First thoughts on Tau/SM

One of my new Tau Overlords....

After looking over the new SM codex, I have a few ideas for list builds incorporating my recent Tau acquisitions.  Everyone is well aware that Tau is very strong right now, and there are very few lists that cannot benefit from some Kroot, a Skyray, and a Riptide.  So I am still working on how I want to build a SM primary.  In the meantime, I am working on how Marines can benefit Tau.  Tau have overwhelming firepower, AA, and cheap troops, but lack somewhat in mobility, durability, and melee (duh).  So those are the areas I think I will focus on with SM allies.

My current Tau primary looks something like this:

Commander in Iridium Armor with PEN, CnC, MSS, RVT, Flamer x2, and PR (expensive, but reduces the need for marker lights)
Kroot x 40
2 Riptides with EWO, VT, IA, and TL Fusion
2 Skyrays with BSF

NOVA List and Theme Items for Narrative

T-shirt back design

My wife and I spent the last couple of nights working on my "Theme Gear" for the NOVA.  We used one of our friends' Cricket cutters to make the T-shirt.  The details of the Narrative are still a little sketchy, so I went with a fairly straight-forward design based on the old "Uncle Sam Wants You" posters.  The PAX is basically the new planetwide police/defense force, so I thought it would be a good reference.  The front pocket has a small design of the Air Force Memorial.

Down to two lists for NOVA!

Picture is unrelated... but still super cool!

After doing some debating and flipping some coins, I have narrowed down my options for the NOVA Narrative event to two main options.  I will either take my Honor Guard Grey Knights or Vanilla Marines with a non-Pally GK contingent.  Overall, I am expecting the Narrative to be a little more low-key than the GT, so my list decisions are being decided largely by theme and what I have painted well.  For example, I decided that Dread Calgar is a requirement in whichever list I take. I just love the model too much not to use it.  That pretty much ruled out the Vanilla Marine list unless I take allies.

Help me pick my NOVA list!

So I am currently scrambling to finalize my list for the NOVA Narrative Event.  When I registered, I completely missed the part about submitting my list ahead of time.  The draft primer can be found here, but the main highlights are:

2000 points (NOT 1999+1) with full use of Double FOC and Allies
Forgeworld is allowed, but no Superheavies/Gaurgantuan Creatures (could be interesting)
8 Points for completing two Missions each round
8 Points for KPs each round
10 Theme points for modeling/converting to match the narrative
"Infamy" points for completing random objectives (probably my main goal)
Painting Score (not much I can do about that in three weeks with the upcoming move)

Updating the Honor Guard for 6th

I am already very happy with my Honor Guard list, so I really only see making minor tweaks to bring them into 6th Edition.  It was already a solid list with a lot of flexibility, so it made the transition pretty well in its current form.  Yes, all the units lost AP2 Force Weapons, but that isn't a deal breaker.  My current list is:

Draigo
Paladins (5) with DH x2, Halberd x2, Pyscannon x2, and Banner
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
Venerable Pysfleman
Pysfleman Dread
Stormraven with TLMM and TLPC and SL
Dread Calgar with Teleporter

The main units that had some changes include:

Second Company in 6th Edition....

Papa Smurf is BACK!

When I started 40K about two three years ago, I chose Ultramarines Second Company as my first army, so it is only fitting that I start with them for 6th Edition.  While my Battleforce Marines are a good starting point, I think I am going to start from scratch to see how I can best take advantage of the new 6th edition rules.  For the first iteration, I am focusing solely on "pure" Space Marines without allies until I get a better handle on how things are going to shake out.  At first I was making this a 1999 list, but decided to put on my big-boy pants and just go to 2K.  I doubt the second FOC is going to really make any armies really OP.  A few older books might get a boost, but I figure a well-built list will be able to handle any shenanigans.  (Warning... this is a long post, so feel free to skip ahead)

HQ(s):

When I build a Space Marine Army, I generally start with the HQ because of the FOC and Chapter Tactics shenanigans.  In my opinion, there are four main HQs that fit my playstyle and are worth considering for the list:

Building a list around Lychguard...

