Tips against against Astra Militarum

[Biggysmalls]

Got a friendly game against AM never played against them before. Well having a grand total of 2 games under my belt I'm a bit of a noob in general. It is a 1k point battle

 

What are the main threats from them I understand they are a real danger from shooting but is there any way to counter this?

 

Also at this lowish point list should I be expecting tanks galore?

Any tips against AM would be great thanks my rough list is this

 

HQ

Chapter master- artificer armour, relic blade, combi plas

Librarian level 2

Troops

10man tac, plasma gun- plas cannon

10 man Tac, plas gun - m/l

Fast attack-

3 man bikes- plasgun

3 man bikes - power sword

Elites

5 man termies - assault cannon, chain fist

[IanSturrock]

You can't usually outshoot them in a straight, stand-up fight.

 

2 general strategies v. AM are to either use concentration of firepower to outshoot a small section of his army (drop pods, deep striking termies, and/or outflanking/infiltrating Ravenwing), or to weather the storm and hit them with close combat as early as possible (either powerfists, thunderhammers, or corvus hammers will work fine against rear tank armour).

[Biggysmalls]

One tactic I'm hoping for is getting my bikes in his face and use them to teleport my termies amongst his lines. What is their leadership like ie are they easy to break?

 

Do they have any hidden combat monsters I should avoid getting into combat with

[IndigoJack]

Guard have fairly low leadership, but have easy access to morale control through commissars and priests. I generally overwhelm a flank, and work my way over. Things to watch out for are wyverns (they'll even murder terminators if you're positioned poorly), a blob of guardsmen with first rank fire, second rank fire will also do a number on infantry.

 

As far as hidden combat monsters, it's really just the power blob. A group of 30-40 guardsmen with power axes on the sarge's. Throw in a priest for fearless, hatred, and possibly re-rolls to wound (if the priest passes his ld7 test).

 

Hope this helps!

[aura_enchanted]

if hes big on tanks expect to see the steelhost formation and all its crazy preferred enemy tanks nonsense

[DarkAngeal]

Try tossing some interromancy at him! Does he have leman russ squadrons? How does snapshots sound? An infantry blob? Make them test leadership on 3d6, and snipe characters with mind worm. Interromancy offers many fun tricks for demoralizing the diminutive humans.

Try tossing some interromancy at him! Does he have leman russ squadrons? How does snapshots sound? An infantry blob? Make them test leadership on 3d6, and snipe characters with mind worm. Interromancy offers many fun tricks for demoralizing the diminutive humans.

[Biggysmalls]

I honestly don't know what he is bringing. My main worry is that my footslogging tacs are going to take a pounding from multiple battle cannons.

 

I have the game this Friday I'll post back here how I got on.

[DeamonQC]

Working with what you have, you could try this if he's running a parking lot (which is standard in my meta but maybe not in yours :

Scout your bike forward and flatout right in his face.  This will force him to deal with them but you can jinx to improve your save (of course this would work better with a Darkshroud supporting them.  It should help to protect your tac squad and if the bikes are still alive, you can assault and krak grenades his tanks to death.

 

Honestly, it works much better with a RWSF and more bikes but it could worth a try.

[Biggysmalls]

That's the plan I was thinking of. Use the bikes as a distraction to protect the tacs as they move up. Hopefully they survive long enough for the termies to use the bikes homers and let them give his tanks a good fisting

[march10k]

I'd expect to see Pask.  He's a little pricey, but he gives your opponent his leman russ support while satisfying HQ requirements.  He'll be in a punisher with three heavy bolters for 29 shots (max, more likely 26), 20 of which are rending...it's enough to strip the hull points from a land raider in a single round of shooting.  He'll have an obligatory wingman who split fires on a 9 or less on 2D6.  Could be anything in such a small game.  Maybe a demolisher, maybe another punisher, maybe a regular leman russ.  That'll eat up almost 400 points, but you need to be prepared to kill two AV14 tanks....possibly three. 

 

Wyverns aren't actually a problem.  As long as your termies are at max coherency (shoot and still run on deepstrike? Thanks, I think I will!), he'll struggle to get more than one hit per pieplate.  A scatter after the first blast will hit 0-1 properly spaced termies, and he'll only be able to manipulate a hit to hit two.  Then only 3/4 of hits will wound...then you have to fail your 2+.  You'll lose less than one termie per wyvern per turn.  Kill them if they're there, but your opponent will be supremely disappointed in their performance against terminators that aren't bunched up where each hit can cover the whole squad.

