List Building » Prometheus at War

Feast of Blades list, Tau & GK allies.

40K, Allies, Grand Tournament, Grey Knights, List Building, Tactics, Tau 4 Responses »

Sep 282012

Been a while since I’ve posted (~2weeks) and I’ve been thinking over a few things. I’ve qualified for the Feast of Blades in Denver, and lists are due Oct 1st, so, enough procrastinating. This is the list I’ve been working with for maybe a month now (before Tau vehicles got a 3+ cover save, 2+ when turbo-boosting, so that’s all Gravy now) and it’s been working pretty well.

Basic idea is that the Shas’El goes on top of the Bastion, with the pathfinders, and mans the Icarus Lascannon. Broadsides go inside, so we have a nice, fairly nasty fire base there with cover on the battlements and AV 14.

Purifiers rush up (18″) to midfield and just sit there in their rhino as a deterent with 8 psycannon shots, and happy enough to assault you if you ask for it.

Coteaz goes with GKSS and they move up the field on foot behind the purfiers acting as the main Dakka unit, with Coteaz using Divination and Precience on them.

Psykers move up however far is required to get within 36″, drop Str 8 AP1 pieplates.

Tau Firewarriors get in their Devil Fish (steal one from pathfinders) and probably don’t really get out until last turns, just scooting around with a 3+ or 2+ cover save as required.

Hammerheads do their thing, mostly their for the pie plates.

Dreadknight is there for disruption, counter-attack, and just outright breaking units when required.

Thoughts on the list:

Anti-tank: I feel pretty solid. I have 5 Railt guns and the icarus lascannon available for first turn initial strike, a strength 8 Ap 1 large blast, 4 psycannons that should be in play turn 2+, and many str 5 shots. Hopefully the hammherheads won’t be needed for their anti-tank and can be left for pie plates, but they’re there if needed.

Anti-horde: Super solid. 3 pie plates (2 str 6 and 1 str 8), the Heavy incinerator off the Dread knight, Cleansing Flame if required from the purifiers (I think not) and lots of Dakka.

Durability: Great. AV14 bastion (vulnerable to Railguns, Lances, and deepstruck Meltas, but that’s about it). 2 Av 13, 2 AV 12 (which should have 3+ saves) vehoicles. Weakspots are the rhinos, easy first turn kill sif I’m not careful.

Mobility: Descent. 4 transports, GKSs can deepstrike if they want to (probably will not) and NDK can be wherever it wants to. (but will almost certainly make itself a big fat target)

Scoring: This is what I’m worried about. I have 4. The GKSS are 10 strong and tough, but they’re walking and can get shot up if the opponent makes a goal out of it. The FW will be pretty hard to kill inside their 2+ DFs, but accidents happen, and there’s only 6 in each. I wanted to do a big squad of 12 but didn’t know what to give up. Psykers are scoring, technically, but are very delicate. So, 3 of those scorers really, really don’t want to get out of their vehicle until the last minute, and truth is the psykers rhino will probably be shot out form under them, anyway.

If it’s nightfight first turn, things are going very well for me!

Thoughts?

2000 Pts – Tau Empire Roster – Matt Bennett, FoB list 2012

Total Roster Cost: 1998

On the use and care of Stormravens in 6th Edition (tactica)

40K, List Building, Tactics, Unit review 2 Responses »

Aug 222012

Note: I’m writing this from a GK pov, but a lot of it is applicable to Blood Angels as well.

Ah, the flying land raider. Using a Stormraven was pretty simple in 5th edition, at least for Grey Knight players. Blood Angels sometimes got tricked into using it as a gun boat, because of their fancy schmancy Bloodstrike missiles, but it’s use to GK players was very clear: Deliver Termiantors and maybe a psychic dreadnought to your opponents face.

I basically used my Stormraven like a really expensive drop pod in 5th edition. I’d load in Draigo and either some paladins or purifiers (later it was purifiers, because I decided I need the fearless in case of tank shock) and just ran the thing straight at the enemy first turn. 24″, get a 4+ cover save (librarians and shrouding were popular to make it 3+, but I had neither the points nor the room) and melta some poor tank, just because I could. That usually failed to hit or pen for whatever perverse reason despite the demands of statistics, but who cared? Draigo was now on the enemy door step.

