Maximum Unit Efficiency; thoughts about unit types

[honersstodnt]

It occurs to me that there are effectively 2 different unit types. tanks, and infantry. there are some variations on this, but generally a weapon will either kill tanks, or it will kill infantry.

most lists are balanced to be able to kill infantry AND tanks, thus including a wide spread or weaponry. This means that the well rounded enemy will always take some units that cannot kill tanks, and some units that cannot do well against masses of infantry.

what this means to me is that the challenge of building a list is to maintain the balance of killing types, having units that can kill only infantry and units that can focus on tanks, but attempting to maintain a cohesion throughout my army as to what type of units I myself am using. Meaning focus entirely on tanks, or focus entirely on infantry. If you focus entirely on infantry, your opponents anti-tank weapons are less potent. If you focus entirely on tanks, your opponents anti-infantry is less potent. By restricting what choices your army has, you can reduce the effectiveness of your enemies weaponry by a significant margin.

What I see some people doing, and I sometimes cringe at, is attempting to put a balanaced force of tanks with a force of infantry, in the same army. while this sounds like its a good idea, you effectively give every weapon your opponent has a valid target to fire at. your enemies 4 lascannon devistator squad would LOVE to target your leman russes, while his regular marine squads chew through your low numbers of infantry. However, if you had instead spent all those points from your russes on more infantry, his 4 lascannon shots per round would be as nothing, and you would be able to defeat his regular marines. or visa versa, if you have enough tanks, you could render his marines fairly impotent, while focusing on the devistators, then picking off the lesser marine squads as you please.

another important thing to remember when building a list that is maxed on a certain type of unit is that you should NEVER take a unit that does not fit the scheme of your army. I see people who take mechanized list frequently take a single unit that has no transport, or a single transport in an infantry army... your basically throwing those points away, by giving the enemy special weapons a single target to fire against, pretty much ensuring that your one different unit will die.

so, using this train of thought, all my armies I build have a theme; infantry or armor.

[DURENDIN]

So how do you deal with armies (say Marine for example) that have lots of dual purpose weapons such as Missile Launchers and Melta-Guns?

Back when I ran Iron Warriors I had two Plasma Guns with Tank Hunter Skills in each squad and I wasn't shy of Meltas either. That takes care of both armour and infantry.

Also, Assault Heavy armies like Blood Angels can rip through armour and infantry like butter without having to direct their efforts in the list making stage. Four or five full Assault Squads with Power Fists and Melta Bombs? That's a lot of hits (30?) on your rear armour values come turn two and even more against a your normal infantry.

[Durandal]

That, and, well, from what I've heard, veichles cant score. So I guess unless you only play games with the sole goal of wiping out an army, you're going to need infrantry....

[yWizePapaSmurfy]

Nowadays two kinds of guns define the 5th Edition Battlefields -

Meltas - Nigh guaranteed Penetration on AV against all save the Monolith, and killing on a 4+.

Flamers - Don't care if you get your armour still, when facing down 20+ saves from my shooting, something's gonna die. :lol: Especially with the abundant cover saves.

Only exception to the Meltas is in the case of Orks, who really REALLY gotta get lucky with their Power Klaws and Rokkits to take out AV 13+ reliably.

[honersstodnt]

no, no, vehicles can score.

you just need troops choices inside them. my grey knight land raiders score, as do my guard chimeras. I just need to keep my troops inside them.

missile launchers are somewhat dual purpose, but are really not great against either. against infantry, they are only slightly better than a heavy bolter, and against main battle tanks, they aren't too scary.

against massed assault marines, nothing can really stand up to it. in any case, you'd be buttraped.

