To aegis or not to aegis- that is the question...

[Farseer Kyladras]

Still getting to grips with latest edition 40k (if I'm lucky I get about 10 games a year) and have noticed (I'm a quick learner lol) that in games where someone uses an aegis defense line I really struggle to win, flyers are instantly knocked down by the quad guns and the extra cover save granted to the models behind mean I  tend to get my ass kicked...

So 2 things I'm looking for really- tactics against people using them and, more importantly, are defense lines considered a `must have` in 40k armies now?

Don't get me wrong here, I'm certainly not a competitive "must win all the time" gamer as those who have played me will testify but there's no point deliberately setting out to lose by not having essential kit in my armies is there?  

I have some ideas on Eldar and Ork themed ones (Eldar especially as they are the ones coming to the mini meet ) 

FK

[paladin7221]

Now, see, if you were a Marine player I'd be tempted to say a burny command squad in a drop pod. With an Ironclad dreadnought as well, dropping down behind them.

The masters of the burny dance, however, are surely Burna boys with their Skorchas. Pack 15 of them in a Battlewagon and rejoice in the drive-bys.

 As far as I know, Aegis lines are counted as directional cover, so I have a mate playing Eldar who swears by Warp Spiders and a Night Spinner or two.....

[Farseer Kyladras]

Burnas- oh I have enough bitz to make a 15 man squad of them and warp spiders, I am currently converting a 10 man squad of them as well thanks

Would we consider having a defense line as fairly essential in this edition of 40k then?

FK

[Harkon Greywolf]

I'm an Ork player with nearly everything in vehicles, I wouldn't bother personally!
It depends on your army, composition of your list and your style of play.

I faced an army of Imperial Fists and Tau, in a gun-line and all behind the Aegis defence line, minus the big guns (believe me, they didn't need extra guns!) We never even got near the gun-line to effectively fight against them. And only one gun on my mates allied marines (Iron Hands) had any effect against the defences and that was a Thunderfire cannon firing blind from behind cover so the gunline couldn't see it! Oh and the Storm thingy that came on from reserve and managed to shoot some stuff too.

Depends on what you intend to do with your army I guess.

HG

[Farseer Kyladras]

My last game a couple months back was my badmoonz vs an imperial fist army led by Lysander (he had some army special rule bolter drill or something which made the already shooty army an absolute nightmare) he had units of whatever those massive termie things are called in land raiders and loads of devestators sitting behind defense lines who all promptly shot my army to pieces with sheer volume of firepower. No mater how fast I approached or how much cover I used (my bikes have a 4+ cover save all the time) I still got absolutely mullered. He was a good opponent but it was a horrendously one sided fight and it's this that made me think I should have a defense line myself- maybe for the Eldar as I'm going along with Bob's approach of mounting everything up and running at the enemy (proper orky!)

FK

[Harkon Greywolf]

If everything is mounted and running for the enemy, why would you need a defence line that you've left behind in your deployment zone?
You can't move it forward as you go you know! LOL

[Farseer Kyladras]

Haha I know that's why I'm thinking of having one for my Eldar, not so much to keep static units back (my Saim-hann list is fairly mobile and fast) I just need AA quad-guns as I have no anti aircraft fire...

Actually, the same goes for my Orks, I have no AA for them either (come to think of it- do any Ork units have AA fire??)

FK

[Harkon Greywolf]

I think there's a Forge World Ack Ack gun mounted on a trukk body ...

Or I seem to remember seeing one once ...

[badfang]

Apr 20, 2014 12:34:13 GMT Harkon Greywolf said:

Or I seem to remember seeing one once ...

So do I but I can only find a kit for a gun and rules for mounting it on a big trakk (IA8) which could originally be taken in a Kodex Ork army in squads of 1-3 but the 6th ed FAQ seems to have dropped that bit...

[paladin7221]

Apr 20, 2014 12:03:21 GMT Farseer Kyladras said:

 (come to think of it- do any Ork units have AA fire??)

Effectively, they all do since if you need 6's to hit a flyer, Orky BS doesn't really suffer!

