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Originally posted on my blog.

Haven't had time to post it here.

So a few things to remember: I'm well aware of other builds, like Shrike's fleeting assault marines; and Khan outflanking raider / rhino rush lists. Those are all nice and nasty, and can be very difficult to stop...but can also blow up in your face.

These 'Armies of Death' are armies that work best against all armies. That's what makes them scary, not the lists so much as it is the way they can manhandle every list in the game.

This one is pretty simple, but often as not simple is best.

I rate this one tops of all the marine armies I've tested. It's small, it's elite, it's takes names.

1750 list.

2xLibrarians w/Null Zone + Gate of Infinity.
2xtactical squads, flamer/multi-melta, Drop Pod w/Locator Beacon + Deathwind.
3xsternguard squads w/8 combi-meltas, Drop Pod w/Locator Beacon + Deathwind.

Start with 3 sternguard landing w/both librarians.

Drop pod units land and you die.

Got cover? Armor? Invulnerable saves? Tanks?

Yes, we can take care of all of that.

The tactical squads just drop near the objectives.

Oh the deathwind missile launchers are annoying.

The locator beacons + gate is some serious gouda.

Oh we didn't get away from CC? Fine fine, we'll teleport away and beam back down right next to you.

In another thread someone asked how to keep the Librarian safe.

Place him more than 12" away from the enemy. Entirely legal, and makes it very difficult for him to get into combat (on the first round).

Hopefully people can envision how this army works.

If not, feel free to ask questions.

Be glad to answer 'em.

ah, so it's alot like a veil orb necron army, only with the rediculous sternguard ammo. Do you think Null Zone is the best secondary power for this army? I would also be concerned about eating some serious pie plates in this army, as you'll be spending alot of time in the formation you disembarked from the drop pod/deep strike formation.

that locator beacon/gate of infinity combo is a hell of a find though, I must say I'm impressed.

If any pie plates survived your arrival, you're either extremely unlucky, playing it wrong, or playing against Armored Company.

The Defenestrator wrote:ah, so it's alot like a veil orb necron army, only with the rediculous sternguard ammo. Do you think Null Zone is the best secondary power for this army? I would also be concerned about eating some serious pie plates in this army, as you'll be spending alot of time in the formation you disembarked from the drop pod/deep strike formation.

that locator beacon/gate of infinity combo is a hell of a find though, I must say I'm impressed.

Indeed it is like that. Just no getting back up, so it better count when you land. lol

Null zone means you can slaughter seer councils and demon units with shooting when it counts.

Pie plates? Why would I eat those? The new drop pods let you deploy in a big circle AROUND them. You can see through them to shoot, and with the 'majority' fire vs 'majority' target rule...well, even if 3 guys are firing 'through' the rest won't be...so no cover saves unless you are *in* cover.

The deep strike formation will indeed eat pie plates, but if you are hiding by the pods like you should be...maybe you're getting a cover save from it and still firing at the enemy.

Glad you like the locator beacon/gate of infinity combo. Found it a few months ago, for some reason no one really liked playing against it. Must mean it's good!

it's true, 24 combi-melta shots virtually anywhere you want them on your first turn is mighty nice. The rediculous thing about the drop pod rules is that you're actually better off dropping the pod nice and close to enemy squads/tanks. I guess you'd just have to watch out for not making it into melta range first turn.


I had considered the circle of protection around a drop pod, but I haven't seen the new drop pod models yet first hand, and wasn't sure how well it worked with 10 models.

The two indicators I have for a good list concept are
1) people encourage me to play a different one, or play me specifically in the hopes of a new method of smashing it.
2) while pondering, I find myself in a "what about [insert issue/army list]? oh right, there's [insert perfectly reasonable counter]" loops

Definitely looks like a strong list but I can see it having some possible problems in certain situations.

One interesting problem is what if your opponent keeps his army in reserve? Do the tactical squads go out first in this situation and take ground while holding the sternguard back to hopefully show up at the right time?

Another questions is what do you do if you go first in Dawn of War deployment?

Fighting another DSing army also looks like it could be a strange affair.

Also it wouldn't be terribly difficult for a guard player to position his troops in such a way around his tanks to ensure your pods couldn't get close enough to slag his tanks.