Necron version of TH/SS Terminator

As I mentioned in a previous article, I think that Lychguard are not only beautiful models, but have decent rules.  However, they REALLY need some support to make them worthwhile.  They have several major weaknesses and I personally think that Wraiths can do almost anything a Lychguard unit could better and cheaper.  Wraiths have better invulnerable saves, are faster, are cheaper, and have multiple wounds.  9 times out of 10, if I was looking for a counter assault unit, I would go with the Wraiths.  However, that is not the point of this exercise, so I am going to focus on ways to mitigate the weaknesses of Lychguard and look at how they can differentiate themselves from Wraiths and Scarabs.

2K Necrons with Nemesor Zahndrekh

As I have looked through the Necron Codex, several shiney things caught my eye.  One of my biggest "failings" in making competitive lists is that I generally like to field big, flashy HQs and/or a centerpiece deathstar unit.  My favorite Smurfs lists had Calgar or Librarians leading Honorguard or Assault Termies riding in a Land Raider.  My Honorguard lists are built around Draigo and Pallies (the very definition of overpriced deathstar).  I have never been much for many of the MSU-style shooty builds, as they lack what I consider an "epic" character--both figuratively and literally.  Nothing against them (they are generally much more effective), but I enjoy having some sort of hero character/unit in my armies.  As I was reading through the Necron Codex, I was immediately drawn to three entries--Lychguard, Nemesor Zahndrekh, and Vagard Obyron. 

Necrons... dun dun dunnnnhhhhhhh

A new threat arises....

So I have been acting like a little kid lately--saving up money from my birthday, Christmas, and extra jobs to buy my next new toy.  However, as I am also masquerading as a "grown-up", my toys are more expensive and of the plastic crack variety.  The new Necron codex has caught my eye and I plan on building a 1500-2000 point army list to act as a foil to my Ultramarines Second Company and Honorguard.  I have the devious goal to try and get my friends hooked on plastic crack too, and I think the best way to do this is through intro games with two well-painted, evenly matched armies.

"Improved" 2K Honor Guard List

Future Thrawn Model

After doing some playing around with Army Builder, I am leaning towards tweaking my 2K Honor Guard build.  While Draigo and five Pallies can survive pretty well at 1500, I think their effectiveness is somewhat suspect at 2K, where an opponent can throw a lot more firepower at them every turn.  Torrenting them down actually comes into play.  At that point, I either have to commit to a full ten-man unit or drop them completely.  Because of this, I am looking at switching out for Termies led by Thawn (aka Chapter Champion) and supported by a Librarian.  I lose some of the flexibility of Grand Strategy, but gain more bodies, another Razorback, and a teleporter for the Dreadknight (which should make him more of a legitimate threat).  Here is what it looks like:

Honour Guard at 1500 RTT

So I finally was able to take my Honour Guard (Counts as GK) out for a spin today in a 1500 RTT.  It was super small (10 people), but was still fun as normally I spend my time playing just one other person/army all the time.  It was definately nice to have an opportunity to play other armies.  It was a very suprising meta, as here were at least three Chaos Space Marine players and a Necron player, but SW, BA, and DE were all not represented.  I think some of the normal heavy hitters were at 'Ard Boyz.

My list was:
Draigo (Chapter Champ)
5 Pallies with 2 Pyscannons, 2 DHs, and Brother Hood Banner
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
2 Pyflemen
1 Dreadknight with no upgrades (CALGAR!)

New Draigo List

I think I might have a handle on a reasonably competitive Draigo list now.  I stole most of it from Hulksmash.  I won't have as much S8+ target saturation as my previous lists, but I think the extra bodies will compensate:

HQ
Draigo

Troops
GKSS with Pyscannons x2, Pysbolts, and Rhino
GKSS with Pyscannons x2, Pysbolts, and Rhino
Paladin Squad
  DH and MC Pyscannon
  Halberd and MC Pyscannon
  Halberd
  Sword
  DH

Elites
Purifier Squad (5) with Pyscannon x2 and Rhino
Purifier Squad (5) with Pyscannon x2 and Rhino

Heavy
Dreadknight with Teleporter
Pysfleman
Pysfleman

5 Termies from hell, 30 Marines, 4 Rhinos, a DK, and 2 Pysflemen seems like a fairly solid force. 

More GK Thoughts

This week has been crazy busy at work and at home both, so I have not had too much time for 40K.  However, last Saturday I was able to get two more 2K games in with my proxy Grey Knights.  I was going to do Bat Reps, but life got in the way and unfortunately I don't remember enough of the details to make the read interesting.  Both were KP games against Mech Marines and they were both pretty convincing wins.  Here are some of the main takeaways I had:

Draigo and his Paladin Bodyguard (or vice versa):  8 MC Pyscannon shots a turn are nothing to laugh at.  They shred light vehicles and even LRs don't like eating that kind of firepower for more than a turn or two.  They hold up pretty well against the occasional lascannon/MM shot, but torrents of shots still down them fairly fast without an Apothecary.  I still love the unit and want to make it work. 