[Farseer Kyladras]

Oh yeah of course, see, I'm forgetting the flyer rules! I was thinking that you couldn't even shoot at a flyer unless you had an AA mount...

Still need one for my high BS Eldar though...

FK

[paladin7221]

Nope, Interceptor or Skyfire (preferably a combination of both)is what you need - Interceptor means you shoot any reserves before they do any damage and Skyfire lets you use full BS against flyers instead of hitting only on 6's.

There's always the FW Firestorm skimmer if you have an oppo that agrees to it; the advantage being that it can move at the same pace as everything else, so you don't out-distance your own AA.

[Geifer]

Orks don't need dedicated AA. Rokkits fired at ground targets are barely any more effective than rokkits fired at flyers.

FK, that game against Imperial Fists should have probably gone exactly the other way around if you had brought Eldar. Centurions are no good against quasi-rending shuriken catapults, Land Raiders overpay for their AV14 against Eldar and bolter drill (Imperial Fists finally get that regardless of Lysander's presence, along with tank hunter for Devastators) is a nice bonus against infantry, but doesn't help against vehicles. What does help is tank hunter, but you have your own cover saves inbuilt because of skimmer, so even that is mitigated compared to Orks who can at best hope for the protection of a kustom force field. Leaves the Aegis. If power armored Marines were behind it, which it sounds like, its presence shouldn't typically bother you because in most cases they want to use their armor save over the cover save, and have barely any reason to go to ground as the bonus to their save isn't worth losing shooting effectiveness. And with Scouts, what do you have serpent shields for?

Speaking of which, if you are talking anti air for Eldar, you don't need dedicated AA if you have a couple of Wave Serpents in their most filthy variant. You have a decent chance of getting a hit with one laser shot of twin-linking, after that it's only a matter of time before the shield shots take out the flyer. If you really want dedicated without an Aegis, I think Dark Reapers are quite nice. They're pretty good as is, and useful against all manner of enemy units, and if you add flak missles you get your AA with the bonus that the opponent cannot try to evade. I use Dark Reapers myself, keeping a psyker with them to shroud them, and they have yet to get wiped out in a game. The only problem for the unit is Heldrakes.

If you want an Aegis with Eldar for AA, I think you should consider the use of Dark Reapers to go along with that. You want something that hangs back, so their 48" range comes in quite handy. They're also infantry, which means that unlike your jetbikes and tanks, they are actually close enough to the ground to get a cover save from the Aegis. If you have a psyker like me, you can use him to shoot the quad gun regularly. You can keep the Exarch in base contact as well so he can take over for interceptro shots, since it won't stop him from using his reaper launcher in you next shooting phase but gives you better BS. Even if you don't buy flak missles, this is a unit that can deal quite a bit of damage and therefore cannot be ignored by your opponent, but benefits from good armor and cover (even better with psychich enhancement) to last you pretty long or draw massive fire away from your other units.

That being said, while it's useful, I don't think the Aegis is mandatory for Eldar. Well, I think it's mandatory for no one, but Eldar of all armies have good reasons not to take an Aegis. Unlike man other armies, your skimmers get an cover save from moving alone, so you don't need an Aegis to park your vehicles behind. Your troops are fairly short ranged, with being able to lay down some serious fire power at 12" or 18" from shuriken catapults. The only ones that have decent range, Rangers, are usually not used in so great numbers that you couldn't infiltrate them into a decent location anyway. And obviously jetbikes have no business parking behind an Aegis. Furthermore, as an army that emphasizes mobility, especially through battle focus, getting locked in one place by placement of your Aegis is working actively against the strengths of the army. So unless you run those few specialists that stand and shoot (and even as one of those, Dark Reapers are slow and purposeful and can move without losing fire power), an Aegis is not a necessary addition to the army.

