How to counter jump pack rampager army

[GodEmperorOfMankind]

Hey all, just had a 3k game where I got absolutely annihilated by WEs, the list was pretty much as below:

 

Lascannon x10 with MoS

 

x15 Rampagers with x2 falax blades with angron and an apoth in a kharibdys.

 

X15 rampagers and an apoth with jump packs and x2 falax blades

 

X15 rampagers and an apoth with jump packs and x2 falax blades

 

So his turn 2 he deepstrike assaults in his 3 units, and even though I got to place his first jump pack wearing rampager in the corner of my side of the table due to scatter, he conga lined up to one of my units and then placed the other jump pack squad and kharibdys pretty much exactly when he wanted, within 18" of the original conga unit.

 

He then assaults my LoW (brass scorpion) and 2 other high value units and deletes all 3 with ease. All my return fire got saved by armour or FNP, losing 2 models, and my turn of combat getting little else. (I'm  mainly shooting back with bolters at this point).

 

He then proceeds to charge and delete a few more units, and I have little else to stop him with at this point.

 

So how do I counter this? 2 wounds on rampagers witha 5++ fnp means I struggle to reduce the unit size meaningfully, and WE x15 rampagers is 80+ hitting with WS5 and rending on 4+.

 

Cheers

[Heir of Sigismund]

Recons/seekers/vets with nemesis bolters to take out the apothecaries & culverins for max shots into the rest. Bring the augury scanners, you need the interceptor.

[Noserenda]

Intercepting snipers and heavy weapons should tear holes in them, you could also "bubble wrap" important units with troop chaff. What are you working with though? No point in suggesting a wave of militia to block their assaults if you dont have that lying around :D 

Also, seems like a very competitive list, and if all your firepower is bolters perhaps yours isnt? It might be worth discussing expectations before the game?

[SkimaskMohawk]

Elite heavy deep strike spam is incredibly unfun to play against until you take steps to make it incredibly unfun to play with. 

 

Master of signal shuts it down real fast. Screens so they can't pin lascannon units. Telepathy super ruins any non fearless units off the intercept. 

 

And then what kills rampagers? Well, lascannons, as mentioned. Ally some plasma myrmidons and watch them gobble up units left and right.  Primarchs can easily brutalize them. A janky moritat+str 6 combo to chew through their 2 wounds and 3+. Even just initiative 5 and ap3 things like power lances.the angron unit can kinda be janked by single characters and then hitting the unit on 3s from angron.

 

But that kinda list is a really binary type of list, and isn't the most fun. 45 falax blades isn't something anyone just had lying around that happened to be strong. It's a very deliberate build that only existed as of 2nd; get them to tone it down if you don't have the collection to play into what's basically a tournament list. 

[Unknown Legionnaire]

5 hours ago, Noserenda said:

Also, seems like a very competitive list, and if all your firepower is bolters perhaps yours isnt? It might be worth discussing expectations before the game?

  

Very much this.  It's no good if one person tries to play fluffy and the other one is out there to stomp them with WAAC :cuss:.

 

[Xenith]

On 5/25/2024 at 2:43 AM, GodEmperorOfMankind said:

All my return fire got saved by armour or FNP

 

Lascannons handily ignore both of those! 

 

What army are you playing? WE also? As above, they're taking a very extreme army, however interceptor counters a lot of this. 

 

Personally, I'd go for sudden death victory. If he starts the game with only those lascannons on the table, you only have to kill 10 marines in one turn to win. 2x scorpius, 10 man lascannon squad should probably do it. I'd pair this with nemesis recons (with vox) and infiltrating seekers. As Alpha legion, I'd be using effrit to get breaching shotguns into range. 

 

10 lascannons on a ruin will probably receive 12 scorpius hits, for 6 breached, 1 dead from saves, or ~4/5 dead if they evade. 10lascannons will kill another 5. 10 nemesis bolters should get 2 rends and 2 saves

 

Vigilator

10 recons with nemesis

2x10 tacs

10 seekers

10 lascannon HSS

2X scorpius

 

Comes to 1220pts. spend the other 1800 on whatever you like! 

[Valkyrion]

I agree with Xenith and Skimask. There's no way this guy has 50 falax blades lying around, so he's made a deliberate choice to be a git. 

