Tactics: Elite vs Swarm Lists

[Wargamer]

Are you factoring Morale into this? I know that's no help vs Tyranids (huge and stupid mistake by GW there in my opinion) but it seems Morale is the key breaking point of horde armies now.

From the Morale guide, units roll 1D6 + casualties taken and if the result is over their Leadership they take that many additional casualties - single-model units being immune to Morale checks.

 

I don't know the Morale of Orks, but judging by the Space Marine stats I'm guessing 5 or 6 at most. How hard is it to drop 6 Orks? And once they're down you've guaranteed at least one extra casualty! Yes, this can't wipe the unit out (if I read the community page correctly), but a lone Ork is easily popped later on!

 

It seems then that the trick to dealing with Hordes is to be tactical; hammer them to the point where Morale will all but finish the unit, and then pick a new victim to beat on for a while. Single model units will help keep your own losses to a minimum.

 

Of course, this is entirely theoretical...

[The Unseen]

Had, mostly had.

All our best anti-horde stuff got nerfed pretty bard.

Baal predators are super expensive for pretty much no reason, heavy flamers and flamets aren't actually good at killing hordes at all, Death Company lost most of their power, and everything else everyone else either has, or has even better options than we do, such as centurion devs.

[Wargamer]

Had, mostly had.

All our best anti-horde stuff got nerfed pretty bard.

Baal predators are super expensive for pretty much no reason, heavy flamers and flamets aren't actually good at killing hordes at all, Death Company lost most of their power, and everything else everyone else either has, or has even better options than we do, such as centurion devs.

That "for no reason" is because it's now actually hard to kill a tank.

[Blindhamster]

So...

 

3 inceptors are... 225pts

 

5 devastators with 4 heavy bolters are.. 105pts

 

The devastators have 12 shots, 5 wounds, toughness 4, the guns are heavy so take a penalty if fired on the move. Movement value 6. 36" range guns, threat range

 

The inceptors have... 18 shots, 6 wounds, toughness 5, guns are assault so don't suffer the penalty for moving and can be fired even if advancing. Movement 10.

 

The inceptors feel like a better investment to me, particularly vs melee hordes as they actually stand a chance of out maneuvering them whilst keeping up decent fire.

[Brother Aiwass]

@Aothaine if "marines" include the excomunicate traitoris, then I should say berzerkers and warp talons.

 

A unit of 9 zerkers+DA can eat 22 orks a turn if they manage the charge (only axes, more with swords). Put 2 of said units in a LR spartan plus a couple of characters (Abby/Khârn, a sorc to buff them).

 

Even if a unit of boyz is 50 strong they should suffer on the morale phase.

 

Warp talons.

 

Naked they kill 8,75 boyz assuming base save is 5+

Tzeentch ones with herald of tz for +1 S kill 10,37 (twice if the herald manage to cast frenzy on them)

 

Chaos leviathan with dual grav-bombard do 11D3 (22 avg) WS 2+ S9 AP -4 Dmg 2 hits (each grav!). That's 30 orks put to oblivion, before the morale phase.

 

Join the dark side, we have cookies!

[Aothaine]

Are you factoring Morale into this? I know that's no help vs Tyranids (huge and stupid mistake by GW there in my opinion) but it seems Morale is the key breaking point of horde armies now.

 

From the Morale guide, units roll 1D6 + casualties taken and if the result is over their Leadership they take that many additional casualties - single-model units being immune to Morale checks.

 

I don't know the Morale of Orks, but judging by the Space Marine stats I'm guessing 5 or 6 at most. How hard is it to drop 6 Orks? And once they're down you've guaranteed at least one extra casualty! Yes, this can't wipe the unit out (if I read the community page correctly), but a lone Ork is easily popped later on!

 

It seems then that the trick to dealing with Hordes is to be tactical; hammer them to the point where Morale will all but finish the unit, and then pick a new victim to beat on for a while. Single model units will help keep your own losses to a minimum.

 

Of course, this is entirely theoretical...

 

Orks have a unique morale system. Their leadership is equal to the number of orks currently in the unit. So you should be seeing max size ork squads a lot. This make morale almost a non-issue until the unit is almost destroyed anyway.

 

30 Boyz -> 5 deaths -> Leadership 25 -> Auto Pass

[GreyCrow]

Super amazing tip IIIIIIINCOMING !

 

40k V8 is much more infantry friendly than 40k V7 !

 

As a matter of fact, being too vehicle oriented in this edition will probably yield to you drastically reducing your winning chances!

