Assault Units

[christopher300]

How do you guys anticipate assaults? I am working on the tactic of having a unit to charge the enemy before it gets to charge my infantry.

I have chosen the company command squad. I arm all members with laspistols and also I get two bodyguards. I take a Lord Commissar and he joins the unit. So in combat we have:

7 attacks at WS3 (3 guardsman with 2 attacks ad one melta gun op)

6 attacks at WS4 (2 Body Guards)

4 Attacks at WS4 with Power Sword (Commander)

4 Attacks at WS5 with Power Sword (Lord Commissar)

And if I charge into combat that adds 8 more attacks. I am then thinking of adding a couple of missionaries to strengthen the assault value even more. Having las pistols also means I can fire some shots in before I charge.

In the game I just had, my Compamy Command Squad assaulted a space marine tactical squad, it had 4 marines, 1 marine was taken out with las pistols and the other 3 eliminated in combat.

I then charged into a larger unit that was led by Pedro. I ended u losing the combat to be fair, the Commissar was quite a beast.

What are your thoughts?

[WestRider]

Thoughts? Keep your CCS shooty and Ally in a real Counter-Assault Unit.

On average, that Unit is going to kill about 2-3 Marines on the Charge, assuming they lose no one to Overwatch or the Marines' Attacks at I4. Kind of underwhelming, especially when you consider that this is 180 Points dedicated to Assaulting, and the fact that a 180 Point Tactical Squad (a Generalist Unit, not a Dedicated Assault Unit itself) will probably kill about half these Models off before you get to strike.

Going up against even mediocre Assault Units, like Berzerkers or BA Assault Squads, these guys are going to die horribly, and true Dedicated Assault Units, like Assault Terminators, Genestealers, or Sanguinary Guard, won't even notice them.

If you do, for some reason, still feel the need to sacrifice your CCS like this, at least give them Power Fists. You're not striking before anyone but Orks or Necrons with those Power Swords, and the Fists will do so much more damage.

[christopher300]

Fair point

Seem like my unit hasnt been tested. if I were to go without allies what about Ogryns are they useful?

[Rolling Thunder]

Sadly, no.

[gamma016]

I have run them once I twice, usually five with Yarrick in a Chimera. It is a lot of points is the biggest thing. They do pretty well together, Yarrick giving them rerollable hits and them giving Yarrick furious charge. They do decent but they are not invincible, seeing as how then can be IDed. The chimera does give them some defense for moving up the field, however if you do this you can only take a max of six because they are bulky. Also you cannot stick a priest with them to get the rerollable hits. Some of the best options for assualt units are twenty man blobs with two commissars. Giving both commissars and sargents power weapons, usually axes unless fight an army you know has lower initiative then you, then take power swords. You can also try taking a priest with them to give the refolled hits in assualt.

[christopher300]

Jan 13, 2013 13:09:22 GMT -5 WestRider said:

Thoughts? Keep your CCS shooty and Ally in a real Counter-Assault Unit.

On average, that Unit is going to kill about 2-3 Marines on the Charge, assuming they lose no one to Overwatch or the Marines' Attacks at I4. Kind of underwhelming, especially when you consider that this is 180 Points dedicated to Assaulting, and the fact that a 180 Point Tactical Squad (a Generalist Unit, not a Dedicated Assault Unit itself) will probably kill about half these Models off before you get to strike.

Going up against even mediocre Assault Units, like Berzerkers or BA Assault Squads, these guys are going to die horribly, and true Dedicated Assault Units, like Assault Terminators, Genestealers, or Sanguinary Guard, won't even notice them.

If you do, for some reason, still feel the need to sacrifice your CCS like this, at least give them Power Fists. You're not striking before anyone but Orks or Necrons with those Power Swords, and the Fists will do so much more damage.

Yeah point taken

I just had a battle against an assault based Khorne army and well basically got annihilated. And my "assault unit" got eliminated by cultists......thats right cultists.

So yeah back to the drawing board

[Sgt. Rock]

Jan 14, 2013 14:57:43 GMT -5 gamma016 said:

...however if you do this you can only take a max of six because they are bulky.

Technically, if you take Yarrick, you can only take five. 5 Ogryn take up 10 seats, and since I really doubt Yarrick would be willing to sit on someone's lap, he takes up another "half" of an ogryn slot.

And yes. Khorne armies suck. DO NOT engage them in close combat. Shoot them. Shoot them lots. With ALL the guns. Repeatedly. When they fall down dead, continue shooting them. Then drive over them with your tanks. Several times.

Y'know. Not that I've ever had trouble with Khorne armies in the past. But yeah, even basic cultists with pistol/CCW are likely to munch your guardsmen, if only because they're Khorne based. Stupid Khorne. He's a jerk.

[Paradill]

Always charge first, takes the wind out of their sails. Yes you will get munched into, but as long as you've shot them to nuts first, you will win. Eventually. With luck. And with cheating. Maybe.

