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There's a 4000 point tournament in Harrisburg in August. You can use a second force org chart if you fill the first. So I'm thinking of taking this:

I actually have most of this painted:

Chaplain with terminator honors, BP, Frags, Meltabombs
7 Assault terminators, furious charge (one will have the thunderhammer)
Land Raider Crusader with smoke/light

Force Commander with terminator armor, claws
4 man terminator command squad, 2 cannons, furious charge, chainfist, auspex

Epistolary with terminator armor, storm shield, fury/fear
4 man terminator command squad, 2 cannons, furious charge, chainfist, auspex in a pod

Venerable dread with heavy flamer, extra armor, searchlight, in a pod

2X5 terminators with tank hunter, 2 cannons, chainfist, auspex

8X5 tac marines, las/plas

4 tornados

10 assault marines, 2 flamers, meltabombs, vet with fist

2 pred destructors with heavy bolters

3 whirlwinds.

I'd only have to paint:
2 lascannons
1 assault terminator
2 assault marines
1 tornado
1 pred
the tops for 2 whirlwinds (most of my rhinos can convert to whirlwinds or razorbacks)

I'm sure I'll have trouble with anything more than 2 monoliths, or 300 model nids in escallation games, but nothing else jumps out at me as a tough matchup.

Thoughts?

I don't play marines, so I might have my rules mixed up.

What is the use of the Auspex in the podding squad of termies? Isn't it only useful if someone tries to infiltrate near that squad? If they're podding, they'll never start on the board, will they?

Or am I being a complete moron?

Sal

The only real fat in the list is the Crusader. At 4k, one Land Raider goes beyond a fire magnet. Even if you gain first turn and pop smoke, there's a very good chance your opponent can destroy or immobilize it. My rule of thumb is to include no less than 1 Land raider per 1000pts, or none at all.

Ideally, you drop the crusader, you drop the termies from 7 to six and have them walk. give the Chaplain a Jump Pack and have him run with the assault marines. Spend the ~300pts on another predator and two more tornados.

I'm guessing you're not going to buy a bunch of new models for a single tournament, which impacted your choices. Can you post what other models you have on hand?

Well, the crusader would be held back for countercharge, though I admit hiding from 4000 points of guns might be tough. And it's painted, and painted well, so it stays regardless.

The smart move probably would be to let the assault terminators walk (or not take them at all), and replace them with devestators, but then I'd have to take a trait, and I'm really in love with how friggin awesome the crusader/terminators are when they work.

And the auspex was a typo.

As for models, I've got lots of everything really. The only thing I don't have laying around is regular (non-attack) bikes, because they blow.

If I really wanted it to be effective I'd go with nothing but guns and a couple of squads of seraphim (lots of guns and hit and run is a deadly combo).

The 3 whirlwinds are of course to lay down the 'minefield of the apocolypse', daring anyone to assault me.

I'd still give the chaplain a jump pack. You can still run him with the assault terminators, but the assault squad will benefit far more from him. Of course, you'll probobly face plenty of big critters, and being fearless will be good too.

I mean, it's a tight list, and if you want to keep the chap/termie/crusader combo (which admittedly is superlative when it hits. It's like a mega combo punch in street fighter), there's not a lot of wiggle room. One possibiliy is one or two small sniper scout squads, both to push back enemy infiltrators and light up the inevitably C'tan/greater daemon/wraithlord heavy armies you'll see.

I think I would literally rather give up then play a 4,000 point game where there are 18 minefields on the table by the sixth turn!

It almost brings me back to 2nd edition and tables covered in smoke grenades you have to roll for each turn.

Are you going to make 18 minefield markers? Are you going to play (RAW) that minefields on top of each other each have a chance to hit a single model crossing over them?

Yes and yes.

Not only is it the RAW, but it's 'right' too. Twice as many mines layed down makes it twice as likely you die!

Turn 1: lay down 3 templates

Turn 2:walk onto templates

Turn 6: win!

Plus, at 4k pretty much every army can afford to find a way to deal with indirect fire. Either Deepstriking anti-tank squads, or counterbattery fire, or fast skimmers, wolf scouts, or simply toughing out the mines could work. I'm assuming you're going to play on 4x10 or so?

I just re-read the rules, and the ability to affect jump pack and skimmers makes them pretty potent, but I still think more people are going to bring something to counter indirect fire than normal.