If you use your 3000 points to kill his 10 models on turn 1 then you win, and neither of you had fun. If you don't, then on turn 2 he wins and he had fun at your expense. Take the lesser of two evils and hopefully teach him a lesson.

 

Unless, of course, I'm doing him a massive disservice and the game was meant to be Rampagers charging into a gunline and seeing what happens, in which case the World Eaters are working as intended. 

[MARK0SIAN]

Have you considered an Iron Hands Fury of the Ancients list? 
 

I’m not really serious but his list is clearly ‘optimised’ to put it mildly and generally the only way to counter optimised lists is to go all out and optimise your own which isn’t generally fun for anyone and feels like it’s something that belongs more in 40k than 30k. 
 

I’d either have a word with him and ask him to tone it down or just not play him again to be honest. This isn’t even a case of giving him the benefit of the doubt and thinking he accidentally built a list that was harsher than he intended, that type of spam does not happen accidentally. 

[Xenith]

18 hours ago, Valkyrion said:

use your 3000 points to kill his 10 models on turn 1 then you win, and neither of you had fun

 

Best of 3?  It might encourage them to start on the board. I'd also say to make sure you have enough terrain to allow some cover for the advancing melee army. 

[GodEmperorOfMankind]

21 hours ago, Valkyrion said:

I agree with Xenith and Skimask. There's no way this guy has 50 falax blades lying around, so he's made a deliberate choice to be a git. 

If you use your 3000 points to kill his 10 models on turn 1 then you win, and neither of you had fun. If you don't, then on turn 2 he wins and he had fun at your expense. Take the lesser of two evils and hopefully teach him a lesson.

 

Unless, of course, I'm doing him a massive disservice and the game was meant to be Rampagers charging into a gunline and seeing what happens, in which case the World Eaters are working as intended. 

Genuine question, where does it say if one side has no models on the board they auto lose? I know it was in HHv1, but I've not seen it in the v2 book.

 

I ask because this came up when I played a drop pod assault list and my opponent seized the initiative so went first. End of his turn, I had no models on the board as I had yet to deploy anything.

 

We carried on and it gave him chance to spread out to try and deny me anywhere to land, but still.

 

 

Back on topic, I appreciate everyone's responses to this, and I've adjusted my list to include 2 MoS, 2 squads of Lascannon,  a squad of melta, and the IW terminators with cyclone missile launchers, with augury scanners for all, and a warlord that gives an extra reaction in assault. I'm feeling confident it should be able to put his list in its place.

 

For further clarification,  the guy is a good friend and we have a great time. His list came about because of a few things, at a local narrative tournament he (and I) got pretty well stomped. When looking at WE rules I said falax blades look really nasty, he agreed and said a unit with angron in a spartan would certainly give his army further punch.

 

It developed from there to 2 more squads with jump packs, and switched the spartan to a kharibdys to allow everyone to DS. I printed the falax blades for him and the kharibdys he borrowed from me.

 

We had played a narrative ZM game a little while back where his WE had failed to capture my IW missile silo, so we thought it fitting that an immediate deepstrike of WE on the IW position was a fitting follow up.

 

I chose a thematic list of what I thought a garrison would be, with some daemons (Samus and a brass scorpion included) because the IW were conducting research into daemon engines. I didn't really take his list into consideration 

 

We both stared in shock when the dice started rolling, and I made this post because I was like ":cuss:, how do I stop this in future"

 

He actually felt bad and said he wouldn't play the list again, but I've challenged he to a rematch because I want to beat him.

 

Appreciate all the responses, they've been very helpful!

[Eternal Despair]

Page 305 of the Heresy rulebook. When playing the siege of cthonia missions tabling your opponent ends the game immediately with victory points to that point being tallied and tabling your opponent is worth 1 extra victory point page 153

[GodEmperorOfMankind]

2 hours ago, Eternal Despair said:

Page 305 of the Heresy rulebook. When playing the siege of cthonia missions tabling your opponent ends the game immediately with victory points to that point being tallied and tabling your opponent is worth 1 extra victory point page 153

Top man thanks! Yeah killing off his starting units would end the game early.

