Vehicle Tactics

[arnesh88]

Hey y'all,

 

Currently playing lists that are more vehicle heavy (2 land raiders, kratos, sicaran, 2 rhinos, 2 predators in a 3k list, roughly half the points makeup). While my opponent and I recognize that the boards we're playing on are too small (forced to use the smaller 40k boards instead of the 6' x 4' dimensions, hoping to resolve that with a battlemat soon), a problem I keep encountering is traffic jams. I'm trying to recreate similar conditions I'm expecting at the adepticon narrative event (dense terrain). While some jams are inevitable, it seems to be a consistent enough problem that is preventing me from even moving up the board with any of my army.
 

Does anybody have suggestions of how to run vehicle heavy armies? Do you put your heavier vehicles in front of your rhino transports? Faster vehicles on flanks? Do you move up aggressively or force your opponent to come to you? I'm used to being an aggressive player, not really doing gun lines, but I'm wondering if I should wait the first 2-3 turns for the opponent to come to me, then use the transports to move up fast in the end game to capture objectives.

 

For context, I'm playing Salamanders. Unfortunately, my most common opponent is playing Iron Warriors. So, I understand the matchup is already really rough, with a unit type that is considered relatively weak. However, I don't want to suddenly switch to an infantry heavy list as I want to stick with my narrative and I don't want to tailor lists to specific army types necessarily. I'll likely make additions/changes to my army after adepticon to make the force more well-rounded.

Edited January 23, 2023 by arnesh88

[SkimaskMohawk]

Well the board size definitely doesn't help. A 6x4 is 3456² inches, while a 40k board is 2400² inches; you basically lose a third of the intended play space.

 

But in general, parking lot effect is a consequence of taking a lot of hulls. I think the best strategy is to sit back and shoot, and then take the ground you've cleared, though it is very dependant on the guns you've picked for your vehicles. Having meltas on the preds and kratos make for a different game plan than las and battle cannon.

 

Its going to be hard though. In 1st you could easily get 3+ cover on your hulls, but now it mostly caps out at 5+. You lost armoured ceramite. Lascannons went down in points and gained sunder. Multimeltas gained twinlinked with little rise in cost. Non-vehicles can mostly react with impunity. Vehicles can't really react. Iron warriors all get +1 str. Salamanders offer basically no synergy with vehicles. You pay a lot for hulls that are largely worthless; 120 for a pred that's basically t9 3 wounds with no save against medium/high strength weapons. Four heavy support marines with the closest equivalent guns are 70.

 

[arnesh88]

24 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

Well the board size definitely doesn't help. A 6x4 is 3456² inches, while a 40k board is 2400² inches; you basically lose a third of the intended play space.

 

But in general, parking lot effect is a consequence of taking a lot of hulls. I think the best strategy is to sit back and shoot, and then take the ground you've cleared, though it is very dependant on the guns you've picked for your vehicles. Having meltas on the preds and kratos make for a different game plan than las and battle cannon.

 

Its going to be hard though. In 1st you could easily get 3+ cover on your hulls, but now it mostly caps out at 5+. You lost armoured ceramite. Lascannons went down in points and gained sunder. Multimeltas gained twinlinked with little rise in cost. Non-vehicles can mostly react with impunity. Vehicles can't really react. Iron warriors all get +1 str. Salamanders offer basically no synergy with vehicles. You pay a lot for hulls that are largely worthless; 120 for a pred that's basically t9 3 wounds with no save against medium/high strength weapons. Four heavy support marines with the closest equivalent guns are 70.

 

Yeah, certainly a "careful what you wish for" scenario. I finally got to build an army that is mostly treads and transports because of plastic models, only to be shot in the groin rules-wise. And salamanders legion rules are :cuss:. And the missions are (my personal opinion, others may disagree). I'm trying to stay positive, and I think the rules for the game are better overall, I just painted myself into a corner (pun intended). So I'm at least trying to polish a turd here.

Edited January 23, 2023 by arnesh88

[SkimaskMohawk]

I 100% agree the missions are trash. They've been terrible since their introduction in Tempest, and are basically kill point missions masquerading as objective based ones.

 

The salamander rules seem...frustrating. They have a niche, and can excel in it, but need a really specific and expensive collection to do so. Other than that you're basically playing the vanilla Legion list. Must be hard to get the motivation push on with painting if you're not getting satisfactory results in game. 

[arnesh88]

It’s almost all painted anyways. I just want to get more games in against other legions at the moment.

[TheTrans]

Ok, yeah after going to reACT on the weekend, I just watched my solar aux mate get his :cuss: kicked in every mission... 

So while the vehicle nerfs relatively equally knackered the legions, it totally gutted Solar Aux... 

There was also a FOTA list... dreads are badly designed and OP. 

[arnesh88]

1 hour ago, TheTrans said:

Ok, yeah after going to reACT on the weekend, I just watched my solar aux mate get his kicked in every mission... 

So while the vehicle nerfs relatively equally knackered the legions, it totally gutted Solar Aux... 

There was also a FOTA list... dreads are badly designed and OP. 

Tbf, I have been hearing that solar auxilia are basically bad all over. Even for a narrative game, they’re borderline unplayable.

 

Also wanted to add that as much as I would be for a salty topic of how armies and rules are, and I don't disagree with anybody that has responded on this topic, before any admins may interfere, let's keep it to the original topic of how to best utilize vehicle heavy armies and tactics.

