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I have the following list, and as a relatively new player, would appreciate any advice and points.
I am a casual gamer, and my main opponents are Dark Angels, Nids and Ultramarines
(Btw, the 9 stormtroopers are because i bought the older models in blister packs, not the Kasrkin)


HQ
Command Squad Power fist, vox caster 70
-Transport Chimera 55

Elites
Ratlings 7 70

Storm troopers 9, 2x meltaguns 169

Troops
Platoon 1
-Platoon Command squad Vox 35
-Squad 1 Flamer, vox 60
-Squad 2 Flamer, vox 60
-Squad 3 Flamer, vox 60
-Special Weapons Squad 3 sniper rifles 50

Platoon 2
-Platoon Command squad Vox 35
-Squad 1 Flamer, vox 60
-Squad 2 Flamer, vox 60
-Squad 3 Flamer, vox 60
-Heavy Weapons Squad 2x lascannons, missile launcher 100

Fast Attack
Scout Sentinel Heavy flamer 40

Valkyrie Multiple rocket pods 130

Bane Wolf Heavy flamer 130

Heavy Support
Basilisk 125

Basilisk 125

1494

Any advice would be welcome, cheers

It's not a bad list, pretty unique. The ratlings and stormtroopers aren't seen on many lists around here - they give your army a bit of tactical flexibility at deployment. Remember the STS gets to choose a Special Operation before deployment, so you get to consider the opponent, mission, and terrain before you decide. If you infiltrate them, your list has the ability to pin 5 units in one turn (you'll be pinning something, that's for sure). Of course their obvious use is to deepstrike those meltas on a tank, but it's pretty expensive with 10 men. One thing you could do is get one more model and split the squad into two, with one melta each, that may be better. The other possibility I see, and something you could pull on your regular opponents to shake things up, would be to give them the chimera use their scout ability to outflank with it. Definitely change up your uses with them to keep your regular opponents guessing. I just realized you probably put them in the valk, but my advice stands - mix it up.

I would take some of the voxes away so that you can make that HWS all LC. It's best not to mix weapons in the HWS's, you want maximum efficiency for their intended use.

The way you're set up, you could probably be pretty sure of blobbing at least one of those platoons most of the time, so you'd only need one vox/blob. You could even get away with just one vox/platoon, saving 20pts, and if you do split some squads oh well.

Another place people will tell you to trim fat is that commander's power fist - you don't really want to be close enough to use it, and if you are, it won't help that much before he goes splat. It's usually reserved for more hardcore CC setups. It's not overly critical though; it's fluffy and you've probably already got it modeled. You'd probably be better off with a plasmagun for the same pts; plasma is great against power armour, so anywhere you can work some into your list would help against your regular opponents.

All that flamemage and rocket pods must help against the regular nid opponent, and the banewolf is well respected for a reason. People are pretty meh on the HF sent, but maybe it's working for you; is it? The double bassies must do alot of damage, and they are pretty important here as you're pretty slim on anti-tank and AP weapons. I assume you're putting them in seperate squadrons.

I personally would ditch the whole vox network and the powerfist and get more weapons - plasma, maybe a heavy or two for a platoon, and if you got some weapons for one of your three command squads you could put it in the valk for a scoring skimmer.

