# Tips For All Types Of Armies!



## Peter Thorpe

well, im back from the bloodbowl GT, 62nd, not bad for a noob!, lmao, considering i was youngest there, i also sent off suggestions for upgrades to the GT, lets hope the designers listen! 

now im back to the 40k scene, ive decided, after watching the grand final, to formulate some tips for anyone that wants them

so this is an open topic, ask any question concerning armies, types, best stratageys, and ill be happy to answer them

(ive started working as a tournament advisor for over 15 pepole at WW HQ, so believe me when i say ive seen them all!!!!


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## yvaN_ehT_nioJ

I'm thinking of starting an IG army and I was wondering; should I have tons of infantry and not have very many vehicles at all, have a balanced amount of infantry and vehicles, or have more vehicles than infantry?

EDIT: I got first reply.


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## Peter Thorpe

imperial guard tend to have the cheapest infantry avaliable to the imperium, so they are in high needs, but to rule out vehicles would be ignorant of there true power, the way to make them work, is three ways

Do you like to bombard the opponent with wave after wave of players, there weapons become usless because youve swarmed them? : Then is say a balance of 
7:3 infantry:tanks

or do you like to rush into the opponent at lightning speed, jump out by suprise with a hail of gunfire, jump away again with the opponent cringing? : this is more of the balance, chimera's alongside guard regiments, you can move your 12", jump out, rapidfire there ass into the ground, jump back in next turn (you will lose troops, but at 6-7pts each?) and then continue to do that, with the points you could easily have 3-6 shock troops, and even fit a HS tank too, balance is 4:6

but, do you like to focus less on numbers, and beat the living daylights out of your opponents from a distance, plus have the type of weapons that will give nothing there armour save? : tanks, Basalisk and Leman Russ Demolisher, how you group them together is up to you, 2B with 1L, or the other way around, or maybe just 3 of a kind, basalisks, should in 6 turns be able to fire 6 times with the demolisher round, and the tank should never be attack (positioned correctly and as long as your not playing space wolf scouts) and with the leman russ, well, thats death on wheels, with its great front armour, you should just plough into the enemy, unloading the ultimate large blast template on them each turn, nothing gets a save and it will instant kill almost everything in exsistance, this plan should be infantry to tanks of 2:8



my personal view is option 3, there is nothing better than dropping a shell on a command squad and saying to the stunned opponent "thats 2's to kill....take your 9 armour saves, oh wait, you cant! muhahahaha"
but if you want ultimate numbers, you can fit 200 standard troops and a command squad for 1500 points, lets face it that wont be easy to get rid of, unless you play hoard tyranids in which case you are royally screwed!


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## pathwinder14

I understand that you are only trying to be helpful. We appreciate the offer for advice. I don't mean to sound crass or rude, but what qualifications do you have? To come on a board and strart a thread offering everyone else advice is a little presumptious don't you think?

Many of us have a lot of experience with this hobby and I doubt we really need someone offering advice as though we needed it.

Are you a GW exec? Are you a GW games developer? Are you related to Gavin Thorpe?

If any of those are "Yes" then you are at least qualified to offer unwarranted advice. Keep in mind though that you will be stepping on people's toes. We all have our own ideas and opinions of this hobby.


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## ThunderBolt

well theres nothing wrong with offering advice to people who want it, however accurate it may or may not be. however it is worth noting that a huge majority of the members of this forum seem to know what they are talking about, and could collectively offer better advice to a new player than one single person could.

some of them may not appreciate a preacher on the forum as they have so much experience themselves, as demonstrated above.


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## LongBeard

What 40k list would you recommend to win the GT this season?
:wink:


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## Stella Cadente

pathwinder14 said:


> I understand that you are only trying to be helpful. We appreciate the offer for advice. I don't mean to sound crass or rude, but what qualifications do you have? To come on a board and start a thread offering everyone else advice is a little presumptuous don't you think?


Isn't asking for advice basically what everyone does on this board, but none of us have qualifications, you can chose to ignore his posts, or listen to them, either way nobody is harmed, if you don't agree with something you say so



pathwinder14 said:


> Many of us have a lot of experience with this hobby and I doubt we really need someone offering advice as though we needed it.


theres no such thing as too much advice, for all we know he could of been playing for millions of years, obviously not, but you get the point, he may have more experience than all of us combined



pathwinder14 said:


> Are you a GW exec? Are you a GW games developer? Are you related to Gavin Thorpe?


do you think any of those people would give you any other advice other than "buy space marines"



pathwinder14 said:


> If any of those are "Yes" then you are at least qualified to offer unwarranted advice. Keep in mind though that you will be stepping on people's toes. We all have our own ideas and opinions of this hobby.


and we all like to share them just like him, so we are basically the same, just in a different method of showing it


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## Initiate

stella, you owned them all. 

do you think vanilla marines could win anything with the following traits: Purity Above All, Trust your battle brothers, Eye to Eye and We Stand Alone?