This list looks like an all or nothing kind of shot. If the first wave doesn't cripple the opponent, the sternguard will probably be destroyed.

ihockert wrote:One interesting problem is what if your opponent keeps his army in reserve?

It hurts every deep strike on turn 1 army pretty bad.

There is no real fix for it that I've found yet.

Going second is the new going first.

ihockert wrote:Do the tactical squads go out first in this situation and take ground while holding the sternguard back to hopefully show up at the right time?

Can try. Not sure what good it will do really.

ihockert wrote:Another questions is what do you do if you go first in Dawn of War deployment?

It depends if they have anything on the board, really.

Nothing on, nothing you can do--but this is about the same question as keeping everything in reserve.

You can always do that, the scenario doesn't matter.

Alot of players don't really 'get' that yet.

ihockert wrote:Fighting another DSing army also looks like it could be a strange affair.

Very strange indeed.

ihockert wrote:Also it wouldn't be terribly difficult for a guard player to position his troops in such a way around his tanks to ensure your pods couldn't get close enough to slag his tanks.

True. Then you combat squad and rip 6 guard units up with bolter fire that ignores cover, something guard rely on.

ihockert wrote:This list looks like an all or nothing kind of shot. If the first wave doesn't cripple the opponent, the sternguard will probably be destroyed.

Of course it's all or nothing. That's what 5th edition is being oriented towards. Sadly, most deep strike lists can be 'manhandled' with proper deployment.

Dawn of War just makes it so much more dangerous.

Against reserves, you drop pod on your side of the board (or the middle, or a side) and suck it up until you can start doing something.

In the world of go fast / play fast 5th edition, it works well enough to be dangerous.

It's interesting. Do you really need both Librarians? I'm thinking one plus one of the chapter masters might be better.

Pedro so that now all of those squads are scoring would make objective missions a lot easier.

Or twin linking all of your melt and flamers since thats all you have.

Have you tried it with those guys and just decided the additional psychic powers were better?

Yeah, twin linking the one shot meltas would be nice, but its better with the two librarians. First, one Sternguard is already going to be less mobile. Second, this way he can operate in two areas at once. Ring around the rosy on this half, and that half of the opponent's board. It also gets you more coverage on Null Zone.

Pedro is nice, but for 200 points @ 1750?

He's not that nice.

And stubborn replacing combat tactics means even Tau will be running into CC with you to try and tie you up.

The strategy for dealing with that army seems straightforward: Kill the Librarians.

With T4 W2 Sv3+ it should be easy enough, particularly with a Bolt of Change under the influence of Warptime.

Nurglitch wrote:The strategy for dealing with that army seems straightforward: Kill the Librarians.

With T4 W2 Sv3+ it should be easy enough, particularly with a Bolt of Change under the influence of Warptime.

Dude, do you actually play this game? You cannot target a Librarian in a squad with a shooting attack.

LOL Taco....you play nice now!!!!

~Bart

Bolt of Change - IF you cast (not real hard), IF it get through the hood (50/50), you get to kill one Sternguard... and unless you're in a unit yourself, you just bought a one-way ticket to the Warp when the Sternguard get their shot. Heck, unless it's a big unit, you still did.

Tacobake:

Do you actually think before mashing your keyboard in neckbeard-rage?

Perhaps, and this is just me hazarding a guess because Stelek specified that the Librarians would be herding the Sternguard, you work on killing the Librarians because they will be embedded in units of Sternguard.

After all, if there is a Librarian hiding in that Sternguard and there's no Sv2+ or AV13+ targets lying around, then pounding those squads with anti-tank weapons will:

1. Remind everyone that those stalwart veterans of centuries of battle die as easily as Battle-Brother Biffus.

2. Pass some of the hurt onto the Librarian once the number of incoming anti-tank shots equals the surviving members of the unit.

Birds, stone, yadda yadda.

The Bolt of Change would simply be the ideal coup de grace (you know, "particularly", as in "a particular option amongst a general set of options".

I don't see that tactic happening very often. You'd have to basically chuck the objectives, and dedicate everything to the Sternguard. Your dedicated anti-tank infantry is going to be eating large Deathwind pieplates, and, assuming you had armor to start with, starting second turn Special ammunition.

I don't think one would need to dedicate everything to the Sternguard at all. They'd just be extra vulnerable to anti-tank weapons, but bolters en masse would be just as good.

