GT Heat 3 - The Final Countdown

Here we are again, less than two days until a tournament and I’ve not really decided on the list I’m taking and some of the core units I know I will be taking are still unpainted. This weekend is going to be all about trying not to lose too badly … again!

As far as the list goes I’m settled on a core I just can’t stop fiddling with the “edges”. Here’s my current flavour-of-the-minute list:

Primary Detachment : Codex Space Marines

HQ

Tigurius

TROOPS

Tactical Squad (10): Meltagun, Multi-Melta, Combi-Melta; Drop Pod

Tactical Squad (10): Flamer, Lascannon; Rhino

HEAVY SUPPORT

Thunderfire Cannon

Devastator Centurions (3): 3x Grav-Cannon & Grav-Amp, 3x Missile Launcher

Land Raider

Allied Detachment: Codex Blood Angels

HQ

Mephiston

TROOPS

Assault Squad (10): 2x Flamer

Wow! When I write it down like this it look incredibly light on models!

The Primary Detachment is set up to provide durable scoring, my Centurion/Tigurius/Land Raider unit (Bullet Magnet) and a Thunderfire for flavour. Since my game against Alex I’ve been really trying to work Mephiston into the list … because he’s amazing; and a lot of what’s on the table these days, he is almost designed to bully. I also love the scoring Assault Squad from a manoeuvrability point of view and the double flamer can be placed to do maximum damage to some tucked away scoring unit.

The glaring weakness of this list is that if I come up against Tripple Heldrakes, it’s toast – literally. The omission of anything which can take out a flier is entirely intentional. At this point level I have struggled to add in an air threat without seriously crippling what I can do on the ground so I’ll just accept the fact that I’m completely boned if I come up against Heldrakes.

And in typically “me-style”, while I’ve been sitting here typing this I’ve come up with something else to share with you which packs in more bodies and possibly has more punch:

Codex Space Marines

HQ

Tigurius

ELITE

Sternguard (5): 3x Combi-Melta; Drop Pod

Sternguard (5): 3x Combi-Melta; Drop Pod

TROOP

Tactical Squad (10): Meltagun, Multi-Melta, Combi-Melta; Drop Pod

Tactical Squad (10): Flamer, Lascannon

Scouts (10): Bolt Pistol, Close Combat Weapon; Land Speeder Storm: Heavy Flamer

HEAVY SUPPORT

Thunderfire Cannon

Devastator Centurions (3): 3x Grav-Cannon & Grav-Amp, 3x Missile Launcher

Stormraven Gunship: TL Multi-Melta, TL Lascannon

And even as I write this I’m thinking I could trade the LS Storm and the Stormraven and get a Landraider back in the list! Oh dear.

Anyway, I like this list from the alpha-strike Sternguard point of view (though it’s been done to death and is reasonably easily countered) and it has air defence in the form of the Stormraven.

Maybe I should just flip a coin!

Anyway, I’ll just finish off with some pics of the Work-in-Progress on my Centurions and Tigurius.

Silver & Gold and Other Army Lists

The 40kUK Podcast are currently instigating a hobby event called “Age of Armies”, you can find out more about it here. But suffice to say it’s an army building challenge requiring you to build and paint a new army over the course of the year with a view to bringing it to a tournament at the end of the year, possibly the Autumn Throne of Skulls.

I’ve always wanted to do one of these events but they’ve always seemed to fall at times that weren’t convenient for one reason or another but this time, I’ve just finished my Tyranids, my Marines are just expanding into 6^th edition and my Orks may never surface again ... so I quite fancy doing something new. The premise is that you acquire the equivalent of £50 worth of models for your army each month which is pretty achievable I think but what I really like about this is the intention for everyone involved to attend a tournament together at the end of the challenge. This sounds like a lot of fun.

The big question though, is what army should I do? I’ve been really tempted to do a Chaos Marines (Khorne) Primary with Ork Allies army because I have always loved the Chaos Marines from a fluff perspective and it would give my Orks a focus again. However I pretty much have all the Ork models I’d need painted up so that’s probably a no-go from the point of view of this challenge.

The list I’d considered at 1850pts was:

Battle Brothers - Game 1

Game 1 of the Warhammer World Battle Brothers Tournament. Gav and I were representing Claws and Fists and given the amount of play-testing we'd gone through, and my recent experiences on the tournament scene in 6th Ed. expectations were low.

Our first game was against a couple of friendly chaps playing a BA and IG list that looked something like this:

BA Captain w. Jump Pack, Infernus Pistol & Thunder Hammer
Assault Squad x5 with Flamer & 2x Hand Flamer
Death Company x10 Thunder Hammer, Power Fist 2x Infernus Pistols, Drop Pod
Death Company Dread with Blood Talons.
Baal Predator w. Flamestorm and Heavy Flamer
Storm Raven w. Plasma Cannon & Multi-Melta

Lord Commissar w. Powerfist
Marbo
Infantry Platoon
PCS w. Plasma Gun & Plasma Pistol
20x Guardsmen w 2x Autocannon

Aegis Defense Line w. Quad-Gun

The mission was Purge the Alien with Hammer and Anvil deployment.

Brothers in Arms

B.A.S.M. ... Kinky?

Games Workshop’s, Winter, “Battle Brothers” Doubles Tournament is nearly upon us and, in typical style, Gav and I only managed to sit down and agree on a list last weekend. While we were both completely sober in this endeavor we have had exactly no practice and I have the majority of 6^th Edition experience with less than 15 games played (over 1000pts). Oh, and add to that the fact that we’ll be using a Space Marines/Blood Angels list which neither of us have any experience playing (it’s been all Tyranids for me and Gav is Mr Space Wolves), and I think you can understand why expectations for success will be set rather low ... for a change!

When I said we had “agreed” on a list, what I meant to say is that we had agreed on 95% of a list but there is still a little discussion going on over fine details so without further ado here’s what we’re currently mulling over:

6th of one, half a dozen of the other

Andy and I played our first game of 6th edition 40K on Saturday. We played 500 points on a 4x4 board and rolled up the D3+2 Objective mission. Now, I have to admit that this will probably be the worst "initial thoughts" piece that you read on 6th edition as due to Andy's incredibly poor dice rolls, it was a very one sided game and we didn't even get close to having any combat.

Shooting

Let's not kid ourselves, 40K was a shooting game in 5th edition and very little has changed for 6th in that regard. The change in the Toughness rules have made some units more survivable but with cover getting worse and new Rules like Focused Fire and Precision Shot make shooting even better.

Now, we found shooting in the new edition to be very straightforward. However, we didn't have any units containing models with different saving throws. The key now is going to be how you arrange your units to try and protect the important models. I set up my Long Fangs in a T-shape with the Pack Leader at the front so that he would take the first unsaved wound. However, what would I have done if I had been Outflanked?

Andy had an even harder choice as he had a five man Devastator unit containing a Sergeant, three Missile Launchers and a regular Bolter Marine. On my turn one, they were going to take fire from my Long Fangs on the right hand side of the board and a Living Lightning Rune Priest in the centre. There was no way to set up his unit so that he could protect the important squad members from incoming fire.

Bookkeeping

There seems to be a lot more of this in the new edition. From Hull Points to Mysterious Objectives to Warp Charge, it seems that every phase has something that you need to make a note of.

Go First and Win

In 5th edition there were some army builds that were considered to have a huge advantage if they went first, those that could put out a crippling alpha strike from which the opponent would struggle to recover. Now not only do we have the same issue in 6th edition but you also get a point for it. I go first, kill one of your units and get, what could be, in some missions, the winning Victory Point.

