Slaughter in Space, bringing the lumber!

Well, I was thinking about the So. Cal Slaughter in Space, and I thought I would take my list up a notch. I will only take a couple of comp/theme hits and I would feel better about that, than getting totally outmatched by my army choice.


 
So what I ended up doing was making a list that is harder than I would normally play.


 
HQ

Demon Prince w/MoT, Warptime, Doombolt, Wings

Demon Prince w/MoS, Lash, Wings

Summoned Greater Demon


 
Troops

7 Thousand Sons Maines

1 Aspiring Sorcerer w/Winds of Chaos

Rhino


 
9 Chaos Space Marines w/Lascannon, Plasma Gun

1 Aspiring Champion

Rhino


 
9 Chaos Space Marines w/Lascannon, Plasma Gun

1 Aspiring Champion w/Power Fist


 
8 Summoned Lesser Demons


 
Heavy Support

3 Obliterators

3 Obliterators

3 Obliterators


 
I lost my Land Raider and my Terminators but I made up for them with another DP and CSM.


 

Slaughter in Space

Well I had fun at Adepticon. I might write up my batreps for the Gladiator. I ended up going 3-1 with an unconventional list.



I had 2 bad and contentious games at the 40k championships, so I stopped taking pictures and was tanked on my soft scores. I went 1-0-2.



But it is time to put that behind me and move on to the next event, the Slaughter in Space.



Here is my 2000 point list:

HQ

Chaos Terminator Lord w/MoT, Death Screamer



Demon Prince W/Wings, MoT, Warptime



Summoned Greater Demon



Elite

3 Chaos Terminators w/Reaper Autocannon, Chainfist

Aspiring Terminator Champion w/Lightning Claws

Troops

8 Thousand Sons Marines

Aspiring Sorcerer w/Doombolt

Rhino


8 Thousand Sons Marines

Aspiring Sorcerer w/Winds of Chaos

Rhino


9 Lesser Demons


Heavy Support

Land Raider



3 Obliterators

3 Obliterators



Comments:

I used an army like this at Adepticon and I scored high for paint, but it was ok on the tabletop. I took out the useless dreadnought and tightened up the assault units to make it a little harder. It is a well painted army, so it should do well there, and I am sticking to a Thousand Sons theme (9 models, MoT, etc.) so we will see how I do on the theme/comp scores.



Lord

I went with a Chaos Lord for the very first time since the 4^th edition codex came out. The reason why is that I kept getting shut down in my psychic phase will all of the anti-psychic war gear that was out there, and he can shoot his weapon without worrying about being stopped. He also gives me some much needed assault help, but I wish he had a higher strength.



Demon Prince

Always a solid choice for a Chaos army. With a 4+ inv save and Warptime can do a number in assault.



Greater Demon

Never tried one out before, so we will see how he does. I need to kill a very expensive model (70 point sorcerer or 50 point terminator) to get him on the table. I need some units with a higher strength to handle some of the tough critters, and he should help out some.



Thousand Sons Marines

Always a good choice. They have their AP 3 bolters that they can move and shoot 24". They have a Rhino for movement and protection. They are weak in assault, but hopefully the HQ and Elites can help them out there.


Lesser Demons

What can I say? I needed a troop unit, and they are cheap. The models are well painted!



Land Raider

The old standby. They give some armies troubles (orks) and are a pain to kill and take a lot of fire-power to bring down. They are also good at taking my terminators to where they need to go.



Obliterators

They are a great unit. I wish I could take 3 units without worrying about taking a comp hit. I think I will bring 9 of them to BolsCons since they have 2000 point games with a 2 hour time limit, and I need a small and elite army that plays fast.