Many thanks murdog, the following have been edited, they will hopefully have a test battle at some point this week (I will be referring to my own experience with the unit in a battle against a friend's Eldar):
-Power fist has been modelled, but it will count as a CC weapon. He now has a plasma pistol(+5pts)
-3rd lascannon for heavy weapon team in 2nd Platoon (-5pts)
-In its first battle last week (which i won btw ) i mobbed two squads per platoon, with another two 10 man squads being flexible. Two voxes will be dropped (+10pts)
-The basilisks are in separate squadrons, usually deployed at each end of the deployment zone. My terrible rolling for scatter means they rarely hit, but their psychological impact seems to be their greatest strength. In the battle one got destroyed turn One (they went first), the other stunned three war walkers and took a wound off a Wraithlord in its first shot. It missed between turns 2-5 , (very bad rolling on my part), in turn 6 it killed a Farseer and one of his guards. As a bonus, his two units of Guardians never left the hedge cover on his side of the table
-Splitting the storm troopers into 2 units with one meltagun each costs 190pts, another 21. IMO, sorry, but not really worth it (don't have the pts and one meltagun shot will be too risky to rely on taking out a tank [even with BS4]). They should be a bit scarier for my marine opponents in a huge unit like this . In the Eldar battle, they dropped out of the Valk and gunned down six Fire Dragons sneaking up on my immobilised Bane Wolf. The Bane Wolf held an entire flank, their units didn't dare go near it I will keep this too, its wounding on 2+ AP1 weapon is scary
-With a free 16pts, will be giving each PCS a grenade launcher and a flamer to my command
-I'm keeping the vox network, just in case i really need to rapid fire their CC units 12" away or make them run to an objective. There are no heavy weapons in the platoon squads so that i don't lose two lasguns (heavy weapons are one, two wound, models), and can move and fire with full strength. I feel heavy weapons would encourage me to never move units

So now 1499pts. Thanks for the advice murdog I will be happy to hear any other opinions by other players.

Sounds good, Good Luck!

What about that HF sent? Tell me how it works for you, I'm about to build my first one...

Instead of one 7 man ratling squad, try two 4 man squads. They are small enough for your opponent to want to ignore, yet you'll have 8. Also, now you can try to pin one squad and if it works then you move on to another, or you shoot at them again.

To murdog- My HF sentinel is cheap and in the one battle, it worked for me. I outflanked with it. It turned up on Turn 4 and ended up behind the friend's Wave Serpent that had transported the Fire Dragons behind my Bane Wolf. (I got lucky, two penetrating hits on the Bane Wolf, crew shaken and immobilised from 5 meltaguns and a Fire Pike!) The sentinel heavy flamered the rear armour of the Serpent, stunning it. I charged into it next turn and killed it in one. This may have been hideously lucky rolling, but it was nonetheless effective.
Ideally, it will deploy in or near wood/jungle/city terrain and support nearby squads. On the other hand, it can flank enemy squads, or act as a reserve unit to deal with any possible breakthroughs. It would be useful versus hordes and pretty much any non-marine assault troops with a 4+ save or worse.
Though not as versatile as an autocannon or missile launcher, it is cheaper.

To Datadep5- If you can find me nine pts to lose in the list, I would use your tactic. Just having two small squads seem too brittle, and in boards lacking enough terrain they would be out in the open. Though it is a tactic i'm willing to try, unless you can find somewhere to lose pts (not my voxes please!) i will stick with a group of seven.

WhiteBishop wrote:HQ
Command Squad Power fist, vox caster 70
-Transport Chimera 55

Drop the fist, a 5 man squad will never live long enough to use it. Also, humans have S3. Fist only gets you up to S6, which is barely enough to hit Av10 rear armor. Because you are inside a Chimera, you won't even get to use it till your opponent is shooting at you, which means he will likely get the assault. Like I said, 5 humans will be wiped off the board before they ever have a chance to do anything in CC.

WhiteBishop wrote:Elites
Ratlings 7 70

Storm troopers 9, 2x meltaguns 169

I am not a fan of melta guns for infantry. I've found that generally, you find yourself sacrificing a squad to your opponent so you can melta a tank. You have to be inside 12" to shoot, and 6" to melta. Any army can assault 12". 169pts is a lot of points to lose just so you can blow up a single tank, and that's if you actually manage to do it. Consider that a Vets squad could do the same thing, for 100pts and have 3 melta in the squad. The only difference is that you would have to add a transport, maybe a Chimera, making the squad 155pts. But for less points you now have 3 melta, and another tank on the board.

