Avoiding artillery

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

So had my second game today, Salamanders against Alpha legion and arguably the most damaging thing to me was tthe alph legion medusa, the range, ap and strength and ignoring of cover meant it was able to blast which ever squads he wanted apart with little I could do until a landspeeder managed a weapons destroyed shot, no idea how I would have been in any state to recover if he had had first turn or more then one.
Atm I can't see anyway to avoid the fact legion artillery seems capable of simply deleting a unit each turn, as any transports bar super heavies would be wrecked, and using cover and line of sight does not help.
The only way I can think is to maybe try and include extra land speeders as it worked this time, and maybe get a jetbike squad with multie melta and heavy bolters as well and hope he can't just delete them all turn one?
Admitably my second game of HH, but any suggestions for avoiding an army just being deleted by artillery? it seems most things bar Cataphrakti or Pyre Guard will be destroyed before they can do anything.

[Slips]

How does the Medusa have Ignores Cover? Iirc it doesnt. Only the Typhon has an ignores cover S10 blast.

 

Otherwise you can always pod Graviton Dread behind them as the most direct and potentially easy solution.

[Frater Cornelius]

Since it is Barrage it ignores intervening cover, that is what he meant. You still get your save when you are in cover though, like hiding in a ruin.

Also, watch your spacing. When faced with Blasts or Large Blasts, I simply space out models to have the maximum 2" distance in between to minimize the amount of hits generated.

[Noserenda]

Fielding a lot of artillery with my Iron Warriors the things i tend to find problematic are Transports and fast APCs getting up close, even if the APC is just a meatshield for its cargo :D You could also consider counter battery fire ofc, or something big enough of a firemagnet to pull in the shots (Anything landraider based!). 

Hope that helps!

[Charlo]

Since it is Barrage it ignores intervening cover, that is what he meant. You still get your save when you are in cover though, like hiding in a ruin.

Also, watch your spacing. When faced with Blasts or Large Blasts, I simply space out models to have the maximum 2" distance in between to minimize the amount of hits generated.

Sods how does that work with an aegis line? Do you not get saves?

[Brother Galfridus]

 

Since it is Barrage it ignores intervening cover, that is what he meant. You still get your save when you are in cover though, like hiding in a ruin.

Also, watch your spacing. When faced with Blasts or Large Blasts, I simply space out models to have the maximum 2" distance in between to minimize the amount of hits generated.

Sods how does that work with an aegis line? Do you not get saves?

If the aegis wall is between the centre of the blast marker and the model you get cover. If it isn't then you don't. The shells are being lobbed over the walls. Similarly casualties are taken from the centre of the blast against barrage to represent the plunging fire.

 

Note this is only for barrage not all blast weapons. Regular blasts take casualties nearest the firer just like normal weapons the blast marker being used to work out number of hits not who is hit.

[depthcharge12]

Use area terrain as much as possible, use counter battery fire (sunder quad mortar shells), rhinos, or just let him kill your basic tactical squads :P

 

It'd be better if I could see your full list for a review :)

[Charlo]

Very helpful explanation. Thank you :)

[1000 Sons]

Just wait until you have a game against some one with thud guns, a scorpius and a medusa.  It can be pretty demoralizing when at the end of one or two turns half your army is dead and your opponent hasn't even moved a model.  By countering artillery with your own artillery the game just becomes a match of whole doesn't scatter, and pretty uneventful.

 

Try drop pods and get right in the face of the artillery. Keep your tac squads at 10 so you can get in rhinos.

[Ishagu]

Meh, all those tanks are pretty easy to destroy.

One turn of two tank hunting Sicarans and a Deredeo will deal with all the artillery.

[depthcharge12]

Just wait until you have a game against some one with thud guns, a scorpius and a medusa. It can be pretty demoralizing when at the end of one or two turns half your army is dead and your opponent hasn't even moved a model. By countering artillery with your own artillery the game just becomes a match of whole doesn't scatter, and pretty uneventful.

 

Try drop pods and get right in the face of the artillery. Keep your tac squads at 10 so you can get in rhinos.

Very true, I haven't faced that amount of try hard yet :P but it makes some very good points.