Next Steps

Play some more games. It was a real shame that we didn't manage to get any combat going apart from a charge against a Rhino. I have to admit that I don't hold out much hope for combat as I think that the changes to the Fearless rules make it a lot less killy than previously. However, that's based on conjecture rather than evidence. There are also a lot of other rules that we didn't actually get to try including Hammer of Wrath and Nightfight (didn't get it Turn 1)

However, I still think that my list should so alright in 6th with only a few changes. Three units of Long Fangs are still awesome as is the Rune Priest. Grey Hunters remain one of the best Troops in the game even if they can't assault out of their Rhino any more. However, the Scouts might have to go and I need some more units for the Club's Tale of Gamers

Elephant in the room

Or rather above the room. One of the other things we didn't use on saturday was fliers. Now from what I've read in the rulebook and what I've seen on the internet, these are clearly going to be huge in 6th edition. Now, I have no doubt at all that eventually Space Wolves will be given the option of Flakk Missiles. However, I can't see that happening until GW have sold loads of fliers and most Wolf players have either gone out and bought allies or fortifications. Cynical? Yes, but you have to admit that it's pretty good marketing. For now, I'm going to focus on shooting everything that isn't a flyer and hope that they don't have too much of an impact. This isn't really a strategy though and while it might be successful for the first few months of this new edition as people slowly acquire fliers, it's of little use in the long term...

How is everyone else finding the new edition? It seems like it's going to be slower to play but is that just because it's all still new?

Deep Thought - A Sense Of Dread

In the song Hey Ya by Outkast, Andre 3000 asks the question, "What's cooler than being cool?" To which the answer is, "Ice cold" Well, what's cooler than 8 foot tall genetically enginered super men? Well, 8 foot tall genetically enginered super men on giant wolves obviously. But what's nearly as cool as that? Genetically enginered super men who kick so much arse when they're alive that when they get badly injured they get put into a metalic shell so that they can keep killing in the name of the Emperor, that's what!

Deep Thought is our ironically titled series of "Wouldn't it be cool" army lists (although, I'm not sure if it's a series yet, since there has only been one previously) Anyway, today we are going to look at a list mainly made up of Dreadnoughts. Now, there are a couple of codexes that you can do this from. The Space Marine 'dex and the Grey Knight one both allow you to take up to 6 of the things. the Space Wolf codex lets you take one as HQ but you can only take 4 maximum. However, there is a codex that lets you take Dreadnoughts in the Elites, Troops and Heavy Support sections of the Force Org Chart - the Blood Angels...

The only thing  you have to do is take 5 Death Company before you can take any Death Company Dreads. Now, I reckon that you could fit in about 8 Dreads at 1750 but you'd probably have no scoring units. However, you'd have 8 Dreads! This leaves a questions about what types of Dreadnought to take, shooty? Assaulty? Physchic? As much as I love dual Autocannon Dreadnoughts, I love the idea of 8 Dreads running amok and smashing stuff up even more. With that in mind, we need a way for the Dreads to get into postition so I've gone for Drop Pods...

Heavy Support

Dreadnought, Multimelta, Blood Fist, Drop Pod
Dreadnought, Multimelta, Blood Fist, Drop Pod
Dreadnought, Multimelta, Blood Fist, Drop Pod

These are the heavy lifters, drop in, blow up something and then wade into combat if you survive the retaliation.

Elites

Furioso Dreadnought, Blood Talons, Drop Pod 
Furioso Dreadnought, Blood Talons, Drop Pod
Furioso Dreadnought, Blood Talons, Drop Pod

Jazz hand Dreads. The enemy need to take care of these guys before they get into combat or they can be leathal.

Troops

5 Death Company, Infernus Pistol, Drop Pod
5 Death Company Infernus Pistol, Drop Pod
Death Company Dreadnought, Blood Talons, Drop Pod
Death Company Dreadnought, Blood Talons, Drop Pod

These guys would be part of the second wave. Ideally, you'll have killed all of the enemy vehicles so that these guys can drop down and not be led around, raging, after vehicles that they can never quite catch. Not 100% sure of whether the DCDs would be better keeping their Blood Fists or not...

That leaves 225 points left and we still need a HQ. A Librarian is cheap and can add to our anti-vehicle with Blood Lance and can give some of our Dreads 5+ saves with Shield of Sanguinious. Then 125 points is just enough to get us an Assault Squad in another Drop Pod, which is ideal as it gives us an odd number of Pods. So the list in full...

HQ
Librarian, Blood Lance, Shield of Sanguinious

Elites

Furioso Dreadnought, Blood Talons, Drop Pod 
Furioso Dreadnought, Blood Talons, Drop Pod
Furioso Dreadnought, Blood Talons, Drop Pod

Troops
5 Death Company, Infernus Pistol, Drop Pod
5 Death Company Infernus Pistol, Drop Pod
Death Company Dreadnought, Blood Talons, Drop Pod
Death Company Dreadnought, Blood Talons, Drop Pod
5 Assault Marines, Meltagun, Infernus Pistol, Drop Pod

Heavy Support
Dreadnought, Multimelta, Blood Fist, Drop Pod
Dreadnought, Multimelta, Blood Fist, Drop Pod
Dreadnought, Multimelta, Blood Fist, Drop Pod


Optimised? No. Rock/Scissors/Paper list? Yes. Fun? It's 8 giant robots of death falling from the sky to destroy everything in their path, of course it's fun!

What do you think? Is it viable at all or do you think that there are too many Meltaguns out there for this kind of list? I know that John has been keen to try some different ideas in these final days of 5th edition but would you try the Dread Drop List of Doom?

Jump!I

This man doesn't need a jump pack

So, I actually managed to play a game four weeks ago but I haven't actually written about it until now. To give you an idea of how long ago it was, Andy subsequently changed his list and then dropped out of playing last weekend's Indy GT altogether. No pictures unfortunately but here are some hazy recollections. First up, let's look at the two armies...

Space Wolves

Rune Priest, Chooser of the Slain, Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane
10 Wolf Guard, 8 Combi-Meltas, Wolf Claw, 2x Cyclone Missile Launcher, Drop Pod
5 Wolf Scouts, Meltagun
5 Wolf Scouts, Meltagun
5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Rhino
5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Rhino
5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Rhino
5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Rhino
5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Rhino
5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Rhino
6 Long Fangs, 5 Missile Launchers
6 Long Fangs, 5 Missile Launchers
6 Long Fangs, 5 Missile Launchers

This seems to have evolved into my preferred 1750 point list now for Wolves.

Blood Angels

Mephiston
5 Sanguinary Guard
3 Sanguinary Priests, 1 Jump Pack
10 Assault Marines, 2 Meltaguns
10 Assault Marines, 2 Meltaguns
2 Multimelta Attack Bikes
2 Multimelta Attack Bikes
5 Devastators, 3 Missile Launchers, Lascannon
5 Devastators, 3 Missile Launchers, Lascannon

Looking at this army as Andy unpacks it from the case, there are a couple of things I'm really worried about - Mephy and the Nipple Guard. They are just going to shrug off all of my long range AP3 firepower and while that's happening, 20 Assault Marines are getting in my face.

The Game

So, we roll up Kill Points with Spearhead deployment and Andy wins the roll off to go first. Not good; that's  going to give me a turn less of shooting to deal with everything coming at me. Then he announces that the Assault Marines are going to Deep Strike in. Suddenly things are looking up. Then both Devastator squads get put into cover with their attached Priests. However, both of these pieces of terrain are a long way away from my deployment zone. In fact I can place two of my Long Fang packs out of range of the Devs, allowing me to shoot away at everything else without taking any long range reprisals.