That being said, I really HATE melta infantry. An IG army simply has more options to blow up tanks at range than any other list (except maybe tau... but they have blue skin... so who gives a feth?).

Ratlings are cool, they are surprisingly hard to kill and a really cool if they cause your opponent to stop and do something about them. If he ignores them all game, then they have the opportunity to make back the points you spent on them.

WhiteBishop wrote:Troops
Platoon 1
-Platoon Command squad Vox 35
-Squad 1 Flamer, vox 60
-Squad 2 Flamer, vox 60
-Squad 3 Flamer, vox 60
-Special Weapons Squad 3 sniper rifles 50

Platoon 2
-Platoon Command squad Vox 35
-Squad 1 Flamer, vox 60
-Squad 2 Flamer, vox 60
-Squad 3 Flamer, vox 60
-Heavy Weapons Squad 2x lascannons, missile launcher 100

First, no idea why you brought snipers, when you have ratlings, and could bring more ratlings. You just spent 50pts on snipers, and you only get 3 rifles, no infiltration, and no stealth. 50pts could be 5 ratlings, all with rifles, and all the special abilities. Not to mention the snipers in a platoon have BS3, and thats complete gak.

Second, drop the vox network. Holy crap that's a lot of points you are wasting for a lot of nothing. Most of the orders in the IG army make a minimal difference. For example, first rank second rank. If you ever waste an order on that, you are doing something awfully wrong. Here's some math:

Combined squad of 50 Guard w/ FRFSRF gets 150, if they get to rapid fire versus another squad of Guard.
BS3 is 1/2 hits. 150*1/2=75
S3 v T3 is 1/2 wounds. 75*1/2=37.5
Enemy has Sv5+ so 2/3 shots are unsaved. 37.5*2/3=25

Combined squad of 50 Guard w/ FRFSRF gets 150, if they get to rapid fire versus a squad of Space Marines.
BS3 is 1/2 hits. 150*1/2=75
S3 v T4 is 1/3 wounds. 75*1/3=25
Enemy has Sv3+ so 1/3 shots are unsaved. 37.5*1/3=8.33

Lasguns are awful, they are really not worth having in your army. That's why most guard players insist on heavy and special weapon in your squads. Otherwise your squads are useless. The order Bring it Down is a good order, but none of these squads have heavy weapons for going after vehicles. On my target is good for an opponent who uses a lot of cover, but your squads have flamers anyway. Get back in the fight is a life saver, but it comes up very few times, as Guard are more likely to die, than survive long enough to fall back LOL. Not to mention most of the good orders are issued by your CCS... so you only get two anyway.

Missle Launchers are god awful. For 15pts you get a single S8 shot, or a small blast with the same stats as a Mortar, except you get 3 Mortars for the price of a ML except they are also Barrage, which means Pinning and Passes (some) cover, and hits side armor on vehicles. Which honestly, I think S6 against side armor is nearly as good as S8 against front armor. Anyway, S8 isn't even enough to pen Av14, and if you are going to go for Av13 or lower... an AC can glance and has 2 shots. Since you are shooting with BS3, your ML is going to have a remarkably low success rate. If you are looking for anti infantry, go for Mortars, save yourself a lot of points and give yourself some barrage weapons. If you need to take down armor, do a full HWS of Lascannon. You should always avoid mixing and matching weapons too. Because when you shoot at an Av14 that ML would have been useless, but when you fire the ML at something then the las will not be as effective as they should be.

Here is what I am thinking, drop the second platoon. Move 2 of the infantry squads over from the 2nd platoon (you can't fit the 3rd) and combine some squads. I don't care if you do a squad of 50, or a 30 and a 20... but these squads look like they are supposed to be a meat shield between you and your opponent. A good strategy, but in squads of 10 they won't survive long enough to do much. ALSO you save yourself some points by downsizing to one platoon. Drop the Special weapons squad, and keep the heavy weapons. Fix the HWS you have, and add a second with another weapon (NOT MLs!). Then if you really want you can just put one vox in the 50 man combined squad. So now, your list is cheaper, more effective, and you saved yourself a ton of points on vox you didn't need. Now you can take a Vets squad and give them meltas, and use them instead of the Stormtroopers. Now you save even MORE points, and are even MORE effective. And if you still can find the points for the storm troopers, you can do what they were meant to do, and that is kill MEQs and other infantry.