 

And game turn not player turn makes sense for drop pod assault, so going 2nd doesn't mean you auto lose

[Xenith]

20 hours ago, GodEmperorOfMankind said:

We both stared in shock when the dice started rolling, and I made this post because I was like ":cuss:, how do I stop this in future"

 

He actually felt bad and said he wouldn't play the list again, but I've challenged he to a rematch because I want to beat him

 

Seems like a great way of playing! Furthering the narrative you guys have, perhaps now the WE have performed their DS assault/boarding action, they should all start the next game on the table, as they push into IW territory? Might be a nice way to make things a bit more fun and challenging. 

[GodEmperorOfMankind]

Yeah our next narrative game is ZM as he pushes into the fortified research lab, I've told him I want him to keep the jump packs :')

 

I also want a rematch as a separate game to see how I do against that deepstrike list. He's a great guy to play against as it's always a beers and dice kind of game. 

 

Here's a photo of his conga line

[LameBeard]

I like your style.

 

two questions:

 

1) is the conga-line still legal? GW wrote complicated rules in other games to stop the conga-line (or at least half its length). The old deep strike rules also bunched you up in entry.  Those are different now?

 

2) was he using the rite of war that makes Rampagers troops but not line? Is there a counter-strategy of you having very many cheap line units spread out where one of them survives to hold an objective which he can’t? Maybe a recon company? Would be scenario-dependent. 

[CaptainKael]

So after reading this entire thread, I am only posting this as an answer for other people regularly stuck playing against lists like these. This is a total move or a nuclear option against :cuss:. I realize that this is not the case for the OP. 

My friend and I are narrative players in a very narratively oriented group. However, our original 40k upbringing was at another store and in a very competitive environment. In order to not get stomped every week, we had to theory-craft around the popular meta lists from 5-7th editions. As a result, we will occasionally come up with ridiculous lists to show how broken a certain mechanic is or how GW failed at playtesting. The following is what we believe to be the single strongest 3K list in HH2.0. It counters pretty much any other that we could simulate (usually tabling the opponent within 3 or so turns) - this includes Custodian Guard Spam and FotA. About the only list that we believe could semi-reliably counter it is a Night Lord Fear Bomb/Terror Assault with 2 Telepathy Librarians, but even then it is conditional on a lot of failed Pinning checks and the Delegatus failing his Rally the Legion LD test.

 

"86 Lascannons"
Legion: Death Guard

ROW: The Reaping

 

HQ
Legion Delegatus

Troops
Tactical Squad (10 models)
Tactical Squad (10 models)
Heavy Support Squad (10 models) - lascannons & augury scanner

Heavy Support Squad (10 models) - lascannons & augury scanner

Heavy Support Squad (10 models) - lascannons & augury scanner

Heavy Support Squad (10 models) - lascannons & augury scanner

 

Elites

Castaferrum Dreadnought - 2x Gravis Lascannons & Helical Targeting Array

Castaferrum Dreadnought - 2x Gravis Lascannons & Helical Targeting Array
Castaferrum Dreadnought - 2x Gravis Lascannons & Helical Targeting Array

Castaferrum Dreadnought - 2x Gravis Lascannons

 

Heavy Support

Heavy Support Squad (10 models) - lascannons & augury scanner

Heavy Support Squad (10 models) - lascannons & augury scanner

Heavy Support Squad (10 models) - lascannons & augury scanner

Every unit with lascannons is capable of Interceptor in a turn (either via augury scanners or Helical Targeting Array and for the single Castaferrum without one, you could use your single movement Reaction allotment instead). Death Guard lets the lascannons move and fire without penalty as well as the additional HSS as Troops with The Reaping.

My friend also came up with a variant of this list. Drop one of the helical equipped Castaferrums to add a Legion Herald and Legion Master of Signal as further utility characters against Deep Strike or Pinning heavy lists.

Edited Wednesday at 04:50 PM by CaptainKael

[GodEmperorOfMankind]

7 hours ago, CaptainKael said:

So after reading this entire thread, I am only posting this as an answer for other people regularly stuck playing against lists like these. This is a total move or a nuclear option against :cuss:. I realize that this is not the case for the OP. 

