After visiting my local store and a few folks at work mentioning it I thought it might be a good idea to get a force together as something to work towards and also as something to help me relearn the rules.
The force is designed as an initial starting point - though obviously if its that bad I'm sure I could start afresh - as something to buy some models for and build up. Its also my first proper foray in to list building and could be the road to disaster.
so without further ado here is my first all rounder list:
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I know the force may be a bit extravagant so any suggestions on alternatives or changes would be great. I intend to be taking on any force but the most common forces I am expecting are Space Marines, Tau, Eldar and Kroot. Any suggestions on building a good guard list would be great.
Thanks and feel free to feed back.
11 comments:
Personally I'm not a fan of hellstrike missiles - one shot weapons I find just NEVER hit :oP You also can't fire them on the move like you can with defensive weapon strength rocket pods. Rocket pods win every time for me. So with the valkyries equipped to deal with infantry, I tend to put some tank busting potential into the veteran squad instead. A couple of meltaguns being the most obvious way forward. Of course you're playing within a very tight budget here, so I can see your difficulties.
You could perhaps re-equip your veterans, dropping pricey plasma guns and one of the flamers to make room for rocket pods and 2 melta guns. Whether you'd want to put a flamer and melta in each for jack of all trades or double up each squad so you have one for anti infantry and one for anti tank would be down to you. This is just my personal preference based on how much I despise one shot weapons though, if you're willing to give them a go then by all means do, I'd just recommend not glueing them to the valkyrie if you haven't already done so :oP
One final thought, check if the local tournament you're preparing for is using standard rules but set at 500 points, or whether this is a combat patrol style tournament. Valkyries are not allowed in combat patrol, meaning you've got a serious list rebuild to do :oS
hi there
thanks for the feedback, i have checked and they use standard rules, makes it easier to up it in the stages to 750 and 1000 as you earn the progression.
i havent purchased anything yet which is good as this list is meant as a starting point for me to work from for games and to build the force round so its good i havent glues anything on yet ;)
looking at the info youve posted it makes a lot of sense but i thought about the hellstrikes as a form of anti tank/termie weapon, i know how mental some of the guys at the store are. though the rocket pod does seem a very good idea.
to be honest this is my fist list and as there are no models bought as yet its good that its been pulled apart, though i have no idea of where to start as an alternative, this ones more for giggles then anything but im happy for alternative solutions, including ones with tanks instead of flyers :D:D:D can never have too many tanks!
cheers
Oh I don't mean to pull your list apart, and I hope I didn't come across that way. I think on the whole you have a good list. It's a good starting point for your army. I just personally don't see hellstrike as very good anti tank. To fire two you have to remain stationary or move 6" - I'd rather be always moving 12" so assaulters need 6s to hit, plus makes it harder for your enemy to get shots at your weaker rear armour. With two shots on a valk you're looking at one hit on average... and at str 8 you need a 6 to even scratch a land raider, but assuming you get to the side of something with the outflank ability you're still often seeing armour 11 or 12, giving you about a 50/50 chance of penetrating, which isn't that great.
Veterans with meltaguns on the other hand... you can move 12" firing the rest of your weapons (rocket pods and multilaser) to full effect at any infantry that might threaten your veterans. You then drop your BS4 veterans next to the target tank, open up with the meltaguns. You've got more chance to hit, and if you get within 6" a far better chance to penetrate, plus the addition to the damage table from using an AP1 weapon should hopefully take the enemy tank down.
Tanks are another good way of doing things especially with how cheap chimeras are (points wise not wallet wise) and something else I'm fond of, but as a starting point for your army this is a pretty decent list. Veterans get you some potent scoring units, the valkyries give you a different way to approach the game (deep striking, deploying, outflanking... keeps your opponent off balance) and whilst I've never had much luck with Primaris Psykers (Of 5 times tested, once oblitereated by Str D weapon in apoc game before even getting a turn, and the other 4 ALL failed their very FIRST perils test, and were summarily executed by accompanying commissars... maybe I should just NOT have them in the same squad as a commissar in future :oP) they do add an interesting extra to a game - I have seen someone use the lightning arc to great effect.
Oh, and as for anti termie, it's hard to get enough AP1 and AP2 weapons into the list, so I often go with volume of fire. This is why I like rocket pods. Two valkyries opening up with rocket pods and multilasers at a termy squad will probably cause a couple of wounds per model. You make a guy roll enough dice those 1s will emerge :oP
Anyway, best of luck with your challenge :o)
not at all mate, if anything its an invitation for you and others too :)
the psykers in there for the mandatory HQ spot but im not sure if there is something else i should consider. do i need a commissar if i take a psyker?
any suggestions for alternative forces would be great. I might have to have a play with the force tomorrow and see what i can pull out from the list and save :) wouldnt mind the Meltas and plasmas as means i can order some FW bits. mind you thats the same with tanks as i need to order some :)
keep the thoughts and ideas coming folks :) as i really have no clue on all this lol
I didn't mean to pull your list apart and I hope I didn't come across that way. I'm just not a fan of hellstrikes :oP You need to slow down to fire to full effect, which makes you more vulnerable to being assaulted or manouvered into exposing your rear armour. So I prefer to keep moving and only be hit on 6s. The hellstrikes, if both fired, will average one hit. Against a landraider you then need a 6 to scratch it. But assuming it's not a Landraider and you outflank round the side of it, you're still probably looking at armour 11 or 12... so about a 50/50 chance of penetrating. And that's a one shot weapon so you get a 50/50 chance once only :o/
Veterans with meltas on the other hand... you move your valkyrie 12" making it a much harder target. It can still fire to full effect at any infantry close enough to threaten your vets. You drop the vets out and they are BS4 so have a better chance of hitting, if within 6" have a far better chance of penetrating, and with them being AP1 have a better chance of doing some real damage :o)
Against termies I tend to use weight of fire to bring them down. Two valkyries opening up with all they got will probably put two wounds on each man... he should fail some armour saves in that lot. The hellstrikes meanwhile, are again one shot only and will average one hit... so one dead terminator, IF he fails his invulnerable save :o/
I'm a big fan of the valkyrie so I think your list looks good. It gives you great flexibility depending on what mission you face, giving you the ability to outflank or deep strike to where you need to be.