WhiteBishop wrote:Fast Attack
Scout Sentinel Heavy flamer 40

Valkyrie Multiple rocket pods 130

Bane Wolf Heavy flamer 130

Not sure why you have a Av10 open-topped vehicle by itself. It is just gonna get popped before it can do anything. Especially since it is carrying a flamer, it can't just fire from cover 4' away. I would recommend upgrading to an AC. AC lets you outflank and find a nice bit of cover to obscure yoruself with, and then plink away at rear armor from 4'. AC is also pretty good againt heavy infantry, so it can do that too when you need it. I would also recommend making it a squad of 3, they last longer and 3 shots is enough to get a job done.

Valks are awesome, so are MRPs. I would recommend dropping the Sentinel all together and bringing a vendetta or another valk. If you take your PCS and make it a barebones squad, you can leave it in the Valk/Vend for the whole game and it turns your bird into a scoring unit. It is hilarious when you 24" all out to an objective on the last turn and cap and hold a point that was too dangerous to leave men on all game, or just take any Valk/Vend and fly it into an enemy squad holding a point to contest it. If you hold 1 point, and you fly birds into the 2 points your opponent had, then you win.

Banewolf is good against MEQ. If you don't expect Marines, then bring a regular Hellhound. I feel like you can do more with Basilisk against marines than a Banewolf, and the Hellhound would serve you better overall.

WhiteBishop wrote:Heavy Support
Basilisk 125

Basilisk 125

Basilisk are great. If you put them in a squad they fire together. This helps eliminate some scatter, as the two shots will fall next to each other or on top of each other. You should go read the rules about multiple barrages. I feel like you should have Russ however. You really need some Av14 in this list. You lose a little range, and 1 strength, but you keep the AP, and you can use the Av14 to protect your weaker vehicles and infantry.

WhiteBishop wrote:1494

You can find a place for 6 points in an IG list, never waste your points.

WhiteBishop wrote:-Power fist has been modelled, but it will count as a CC weapon. He now has a plasma pistol(+5pts)

Drop the plasma pistol. You are going to feel awful when the thing puts a wound on your company commander, the guy who is issuing all your orders. I would recommend filling the squad with grenade launchers however. Maybe even put a heavy weapon in, so when you don't move the Chimera you can fire a lascannon.

WhiteBishop wrote:-3rd lascannon for heavy weapon team in 2nd Platoon (-5pts)

Oh, good. Then disregard me from above if you already fixed this.

WhiteBishop wrote:-In its first battle last week (which i won btw ) i mobbed two squads per platoon, with another two 10 man squads being flexible. Two voxes will be dropped (+10pts)

I really think you could afford to just have one platoon. Take Vets and combine everyone in to one HUGE mob of 50 dudes. Use the PCS and Vets (that you would have to add) to cap and hold points and use your 50 man squad and vehicles to contest other points.

WhiteBishop wrote:-The basilisks are in separate squadrons, usually deployed at each end of the deployment zone. My terrible rolling for scatter means they rarely hit, but their psychological impact seems to be their greatest strength. In the battle one got destroyed turn One (they went first), the other stunned three war walkers and took a wound off a Wraithlord in its first shot. It missed between turns 2-5 , (very bad rolling on my part), in turn 6 it killed a Farseer and one of his guards. As a bonus, his two units of Guardians never left the hedge cover on his side of the table

Leman Russ could do the same thing and would not die as easy. Or if you put the Basi into a squad, they would scatter less, as the two shots HAVE to place near each other and if you get a hit on the second shot you can place it wherever you want.