 

I usually try to make my lists around multiple threat redundancies and use lots of cover on the table, but sometimes it does honestly come down who gets first turn.

 

It's also why I'm considering running podded vet tactical squads with melts guns to screw with things like backfield arty.

[Frater Cornelius]

Just wait until you have a game against some one with thud guns, a scorpius and a medusa.  It can be pretty demoralizing when at the end of one or two turns half your army is dead and your opponent hasn't even moved a model.  By countering artillery with your own artillery the game just becomes a match of whole doesn't scatter, and pretty uneventful.

 

Try drop pods and get right in the face of the artillery. Keep your tac squads at 10 so you can get in rhinos.

 

Sounds like a typical Thursday over at the Iron Warrior's :D

[SkimaskMohawk]

Hide under floors; if they can't see you they can't target you. That being said, don't put anybody on the floors above those squads because barrage cores through buildings ever since they threw the terrain rules out the window

[Sircyn]

I use outflanking veterans with meltas and melta bombs (if I'm feeling flush) in a rhino.

 

Usually wrecks up/distracts artillery parks.

 

Drop podding melta/dreadnaughts, flyers all mess up artillery in short order.

 

A master of signals orbital bombardment can wreck up those chimera chassis artillery parks too.

[Hesh Kadesh]

Meh, all those tanks are pretty easy to destroy.

One turn of two tank hunting Sicarans and a Deredeo will deal with all the artillery.

Deredeo is slow direct fire only, Sicaran is fast, but still direct fire only. Without Sunder it is still only getting 5 hits and rolling above average to get 3HP's per. How do you get TH outside of Guilliman?

 

If the AL player knows what he is doing, he has adequate AT to kill the Sicarans, such as infiltrating Graviton Cannons with Vigilators attached nixing it first turn if needed, if not, second turn at least

 

A combination of artillery and nuncio voxes has guided that onto target with direct fire accuracy, putting around 2-3 pseudo sniper rounds onto the target. Barrage is the new sniper after all.

 

To counter artillery, fly. Or at least drop pod. They don't get interceptor, so you can pop a half dozen melta shots on their rear or side armour, and they don't like that. Stick in cover, and unless they have a Typhon (at which point you can use LoS blocking to help) you can at least try and kill them with a Deep Strike assault.

 

Hiding in Reserves helps reduce the number of shots you face and no medusa in its right mind should take Bastion Breacher shells, so by taking things like Firestorm redoubts (2 battlecannons and a comms array) can help keep your dudes alive.

[Ishagu]

I use Guilliman.

Everything has a counter of course.

 

I have the Primarchs advance alongside Suzerains inside a Raider. Usually it gets the attention so the back units do damage in the initial turns.

 

But going back to topic, Artillery tanks aren't overly difficult to deal with if you have the volume of quality firepower to destroy them quickly, or even just shake/stun them

[Frater Cornelius]

Hide under floors; if they can't see you they can't target you. That being said, don't put anybody on the floors above those squads because barrage cores through buildings ever since they threw the terrain rules out the window

Barrage weapons can be fired without line of sight. It will only help so much due to increased scatter distance.

[Hesh Kadesh]

Guilliman (Tank Hunting Sicarans); 400pts

 

Invictarus Suzerains; 200pts

Land Raider, presumed Phobos; 250pts Minimum, presumed Extra Armour and Armoured Ceramite to keep it moving = 280pts

X Troop, minimum 150pts

 

Sicaran,Las sponsons = 175pts

Sicaran, Las sponsons = 175pts

Deredeo, presumed Aiolos, because why wouldn't you; 220pts

 

That's 1600pts right there. 400pts left to build a useable force.  

. 

Against a 2000pt list, that's a Typhon, 3 Medusa, and 6 x Graviton Cannon, coming to 1275pts, leaves enough for 2 Tactical Squads in Rhinos hiding in Reserve (300pts) a dual Grav Leviathan Dread (310pts), Vigilator, Scout Armour, Meltabombs, Heavy Chainsword, Refractor Field 110, leaves you at 1995. Tac Squad with a meltabomb to add to it.

