As I mentioned last time, I had a chance to test out a 1500 point list in a local RTT for my Imperial Fists army. It was a nice “dry run,” and a chance to figure out what I need to add to the force when I scale it up to 1850 points. I took the following list:
Belial
Deathwing Terminators: 4x TH/SS, one with Assault Cannon
Rifelman Dreadnought
Tactical Space Marines: 10x, Meltagun, Rhino, Sergeant with Power Axe
Tactical Space Marines: 10x, Meltagun, Rhino
Company Command Squad
Platoon Command Squad
Infantry Squad: Missle Launcher, Chimera with Heavy Stubber
Infantry Squad: Missle Launcher, Chimera with Heavy Stubber
Heavy Weapons Squad: 3x Autocannons
Vendetta
I got down to the Game Shoppe on Sunday (it was a late start – it was nice to roll in at noon!) and there were only four people counting myself. That made the event a kind of round robin since we’d all be able to play each other. Now this is a “Foodhammer” tournament – you pay your entry fee in cans, and if you bring additional cans you can buy rerolls in your games. I did not hesitate to do this :), especially after last year when I took some weird principled stand and refused to bring extra cans. That proved to be my undoing when in the final game I went up against Deathwing and watched him use cans to rerolls any 1s he managed to actually turn up.
This tournament, I played Necrons first round. No fliers, instead he had two A-Barges, a lord on chariot, three warrior squads, a wraith squad, deathmarks, and a monolith. We played a kill point game – and I made some mistakes that made the game challenging. I surged my tac squads towards his line, when I really should have held back. His monolith deep struck in right in front of my guard line … leaving me with nothing in my backline to handle the big thing. I should have held my tac squads back so I had meltas to put into that thing. I really regretted that when I found out he could teleport warrior squads to the monolith, putting even more pressure on my guard and chimeras.
I had Belial and co deep strike behind his a-barges, and he promptly threw his wraiths in and tar pitted for several turns. In the end, I killed just enough to get a 1 VP win over him.
In round 2 I played Eldar with a wraithknight. The mission was the Relic. This is where Belial and the Deathwing really came through. With deathwing assault and not scattering thanks to Belial, I was able to come in on turn 1 and take the Relic. He threw his Harlequins and Wraithknight at the squad, but thanks to some reroll tickets I survived long enough to take them down. The autocannons and chimeras really kicked ass in this game – his warwalkers were dead after one turn. He didn’t have any wave serpents though, and I really wish I could have tested out my autocannon line against those awesome tanks.
In round 3, my opponent had to drop because of a family issue. I played the ringer, who had a black templar force. This match up was rather easy – we played the long table deployment. I deep struck Belial and co in right next to his land raider. The squad got wiped out eventually, but I got first blood and killed his HQ before that and it bought me some key turns of avoiding his terminators and allowing me to focus fire his other squads. I ended up killing everything but his techmarine.
So I won the “tournament” by virtue of being the only undefeated person. I now have to figure out to fill 350 points. I have a tough decision to make when the SM codex comes out, because I really liked Belial and his squad. Having a 2+/3++ squad count as troops, and not scatter on deep strike was pretty awesome. I will most likely keep the TH/SS squad since I don’t have time/money to fill those points elsewhere in time for the October tournament but they would function as more of a counter assault / line protecting force for the guard.
That being said, I feel like my army lacks templates. I really want to try out a whirlwind or two plus a vindicator. Or maybe 2 vindicators plus one whirlwind. This might all change with the new SM codex. Those chapter tactics are mighty interesting, and some tank hunting devastators would be sweet. I’m really digging the rumors for the space marine codex. I was hoping that the new AA Tank would be better, but without interceptor it will be tough to take a specialized vehicle like that just for flyer hunting. I’d much rather have a rifledread that can take out light armor on the ground or hope for 6s with twin linked. The same is true for my autocannon guard team.
We’ll see what happens. I won some money for winning the RTT and I’ll be zooming on down to the Shoppe the first weekend of September to pick up my codex. I can’t wait. More importantly, I have to PAINT. Right now I have one tac squad and a rhino painted …. and that’s it. Most everything is primed and ready to go, with the exception of a Platoon HQ, my vendetta, and a Chimera. I have nine weeks to the Khornehusker. I’ve done much bigger armies in less time (I painted up an entire 2500 point Empire army with 80 halberds among other things in five and a half weeks), but I really want to do this one right. This is my heresy army, and it needs to look good for the team tournament at Adepticon.
One nice thing about taking guard allies is I can rotate my painting: a IF squad, a guard squad, and so on. That way I’m not stuck painting yellow for weeks on end. I’m going to try to stick to this schedule:
8/18-8/24: Guard Squad and Chimera
8/25-8/31: Tactical Squad and Rhino
9/1-9/7: Heavy Weapons Team, CCS, PCS
9/8-9/14: Terminators, HQ
9/15-9/21: Guard Squad and Chimera
9/22-9/28: Vendetta, ???
9/29-10/5: New additions (the 350 points up from the list I posted)
10/6-10/12: New additions
10/13-10/19: Display board
Now I have some added motivation in the form of a paint and play league that starts off September 9th. I have to have 500 points painted at that point, and if I follow that schedule I definitely will. I also really like building forces from the ground up – in the league we start with 500 points and add 250 every month. This is obviously designed to get folks ready for spring tournaments (like Adepticon) and not the Khornehusker.
That’s all the new for now. I hope to make a post about my fantasy plans/musings fairly soon.