As for my deployment, I decide that the 8 Wolf Guard with Combi-Meltas are going to sacrifice their lives to take out Mephiston. Some people will say that using two Kill Points to take out one is a quick route to defeat. However, I knew that if Mephy got into my lines then he'd carve his way through my 5 man squads and there would be very little that I could do to stop him. The two Scout packs went Behind Enemy Lines in an attempt to team up and mug one of the Devastator squads. I also reserved 5/6 of the Rhinos, reasoning that they and their squads would be more useful later on, once the Blood Angels were a bit closer.

Early Turns

On Andy's first turn, his Bikes Turbo-Boosted forward, Mephiston failed to cast "Wings" so he had to walk while the Sanguinary Guard made haste towards my lines. The Devastator squads opened fire on the only Long Fang pack in range and managed to take out a couple of them despite them being in cover.

The Wolf Guard did their job by killing Mephiston while their Drop Pod managed to block off the shooting of one of the Devastator squads following a fortuitous scatter. My Long Fangs also took out three of the four Attack Bikes.

The Sanguinary Guard turned round to deal with the Wolf Guard which they did with aplomb. The Drop Pod was also wrecked. On the other side of the board the two Assault Squads arrived.

Frag Missiles and Murderous Hurricane thinned out the Assault Marines while a Wolf Scout Pack kept one unit of Devastators tied up.

Middle & End Turns

The Assault Marines got held up in combat by the Long Fangs which stopped them getting shot but it did mean that they could be assaulted by my Rune Priest and a couple of units of Grey Hunters. By the time that the Sanguinary Guard arrived the battle was pretty much over and even they were finally put down (although 2+ save and FNP does require a lot of firepower!)

We totted up the Kill Points and I'd won by two. Let's have a quick look at what I did well and badly:

Deployment

Reserving half my army worked out amazingly well. I knew that I couldn't deploy the Rhinos too far forward because they'd get charged early in the game. I also knew that if I deployed them too far back in my quarter then I would be cutting down on LOS for the Long Fang Packs. I also did something else I never normally do - deployed two Long Fang Packs out of cover. After seeing where Andy has placed his Devastators I knew that I could put them out in the open and not face any long range reprisals. It also meant I had great firelanes over the areas that I thought Andy would be attacking from.

Actually, my overall play was pretty good and I managed to make the most of a couple of mistakes that Andy made (see below) However, I too made a couple of silly mistakes (yet again!)

Play The Mission

Behind Enemy Lines is a brilliant rule. It allows your Wolf Scouts to sneak up on your opponent's heavy weapons and wither keep them tied up for a couple of turns or wipe them out altogether. However, a 5-man unit with no special close combat weapons is really going to struggle against a Devastator squad with attached Sanguinary Priest. Yes, I managed to keep them locked in combat for a couple of turns but I was never going to be able to wipe them out due to that FNP. In a war of attrition I was onto a loser. Now, in a normal game this wouldn't be a problem. However, in this game it cost me a Kill Point and nearly cost me a second one in order to tie up a unit that didn't really have anything to shoot at anyway.

Split Fire

I hate to waste shots. It really annoys me when I fire five guns at two guys and do five wounds because I feel I've "wasted" three wounds. It caused me some issues last month against Graham and I went and did the same thing here. In turn 1, the only really viable target for my Long Fangs were the Attack Bikes. Instead of firing one Pack at one unit and a second Pack at the other, I tried to do some fancy fire splitting in the hope of firing some shots at a third target. Net result? One Bike still left alive. Of course I managed to finish it off later in the game but that could easily have cost me a Kill Point.

Turning my attention to the other side of the table, Andy made a big mistake in deployment and a smaller one in turn 2 that exacerbated it:

Deployment

As I said near the start of the article I was really worried by the thought of 20 Assault Marines, 5 Sanguinary Guard and Mephiston jumping towards my lines. Keeping the Assault Marines off the board limited my targets and hence limited the chances of me picking the wrong one. With the Guard and the Attack Bikes out front at least one of the units would have had cover from any long range shooting I sent there way. The Assault Marines could also have used the Sanguinary Priest that was attached to the Sanguinary Guard. As it was, most of the fire that went into the Guard would have ignored the FNP anyway while the Marines needed both that and Furious Charge to be more effective.

Playing The Mission

At the top of Turn 2, Andy turned around the scary Sanguinary Guard to go and deal with the Wolf Guard. They comfortably wiped them out but this meant that they were seriously delayed in getting to the business end of the game. When they got stuck in they did some serious damage but by then they were the only target that was left to deal with. If they'd turned up earlier, while there were some Assault Marines around, I would have had some serious problems. Yes, my Wolf Guard would probably have taken out a Devastator squad but I think the Sanguinary Guard  could have covered that spread.

I really like Andy's list and think he could have done pretty well with it at the Indy GT. The only change Id make would be maybe trying to get another Jump Pack for one of the Priests since I think it would be more useful having Priests with both Assault squads rather than both Devastator squads. As for my list, I was really happy with the way it played. I'm pretty tempted to stick with it through the dogs days of 5th edition but now I've got some Thunderwolves I'm going to damn well use them!

Arena Of Death - Draigo vs Dante

If he dies, he dies - Dra(i)go

Welcome back to the Arena of Death; it's been a while! Since it's been so long we'll have a quick re-cap of the concept. Two 40K characters enter the Arena of Death and only one leaves. We roll real life dice to determine the winner rather than mathammering it. We have three rounds so each character gets the chance to charge with the deciding round conferring no charge bonus. We also don't deal with petty things like combat resolution. So, without further ado, let's head off to the Arena...

Round 1 - Draigo on the charge

Kaldor raised the Titansword to acknowledge the crowd before levelling his Storm Bolter and beginning his charge. Two hits would have caused a Wound if not for Dante's Artificer Armour. As they clashed, it was Dante who swung first. However, even after a Master-Crafted re-roll he could only hit once and even then he failed to wound his tougher opponent. Striking back Draigo cast Hammerhand successfully. However, Draigo's response was equally poor, again only hitting once. Then, needing only 2s to wound, he failed. Dante then manged to hit but still couldn't wound. Draigo saw his chance. He hit with two of his three attacks and wounded with both. One was saved by Dante's Iron Halo but the other got through. The Grey Knight closed his eyes and muster his concentration. The power of the warp flowed down his Force Weapon and claimed Dante's life.

Round 2 - Dante on the Charge

Dante's Infernus Pistol spoke death but, despite hitting and wounding, it bounced off Draigo's Storm Shield. Hitting with four of his six attacks, Dante caused two wounds, one of which got past Draigo's Storm Shield. Striking back Draigo cast Hammerhand successfully and managed to ignore Dante's Death Mask (although it had already reduced him by 1 in terms of WS, W, I & A) He needed his Master-Crafting to manage even a single hit although it did would until deflected by Dante's Iron Halo. Dante caused three more hits but again couldn't wound. Draigo could see another opening. Two hits caused two wounds and neither could be stopped. Lord Kaldor Draigo again used the Emperor's Gift and put down Dante permanently.


Conclusions

Okay, first an admission. I assumed that Dante has Eternal Warrior when I picked the combatants for the Arena. If he had then his Deathmask of Sanguinius would have been a real equaliser here. As it was, we saw how poor Strength 4 Power Weapons can be (especially against T5) Having said that, Dante is probably going to make mincemeat of most regular squads and a lot of Independent Characters with his magic mask. Similarly, Draigo with easily obtainable S6 is going to do a lot of damage and WS7, T5, 2+, 3++ means he's not going to take much in return. The other thing about these characters is the army builds that they unlock - Paladin troops and Sanguinary Guard troops.

Anybody used either of these guys much? We'd love to hear your stories below the line...