My point is that Sternguard are a really brittle unit. They're as tough as Tactical Marines for nearly twice the price. That means two things, I think. The first is that you can have twice as many Tactical Space Marines, and twice as many Space Marine unit. Ergo, you only need half the firepower to deal with Sternguard that you'd use to kill twice as many Tacticals.

So not only is the Librarian doubling the pay-off of shooting such a unit, you have plenty of other firepower left over to deal with the Drop Pods and the Tactical squads.

Eggs and baskets.

I mean, I can see why this combination would be devastating if you're the sort of player that relies on fancy gimmicks and luck, but it's going to run into a brick wall against a player with whose strategy has a strong basis in the fundamentals of Warhammer 40k.

In particular I can see this army failing if the player loses the initiative, say by facing an army that doesn't politely deploy and wait for the Space Marines to land on them.

It'll certainly be in a world of hurt if those psychic powers don't work when they're needed to.

No, I think that is just a stupid idea. . Especially since, and correct me if I am wrong, Null Zone gives the squad a 5++.

You could probably kill the squad pretty good in close combat. Charge a Power Fist in there.

I definately agree that Bolt of Change + Warptime coming in from a flying Demon Prince (heck maybe it even deep striked) would be a funny and possibly ironic way to really smoke the pussy WS5 BS4 W2 Libbys in the new Marine book. But I do not think it is something that can be relied on.

*DEEP STRIKE*
*looks around*
*ZAP*
*charges new target*

Space Marine reaction: "Man ...."

Since he can put those drop pods anywhere he wants, as long as one of the pod's sides is within 14" of your infantry he's going to rapid-fire that special ammunition at you first turn (assuming tanks are down/not particularly dangerous). So you're eating 4/5 shots to ignore cover, 4/4 shots to ignore guardian/tau/improved IG armor, or if you find some marines out of cover, the 4/3 bolters. Thing is, I'm not convinced I have the stones to throw 20 gets hot dice and see how many ones I get!

The nice part is using Gate of Infinity on turn 2 to rapid fire people 36" away, or just port 3 inches and rapid fire the guys who just assaulted you.

You are wrong. Null Zone does not give the Sternguard a 5+ invulnerable saving throw. That's the Force Dome power. Null zone simply force the enemy to re-roll their invulnerable saves.

The squad is vulnerable to close combat, but with Combat Tactics it's riskier than simply shooting them, and if the Sternguard are being used for their purpose of mobile reserve, then chances are your own close combat troops will be tied up or dead.

In the configuration that Stelek has them in, they'll be bouncing all over the place. It's a good thing Missile Launchers have a 48" range.

I would love to see how a Deathwing Army using DWA would fare against this. The meltagun shots would be incredibly bad news, but after that first round of cookers, I don't see the Sternguard in a position to really hurt the Terminators.

I might get a friend of mine to proxy this against me.

CK

Man. Where this thread went has me confused.

Oh well.

Looks dead hard, and fun to play against. You're right that the weaknesses are the same as any deepstrike army, but the strengths are a bit more than drop IG or most other pod builds. The increased reliability is nice.

I agree with the suggestions that you take Pedro. Three more scoring units is the difference between fighting to tie most of your skilled opponents (who will terminate the tac squads to spoil your chances) and having a legit shot at beating them in anything but annihilation. But man, annihilation would hurt against this.

EDIT: First guy to show up at a tourney with a Crimson Fists list and a "VOTE FOR PEDRO (Cantor)" shirt wins the nerd prize.

Corpsman_of_Krieg wrote:I would love to see how a Deathwing Army using DWA would fare against this. The meltagun shots would be incredibly bad news, but after that first round of cookers, I don't see the Sternguard in a position to really hurt the Terminators.

CK is right.

My space marine army also relied on maneuvering and deployment to gain the upper hand, the difference being that I used a combination of fast troops, and infiltrators to secure and hold objectives. These differences aside, I think that the weakness's will stay the same.

Unless there is something that I'm missing, which is always probable considering my lack of the new space marine codex, you will have a very rough time against hard point armies (armies that sit in one place, stay in one group, and decimate everything that gets in their way.) The best among these hard point armies are Deathwing armies, who don't really have to move all that much once they've gotten into their 24" kill zone. My friend did the same thing with chaos terminators, and it ended up very badly.