Then, always, the enemy would fire basically their entire army at it. They had to, because if it didn’t go down, draigo was going to get to charge whatever he wanted, the SR was going to go nuts shooting, and it would be pretty much an auto-win for me. Since I was often fighting fellow GK, I’d really look forward to shooting the mindstrikes, but that rarely ever happened.

Stormravens are tough, even in 5th ed, but most of the time, they’d be able to bring it down. (how many shots does it take to get to the center of a SR? ”most of whatever you got”, honest assessment at the time.)

That was fine, though, because 1) It usually took a full turn of shooting to do that. 2) Draigo and friends, again, is on your doorstep. They’d just climb out of the wreckage, and murder everything within arms-reach. Turn 2 charge.

Now, keep in mind, that was easily a 700-800 pt investment in that one Stormraven, 200 pts of which usually got blown up on the way in. But still, totally worth it.

Soooo……..flyers are awesome in 6th, and the SR is a Flyer. The Stormraven was good in 5th, so it must be total broken-sauce in 6th, right? Uh……..yes and no. The truth is trying use my SR in 6th has left me a little conflicted and confused.

Firstly, let’s be clear, it is a flyer, and flyers are gross. If your opponent doesn’t have appropriate counter measures (which are hard to come by, absent their own flyers, at the moment) you’re going to run rough shod all over them.

But how are you going to use it? How are you going to use those 205-260 points to further your goals in winning the game?

OK, look, NFW Halberds are not as great as you think.

40K, Grey Knights, List Building, Tactics 20 Responses »

Jul 202011

“ZOMG, Halberds are so awesome!” The Internet raves. ”It should be like, all Halberds, all the time!” Hokay, now, calm down. Yes, NFW Halberds are good. Going at Initiative 6 puts you before the whole wide world of MEQs (like 60% of 4ok, at least), even before those with furious charge. Since they’re power weapons, that are often at a boosted strength, you are really fairly likely kill a lot of the enemy before they get a chance to swing. But, of course, not everything is a MEQ (just as not every vehicle is a rhino), and even against a MEQ (Marine EQuivalent) there are times when the the +2 initiative isn’t going to be helpful. Perhaps, more importantly, all the other Nemesis Force Weapons can be pretty awesome, though costs and cost effectiveness for all of them vary widely by unit. So let’s talk about when to use NFW halberds, and what the real cost/benefit of them is. First, let’s get two things out of the way.

Yes, you are pretty much alway going to get them on Purifier Squads. 2 pts (!!!) is stupid cheap, and it’s not just that low cost alone, it’s that it’s augmenting 2 attacks, so you’re really only paying 1pt per attack to make it Init 6.
No, you should pretty much never get them on Strike Squads. 5pts isn’t so cheap, especially for a unit that only has 1 attack, and wants to fighting in CC as a distant second to using it’s ranged firepower.

So with it being a pretty much auto-include on Purifiers, and a never-include on strike squads, and therefore interceptor squads, as well, (can we all admit that people don’t really use purgation squads?) what we’re really talking about is when to take them on Terminators squads (including paladin’s) and how much. And that’s what has really been making me pull my hair out, people saying termies should have all halberds, all the time. Well, no, they shouldn’t, and I’ll tell you why. Continue reading »

Lord Kaldor Draigo saved my butt at Boston Brawlcon: A tactical overview.

40K, Grand Tournament, Grey Knights, List Building, Tactics, Unit review 2 Responses »

Jul 072011

So, I guess my first post became at least partly a rant about my painting score, not really what I meant it to be, so let’s move on to what I really care about: Tactics. For reference, my full list that I brought can be found here: Draigo and Stormraven List. First, some general thoughts:

Review of the list by item: Continue reading »

Stormraven and Land Raider Grey Knight list, the Army to dominate Boston Brawlcon.

40K, Grand Tournament, Grey Knights, List Building, Tactics 22 Responses »

Jun 292011

This is it, this is The List. The List with which I hope to win fame and fortune at the Boston Brawlcon.