Interceptors:  I want to love them, but they are very expensive for what they currently do.  The Pysbolt upgrade and the MC on the DH might have to go to make them more affordable.  Both upgrades are temptations to either shoot at AV11 or try to take on Dreads (both of which I tried to do in test games).  Fully upgraded, they cost almost as much as the Paladin squad, so using them as a simple harassment or sacrifice unit just isn't cost effective.  The shunt is simply amazing though.  It can be used to hop into a hole in enemy lines or a parking lot, jump out of a bad position, or go for a last-turn objective grab.  The tactical flexiblity is great, but it is a yet another pricey unit in an expensive army.  I plan on keeping this unit in the list, but trying to strip the points down some. 

MM/HF Venerable Dread:  Another unit that has been "solid" but overall untested and unimpressive.  One MM shot at BS5 isn't terribly impressive on such an expensive platform.  The WS5, S10 DCCW is nice, but a DK can do it better and cheaper.  The Reinforced Aegis can be useful, but I'm not sure if it is worth it.  Overall, I think this unit is probably getting axed.

GKSS:  The 10 man unit is a solid block and has done a good job of supporting the Paladins.  If they get the chance to anchor in a stationary spot, they can dish out some serious hurt with their Pyscannons.  With the full 10 men, I feel confident with them hanging outside of their Rhino during KP games.  The 5 man squad, not so much.  I didn't feel like they were worth exposing to small-arms fire and risking a KP.  In both cases, they are overly expensive to use as screening/charge absorbing units. 

Pysflemen:  I love these guys... they live up to they hype and then some.  Point them at anything AV12 or less and it gets shredded.  My only quibble is that I only have 3 Heavy slots for them, which leads to my last unit:

Dreadknight:  The DK has performed very well for me.  In one game it got to shunt punch a LR on T1 which was basically an autowin.  The second game it never even shunted and used its 12" moves to force my opponent to double-back with TH/SS Termies to kill it.  This bought me an extra couple of turns to kill his LR and ignore his Termies.  Had he not diverted to kill it, the DK would have ran rampant through his backlines.  Yes, it can be shot to hell pretty fast, but most armies have a limited amount of high strength AP2 to split between it and Paladins.

Overall, the army has been effective against Mech Marines, but it definately has a lot of weaknesses.  It is slow with limited long-range reach and power is concentrated in a small number of units.  It has no screening units or movement-blocking units to slow down aggressive assault armies and has only a single MM to handle LRs.  I definately plan on reworking it tomorrow.

New 2K Draigo List

So I threw the question out to the web about how to run a competitive Draigo list.  The replies I got back were a mixed bag.  Some thought he wasn't as good as a regular GM with grenades while some (like me) are in love with his T5 and Eternal Warrior.  The best advice I saw was to use him in a list similar to a regular GM, so that is what I went with:

HQ
Draigo

2K Imperial Dragoons

One of the two players who tied for 1st place was kind enough to give me a copy of his list.  I thought it was a pretty cool list (and was painted VERY well) and I thought I would post it here.

2K Imperial Dragoons (BA Codex)

HQ
Librarian

Blue Angels Lists

Occasionally I run my Smurfs as Counts As Blood Angels.  I love fast vehicles and many of the options afforded in the BA book such as Apothecaries (see my Brother Corbulo above) and Librarian Dreads.  Not to mention that Assault Squads don't stink in the BA codex.  I can translate my Marine lists pretty easily with minor changes.  Neither of these lists are anything special, but I have used the 1750 with reasonable success.  I haven't used the 2K one, but I think it would be fun to use once I get a Stormraven painted.  One thing I would probably look at changing the MM/HF Speeders into MM ABs because of FNP. 

1750
Pretty standard shooty list.  Corbulo and Libby and the PW Sarg act as a ghetto counter assault unit to take on Combat Squads and whatnot. 

