What is your preferred combat doctrine?

[Saxxon the Dragoon]

What combat doctrine do you prefer playing with? Not competitively but in a more leisurely or narrative sense?

 

Do you prefer mechanized infantry? Lots of troops with APC's tearing down the field and holding objectives?

 

Are you more of a tank commander? Fielding formations of tanks and support units (like tech marines and tech priests) to keep your vehicles in the fight.

 

Do you like running lots of walkers? Dreadnoughts, sentinels, battlesuits, possessed warmachines and wraithknights to bring the save rolls?

 

How about Voltron? Grouping up a bunch of powerful characters and running them like a wrecking ball into enemy squads.

 

Do you prefer mobility? Jump packs, hover tanks, gunships and aircraft to strafe enemy squads or possibly cavalry and fleet of foot units to charge across the field and tie up units.

 

Or the old standby of Deathstar's? Things like captains+lieutenants to improve a couple squads of hellblasters and devastators. Or crisis suit spam unloading that sexy Itano Circus onto into the enemy lines, completely obliterating whole swathes of the battlefield.

 

How about the oldest form of combat...melee? Overwhelming your opponent with gobs of infantry or beating them into submission with powerful monstrous creatures and weapon constructs. There may just be some blood for the blood god.

 

 

[Bulwyf]

I love assault armies but 8th doesn't love them in return.

[Tamiel]

I love assault armies but 8th doesn't love them in return.

Does your gaming group use a lot of line of sight blocking terrain? I find that walls and large rocks are really helpful for assault armies. But a lot of tables don't use enough of them.

Edited January 4, 2018 by Tamiel

[chapter master 454]

Heavy Armour. If it had armour plates thicker than an orks intellect then I like it. Be it dreadnoughts, predators or land raiders (which are my favourite).

[Melete]

I love assault armies but 8th doesn't love them in return.

Alpha Legion stratagem on Berserkers, Blood Angels jump pack squads, a huge variety of Tyranid lists (Kraken and Jormungandr stand out), Ork Boyz spam, and probably some other lists that I'm not thinking of right now. Lots of good assault armies that can either pull off turn 1 charges or survive alpha strikes by sheer weight of numbers.

 

Now, if you're talking Codex Marines I'd totally agree. Assault Marines are... not good.

[Atrus]

Depends on my mood and what is in my collection. Mostly i like msu grabbing objectives and applying maximum effictiveness.

 

Sometime i like to get the biggest things i have and stomp around.

 

And sometimes i just like to pull out my narrative list with all the characters and squads ive named and play a story.

[Guest]

HAMMER AND ANVIL! I always like the idea of fast flanking/deep striking, but also liked heavy armor supporting them. Opposing ideas I know. I just like the concept of coming in without your opponent knowing where from and quickly getting into CQC. Meanwhile dreads/predators just raining down heavy fire onto the enemies. Then jumping from one unit to the other.  As for heavy armor, there is a special place in my heart for Assault Terminators, though I doubt they will ever be good as everything just keeps their distance.

 

Have to see if SW codex has anything good for my plans, otherwise might use BA's codex.

Edited January 4, 2018 by Caldersson

[The Yncarne]

Mech infantry and mobile assault.

[templargdt]

Drop Pod assault.

[Tyberos the Red Wake]

How about the oldest form of combat...melee? Overwhelming your opponent with gobs of infantry or beating them into submission with powerful monstrous creatures and weapon constructs. There may just be some blood for the blood god.

 

In this life, many obstacles be.

 

HIT THEM.

 

In search for enlightenment, many distraction.

 

HIT DISTRACTION.

 

At end of road, when wisdom get, finally see truth. Finally see that am one with world, and with all things.

 

HIT ALL THINGS.

 

This my way. This path of hit.

[Warsmith Aznable]

Combined arms. Ideally I would like an effective list with infantry, armour, artillery, and flyers. Except I don't play Guard, so it's hard to really get close to what I'd like and still play to win.

 

There's also a soft spot in my heart for big, stompy robots.

[Spinsanity]

I'm a dreadhead at heart... Can't go to war without a walker or two (or three, or...), right? :)

[Legionnaire of the VIIth]

I tend to favor Mechanized Infantry.

[DuskRaider]

Grinding, hellish footslogging war of attrition that leads to an absolute bloodbath of a finale in melee. 

