TACTICA ANGELUS TENEBRAE By Daniel Custodio ( Chaplain Lucifer ) |
This article has been reproduced with kind permission from the author. It's use here is not intended as a challenge to the original authors copyright and is reproduced here for the sole purpose of enhancing the Dark Angel spirit and the warhammer 40,000 experience |
Blood Angels/Black Templars/Space Wolves. These armies depend on speed to get to their objectives. Rhino's will be their mainstay, so be sure to make every shot count. Don't rest until each and every Rhino is destroyed, because every APC packed with close-combat troops that reaches your lines will be a headache. Blood Angels will often have troops in jump packs. Use missiles and lascannons versus Death Company and plasma cannons versus Honour guards and assault squads. Black Templars - watch out with these guys. Don't "nibble" here and there in their squads. Do that and you'll have a couple of squads "falling forward" towards your troops. Be sure to annihilate a squad before moving to the next. Same principle applies to Space Wolves. Plasma Cannons are a heaven's blessing! However, don't discard the Vindicator as they'll be coming right at you so the short 24" range really doesn't come into play. In addition, the enemy will surely attack the opposing flank to the Vindicator so you can use that to your advantage. Eldar: Of every Codex around, Eldar is likely the one that has the tools to get you where it hurts. It can pack Ap2 and Ap3 weapons like no army, making short work of your precious few marines and can fire them on the move without loss of efficiency. The solution? Get into close combat! Even Dark Angels will likely be outgunned when facing most Eldar armies around there, so firepower alone won't do it. A solid strategy is needed too. First on the shopping list is the Whirlwind. Capable of tearing most eldar armour, it is effective versus vypers too! Then you'll need a Predator (or two) to deal with those pesky Wraithlords and Wave Serpents. Don't worry about bright lances too much. They have BS3 most of the time, and Eldar players tend to load up more on starcannons, you'll probably only see maybe 3-4 bright lances per army (I know I do). To protect your squads use rhinos and razorbacks! That's right! They will keep your troops protected until you get into close combat. Remember though that you'll need to take care of the greatest threats to your infantry first, so the Wraithlord(s) and the Wave Serpents must be destroyed. After that everything that has armour 4+ will be showered by bolter and whirlwind fire and you won't have much more threats in close combat. Don't be afraid to assault howling banshees if the need arises, especially if your outnumber them. After all they'll only wound you on a 5+. The Avatar can be dealt with by the Grand Master with the Sword of Secrets. Vypers and warwalkers should be dealt by Land Speeders (several) with heavy bolters and after that the Speeders can shoot the guardians and aspect warriors. So remember, after you take out the Wraithlords and the aspect warriors are on foot, you'll have little opposition in close combat, but watch out for Eldar firepower, especially Dark Reapers. Dark Eldar. What they lack in armour save they compensate in ballistic skill, initiative and quantity of dark lances and disintegrators. You don't see many bright lances in Eldar armies, but you can be sure to see impressive numbers of dark lances in Dark Eldar armies! The weak point of Dark Eldar armies is the Raider. They're fast and pack shooting punch (disintegrator or dark lance), but they're fragile. A Dark Eldar army deprived of Raiders will be shot to pieces across the battlefield, and to add icing to the cake you know for sure that with each destroyed raider, some of its occupants will die. When facing Dark Eldar you normally won't need anything more powerful than the missile launcher due to their lack of armour and low toughness. Plasma cannons can take care of infantry (and Talos) and being a blast weapon they'll be quite effective against the vehicles. Missiles can easily destroy vehicles and Talos and can be fired in fragmentation mode to wipe out troops. Heavy bolters and whirlwinds will come in handy, as they'll double up as anti-tank and anti-infantry weapons also. You've got to watch out for the two deadliest units: The Archon and his Incubi retinue and the Wyches. The Archon and Incubi can breeze through your squads leaving a trail of dead marines. With Higher initiative, good armour save and power weapons, this unit's raider should be your top priority! Point the whirlwind to it and don't stop shooting until the Raider is destroyed.Wyches on the other hand are a threat because they'll have higher initiative, reduce your weapon skill, have drugs that enhance their combat and have a 4+ invulnerable save in close combat. They may not be as deadly as the Incubi by can win in a war of attrition if they outnumber you. Talos are tough but fortunately they are slow, just make sure they don't get closer than 12". Imperial Guard: These guys pack big guns and lots of small arms fire. Your main worries will be those 5" templates so space your marines 2" apart so the template can only cover 2-3 marines