UK GT Horde Blood Angels - Take 2

The deadline for list submission draws closer and I've made a few revisions to my original list (here).

The first list had an unnecessary amount of scoring so I trimmed the Tactical squads down to one as they do not really add anything offensive to the list. I also swapped out their Melta and Power Fist to save points but I also found that they really didn't need it so the double flamer adds a bit of versatility into the list.

The Terminators are good but with no transport they can be easily avoided, I felt I still needed a threatening close combat unit so I've added a unit of Sanguinary Guard. Mobile without the need to invest in a Land Raider.

Lastly Mephiston, he's just too good to leave out really. His effectiveness has been adversely affected by Grey Knights and Dark Eldar but against anyone else he's a total beast and even against GK & DE he can be useful.

Enough pre-amble, here's the list:

Mephiston
Sanguinary Guard (x5, 1x Power Fist, 2x Infernus Pistols, ChBanner)
Sternguard (x5, 2x Lascannon)
Sanguinary Priest (x3, 1x Jump Pack)
Assault Squad (x10, 2x Meltagun, 1x Power Fist)
Assault Squad (x10, 2x Meltagun, 1x Power Fist)
Tactical Squad (x10, 1x Flamer,  1x Missile Launcher, 1x Combi-Flamer)
Devastator Squad (x5, 4x Missile Launcher)
Devastator Squad (x5, 4x Missile Launcher)

54 Models, 11 Kill Points (without Combat Squads).

Two very noticeable things are missing, no ability to tank-shock and no invulnerable saves.

 Without any AV on the board I'll have to be careful about how I defend my objectives, I have enough Melta to make most vehicles think twice before tank shocking but I'll have to be careful with my placement, my mobility should help with this.

I think I can compensate for the lack of invulnerable saves, again, by having the mobility to be able to pick my fights. The Devs, Sternguard and Tac Squad will stay back to provide long range fire while the rest of the army bounces around as required.

The basic game plan is two-fold, firstly there's the durability angle, I have a lot of bodies and the ability to spread Feel No Pain across a fairly wide area. Secondly I'll be going for mid-board control with Meph and the Sanguinary Guard providing the counter assault threat. But given the inherent weaknesses in my list I'll have to be flexible based on the army across the table from me.

Any comments guys?

UK GT List take 1 - Horde Blood Angels

With a little over 3 weeks to go before list submission deadline, I thought I'd spit-ball some lists to see what people think, any feedback is always appreciated! First of all here's a list inspired by some musings on the 11th Company Podcast which struck a particular chord with me given my recent experiences with my Orks. I'd only need to paint about 5 models to complete this and I think it could be successful against a fair number of lists that may be popular at the GT:

Codex Blood Angels - 1750

Librarian (Jump Pack; Unleash Rage, Fear of the Darkness)
Sternguard (x5, 2x Lascannons)
Sanguinary Priests (x3, 1x Jump Pack)
Assault Terminators (x5, 3x LC, 2x THSS)
Assault Marines (x10, 2x Meltaguns, Power Fist, Jump Packs)
Assault Marines (x10, 2x Meltaguns, Power Fist, Jump Packs)
Tactical Squad (x10, Meltagun, Multi Melta, Power Fist)
Tactical Squad (x10, Meltagun, Multi Melta, Power Fist)
Devastator Squad (x10, 4x Missile Launchers)

... and that's it.

On the plus-side it's 11 kill points with 4 of those KPs hidden in 10-man squads, it's 59 MEQ bodies with FNP, and the 5 Terminators. In Objective missions it's got up to 8 scoring units, 4 of which are very mobile and can deep-strike if required.

On the down-side it feels a bit light on ranged anti-tank, I wouldn't feel massively confident facing down 5+ Venoms and I'm not sure I could out-last Daemons or horde Orks in assault. Most importantly it's not like anything else I've ever played before so I'd need to get a bit of practice in with it before-hand.

That's it, any comments?

Throne of Skulls 2012 - Day 2

Let's continue with the Throne of Skulls wrap up, her are my games from Day 2


Game 4 vs Blood Angels
Mission: Spearhead / Seize Ground


HQ
Librarian (Fear of the Darkness, Shield of Sanguinius)
Honour Guard (2x Melta Gun, Drop Pod)


TROOP
Assault Squad (2x Melta Gun; Land Raider Crusader w. Multi Melta)
Tactical Squad (Melta Gun, Multi Melta, Drop Pod)
Tactical Squad (Melta Gun, Missile Launcher, Drop Pod)


HEAVY SUPPORT
Devastators (Plasma Cannon, Heavy Bolter, Drop Pod)
Devastators (2x Lascannon, Drop Pod)


Two empty pods dropped to block in the Battle Wagons with a third Pod deploying the Honour Guard to attempt to blow up a BW. Their Melta Guns, being fickle beasts, missed and consigned the Honour Guard to their fate.
The nearest group of Shoota Boyz moved up and ate the Honour Guard and swept on to take centre Objective, both Battle Wagons rammed and blew up the Drop Pods and advanced up left flank. The 2^nd group of Shoota Boyz consolidated to the rt covering both Objectives.
The Tactical Squad Pods drop on the right flank and start to whittle down the Shoota Boy squad there. The Assault Squad pour out of the Land Raider and blow up the Mega Nobz Battle Wagon but are out of charge range. Ghaz was forced to use his Waaggh to avoid a Fear of the Dark roll.
The Mega Nobs counter charge Assault Squad and wipe them, on the far left the Slugga Boyz charge the Dev Squads and wipe them out moving on to take top left objective. The Shoota Boys on right multi-charge two of the Tactical Combat Squads and wipe them out.
The remaining Tactical Combat Squads wipe out the Lootas and continue to whittle down Shoota Boyz. On the left the lone Librarian Fear of the Darkness’s the Mega Nobz causing them to run.
Ghaz charges and blows up the Land Raider, the mid-table Shoota Boyz unit strings out to cover 2 objectives, while the remaining Shoota Boyz unit on the right charge nearest Tactical combat squad and are wiped.
Ghaz passes a last minute Fear of the Darkness test and kills the Librarian

Result: 3-2 win



Game 5 vs Eldar


Mission: Dawn of War / Capture & Control


HQ
Farseer (Bike, Runes of Warding, Runes of Witnessing, Spear, Doom, Guide Fortune)
5x Warlocks (Bikes, Spears, Destructor)


TROOPS
5x Dire Avengers (Wave Serpent w. Star Engines, Spirit Stones, Vectored Engines)
7x Guardian Jet Bikes


