Email help! How to beat IG Mech?

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Heyo Jawa,
 
Got a few questions for you.  How do you deal with IG?  To give you some background to what happened to me tonight and why I'm asking here's our lists.
 
Libby  sword/shield
 
SP power weapon
 
5 5 man RAS power weapon, meltagun, RB w/ las/plas hk missles
5 man RAS power weapon meltagun rhino
 
3 baal preds w/ heavy bolters hk missle
 
2 preds las spons hk missles
 
him
 
command squad with astropath/master of the fleet chimera
 
4 veteran squads   2 with all 3 meltas  2 with 3 plasmas  I don't remember if they had power weapons because I didn't get anywhere near them. 
2 autocannon weapon squads
2 infantry squads with las weapon teams
 
2 vendettas
 
2 demolishers
1 deathstrike missle launcher
 
 
He didn't tailor his list to fight me specifically.  He's a guy that's been teaching me how to improve my game to tourney level(along with your help too) and recently just got the army to the point he could play it.  He won first turn and I didn't think to reserve my army.  Even turtling around my libby rhino for SoS half my tanks were stunned/shaken and 1 pred was wrecked.  It was all downhill from their.  I'll admit I've never rolled so poorly in my life but it was unreal how much fire was coming down on me.  I only wrecked 2 tanks and took 1 gun off a vendetta and he nearly tabled me.  I think I had 4 marines left and no tanks.  
 
Should I reserved even though he's running the astropath if he wins first turn?  Is there some other tactic I could have used.  I his my razor chassis behind my baals to get 3+ covers on them but at the beginning of turn 2 I knew turtling wasn't going to work and tried to push out and press him a bit but I was denied in all regards.   There were 3 paths across the board(we played with about 7-10 terrain pieces), 1 he blocked with 2 chimera squads 1 melta 1 plas and the other 2 were like driving through hell via LC.  
 
How do you beat ultra competitive mech IG?  Even had I been rolling better I don't think I could have won that game.
 
 
Thundrchickn

Response:

Hey Thundrchickn!  With the list you were packing, you were in trouble.  Going up against that list in a tournament is always going to come down to luck.  If you are lucky enough to get first turn, you have a fighting chance.  With your list, I would probably deploy and seize the initiative. A 1 in 6 chance of crippling him is not bad, and I have to say that those are probably better chances than you would have in a gun battle. Just understand that if you fail, you are screwed.  In a recent tournament vs Danny Internets in which he was using a similar list, I deployed and went for the seize. I knew what he was going to do, but I knew that it was my only real chance at beating him.  Of course I failed and he tabled me, but we played a game for fun right afterwards, in which I did seize, and I tabled him.  

So, you have to ask yourself... feeling lucky... punk?  

Extreme luck aside your options are limited.  AV 12 is a surprisingly tough nut to crack. He has a lot of hard hitting guns that can get at your soft parts.  You have two choices.  

Deploy:

He is going to go first. He is going to blast the shit out of you. Just accept that.  Take your losses, and on your turn move every thing up into his face and pop smoke.  All you need is a break and blammo, you are in his lines and popping chimeras with your melta guns and assaulting the boys inside.  The good part is that with your depleted squads you will not slaughter him on the charge. You will beat his boys on his assault, then move onto the next on yours.  Again, with a little luck, you will create a chain reaction where you get to mow him down.  

Reserve:

His cheeze may actually work in your favor.  I can't wait until allies are removed from the game. (I honestly don't know if it is the allies that give the dude that messes with reserves or not, but it does not matter, I threw in this quip here.) But until then you may get lucky and have nothing come on turn two.  That is two turns of him having nothing to shoot at!  The good thing is that you can come on from reserve and fire all your guns.  You are guaranteed to get shots off at his vendettas before losing them.  You are packing 9 Las Cannons.  With a good round of reserves, you can get them on the table and smoke his ass.  Target the vendettas, then try for shots at his crap in the back. Some of those heavy hitting pieces are only AV 12!  All you need is a pinhole and he has to make cover saves. A 50% chance at shaking them is good enough, and all you need to do is shake them.  So shoot them until shaken, then move on.  Move your razors 12" and shoot the las. Bring on your Baals and go for side shots from the flanks.  

In a tactical game, the most competitive way to go is reserves. You are playing into his strengths, but it is relying on less luck.  If you want to go for the win... gamble and Seize the Initiative.  I have lost more games than I have won in tournaments to Mech Guard. But I did manage to take down two of them at the Nova Open.  (granted circumstances worked out in my favor for both games)  

Also, it is worth checking out his list.  A couple of medusas in the back, and Russ tanks with Demolisher cannons is an absolute deploy.  He does not have the range or fire power.  He will hurt you with his Vendettas, but your return fire should take them down.  Then pop his Medusas to protect your razors, then eat him up with your marines.  

List help?

Drop a Baal and pick up another ac/lc pred.  The HKs are nice, but you can probably drop most of them too.  Drop down to just missles on the predators.  For what you are paying for all those missiles, you can make a few changes and pick up a chaplain with melta pistol, and/or more priests.  I would increase the size of your rhino squad to 8, and throw in the chaplain and priest with melta pistols.  Give them a fist and melta gun and now you have a killer unit inside an 18" red torpedo. Give it dozer blades.  If you need more points, drop another Baal.  I wrote an article come time ago about Las being King again. It is.  

Good luck!

Jawaballs