Facing Skyhammer Annihilation Formation

[steellegionnaire85]

Guys,

 

I am a guard player thru and thru. But I need some advice. I want to know if you guys could tell me how best to counter this.

 

The guy who I am playing tomorrow is a black templar player. I know he plays a rapid movement black templar army. He uses alot of rhinos and razorbacks, with at least one land raider. He told me he is bringing this formation. I want to counter this. I want to know what weaknesses to attack and how to do this. This will be my first time playing against the new space marine codex.

 

All help appreciated in advance. Thanks.

[shandwen]

Coteaz.

He is your best bet. Otherwise bubblewrap your stiff with plenty of conscripts (fearless is higjly advised here).

[Ishagu]

I'm not sure what the hard counter would be. Clever deployment and keeping your infantry in vehicles might help...

 

Let me know how the game goes!

[MisterDutch]

Deploying in cover? At least that'll give you a cover save against the devastator shooting, and it will slow down the charge of the space marines (although they'll still make it due to rerolls and frag granades but the -2 might help...)

 

Also does being fearless prevent the 'roll Ld and then not shoot overwatch' debuff?

[SyNidus]

EDIT: whoops, posted tips for SM.

 

Perhaps bubble wrapping with large conscript squads. They can't reach you main guns if they can't jump over 100+ fearless men.

[jSewell]

On the bright side, they'll probably have grav guns which means wounding you on a 5+ (still has refills though) 

[shandwen]

Inquisator Coteaz on a blob squad will make them regret deep striking. He gets to intercept each unit that arrives within whatever range it is with the unit he is with. On a macro cannon he can wipe whole terminator squads, so a few marines should be easy.

The other option is blobing regular squads and spamming conscripts with either commissars or priests.

[Myrkul]

Also does being fearless prevent the 'roll Ld and then not shoot overwatch' debuff?

No. The way the rule is written, the unit must tale a moral check, if they fail they must go to ground(they're not actually pinned) or if they pass they cannot fire over watch.

 

A unit with the Fearless special rule automatically pass Pinning, Fear, Regroup tests and Moral checks.

 

Basically the formation is a loose-loose. Being fearless youre not going to have to take the moral test, and possibly fail and go to ground, you just auto pass and cannot fire overwatch.

 

Its stupid, and theres only a few ways to get around the rule; like bikes/calvary you cannot got to ground (due what they are) still take the moral test, can fail it, but since they cannot go to ground basically suffer no ill effect. Or at least thats how I understand it.

 

I think this is one of those rules that may require a FAQ bu GW, or tourniments setting hiuse rules on how it interacts with rules like fearless.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

I'm personally looking forward to fielding this formation, and to facing it. I really want to learn this formation's ins and outs.

[Myrkul]

I think the best tactic for us is going to be area denial; and weathering the first turn its on the table. Blobs are going to be big for countering this.

 

Put key vehicles in back, spread the blobs out and take up as much of your deployment zone as possible to force them to land outside of your deployment zone or in an area you want.

 

The real nasty thing is the relentless devs, once that first turn of beig relentless goes away theyre either stuck where they are as wyvern bait (or w/e your perfered method of killing marines is) or moving around a bunch and loosing grav shots or snapfiring(Plus wounding on 5's). Assualt marines are meh. Toss a few power weapons in the mix and it should be fine.

 

Loosing overwatch against marines isnt a game breaker, hiting on 6's, wounding on 5's against a 3+ youre lucky to get two wounds through.

[steellegionnaire85]

I did as most say blobs and I did fine he lost more units and lost by maelstrom cards I lost three units 8 ratlings 3 autocannons and 3 wyverns. He lost 2 assault squads one to wyverns and one to blob overwatch and close combat. One squad of devs, one squads of 5 bikes and one land raider.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

I did as most say blobs and I did fine he lost more units and lost by maelstrom cards I lost three units 8 ratlings 3 autocannons and 3 wyverns. He lost 2 assault squads one to wyverns and one to blob overwatch and close combat. One squad of devs, one squads of 5 bikes and one land raider.

 

Drowning the opponent in dice will work on any army. IIRC, you said your opponent didn't maximize the formation's power. What exactly did he not do? That might actually be helpful in knowing how he employed it, so we can analyze it and wargame it.