WhiteBishop wrote:-Splitting the storm troopers into 2 units with one meltagun each costs 190pts, another 21. IMO, sorry, but not really worth it (don't have the pts and one meltagun shot will be too risky to rely on taking out a tank [even with BS4]). They should be a bit scarier for my marine opponents in a huge unit like this . In the Eldar battle, they dropped out of the Valk and gunned down six Fire Dragons sneaking up on my immobilised Bane Wolf. The Bane Wolf held an entire flank, their units didn't dare go near it I will keep this too, its wounding on 2+ AP1 weapon is scary

Hellhound works better against most everything so long as it doesnt have Sv3+, in which case the Banewolf is barely superior for no other reason than its AP3. Consider that wounding on a 2+ is great, but the hellhound has S6 so it does that anyway against anything T4 or lower.

As for the storm troopers, as I said above, I don't think they are meant for tank hunting. They are meant for infantry hunting, like you used them for. Drop the meltas or drop the squad. I think taking melta vets would serve you better, freeing up your troopers to go hunt other elites, which they are quite good at.

WhiteBishop wrote:-With a free 16pts, will be giving each PCS a grenade launcher and a flamer to my command

Lasguns are awful, you should always make an effort to fill every squad with as many special weapons as you can, unless you have a very specific role for them to fill. For example putting a bare PCS on a valk to just cruise around and hold objectives.

WhiteBishop wrote:-I'm keeping the vox network, just in case i really need to rapid fire their CC units 12" away or make them run to an objective. There are no heavy weapons in the platoon squads so that i don't lose two lasguns (heavy weapons are one, two wound, models), and can move and fire with full strength. I feel heavy weapons would encourage me to never move units

Like I mathed above, lasguns and FRFSRF is one of the worst wastes of orders you can have. You really should spend your time giving out BiD orders to your HWS and Incoming! and Move move move! to your platoon's huge mob. If you drop the whole network, you save 40pts, that's another sentinel to keep your other one from being lonely. AND considering that your units can still pass most of their orders without a vox network, it isn't even like you are giving up on your orders. If you drop your other sentinel, you could have 80 pts for something else. I feel like that's half way to something good


Automatically Appended Next Post:
CCS-50
+Mortar-5
+Chimera-55
Ratlings-50
PCS-30
5xInfantry-250
+5xFlamers-25
+5xPowerweapons-50
2xHWS-120
+3xLascannon-45
+3xMortars-0
Vets-70
+3xMelta-30
Hellhound-130
Valk-100
+MRP-30
LRBT-150
+Las-15
LRBT-150
+Las-15

Wow, very comprehensive summary Lt Lathrop. Like your picture as well. But i digress...
Following changes

HQ- 2 flamers, no special/heavy weapons

Elites- 2x 4 Ratlings, move versatile
- Storm troopers now have no special weapons, just 9 strong. They were kept a) because i like the models and b) they are useful versus Nid warriors, Devastator squads, Seer councils etc. any units that hang back that can be a threat. They are reactive (usually deep striking in). The meltas were there to definitely kill enemies, and i had considered dropping the weapons, so i wouldn't be tempted to waste them at tanks. Have dropped them now.

Troops-
Maths for FRF,SFR

60 FRF,SRF rapid fire shots against marines
(1/2 )30 hit
(1/3)10 wound = (1/3) 3.33 unsaved wounds

40 non FRF,SRF rapid fire shots against marines
20 hit
6.66 wound = 2.22 unsaved wounds.
1 marine extra dies with FRF,SRF.

I will not always use FRF,SRF, but mainly for MMM or Incoming! for movement and saves respectively.
Sorry, but i am going to keep fielding two squads in two platoons, but i have dropped two squads, so they will probably stick as two squads of 20, with one vox and two flamers per unit.
I have added an extra squad of mortars for fire support that doesn't need LOS

Fast Attack
- Dropped my lone Sentinel
-Keeping a Hellhound, has greater range and better versus Eldar and Nids.
-Keeping Valk with MRP

Heavy Support
-Both of my Basilisks are staying in.

