Blame this one on the beating the Black Templar took today, along with Stelek's 'Top Ten Units of 2009' post.
On the BT Front
Fact is that there's just not a ton you can do if the enemy wants to make your troops go away and they're all on foot.
This time around, the Guard player wasn't nearly as frightened of the Templars, so he blew the hell out of my troops.
Had I been really, really lucky with the dice, I might have actually won because he wasn't paying quite as much attention to the objectives. I would have had to have a Terminator get a better 'run' roll (...or not have, y'know, botched his bloody morale check...) to get within 3" of one objective, and have the game end on turn 5; that would've made it 2-1 in terms of objectives.
As it was, I had the Grey Knights, a random BT terminator, and about 9-10 guys in power armor alive at the end when I conceded.
Highlights included a Hellhound and a lone marine with a lascannon trading shots for about 3 turns. Additionally, two surviving terminators took two wounds and pulled snakeyes on the armor saves. Yay. I really needed that.
The short version of his list was:
Company Command w/ MEltas in Chimera
Allied battle sisters w/ flamers (borrowing 'toon command's Chimera)
2 melta-vet squads
toon command w/ flamers
30-man 3x autocannon + commissar platoon
2 Hellhounds (Hull meltas)
Vendetta w/ Heavy Bolters
2 Russes w/ Lascannon, Sponsons
1 Demolisher w/ HHF
I managed to do SOME damage, but not NEARLY enough, obviously.
Bottom line with Foot Armies?
Mech up. If you don't have a crap-ton of guns (...IE: Tau, IG potentially) or speed (SW Cav Lists) or have a heap of monstrous creatures and/or speed (IE: up-and-coming Tyranids) then you're just not gonna do that well against a decently-run, decently-built mech-heavy force. (Or Tyranids, probably.) I consider myself a decent player (...I just sound smarter on the internets because I wrote way too many papers in college) but I'm just not seeing a real decent way to make this list work against nastier opponents. I might've been able to win that Chaos match from last time with better target priority, but against a lotta tanks + a lotta guns, it's uphill.
On to Space Wolves
So, another brainstorm. This brought to you in part by the Stelek post mentioned previously, and in part to me realizing that I'd be able to pull this together without a lot of money spent (...just need to get a few Dreads and a few tanks and some bits). Basically, the goal is "I Go First. You Get Hurt." To that end...
HQ
Bjorn the Fell-Handed [270]
-Assault Cannon
Inquistor Lord [82]
-Bolt Pistol, CCW
-Hood
-Emperor's Tarot
Retinue:
3x Heavy Bolter Servitors [87]
2x Mystics
Elites
Dreadnought w/ TL Autocannons [125]
Dreadnought w/ TL Autocannons [125]
Troops
5 Grey Hunters w/ Flamer [80]
Razorback w/ Lascannon, TL Plasma Gun [75]
5 Grey Hunters w/ Flamer [80]
Razorback w/ Lascannon, TL Plasma Gun [75]
5 Grey Hunters w/ Flamer [80]
Razorback w/ Lascannon, TL Plasma Gun [75]
5 Grey Hunters w/ Flamer [80]
Razorback w/ Lascannon, TL Plasma Gun [75]
Fast Attack
4 Thunderwolf Cavalary w/ Thunder Hammer [230]
4 Thunderwolf Cavalary w/ Thunder Hammer [230]
4 Thunderwolf Cavalary w/ Thunder Hammer [230]
Total: 1999/2000
Now, I could theoretically turn the Inquisitor into a Multi-melta bunker in a Rhino; I'd need to find at least 20-30 points to upgrade the bolters to multi-meltas, and then get them a Rhino (50 points from the DH 'dex, 35 from the Wolf 'dex)
Logic behind the choices
Bjorn + Inquisitor means I'll usually have a +1 to my roll for first turn, AND a re-roll. From there, I need to take as large an advantage as I can with that, so it's a mix of guns and/or cavalry.
My best choice for firepower/durable scoring units is (I feel, anyway) 5 Grey Hunters with a flamer in the shooty-back. They can torch smaller squads and potentially beat them down in melee. Also, since I'm running 5-man squads with my Templar, I can just give a guy a flamer and they're suddenly interchangeable (...and I'll have to change out a plasma gunner, but what the hell, right? That's 4-5 guys, or a couple of those small unit boxes).
Bjorn gets an assault cannon because I'm too cheap to give the boggart a lascannon; he's ALREADY 270 freaking points. He can amble up behind the Thunderwolves.
The rifleman dreads are in there for four reasons:
1) They'd be hella fun to convert
2-4) dakka, dakka, and dakka
They can help me work over lighter armor and put a hurt on things at range. Now, in fairness, that's 250 points of shooting. Given the slots, I could get some other stuff for that price; I could probably shave some points and fit in three dakka-preds. However, the Dreadnoughts can move and shoot, and while they don't throw out as many shots as the Predators, the Dreadnoughts can threaten armor with all their shots, and are more accurate with it. Plus, they can scrabble onto rooftops if needs be. I'd probably look into Typhoon speeders if, y'know, I wasn't planning on running Thunderwolves.