 

Example : I tried out a Stormraven + 2 Stormtalons today with a friend. In one turn, my Stormraven lost 12 out of 14 W to 2 GK Venerable Dread with dual Autocannon.

 

Yes this is anecdotal, and no I'm not trying to say that this will happen every turn. BUT the fact that it CAN happen means that it should be factored in when list building!

 

From my (very limited) experience so far, it seems that a decent amount of infantry, carrying enough of the stronger weapons, supported by vehicles/elite infantry is the way to go moving forward for 40k.

 

___

 

3 reasons for that :

1) Objectives being controlled by the guy who has more models around really hints towards bringing a critical mass of bodies

2) Vehicles are more survivable to most of the high ROF low S weapons of the past editions (bye bye scatterlaser!), but they crumble super fast to weapons with multiple damage

3) Because the variance of dice rolls is much higher in this edition (due to more dice being thrown and less reroll capabilities), having more bodies to a) tank a roll in your disfavour due to high variance and b) create opportunities for rolls with large favourable variance outcomes

 

Example list that seriously scares the guys in my meta, with Chaos at 2k points

4 * 40 Cultists

Dark Apostle

3 * 5 Termies with 3 combi-plasma/axe + 2 combi-melta/fist each

Termi Lord with Chainfist & combi-plasma

 

Just due to the tanking capabilities of this list.

[Aothaine]

 

 

As a matter of fact, being too vehicle oriented in this edition will probably yield to you drastically reducing your winning chances!

 

Example : I tried out a Stormraven + 2 Stormtalons today with a friend. In one turn, my Stormraven lost 12 out of 14 W to 2 GK Venerable Dread with dual Autocannon.

 

___

 

3 reasons for that :

1) Objectives being controlled by the guy who has more models around really hints towards bringing a critical mass of bodies

2) Vehicles are more survivable to most of the high ROF low S weapons of the past editions (bye bye scatterlaser!), but they crumble super fast to weapons with multiple damage

3) Because the variance of dice rolls is much higher in this edition (due to more dice being thrown and less reroll capabilities), having more bodies to a) tank a roll in your disfavour due to high variance and create opportunities for rolls with large favourable variance outcomes

 

Example list that seriously scares the guys in my meta, with Chaos at 2k points

4 * 40 Cultists

Dark Apostle

3 * 5 Termies with 3 combi-plasma/axe + 2 combi-melta/fist each

Termi Lord with Chainfist & combi-plasma

 

Just due to the tanking capabilities of this list.

 

This has been what I have seen as well. Bodies matter in 8th ed. Erasing 30 Tankbustas with Painboy saves before they wreck your day is going to be difficult. You also do not want to be in melee with Orks this edition. They put out a TON of attacks and damage. 

 

That list is is another great example. I'm not so sure I would rely on the Termies so much but I have not done much testing with them yet. I hear good things though.

 

@Aothaine if "marines" include the excomunicate traitoris, then I should say berzerkers and warp talons.

 

A unit of 9 zerkers+DA can eat 22 orks a turn if they manage the charge (only axes, more with swords). Put 2 of said units in a LR spartan plus a couple of characters (Abby/Khârn, a sorc to buff them).

 

Even if a unit of boyz is 50 strong they should suffer on the morale phase.

 

Warp talons.

 

Naked they kill 8,75 boyz assuming base save is 5+

Tzeentch ones with herald of tz for +1 S kill 10,37 (twice if the herald manage to cast frenzy on them)

 

Chaos leviathan with dual grav-bombard do 11D3 (22 avg) WS 2+ S9 AP -4 Dmg 2 hits (each grav!). That's 30 orks put to oblivion, before the morale phase.

 

Join the dark side, we have cookies!

 

Perhaps.. but that land raider needs to survive to deliver it's payload. Remember that list I posted has 39 rokkit launchas str 8 -2ap 3 dmg. You only need a few to get through to slow the raider down to a crawl. After that you have 78 possible shoota attacks the unit needs to survive against then over watch of another 3 missiles and 26 shootas then they are in melee with 30 of 150 Orks. Now the Orks will obviously be battered down a bit by ranged fire in return. But the smart Ork player can move the dwindled Ork unit out of the way and move up the next unit to either take the charge or pile in. This is just with three of the Boyz units geared for ranged with the other two geared for CC. 

 

In the example list that Greycrow shared you eat opponent's charges with your cultists, fall back with them on your turn and charge the enemy with your termies. There are a lot of ways to hold back the deathstars of old and they are at a huge disadvantage in 8th ed imho.

 

 

So...

