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Hi all!
I have been away from this board (and somewhat from 40k too, except painting) for a long while.

I am back now and would like you guys to comment on my new 2K all mechanized Ulthwe list (still working on getting everything painted and built... though im getting nearer completion

First off I'm gonna run this list at a very competitive (but still very funny!) home tourney with my good old friends and 40k mates (and we are all quite beardy).

I pretty much know which armies i'm gonna be facing, so my list tries to take this into consideration: 1) IG with 3 russes, 2 hellhounds and lots of infantry (with lots of lascannons and auto cannons), 2) Nasty Orks with 2 battle wagons, around 4 trukks, lots of shooting and lots of CC, 3) CSM (Khorne) with probably 3 defilers, 3 dreads, plenty of rhinos with troops (berzerkers)... Possibly a 4th opponent that will be foot-slogging Eldar, probably heavy on war walkers and wraithguard (uncertain of what else)

Because im for sure gonna be facing alot of tanks I wanna go quite heavy on AT-weapons and still have alot of horde/crowd control (from EML+Prism templates plus from massed guardian catapults). The council wants to kills both tanks (with Spears and in CC) and hordes in CC.

I pretty much wanna try to make the OPTIMAL Mech Ulthwe list vs the aforementioned opponents.
I have plenty of everything in the codex so feel free to suggest! (NO Dire Avengers though! Alhough i could convert guardians if need be)
Only thing i would like to keep are two things: 1) Ulthwe theme, 2) Preferably All Mech

Better stop my rant....
On to the list:

HQ
Prince Yriel (155) [I will convert this guy and call him something like 'Prince-Farseer --- of Ulthwe']
Farseer w/ Singing Spear, Fortune, Runes of Witnessing (98)
8 Warlocks, 4 Singing Spears, 1 Enhance, 2 Embolden + Wave Serpent w/ Shuriken Cannon, Spirit Stones, Star Engines (362)

Troops
10 Defenders w/ Shuriken Cannon + Wave Serpent w/ EML (205)
10 Defenders w/ Shuriken Cannon + Wave Serpent w/ EML (205)
10 Defenders w/ Shuriken Cannon + Wave Serpent w/ Bright Lance (220)
10 Defenders w/ Shuriken Cannon + Wave Serpent w/ Bright Lance (220)

Elite
5 Fire Dragons + Wave Serpent w/ Shuriken Cannon, Spirit Stones (190)

Heavy
Fire Prism (115)
Fire Prism (115)
Fire Prism (115)


Total 2000 points

no doom? guardian catapults love doom.

looks good, no fat to trim, but i would def. try do get a doomseer in there. you should probably takes runes of warding as well. i would probably drop yriel to make the points. i would also recommend holofields for the fire prism's, they aren't that though to crack, but maybe i'm just unlucky.

just a thought, storm guardians might be fun with flamers.

9 grav-tanks is insane.

if you don't mind dropping to 8 grav-tanks i would say cut out one of the guardian squads, and yriel. then put holo's on the fp's and up the numbers in each squad (i prefer larger fire dragon squads, but my dice hate me!).

better yet, i'll just post a list w/the changes.

honestly, your list is really solid, i'm not sure the list i'm going to make would be any better, but since you asked, i'll have a go at it.

farseer w/ singing spear, runes of warding, runes of witnessing, fortune
farseer w/ singing spear, runes of witnessing, doom
8 Warlocks, 4 Singing Spears, 1 Enhance, 2 Embolden
Wave Serpent w/ scatterlaser, Spirit Stones

12 guardian defenders w/shruiken cannon
Wave Serpent w/ brightlance

12 guardian defenders w/shruiken cannon
Wave Serpent w/ brightlance

11 storm guardians w/ 2 flammers
warlock w/ destructor
Wave Serpent w/ shruiken cannon

10 fire dragons
Wave Serpent w/ shruiken cannon, spirit stones

fireprism w/holofields
fireprism w/holofields
fireprism w/holofields

basically dropped yriel and a guardian squad
added holofields, beefed up remaing squads and added runes of warding and doomseer

and changed one guardian squad to a storm squad to put a hurt on anything that relies cover

once again not sure if it's a "harder" list, but i do think you'll get more consistent results from the dragons and the fire pisms.

of course a 3rd option might be to drop the prisms altogether and just try to max out guardians and seer council.
i don't think this 3rd option would be the "hardest" but it would be the coolest (my fav anyways) and most ulthwe like.

I run a similar list. The Seer Council is nasty. Its a very good anvil unit, but it only becomes a hammer unit if you include Eldrad and Yriel (8 attacks on the charge, hitting on 3+ and wounding on 2+ without armor saves).

Fire Prisms are very unreliable. I'd playtested a list with 2 of them but then switched to Falcons loaded with Fire Dragons.

OK, here is my latest suggestion after some more time working in the army builder lab, trying to make the best out of the advice im getting
Yriel and generic farseer are replaced with Eldrad plus one extra warlock, i have dropped singings spears and added 3 fire dragons.
Though i still havent found a way to include the stormies (although i really like them!)

HQ
Eldrad (210)
9 Warlocks, 1 Enhance, 1 Embolden + Wave Serpent w/ Shuriken Cannon, Spirit Stones (355)

Troops
10 Defenders w/ Shuriken Cannon + Wave Serpent w/ EML (205)
10 Defenders w/ Shuriken Cannon + Wave Serpent w/ EML (205)
10 Defenders w/ Shuriken Cannon + Wave Serpent w/ Bright Lance (220)
10 Defenders w/ Shuriken Cannon + Wave Serpent w/ Bright Lance (220)

Elite
8 Fire Dragons + Wave Serpent w/ Shuriken Cannon, Spirit Stones (238)

Heavy
Fire Prism (115)
Fire Prism (115)
Fire Prism (115)

Total 1998 points

What do you think of this changed list??

With 5th edition you will be hitting the board piecemeal sometimes...

A cheap autarch with shruriken pistol and a power sword. More for the +1 on reserve rolls. But attached to the council gives you some no armor save wounding.

In the standards I know you don't have to use reserves but think if this is a flexibility that you would like for your army. You could do this for 80 points so it would be fairly minor change. 90 points and you add the mandiblasters for the extra attack.


No matter what, the second list looks very solid.

i like the second list a lot more, it looks really solid.

all that's left is test playing and tweaking from there, i don't think it's going to get much better until you get some games under your belt to figure out how it actually plays.

Thx for all comments everyone!
I have reached the same conclusion: its time for playtesting now. Im gonna stick with my second list as see how it fares. First off ill try and arrange two battles, vs. orks and IG, and then we have our 4-5 player mini-tournament soon, where it will get some battles under its belt!

The list would be more efficient if you'd run Yriel. But then its not Ulthwe anymore.