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## stompzilla

Well, actually, i'm the best at everything. Anyone want to ask me for advice?

How to tie your shoe laces? How to make a cup of tea? All the answers are here.

:lol: :wink:


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## Jeridian

Unwarranted advice? Qualifications?

I have a Degree in Astartes...

By all means provide advice and suggestions, strategies and tactics- if we're all supposed to keep silent, then what purpose has a discussion forum.

But expect to be mercilessly ridiculed by elitist snobs like myself if offering nuggets of wisdom like "Tornados are good", or "Try this novel idea, put a power fist in your Tactical squads".

Any, what armies to expect at a GT/ other tournament. Depends on region, so I'll discuss mine- the UK.

At the moment IW's, Siren, etc are the ultimate contendors for lameness on the MEq front. They where followed closely by Blood "200pts free" Angels- but fell victim to Jervis, they are a shadow of their former gaiety.

Marines can still give a good showing- the Drop Pod 'o' Doom army doing well consistently. But overall Marines may make up the largest percentage of tournaments but they perform poorly overall. 
Who knows why this is? Perhaps a higher percentage of 'noobs' use them, perhaps the fact everyone's lists are designed to kill Marines as efficiently as possible, perhaps multiple reasons.

In the next year or so, Chaos and most likely Marines will feel the icy touch of nerfage and going off the DA will drop from the tournament radar.

So with MEq taking a nasty hit, this leaves who to fill the void at the top?
Mech Tau and Eldar, they have shown consistent effectiveness at tournaments for quite some time- so the elimination of their competition can only see them take the top spot.

Grumbles, Skimmer Edition, grumble.

If your planning on going to tournaments and GT's this year- I'd prepare for the IW's last hurrah before they die a well-deserved death, but plan also to see Tau and Eldar a lot.
Next year and onwards- Tau and Eldar FTW, and those Marine idiots (myself included) who will show up regardless.


Disclaimer: This is a generalisation, there will of course be token Ork players, Sisters, IG, DE, etc, etc at GT's. The above is what will be most popular, and more specifically what will consistently reach the top tables and final scores.


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## Initiate

huh, well, considering im a noob, i dont really plan to go to GTs very soon, but i tihnk i wouldnt suck when i do go since i am a great tactician. Some thing else in the way of my joining the tournament is my age and location, which would mean not many GTs and not really comfortable in the crowds of "big" people. So basically i said that as a jokey kinda thing. Besides, if space marines are knocked off tournaments then other races willl stop making Anti-marine lists, making me able to rocket up the charts due to their ease of play.


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## pathwinder14

My post was not arguing whether or not we want advice on this forum, but more that we initiate it by asking for it, not saying that we know everything. 

I know he was trying to be helpful, but the way he offered his advice made him seem like a know it all.



Stella Cadente said:


> he may have more experience than all of us combined


Ummm....unless he has worked for GW as a playtester, then no. There is no way he has more experience than all of us combined. A couple hundred gamers have more gaming experience than 1. Simple math.



Stella Cadente said:


> and we all like to share them just like him, so we are basically the same, just in a different method of showing it


And that method is what I'm talking about. No one l ikes a braggart. I was simply letting him know that he was coming across as a braggart and that he may want to re-evaluate his methods.


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## Cadian81st

Peter, there's just a small hole in your Imperial Guard strategy: they have a BS 3. Yes, I'm afraid our friends, the Imperial Guardsmen, are not known for their marksmanship. And, it transfers over to their vehicles. If you're firing _any_ vehicle other than a Leman Russ or a Bassie, you have to roll to hit. And you will miss my friend, many many times. So yes, while you _should_ be able to roll across the board in your chimeras, and let loose with the multilasers, lasguns and other various forms of death, chances are you'll miss about a third of your to hit dice, just cause you need a four or higher to merely hit. Then, you'll probably miss another third, or even half of the ones you have left over since pretty much everything out their has a higher toughness than the lasgun's strength. So, with a ten man guardsman squad firing at a 10 man marine squad, you'll be lucky to wound three of them, and then of course, there's that pesky armor save. So, all told, it's a champagne-worthy moment if you kill two of the three you wounded, but most likely they'll either make all of the saves, or you'll kill one. Forget about assaulting, lasguns are rapid fire, so your squad will get raped next turn by 9 extremely pissed marines.