 

3 inceptors are... 225pts

 

5 devastators with 4 heavy bolters are.. 105pts

 

The devastators have 12 shots, 5 wounds, toughness 4, the guns are heavy so take a penalty if fired on the move. Movement value 6. 36" range guns, threat range

 

The inceptors have... 18 shots, 6 wounds, toughness 5, guns are assault so don't suffer the penalty for moving and can be fired even if advancing. Movement 10.

 

The inceptors feel like a better investment to me, particularly vs melee hordes as they actually stand a chance of out maneuvering them whilst keeping up decent fire.

 

You should really give the devastators the extra 120 points to play with before feeling that the Inceptors are better. Also, a lot of units have multiple dmg weapons now which will straight out kill the Inceptors. They only have three models as well which can work as a benefit or a disadvantage depending on the situation.

 

Just some food for thought. I'm still looking around different units to work out a good all-comers elite list. 

[Slips]

I honestly doubt the Spartan is going to have a hard time surviving and if they focus fire your Spartan, cool, rest of your army is unharmed!

 

Just use smoke on T1 as you move up the board. Most orks hit on 5+ in shooting so you're basically forcing them to snapfire at the tank.

[Cleon]

 

 

. Also, a lot of units have multiple dmg weapons now which will straight out kill the Inceptors. They only have three models as well which can work as a benefit or a disadvantage depending on the situation.

Just to second this - My secondary army is guard - youd be amazed how easy people find it to justify firing a weapon that will erase a 2 wound heavy weapon armed model (Weapons team) - I'd expect the Inceptors to be dropping pretty quickly to ork rokkits (D3) or whatever supercharged plasma (D2) the termies might bring.

[Vanger]

Well, first of all, we have to see how the meta changes. If it's true, that more LoS blocking terrain will be used, then the logistics of moving such a huge army will become nightmarish. Or lot of games will be a reenactment of the 300 spartans against the persians :D

[Antarius]

Yeah, the three inceptors are clearly better than five heavy bolter devs. But consider that for the same amount you can actually take two squads of five heavy bolter devs and have points left, and I'm not so sure anymore.

 

Actually, I think that there's a good chance that, point for point, regular marines will generally be more effective than primaris, due to putting out more shots. Weight of fire has always been a big deal in GWs games and I don't think 8th will be an exception.

[Aothaine]

Well, first of all, we have to see how the meta changes. If it's true, that more LoS blocking terrain will be used, then the logistics of moving such a huge army will become nightmarish. Or lot of games will be a reenactment of the 300 spartans against the persians

 

Yeah I agree Terrain is going to play a HUGE role and most likely will be one of the major factors on whether or not you win.

 

I honestly doubt the Spartan is going to have a hard time surviving and if they focus fire your Spartan, cool, rest of your army is unharmed!

 

Just use smoke on T1 as you move up the board. Most orks hit on 5+ in shooting so you're basically forcing them to snapfire at the tank.

 

Nothing says they need to fire at it. I am pretty sure a mob of Orks/Gaunts/guard etc can handle what you would throw into that thing. Also, they only need to survive the initial charge then fall back and unleash hell into the unit as I described earlier. Terrain will be a big issue and the swarm general might not always want to be in melee.

 

Guard for instance might setup speed bumps with their units so you charge in, wipe out that 60 point unit and are left open to the remaining 1600+ points ready to show you how painful flash lights can be. 

 

I am with you in a sense. I want this to work as I am trying to play an elite force that can work against the swarms. It is that I am just finding it difficult to imagine most elite forces being able to handle the shear number of firepower and attacks that a swarm can unleash.

Edited June 10, 2017 by Aothaine

[GreyCrow]

@Aothaine : Music to my ears, Brother Captain ! :)

 

That Chaos list was just an example, but it's got a pretty beasty dynamic. Mowing through 160 mooks is going to be hard as hell, and make you waste quite a fair amount of time shooting them down before they tarpit you and effectively negate the effectiveness of your multiple damage weapons.

 

I've observed a full Termie list in play today, and I'm confident that even 'only' 15 of them armed to the teeth with a reroll 1 buff will do significant damage. Overcharging 18 plasma shots will clear a lot of elite mooks/vehicles, paired with the ability to drop when you want, where you want, this should be taken lightly.

 

They do lack the d6 damage weapons which are extremely solid in this edition, that's for sure (one shooting broadsides with krak missiles like today is giggle inducing).

 

There needs to be some form of nunerical resilience in competitive lists nowadays, just to avoid the bad damage role. I don't see the Primaris as being the be all end all of Marines today, just due to how much points you're putting in so little squads.