Good luck with your challenge :o)
You have a pretty decent beginning of a force here, but I think there are some things you could do to improve it.
First off, use Vendettas instead of Valkyries. For a relatively small points boost, you get excellent anti-tank guns, which your list otherwise lacks. (Plasma is good, but you'll find it very, very hard to kill even AV11 units with it.) You can equip them with Heavy Bolters on the sides for a mere 10pts, which is an absolute steal- at that point you can move 6" and put out eleven shots, which will make any horde unhappy.
Second, Flamers on the Veteran squad is a bit of a waste; they're BS4, which is a huge thing for Guardsmen. I much prefer giving Flamers to my Platoon Command Squads (who can take four of them and are only 30pts base), where they do the same job but much more cheaply. If I were to recommend a weapon, it would be Meltaguns, since they are excellent for killing tanks as well as Terminators, etc, but some people consider them cliche. Keeping flamers wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, although I would recommend a Demolition Charge if you do so- no one likes an AP2 large blast landing on them!
Primaris Psykers just aren't very good, sad to say. In a larger list he could be okay as just something to throw in because you like him (he's not absolutely horrible), but in a small list like this he's eating up an awful lot of your points. Give him the boot and look back to him once you're playing 1K or 1.5K games instead. (IG doesn't lack for good HQs, though- Company Command Squads are extremely good in an air cavalry list like yours.)
You should be able to fit two Vendettas and the two Vetran squads in with no trouble. Giving one of them triple-Plasma and the other Demo Charge + triple Flamer puts you slightly over on points to afford HB sponsons on the Vendettas, so you'll either need to cut sponsons on one of them, two of the flamers, or one of your Plasma Guns. (You could also cut the Demo Charge and buy a couple other toys, but that seems less effective.)
Addendum: Hellstrike Missiles are ordnance weapons, which I am fairly certain means you can only fire one of them per turn. (As per p58.) As ordnance they do get to roll two dice and pick the higher when penetrating, though, so against AV11 they penetrate 75% of the time and against AV12 about 55% of the time. It doesn't really make up for being one-shot weapons on a BS3 unit, though.
Trying to wear Terminators down with lots of wounds is generally a bad plan- their 2+ save is the ideal tool against such tactics, as that's basically it's point. Five Terminators, all clustered together so you can lay your Rocket Pods on all of them (and miraculously hitting every time, which you won't) stand a reasonable chance of killing one guy. And that's if you always hit with both Pods- more likely, every 2-3 turns of shooting you'll take out one of them. So yeah, not a great strategy.
There is some good advice already given. I want to echo the advice of dropping the plasmaguns in favor of meltaguns. With the points you save, you can then swap your flamers for meltaguns. Here is why: Plasmaguns are almost guaranteed to kill as many of your guard via "gets hot" as the enemy. Meltaguns perform well as tank killers, montrous creature killers, special character killers, space marine killers, terminator killers, etc.
Although I like the idea of swapping your Primaris Psyker HQ for a command squad, the problem is that then you would have to spend points on some sort of transportation. So at this points level, with everything else you have, the psyker works fine.
Taking that on board some of the things said on here by you guys and some of the guys on other forums i have the following mods:
Psyker – 70 ( i know i could take the commissar but to be honest the psyker power makes him fun and great as a proxy inquisitor :) )
Flamer vet squad – 85 (3 flamers and pretty stock)
Melt vet squad – 100 (3 meltas and pretty stock)
Basic valk – 100 (basic valk with no upgrades)
Valk with rocket pods or vendetta – 130 (either one looks cool, and besides theres nothing to stop me getting both and swapping them one once in a while:) )
Total 485
Leave me 15 points for HB on one of the valks (possibly the basic one to make it more useful) and a few points to buy the sergs some bolt pistols or something. Alternatively i could drop the HB on the valk and the bolt pistols and have another all melta squad instead of the all flamer squad.
Also gives me chance later on once i get more done to as you say rock some shotties and use my converted kasrkin models.
Seems almost like a plan!
Any thoughts?
also have some more alternative lists coming up later assuming the mail server at work doesnt let me down and lets my email from home through, just to try and shake it up and see what falls out.
millest
im honestly not sure on which squad in which either, hadnt given it much thought, though if i upgrade both to meltas thats academic. However if i go with the heavy bolters i need to consider which valk to use them on and then which squad to stick in!
not worth upgrading the rocket pod valk to a vandetta then?
i guess another alternative is 2 squads with 2 x melta and 1 x flamer in each at 95 a squad leaves me with enough points to add some HBs to the basic valk but im liking the idea of at least one model with pods - i think its the look, though if only i could decide between the rocket pods or a vandetta!
some variant lists are now being added to the blog for you to examine and tear apart if needed :)
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