My preliminary Adepticon Gladiator list

2250 Pts - Eldar Roster - Adepticon Gladiator 2010


 
HQ: Eldrad Ulthran

HQ: Avatar


 
Elite: 5 Fire Dragons

Wave Serpent w/Spirit Stones; TL Shuriken Catapults; TL Missile Launchers


 
Troops: 3 Guardian Jetbike Squadron, Shuriken Cannon (x1)

Warlock w/Destructor, Singing Spear


 
Troops: 3 Guardian Jetbike Squadron, Shuriken Cannon (x1)

Warlock w/Destructor, Singing Spear


 
Troops: 10 Guardians w/Bright Lance

1 Wave Serpent w/ Spirit Stones; TL Shuriken Catapults; TL Missile Launchers


 
Troops: 10 Storm Guardians w/ Flamer (x2)

1 Warlock w/Destructor, Singing Spear

1 Wave Serpent w/Spirit Stones; TL Shuriken Catapults; TL Bright Lances


 
Fast Attack: Vyper Squadron

1 Vyper Squadron w/Scatter Laser; Shuriken Cannon

1 Vyper Squadron w/Scatter Laser; Shuriken Cannon


 
Fast Attack: Vyper Squadron

1 Vyper w/Bright Lance; TL Shuriken Catapults

1 Vyper w/Bright Lance; TL Shuriken Catapults


 
Fast Attack: Vyper Squadron

1 Vyper Squadron w/Shuriken Cannon; Shuriken Cannon

1 Vyper Squadron w/Shuriken Cannon; Shuriken Cannon


 
Heavy Support: War Walker Squadron

1 War Walker w/Scatter Laser; Scatter Laser

1 War Walker w/Scatter Laser; Scatter Laser

1 War Walker w/Scatter Laser; Scatter Laser


 

 
Heavy Support: War Walker Squadron

1 War Walker w/Scatter Laser; Scatter Laser

1 War Walker w/Scatter Laser; Scatter Laser

1 War Walker w/Scatter Laser; Scatter Laser


 
Heavy Support: War Walker Squadron (3#, 120 Pts)

1 War Walker w/ Shuriken Cannon; Shuriken Cannon

1 War Walker w/ Shuriken Cannon; Shuriken Cannon

1 War Walker w/ Shuriken Cannon; Shuriken Cannon


 
Total Roster Cost: 2248


 

 
Sill working on the details of my list. I need to kill things like Titans and those gigantic creatures An'ggorath and Hierophant. I need a lot of Strength 8, AP 2 weaponry, and right now I do not have enough. I need to be able to do 8 wounds to a toughness 8 creature with a 2+/4+ save, and 10 Wounds to a toughness 9, 2+/6+ save.


 
Wow, that is going to be hard. Not only that, but they are not affected by Doom.

Demonhunters for the Conquest GT

So I am thinking about heading on up to the Conquest GT in Seattle next Jan. I thought I would play my Demon Hunters and this is what I came up with for a list:

HQ

Inquisitor w/Psycannon, Null Rod, Emperor's Tarot, Psychic Hood.

2 Sages

3 Mystics

1 Familiar

3 Warrors w/2 Heavy Bolters, Plasma Cannon

Land Raider



Grey Knight Brother Captain w/Psycannon



Elite
Callidus Assassin



Troops

5 Grey Knights w/2 Psycannons

1 Grey Knight Justicar



5 Grey Knights w/2 Psycannons

1 Grey Knight Justicar



5 Storm Troopers w/2 Melta Guns

Chimera



5 Storm Troopers w/2 Melta Guns

Chimera



Heavy Support

Land Raider

Dreadnought w/TL Lascannon

Dreadnought w/TL Lascannon, Missile Launcher

I prefer a shooting style of Demon Hunters. Lots of TL lascannons, and strength 6 Psycannons.

Army list tinkering

I was doing some thinking about Pre-Heresy armies and I came to the conclusion that they look really nice, but they are very boring on the table top.

Take everything that is at least a little interesting in the Space Marine codex and Chaos Codex and throw them out, and what you have left is a Pre-Heresy army.

You do have a great looking army thought because you have Jetbikes instead of bikes, turbo-fan back packs instead of the regular assault marines, and the unique look of the earlier space marine armors.

But underneath the look you have a very basic army.