In seriousness attack is the best defence, if you are in the position where you're gonna get charged, charge first, gives you the best hope yours gonna get.

[dangerrod]

Jan 15, 2013 15:15:12 GMT -5 Paradill said:

Always charge first, takes the wind out of their sails. Yes you will get munched into, but as long as you've shot them to nuts first, you will win. Eventually. With luck. And with cheating. Maybe.

In seriousness attack is the best defence, if you are in the position where you're gonna get charged, charge first, gives you the best hope yours gonna get.

Unless you've got a blob squad of 20(+) men, then its rapid fire FRFSRF and then overwatch the enemy to death!!!

And when you get into contact you should have a better chance of killing any remainders!

Danger Rod

[christopher300]

I would think the bet approach is to try to shoot as many as I can first.

In the example of when I faced that Khorne army, to be honest even if I charged them I still would have taken stupid amount of attacks. And my little victory in it all was pretty much destroyinghis beserkers unit shooting them up. that being said it took 4 turns and in the mean while he systematically swept across my line.

I made a massive error in truth, I deployed second and my deployment as poor, I should have deployed further away form him. the only reason I deployed where I had was because I already had set up my aeis defence line and quad gun, I should have left my veteran unit there and sent the rest of my army further away.

[christopher300]

Thinking about allied units then. Im a simple man although I would love to have cannis wolfborn as an ally, I appreciate hes good in combat but would be overwhelmed.

What about an assault squad of marines? Keep it quite simple I guess?

[dangerrod]

If you have the space you can keep backing away from his assault marines with your blob squad and using FRFSRF to rapid fire him from range and keep him out of charge range.......

Danger Rod

[christopher300]

Jan 16, 2013 9:44:39 GMT -5 dangerrod said:

If you have the space you can keep backing away from his assault marines with your blob squad and using FRFSRF to rapid fire him from range and keep him out of charge range.......

Danger Rod

Sorry I am a little confused i think I was a bit rubbish at explaining what i meant.

i meant assault marines for me as an ally, and if i was against a space marine army they would sit behind the lines waiting for drop pods.

As for the Khorne yeah now you mention it in general moving backwards and firing could buy time, given they could get bad rolls for charges

[WestRider]

Assault Marines are honestly a pretty poor Assault Unit, despite their fluff. Blood Angels Assault Marines are OK if they've got a Sanguinary Priest with them, but still not great.

To add a true counter-Assault Unit to a Guard List, I'd probably either bring in TH/SS Terminators from the Vanilla Marine Codex, Deathwing Terminators from the DA Dex, or some Thunderwolf Cavalry from the Space Wolves Dex. There are a few other options, but of the ones IG have available from Armies that are Bros, those are the easiest to plug 'n' play with.

[genilyenovick]

I have to agree and disagree with WestRider. I agree that the units you mention are good but I advocate for one tool that has worked for me through two codices and three editions. The vet squad. Give them grenediers, three flamers and a load of shotguns and you have a decent counter attack unit. The math hammer for this may seem off to most but I have had a lot of success. They all have assault weapons/pistols so you get to charge after the fact. Have one unit first rank fire second rank fire, then bring the vets up with their shots and charge to finish off stragglers. The other option I use is the rough riders. Ten to twenty I5 S5 AP3 attacks at less than 150 points is awesome. Plus with Fleet and Hammer of Wrath you can get them into position and get an additional attack at I10, although at base strength.

[WestRider]

Those are both good against the middle-of-the-road stuff, but they're both going to bounce off most of the really hardcore stuff, the Hammernators and Sanguinary Guard and Armoured Shell Hive Tyrants.

If it doesn't have an answer to a 2+ Save, it's not an answer to a Dedicated Assault Unit.

[genilyenovick]

Attrition should be nothing new to us. I still believe that weight of fire trumps small elite units any day of the week. If I make you roll enough saves your bound to fail them. Most MEQ's have very expensive dedicated assault units that hit as hard as the ones that you have just mentioned. This means a lack of resources in other zones. If the game hinged on what one tough unit like that could do we might be back in 3rd ed. The rules for 6th in my opinion are very balanced in favour of the attrition based army. Shoot the crap out of it and then finish it off close only if necessary. For all intensive purposes a any of the units that you mentioned should never get into an assault with you with out having taken some damage. Target priority is our first guiding principle. The units that I listed are in codex and relatively cheap. This allows you to field them with out sacrificing ranged asset points to high priced MEQ allies.

The math hammer would agree with the above post. But in my experience as a guard player the math hammer only goes so far and rolling dice is different than averaging dice.

[WestRider]

I guess I just don't see the need to go for a middle of the road Unit that's not particularly good at anything for that. If I'm going for Attrition, I'll just drown them in a Blob. If I want an Assault Unit, I'll get a real Assault Unit.

Honestly, I don't usually bother with a proper Assault Unit in my Guard. I let Plasma handle my AP2 needs. But the OP wanted one, so I was recommending the good ones.