I’m very thrilled with it, actually, it has all the things I want; It can hit like a mobile flying truck, has sufficient anti-tank, and great scoring potential. It only has 9 Kill points, total, which is also pretty sweet. I was going to do 4 of these posts, with 4 different lists, running through the options, starting with that 3 LR list I posted last week, but nah, this is it, I’m done.

It’s like falling in love, sometimes you just know, y’know?

It doesn’t hurt that I did really pretty well against exactly the guy and exactly the list I most feared: Frank, with his really heavy Dark Lance Dark Eldar over at the ‘Arvard ‘Ard Boyz in cambridge (they play out of the Pandemonium book store in Central Square). Expect a mini Battle Report on that in the next few days, but the bottom line is I had a little bit, but not a huge amount of dice luck, and I nearly tabled him, so I’m pretty happy with it. I still hope Frank, who is going to Brawlcon, stays the hell away from me, I don’t want to fight him if I can help it, but it was still a good sign.

Anti-Spamming, or: How to fix an internet Imperial Guard list.

40K, Imperial Guard, List Building 6 Responses »

Jun 232011

So, I’ve been a little negligent on this, and meant to respond quite a while ago to this post by my friend MadPersian, who is recently getting back into the game and building an Imperial Guard list. Unfortunately, I find my friend has been unduly influenced by the internet (no, not me, I’m different) and I feel he has been misled to some degree. Let’s see what his list looks like, and his reasons: (I have edited this slightly for easier commenting, original post can be found HERE)

There are some basic list building guidelines I have read that I tried to follow:

Able to threaten any unit;
Mobile scoring units;
Saturation;
Redundancy; and
Duality.

OK, some notes here:

The following list doesn’t really accomplish that, it’s way too focused “killing rhinos”. Not everything is about rhinos
SUre, IG can do this well
Saturation is good, but it’s really about providing mutliples of a particular threat: Such as Saturating tank targets, or fast assaulters, or mass troops. I’m not sure this list does that.
So here’s a key thing that bugs me about internet spam lists: Redundancy does not mean that everything has to be spammed. You can have multiple units that do the same job without necessarily having multiples of the same unit in most codexes, and your list will usually be stronger for it.
I assume Duality means “able to take on more than one type of unit?” I’m not sure I like that philosophy, for the most, part, I usually prefer units that are fairly specialized in to one role. ”Multi-purpose” usually means you’re overpaying for whatever purpose you have at that time. Still, “Multi-purpose” means a certain bit of fail-safe, and that’s good, but I’m not sure this list accomplished this.

This is my raw attempt at a list I am hoping to refine into a fearsome tournament list.

HQ Company Command Squad, Company Commander, 3 x Veteran with Meltagun, 1 x Astropath + Chimera Transport, Multi-laser, Heavy flamer -> 55 Pts. - – - > 165 Points Troop Veteran Squad, Demolitions, 3 x Veteran with Meltagun, Veteran Sergeant + Chimera Transport, Multi-laser, Heavy flamer -> 55 Pts. - – - > 185 Points

OK, here’s is spammy problem number one: Why all the Heavy Flamers? I can understand having a couple Heavy Flamers scattered around, that’s just a good hedge. But why does every single Chimera have one? Think of all that heavy bolter fire you’re giving up! The heavy Bolter Bolter also has much better synergy with the multi-laser with similar range, and similar preferred targets. Whenever a unit has weapons that want different engagment ranges, targets, or modes (Short vs long, infantry vs. vehicles, assault vs heavy) you’re creating inefficiency. I suppose this is the “Duality” you were talking about in #5. A little bit of that is fine, just like a melta in a tac squad, it protects you against certain bullshit, keeps the enemy honest. But we’re talking you might 1 or 2, even 3, not the whole damn army. So much fire power wasted!

Go Heavy or Go Home: Brawlcon, Grey Knight Triple Land Raider list. Boston Brawlcon list #1

40K, Grand Tournament, Grey Knights, List Building, Tactics 12 Responses »

Jun 162011

So I tend to be of the belief that real combat is a lot of quiet, subtle maneuvering, and then sudden, over-whelming violence. If you can do your maneuvering more quietly, and your violence more sudden, things will go well.