[Aothaine]

@Aothaine : Music to my ears, Brother Captain !

 

That Chaos list was just an example, but it's got a pretty beasty dynamic. Mowing through 160 mooks is going to be hard as hell, and make you waste quite a fair amount of time shooting them down before they tarpit you and effectively negate the effectiveness of your multiple damage weapons.

 

I've observed a full Termie list in play today, and I'm confident that even 'only' 15 of them armed to the teeth with a reroll 1 buff will do significant damage. Overcharging 18 plasma shots will clear a lot of elite mooks/vehicles, paired with the ability to drop when you want, where you want, this should be taken lightly.

 

They do lack the d6 damage weapons which are extremely solid in this edition, that's for sure (one shooting broadsides with krak missiles like today is giggle inducing).

 

There needs to be some form of nunerical resilience in competitive lists nowadays, just to avoid the bad damage role. I don't see the Primaris as being the be all end all of Marines today, just due to how much points you're putting in so little squads.

 

I really do like the look and ideal of Primaris but I am starting to agree that I would almost always rather have normal marines than these guys right now. Maybe later, when/if they get their own dex it might be different but they are still going to have a hell of a time against hordes for sure. 

 

I also want to mention that I am researching this solely for competitive play. I am totally down for friendly games and I wouldn't be as hard nosed about them as I am about competitive. I would also never take a competitive list to a friendly game. So if I come across as rude I don't mean to be. I am just trying to pull out as much information from this great community that I can.

[Lysere]

I honestly doubt the Spartan is going to have a hard time surviving and if they focus fire your Spartan, cool, rest of your army is unharmed!

 

Just use smoke on T1 as you move up the board. Most orks hit on 5+ in shooting so you're basically forcing them to snapfire at the tank.

This is pretty useful actually. Use smoke as you move into strong positions and get ready to unleash all kinds of firepower. Also snipers will be important, 30 tank bustas with a painboy can be tough, but blow the painboy away first and now they're much easier to take down, especially with artillery like thunder fires and the whirlwind.

 

Of course horde armies will still be rough but using vehicles to assault into their squads will be important as well. Even a damaged land raider is quite tough and once it's in combat the rest of the army can charge the unit without worrying about getting shot.

 

It will be quite interesting to see how it all pans out going forward.

[GreyCrow]

@Aothaine : I get your point about tailoring the lists to the experience that you want to bring. No beef there ;)

 

I'm trying to build lists that are both fluffy (as in fit the theming of the Chapter I've chosen), awe inducing as in I've noticed that my group tends to enjoy 40k more when there are some really crazy stuff happening, and competitive enough to hold their own due a pretty brutal meta. Think Biker Club level of brutal, friendly bunch but with high level of testosterone :P

 

The cool thing with 8th edition is that so far it seems that many lists can be all of these at the same time, so the nature of competitive list building has changed from 'take the best units' to 'make a list that makes sense and gives you opportunities'.

 

RE Elite vs Horde topics : 

 

Like you guys said, terrain is even more crucial than it was before, especially LOS/movement blocking terrain, just to limit the number of attacks and shots that can be thrown at you.

 

Low model count armies are still viable, but you don't have to take terminators to make an elite army an elite army :P

 

At 1k points level, tests so far have shown an interesting dynamic for around 25 infantry model and 1-2 vehicles. That's still very low model count compared to what Orks are capable to field ! :D

[Arkeo Nox]

I don't see horde armies as a problem. I consider Inquisition as an elite army but we have the right tool : flamer.

 

12 acolyts with combi flamers ( two units of six, only 228 points ) do on average 54 S4 AP0 hits.  Against ork you even reroll 1 for wounding. And it's  nearly the same in overwatch (21 hits).

 

Against Ork boys, it's 26,25 dead bodies.

[Plaguecaster]

A Plaguecaster using Plague wind can cause serious grief for large units since every model in the unit has to roll a D6 suffering a mortal wound on a 6,

[Brother Aiwass]

Nothing says they need to fire at it. I am pretty sure a mob of Orks/Gaunts/guard etc can handle what you would throw into that thing. Also, they only need to survive the initial charge then fall back and unleash hell into the unit as I described earlier. Terrain will be a big issue and the swarm general might not always want to be in melee.

Problem is they're not going to survive two 10 men strong zerker charge buffed with a dark apostle. Zerkers are killing 27 guards/22 orks/16 marines/5 terminators per turn if they manage the charge. They hardly can handle anything if they're dead :P

[GreyCrow]

When did the dice ever work towards the statistical average ? :P

 

Especially with the lack of rerolls on a large number of dice now.