Interestibng list, generally a doubling up in size of your normal nmarines. However I think this can lead to problems, the game changes in larger battles bcause as play area increases concentration of force becomes increasingly important.

Your list is short of blast weapons and is curiously low for its points in >24" shooting. Discounting the whirlwinds as they have a different role you have the long range shootingt normally seen in 1500pts. 8 lascannon, 2 autocannon and 4 heavy bolters is ok, but not great. Many armies will gladly hang back and exchange shots with you. Something to their advantage as while you have some very high quality assault units they are concentrated and for the most part slow.

The massed assault cannon, fourteen of them is more than enough to make the army look cheesy but actually a horrible paper tiger. This is because they are either slow moving - though admittedly none are static, or on vulnerable skimmers. Scaled down to 2k armies this will be nasty, but with a 4k army with lots of 48" guns on a wide board your opponent will be able to concentrate far more fire than you annihilating key units while leaving many of your assault cannon with only secondary targets - if that.


1. I would exchange the unmade Pred for a Vindicator, firstly because you have one but only one Pred according to what you have posted above. Also a Vindie can act as a fire magnet away from your Crusader and throws ouit different heat to the rest of your list. The Pred does neiher of these.

2. I would replace one lascannon marine with a plasma cannon. Don't laugh, I normally hate them, but in 4000pt battles someone else is bound to bring very expensive deepstrike squads - just as you have. Plasma cannon can take a real bite out of them, or at least force the opponent to deploy out of LOS to your plasma cannon. One plasma cannon will do.

3. I would double up on assault marines in return for one tornado, plus bits shaved off here and there. You need their reactive capability along the board widthways. The chaplain is better off with them.

4. You dont really need six lightning claw marines to do a job, especially if they furious charge and have a chaplains rerolls. Yes your opponent will likely have one or two super units, but you can be damn sure they wont be standing in front of your Crusader - unless they think they can win. I would cut the squad size down to five, four with claws, plus furious charge. The Crusader is a nice enough tank as it is, it is not wasted if tyou dont use the extra capacity.

5. If you need more power give the Assault termies the Epistolary, force weapons are the right sort of overkill. Increasing the squads chances of taking out top end nasties like Trygons. Have you considered Tigurius, he wont cost much more than your current librarian.

6. Meanwhile if you want to keep all your termies convert his command squad into normal termies (adding one) and remove the Dreadnought.

7. I do think you need more long ranged guns, you could have more tacticals, but I think you will get a better return with a Dev squad or two. Ideally I would take Honour your Wargear and tank hunter missile launchers, but as you have Ultras traits are not really an option. swapping out the Pred is a good idea, it costs more and you swap out heavy weapons for heavy weapons but you get survivability. You need your heavy weapons to stay i the fight as long as possible - your opponent will likely have more.

8. Bwetter yet swap out one Whirlwind and keep the Preds. Three Whirlwinds looks good, but is actually a gimic, one will mine an objective as well as three and three pie plates a turn will be easily swallowed up by the big board. Nids would suffer from them but most armies will outgun you at long range and may stay put. You can afford to lose one Whirlwind for some Devs.

Hope this helps

Who said we're using a bigger board?

If you are on 4x6 ignore most of what I said, but it will get very cramped, especially if anyone brings orks or guard.

I which case can you get four Whirlwinds?
I would still take Tigurius with 5 assault termies in the Crusader and a juimping chaplain with the assault marines.

Posted By mauleed on 06/16/2007 10:03 AM

Yes and yes.

Not only is it the RAW, but it's 'right' too. Twice as many mines layed down makes it twice as likely you die!

Turn 1: lay down 3 templates

Turn 2:walk onto templates

Turn 6: win!

Indeed.

Yesiree. And I'm sure you'll land those minefields in terrain that way your models standing in them will get cover saves and be defending cover if charged.

Spending 3+ hours watching you have to move your models every turn to try to balance yet another minefield marker on a piece of terrain (and then replacing your models back in their original spot) sounds about as fun as watching paint dry.

I do think the army is strong and you'll likely do very well. I'm just saying I'd hate to play a game against the army and if the tournmanet has any kind of soft scores you might suffer.

 

It strongly reminds me of blue colored decks in M:tG.

Very strong permissive style due to control.

That said, no one likes playing against blue, but there is no argument that it is a very valid strategy.