 

Vigilator Outflanks and stays out of LoS and Goes to Ground to claim Linebreaker. Meltabombs and Heavy Chainsword for targets of opportunity, Rhino's rush up the field after the Graviton spam has rendered the Land Raider dead, as well as leaving a Primarch and his assaulters in difficult and dangerous terrain, and a trio of medusa shells and the typhon just turns the remains of the squad to mush thanks to their 6++. The Typhon kills troops in cover. 

 

That list isn't particlarly optimized for 2000pt, but it's a rough adaption of a 2.5-3K list that's pretty common as a "power build". 

 

PS, guys, there's no such thing as area terrain any more.

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

I'm playing covenent of fire, only really got land speeders and infantry, the issue is S10 and AP 2 mean the only thing that can really survive a hit is my mantle of the eldar drake Preator :P
Must admit i'm a tad uneasy about paying cloe to or over £100 for one model :P

[SkimaskMohawk]

@immersturm my bad, you're completely right. I still play with terrain rules from 5th/6th since playing pure 7th is completely insane, so I tend to forget that barrage now has the ability to both core through buildings and target things completely out of Los from them. Imo it's best to use the 6th ed rules for terrain as it adds some sort of sanity back into the game

[Lord Asvaldir]

Have to agree with you there the rules for ruins are just silly, I ask every opponent I face to play with the 6th edition ruin floors rule.

 

@rune priest ridcully: If you're playing covenant of fire why restrict yourself to just infantry and speeders? That rite of war actually is one of the best for running an armored force given the invul save for vehicles, and while drop pods are out of the picture given the limitation, good anti tank vehicles like the sicaran are not out of the picture, fielded alongside some outflanking veterans with melta guns/bombs you've got some solid anti tank options. And yes a smart opponent is going to hide his artillery, but the good thing is artillery tanks have weak armor-if you saturate your list with anti tank, you really only need a unit to get through to his artillery to start taking it out. 

 

Unfortunately HH is not the game to get into if you don't want to spend 100 quid on a model, unless you're going to avoid any super heavies and big vehicles. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Bikes and cav going onto top floors of ruins after 2+ editions is just so counter intuitive as well. Throwing out all the ruins rules just for the ridiculous specific terrain dataslates is an obvious money grab, even more so after some of the clarifications of this open day

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

The core of the force was bought when book one came out, and I've always liked the imagry of an infantry army with some supporting elements, once things are settled I am likely to start buying more stuff and more of the bigger stuff, though as my 40k Thousand sons and grek knights are both mechanised I'm likely to stick with infantry heavy lists just so it plays differently and I'm leaning towards artillery backed Pride of the legion emperor's children force as my traitor side if I ever sell enough old stuff/get enough money to do it.

The armoured elements I can see myself adding to the Salamanders is a contemptor (possibly talon), Sicaran Venator (I love the model, though that may end up in the EC force) I may try and get a damaged bane blade cheap on ebay to turn into a legion super heavy possible.

Must admit though, the Rhino pack is kind of starting to look tempting  :P

[Hesh Kadesh]

Haha, yeah. I saw the type of weapon sbeing thrown around and thought that there was rarely a need for Rhino's, they'd never last. But then I started looking at them less like Rhino Transports, and more of a movement buff and ablative armour for tactical squads, and realised that tactical squads don't actually do ANYTHING very well, and its fate accomply; two useless units don't get shot by the enemies heaviest weapons. Hence, they score objectives. If they get shot, well, they're as cheap, fast and still fairly resilient (your opponents having sunk 300pts into what you've sunk 185 is now wasted as their usual targets are immune while others are out of range. )

 

These footslogging units now need to move up the field without a transport (unless they're in Spartans/Kharybdis), typically on terrain heavy maps without Move Through Cover, and with Graviton proving to be a royal pain to their further movement (while Rhino squads proceed to move freely).

 

Mechanised is the second most powerful tool in the book after drop pods; as Raven Guard, with a 2k list, you get the best benefits of Orbital Assault (access to cheap Drop Pod Assault) without its draw backs (no ground based heavy weapons etc, such as those on tanks). 

 

Having lots of bodies sounds awesome until your opponent puts down a Typhon and/or eraser units like Red Butchers.

[Marshal Rohr]

Primaris lightning with anti-armor missiles works well and is realistic.