FAST ATTACK
6x Vipers w. Scatter Lasers


HEAVY SUPPORT
2x Fire Prisms


The Eldar get second turn, this is going to be tricky.
The Eldar objective is deployed in the extreme far left corner, the Ork objective is placed in cover table centre left.
Shoota Boyz deploy in cover on the Ork Objective, Ghaz with the other Shoota Boyz deploy in cover on left as far forward as possible. The Eldar deploy nothing and hold the Jetbikes in reserve.
The Slugga Boyz with the Mek in a Battle Wagon advance down the extreme left flank directly to wards the Eldar Objective. The Mega Nobz in their Battle Wagon came on to support the Shoota Boys on the Ork objective. The Lootas advanced on, roughly in the centre of the board.
The Vipers come on to threaten Ghaz’s squad on my left, the Seer Council, Dire Avengers & Prisms came in on my right to threaten my objective.
With no powers cast I shot everything at the council killing 2 and taking a wound off the Farseer. The Shoota Boyz took out a single Viper. The Battle Wagon on left continued to advance.
Concentrated firepower on the Shoota Boyz holding the Ork objective followed by Council charge wiped them.
The Battle Wagon on the left made it to objective and cordoned it off. The Mega Nobz counter-charged the council wiping them and consolidated towards Ork objective. The Lootas and Shootas combined to take out the Vipers
The Prisms and Wave Serpents turbo boosted to my side of the board, the Guardian Jetbikes arrived and turbo boosted close to my objective.
The Lootas took out the Dire Avengers' Wave Serpent, while the Mega Nobz circled the Ork Objective. Ghaz and the Shoota Boyz held midfield to be in charge range of anything coming across the board towards the Eldar objective.
One Prisim turbo boosted towards Eldar objective and the other lined up in board centre ready to tank shock onto Ork objective, the Dire Avengers moved into cover, towards the Ork objective.
Ghaz and Shoota Boyz charged and wrecked the nearest Prism. The Lootas could only Shake the other which then Tank Shocked the Mega Nobz off the Ork objective (who fell back) and the bikes moved in to score.
Turn 6 saw the Shoota Boyz and Ghaz Waagghing across the board and making it into combat with the Jetbikes, the Lootas also threw in with the assault. A ram from the Battle Wagon failed to take out the Prism. Fortunately the Jet Bikes were wiped and the Shoota Boyz made it into range to contest the Ork objective.
 In Turn 7 the Eldar could not kill enough Orks to force them off the objective.

Result: 1-0 Win


All that adds up to 4 wins and 1 loss for the weekend which, I have to say (again), I'm rather pleased with. I'm not oblivious to the fact that this was not the most competitive tournament in the world and the chances of me doing anything similar next month at at the GT are about the same as me making the San Francisco 49ers starting offence next season. However while not being super competitive, none of my opponents were push-overs and the only game which did not come down to the very last turn was Game 3, against the Black Templars.


I would like to respond to a comment our very own Grazer made on one of my previous posts. I was debating whether or not to take the Orks to this event because I was not completely used to them, I was considering reverting back to my Blood Angels for this. Now I do not regret taking the Orks and I definitely enjoyed playing them but if I had taken Blood Angels and managed a similar result, I would have been in the running to win the tournament (Ork Average score 11.85 vs Blood Angel Average score 6). It's lucky I'm rubbish with my Blood Angels or I might be thinking on what could have been ;)


Seriously though now I've got some good experience under my belt I'm seriously considering taking the Orks to the UKGT in March, I've just got to settle on how to spend the extra 250pts on bulking out this list.

Blog Wars - Game 2

 

Game 2 was against a “friend of From the Fang”, Dave Crawford, and his Blood Angel Army. He opened by telling me all about how, he'd only just come back to 40k and that he'd not won a game yet. Dangerous talk because my confidence level shoots through the roof and I start to make mistakes. This time however I had promised myself that I would play each game as though I knew my opponent was the best person in the draw. So I had a look at his list:

HQ

Dante

Honour Guard

(5) Blood Champion, Thunder Hammer, 2x Infernus Pistols, Storm Shield, Power Sword, Chapter

Banner

ELITE

Sanguinary Priest

(2) 2x Power Swords

TROOP

Assault Squad

(10) 2x Meltaguns, Power Fist

Assault Squad

(10) 2x Meltaguns, Power Fist

Assault Squad

(10) 2x Meltaguns, Power Fist

Scouts

(5) 5xSniper Rifles, Camo Cloaks

HEAVY SUPPORT

Dreadnought

2x TL Autocannon

Dreadnought

2x TL Autocannon

… lots of troops.

The mission was spearhead deployment and cleanse (table quarters), I lost the roll and Dave chose to go first. He combat squaded everything giving himself 8 scoring units (Special Characters count as scoring in this mission) deploying roughly half his force on the left of his deployment zone and the other half on the right. He placed his Dreads in the back corner and held Dante and his Honour Guard in reserve, the Scouts infiltrated into cover on his left flank.

I decided to split my force to send Ghaz and a Battle Wagon full of Boyz off to take on the three combat squads on the right, the Stormboys and the other Battle Wagon went left after the other three combat squads and the two Trukks were set up centrally, aiming for the back corner and the Dreadnought. The Lootas were placed pretty centrally in my deployment zone with good LoS to both flanks and I held the Gretchin in reserve (for a change).

Oh I forgot to mention the Deffkopta, that's probably because I forgot to scout it and two rending shots from the scouts later it was toast. Bit of a bummer really as I'd planned for that to go and root out the scouts. This was to set the scene for a roller-coaster of dice rolls that did not go my way, Nuffle was clearly not pleased with me for some reason!

Dave advanced down both flanks spreading my forces further apart, I pushed forward and at the top of turn 2 he made a play for my Battle Wagons with his meltas. Surprisingly the one with the KFF was destroyed while Ghaz's BW emerged unscathed, I felt pretty good though because all of his assault squads were now in charge range. I kept my Meganobs heading towards the Dreads in their Trukk, everyone else piled out of their vehicles keen to take on some crunchy marines, the 18 shoota and 12 sluggas went for the 10 marines who took out the BW and the 15 Stormboys went in on the remaining combat squad. Likewise the other unit of shootas went for the Marines who'd failed to take out their BW and Ghaz made a b-line for the last combat squad harbouring the second priest. I have to say I was feeling pretty confident here, I thought I'd wipe him out with Orks to spare to hunt for Dante when he arrived. I was wrong.

The Stormboys failed spectacularly losing combat and getting run down, the other combat on the left was similarly unsuccessful with two 5-man combat squads running down the 30 boyz who piled into them. Fortunately the marines did suffer heavy losses and they fell back into close proximity making an easy target. Over on the right the Shoota Boyz were able to hold the two Assault Squads they were engaged with and Ghaz made short work of the combat squad he was aimed at, freeing him up to come back and support the shootas.

The collapse of my left flank meant that the Meganobs had to come back and mop up the remaining marines there, while they managed this they suffered two losses thanks to a remaining power fist. And headed off to settle the Dreadnought who were contesting the back left quarter. While all this death and destruction had been happening, Dante and his Honour Guard had turned up and were happily tearing through my Lootas and the Gretchin who had turned up only moments earlier. Not to worry I thought, they're not Sanguinary Guard so Dante doesn't make them scoring (Face-Palm!)

So I moved the remaining shootas on my right to threaten his Scouts and charged my Meganobs into the nearest Dreadnought … and then the game ended. Draw I thought and then Dave reminded me that while the Honour Guard were not scoring, Dante was and I'd lost by a quarter. Kicking myself does not come close.

Aside from forgetting about Dante there were a couple of things which lost the game for me, first was not scouting my Deffkopta to get a cover save, I think he would have comfortably had those scouts, as it was, they took him out comfortably. Secondly was my complete failure on the left flank, causing my Meganobs to have to come back to secure it and that stopped them being able to clear the Dreadnoughts from the back quarter.

Grr, a frustrating loss thanks to some bad dice, forgetting mission rules and playing an opponent who stuck to his game plan. I was staring down the barrel of going win-less, lets hope I could pull it together in game three which would be a show down between Ghaz and Yarrick! Stay tuned.

In the Company of Marines



(Dave still cannot keep a straight face when he sees my pink 'n' purple Marines)

One of my fevered ideas, of which I have many, is to field a full company of one hundred Space Marines in a game of 40k. In a moment of weakness on Thursday, Gav (aka Claws & Fists, the head honcho around these parts) agreed to satisfy this most indulgent of requests and so, this coming Thursday, we will take to the table to fight out this Battle Royale.

In the Grey Corner...

...will be Gav's trusty Space Wolves - what else! Gav and I have played may games over the last two-and-a-bit years, since we both re-entered the hobby (originally unbeknownst to each other) and I struggle to recall a time when I have bested his wolfpelt-clad saviours of humanity.