 

You can still rely on the statistical average, and you can still get disappointed when your dice screw you. Or you can rely on the variance, and bring more bodies to compensate that :P

[Cleon]

I think the main issue is that with the change to AP and the change to blast, there are no weapons that are better against swarms than against elites anymore (with the edxception of demolisher cannons and a few other blasts that in effect get penalised against very small squads.

 

Previously a Large blast would do more hits to a horde as there were more to be hit - they had to crowd and even scatters would find something, but now the shrapnel somehow all gets attracted to the few members of the elite squad to give them the same hits. Previously an AP4 weapon would ignore horde armour and not impact marine saves, now it's a solid -1 or -2 to both.

 

Take for example the Whirlwind - What I considered the Marine 'standard' Horde counter and always found a place for in case i faced a horde. In 6th/7th I'd suggest against a Horde army like Orks, you could generally average 8 hits, you'd get more on a genuine hit, less on occasion, but generally if you chose a decent target spot you'd scatter onto something. Similarly against other marine equivalents I'd average 2 hits as there are less of them around and they have the room to spread out - sometimes a direct hit on a combat squad who've grouped up to take some shots, frequently completely miss.

 

So versus Orks, 8 hits wound on 3s, no save, 6 points each, 32 points average damage.

Verses Marines 2 hits, wound on 3s 3+ save, 14 points each, 6.2 points damage.

Very much an anti horde weapon.

 

Now Assuming a Castellan launcher (for more hits), that's:

2 D6 shots regardless = 7 on average

Hit on 3s = 4.66 hits.

 

Orks, wound on 3s, 6+ save, still 6 points each, 15.55 points average damage (mostly lost hits, but the addition of the save is just annoying).

Marines wound on 3s, 3+ save, now 13 points each, 13.48 points average damage (as over twice as many hits).

 

If the best 'anti horde' weapon we have hurts MEQ almost as much as it hurts hordes, how is an elite army ever going to compete?

[H311fi5h]

Don't look at blast weapons for anti-horde, especially not the Whirlwind. The Castellan launcher's value is awful, and the Vengeance launcher is a joke compared to a Basilisk.

 

Look at simple dakka weapons, something like S4-6 with AP-1 at most. The Assault Cannon Razorback offers amazing value.

 

Also consider Scouts. Just basic 5 men squads with nothing but boltguns. 5.5 damage per 100 points in rapid fire range against boyz is pretty good. But more importantly, just 3-4 of those cheap 55 point squads can catch a first turn charge, delay one flank, while your elite units clean up the other, and secure objectives while the big boy units do the killing. If you want to play with Terminators, Vanguard, Dreadnoughts and all the good stuff, bring some scouts.

[Cleon]

Assault cannon, Str 6, AP -1 6 shots, Heavy so assuming move, hits on 4+

 

versus Orks, Wounds on a 3, no save, 12 points of kills

versus Tactical Marines, wounds on a 3, 4+ save, 13 points of kills

 

Again, hurts the elites harder than the Hordes. The issue isn't you can't hurt hordes, the issue is the anti horde weapons hurt elites pretty much as hard, the anti elite weapons don't hurt hordes, therefore hordes+numbers have no adequate counter.

[Hellrender]

How much points do those orks mentioned in the op actually cost though?

 

You listed it for 2k points. But when somebody mentions a single dread eith triple flamers for 163 points it gets measures against the full 2000 points of fire power.

 

If we look at a space marine army of 2000 points i bet we see a lot more options.

- sniper scouts to take out painboy andnother defensive characters asap. Orks really rely on these.

 

- heavy flamer land speeders for just killing boys.

 

- abusing terrain to force a maximum engaged models vs your whole squad. 10 of yours can beat 10 of his. So force those circumstances with thebold tactics like denied flank and pincer attacks.

 

- theybare mostly on foot, so mount razorbacks (which deal a lot of damage) and use your mobility.

 

Think about your gameplan pre-battle. A horde army like that is slow, so place objectives so they are hard to reach for his big squads while easy for you to have a fully functioning squad in reach. If its mealstrom, play for the objectives and use your mobility

 

If its eternal war thin the hordes and again place ovjectives such that its hard for him to cram x amount of models in range.

 

 

Somebody said play like 300 spartans. Do exactly that. With flamers. And assault cannons. And heavy bolter.

 

For primaris.. I dont know tbh. I doubt we have seen their full range yet. But a lot of their dudes are either mobile woth 18" or 30" standard. Abuse that

Edited June 11, 2017 by Hellrender