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Vulkan He'Stan
190

Master of the Forge (100)
100

6x Terminator Assault Squad (280): 6x ThunderHammer and Storm Shield (0)
240

10x Tactical Squad (170): Multi Melta (0), Melta (5), Combi-Melta (10)
Drop Pod (35): Locator Beacon (10)
240

10x Tactical Squad (170): Multi Melta (0), Melta (5), Combi-Melta (10)
Drop Pod (35): Locator Beacon (10)
240

10x Tactical Squad (170): Multi Melta (0), Melta (5), Combi-Melta (10)
Drop Pod (35)
230

Dreadnought (105): Multi Melta (0) Heavy Flamer (10)
Drop Pod (35) Locator Beacon (10)
160

Dreadnought (105): Multi Melta (0) Heavy Flamer (10)
Drop Pod (35)
150

Dreadnought (105): Multi Melta (0) Heavy Flamer (10)
Drop Pod (35)
150

Dreadnought (105): Multi Melta (0) Heavy Flamer (10)
Drop Pod (35)
150

Total Points: 1850
Total Models: 50 (7 drop pods)
Kill Points: 17

A guy here is looking at running this. I think it sucks but no one else seems to agree. I think that what little he starts with will be mostly dead before anything comes in to back them up, and even the back up won't make that big of a difference and will die pretty quickly too. I don't personally see the army (other than the drop pods, being last in the list of priorities) lasting past turn 4.

I'm pretty newby, but it doesn't look bad just not very exiting.

Just wait and watch him have bad drops and get scattered across half the board.

The locator beacons are all in the drop pods, they won't work like that will they?

Half of them have to come in first turn, so he's going to take everything with the locator beacons as his first drop.

I'd probably drop one squad of tactical marines and replace it with some sternguard but that's just me. otherwise it's not a horrible list. just not focussed enough for me.

So that means he's just got two tac squads one dread and a termie team out first turn? 1170 pts against 1850 at the start of a battle?

I don't think that's an effective strategy.

First turn all heavy weapons will obliterate the dread, maybe the termies, and pick off the dreads as they arrive.

that leaves the three tac squads to get mopped up by ground forces.

Yeah, I'd feel confident to say it sucks too...

Actually, he'd have 3 dreads or 2 dreads and either sternguard or a tac squad with characters. It's actually tactically sound if he can use the pods and the units to isolate a portion of the enemy army.

How many heavy weapons do you field? The Dreads should be blocked or at least mostly blocked by the pods from the heavy weapons and we've already established the termies won't be there since they don't have a pod and are deepstriking. The list would be better with iron clads but it's still not bad, your way over simplifying Illeix.

By the time I get my army filled out, I'll have over half a dozen lascannons, and about five HK missiles. With luck I could slag all three dreads. Then it comes down to the infantry.

I suppose it's sound, but if (yes, if) you break his dreads, it all comes down to his infantry, while powerfull, will be outnumbered.

I don't see where I'm out of line by simplifying things.

Aside from having his locator becaons on the wrong drop pods (they should be on the dreads, which should probably be the first wave. it looks fine to me.

I'd probably trade the meltas and combi-meltas for flamers and combi-flamers, and I'd also try to find the points to take ironclads, but there's nothing wrong with the list.

The list is rather flexible.
It can drop four Pods in first turn. The type of Pods would depend on the enemy.
Against a shooty enemy, one could drop all Dreads in first turn close to the enemy. Four Dreads are not easy to take down.

i like the list, it seems very playable to me.

Carve out one dread, and the master of the forge, and you get my exact list.

The trick is to use the drop pods to shield your dreads from half of the opponents army. Make sure there's infantry between the dreads and your target tanks, so that you can torch both at the same time.

With deathwind missile launchers and flamer templates, the enemy can either spread out, letting your dreads piecemeal their army with drop pods shielding them from the rest, or squish them all together making your twin-linked high strength templates even more devastating. The assault terminators are your staying power, and the tacticals can drop onto any objective you feel like occupying when they become available.

The list is good, though against CC armies it has tonnes of trouble, same with vs MCs that shred your dreads

Basically, MotF to field 2 extra dreads... 400 pts to get 2 dreads on the board... personally I would rather max out the Thunderhammer termies and drop a 4th tactical squad in there. 290 pts in characters is high IMO for 1850. I would agree that a very viable other option would be Sternguard with combi-meltas in a drop pod.

Vulkan makes those things super accurate.... I would also suggest save the points and go Flamer MM in the tac squads just for some crowd control. Melta is nice but some matchups he is going to need the templates.

I just won a tournament with a list that isn't to differant from this. I'd say it could work.

DAaddict wrote:Basically, MotF to field 2 extra dreads... 400 pts to get 2 dreads on the board... personally I would rather max out the Thunderhammer termies and drop a 4th tactical squad in there. 290 pts in characters is high IMO for 1850. I would agree that a very viable other option would be Sternguard with combi-meltas in a drop pod.

Vulkan makes those things super accurate.... I would also suggest save the points and go Flamer MM in the tac squads just for some crowd control. Melta is nice but some matchups he is going to need the templates.

This wouldn't be a bad idea. However, the MotF does get to fire a twin-linked plasma pistol, and a (now twinlinked) flamer in the shooting phase, and gets 2 regular attacks and 2 power fist attacks in the combat phase, as well as a 2+ armour save. On the other hand, his bolster defenses is useless, and he has no invulnerable save.

Something else you could think about would be to drop the assault terminators, the MotF, and a single dreadnought. Replace the assault terminators with a unit of greyknights, which bought as a retinue for a brother captain takes up an HQ rather than an elites. For a little added expense and 2 strength, you gain striking at initiative and a tonne of stormbolter shots (plus an inferno cannon if you pay for it). With the rest of those points, you could upgrade the brother captain to a grand master, for his fancy ignores-eternal-warrior force weapon, beef that squad up to 10 members, or buy deathwind launchers for all the pods.

Best idea though would be to find a way to turn those dreadnoughts into ironclads. AV13 makes a huge difference over AV12 in survivability. A couple deathwind launchers i've also found will always pay for themselves. A s5 large template can easily hit 5 marines, wounding 4 of them, of which 1 will fail his save. That's each turn, and every dead marine roughly pays for the launcher points-wise. Against guard, or horde, it can be a lifesaver.

On the other hand, I can appreciate how 4 dreadnoughts may make this army more competitive. that's 33% more hurt landing on the enemy next turn, and 33% more targets for them to split their fire between, increasing the odds of dreads surviving into future turns.

eh, by no means a bad list per say, but definitely doesn't look ironed out. As prevously mentioned, the locator beacons aren't on the right pods, and at least a couple of the dreads should be Ironclads. Sternguard v tactical squad is down to objective holding vs brute force. My issue with Sternguard is that they're pretty fragile for their points (and its a very expensive unit). I wouldn't mind seeing more models in the termie squad either since its really the rock solid core of the army and while those 3+ invulnerables are hard to break, they will be the target of a lot of opposing hate. Maybe find the points to bump the unit up to 8.