Ork Battlewagon/Deathrolla armies.

[doom-kitten]

One of my frequent opponents the Battlewagon/Deathrolla army and it's really difficult to deal with, I use mechanised sisters and I'm looking for tactics that have proven successful against this kind of armylist not looking to tailor my force to fight his as I consider that cheating so i'll include my army list here:

Cannoness, Blessed Weapon, Brazier of Holy Fire
5 Celestians, Meltagun, Heavy Flamer, Vet. Superior, Powersword, Imagifer
Immolator, TwL H.Flamer, Dozerblade, Smoke launchers

10 Battle sisters, Meltagun, H.Flamer, Vet Superior
Rhino, Smoke Launchers, Dozer Blade

10 Battle sister, Meltagun, H.Flamer, Vet. Superior
Rhino, Smoke Launchers, Dozer Blade

10 Battle Sisters, 2 Stormbolters

10 Seraphim, 2 Handflamers, Vet.Superior, Powersword

8 Retributors, 4 H.Bolters, Vet.Superior

Exorcist

Exorcist

As you can see every unit I attack with is equiped with flamers mostly heavy and a melta except the Seraphim, I find the exorcists do well against the wagon but against the front armour the most I can hope for is a glance and experience has taught me rushing forward to use meltaguns only turns my girls into choppa fodder.

[DarkLink]

1500pts, right? What, roughly, does your opponent's army look like? Is it completely mechanized in battlewagons?


Spread your exorcists out. Battle wagons have a very narrow front, so hitting side armor should be easy.

Mechanize everything, and don't let him assault you. If he gets close, don't jump out to melta him. Rhinos have fireports for a reason. Once he's de-meched and spread out, then take his squads out one at a time.

[doom-kitten]

He generally feilds for battlewagons two carring slugga boys, another with Meganobs, and the last carries burnaboys with a big mek carring the forcefield, he runs a unit of lootas to support the wagons and crack rhins so he can deffrolla the infantry to bits or mass burna them. And a small unit of gretchin to grab an objective in case he fails to completely table you, recently he's been using a six man unit of warbikes as well all these squads carry a powerklaw except the gretchin and lootas. I tried spreading the exorcists in one game but he ignored the one on the far side and rushed my other flank, I got lucky and a direct hit deepstrike by my seraphim wiped out his lootas before them could kill my last Rhino, Immolator bought the farm on the first turn as usual XD. In our last game the Exorcists did preform admirably wiping out the wagons but he was still within range of nasty charges and I lost by a mere two kill points he killed one exorcist with a lucky front shot with the lootas being only armour 13 he scored four 6s and rolled three weapon destroyed and it's only has one gun :( so far it's the only time he killed one without a mass ork boyz charge or a ram from a deffrolla.

[blackarmchair]

I play a VERY similar Orks list.

Basically, the way to beat it isn't to out-fight it (with sisters you most likely can't), but to take it in pieces.

Orks rely on multi-charing your entire army in one go. Try to spread EVERYTHING out as much as possible. Do NOT castle, Orks love it when you do. Basically, make him chase you around the board and have multiple units with the ability to support each other with shooting in different locations.

If he has to fight you piecemeal he will have a lot of trouble bringing his numbers to bear. Feed him small and depleted squads then double-tap on him during your turn.

Lootas and warbikes are a first priority 40x boyz is not a lot and won't last long without support; trust me, I run 70x boyz in my wagon list and that's not a lot.

The wagon list is a strong one, just do your best to take it in pieces and don't fight the whole army outright.

Good luck!

[doom-kitten]

Thanks alot XD you'd think and army based almost entirely around flame based weapons would have no problem against horde armies but wow that mob rule really is annoying I think Phil Kelly goes waaaay overboard when writing codexes but eh it's always fun to fight the orks even when the beat the tar outta you.

[DarkLink]

Flame weapons aren't nearly so effective against a competent player as much of the internet seems to think. Though if you can force him to assault one of your vehicles, he doesn't get to consolidate and his guys will be all bunched up so you actually can rack up the hits.

blackarmchair has some good advice. You want to take out the lootas as quickly as possible, as they're his only real way of killing your tanks at range. Then strand his units, particularly the meganobz. Meganobz are very slow, so if you can de-mech them reasonably early you can ignore them for a turn or two. Since you can't strand the warbikes, kill them. You don't want them tying you up.

[blackarmchair]

I actually love it when people take flamers against my Orks. I can control the charge so well chances are they won't ever get to use them.

And given the consolidation move I'll never clump myself up.

[Tynskel]

really now, eh? Because I tend to be mighty effective with flamers. But, then again, they are my favorite weapon.

[blackarmchair]

Flamers are a shenanigans sort of weapon.

I have luck with a wagon full of burna boyz by tank-shocking a unit into a clump. I didn't mean to imply that flamers aren't worth it or can't do damage (I like them too, no to hit roll FTW) I was just pointing out that most experienced horde army players are adept at avoiding them.

[L'Etat Cest Moi]

He generally feilds for battlewagons two carring slugga boys, another with Meganobs, and the last carries burnaboys with a big mek carring the forcefield,

As battlewagons are heavy support options, how is it legal to put 4 in a FOC?