I say go for it. Even if I wouldnt like playing against it, its not everyday you see a SM army laying down template after template challenging you. I would grin and accept it with open arms while trying to react to the control of the field.

Posted By mauleed on 06/16/2007 10:03 AM

Yes and yes.

Not only is it the RAW, but it's 'right' too. Twice as many mines layed down makes it twice as likely you die!

Turn 1: lay down 3 templates

Turn 2:walk onto templates

Turn 6: win!

As someone who has played in Harrisburg, I would just say don't even bother going.

 

They don't care (Or even generally really know) what the rules actually say, and comp counts for more points than battle does and after the last time I played there, they were talking about making comp+battle for determining best general.

And these are the people that thought my Radical Daemonhunter list was the cheesiest thing out there. (I've been told that it's worse than my Godzilla Choir list).

Edit - For the big battles, they play on 8x6 boards just FYI.

How could anyone consider anything from the DH Codex to be cheesy?

BYE

Harrisburg is in the center of what James Carville once called the "Alabama part of Pennsylvania", so they don't get out very often.

Posted By H.B.M.C. on 06/19/2007 5:57 PM
How could anyone consider anything from the DH Codex to be cheesy?

BYE

If I recall it was basically a DH list but it used inducted Marines with all the usual bits people find cheesy from the Marine dex, plus a few thematic gubbinz from the DH dex.

Skyth, you around the PA area? Close to Philly?

Also, if you think this list is bad there's one player who has Nidzilla and since FW is allowed he has a couple of the nasty Nid units from FW to take, which I think trumps my idea of using my new Necrons plus some of my friends models and doing 4 Liths, tons of Warriors, and a C'Tan. Course now it turns out I won't be around for this thing.

York actually. A bit south of Harrisburg...For another 3 weeks.  Then I'm moving to Rochester.

Posted By Voodoo Boyz on 06/20/2007 8:45 AM

Posted By H.B.M.C. on 06/19/2007 5:57 PM
How could anyone consider anything from the DH Codex to be cheesy?

BYE

If I recall it was basically a DH list but it used inducted Marines with all the usual bits people find cheesy from the Marine dex, plus a few thematic gubbinz from the DH dex.

It was:

 Inq Lord w/bp/ccw, hood, and tarot with a hellgun warrior and 2 mystics in a Chimera

6 IST's (2 meltas) in Rhino
6 IST's (2 plasma) in Chimera
2 DCA's
2 Daemonhosts
Calidus
3x6 man Las/Plas Tac Squad
6 man Tac squad w/Plasma cannon
Squadron of 2 Tornados
6 man Assault squad (pp, flamer, vet w/PF)
8 man Dev Squad (4 Missile Launchers)

Hardly overpowering by any means.

Yeah I mean you Daemonhosts for crying out loud - not exactly the most efficient, consistant or deadly units in the game. And Deathcults? Not a force of their own.

They probably saw Las/Plas, the Callidus and the Tarot and went 'OMGWTFBBQ! Iz the cheeX0r!!!!'.

What a bunch of lunatics.

BYE

Posted By skyth on 06/20/2007 9:21 AM

Posted By Voodoo Boyz on 06/20/2007 8:45 AM

Posted By H.B.M.C. on 06/19/2007 5:57 PM
How could anyone consider anything from the DH Codex to be cheesy?

BYE

If I recall it was basically a DH list but it used inducted Marines with all the usual bits people find cheesy from the Marine dex, plus a few thematic gubbinz from the DH dex.

It was:

 Inq Lord w/bp/ccw, hood, and tarot with a hellgun warrior and 2 mystics in a Chimera

6 IST's (2 meltas) in Rhino
6 IST's (2 plasma) in Chimera
2 DCA's
2 Daemonhosts
Calidus
3x6 man Las/Plas Tac Squad
6 man Tac squad w/Plasma cannon
Squadron of 2 Tornados
6 man Assault squad (pp, flamer, vet w/PF)
8 man Dev Squad (4 Missile Launchers)

Hardly overpowering by any means.

No, not overpowering by anyone who's played against really tough lists. 

Like HBMC said, people saw 6 Man Las/Plas, Tornados, an assault Squad, and the Devs and went "MARINE CHEESE WITH =][= ALLIES!"

It's not a Harrisburg thing, I know plenty of people who say "Cheese" the minute they see 6 Man Las/Plas. Getting back to the OT, they'd throw up seeing 4k of Mauleeds list (which means you've got a keeper).