My friend and I are narrative players in a very narratively oriented group. However, our original 40k upbringing was at another store and in a very competitive environment. In order to not get stomped every week, we had to theory-craft around the popular meta lists from 5-7th editions. As a result, we will occasionally come up with ridiculous lists to show how broken a certain mechanic is or how GW failed at playtesting. The following is what we believe to be the single strongest 3K list in HH2.0. It counters pretty much any other that we could simulate (usually tabling the opponent within 3 or so turns) - this includes Custodian Guard Spam and FotA. About the only list that we believe could semi-reliably counter it is a Night Lord Fear Bomb/Terror Assault with 2 Telepathy Librarians, but even then it is conditional on a lot of failed Pinning checks and the Delegatus failing his Rally the Legion LD test.

 

"86 Lascannons"
Legion: Death Guard

ROW: The Reaping

 

HQ
Legion Delegatus

Troops
Tactical Squad (10 models)
Tactical Squad (10 models)
Heavy Support Squad (10 models) - lascannons & augury scanner

Heavy Support Squad (10 models) - lascannons & augury scanner

Heavy Support Squad (10 models) - lascannons & augury scanner

Heavy Support Squad (10 models) - lascannons & augury scanner

 

Elites

Castaferrum Dreadnought - 2x Gravis Lascannons & Helical Targeting Array

Castaferrum Dreadnought - 2x Gravis Lascannons & Helical Targeting Array
Castaferrum Dreadnought - 2x Gravis Lascannons & Helical Targeting Array

Castaferrum Dreadnought - 2x Gravis Lascannons

 

Heavy Support

Heavy Support Squad (10 models) - lascannons & augury scanner

Heavy Support Squad (10 models) - lascannons & augury scanner

Heavy Support Squad (10 models) - lascannons & augury scanner

Every unit with lascannons is capable of Interceptor in a turn (either via augury scanners or Helical Targeting Array and for the single Castaferrum without one, you could use your single movement Reaction allotment instead). Death Guard lets the lascannons move and fire without penalty as well as the additional HSS as Troops with The Reaping.

My friend also came up with a variant of this list. Drop one of the helical equipped Castaferrums to add a Legion Herald and Legion Master of Signal as further utility characters against Deep Strike or Pinning heavy lists.

Holy :cuss:!

[Heir of Sigismund]

Techmarines with cognis & adding an invuln (boarding shield) in the HSS squads would top it off

All the las then hit on 2s

[CaptainKael]

Techmarines would decrease the amount of lascannons in the list. The BS improvement does not overcome the loss of shots.

 

Our entire design process was:

 

What is the single most OP weapon in the game?

Lascannons

 

What is the most powerful unit in 2.0 (considering Reactions) that can also equip lascannons?

Heavy Support Squads. Assume they start with augury scanners.

 

What Legion or RoW that allows for the most HSS?

Death Guard with The Reaping

 

<Fill in the HQ and compulsory Troops with the cheapest, bare bone options. Then fill in the remaining Troop and Heavy Support slots with HSS.>

 

OK. We still have over 700 points left. What units in Elites or Fast Attack have the cheapest lascannons?

Castaferrum dreadnoughts with dual Gravis lascannons. Give as many helical targeting arrays as possible with remaining points.

[GodEmperorOfMankind]

I mean, part of me wants to be "that guy" and take this list for a drive to see what happens

[SkimaskMohawk]

On 6/12/2024 at 12:48 PM, CaptainKael said:

About the only list that we believe could semi-reliably counter it is a Night Lord Fear Bomb/Terror Assault with 2 Telepathy Librarians, but even then it is conditional on a lot of failed Pinning checks and the Delegatus failing his Rally the Legion LD test.

 

Uh, a lot of dedicated drop lists can semi counter it in this version. The night lord terror assault is more of a reliable one; it drops in a number of things and pins a spread of your army from deespstrike, then charges a bunch. Ideally you'd aim for the delegatus unit with either your charge or your snipers. Telepathy librarians can finish off pinning and strip reactions for important phases. 

 

Blood angels also make a very good heavy drop list that does something similar. Lots of fear and fearless, lots and lots of high threat units, lots of movement once on on the board.

 

Past that, there's also other high pressure builds that can get away with turn 1 charges filled with junk infantry that are just meant to pin down units and grind out combats. Or like, just spam chaf with a million solar aux/militia.

 

All this to say, it's a very very strong build. But it's not the silver bullet build.

[Marshal Mittens]

Plasma contemptors, put those 5" templates down on them when they deep strike.