[Durandal]

yes, but say that your camping transport's destroyed, and the troops fail the pinning test, and are then assualted (let's say a Fire Prism shot the transport, and a group of banshees/scorpions/harlies, whatev suits your fancy, assualts them). And if you are shoving all your troops into transports, with the focus on the veichles, i'd take it you'd be upgrading those veichles as best you can, affecting how well you can equip your squads, should they suddenly have to leg it. I just don't find going all tank or all infrantry as a great idea, as most tanks/infrantry can be equiped with at least one weaopon that allows the unit to attack both kinds. But you're welcome to try it, and if it's a good plan, great. If not, no biggie. Just my opinion on the matter. And by veichles, I meant the tanks, since transports, for the most part, aren't exactly the most ablest of "tanks"
(emphasis to exclude landraides/etc from that particular group)

[ForlornAmour]

An all infantry army is the strongest army, bar none. The Green Horde, maxed platoons IG, and perhaps even Nidzilla would count. I have found no alternative. Perhaps new marines' cheaper vehicles might change this, but I haven't seen enough games lately to tell.

All that I know is that I would rather have ten wounds instead of a variable ONE.

[yWizePapaSmurfy]

The Ork Horde isn't THAT tough, just not many people consider how to fight it.

- Focus fire
- Hide in transports so they gotta pop em first, then BBQ with Flamers in that tight formation. If they refuse to assault transports...Tank shock!
- Charge them! Not them you!

[ForlornAmour]

The Ork Horde isn't THAT tough, just not many people consider how to fight it.

- Focus fire
- Hide in transports so they gotta pop em first, then BBQ with Flamers in that tight formation. If they refuse to assault transports...Tank shock!
- Charge them! Not them you!
Valid points, but in terms of survivability and damage output it is one of the better army styles. I know whatcha mean though! No army is undefeatable! :wink:

[yWizePapaSmurfy]

I handle Speed Freeks quite handily, Hordes still get me if they use Ghazghkull, if not it's usually in my favor using those tactics.

[mechboy]

To the author's original point, I think its easiest to build an "extreme" army. By this I mean one that focuses entirely on one unit type (vehicles or infantry) to the exclusion of others. The Ork's Green Horde or an IG's Armored Company are examples of both sides of the spectrum.
The goal is simple, to overwhelm your opponent's ability to handle that particular unit type.
The flipside is, if you fight an opponent who is geared up for your unit type, you typically are going to suffer. A Marine player with 2-3 Whirlwinds or 4 Heavy Bolter Dev squads will eat through handfuls of Orks and an Eldar army with lots of mounted Fire Dragons and Wraithlords will chew through that Armored Company quite fast.

As you don't know who you will be fighting (in the case of Tournaments and such) the best option is to take a balanced, flexible army that is capable of handling either extreme. This is the typicial struggle for most players, as its alot harder to balance your army than focus on one extreme. A poorly balanced army will typically get mauled by either extreme, as they do both jobs poorly, while a well balanced army will have a good chance of winning against anything.

Atleast that's how I see it. :wink:

[LanceWarrior]

In my opinion the best armies are mixed armies, so troops in transports. With Marines you can get quite a few Marines with Rhinos/Razorbacks in there. Pack in some meltaguns and power fists, that's quite a nice army that is decently sized (around 50 models i'd think, maybe more)

[DFK!]

Wait...

troops in transports score?

[LanceWarrior]

Wait...

troops in transports score?

If they're near the objective than yes. They're troops after all. However dedicated transports without the troops in then do not.

[willydstyle]

I keep reading posts that tell me to specialize everything I do. I think I'll keep bringing a balanced list and winning.

Seriously, versatility has a strength that many players seem to take for granted. One of the best devastator squad loadouts I've seen is plasma cannon, lascannon, missile launcher, heavy bolter, although with how cheap plasma cannon are I'd be tempted to toss one of those in instead of the heavy bolter, this squad still has an answer for anything, and can do big damage to almost anything it chooses to shoot at.

Imperial missile launchers are good, eldar missile launchers are bad ass.

I like taking a chaos marine squad with melta guns because it can bolter/cc infantry, but also have a good chance at taking out vehicles or monstrous creatures.

I still use power fists because they let me potentially damage any unit in the game.

Armored company loses to krak grenades.

Multi-landraider loses to multi-meltas.

Terminators lose to plasma.

Rather than trying to win with an uberlist, win by realizing the potential of the units on the table and using knowledge of movement rates and ranges to try to ensure that your units are in position to do the most damage to the most threatening/important of the enemy units.

