How to counter Chaos melee and Empyreal Abyss?

[Ker'ple]

I get my usual infantry force which usually just out-shoots everything and kills whatever trier to get in melee, but I'm having trouble going up against dreadnoughts and other Chaos melee units. IF I somehow beat that push, a single Empyreal Abyss kills all of my units.

My usual strategy is to just keep spamming guardsmen T1 until i have about 3 or 4 and then tech up. From this point i get stormtroopers and go around with them to destroy gens and cap points while using my guardsmen to attack at the same time so the enemy hopefully doesn't notice (and if they do notice then they can either lose their points or split their forces and possibly lose on 2 different fronts). Eventually the enemy gets tired of this poking and then decides to just kill me. If I have been doing well, I usually have some kasrkin and multiple stormtroopers at this point, plus some guardsmen that survived this far. This proves to be not enough when raptors jump in, terminators come in, and dreadnoughts walk in, shrugging off ST melta guns and bombs with ease.

[BaptismByLoli]

Well, your build is pretty much asking for it to be honest since you have no reliable Hard Hitting AV and absolutely no anti-melee. Jump units were basically meant to counter Shooty armies like yours.

In addition. having 3/4 GM with Stormtroopers in the mix tells me that you have 1 big blobby army. You're asking to get nuked/disrupted by Raptors and Noise etc. Try to spread them out rather than condense them into a ball of 'Please AoE me'

[Ace of Swords]

My usual strategy is to just keep spamming guardsmen T1 until i have about 3 or 4 and then tech up

And why do you actually ignore all the other units in your T1 lineup of which most are geared towards controlling enemy melee units?

[Atlas]

My usual strategy is to just keep spamming guardsmen T1 until i have about 3 or 4 and then tech up

And why do you actually ignore all the other units in your T1 lineup of which most are geared towards controlling enemy melee units?

This. Catachans have two disruptions. Sents have a stomp. While not reliable all the time, the spotters have a knockback as well. And HWTs have obvious uses. In t2, Ogryns might be a good counter-initiater.

If you think the Abyss is bad, try this against a Rocket Run or Orbital Bombardment

[Bahamut]

Orbital bombardment? god most of the time it hurts the SM more to throw it that its opponent. Rocket Run is the best nuke to kill infantry squads are that on plain terrain but is also not stronger than abyss or eldritch

the "trick" to counter abyss is not retreating but to move normally your forces away from it

[Torpid]

I get my usual infantry force which usually just out-shoots everything and kills whatever trier to get in melee, but I'm having trouble going up against dreadnoughts and other Chaos melee units. IF I somehow beat that push, a single Empyreal Abyss kills all of my units.

My usual strategy is to just keep spamming guardsmen T1 until i have about 3 or 4 and then tech up. From this point i get stormtroopers and go around with them to destroy gens and cap points while using my guardsmen to attack at the same time so the enemy hopefully doesn't notice (and if they do notice then they can either lose their points or split their forces and possibly lose on 2 different fronts). Eventually the enemy gets tired of this poking and then decides to just kill me. If I have been doing well, I usually have some kasrkin and multiple stormtroopers at this point, plus some guardsmen that survived this far. This proves to be not enough when raptors jump in, terminators come in, and dreadnoughts walk in, shrugging off ST melta guns and bombs with ease.

Well, you answered this yourself really - you spam guardsmen.

What is the role of Guardsmen in this game:

1) To act as a baseline unit for IG. They do this really well because they have decent dps vs everything but vehicles, they have high health, can repair vehicles really quick, are very cheap to replace, can deploy cover, and deploy turrets.

2) Act as a soft ranged unit counter. Guardsmen are cheaper than most other squads when it comes to straight up fire-fights.

So. With that said what should one do if they meet a wall of guardsmen? Well, one thing they definitely shouldn't do is spam ordinary ranged units. That lets the guardsmen win because that's what they soft counter. Instead spam suppression teams, or AOE abilities, or get a jump squad because guardsmen are terrible in melee.

How do you counter suppression then?

Sentinels soft counter suppression with good micro. You can flank the set-up team and stomp it into the guardsmen to force it off, in t2 you can barrage it with missles to force it off. Catachans are also a soft counter, they knock the suppression team over so your hero, ogryns, or sentinel can move in to dsirupt it further. Spotters are a hard counter, their best method to counter suppression is to fire an artillery shell behind the squad (while using your sentinel to get line of sight there) to knock them forward into your guardsmen fire and force them off.

How do you counter aoe? Well, split up your squads more and try to use specific counters to the AoE threat. If there's flamer tacs running at you, you can knock them back with your catachan abilities, suppress them with a heavy weapon team, or tie them up with your leader. If artillery is causing you problems sentinels can do well to counter them with their missle launcher, or use incinerate shells from the spotters, use stormtroopers to throw a grenade on them, or attack them with a manticore (preferably stun/suppress them first unless the manticore is fairly close range so it is guaranteed to hit).

How to counter melee jump squads? Catachans are the most obvious choice in T1. Lure the enemy to jump your guardsmen then force melee with your catachans who are lying in wait. Shotgun blast them a few seconds into the fight to disrupt them, although don't do just after they land as units become suppression immune for a few seconds after landing. If you add a sentinel it will be even better for you. Stomp the jump unit when it lands and then force melee with catachans while they're stunned. Focus fire any incoming melee support with the guardsmen/sentinels and knock them away with catachan abilities.

Ogryns are a different choice in T2, tougher than catachans and generally better vs melee squads in T2, but of course they cost more than catachans and won't do much vs artillery/dedicated melee. Alternatively you could have your guardsmen up front and have a heavy weapon team BEHIND them, so when the squad jumps on your guardsmen they get suppressed and badly damaged and forced to retreat.

Ultimately though I think you should look into the inquisitor if you don't already play her. She's absolutely fantastic vs jump units and terminators because of her assail ability. Plasma gun guardsmen + assail makes terminators very easy to kill. also, use her holy brazier to counter-initiate any jump suqads such as ASM or raptors, not only does it do 50dps power melee which will put some seriously hurt on them squads, but its ability holy pyre causes nearby enemy units to do less damage which ensures your catachans can solo ASM/raptors in T1 even if the ASM land directly atop the catachans and therefore start the fight with the cats on their ass.

[Atlas]

Orbital bombardment? god most of the time it hurts the SM more to throw it that its opponent. Rocket Run is the best nuke to kill infantry squads are that on plain terrain but is also not stronger than abyss or eldritch

the "trick" to counter abyss is not retreating but to move normally your forces away from it

That's because people are using it wrong imo. I like to use it more as a trap nuke that holds units in place while your army can really lay into them from range. In that way I do consider it an anti-infantry nuke since it doesn't stun vehicles in any way and is to unreliable to use as av even with Flesh over Steel and Orbs of the Omnissiah.

[lolzarz]

Like how everyone said, using guardsmen and guardsmen only as your base army has the obvious problem of getting eradicated by anything that can jump/teleport/tank. Use the other stuff. Catachans are decent at destroying raptors in close combat and providing disruption and heavy weapons squads are also good at destroying vehicles, large sized terminators and whatnot. Ogryns can serve in both purposes, but are not particularly good at either. Using manticores and artillery spotters to provide disruption and damage also helps. Aim your spotters on the heretics and the CSM and aim your manticores on the big targets. Of course, you can also get Leman Russ tanks to destroy the enemy. Those things deal a lot of damage.