An Agile army with a commander as good as you're said to be would probably also beat you, while your army is very good at maneuvering thanks to your librarian, and the drop pods will temporarily deny your opponent his advantage of movement, a good commander (unlike most people, when I say "good commander" I mean a good commander, and in no way mean that you aren't) will be able to take his losses, (and they will be big with all those nasty squads landing next to him) and proceed to kill your men. In essence, all this stuff about a "good commander" would be better summarized like so: If Stelek played against himself, one having an agile army, and one having this army, the Stelek with the agile army would win.

The counter for the Agile army that I would suggest would be to put some long range heavy weapons in your squads. You would then form a hard point, using your drop pods as impromptu bunkers to obscure LOS, and provide more firepower at medium range. You could also use the drop pods as tank traps.

This army is not unbeatable, but could prove to be a real challenge to face. I think that against a static opponent or one who plays reactionary style it will simply dominate.

Remember you only get to do the combi-melta trick once with each squad, since the combi parts are one shot weapons. Of course you may simply not need to do it more than once...

It's got weakness, but you know that. Looks pretty solid though, and it'll probably have your opponent yelling at you in frustration as he tries to catch your squads while you teleport everywhere.

Savnock wrote:Looks dead hard, and fun to play against. You're right that the weaknesses are the same as any deepstrike army, but the strengths are a bit more than drop IG or most other pod builds. The increased reliability is nice.

I agree with the suggestions that you take Pedro. Three more scoring units is the difference between fighting to tie most of your skilled opponents (who will terminate the tac squads to spoil your chances) and having a legit shot at beating them in anything but annihilation. But man, annihilation would hurt against this.

EDIT: First guy to show up at a tourney with a Crimson Fists list and a "VOTE FOR PEDRO (Cantor)" shirt wins the nerd prize.

Well, part of the S&T in this army is this:

Instead of 2 sternguard squads (Kantor is expensive) and only 1 librarian (less mobile)...

You have 3 units to take objectives from the enemy (contest).

You have 2 (or 4 if you combat squad, which everyone seems to forget) to sieze objectives.

What happens when you present your enemy with ZERO choices?

You lose. Often.

What happens when you give the enemy many targets, and more than a single choice?

You win. Often.

The trick is, the sternguard are NOT scoring units.

Only the tacticals are.

The tacticals will arrive and hide on turn 2 and turn 3.

If you are trying to kill the sternguard--I will probably win because drop pods on objectives + marines = contested and I only need 1 marine out of 20 marines to survive and sieze an objective to win.

If you ignore the sternguard and try to kill the tacticals--the sternguard will annihilate most armies that try it.

Now on the other hand if all I do is give you a bunch of scoring marines, you will just kill the sternguard (what I do not want) and then contest my objectives while you secure yours. Some players might try this ANYWAY, but at least it's going against the grain of my army and not against the weak side of it--so I have a chance.

Make sense?

definitely a good list. I like it!

scary good against alot of 4th ed powerbuilds,

the ability to choose the battlefield is really important to this army (and it should as they are paying 50+ points for each pod)

the only army off the top of my head that this army might have a tough time with is a nob bike army with it's 4+ cover save vs melta fire that can be increased to 3+ by gtg (or 2+ if they turbo-boosted that turn). anything other than the melta fire from the stern guard will have a tough time piercing the 4+ armor 4+ cover 4+ feel no pain t 5 nobs. so if they can survive the withering melta fire with a 3+ or 2+ cover save they will probably carry the day.

other than that, I think this army will tear almost anything else a new one

Can't go to 2+ saves, you can't GTG if you turbo-boosted.

Stelek wrote:Can't go to 2+ saves, you can't GTG if you turbo-boosted.

indeed. my mistake.

regardless, this is a rock hard list. are you considering it for GTs?

Well I like it. It actually looks like an interesting list to play. I often seem to gravitate towards playing some sort of attrition oriented list to play and the surgical/elite nature of this army seems like it would be a great change of pace for me. Plus it looks dead 'ard which is not a bad thing in my book.

This does pretty well confirm my thought that the inquisitor lord plus psychic hood and mystics is going to have to become standard equipment in all of my future 'guard lists.