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Most definitely not a competitive list. Still want to try it out just to see what I can do with it. Planning on using it for an upcoming game I have. Any advice, serious or friendly, will be welcomed. First time using the forum, so yay me! The army is built around the Deathstrike, simply going to sit there, do a bit of damage, and then attempt to mop up after the missile hits.

Company Command Squad- Astropath (Just there)

Primaris Psyker- Mastery Level 2 (Because why not)

Militarum Tempestus Squad- Tempestor, 7xTempestus Scions, 2xMeltaguns (Deep-striking in to take out some armor. Not much else unless they manage to survive.)

Platoon Command Squad

2xInfantry Squad- Mortar team (Filler and a bit more anti-infantry)

Heavy Weapons Team- 3xAutocannons (All-purpose weapons team)

Veterans- Lascannon, Forward Sentries (Nothing like a 3+ cover save. A bit more AT.)

Aegis Defense Line

Leman Russ Executioner

Deathstrike Missile Launcer- Camo netting, pintle-mounted heavy stubber (For the lulz)

Do something fun with the PCS and CCS. Snipers, flamers, or plasma are all good or a lascannon for BS4 and orders, usually take heavy flamers when I can too. If your vets are getting a 3+ cover save, you should give them plasma guns or grenade launchers so they can help out the lascannon take out tanks and such.

What would you recommend I switch out?

Hey First & Only,

I have a question or two:

1) What army are you playing against?
2) What is your backup plan if the death strike does not fire/misses/doesn't do enough damage?
3) Where does the psyker go?

My thoughts on the list: (I say this with the utmost positivity and intent to help, not to make your list seem bad)

First of all my overall impression is this:
A lot of squishy guys, no AA and a big reliance on the death-strike hitting its target spells trouble for this list. This list will struggle with mobility, AV and countering air units, and its really susceptible to anti infantry shooting.

HQ: CCS's are great for orders, but what composition would you give them? With a BS of 4 they can be kitted out to do some damage. Taking a las cannon or sniper rifle may be worth it if they are gonna sit behind the aegis line. I would highly recommend that you take a commissar with them and have him man the Quad gun for some excellent AA.

Elites: A small squad of scions is a really expensive and fragile investment. They can be a great way to deal with vehicles, just be weary of them scattering and ending up as a point sink that doesn't do much. At any rate they make a good suicide unit but as other things in the codex, redundancy is really really important for success. (Giving these guys a transport like Taurox may significantly improve their use/ durability, but its expensive.) Honestly I would recommend dropping these and replacing them with melta vets in chimera.

Troops:
PCS: The classic 7th ed choice is to run a 4 flamer PCS. Very good at protecting your blob from hordes. I would avoid giving them ranged weapons that require good BS. So either go all flamer, or all grenade launcher and use them for infantry cleaning at medium/short range. Keep them near your blob for orders.

Infantry Squads: Hmm, I don't think 20 guardsmen is enough. Even behind aegis you may be losing 6-10 guard a turn to enemy shooting. Mortars aren't bad, I like to run them with autocannons. At 1000 taking a 30 man blob will be quite effective and nowhere near as squishy. Add a priest or the primaris here for buffing, and put them behind barricades for a good castled firebase.
HWT: Pretty decent choice, more dakka is always good. make sure they are in cover.

Las Cannon Veterans: Not a bad choice, but this list already struggles with mobility. I would honestly run vets in chimeras with meltas as AV instead of relying on las cannon shots. additionally they can become excellent objective grabbers if the need arises.

Heavy Support:

Leman Russ Executioner: Solid Choice

Death Strike:
Hmmm.... This is I think the biggest problem. I know it's not good to hear (Believe me I too like the idea of protecting your glass cannon that wipes the enemy forces off of the game board in a grand explosion) But at 1000 points its either gonna be overkill or a complete disappointment. Think of it like this: Let's say you hit dead on on turn 2 and his entire army is obliterated. Well you just had a 2 turn game that was probably not fun at all for your opponent. I doubt you'll make a lot f friends doing that, and honestly you'll get bored of it. Now that's your best case scenario. What if instead you don't fire, you miss, or don;t do enough damage? Then you paid 16% of your total army points for a dud. Worst of all, now you can't threathen him, force him to come to you anymore so he can slowly chip away at your squishy blob.

