Ah, if air assault is rare then you can do that. But Scout ZoC cordon is useless against air assaults. (I vivdly remember TRC's BT Landing Craft dropping right in the middle of my formations).

Hydra's in both tank companies means two BTS targets. Tough ones, but still its not something I like to do.

How does 3x3 artillery formation do against enemy artillery, sounds like an easy formation to place most of it under one or two templates?

How is it useless?

Air Assault: Transport aircraft may choose to land as
described above, and then it and any units that disembark are
allowed to fight an assault instead of shooting. If this option is
chosen then the aircraft and any units that disembark may enter
enemy zones of control as if they were charging.

That means they can only ignore the ZoCs of the formation they're attacking, not the ZoCs of the scout cordon; if there's any overlap of the scout ZoC, there's no place for the either the aircraft to land or the troops inside to disembark into.

I believe due to this..


(Emphasis mine)

So until the air craft lands it ignores the ZOC of the surrounding units.

And as a WE it can land right on top of the target formation and barge the units out the way.

[Edit: Do you mean that the scout ZoC overlaps the artillery so much that there isn't space within the formation? I guess that might work, but it sounds like the artillery would need to be in a really tight group to do that and not intermingle. I'd need to get some models out and measure that up ]

[Edit (again): Still that relies on Sentinals surviving. If there is a second air formation (e.g. another T-Hawk) I would expect that the sentinals could get blown away quite easily.]

I could measure it out, but I think you'd find you'd need a flying brick style T-Hawk to get in the ZoC gap. It really should only be the central unit, perhaps 2cm across max. And if you are willing to throw two THawk drops to hit a unit that is not a BTS, I say bring it, and wait for the return fire from the two tank companies that will be on either side.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

Its an interesting idea but not without its downsides IMO.

If the formation is that tight then any template attack on it will undoubtedly catch all 9 units.

If one T-Hawk strafes the sentinals, and one assaults then the assaulting T-Hawk is the one really at risk. So a T-Hawk plus one or two foramtions would be in the region of 500 - 700 points*. In exchange for a 650 point formation, and then two tank companies not moving forward, seems reasonable. And if it was two formations inside the T-Hawk then you'd need at least three formations to get rid of all of them and get the points back.
(* If superior tactics is being used then the SM player could well put whatever cheap troops he has into the T-Hawk, as even scouts would beat the arty in assault)

I don't want to seem like I am bashing your tactics, as it's actually a good idea in some respects, and you clearly have a precise deployment strategy to make it as tough as possible. I am just enjoying a bit of theoryhammer (theoryepic?).

If I can throw an idea into the mix..

Take what SG has described, but add a large unit deployed in front or behind the artillery. Deployed so that they provide FF support to any assault into the artillery and then any air assault becomes much more risky and costly.

If the guard were to then garrison an infantry company (or something like that) on OW nearby (e.g. garrison off the blitz), then have a formation in FF support position and then use scout ZoC to further limit options - then you have a tricky situation for the opponent.

Actually, a line (1x9) at the Baseline would allowthe sentinels to cover them without gaps, and keep them spread from Arty.



Hadn't thought of strafing. Good Point.



I enjoy a good metagame on occasion as well...



At 1000pt cost. At larger points, maybe, but giving up a third of my army to have Arty that is safe? Ill take another 700pt Tank Coy that keeps itself safe. In addition, to keep from intermingling any of those formations, you'd need to have the Infantry at least 10cm from the Arty, giving a very narrow support band. I tend to play too agressively to want to keep too much at the baseline.

OTOH, I really have only taken one Air Assault list on, and they didn't go for my Arty. Termies are the main threat I face to my backfield. And they can't teleport into ZoC.

_________________
SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

Onec the artillery has had a chance to activate you can start moving some of the "defending" foramtions forward.

If you went with the line deployment of the artillery the 5cm band of FF support (without intermigling) would be quite sufficient. And this unit could be your Reg HQ or a tank company.

Once the artillery has activated then it's less of a target for that turn (in the activation war it is always optimal to attack unactivated formations). And if you get the chance to activate anything you can start other defensive measures, such as CAP and putting the sentinals, or other formations not essential to the attacking element, onto OW.

I think we have different playing styles, I am a more cautious and defensive player generally (some lists just don't allow that style of play so for those obviously tactics change). There are some batreps in the appropriate forum if you want to see some examples (look for posts from Mephiston, TRC or myself, assuming they survived the recent forum changes).

Also I have regularly faced air assault heavy forces (TRC's Landing Craft and Mephiston's Horde'o'Orcas) so again our metagame and experiences are different. Hopefully all this theory might help the OP understand the pros and cons to the different styles.

Usually hidden behind the smallest piece of terraine you can find, Rug.

That's not true. The attacker may declare any number of other formations that are within 5cm of the "primary" target to be intermingled, there's no limit. The risk when intermingling a lot of Imperial Guard formations is the number of possible Commissars you might be dragging in.

There *is* a limit on the number of formations that can be used in a combined assault, and the number of that counting is three.

Rug, remember you declare what's intermingled, so even if the enemy does have everything so close together you can still choose not to make them primary (and hence the commisars etc won't count)

Strom Troopers and Valkyrie's do make a good scout screen with nasty OW.

But I would caution against deploying your formations too closely if the enemy has much in the way of template weapons.

If a barrage can hit or clip 3 or 4 formations its effect is magnified significantly.