Betrayal of the Bahzhakhain: How to Stop the Mechanized Rush
One thing he did that really did look troublesome during our `ard Boyz prep game was, as he stated in the last anti-Eldar thread, parking a landspeeder behind my hatch. This can be countered by having one of my own skimmers (tank category) push it out of the way, though granted this denies my dismounting and assaulting with that vehicle. I often choose my falcon for this role as the squad in that transport is usually going deeper into enemy lines and can wait a bit (my harlequins). Another, and less damaging and slowing, method is that of angling my transports when they move together to partially cover the hatches so that troops can exit, but a land speeder can not fit between the transports and block the hatches. All in all blocking the hatches can be a definite stratagem to keep in mind for if your opponent does leave a back hatch unguarded to your skimmers or other fast moving units. Turtleboy once surrounded my DA laden waveserpent and melta’d it from behind, annihilating the innards as well as the husk (as I deserve for trying to tank shock in the initial assault and getting too deep).
Volume of fire is definitely key, but primarily as it comes to focus and target priority. Choose what is the highest threat, or what would sew the most chaos and delay into your opponents army. That scorpion/banshee transport may take a lot of meat of of your army, but that shooting down a different transport may block his assault lines and be used by yourself as cover, or maybe something is headed for your HQ squad? Weapon choice, definitely a lot of auto cannons, mutli-lasers, and plasma guns in mass. Having some sentinels to skirt up the sides in order to get behind your opponent when they are assault, or as a deterrent to make them deal with those weapons first can give you eons to redeploy, react to their movements, shoot, and ready yourself for the coming assault. Deep striking/infiltrating squads are a major pain. I am a very cautious player and will likely remove them before heading in, but this itself delays me and is a benefit to you. If I rush in with your guns still pointed at my rear armour, you are likely to take down at least one transport.
Positioning of the army is the most important thing, in my mind as you do not have the speed or initiate to outmaneuver your opponent, you can merely defend yourself but for a few squads that may be able to strike first (such as infiltrators as above). If you have chimerras, or even your mainline battle-tanks, use them to partition your infantry units. You want to slow down the initial assault and it’s consolidation and continuation into the rest of your lines as much as possible. So your front line may look near checker patterned as you attempt to alternate chimerra’s and infantry units. This will stop your opponent from being able to multiply engage you and lock you down. Due to the immense size of an IG army I use ‘locking’ units (DA’s, jetbikes, etc) to hold 2-3+ infantry units in check while my core damaging units (banshees and scorpions) crush one squad at a time (and usually the more threatening ones such as HQ squads, heavy/special weapon holders, etc). By having a front line constitute only one squad or so at any given place it gives me no good area to sink my teeth into and hold you.
With this partition you can herd me with your chimerras so that the bulk of your army could redeploy if you wished (albeit quickly as 1 squad wont take long to dispatch but the initial charge is where my speed exists). A short way behind this main line you can have large conscript squads to rush up and bind me further (or have the front line constituted by this) and rough riders, Ogryns, and what not to counter-assault. These don’t always work easily as with skimmers and jetbike units I can assault over your lines, but it is still something you should have waiting.
Turtleboy has mastered the ablative front line which he uses against advancing, but non-mechanized, armies to approach them, rapid fire, and assault, only to fall back or retreat and repeat over and over so that he may administer heavy medium ranged fire while delaying an assault. Against a mechanized company this is still partially possible. With a front line a bit ahead of the army core, it either forces your opponent to deal with it first, where you may attempt to delay them as Turtleboy does against an infantry opponent, or they zoom past you and have your plasmas and melta’s on their rear armour. Note, though, that the partitioned deployment is VERY important here, as were I to see this separated front line and core army I would sick my locking units on it and just advance on, or perhaps engage it with my primary units, and use my jetbikes to lock down the main army so that it could not redeploy.
Many IG commanders depend on the cover save to have a cover save at all, and against a shooty opponent this is true, but one must react to their opponent. Against a Saim-Hann army to stand out of cover sews your own defeat, but against a CC based army (though they normally have supporting ranged elements) positioning yourself to recieve the assault (if you cannot shoot it down first) is the primary goal. Find a solid place to deploy where cover may aid you, and form a partitioned line. Try to offer no easy 3″ consolidations. Take carapace armour if it means you can deploy more favourably to slow the assault. If you can stop the initial push, it is likely you can slowly strangle it, move in and bog it down, or completely redeploy and start it all over again.
Many commanders when facing the mechanized host ignore the armada of empty waveserpents, and the seemingly insignificant Vypers in order to focus on the god-falcon and the tides of aspect warriors hacking your main line apart. There is definitely much to say in favour of attacking all of these threats, but to ignore the empty waveserpent and other support/transport vehicles is extreme folly. My empty waveserpents, I think it is safe to say at this point, have destroyed more IG tanks than anything else in my army. With twin-linked scatter lasers and undercarriage mounted shuriken cannon they can offer 7 str. 6 attacks and sense they are dropping off CC squads against you they are already in your DZ and can easily move 12″ and attain a prime targeting solution for the side/rear armour of your tanks. Thusly having semi mobile units such as mainline chimerras, sentinels, and special weapon squads to target these gunboats is imperative, even if only as a deterrent to assaults.
I amend my former statement about using mainline battle-tanks on your front line on account of the ease with which they are dispatched with bulk shuriken fire (even dire avengers with 33 str 4 shots at BS4/5 wont hassle long with the rear armour of a leman russ), but chimerras are still a good choice. Chimerras could also work, but I like these for in the core of your army, so that if your CC opponent whipes out your individually placed squads in a single round or is unable to easily consolidate into your next line due to your deployment, at which point they are stuck in the open and you can incinerate them.
So the positioning of your main battle-tanks I would highly suggest keeping them against a rear board edge to protect their rear armour. As a policy when I am not heading to a tournament (where you can always expect C`tan, landraiders, monoliths, armoured companies, and other such pain in the arse units) I do not take dedicated anti-tank units, instead depending on massed shuriken fire from catapults and cannons in DA squads, jetbike squads, gunboat waveserpents, Vypers, falcons, and with other weapons such as witchblades in seer squads, melta/haywire grenades on characters, rending weapons, and other assorted support weapons.
Due to this you can not know where my anti-tank attack will come from, so you must position your tanks to expect this attack from any unit (usually my empty waveserpents, but often my jetbikes when they are in the position, especially against soft targets like basilisks and hellhounds). Another favorite of mine is using my support Vypers in a suicidal attack to poor 7 strength 6 attacks into the rear of a leman russ, which is easily worth it and they can often get close for being underestimated. The rear armour of a chimera isn’t too different from it’s sides and front, and given the nature of it’s role as a partition and a deterrent for assault with its capacity to move forward and shoot at rear hatches, I find it fully necessary and worth it to position it in the above described manner.
Because of the expensive nature of mechanized armies with the start-up cost of transports alone, we must be as efficient as possible, so every unit must be a threat to you. No unit should be underestimated.