On the table-top war-gaming front, I feel it’s usually more useful to think in terms of “pressure”. I should really do a post on that concept alone, but the basic idea is that if your opponent only have to worry about one thing in a turn, even if there will be another one next turn, if he has a clear target-priority and threat minimization strategy, then that’s good for him and bad for you.

So if you give him multiple threats, all credible, and make them more than he can deal with, meaning that he has to make at least one decision by ignoring one, then that’s good for you and bad for him.

It’s not everything you need to know about tactics, but it’s a hell of a good start.

In short, you’re trying to overwhelm your opponent. People are trying to do this when they have 9-11 razorback lists, or all terminators, or hundreds of gaunts. You can also do this with Land Raiders.

I play dual Land Raider lists all the time, and it works quite well. Two of them are pretty essential, as you need at least the two threats in order to give them multiple bad options. It’s all pretty likely that you will have a LR go down sometimes, they’re not invulnerable. Now, I’ve gotten into a lot of arguments on Kirby’s blog, people telling me that it doesn’t work because people can block your charges, and because of things like Dark Lances and such. Well, I play these things in tournaments, I do pretty OK with them, this is not just a rumor. I’ll write up a whole LR tactica later, but let’s leave at now that a big part of the trick is knowing when not to charge, which is a lot of the time, and using even the “assault LRs” such as crusdaers.

Now, Land Raiders are expensive, loading up on them can definitely leave your army thin in other areas. It also does put a lot of eggs in one basket. They’re tough, but that classic “6 and then a 6″ roll we all know and fear, 1/36 chance, well it’s rare, but it sure will wreck your day.

Conversely, though, they’re tough, and if you’re going to try to overwhelm your opponent in this way, you really want to push that to the limit. In short, Go Heavy or Go Home.

Now, three Land Raiders would be considered by most a little crazy, and I certainly had trouble making a list that had other essential elements such as sufficient scorers that I needed. However, I do own three, and I felt a terrible urge to use them. Grey Knight Land Raiders are certainly helped out lot by the Fortitude rule.

The missions I’m designing these lists for can be found here. Continue reading »

Grey Knight Techmarines are awesome…….and everyone is using them wrong

40K, Grey Knights, List Building, Tactics 12 Responses »

Jun 092011

Let me ask you something: When trolling the internets for the forum monkeys best army lists, and someone brings up techmarines, how many times have you seen this?

Techmarine, Conversion beamer

?????

Betcha when you saw that, the forum poster proudly declared something along the lines of “Regardless of your build, you don’t want your Techmarine in close combat.” (Nikephoros, Bringer of Victory)

O rly?

First of all, I don’t really want to dis the conversion beamer…….OK, yeah I do. It’s 20 pts, right? Except you have to give up the servo harness for it, something which a vanilla techmarine pays 25 pts for. So really, it’s costing you 45 pts. That’s a fair bit.

I actually have a fair bit of experience with conversion beamers, having been fond of heavy dreadnought lists in the past. You know what a conversion beamer usually is? 90% of the time it’s a Str 8 Ap4 small blast. That btw, is when I had the master of the forge mounted on a bike, which gives you relentless. You’re talking about mounting on a single wound model that cannot move with it. 42″ is long a way, folks. Even if by some miracle your preferred target is that far away (because you can’t move) in 5th ed I virtually guarantee they get cover saves.

What I’m saying is that you’re paying 110 pts for what is for most purposes a plasma cannon. Usually worse, actually, except against vehicles. Does that sound worth it to you?

Boston Brawlcon, some very early planning

40K, Grand Tournament, List Building 3 Responses »

Jun 082011

A very good friend and I have decided to attend our first, big 2 day Grand tournament July 2nd, and 3rd. It’s in Hudson, MA, at the Elks lodge. It’s a $35 total entry fee (I guess $20 for entry to con and $15 for the tournament?) and it’s officially part of some big circuit, with prize support from GW. I beleive 1st prize is airfare to next year’s adepticon, plus a full 2000 pt army (list chosen by the winner, no forge world), as well as, of course, a ticket to next year’s Boston Brawlcon.

The folks running this GT, Battle Road Games, have a post on their forums that should be considered the main source of info, here.

I will rule Boston Brawlcon, with an admantium, shiny Grey fist!