[doom-kitten]

Meganobs take it as a dedicated transport, he went through that with another ork player and I've seen it in their list myself,he lost yesterday to a 'nid Deathstar army that was amusing to watch of course they played the scenario where you heavy's start of the board.

[Paintraina]

I play Sisters competitively and I played Orks at the ETC so I think I know both sides of the coin pretty well.

fighting Orks is not easy for sisters, but it can be done. I would start with some small modifications to your list. You have H.flamers and meltaguns in each squad. This isn't really the best idea, as it means that one of those weapons will not be doing much in any situation. I would put two meltas in one squad and 2 flamers in the other. There are a lot of other uncompetitive choices. Essentially you are using a hobby list (which is fine) against one of the more competitive Ork builds out there. Since you don't want to change list, lets get down to the brass tacks:

Deployment: Have one exorcist on each flank so that he cannot present the front of the battlewagons to both exorcists at the same time. Use your sisters with storm bolters as bait. Put them front and center. Have them flanked by the meched up units, preferably with two units in transports on each flank. One of those two units should have flamers, the other should have meltaguns. Meltagun unit is in front screening the flamer unit.

Movement: Try to get very good at judging the max charge range of your opponent. Figure out what 22" looks like on the table. This is the charge range of his boyz in a battlewagon with out a waaagh. Place your bait unit just on the inside of 22" and in cover. This will do one of two things: He will barrel at your sisters, disembark turn 2, and try to charge with a lucky roll on difficult terrain, or he will call a waagh earlier than he wants in order to get the charge. Either one is a win for you since you are trading 10 girls for 20 orks plus a battlewagon.

Also use your seraphim as a bait unit as well. They are the perfect unit for absorbing a charge by the Meganobs. 6 Meganobs should deal about 10 wounds to you, and you will only lose about 3 models from your invuln save. Then you hit and run at the end of his assault phase, and the nobs will be hanging out ready to get some firepower in the face.

Your targeting priority is something like this with the exorcists: 1: Big Mech's battlewagon. If you kill it early, his advance will either slow down in order to keep the cover save, or speed ahead with out a cover save at all. Again, both are wins for you. 2: Any wagon presenting side armor then 3: lootas.
Also if you manage to get the Meganobs out in the open and you can throw some exorcist rockets at them, that is good too.

Defensively, since you dont have the firepower to spare early on to combat the lootas, you need to make sure that the rhino which is most vulnerable to his firepower is smoked.

this is the best I can do. I would be happy to send my 1850 list that I have for sisters over for you to see.

[blackarmchair]

I'd actually like to see what a competitive Sisters army looks like.

Post it?

[Paintraina]

sure, this is what I have been using lately that I really like. It is still being tweaked:

HQ:
Cannoness, BoSL, Eviscerator, Litanies, Mantle of Ophilia
9x celestian retinue with Veteran, Eviscerator and 2 meltaguns
Attached priest with eviscerator

Troops:
Battle sister squad 10x flamer, heavy flamer, Veteran with Eviscerator and brazier of holy fire, BoSL
Battle Sister squad 12x flamer, heavy flamer, veteran with eviscerator and BoSL

IG infantry platoon
3 guard squads, 3 autocannons, 1 sniper rifle, commissar, 4 power weapons
3x chimeras

1 PCS, 4 plasma guns
Chimera

Fast attack:
7x Seraphim, meltabombs, 2 hand flamers, vet w/ Eviscerator, Bosl
5x dominions, 4 meltaguns, 1 veteran
Immolator w/ extra armor and smokes

Heavy:
Exorcist

It looks like a hobby list but it has some surprises. it is 1850 points. The problem is that it really doesn't scale down well at all.
(the chimeras are for the sisters, not the infantry squads)

[doom-kitten]

I'm mostly trying to keep my army as a pure Battle Sister force with the very rare inquisition unit, so far our games are getting very close as we both are learning from previous games however he still remains undefeated. I've gotten fairly close and only lost the last game because his gretchin squad was sitting on an objective, he actually sacrificed a boyz mob to keep them in the game it was intense I managed to kill all 4 wagons and isolated the forcefeild on the far right, he got ballsy and went after my flanking exorcist it pulled a 6 inche moved and blew the wagon away. Big Mek and Burnaboyz still got the Exorcist but spent the entire game hunting it. Seraphim pulled an awesome deep-strike landing behind the lootas and burning them to crisp, they were shoot up and assualted by the Warbikes, resulting in two bikes down and seven sisters they fled. The Exorcist killed the Meganobz wagaon and the other one got the nobz, his lootas did manage to drop a rhino and the Immolator before they died, other rhino was shot up by the bikes, amazingly he only launched three assualts the whole game one witht he burnas on the Exorcist, the warbikes vs seraphim and orc nob vs canoness and retinue he won all three but took heavy casaulties to the canoness took two turns to kill her. In the end he had the burnaboyz, big mek, 7 ork boyz and a gretchin squad left, I had three mauled sister squads about 12 sisters divided between them, an exorcist and retributors left it was a awesome game XD.