

TWC are virtually guaranteed a Turn 2 charge and are tough enough to take virtually a whole army shooting at them for a turn and still have enough models left to rip a hole in most units. By all means, soften them up with shooting but even with a 2:1 points advantage, you will struggle to seriously damage the unit. That is what makes a well tooled-up TWC unit so dangerous.

 

That is why I am an advocate of countering TWC with Death Company. It is not because I think our best CC unit should get stuck into combat with the opponent's best CC unit (although it is very fluffy ;)). It is because Death Company are one of the few units I am aware of in the game who can take on a similar value unit of TWC and actually stand a good chance of winning the fight. There was a fairly lengthy MathHammer thread over on Warseer about how well different units could counter TWC and point-for-point, DC were one of only a handful who could do it.

 

I would rather shoot the choppy and chop the shooty but there are no shooty units in the BA dex that can drop TWC fast enough to prevent them hitting your lines unless you spam Vindicators and are very lucky with your scatter rolls. This being the case, you need something to stop the TWC or they will just chew through unit after unit. Frankly the only other unit in our codex that can stop them is probably Dante and he is likely to lose his bodyguard in the process to say the least.

[Remtek]

Vs. Thunder Wolves i like Rifledreads, Baals or Sicarians.

 

@Karthedronuk

 

You can for example wrap your Baal Pred with Scouts and put an assault unit behind it, this will make it difficult if he is going for a T2 charge. Depends how shooty the t-wolf list is though.  Wrapping a Rifledread is really easy.