[Morr]

Whilst you have a valid point about your devastator squad having the answer to every thing it doesn't hurt to specialize. look at it this way, your devastator squad has 4 different weapons. in a five turn game they can fire a max of 5 times. what ever target you choose you only have 2 effective weapons. so each devastator will fire about 2.5 times a game. its up to you if you think the points are worth it. i find a 3 missile launcher 1 las cannon load out works best as long as your other squads have some plasma for heavy infantry.

Specializing can screw you over if you loose the specialized unit. However giving a tactical squad a missile launcher and melta gun will specialize it against tanks. it also has a considered effectiveness against infantry.

I guess what im trying to say is that specializing is a good idea as long as you don't go over board.

[honersstodnt]

some of you may be missing the point of my original post, i'm not sure....

The enemy army deploys a variety of weapons in order to counter a large variety of units. by presenting the enemy with a single type of unit, you negate the effectiveness of that versatility. your right, multimeltas are a killer against land raiders. HOWEVER, the ENTIRE anti-infantry component of his army is USELESS against land raiders. most multi-meltas are on bikes, dreads, or what have you. the thing is, there are never THAT many multi-melta wielding units in an army. once you identify and destroy those threads with your land raiders, you have practically invulnerable to the enemy and then you win.

i'm not saying that you shouldnt diversify your weapons, however, most mechanized infantry units should take a variety of anti-horde and anti-tank weapons, to deal with a variety of threats. just because you bulk up on tanks does not mean that you can expect the enemy to do the same.

the land raider example is only that, an example. you can do the same thing with mechanized marines, or mechanized guard. I'm not saying that an all infantry army is bad either, its the other extreme. it negates anti-tank weapons fairly well. in my opinion, the WORST thing you can do is to take a large number of 1 unit type, and then one or two that is different, unless you can effectively hide that single different unit, by putting them behind a wall of armor, or in a drop pod, or teleporting them into position, or something like that. but if you take all tanks, then a single unit of devistators for example, that anti-infantry portion of the enemy you negated just found a target.... only 1 target, mind you, so it will be destroyed fairly quickly.

[Phail]

can't go wrong with obliterators they kick everyones ass :P

[honersstodnt]

meh, oblits are OK, but land raider heavy lists really have nothing to fear... oblits are large targets that are perfectly suited to precision lascannon fire :)

[Morr]

meh, oblits are OK, but land raider heavy lists really have nothing to fear... oblits are large targets that are perfectly suited to precision lascannon fire :)

And land raiders arnt?

I get what you mean but say that land raider force comes up against a raven wing force, lots of fast vehicles and bike with a fair amount of melts and multi meltas.

extremes arnt the answer as you might become invulnerable to one part of an army but that usually leaves you vulnerable to another part. The answer is to try and put this into practice on the battle field i.e match your tanks against his anti infantry and your infantry against his anti tank. Its the playing that decides most games not the match up.

[honersstodnt]

land raiders arent targets for lascannons :(

I mean come on, lascannons bounce off of landraiders like no tomorrow.

ravenwing isn't something I would qualify as a varied army either though....

[DURENDIN]

Its the playing that decides most games not the match up.

I'd go with that.

Your army has to add up to more than the sum of its parts during the game rather than comparing point for point on paper.

[Morr]

land raiders arent targets for lascannons :(

I mean come on, lascannons bounce off of landraiders like no tomorrow.

That doesnt make them any less of a target and 1 lucky shot which kills a land raider has killed 250 points.

[kingfig]

...

[willydstyle]

in my opinion, the WORST thing you can do is to take a large number of 1 unit type, and then one or two that is different, unless you can effectively hide that single different unit, by putting them behind a wall of armor, or in a drop pod, or teleporting them into position, or something like that. but if you take all tanks, then a single unit of devistators for example, that anti-infantry portion of the enemy you negated just found a target.... only 1 target, mind you, so it will be destroyed fairly quickly.


Unless you use that one infantry unit to goad your opponents anti-infantry units into range to be easily killed by the rest of your army. I've been using a mixed force army for a long time. If you live anywhere near Portland I'll play you.

[gaus-man]

necrons are verry good against armour and infantry do any of you collect necrons?