[Captain Idaho]

I'm using a lot of infantry. 25 Tactical Marines, 10 Vanguard Jump troops, 8 Sternguard, 5 Cataphractii Terminators, 6 Devastators and 3 characters at 2000pts.

 

This supported by 3 vehicles.

 

I'd prefer a couple more vehicles but I'd drop the Terminators for that I guess.

 

57 infantry models in a Space Marines army is fairly difficult to deal with for most people, especially as it has firepower and mobility AND close combat capacity.

[totgeboren]

I like to try out new things, and combined arms is great for that. A little bit this and a bit of that.

But in the armies that can include it, I almost always include a Dreadnought or other walker. I think that is pretty common, people seem to like walkers.

 

Other than than, melee hordes always stir my imagination.

Edited January 4, 2018 by totgeboren

[Saxxon the Dragoon]

I personally used Combined arms, but focus on fast attack with long range fire support. I like using Dreads, Devastators and Hellblasters to put some wounds or reduce squad sizes, and then launch Assault marines, aggressors and Inceptors to lock them down. Even with my Sisters of Battle I like to have a couple exorcists in the back line with sister gun lines in front and let the enemy moved into my firing lines, and then deep strike seraphim behind them and harass them.

 

I will say 8th edition has made me use deep strike a lot more often. But I still focus on combined arms of my Dreads and heavy options to lay down fire and then dive into the enemy with assault units.

[CaptainMarsh]

I tend to love one of a few styles. I love a deep striking alpha strike shooting unit like the Scions or Drop Pod Sternguards. Find and eliminate target(s), then try to overrun my opponent with numbers. My Sisters and SM armies actually field a lot of bodies and even when I don't have the Alpha Strike, I tend to like wars of attrition. This fits well with my Guard army, which emphasizes long range, LOS-optional firepower.

If I had my perfect army it would be tons of indirect fire support, alpha strike problem solvers, and then a marching tide of Power Armor.

[Magos Takatus]

I don't think I have a combat doctrine as such, but I do seem to like walkers in my army since my Ork force has plenty of Kans and a Deff Dread with more on the way, and my primary army being Admech. I've noticed over time that I'd rather nuke my opponent off the table rather than assault them. Why I decided to collect Orks therefore is somewhat of a mystery to me. It must have just been the entertaining models :p

[Claws and Effect]

Guerilla tactics with air support.

[toaae]

I've always been about Close Quarters, both melee and short ranged shooting. Forget Lascannons, give me meltaguns. Monsters? Good dose of Klaws will handle that. Oh, look, the enemy has a horde of gribblies. Thank god I brought this bucket of dice in the form of rapid fire and melee attacks.

No wonder Blood Angels and Orks speak to me.

[Eddie Orlock]

What combat doctrine do you prefer playing with?

All styles. 'Using no way as way'. There are things to be learned from most configurations against most configurations.

 

That, and it keeps my opponents honest when it could swing between four Land Raiders one game, to a century of Orks, to grav mobile Eldar, and a variety in between.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

About the only thing you can count on me having in my army is a Dreadnought. At least one, of some kind, in every Marine army.

[Trevak Dal]

I really enjoyed the feeling of 6th/7th edition Tau, where it was like I had full view of the battlespace and was Ender Wiggen'ing them to victory. Felt like future version of what went down in the movie Blackhawk Down...but more often than not I was pascifying the enemy threat with unyielding firepower.

 

*Sigh*. I miss that.

 

I gambled hard with drops, and more often than not I'd get it. Used to piss a friend of mine off because I would deepstrike one of my riptides and land it right where I want it, while his Terminators would mishap into a rock or something. He lost like, 800 points to a mishap one-time (10 man hammernators, couple of librarians, a chaplain and a captain) just poof they died. Meanwhile I'm dropping a monstrous creature, threading the needle between buildings and enemy units, 5 inches of deviation will mishap me, and roll 4.

Edited January 5, 2018 by Trevak Dal

[Droz_64]

Depending on the army, and scenario. I've got 3 main playstyles though. Footsloggers with some MC/Walker/Tank support, which is my main army, a second build, with lots of infantry and fortifications, and my Zone Mortalis army which is mainly Dreadnoughts, Terminators and Breachers. I enjoy playing shooty armies, with a bit of attrition and entrenchment thrown in.