Edited January 27, 2023 by arnesh88

[SkimaskMohawk]

Solar aux "good builds" basically hinge on spending an ungodly amount on vanquisher hulls, carnodons, and infantry. Of money; an ungodly amount of money. You basically need to hit the bottom of skew before anyone else can, and hope they get gunned before they chew through your screens. You still suffer from extreme parking lot effect, though your infantry tercios are now thematic speedbumps lol.

[The Scorpion]

On 1/23/2023 at 6:12 PM, arnesh88 said:

Yeah, certainly a "careful what you wish for" scenario. I finally got to build an army that is mostly treads and transports because of plastic models, only to be shot in the groin rules-wise. And salamanders legion rules are :cuss:. And the missions are (my personal opinion, others may disagree). I'm trying to stay positive, and I think the rules for the game are better overall, I just painted myself into a corner (pun intended). So I'm at least trying to polish a turd here.

 

It's an issue caused by the rules simplification of 2.0

 

In 1.0, Salamanders were slow but excelled at close range fire, thus being geared towards transports, and their RoW buffed the survivability of said transports in ways 2.0 doesn't do anymore.

[Mandragola]

In my experience sometimes you have to make a tough choice: do you carry on doing something that doesn't work or do you change something fundamental?

 

Reading the situation you describe, I don't think we're likely to come up with a new trick or tactic that's going to rescue this situation. Vehicles aren't great, your opponent is really good at killing them and the board and missions are both against you. Every game is going to be really tough.

 

Getting a 6x4 mat is going to be good for all sorts of games so that's positive. It will help a bit here. If you play some end to end scenarios things might improve slightly too. But really I'm afraid you'll have to get more good stuff - infantry and dreadnoughts - and not so much bad stuff if you want to do well. Sorry.

 

One piece of advice I do give for playing at a disadvantage is to look for ways to use that. If you can't keep your vehicles alive, look for ways to at least make the enemy pay for destroying them. Usually, this means having units set up to take revenge on whoever destroys your tanks. This is fairly straightforward if they come close to do it but not so much if they zap you with lascannon from across the board. Maybe get some snipers or stuff that can hit those guys from out of LoS.

[arnesh88]

So a few things I have mulled on based on your feedbacks and reflecting on my experience so far, hopefully others find this helpful as well. While I have added some info about my common opponents' army and my own, I did so to add context to my thinking:

 

- Vehicles are what they are, skewing heavy into them can lead to unfun scenarios, which comes with the territory

- I should be less aggressive in my movement. The heavy weapons I tend to face against are on rapiers or footslogging, and we try to go for denser terrain for our games, so I should force my opponent to move more than me, and only move when staying put just leads to the same amount of damage taken as when I move closer. Their movement speed can be seen as a way to make up for rounds they didn't move in earlier turns, rather than as a way to move up the table as fast as possible

- Dreadnoughts are surprisingly not an issue so far in my games. Not hard for me to focus fire them down and my firedrakes have been able to match contemptors in melee, usually able to take down 1-2 with some help, and they are some of the only elements of their list that are moving up the board. I usually deal with 2 contemptors, 2 leviathans, and iron circle w/ praetor for context (They're close enough to dreadnoughts in terms of durability/punchiness that I sort of count them as such). They will probably be more of an issue when used in an assault-based or mixed arms army.

- Part of what's leading to the "parking lot" problem is not only too many vehicles, but also that I have too much "direct" fire, leading to vehicles forced to move and blocking each others' line of sight. I think getting rid of one "gun boat" for a scorpius or two will round out my list a bit better. Others may want to get another artillery piece, like rapiers or arquitors

- Including units that can fly over vehicles helps with maneuvering and to help bully Line infantry for objectives. I plan to pick up 3-6 sky hunters, but others may look into jump pack infantry or land speeders.

- My rhinos at this point primarily exist as a way to protect my infantry from my opponent's indirect fire, and not to move aggressively up the board. Let them hide behind terrain, land raiders, and kratos, and I make the mistake of disembarking their contents when I don't need to (habits from 40k)

- Apothecaries can also probably be cut from my list. All of my infantry have transports, and the S8 exploding ignores FNP and the purpose of bringing an apothecary, along with the sheer number of S8+ attacks I deal with regularly

[SkimaskMohawk]

4 minutes ago, arnesh88 said:

Including units that can fly over vehicles helps with maneuvering and to help bully Line infantry for objectives. I plan to pick up 3-6 sky hunters, but others may look into jump pack infantry or land speeders.

 

Just as an FYI, while the sky hunters and speeders CAN hop over terrain, they bizarrely CAN'T hop over intervening models now. So they might not help the parking lot as much as they used to.

[arnesh88]

2 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

Just as an FYI, while the sky hunters and speeders CAN hop over terrain, they bizarrely CAN'T hop over intervening models now. So they might not help the parking lot as much as they used to.

Thanks for the correction. That's frustrating as hell

[SkimaskMohawk]

20 minutes ago, arnesh88 said:

Thanks for the correction. That's frustrating as hell

 

Its really dumb. I get that it wasn't fun to have objectives contested last turn from turbo boosting bikes going 36", but they already capped their top speed at a far lower value. And speeders can't even contest on top of that. 

[arnesh88]

Agreed. A Jet Bike can travel over/through a 30 foot building in the rules, but can't skim over 6'2" Joe

[SkimaskMohawk]

20 minutes ago, arnesh88 said:

Agreed. A Jet Bike can travel over/through a 30 foot building in the rules, but can't skim over 6'2" Joe

Especially with their new extra high flying stands lol