Blood Angels think tank: dealing with inv saves. Your input?

[nevaenuffbass]

Battle brothers,

 

Today I wish to discuss the single issue that is leading to many losses on the 40k tabletop for our favourite red marines - units that can achieve good invuln saves. For me specifically, this has been thunderwolf cav and draigo wing ( with sanctuary to make a 2+inv). I imagine it equally applies to necrons (wraiths, c'tans) and Lysander with some 2+/3++ buddies.

 

When an inv save is combined with high toughness, eternal warrior and/or 2+ saves, it requires an immense amount of firepower to shift.

 

A side-note - we can kinda achieve the same with an allied sm character with shield eternal, in a unit like bikes, death company or sang guard.

 

A lot of this thread may have to do with table top tactics more than list writing, although both are probably relevant.

 

My initial ideas:

1. Firepower. With draigo, a drop pod full of sternguard, or better, allied grav centurions, can probably kill a decent portion, particularly if the unit in question relies solely on a tank character (Lysander, draigo). It is important in draigo' case to circumvent his psychic buffs - so drop in on turn 1 if you go first, focus whatever dice you have in the psychic phase on stopping the power in question. Note, that in almost all situations, this will make our heavy firepower squad a suicide squad, because mathematically they sont kill it, will be in charge range. So you need to make sure you can cope with this.

2. Psychic powers. Fear the darkness can make any deathstar leave the table. Far more likely if you can debuff their Ld first (eldar allies, telepathy casting allied psyker). This strategy is hit and miss - with a Ld10 unit, it less than 50% chance they will fail.

3. Strength D. Allies again. But an allied knight, assuming you can get the assault off, has a reasonable chance of doing D damage if it can survive a round of close combat. Stomp occurs at the same time as thunder hammer strikes(?)

4. Toughness debuff. Bolter drill becomes a whole lot better if you can reduce the T if the opponent in question. But again we need allies - dark Angels have the grenades. Biomancy has a power.

5. Tarpit. Allied(again) guard blob will hold the unit up.... Any other ideas?

6. Close combat - a death cimpany charge with a re rolls might do it, depending on the match up, with TWC this is hard aster are so fast. Same for wraiths.

 

Over to you - critique these ideas, offer your own?

[Jolemai]

• Overwhelming firepower can be achieved through small arms fire (no, really) and air superiority. Soon, you will be able to add the vanilla Formations to this list.

Fear of the Darkness (and similar powers) can work but they aren't reliable. I have seen anyone try a full "leadership bomb" list for a while now.

Stomp is at INT 1 so yes, they will happen simultaneously. To mitigate it, if you spend the points on a character IK (such as Gerantius) you can further buff him with, say, Quickening for even more kills. Alternatively, the Ceratus Knight Lancer has a save in combat which may help.

Inquisitors also have rad grenades which is the cheapest option. I believe Ad Mech have the capability too.

You can speed bump them with Scouts, Dreadnoughts or even combat squads. Alternatively, you can have a lot of fun with a Cullexus.

You're really asking for trouble if you try to chop the choppy. If this is the only case, charge them with multiple units and buff them to the hilt.

[Leonaides]

Scouts with shotguns... will drop a couple of 2+ save models a turn. Maths says they shouldnt but they 'always' do!

[CaptainHelion]

Mathhammer is as mathhammer does. Important to consider, but rarely how things actually play out. For it to really work, you need to be rolling literally thousands of dice.

Which brings me to my next point. Which is weight of fire. Jolemai has already made this point, but I wanted to reiterate it. Unlike Armour saves, you'll never be able to ignore it, so you have to just take it. The best way to deal with a 3++ is to make them roll as many 1s & 2s as you can. Bolters are good at this. Assault Cannons, Heavy Bolters, template weapons, anything that forces a lot of saves.

[Remtek]

Thunderwolf cav are quite pricy with stormshields, i guess it depends on what type of lists you are facing and what the missions are, but shooting them with dakkapreds/rifledreads work. DC are great if you can get the charge off which should be easy if he is spamming TWC as he will need early charges more than you due to little shooting. Combined assault from a Libby Dread and a random unit works (tacticals, scouts) If you can force non str 10 units to pile on your libby dread. Any libby with force should work, but you really need to get charge off.

 

Vs a Draigostar it's tough. Stormbolters and other left over dakka and hope you get lucky, then kill the rest of the army and focus on objectives. There is really no simple solution, since it usually always depends. No reason to tarpit this unit, since they will gate out of combat.

 

Vs Wraiths combined assault works really well, but it's so random if they have hot 3++ saves. You assault with for example 10 tacticals and a libby dread from a raven, with only 1-2 wraiths hitting Dread your will slow down the unit a lot, and str 10 doubles them out.

With Dante you can bait the Wraiths out too the flanks, then hit and run + 12 move in the end of opponents assault phase. 3D6+ 12 move then charge some warriors leaving wraiths in no mans land for a turn. You really have to plan ahead for this too work well. Wraiths have decent dmg, but not amazing they just die slowly and deal with small units quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

Easy solution is to ally in skitarii and just kill them with forcing tons of regular armor saves, but i guess this isnt a discussion of which ally too bring.. :)