Throne of Skulls

Hopefully by the time you read this I will be in possession of a ticket for the 2010 Autumn Throne of Skulls GT. This is a 2 day, 5 round tournament held at Warhammer World in November. The major difference between this and most of the other tournaments I have attended this year and, indeed, our regular Thursday night games, is that it's 1500 points. I've been giving this some thought and no small amount of list juggling and I've come up with the following. It's early days of course but currently this feels a good fit to me.

Codex: Blood Angels

HQ

Librarian
Blood Lance and Unleash Rage

Great utility HQ, useful powers and a hood for psychic defense. At 1500 points the killer HQs like Mephiston and, errr Mephiston are out of the question really. The list is not about having a "Death Star" unit so that kind of HQ would be out of sync.

Honour Guard
(5) 4x Meltagun; Drop Pod

4 Meltaguns with feel no pain in a drop pod, farewell Sternguard as my anti-AV14 alpha strike! I can also add the Librarian here too if I fancy suiciding him.

Troops

Assault Squad
(5) Sgt w. Lightning Claw; Razorback w. TL Assault Cannon

Assault Squad
(5) Sgt w. Lightning Claw; Razorback w. TL Assault Cannon

These two squads ride forward to take the middle ground and offer support to the alpha strike units as quickly as possible. The Librarian will most likely ride in one of these Razorbacks to give the best coverage for his hood.

Tactical Squad
(10) Meltagun, Missile Launcher, Sgt w. Power Fist; Drop Pod

These guys are held in reserve in their pod for some tactical deployment later on in the game, either objective grabbing or something similar ... yep, you guessed it, I just think it's handy to have a scoring unit in reserves that can deploy pretty much anywhere, but I don't have a specific strategy around it!

Death Company
(5) Power Fist, Infernus Pistol, Power Sword; Rhino

Not a scoring unit but a very nasty assault squad (particularly when combined with a Chaplain - see later). It's very important that these guys get the charge so I think they'll probably be best used as a counter charge unit rather than having them race in to support the alpha-strikers. They'll advance behind the razorbacks to try and stop anyone getting a shot at their Rhino, once the Death Company are out in the open on foot they are pretty easy to slow down and distract.

Death Company Dreadnought
Blood Talons; Drop Pod

The second part of the alpha strike, a threat to both armour (meltagun) and troops (Blood Talons) and something which will have to be dealt with. It will take the heat off the troops advancing and with a bit of luck it might make it to turn 2 and do some serious damage. Worth a gamble on this point as it can be truely nasty if they get into assault.

Elite

Sanguinary Priest

He rides in one of the Razorbacks to provide some durability to my scoring units should their transports get popped.

Chaplain

Turns the Death Company into absolute monsters on the charge and will join them in their Rhino.

Fast Attack

Baal Predator
TL Assault Cannons, Dozer Blade

The crucial support to my drop pod alpha strike, a scout move followed by a 12" move means he can be in range to support the drop pods on turn 1. The addition of another AV13 target to the mix also helps thin out the potential firepower on the rest of my guys. Depending on the situation I could also outflank it but that would depend on the situation (probably useful in a kill point mission)

So the general plan for this list is to advance the scoring troops behind a fairly offensive drop pod strike supported by the Baal. Their Razorback will provide supporting fire and the Death Company act as a deterrent to any nasty assault threat. The Tactical Squad are a utility scoring unit which help to keep me flexible.

What do you think?