As I have thunderwulf cav, I am not quite so worried about killing infantry, so yeah.
Thoughts on that?
Other brainstorm: if I were going to try to run footslogging Terminators, here's what I'd probably really roll with:
Space marine codex
Shrike, Null Zone Librarian, ~10 TH/SS terminators infiltrated.
2-3 Tacticals in Rhinos with multi-melta/flamer.
Fire support to taste.
The draft (that I'll probably never field) looks something like:
Shrike [195]
Libby w/ Termie Armor, Storm Shield Null Zone, Might of the Ancients [140]
9 TH/SS Termies [360]
2 Rifleman Dreads [2*125 = 250]
3 MM/Flamer Rhino-Tacs [3*205 = 615]
1 Las-plas razorback + squad [165]
3 Dakka Preds [3*85 = 255]
Total: 1980/2000
I could drop the Rifleman Dreads for 3 HB/Typhoon landspeeders, which would trade some firepower/durability for mobility and the ability to hide and/or get off some shots.
The basic idea would be to infiltrate the terminators with Shrike, then rush the tacticals forward to melta-bunker and support them. The rest of the army sits back, makes loud noises, and ideally targets transports so the fleet terminators use hammers to introduce forehads to brain pans.
The Librarian either Null Zones enemy CC specialists with invulnerable saves, or activates Might and swings at S6 with 2d6 for armor penetration. Any of the shooting powers would invariably work to keep me out of assault, and with the Might he's at least vaguely comparable to a Gray Knight Terminator.
Shrike hangs out and plays cutty cutty stabby stabby with the rending lightning claws, or splits off to go eat a smaller squad on his own. Depends on what I need done. He also makes sure the Librarian's hood will actually be in range (or close to it) from the get-go.
And that's your wall of text to the face for the day.
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6 comments:
Space Wolf set up looks neat, but I'm not sure how the Inquisitor is going to make it sitting around all by his lonesome. A Rune Priest is better psychic defense I think, plus you can fit in Bjorn's pew pew lazor.
I had considered something similar for a Shrikewing army, I just ran more Scouts to have a bunch of infiltrators showing up turn 1. DSing MM/HF Speeders would be handy too.
On the wolf list, the Inquisitor's point is to sit there with the Tarot to help make sure Bjorn means I go first. You do have a point about him being on foot, but my theory is that with Thunderwolves running around and Razorbacks in the back (along with a couple of Dreads) that he'll get largely ignored. I mean, it's a psychic hood and some heavy bolters. It's not THAT huge a deal unless they're reliant on pyschic powers.
Then again, I'd probably be advancing a Razorback or two at some point, so I could easily just toss the Priest in one and give him a couple 'used indoors' abilities like Thunderclap or something else. Then it's a question of what to do with the other 60ish points that frees up. Bjorn's lascannon drops it to just over 40, and I suppose I could drop a couple Wolfen Marks in there or some such, but stiil.
On the marines, I could probably go MM/HF speeders without losing a lot, The main goal with that list was to hurl someone onto the back foot with everything coming at them, and I'd assumed three Rhinos of claiming units and the Terminators might be a good start at that. Still, it would give me meltas downfield faster, which is never a bad thing.
Your opponent chose some odds weaponry - why did he take hellhounds against marines? The banewolf is an autotake against marines ... also taking the heavy bolter AND heavy stubber on the banewolf makes total sense as you have a template of autokill plus 6 dakka shots to finish off the last marine standing (usually with a meltagun) ... not being mean, but this Guard list is not very tailored - which is nice for you, but doesn't really reflect the metagame out there.
Additionally, his Vendetta did away with the need for Lascannons on the Battletanks - I always take either a Vanquisher plus lascannon OR a Leman Russ plus 3 HB for maximum squad killing potential.
Personally I'd have save points on the Multimeltas and Lascannons and bought more Chimera's - stationary pillboxes would have caused much more pain.
I think his Hellhounds are an all-comer thing. Against anyone else, it's just death to any infantry that get popped out of transports.
I do agree with you on the hull lascannons, though. He likes 'em, though I don't like BS3 on them.
I think tailoring can readily produce results, but honestly, I'm more of the 'take an all comers list' type, and I have several list options available to me just so someone doesn't decide to tailor to beat me.
"the heavy bolter AND heavy stubber on the banewolf makes total sense as you have a template of autokill plus 6 dakka shots to finish off the last marine standing
[...]
Leman Russ plus 3 HB for maximum squad killing potential."
not being mean but do you realize those loadout are actually less effective than the main weapon alone to kill marines ?
It will be great to watch Army Black Knights,i have bought tickets from TicketFront.com looking forward to it.
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