How to counter IG grenade launchers?

[The Male Gaze]

My friend and I have been playing skirmish fights against IG AI, usually on harder/standard difficulty. It seems that if I try to fight them with ranged units, they get knocked down until they die. If I try to fight with melee units (even ones with jumping abilities like Chaos Raptors) they can do well against the squads they are fighting, but typically the AI will have more guardsmen squads firing from range. Eventually, they start building psykers to detect infiltrated units, and commissars to double their firing rate and then the game is unwinnable. In fact, I've only ever seen it build guardsmen squads with launchers, no matter if it's winning or losing.

Suggestions?

[ChickenDagner]

depends on race. IG can't win against eldar, typically, some sort of vehicles is your choice. Chaos tanks + defilers; SM helldreads; vipers(or warp spiders in general), etc.

T1 grenade lauchers don't have damage and mostly just slow down IG T2 so you basically can go into T2 sooner and murder bash squishy guardsmen

[The Male Gaze]

Originally posted by ChickenDagner:

depends on race. IG can't win against eldar, typically, some sort of vehicles is your choice. Chaos tanks + defilers; SM helldreads; vipers(or warp spiders in general), etc.

T1 grenade lauchers don't have damage and mostly just slow down IG T2 so you basically can go into T2 sooner and murder bash squishy guardsmen

usually I play Chaos, but by the time I get my defilers out, they have so many guardsmen squads that they can melt it before it really does anything, but maybe that's because I play 3v3 or 2v2 matches so there are more units on the field against just my 1 defiler, idk

[Strelok]

A good tactic against tier 1 guardsmen as chaos should be chaos space marine squads with heavy bolters, remember that when playing as chaos you can get heavy bolters for your csm squads as soon as you build the armory. Have the squad with heavy bolter being helped by your Chaos Lord who should act as the tank either by engaging the guardsmen in meele or just shooting them from afar ( don't attach him to your squad, use him as a separate unit )
Additionaly you can upgrade your cultist squads with grenade launchers and counter fire with fire, just remember to have a stronger unit tanking the damage for them. Now that should be enough to counter tier 1 guardsmen, on tier 2 you can use the Chaos Sorcerer's spells against them (always upgrade him from the sacrificial circle) and if you decide to still build defilers just have them in ranged mode, they are much more effective against guardsmen that way, their ranged firepower being very decent. However i strongly encourage you to build only the sacrificial circle during tier 2 and then try to rush for tier 3, the units you will unlock in tier 3 are enough to earn you the victory if you do it quick. If the enemy attacks you with vehicles just use a horror squad or two from the sacrificial circle, they can also be deep struck anywhere you want ! It's very useful for sneak attacks !

[Todd the Punk]

close assault like chaos raptors, or assault marines just things that will charge

[Col Com Dante]

I main IG, and can tell you that early raptors make an absolute mess of the infantry. Back them up with 2 cultists with grenades (your capping units anyway) and a squad of CSM with heavy bolters and any IG infantry will melt pretty fast.

You need to get a horror squad or two early though, because you can be certain that your opponent is rushing for vehicles. If they don't rush vehicles, they're going to lose anyway.

[Emperor of Man]

As Chickendanger said, vehicles are your best choice (specially walker vehicles or infantry disruptors). Melee units are good too (you need more than one). Or a combination of them.

[JusticeJudge]

Mass Cultist Grenade Launchers on Ranged Stance + Chaos Lord Plasma Pistol on Range stance will do well vs Imperial Guard at tier 1 just don't try attacking their base and instead take control of the map. Then at tier 2 you can either mass defilers on range stance which will do well vs all of Imperial Guard tier 2 or you can fast tech to tier 3 for Possessed Space Marines + Obliterators which will wreck them.

[The Male Gaze]

Could you guys explain why defilers on ranged mode do so much better than defilers on melee mode? Better damage on their ranged attacks? Shorter attack animations or something?

[Strelok]

Originally posted by My Friends Play LoL :(:

Could you guys explain why defilers on ranged mode do so much better than defilers on melee mode? Better damage on their ranged attacks? Shorter attack animations or something?

Ranged mode gives it much better disruption with the battle cannon which acts as artillery and the autocannon shreds infantry units. It's overall better to have them staying in ranged stance against multiple enemies because of the AOE attack and the fire rate. If it was to attack them in meele it could only focus one squad and that squad could simply run away from them causing them to chase them around uselessly, not to mention the sync kills slowing their attack speed down way too much.

[The Male Gaze]

Thank you very much for all of your posts/advice/suggestions, I think I'll have an easier time now :)

[Temp]

Make a CSM squad and send it directly to Ig's base, to disrupt their capture of points(important because without points then they wont have enough rss for mass grenades early). Don't try to melee CS just dance him. Build a chaos lord after the 1st CSM squad is out. Then build another CSM squad. (Do not build a generator in the beggining. ) Then build +1 csm squad, add 2 generators and one armory. upgrade all csm with heavy bolters and plasma (early game ig squads will break extremely quickly under hb fire, even with a comissar attached to them) then after done with troops just go for base )) good luck

Source: Did just that