For the 160 points it's worth you can get 2 wyverns and points left over. Twin linked mortar fire, ignores cover, shred and hits reliably on every turn! You will still have your artillery to protect but you'll be wiping his forces off the board every turn, forcing him to come after them and in range of your castled blob.

Just my 2 cents, hope that helps. Cheers!

Hey there dweller! Thanks for responding. I'll go through your questions first.

1. Not sure what army I'm playing against as it is part of a tournament. Could be Space Wolves, normal Marines, Orks, Crons...Pretty much every faction except the Chaos ones so far.

2. My backup plan, eh? Not much of one. After some edits I'm making, I hope to have a gunline set up more suited to defense. Not really much of one right now, though.

3. As I am in the process of modifying, not sure where I want him but most likely the infantry squads to increase their survivability and/or damage. Though the Veterans seem a good choice as well.

And now to address your points.

HQ: Trying to free up points to give them something to make use of their skills. In the meta I play not too many fliers appear which is why I'm not really worried about them.

Elites: I have realized it is quite expensive. While Melta vets are probably more useful, I want to keep a deep strike group to hit anything in the back. Dropping them down to the minimum size to save on points for now.

Troops:

PCS is in the same situation as the CCS, attempting to free up points.

For the squads, I might switch them out for vets or go with your suggestion if I can free up points. Considering taking the vets in a chimera but I would need to either hope for cover outside of the aegis on the current situation or change their layout completely.

Death Strike: Yeah, I know... Honestly, this list was made to be a test bed for the missile so I could ascertain its usefulness. I should probably switch it as you said.

Thanks for the advice though! Haven't been playing 40k for too long so still learning what works and what doesn't

Maybe lose the Scions in favor of using Veterans in the interests of the points savings.

If there are no fliers then yeah you can forego the quad gun and commissar.

I would not put psyker in unit of vets as its very probable that the unit will wipe and then you'll lose that expensive psyker. Hghly advise to keep him with the platoon. The real benefit of platoons is just sheer model count which ensures your opponents don't get easy kill points for wiping squads. Having too many veteran squads makes it easy for opponent to wipe multiple and get multiple points, winning out in VP count.

Oops, typoed there. The first "veterans" in answer 3 should be infantry squad.

Alright, here is an updated list.

HQ: CCS- Lascannon, Astropath (100)
Primaris Psyker- Mastery Level 2 (75)

Elites: Tempestus Platoon- Tempestor, 4xScions, 2xMeltas (114)

Troops: PCS- HB, 2xFlamers (70)
3xInfantry Squads- AC (180)
HWT- 3xAC (75)


Veterans- Lascannon, 2xPlasma Guns, Forward Sentries(120)

Heavy Support: LR Executioner- Camo Netting, Lascannon (180)

Fortifications: Aegis Defense Line (50)

Total: 999

Would this work better for a gunline?

Why astropath and lascannon on CCS? At ML1 your power will be totally random, the only reliable thing is psychic shriek, which is really close range. It's there only for free warp charge?

What's the plan with primaris? Put prescience/whatever else useful you roll on blob? If so, ML2 only is likely enough. Prescience needs 4 dice on average, primaris gives you to, so on a roll of 2+ in the psychic phase, you are fine. So you can spend the 25 points of astropath somewhere else. I think you should try to find points for plasma sponsons on the LR.

Not really sure why I took the astropath, he is pretty useless for my list. The lascannon is for a bit more heavy AT though the other AT should be able to take care of anything, now that I look at it.

With the Primaris, I was planning to use it on one of the blobs, yes, to maximize damage.