- Side note: It's "all intents and purposes". "All intensive purposes" is a meaningless phrase. Sorry, that one just gets to me.

[Sgt. Rock]

Jan 28, 2013 21:36:19 GMT -5 WestRider said:

- Side note: It's "all intents and purposes". "All intensive purposes" is a meaningless phrase. Sorry, that one just gets to me.

I love you, WestRider. I was just thinking exactly that.

However, I have to agree with Genilyenovick; having weapons that cut through armor is nice, but they're expensive and uncommon. Being a player of horde armies from day one, I firmly believe that if you throw enough buckets of dice at something, it *will* die.

Marine player: "You've got... how many shoota shots?" *Gulp*

Even Terminators will start to roll ones if you dump 40 or 60 lasgun shots into them. There's a reason the gunline tactic works; if you shoot something enough times, it's going to lay down and quit.

[Rolling Thunder]

Expensive and uncommon? You can bolt more plasma into a Guard list than Ryza produces in a year.

[cheminhaler]

I want to try double force org, 2k games with 60 rough riders. If guard wants assault we can spam hunting lances.
Sure they're one shot weapons, but they strike at +2 strength and initiative in one round, ap3. And you get the bonus hammer of wrath hits at initiative 10, str 3 and reroll the charge dice. Just watch out for terminators or gk with halberds who will destroy your riders. And any eldar with higher initiative than 5.

[Sgt. Rock]

Perhaps I used the wrong terminology there. Plasma, as a special weapon upgrade goes, is more expensive than any of its fellows. Uncommon, perhaps not, But for the cost of five or six plasma guns, I can get ten more lasguns (or nine and a pistol, to be more accurate.) Yes, the plasma guns are killier, if they hit, but I'd rather save the points and get more toys rather than shinier ones. But then, I've always preferred quantity over quality in 40k. Comes from being an ork player for so many years.

Don't get me wrong, I dig plasma weapons. I always have. But with Guardsman BS (excepting veterans, of course) and that weedy little cardboard armor save, I just don't feel like they're worth the expense. For marines, sure, but for Joe Guardsman... I think I'd rather spend the points on a grenade launcher or flamer and have more for other stuff.

[saithor]

I know it may sound a bit like overkill, but if they run any 2+ assualt troops and all the heavy tanks are taken out, Vendattas can be pretty good at taking them out, as strength 9 AP 2 means that they are usually going to have to rely on invul. saves alone. If they have heavy tanks running around, I use an Executioner vs. the Assualt units instead.

For the Blob Squad method, I did some Mathhammer, and it comes to that a single Lasgun Shot has almost a 1% chance to kill and Assault Terminator with Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield. So for one infantry squad it would 3 turns of FRF, SRF at Rapid Fire distance to kill one Assualt Marine for 3/4 of the price. So I'm sticking with Plasma and other special weapons.

[WestRider]

You guys seem to be missing the other half of my argument. I'm not saying that you need a Dedicated Assault Unit. I'm saying that if you're taking one, it should be a good one. Conversely, if you're not, and you want to roll with Attrition/Torrent, go all the way with that approach.

Taking that approach, rather than taking a middle-of-the-road Unit like the Vets Genilyenovick recommends, I'd drop another 15 Points on an extra pair of Infantry Squads, each with a Flamer and Autocannon. They're more durable, have more Attacks in most situations, and can actually contribute to the Game while they're sitting around waiting for the enemy Assault Units to close in.

[Sgt. Rock]

Saithor: If said assault terminator has a Storm Shield, the gun we shoot him with makes a lot less of a difference. Those lascannons on the Vendetta? You knocked 1 point off his save. Woo. Hammer and shield Terminators are going to eff up anybody, and while wounding on a 2 is a lot better than wounding on a 5, for the cost of three shots out of a Vendetta, I can get two whole squads of infantry with flamers and ACs. I'd rather make him save 10 or 12 wounds on a 2+ than two or three on a 3+ invulnerable. Mathhammer can be useful, but at the end of the day, I'd rather trust the dice than the calculator.

WestRider: I agree with you on both counts, actually. If you're going to take a dedicated assault unit, do it. Get the best you can. Get Blood Angels or GK or Space Wolves. If you want something that can fulfill other roles while still holding up in assault long enough to delay the big nasties, pick something that will do that. Personally, I've always believed in playing to an army's strengths; Imperial Guard shoot things. A lot. They shoot things better than most other armies out there. The addition of allies has added an interesting aspect to the metagame, and I'm not 100% convinced I like it (even though I plan on running Sisters of Battle as allies, 'cuz hey, nobody does that!) In previous editions, you had your army, and you were stuck with its strengths and weaknesses. You worked around that, and if your army wasn't worth a rat's ass in assault, you just brought more guns to the knife fight. Taking allies has changed all of that. But that's an unrelated rant. Point is, pick your approach and run with it. Bring your bullyboys to help out in a scrap, or bring more guns; but don't try to half-ass either. You'll end up getting your butt whipped like a dog that peed on the carpet.