 

He'll probably have to go with a pair of veteran squads as his troops choices.  They might have chimeras, but your bikes and termies should have no issues targeting AV10 side armor.  They'll probably have carapace armor, which is bad news for boltguns, but you'll want to charge them anyway, they're much bettter in shooting than in melee.

 

I wouldn't expect any blobs o doom in a 1000 point game, they cost a ton of points (400 with a priest and five power axes, not counting the platoon command squad prerequisite) and they do go down easy to massed dakka.  If one does show up, just don't drop your termies next to it and shoot it to pieces from afar.  It honestly would be a huge slow points sink that melts away in the face of bolter fire at this points level.

 

I'd say 400 points for Pask and another HQ tank, 300 points for two veteran squads with chimeras, leaving 300 points for whatever.  Guard has so many options, it's hard to say.  He could get two more tanks, two vendettas, 7-9 sentinels, a lot of different ways to spend the points.

 

As a guard player facing DA, I would expect bikes and termies and plan accordingly.  Two punishers (one is pask) for 2x29 S5 shots (20 of pask's are rending).  Two squads of carapace vets with plasma (no chimeras).  Two vendettas (flying...and three TLLCs per bird is very nice against low model count elite armies).  The chemical variant of the hellhound (AP3 and cover denying...bad for ravenwing...and AV12 side armor).

[Biggysmalls]

Wow thanks March10k that's a fantastic response. That pask/punisher package sounds like bad news. The rest seems fairly straight forward. Its the armour 14 russes I'm concerned about as I don't have a huge amount of Anti tank in my army. best bet is to get them in combat with melta bombs/krak grenades.

[march10k]

Well...that or rear armor shots. Punishers are short-ranged, they won't be hugging the board edge. Drop an assault cannon (better on termies) or twinlinked autocannon (dreadnought) in behind one and you'll almost certainly get at least one penetrating hit...which usually means crew shaken, and no result but "immobilized" will allow shooting. Plasma cannons dropped in behind on either platform are also good...AP2 helps on the damage table, and BS4 blasts rarely miss tanks. In either case, you're set up to charge the following turn, either to finish off that target, or another one.

/edit/

Another thought is a dreadnought with a twinlinked lascannon and a drop pod for 150...rear armor shot on pask is basically auto-pen, right? And as the only drop pod in your force, he arrives on turn one

[Knight Master Eladric]

The thing I would be scared the most of are Russes with the plasma cannons. Even just one in a small game could eat almost all your army in 2-3 turns. Don't forget that you aren't running a deathwing formation so your guys WONT be able to Run and shoot the turn they come down. If aren't playing WYSIWYG (small friendly game I don't see why not) I'd take melta guns on the bikes instead for some better antitank since that's what you are lacking.

[RayJ]

Aversion is great bs tank squads and superheavies

[Biggysmalls]

Well I won. But it came down to a few bad choices on his part. His list was this basically this

 

Command squad - las cannon, vox, medic

 

Veterans squad, 4 plasmas, chimera

 

Veterans squad, lascannon

 

Leman Russ, battle cannon, las cannon

 

Hellhound?? Melta blast thingy, multi melta.

 

Allied iron hands

Tech marine

Tac squad, power fist, heavy bolter

Drop pod

 

Scenario name escapes me but it was tactical objectives diagonal deployment, 3 objectives each.

 

Main events were his drop pod landing in my back field and me assaulting the unit inside with my master and 5 tacs. After a couple of turns I killed all his tacs and eventually the drop pod.

 

My bikes assaulted his leman Russ and chimera and melta bombed them to death.

 

Termies deep struck in his face and survived a brutal round of shooting after split firing into his command squad and vets. Effectively killing both.

 

After the tanks the bikes darted around a bit grabbing objectives.

 

My MVP of the game was my unit of bikes who killed the Russ and finished a unit of vets. Was a good game had a lucky invul save against his power fist sergeant. If he killed my master it could have been different.

 

Ps. interomancy is bad news. Maelstrom of 4+ death killed lots in this game. I like it a lot.