at a time with most luck. Land speeders with Multi-meltas are top choice here because of two reasons: - They can position themselves rapidly and fire at a tank (especially the basilisk) at side or rear armour and blow it. - As the most numerous weapon in their arsenal, the lasguns have S3, the Imperial Guard player will be forced to waste heavy weapons firing at Land Speeders, sparing your other tanks from fire. Whirlwinds are really handy because not only they're a good anti troop weapon, they can be turned into light-tank killer. Against basilisks and sentinels you'll get 2 hits, roll two dice and choose highest for penetration and you'll have a +1 bonus in the penetrating/glancing chart! Against IG you can ease up on the plasma home. Missile launchers will be more versatile and don't overheat and some lascannons will deal with the inevitable Leman Russ'. Compliment that with some heavy bolters to kill infantry. After you wipe out the "Big tanks", just alternate squads with fire and movement, one squad moves forward while the other gives supporting fire until you arrive in CC. Terminators (especially with cyclones) should come in handy, since they have lots of firepower (on the move too!) and can resist those 5" blasts from Russ' (Demolisher not included). Just don't move them along a path with too many lascannons and plasmaguns or it's your opponent who'll do the laughing. Necrons: Apart from the "We'll be Back " (WBB) roll and the lower initiative, Necrons are somewhat very much like Space Marines stripped of their heavy weapons and armed with some extra gadgets. First you have to make sure that you concentrate fire in one squad at a time, if possible to wipe out the whole squad, so no-one comes back. There are several ways to do that, either use one-shot high strength weapons that kill them outright (lascannons, missiles, demolisher cannon), or the ubiquitous plasma cannon. In fact if their Necron Lord is equiped with resurrection orb they'll come back anyway so plasma cannons will be more efficient than lascannons because they'll wound more. Still, bring some lascannons in case your opponent brings Monolith(s) and C'tan. Against Necrons, terminators are a top choice, they're able to shrug of almost all Necron fire, have power fists and good firepower. Watch out for those phase weapons though, they make a mockery of all kinds of armour saves! When possible engage Necrons in HtH due to their lower initiative and that way you'll be safe from their shooting. Tyranids: Battles against Tyranids always have a cinematic feel to it, especially for anyone who has seen the movie "Starship Troopers" knows what I'm talking about. The image is of hundreds of bugs at full speed, crashing into marine lines firing relentlessly. There's the approach to fight 'Nids. Fire relentlessly. The standard bolter will be your best friend as it can take out several menaces like Hormagaunts, Raveners, Lictors, Gargoyles and Warriors. Just remember to shoot at the nearest Gaunt squad with all you've got. They're fast, and despite all those attacks, Gaunt's main strength is to tie up your troops so you can't shoot at the "Big Ones" that are behind them. In the first two or three turns you'll be safe from the big ones (except Tyrants with wings) so keep pumping Gaunts with bolter rounds, heavy bolters and Whirlwinds. Remember to fire your shortest range weapons first and then the long range ones, so that your opponent must remove the gaunts from the front first. The main problem that arises from 'nid shooting is called the Venom cannon. Carnifexes spit two shots at S10 and hive Tyrants spit 3 shots at S8 usually, that means that a lot of the time your vehicles will be stunned. The solution? Field lots of vehicles or none at all. Devastator squads are pricey but don't get stunned or weapon destroyed. One thing that most nid players buy is a 2+ save to their big creatures so missiles and heavy bolters will have little to none effect on them, so fire these at gaunts. Remember that Tyranid monstrous Creatures have 4 wounds so to kill one per turn you'll need 6 AP2 weapons at least. Now the hard part, hand to hand combat! While gaunts only make impression when they outnumber you severely that shouldn't happen because you spent 3 turns shooting at them! TMC's are another thing entirely. Wounded Carnifexes can be dealt with a GM with SoS because of the GM's higher initiative, still I wouldn't try that very often unless the carnifex is reduced to 1 or 2 wounds. Hive tyrants are a whole different matter. With the same 4 wounds, 4 to 5 attacks (5 or 6 on charge), and the same or higher initiative, when equipped with implant attack (8 meager points) two unsaved wounds on your GM and he's history (one wound is enough in Chaplain and Librarians). So what to do? Buy plasma pistols for characters to soften the beasties up before hand to hand combat. Avoid close combat with TMC's when possible. A special mention regarding terminators. They get their 2+ save against all 'nid shooting (except warp blasts), and a squad of five can pump six storm bolter and six assault cannon shots. On top of that their 5+ inv save can ensure that power fists can finish up big creatures. |
TACTICA BATTLE FORCE |