I have changed around some things so here is the army so far:


 
Ahriman

Dreadnought

10 Chaos Space Marines

10 Chaos Space Marines

Rhino

9 Thousand Sons

5 Oblits

Land Raider

I traded the havocs for a land raider. I did this for a few reasons. Some armies just do not have an answer for Land Raiders. Also it is mobile and can move troops around while Havocs have a little better firepower, but they are very static. The good news is that it means that I have to do 10 less marines, and will have an interesting model to work on. Sure makes the army rather small though which is both good and bad. If I was not so interested in the look of the army and wanted to go for more power I would drop Ahriman and the dreadnought and up the firepower and maybe some terminators for counter assault.

How I choose my army

To begin, I wanted to discuss how I go about choosing an army.



There are basically 3 steps:

Figure out what armies that I don't want to play.

Figure out want armies that I want to play

Figure out what army I think can win with.



Figure out what armies I do not want to play.

This is the easiest step. I do not want to play a tier one (the best) armies. So that means that I will not play Orks, Dual Lash Chaos, Seer Council Eldar, etc.

The second one is that I like the rare armies/builds and those attract me. So out goes Mech Armies, Vulcan SM, Plague Marines, or MEQs in general, etc. There are so many marine armies around, that I had to scrap my plans for one. The Space Wolves are my first army, and I was waiting a very long time for their codex to come out. Now that it is almost here everyone is jumping on that bandwagon. Also I look around at the armies I see playing in RTTs and in the local area and I see a lot of marine armies and I have to jump off the bandwagon. Maybe after the initial rush of SW players die down and they move on to other armies I might be able to return to my Sea Wolves.



Figure out want armies that I want to play

So then let's take a look at what interests me. There is two ways I go about picking an army. One way is that I like a unit or theme and then build around that. For example, I am not a big fan of Orks, but if I was to build an Ork army, I would build it around Flash Gits. I like how everyone thinks they are a bad unit, but I like how they work and their fluff. If I was going to build a Space Marine army, I would center it around Legion of the Damned. I like this theme so much that I almost built it, and I had to lie down for a while to stop myself from making it.

To give an example of picking units I like and building around them I will point to an army that I built just after the elder codex came out. There was a lot of discussion of which units were good, and which ones were bad. The consensus was that Guardians were very bad, so I started to build my army around them. They appealed to me because they were cheap and they were fast, and they are multi-purpose. I like units that can do many things and fill many roles. Guardians can move and shoot a heavy weapon, Fleet (back when fleet did something), and then they can close and shoot their small arms. So then I had to find units that worked with them. I choose the Avatar because he would make all of the guardians fearless, and negate there poor leadership. I also choose Eldrad (before Eldrad was in every army) because Guardians need a little bit of a boost to be more effective and Eldrad is a great force multiplier. He can cast 2 Guides, or 2 Dooms or 2 Fortunes etc. Whatever I need, he can supply it. And then I build an army around it to compliment it and it turned out every well. This is the list I went 4-0-1 at the LVGT and 5-0 at the Baltimore GT.



Figure out what army I think can win with.

This is the hardest one. I try to match an army up with the top tier armies to see if I have a chance. I compare them to what think I will find at the top tables and see if my army matches up. I look at things like every marine army will have at least one Land Raider, and often times more, so an army must have an answer for them. It must have a chance against horde Orks, Lash/Oblit spam and a Mech army.

Now I am not saying that I have to be able to have an overwhelming advantage against a top tier list (and the fact that they are top tier lists means that there is nothing that has an overwhelming advantage over them), but I want to have at least a chance against them. Hopefully my skill as a player will make up for whatever disadvantage my army has as far as the matchup goes, but I need to at least have a chance.

To give an example of what I am talking about, my SoB army that I played last year had a little bit of everything that could deal with the heavy hitters. I had some exorcists and melta for Land Raiders/Mech, some flamers and a lot of heavy bolters for orks, and I hope my Exorcists could win a gunnery duel with Obits and SoBs are very resilient to lash/psychic powers.