In the Pink 'n' Purple Corner...

...will be my Chaos Space Marines, joined by about another seventy more Marines that I bought cheap from a mate of mine during the summer. These hundred power-armoured warriors will form the core of my Company of Marines for Thursday night's game, but my quandary is, which codex is best suited to fielding a full company of foot slogging Marines? The only requirement is that there are one hundred Space Marines on the table at the start of the game. They can be Scouts, regular Marines, Assault troops or even Terminators. I'm also happy to use a few Rhinos, as long as the points do not exceed 1,750pts.

My choices are:

 - Codex: Chaos Space Marines
 - Codex: Blood Angels
 - Codex: Space Wolves

The CSM book is my prefered option, as it allows me to field twenty-man strong Troops units which easily satisfies the purely numerical requirement of one hundred marines, however we all know that unless you play Plague Marines & Obliterators & Lash Prince, the CSM book is, umm, a little underwhelming, shall we say.

The BA book is a nice alternative, as the selection of a few Sanguinary Priests - with their 6" Feel No Pain bubble - will go a long way to keeping my infantry alive long enough to get into bolter range.

The third choice is to fight fire with fire. What better to fight Space Wolves with, but another army of Space Wolves? The real attraction here is the ability to field three full-strength units of Cheese-Fangs. As my foot-slogging army will be perilously under-powered in the big-gun department, the ability to fire Missile Launchers (and the odd Lascannon) at six different targets simultaneously is just to good to overlook.

So, it's over to you, the trusty crew of the good ship Claws & Fists. What do you think is the best way of fielding a full company of Marines?  

Doubles - Day 2

So, after a tough Day 1, we decided to sack off the 40K themed pub quiz. Instead, Andy's wife, Janet, picked us up and then we grabbed my fiance and a take-away on the way back to theirs. We proved our rock 'n' roll credentials by all falling asleep on the settee watching Forest Gump!

Game 4 vs Blood Angels & Space Marines

Two Vindicators, 5 TH/SS Terminators, a Captain with a Relic Blade, a 10-man Tactical Squad and 5 Scouts in the SM half. Two big Jump Pack Assault Squads, some Death Company and a Baal Predator in the BA half.

Again, we got lucky in winning the roll-off to be the attackers. This meant that we managed to get a first turn charge off and wreck a Vindicator and take out the Captain and a Combat Squad.  In the end, we managed to wipe out Dave's half of the army but Steve's remained reasonably intact. This meant that he could claim one Objective and contest another. However, the Nobz just about managed to get back to their deployment zone carrying one of the other Objectives so we just about won.

Game 5 vs Eldar & Eldar

In this mission you had to get as much of your army off the opposite board edge as possible. So, what's the worst possible list to face? Mech Eldar! Plus they went first. They had Eldrad, a big Seer Council with him and lots and lots of flying vehicles.

Turn 1 saw them Fortune and Turbo-Boost. Turn 2 saw most of their army leave the board. Somehow we managed to bring down the Seer Council but that just allowed them to cut their way through the Ork hordes in search of their secondary mission which was to kill all of our troops. The game was over by the end of Turn 2 and the only highlight we really had was Ghaz killing Eldrad at the bottom of Turn 7.

Conclusions

In the end we finished joint 39th (out of 113) which we were pretty happy with. Plus, we manged to post a winning record, which was a first for either of us at a tournament. Some quick points:

Ghaz was a beast, chopping down the enemy left, right and centre and refusing to die. 

There weren't as many Marines as we expected. We only played 3 MEQ armies out of 10.

We should have practised a bit more (this was my fault since I'd not been around much due to work before the tournament) We only played one game and we didn't have the opportunity to iron out the list. For example the Kanz were a bit rubbish all the way through. We could also have done with playing through the missions as well.

Despite the ker-azy missions, it was a fun tournament. All of our opponents were great guys and it was very well ran by GW.

We're not as good as our 3-2 record suggests. The results were a bit odd. We got absolutely battered in the first and last game and there wasn't much we could have done about it. Game 2 was against two guys who were still quite new to the game and very new to their army and we just capitalised on their mistakes. Game 3, I don't think our opponents had read the mission that closely and practically handed us the victory by letting us go first. Which left game 4 as a proper, down the wire game.

Read the rules pack. We were supposed to have written some fluff as to why our two armies were fighting together. Erm, they're Orks! However, the extra point would have seen us finish joint 28th instead. Curses! Just to rub it in, I've knocked up something and scheduled it for tomorrow...

Open War 16 Game two for Simo - Blood Angels

So after a decent if not overwhelming lunch featuring Andy performing the feat of the day (balancing at least 10 sarnies on a saucer) and me sharing some of the worldly advice on women that I so often dispense at tournaments. I headed upstairs to see who my game 2 opponent was.

To my surprise and happiness I see a Chaos space marines army facing me and just as we swap lists and I smile to see double lash and minimal scoring units which I feel I've got a good chance against with my 2 Rune priest list an announcement comes over that someone made a mistake with scoring and that isn't who I am facing. DAMN.

My new opponent is a Blood Angels army owned by Brett from The Good the Bad and the Dudley.

Over my tournament career I have played a number of players from this team and they have all been really good lads so I was hopeful of a nice friendly but competitive game and I certainly wasn't disappointed.

I'm a little bit fuzzy of the list but I will try my best.

I believe James had
1 Librarian with the preferred enemy power and the sword of sanguinius
1 Sang Priests
1 5 man scout squad
3 10 man assault squads
1 assault terminator squad
a land raider redeemer
3 autocannon lascannon preds

The mission was table quarters (2 points for holding an opposition table quarter with troops 1 for 1 of your own and you had to win by three points) with a dawn of war spin, you could deploy as many troops and HQ's as you want including dedicated transports but nothing else.

I won first turn and Brett decided to reserve his entire army and roll on with the raider and preds first turn and DOA the troops.

Because I had no idea where he would deploy I split my forces, used the turn to run my long fangs into the cover (which is so much better at Maelstrom than WHW) and stuck my dreadnought in the centre of the board in the hope that it would be able to threaten the entirety of the board and if nothing else tie up a assault squad minus a power fist in combat.

Brett brought his land raider on straight in front of a rhino with double melta and a speeder, hope of destroying it if at least one of those units can survive? Unfortunately no plan survives contact with the enemy, the land raider missed, my speeder but then I was reminded that all blood angel vehicles not just the Baal preds are fast and 3 predators firing later my speeder was a crater and my rhino was a hulk.

My turn two left me with my usual choice, do I play the mission or avenge my speeder and rhino with the squad, surprisingly I unwolfyly turned tail and ran so to stop the threatening terminators from quickly leaving me a squad down. The other half of my army continued to push forward to claim quarters while my long range fire power pumped shots into the front armour of the predators, eventually a missile shot got through, bounced around inside and left a smoking hull on the table, some sort of a result at least.

Brett's turn two saw his scouts and 3 combat squaded units come on, the scouts took the quarter that my unit had just made their tactical withdrawal from while the DOA troops landed in order to threaten my rhinos with their meltas, luckily for me one squad landed on a rock and was destroyed out right but the other two made light work of my las plas back and one of my rhinos leaving only one remaining. The big implication of this round of shooting was that my las plas squad were pinned and a flamestorm cannon was looking menacingly at them.

Turn 3 saw me move my dreadnought into position to get a side shot on a pred that it immobilised, took a weapon off and stopped from shooting so a result while my second speeder who had skirted the side of the board appeared 23 inches away from the rear armour of the remaining predator, one melta shot later and it was a steaming pile of molten slag, a lack of enemy long range fire power could perhaps turn this certain draw into a win. My fleeing squad continued to flee from the approaching raider.