Below is the list in full:

HQ
Command Squad Vox, 2 flamers 65
Transport Chimera 55

Elites
Ratlings 4 40
Ratlings 4 40
Storm troopers 9 149

Troops
Platoon 1
-Platoon Command Squad Vox 35
-Squad 1 Flamer 55
-Squad 2 Flamer, vox 60
-Heavy Weapons Squad 3 mortars 60

Platoon 2
-Platoon Command Squad Vox 35
-Squad 1 Flamer 55
-Squad 2 Flamer, vox 60
-Heavy Weapons Squad 3 lascannons 105

Fast Attack
Valkyrie Multiple rocket pods 130

Hellhound Heavy flamer 130

Heavy Support
Basilisk 125

Basilisk 125


1324

I know this is 176pts short, so any other advice is welcome. Not sure what to add, really between a LR variant (i own one without a turret) or some tooled up Veterans with some spare pts.
Advice welcome, but thank you all

Still think you could use some Av14, so a Russ with a hull mounted Las might do you perfectly for 175 pts. It's great for anti-vehicle, anti-MEQ and anti-horde, and can take a proper beating. And still consider grouping the two Basilisk for better accuracy... however they can't fire at different targets. Other than that, list doesn't look half bad.

Good luck

Adding a normal LRBT to the list

LRBT with hull lascannon. The model has heavy bolter sponsons, but unless i can drop another ten points they will be ignored for game reasons (until i get round to taking them off)
150pts for LRBT, 15pts for lascannon.

This is 11pts to spare. Will spend 10pts on a heavy stubber, this adds a defensive weapon, never know when i might need it. If anyone knows a better use, please voice

I know i seem like i only want others opinions, but it just helps to have an objective view. Thank you

1 Point is usually good for a searchlight somewhere. I am not sure if you are ever going to play a night game. Dawn of War is night turn 1, but unless its on a Chimera that comes with one of your troops choices... it won't help much. And they already have searchlights and smoke. I would say the Hellhound is the best option, as it CAN'T miss, and anyone you hit with it will be lit up... IN FLAMES!!!... I mean, under the searchlight.

As for the 10 pts. A defensive run the Russ is cool. I would say you are more likely to need it on the Hellhound, since it will be close enough to the enemy to use it... and since it is likely to move more than the Russ, will probably have more need for defensive weapons. Also, if someone blows up the Inferno Cannon on the Hellhound... you can ram with it... 18" of ram is a lot of hurt. The extra gun will give you a tiny bit better chance to not be immobilized from exploding guns.

OR... If you can find a few more points here and there. I might recommend power weapons for your infantry squads, so when they get hit in CC they can do some damage... while dying.

Now (hopefully) final list. Just need to convert the Russ to have no sponsons and buy 3 mortars:

HQ
Command Squad Vox, 2 flamers 65
Transport Chimera 55

Elites
Ratlings 4 40
Ratlings 4 40
Storm troopers 9 149

Troops
Platoon 1
-Platoon Command Squad Vox 35
-Squad 1 Flamer 55
-Squad 2 Flamer, vox 60
-Heavy Weapons Squad 3 mortars 60

Platoon 2
-Platoon Command Squad Vox 35
-Squad 1 Flamer 55
-Squad 2 Flamer, vox 60
-Heavy Weapons Squad 3 lascannons 105

Fast Attack
Valkyrie Multiple rocket pods 130

Hellhound Heavy flamer, heavy stubber, searchlight 141

Heavy Support
Basilisk 125
Basilisk 125
LRBT, hull lascannon 165

1500

[ego]About as good as a list can get without being written by me, I think. Lol.[/ego]

Thank you to all. Now i've got a bit of repainting and modelling to do. Thanks all