This is in my opinion one of the biggest drawbacks of many fortifications across all armies. While yes, you get good cover, you lose any mobility. So unless you design your army to specifically work as a stand and shoot army, you hamper yourself by giving the opponent greater control over the battlefield. And even if you do, you still lose out on the benefits some mobility can bring. You also have to be careful in some missions where you have to take far objectives. Locking yourself in one place can often lead to both players playing for a draw and the other guy winning by first blood and line breaker victory points while you sit in your little fortress and can't move.

Another point is that as Paladin says, an Aegis is directional cover. It works great until your opponent is prepared for it. Against an opponent who can bypass an Aegis, most armies designed to rely on it will be at a serious drawback. It is one of the reasons the Heldrake seems generally reviled, because those afroementioned Marines can usually rely on their power armor against weapons that deny cover saves, or on their cover save against weapons that deny even good armor saves. Heldrakes circumvent both. Being directional, earthshakers can circumvent both, too. For you as an Eldar player you may want to consider web spinnery stuff. I'm noit up to date on that part of the codex, but I think both the tank and the artillery platform fire as barrage weapons? If so, with quasi-rending on monofilament weapons you can put some serious pressure on Marines hiding behind an Aegis. Or that Dark Reaper Exarch with AP3 barrage launcher? Serves the same purpose.

Ah, but Orks? Orks have it rough. You're still playing with a 4th ed codex. That shows. It's not good, but that's the way it is for the near future. Aside from a couple of wild ideas and hoping for first turn, or one of those missions I mentioned above where you can win by victory points alone no matter how horrendous your casualties, I can't think of how an average, balanced Ork army would get to entrenched Imperial Fists. What you could try is a large unit of Nob Bikers and plenty of Trukk boys. If you get first turn you can boost forward 24", have to weather one turn of fire and then hopefully have enough boyz left over to krump beakies. If you don't get first turn, you lose the game. Far from ideal, but discounting horrible dice rolls on your opponent's part, that's how it goes. Else your could horde up and hope that enough boyz make it across the board, but if there are template weapons and with bolter drill, that qill be tough going, too.

Anything more, I'd need to see your list and that of your opponent to give any more specific comments.

With an Aegis on your side, there are some ways Orks can benefit from it. First, you want a Grot mob to man your quad gun, obviously, because of the better BS. They're cheap and can act as your backfield objective holders. So even if everything else in your army moves forward, an Aegis can be put to good use. The quad gun and Grots don't need a lot of protection from the defense line, like one long and two short sections, leaving you with the other sections to trail out into no man's land towards your opponent's lines. Remember that you may set up fortifications anywhere in your table half and not just your deployment zone. This way you get some forward protection that some of your advancing units may use while your AA unit sits in cover in your deployment zone, out of bolter range so they may get a bit less attention than they otherwise would.

If you don't want AA with your Aegis, you could just set up your defense line along the middle line of the board, move up your units during first turn and setting up for a second turn charge in cover of your Aegis. Or you could play a shooty horde of boyz, move into the cover of your Aegis so you are in range and not just the guys with the bolters, and slug it out and hope that your superior numbers come through now that you have your own very good cover save. An intersting version of this is Trukk boys moving their Trukk 6" forward, disembarking 6" out directly behind the Aegis and shooting away. The twist here is that you play a unit of only ten Orks, so you aren't fearless and can go to ground as soon as the opponent even looks your way. That way you could get a lot of boyz who'll have a 2+ save for the rest of the game and who shoot only half as well because of going to ground. And this can be part of a larger strategy because an Aegis and a couple of Trukk boy mobs will not take up a lot of points, especially if you purpose build your squads and leave out the power klaw on your Nob, if you want to get a Nob in the first place.

[badfang]

Aegis with lobbas and maxed out grots and ammo runts have had kind words spoken about them on the Waaagh, and three outflanking squads of five deff koptaz with kustom mega blastaz will be a nuisance for most armies. Add a battlewagon with supakannon behind some LOS blocking terrain (or, as has been suggested on the Waaagh, park two of them on a skyshield) for some indirect pie-plate grief - 'It's Orks, Jim....'

[Farseer Kyladras]

Thanks for all the input guys (and especially Geifer for taking the time to type such an in depth post! )

FK