Need help against heavy armoured units.

[Cpt.Danjou]

I had an interesting game yesterday against Imperial guard, it was fun, but sadly a big loss for Death guard. My main problem with the opposing list was that he brought so many tanks and artillery which I could not make a serious dent in. So what I wonder is how to take care of tank lists.

 

His army was roughly 

 

Tank commander (Leman Russ Punisher)

2Leman Russ demolishers

1 manticore

1 Colossus 

 

Vulture Gunship with Gatlin cannons.

Bullgryn supported with a shield wall psyker.

Some token imperial guard infantry units

 

My list was weak against his from the start, I knew that, my only reliable way to take care of a high toughness heavy armoured unit is with my poor pbc, which was down to the last bracket after his first turn, he went first btw, hiding against artillery is hard. So I wonder how will we be able to take care of those targets, I fear both their new codex and a heavy tau list. Are the Blighthaulers a good option? Cower hoping is not an option against as their artillery and fliers will tear death guard to shreds no matter were you are standing. I was thinking of using cultists as meat-shields for our characters, and teleporting in terminators.

 

So what are our options against tanks, PBC and Blightghaulers only?

[KingYertle]

Well for starters the IG Player should be buying you Dinner for allowing him a taste of 9th Edition Victory, as Guard are in a terrible spot.

 

Without knowing your list, here are a couple suggestions:

 

1) Make sure your table has appropriate Terrain.  The Guard player had some good LOS ignoring units, but the Punisher and Demolisher LRs have shorter range and should have struggled to get at your prime targets on the 1st turn.  Those LOS Ignoring weapons don't ignore the -1 from dense terrain, and forcing Guard to hit on 5s is their Death Knell.

 

2) Our Ranged Anti-tank options are limited.  PBC w/Entropy are great, but can be unreliable if your Dice go cold.  A unit of Blighthaulers, especially when protected by the 4++ invul relic are a serious threat to a heavy armor list.  Helrutes with Melta/Fist are also a serious threat, while they are easy to kill they are easier to hide behind terrain.

 

3) Personally I find that Tagging Heavy Vehicles is the best way to deal with them.  Deep Strike in Terminators to deal with back field LOS ignoring vehicles, you can even include a Lord of Contagion/Virulence or a Sorcerer Terminator to give them added psychic support.  The Creeping Blight Strat (6s are AP-4) is a great way to push through wounds on Vehicles.  With your opponents list, he likely needed his tanks to help score primary objectives, putting them in range of being charged.  Fleshmower Bloatdrones and Winged Princes are great melee threats to counter your opponents vehicles once they move up to the mid board objectives.

 

4) Flood the mid table with Poxwalkers so that the barrage of anti-infantry weapons are firing into your fodder and not chipping wounds away from your terminators.  Cultist make terrible meat shields due to low moral.  Poxwalkers ignore moral and can be regenerated.

 

5) Don't forget about Strategic Reserves.  1 Helbrute coming in out of strategic reserves can eliminate a Russ.

[Tokugawa]

If the IG player bring all the anti-chaos stuff, then he should be capable to easily kill your toughest units, since that is too much raw damage. DG need to play around objectives and Los. If you have a center blob of terminators, always keep 4 CPs while you can.

[Plague _Lord]

Heve yet to play against guard in this edition but they aren't an army I would be afraid of. They lack the staying power to actually hold an objective and they only have 2 viable strategies - storm trooper heavy lists or cadian conscripts with heavy armour.

 

You should deploy as such so the Demolishers don't do anything turn 1 - their range is measly and they should have 0 chance of reaching your PBC on a standard board. Apart from that allways hide your vital units during deployment. Then you have to focus on objectives and try to clean out whatever infantry he has - the demolishers have to get in rather close to fire and I he doesn't have a lot of infantry then he won't be able to screen them well and that means they will be vunerable to your charges - take them out with deathshroud, drones or a daemon prince. Also a full payload Manticore shouldn't deal a lot of damage to your PBC and even if they have luck then remember your strat to shoot at full profile. 2 PBC shouldn't have much problem with taking out a Leman Russ at range.

[Wolf Lord Loki]

I might consider going plague marines heavy with lots of meltaguns, power fists and plague cleavers

 

Assault move them forward- as you can fire the meltas and charge as soon as you are able.

 

Mower on Bloat Drone would also be pretty distracting for him

Edited January 7, 2022 by Wolf Lord Loki