A few more points: the range on a Demolisher's main gun is 24", it is not a sit and shoot weapon. And since vehicles can't move and fire an ordnance weapon, your rolling death tank scheme for the leman is slightly flawed as well. Also, you do realize that basilisk shots are ordnance, and that scatters? You would have to roll a hit on the scatter dice in order to kill the command squad outright, plus most commanders have Invulnerable saves.


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## stompzilla

Ok, with a BS of 3 you miss half the time. Vehicles CAN also fire ordnance weapons on the move. Also most rolling armour type armies i've ever seen include a fair no of storm troopers which are BS4 and pack a couple of special weapons. Soin reality you're looking at 4 BS 4 plasma shots, a BS 4 plasma pistol and 14 lasgun shots which may also be supplemented by a multilaser and a heavy bolter which is going to hurt. Lots.

Not cheap but quite doable with a little skill and some luck.


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## Cadian81st

I was speaking of a ten man guardsman squad versus a ten man marine squad. You're right, add some HW and training and it gets nasty. Although a hellgun is still S3, so it really makes no difference wounds wise (where it's S vs T, not BS) if it's stormies or not.

That's my bad about the ordnance thing, I got it mixed up with being unable to fire secondary weapons if you fire ordnace. But even so, if you drop a template on them, you can't fire your heavy bolters or lascannon at all, so it's still pretty pointless.


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## nightmarine

the reason for h bolters and the such on Russes is backup. I get arm destroyed against my enemy LR all the time. His battlecannon goes up in smoke. POOF now i have a tank with 14 fromt armor and a lascannon and a pair of H Bolters to worry about. not quite as deadly, but still a pain


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## Bloodhound

thanks


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## Skcuzzlebumm

stompzilla said:


> Ok, with a BS of 3 you miss half the time. Vehicles CAN also fire ordnance weapons on the move. Also most rolling armour type armies i've ever seen include a fair no of storm troopers which are BS4 and pack a couple of special weapons. Soin reality you're looking at 4 BS 4 plasma shots, a BS 4 plasma pistol and 14 lasgun shots which may also be supplemented by a multilaser and a heavy bolter which is going to hurt. Lots.
> 
> Not cheap but quite doable with a little skill and some luck.


Yeah a scary "rolling thunder" army i saw years back was made up of a Russ, 2 Demolishers and 2 Chimeras with hardened vets packing massed melta (as they get 3 per squad over stormies who get 2, also melta over plasma as guard don't like overheats).

This Phallanx rolls up a flank, Russ at the "tip" Demolishers covering its flanks (thier side is 13 over 12) and chimeras tucked behind. When it gets close chimeras break out and you get 6 melta shots in your face. Pretty tough to face off. Especailly when the rest of the army was just massed footsloggers, command units with lascannons and squads with hvy bolters.

Fast was sentinels with autocannons.

Did very very well at the heat i saw it in (came in the top 20 IIRC), never saw it or anything like it again. Though this was 3/4 years ago so not sure how it would fair in the current taudar environment.


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## stompzilla

Getting a bit sick of hearing about this f#@$%&g taudar environment. Especially since it doesn't exist. Looking at the stats from last years GT there was over 60% marines of one flavour or another, Tau, eldar and guard had roughly the same amount with nids being very close.

It is now, same as it's always been, a bloody marine fest.


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## Skcuzzlebumm

Yeah but Tau and Eldar are far more effective now than in the 3rd ed. Tau armies struggled a lot more then as tanks where weaker so they had to rely on suits. Eldar revolved around starcannons which bounce of Guard Armour.

Previously you had to consider how to beat SM (as always), Eldar and Dark Eldar (where a lot more around back then). Now its is more foucsed towards podding/infilgay marines, IW, Tau and Eldar. And the later 2 been the most challenging as they tend to be the most effective when used properly.

Plus it lets you sing a silly song about Taudar, Taudar, Taudar...

.... you... do you have any money?
... i wanna spend all your money!
... on the taudar, taudar, taudar... go!


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## anathema

> Perhaps a higher percentage of 'noobs' use them, perhaps the fact everyone's lists are designed to kill Marines as efficiently as possible, perhaps multiple reasons.


Going back to this point, the stats overall don't tell the full picture. Marines suffer on average because so many people take them and a lot of them are casual or 'noob' gamers. 
Also, as has been noted, everyone tools up for marines. Including.....other marines! So effectively they're a victim of their own success. Even with Tau and Eldar becoming a bigger perceived threat, marine players are loth to pack in the type of weapons to take on Eldar etc. as they usually lack the AP to take down other marines. Even missile launchers are scorned in favour of lascannons still, despite being cheaper. 

So, if there were less marines about they would do better as the metagame would shift from being a marine fest. Last 2 GT seasons I've played 3 games out of 24 which haven't been a marine variant (imperial or chaos). I don't really expect that to change this year.


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