Primaris with blob with heavy weapons is cool. Attach it, so you can use the divination psy which gives ignore cover on the blob (it gives the USR to the psyker and it's unit). I'd keep the CCS low on offensive upgrades to keep it as low threat to the opponent as possible, so it survives to give orders. Or you can replace the astropath with master of ordnance for long range firepower, that works well with lascannon, although it can indirect fire, while the lascannon can't. You can put the CCS in a chimera, so it's a bit more tough, and the MoO can shoot out from it. Astropath is good for cheap warp charge, it's just unnecessary here imo. Although inquisition psykers in henchman squads are even cheaper.

I;ll be finding some way to get the weapons off then. I might replace the astropath with a MoO but I just find his ability to be a bit unreliable due to the scatter distance. Though I can't deny its effectiveness if it does hit. With the astropath and lascannon gone, I should be able to easily find four more points for the plasma sponsons.

First & Only wrote:
I;ll be finding some way to get the weapons off then. I might replace the astropath with a MoO but I just find his ability to be a bit unreliable due to the scatter distance. Though I can't deny its effectiveness if it does hit. With the astropath and lascannon gone, I should be able to easily find four more points for the plasma sponsons.

You can drop the HB from PCS (BS3 anyway), add a flamer there, and there are your 4 points.

Any comments on the other sections of the list? I realize it is a bit immobile but adding mobility would mean changing the structure of my army quite a bit, making the Aegis line less useful for what is supposed to be a gun-line army.

First & Only wrote:
Any comments on the other sections of the list? I realize it is a bit immobile but adding mobility would mean changing the structure of my army quite a bit, making the Aegis line less useful for what is supposed to be a gun-line army.

I don't know how to put mobility into IG. That's a big weakness of it. Scions are fragile and expensive, and only has 2 special weapon slots (squads of terminators can die easily after they DS with T4 2+, while these guys have T3 4+).

Ratling has infiltrate, scout sentinels have scout, neither has obj. sec. Chimera and Vendetta gives some mobility, also there are some HQ that gives infiltrate to units. IG won't be too mobile....

I actually really like astropaths. I always take one in a CCS, shriek is a devastating attack and any of the telepathy powers are great defensive spells for keeping your CCS alive when the S hits the fan.

I'm hesitant to take him, though. With the randomness of the powers at level 1 mastery and fairly large number of fearless or high Ld units, telepathy doesn't seem great to me. Though I have a question, does Terrify negate the Fearless rule? Actually, browisng through the rulebook, it does actually seem better than I thought.

First & Only wrote:
I'm hesitant to take him, though. With the randomness of the powers at level 1 mastery and fairly large number of fearless or high Ld units, telepathy doesn't seem great to me. Though I have a question, does Terrify negate the Fearless rule? Actually, browisng through the rulebook, it does actually seem better than I thought.

I think at ML1, you can't rely on rolling a specific power. What's granted is +1WC and psychic shriek, calculate with that. Whatever you roll is just a bonus (and you need to adapt your tactics to it at the table). Psychic shriek is pretty awesome. You roll 3D6s, so even with LD10 you have a nice chance of wounding. And it's auto wound without armor, so it's awesome against single model units e.g. MCs. Astropaths are cool, what I said is that maybe, when your CCS is sitting back, you may want to add long range weapons to it, while shriek is close range. Although no matter what, the enemy will come close, then shriek may come handy.

Restructured the list. Haven't tried it but should work better for what I intend.

HQ:
-CCS w/ sniper, flamer, regimental standard, camo gear (100)
-Primaris Psyker- ML 2 (75)

Elites:
-Militarum Tempestus w/ Tempestor, 2xScions, 2xMelta Scions (90)

Troops:
Infantry Platoon (285)
-PCS (30)
-Infantry Squad w/ AC (60)
-Infantry Squad w/ AC (60)
-Infantry Squad w/ AC (60)
-HWT w/ 3xAC (75)

-Veterans w/ Lascannon, 2xPlasma Guns, Forward Sentries (120)

Heavy Support:
-Leman Russ Executioner w/ Plasma Sponsons, Camo netting (200)
-Wyvern (80)

Fortifications:
-Aegis Defense Line (50)

Total: 1000 to the mark

The latest list looks decent at 1000 pts.