HQ
Libby with Shield and Unleash Rage (I like being able to pop this to bust out CC on my opponent's turn)

New Paladin List

I reworked the troops section of my previous Pally list.  Now it looks something like this:

HQ
Libby with Halberd, Sanctuary, Shrouding, Might, Quickening, and Warp Rift

Elites
Paladin Squad (5)
  MC Pyscannon and Halberd
  MC Pyscannon and DH
  Halberd
  Sword
  Falchion
Venerable Dreadnought with MM/HF

Troops
Strike Squad (10) with 2 Pyscannons, Pysbolts, and Rhino
Strike Squad (10) with 2 Pyscannons and Rhino
Strike Squad (5) with Pyscannon and Razorback with Psybolts

Fast Attack
Stormraven with MM and Assault Cannon

Heavy
Pysfleman Dreadnought
Pysfleman Dreadnought
Dreadknight

Depending on deployment and who goes first, the SR can suicide into the enemy lines with the Ven Dread and Pallies or just ferry a GKSS around.  Might not work, but it's a starting point

Wanting to Make Pallies Work

So far the GK codex has been a tough nut for me to crack, especially without my trusty Army Builder files.  (The French translation just doesn't cut it.)  I have two main problems that are giving me fits.  The first is how to properly utilize the Inquisition units without turning into a wannabe-IG army.  The other is how to fit in some of what I would consider the cooler models into a non-fail list.  Sometimes I think GW goes out of their way to make the better looking models perform only so-so on the tabletop.  When a new codex comes out, everyone buys the new shiny models because they look so nice, then when the players realize those models have cruddy rules, they have to shell out for the more effective units.  Just compare the effectiveness of units such as the Blood Angels' Stormraven, Libby Dreadnought, Death Company, etc to MSU/Razorback Spam.  Likewise, Coteaz and Crowe spam seem to be relatively point and click, while Paladins, Termies, Stormravens, and (to a lesser extent) Dreadknights seem to be harder to work into a coherent list.  The catalyst for my rant is none other than the Paladin unit.  As much as I want them to be awesome, they have some serious issues in a competitive lists.

1500 GK Starter List Design

While I'm used to normally playing at the 1850 level, games around here seem to be much smaller.  I am going to start the GK army at 1500 and work my way up as time and money permit.  I figure anything below 1500 will be tough for any sort of GK army that doesn't lean hard on inquisition forces.  I'm not against Inquisition in general, but I want to use the GK models I already have which are mostly PAGKs and GKTs.

Having said that, I plan on starting with a pretty vanilla list.  Nothing fancy like Draigo, Mordrak, Coteaz, or shunting for 1st turn assaults.  I think those options are better left for after I have a better feel for the codex and am operating at higher points values.  For now, I want to start with the "must haves" from the GK codex and then support them with mostly GK forces.  Anyone who has been following the internet chatter can probably guess what they are:

1.  Pysfleman Dreads
2.  Vindicare Assassin
3.  Purifiers

Personal List Design Principles

When I first started my SM army, I went with "battleforce" approach, using a variety of units.  Overall, I think that worked out fairly well, as it gave me a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the codex and its units before I focused in on one particular build.  That and it gave me a lot of options when it came to building lists for different points levels, events, and whims.  So I am going to stick to that strategy while building the GKs.

Having said that, when it comes to designing lists, I believe in:

1.  Redundancy-If my lists needs to do something, then I'm not leaving it one unit
2.  Duality-I greatly prefer units that can handle tanks or infantry as needed
3.  Saturation-I want to force my opponent to make hard choices about targeting
4.  Dispersion-I don't like too many eggs in one basket
5.  Synergy-I love force multipliers IF they also fullfil the previous criteria

What I do NOT believe in is SPAM.  Once again, this is the product of my Space Marine upbringing where multiple units can serve similar but slightly different roles.  For example, MM Landspeeders vs attack bikes and Riflemen Dreads vs Combi/Dakka Preds.  Personally, I have found that by using both in the same list provides more overall flexiblity to the list while not sacrificing the main purpose of the units.  Further, by mixing the list up slightly, it tends to lead towards a more visually pleasing army (ala White Dwarf picture spreads) and better soft scores.  I'm not denying the effectiveness of spam and do not feel any sort of "moral" superiority for not spamming.  I just feel that in many cases that making minor changes from "optimal" units can actually be beneficial in soft scores and flexibility.  That and I just get bored painting the same thing...