Brett's turn 3 saw the inevitable flaming of my squad leaving me outnumbered on scoring units just about 2-1, he failed to bring down his remaining squads but that was no issue for him, choosing not to re roll in the guarantee that they would be on the table the shortest amount of time.

My turn 4 saw my speeder head towards his scouts who were hiding in a corner, they went to ground when the long fangs turned their missiles on them and survived the salvo crouching in their fox holes. The dreadnought finally finished the job it started on the predators and moved to repeat its first game job of slowing terminators. The two remaining squads of assault marines on the table died to a combined grey hunter assault and missile launcher bombardment. I now bettered the scoring units on the table controlling 2 of my quarters and 1 of the oppositions but as we know there were two units to come down.

Brett's turn four saw the remaining units fall but surprisingly they made sure of the draw rather than the win, the terminators, priest and librarian finally got out and assaulted the squad that had been playing cat and mouse for the game, surprisingly the grey hunters made a good account of themselves with the rune priest cutting down the librarian with a force weapon attack and my wulfen biting through a few inches of ceramite to chew down on a lightning claw wielding terminator. I lost combat but only required a 8 to stay in which I did, result!

The game didn't have a random end, it was definitely going to go on for 6 turns but the end was in site, a draw was going to be the outcome unless something catastrophic happened on either side. I moved a squad into the centre of a quarter out of line of site to guarantee the point and continued to move my speeder to the scouts which fell just short of flamer range. I also shot 15 missile launchers at his land raider glancing it once and stopping it from shooting.

In Brett's turn he consolidated one of my quarters by finishing off the rune priest and grey hunters them taking 1 thunder hammer terminator with them.

We decided to call it a day there, both of us had just made it onto the next point bracket for VP's so we weren't going to gain another one and neither of us would be pushing for the win, it was just too dangerous. When the points were totted up I had killed 100 more points of units than Brett so I ended the game with 16 points and Brett with 15.

Overall it was a really enjoyable game. I didn't see any glaring errors, I split my forces and perhaps if I hadn't it would have been easier to kill the Land raider that caused so many issues but I had have done it would have been far easier to pen me in. In the end the problem lay with the mission, unfortunately it wasn't a good one. It was too weighted towards the draw, it was a story that was heard all over the hall, to guarantee a win all you had to do was bubble wrap one squad in one of your opponents quarters, as soon as that happened, it was virtually impossible to win. Having spoke to the organisers I know that this will be sorted for next Open War so I'm not grumbling too much.

Unit of the match was probably my rune priest that cut down an enemy librarian, he also blocked the only psychic power of the game so it was a double victory although again my dreadnought decimating a predator made back its points by far.

Run Nobz Run!

Game 4 of the doubles this morning against Dave & Steve with Blood Angels and Space Marines. If the game had ended on Turn 5, we would have lost but a unit of Meganobz managed to run back to their deployment zone to nick it in turn 6.

AV13+ the Answer to Grey Knights?

Grey Knights, they are the en-vogue army of the moment. The majority of builds rely on packing in a disgusting volume of anti-infantry fire power (S4-6) and a similarly nasty amount of anti-light armour firepower (S7-8). To take out anything tougher they are typically relying on rolling 6s with S7 rending weapons, not bad but not exactly awesome.

Some people will suggest that fielding massed Terminators is the answer but GKs really do torrent of fire better then almost any codex (IG being the exception). While they do not pack a significant amount of AP2 or better they can put out enough wounds on T4 infantry to force enough armour rolls to make even a 2+ armour save feel a little shaky!

The solution in my opinion is to out range their anti-infantry firepower and pack as much AV13+ armour to take advantage of their lack of an ability to effectively deal with it. I predominatly play Vanilla Marines and Blood Angels so here are my suggested lists for countering Grey Knights:

Blood Angels

HQ
Librarian
Shield and Sword
ELITES
Terminator Assault Squad
5x THSS
TROOPS
Assault Squad
5 Marines, Land Raider w. Lascannons, TL Heavy Bolter & Multi Melta
Assault Squad
5 w. Meltagun in Las/Plas Razorback
Assault Squad
5 w. Meltagun in Las/Plas Razorback
FAST ATTACK
Baal Predator
Assault Cannon & Heavy Bolter Sponsons
Baal Predator
Assault Cannon & Heavy Bolter Sponsons
HEAVY SUPPORT
Predator
Autocannon Turret, Lascannon Sponsons
Predator
Autocannon Turret, Lascannon Sponsons
Devastator Squad
10 w. 4x Missile Launcher

Basically AV13 & 14 to the front, Devs combat squaded at the back with the Razorback shielded by the Preds so they remain mobile for as long as possible. The Land Raider goes to the Terminators and the Assault Squad whose transport it is stay in reserve.

Space Marines

HQ
Librarian
TDA w. Stormshield, Null Zone and Avenger
ELITE
Dreadnought
2x TL Autocannon
Dreadnought
2x TL Autocannon
Terminator Assault Squad
5x THSS, Land Raider w. 2x TL Lascannon, TL Heavy Bolter
TROOP
Tactical Squad
10 w. Meltagun & Missile Launcher, Las/Plas Razorback
Tactical Squad
10 w. Meltagun & Missile Launcher, Las/Plas Razorback
FAST ATTACK
Land Speeder
Multimelta & Heavy Flamer
HEAVY SUPPORT
Predator
Autocannon Turret, Lascannon Sponsons
Predator
Autocannon Turret, Lascannon Sponsons
Thunderfire Cannon

Once again AV 13 and 14 to the fore, there's enough spread to cover the Dreads in Razorbacks is necessary, otherwise you should be able to severely disrupt a mech heavy GK army with the TFC able to take out small units once they are out of their transports. The Terminators jump out if the opposition gets close enough to threaten your lines. Keep the Speeder in reserve as it's the weak link in the list but could definitely be handy if you see a Land Raider lined up against you though any GK build should be able to take it out comfortably.

Neither list is particularly exciting and you might well say, IG could do it better, and you'd be right. But if you don't have an IG army I think either of these is a pretty viable option to give you a solid chance against a mid-field gunline GK army.

Mech BA - Seen it all before

Another major bout of insomnia has hit me and I can't think of anything better to do than type up another BA List I'm thinking of trying out. I really like the DoA build I played against Darren last week and I think I can comfortably take that up to 1750 and have it be competitive. THis, however is much more of a Mech-build and designed around all the high AV vehicles that the BA's have available to them, i.e. AV13+

Here goes, let me know what you think:

HQ
Librarian
Unleash Rage, Shield

- Default choice for me, shield really benfits a mech build where he can spread the love between a pack of vehicles. Unleash rage means I can stick him with the Terminators to make them even more threatening.

ELITE
Terminator Assault Squad
(5) 3x LC, 2x THSS; Land Raider Redeemer w. Multi-Melta and Extra Armour
Sanguinary Priest
(1)

These guys work together as the spearhead of my wedge offering a combination of firepower from the redeemer and awesome assult potential from the furious charging terminators. The cornerstone of many BA lists.

TROOP
Assault Squad
(5) Meltagun; Razorback w. Lascannon & TL Plasmagun
Assault Squad
(5) Meltagun; Razorback w. Lascannon & TL Plasmagun
Assault Squad
(5) Plasmagun; Razorback w. TL Lascannon
Scout Squad
(5) 4x Combat Blade, Missile Launcher, Camo Cloaks & Melta bomb

Mo shooty goodness, Razorbacks are fragile but with the target saturation in this list will they be priority number one? Maybe but there's a lot of other nasty stuff out there that need to be thought about too. The Scouts hang out in cover on an objective and hope to be so unthreatening that they are ignored for the duration.