The executioner is gonna lay down the hurt, but it's also gonna be very susceptible to gets hot with all that plasma. Be ready to lose it to "gets hot".

Here's what still needs to be worked out:

1) What is your PCS armed with? Are you just running them with flamers or stock las rifles?

2) 5 Scions without a transport are simply going to die. You are gonna be throwing 90 points out the window and giving your opponent kill points. I would advise you take that 90 points and spend it on a chimera for your vets. (Something you need since they are your only AV for heavy vehicles.)

3) Are you using the quad gun on the ADL? If so, who is manning it?

4) CCS: Where are they gonna be? Are they sitting behind the barricades? That's the only place I would put them if they don't have a chimera. Getting both a sniper and a flamer is a bit strange. I can see wanting to pick off targets at a distance, and then flame them up close but chances are it's not gonna make or break your game. I would go with either or, not both.

5) Trops: This is a decent sized blob, but you MUST give them some buffing from a priest or psyker! You've built a big
platoon, you can make them all that much better, so invest in a priest/psycher and don't hesitate.


Looks good otherwise, love all the autocannons, with orders they are gonna shred infantry/light vehicles.

Check your points cost on the Wyvern, don't think that's correct.

Seems like my first opponent will be Necrons. Played this list against Nids. While Tyranids are almost nothing like Necrons, I did see some inefficiencies that could kill me. So here is a new list. Will this work against them?

HQ:
-CCS w/ 3xSnipers, regimental standard, camo gear (99)
-Primaris Psyker ML2 (75)

Troops:
Infantry Platoon (309)
-PCS w/ Missile Launcher, 2xSnipers (49)
-Infantry Squad w/ ML (65)
-Infantry Squad w/ AC (60)
-Infantry Squad w/ AC (60)
-HWT w/ 3xAC (75)

-Veterans w/ Lascannon, Plasma Gun, Sniper, Forward Sentries (107)

Fast Attack:
-Vendetta (170)

Heavy Support:
-Leman Russ Executioner w/ Multimelta Sponsons, Camo netting (190)

Fortifications:
-Aegis Defense Line (50)

Total: 1000

My plan was to set up a chain of cover with the Aegis lines and any ruins that there are on the map. All of the infantry would sit there shooting up the Necrons while getting 4+ or 3+ cover saves. Reason for the snipers is because of the precision shot and point filler, hoping to take out any expensive units if I can. I took the missile launchers because they can deal with slightly higher AV and have the option for a frag blast. The LR would take out TEQ and vehicles. Vendetta is for extra tank hunting and AA.

Why sniper rifle and regimental standard on CCS? I can't remember what regimental standard does, most likely because it seemed useless the time I read it's rules.

You can't have 2 special weapons on an Infantry squad or a Veteran squad, and Missile launcher and sniper rifle are your worst options.

Put plasma sponsons on your plasma tank. Go full plasma.

Btw you have a vendetta, you can put a command squad there, if you kit it out properly, it can wreck stuff.

Replaced some of the stuff. Decided to try out the Officio Assassinorum detachment. Decided that if the enemy Necron player decides to take an expensive unit I'll just introduce it to Mr. Vindicare.

HQ:
-CCS w/ camo gear (78)
-Primaris Psyker ML2 (75)

Troops:
Infantry Platoon (309)
-PCS w/ Flamer, AC, (44)
-Infantry Squad w/ AC (60)
-Infantry Squad w/ AC (60)
-Infantry Squad w/ AC (60)
-HWT w/ 3xAC (75)

-Veterans w/ Lascannon, Plasma Gun, Sniper, Forward Sentries (107)

Heavy Support:
-Leman Russ Executioner w/ Plasma Sponsons, Camo netting (200)

Fortifications:
-Aegis Defense Line w/ Quad Gun(50)


*Officio Assassinorum Detachment*
-Vindicare Assassin (150)


Total: 1000