Well, that bravado helps me get my game face on…..truth is this is my first “Grand Tournament” and I while I think I’m smart, think I’m all tactical and stuff, for all I know, I’ll get eaten like, like a guppy in very large pond.

Or, I’m a shark. I feel like a shark, anyway.

Boston Brawl 2011 mission packet complete PDF

Boston Brawl 2011 mission packet complete! (.doc)

I’ve attached the mission packet here, with the Tournament Organizer’s permission, and for my own planning purposes, I thought it would helpful to figure what battle points are available where and for what objectives. This is sort of my founding post for a few posts to follow, my “road to Boston Brawlcon”. I figure totaling things up like this will help me decide how many troops I need, how to optimize my Kill Points, etc.

Objectives: 35 pts (one objective has secondary to control your objectives, tertiary to control theirs)
Kill pts: 34 (sometimes with special conditions, kill at least half your opponents kill pts, beat kill pts by 3 or more or draw)
Victory pts: 20 pts ( > 186 victory pts. Less is a draw)
Table Quarters: 6 pts (always tertiary)
Preserve Troops: 5pts. Just a secondary in one mission. If you eliminate their troops, but still have some, you win. Both have some, draw, neither have any, dual loss.

Here’s the painting scale, pretty standard around these parts. I like this system, actually. I need to ask the organizer, with two judges, is that 20 pts total for painting, or 40? 20pts would be equal to one game, which seems about right, 40 pts would make painting rather….dominant. EDIT, 6/14/11 Spoke to Alex, over at Battle Road Games. Apparently yes, two painting judges scores are averaged, with a total possible score of 20 (23 for the very best guy), so about equal to one game. Good balance, I think. Continue reading »

Lord Kaldor Draigo….he ain’t that expensive.

40K, Grey Knights, List Building, Tactics 2 Responses »

Jun 052011

This gets mentioned a lot: Draigo is expenisve. Actually, the internets put it more along the lines of “OMG, he is soooooo expensive, why would you ever take such a beast?” or “GK are so expensive, you have to save points and get the cheapest HQ possible.” A sort of typical quote is Zjoekov on Kirby’s 3++, ”My gawd, 275 points for a model with a 12″ threat range unless you take a 200+ transport for him?”

People also seem think it’s all about the paladins with Draigo, just as you get Crowe specifically for purifiers. But that isn’t really fair of course, Crowe himself is nearly useless, and while purifiers are pretty easy to find (multiple) uses for, paladins seem hard to find applications that will justify their cost.

But while Draigo makes fun little things like dropping down a 55 pt scorer possible, it doesn’t seem to me that’s necessarily why you might get him. Because it seems to me that he does everything a regular Grand Master does, but better.

Let’s compare the options. What do we get with a regular GM?

He’s got the same stat-line as regular SM captain in terminator armor (a rare choice, to be sure).
You could basically have this stat-line with a GK brother captain. (1 point of BS aside) for 150 pts, so we know we’re paying about the same as we would with the SM captain. Actually, when you count in the Aegis, psy-out grenades, psychic powers, and the Nemesis Force Weapon, you actually have to figure we’re getting a pretty big discount. Makes me laugh, since people complain about how expensive GK HQs are.
We pay 25 pts more for the Grand Master, the only real difference being that he gets Grand Strategy. Which is fine, that’s totally worth it, so much so almost no one would buy a plain Brother Captain.
Just like the SM captain, he ain’t exactly a combat monster for his points, which is why so many people take a look at Librarians. But, GMs have Grand Strategy, which really does affect the entire army in positive ways.

That’s what we get for 175 pts. There’s a few options that most people agree are must haves:

There’s the three big “I win” grenades: Blind, rad, and pyschotroke. These grenades have a huge multiplicative effect on the effectiveness of the unit the GM is with, making it unlikely for whatever hard-ass unit you’re fighting to be able to fight back effectively.
Digital weapons. Cheap, you’re probably going to fail to wound, you’re going to get use out of this.
Mastercrafted weapon. Really the same deal, you’re going to miss, it’s another bite at the apple.

But, look, now the GM costs 220 pts. Yes, you get a lot for that. But it’s also really expensive.

Soooo……..what do we get with Draigo? Continue reading »

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