FAST ATTACK
Baal Predator
Flamestorm Cannon
Baal Predator
Flamestorm Cannon

The mop-up crew, everything else opens the cans, these guys BBQ the soft centres. Probably going to put one on each flank supporting the Auto-Las Preds.

HEAVY SUPPORT
Predator
Autocannon Turret, Lascannon Sponsons
Predator
Autocannon Turret, Lascannon Sponsons

And lastly we have the Auto-Las Preds, they will be advancing down either flank looking for side armour shots and hoping to split the enemy force to allow me to pick off a flank at a time.

I am tempted to switch out the Land Raider for a Storm Raven but it's a trade-off loosing the AV14 centre-piece of the line-up for more firepower. Tough call I do like what the Raven brings to the table but I also like driving 5 AV13+ vehicles straight at you on turn 1 giving you no easy/soft targets, unless you want to focus on the Razorbacks ...

Report: BA vs Grey Knights 1500pts

Mission: Spearhead, Capture & Control

Grey Knights List

HQ
Grand Master
Pyscannon, Psyc and Rad Grenades

TROOP
Terminator Squad
(10) 2x Psy Cannon, 2x Hammer (1xMC), 8 Halberds, Psybolt Ammo
Terminator Squad
(10) Brotherhood Banner, 2x Psy Cannon, 2x Hammer, Warding Stave, 6 Halberds, Psybolt Ammo

HEAVY SUPPORT
Dreadknight
Heavy Incinerator & Personal Teleporter

Blood Angels List

HQ
Librarian
Combi Melta, Unleash Rage & Blood Lance

ELITE
Sanguinary Priest
(2) 2x Jump Packs
Furioso Dreadnought
Blood Talons

TROOP
Assault Squad
(10) 2x Meltaguns, 1x Power Fist
Assault Squad
(10) 2x Meltaguns, 1x Power Fist
Scout Squad
(5) 1xMissile Launcher, Camo Cloaks

Vanguard Vets
(7) Jump Packs, 1x Power Fist, 2x Power Sword, 2x Storm Shield

Storm Raven
TL Multi Melta, TL Assault Canon, Extra Armour

The Blood Angles deployed their Storm Raven deep in the corner of their deployment zone with the Furioso Dread on-board, 1 Assault Squad went on the forward edge of their deployment zone with the Librarian and a Priest. The Scouts deployed in cover next to the objective. The Vanguard and the other Assault Squad with a Priest were reserved to deep strike.

TheBaron deployed the cheaper Terminator Squad in front of the other and attached the Grand Master to the rear squad. The Dreadknight was deployed off to the left of the deployment zone. The GM gave scout to the Dreadknight and the lead Terminator squad, the Dreadknight scouted out wide to my right and the termies scouted forward into cover.

Then Darren stole the initiative!

1st Turn: no GK units could get into assault range but between the lead Term unit and the DK's Heavy Incinerator the lead BA assault squad was taken down to 5 models from 12, fortunately the Priest and Librarian remained unscathed. In the Blood Angels' turn fire was focussed onto the Dreadknight with the Storm Raven taking 2 wounds off it after a barrage of missiles, then on the charge the Librarian was able to force weapon the Dreadknight before it got to swing, result!

Turn 2 saw the combined shooting of the two Terminator units finish off the remains of the Assault Squad, Priest and Librarian. My reserves arrived with the Vanguard Heroically Intervening against the lead Terminator squad but not before shooting from the Dreadnought, Storm Raven and the newly arrived Assault Squad had reduced their numbers by 4. The ensuing assault was won by the Blood ANgles by two with the vets losing a Storm Shield and a regular Vet.

The turns started to speed up significantly now as the model count was getting really light, turn 3 started off with a barrage of fire-power from the Grand Master's squad taking the remaining Assault Squad down to 6 men including the Priest. Feeling a little worse for wear, the Assault Squad jumped behind cover and took a couple of pot shots at the GM's squad. The Storm Raven moved into position to deliver it's Dread next turn and took a shot at whittling down the GM's squad as well. The combat between the Vanguard and the other Squad of Termies was finally won by the Vanguard Vets for the loss of only a couple of models.

The GKs tried, unsuccessfully to take out the Storm Raven which let the BAs set up a multi-charge between the remaining Vets and the Furioso Dread which did not go well. Thanks mostly to the GM's Psyk Grenades the Vets and Furioso were wiped out in a single turn for only one loss to the GKs. Turn 5 saw the end of the remnants of my last Assault Squad thanks to a brutal charge from the GM's Terminators which just left me to boost my Storm Raven onto the GK objective and cross my fingers.

The GKs were unsuccessful in their efforts to take out the SR in turn 6 and when they eventually wrecked it in turn 7 it was in the assault phase so there was nothing to be done about the SP who had slipped inside before the unsuccessful multi-charge in turn 4 so the Bas walked away with a 1-0 win thanks to the scouts who had camped out their objective for the whole game, completely unmolested and a single SP in the wreckage of a downed Storm Raven.

A TKO for me this time but Darren had me by a mile on VPs and Kps, I mean I had only 175pts left on the table and he had somewhere in the region of 500pts, probably a little more. Generally though I knew it was going to be a tough match up and I think that I got luck in the fact that this is the first time Darren has played the list. Next time I don't think I'll be so lucky and he'll make his DK count, it was a huge advantage for me to be able to take it out without it contributing to the fight. Also I think he would have been netter to use the GM's unit more aggressively as it's a complete beat-stick of a unit in assault and it sure can take a pounding in return.

A Tale of two Lists

I'm trying to come up with a Blood Angles list for the knock-out stage of our Club's 40k Tournament. There are some comp restrictions I have to work with which basically boil down to: no special or unique characters and in order to take multiple choices in Elites, Fast Attack & Heavy Support you must first have one choice in each FOC slot. Oh and it's a 1500pt competition.

With this in mind I present the following two lists for your consideration:

Offensive

HQ
Librarian
Jump Pack w. Blood Lance & Unleash Rage

ELITE
Chaplain
Sanguinary Priests
(2) 1x Jump Pack

TROOP
Assault Squad
(10) 2x Meltaguns 1x Power Fist
Scouts
(5) Combat Blades 1x Missile Launcher, Camo Cloaks
Death Company
(6) 1x Power Fist, 1x Power Weapon; Land Raider Redeemer w. Extra Armour & Multi Melta
Death Company Dreadnought
Blood Talons

FAST ATTACK
Land Speeder
Multi Melta

HEAVY SUPPORT
Storm Raven
TL Multi Melta, TL Assault Cannon, Extra Armour

Fragile scoring capability but the Death Company in the Land Raider and DC Dread in the Storm Raven will hit hard and need to be the focus of your opponent's attention early on affording your fragile Troop units a little more protection.

Defensive

HQ
Librarian
Jump Pack w. Unleash Rage and Fear of the Darkness

ELITE
Sanguinary Priests
(2) 1x Jump Pack w. Melta Bomb
Furioso Dreadnought
Blood Talons

TROOP
Assault Squad
(10) 2x Meltaguns 1x Power Fist
Assault Squad
(10) 2x Flamers 1x Power Fist
Assault Sqaud
(5) Land Raider w. Multi Melta

FAST ATTACK
Land Speeder
Multi Melta
Land Speeder
Multi Melta

HEAVY SUPPORT
Storm Raven
TL Multi Melta, TL Plasma Cannon, Extra Armour

More defensive this one with durable and versatile scoring units combined with nasty counter assault units that can go on the offensive

Have at it all!