If you wanna be a beardy gamer. oooh oooh! With much love to the late Roy Castle.Anyway, what's all this about? I've been kinda busy over the last week talking to God on the porcelain telephone ... why do people say that? To me it always sounds like I'm saying "mmmwgharblegarblegarblegarble" which is, I'm sure, not what people with faith say to God.
Anyway, again, what I'm trying to say is that while I've been away I've been listening to a lot of Podcasts and on one of those Podcasts (11th Company if you're interested), I heard an interesting concept for an all Drop Pod Vanilla Marine force and how it might work. Here's my take on it and yes I know my version is not "all Drop Pod" but I only own three and it'd take something pretty special to get me to build another one!
HQ
Librarian
Terminator Armour & Storm Shield. Null Zone & Gate of Infinity.
ELITE
Ironclad Dreadnought
Heavy Flamer; Drop Pod w. Deathwind Launcher
Ironclad Dreadnought
Heavy Flamer; Drop Pod w. Deathwind Launcher
Terminator Assault Squad
(8) 5x Thunderhammer Stormshield, 3x Lightning Claws
TROOPS
Tactical Squad
Meltagun, Multimelta, Sgt w. Combi-Melta; Drop Pod
Scout Squad
(5) 4x Combat Blades, Sgt w. Power Fist
FAST ATTACK
Land Speeder Storm
Heavy Flamer
Scout Bikes
(4) 2x Astartes Grenade Launcher, Sgt w. Combi Melta, Meltabombs & Locator Beacon, Cluster Mines.
HEAVY SUPPORT
Vindicator
Siege Shield
Vindicator
Siege Shield
Thunderfire Canonn
Oooh, Vindicators eh? Generally I do think they're a bit rubbish but it's just possible that they could do something awesome in this list.
The idea with the army is to scare my opponent into reserve to give me time to drop my Ironclads and position my Vindicators in prime firing positions unmolested. Smoke is popped at the start of/before turn two to try and weather the storm of fire I may receive then.
The Terminators are gated around by my the Librarian with the assistance of the Scout Bikers' Locator Beacon to get them quickly into position to counter-assault. If I had the models I'd make all 8 Terminators THSS ones but I don't and I have no burning desire to buy any more at the moment.
Both Troop choices are held in reserve, Scouts in the Storm. The Tacs in the Pod are are pure scoring unit with a little punch but the fast moving Scouts can quickly contest or even be used to speed-bump as necessary.
Lastly the Thunderfire Cannon is in the list because I think it's awesome and I can't justify leaving home without it!
There is an option to switch either or both of the Ironclad Dreads for 5-man Sternguard Squads with 4 combi-meltas in each still in Drop Pods. Just to re-enforce the alpha-strike threat of the list but I like the Ironclads better because it's more AV13 and armies are only going to have so-much anti-armour firepower ... probably!
All that's left to do is throw it open to the baying mob and see how it fares! Have at it people!
Yes, 11th Company rocks!!! :P
ReplyDeleteAs for all drop pod army....mmmm not really sure how it would work. Ok, I can afford and have some bubble wrap around my vehicles so they will probably live after the blitzkrieg but some other armies might have a harder time dealing with this.
You're really not letting go of the Thunderfire cannon , are you? And I still believe that Vindicators sucks.
I've got a undercoated drop pod if you want it
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to gate around Termies then I'd suggest locator beacons on the Pods too. If you rely on a single beacon then without fail you'll lose it before you can use it, Murphy's Law.
ReplyDeleteI'm not someone who goes big with troops on Marines but the Tact Squad and Scout Squad are really damn near bare minimum. The list just seems to rely too much on what your opponent decides to do, giving the potential for it all to backfire.