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hq: CCS, PS 60pts

Troops: Pcs, plasma pistol 40pts

2x troops, 2x lascannons 140pts combined

2x troops, 2x GL 110pts combined

heavy weapon squad, 3x autocannons 75 pts

Troops: Veterans, grenadiers, 3x melta guns, Valkyrie mounted with heavy bolter sponsons 240pts

Fast attack: 7x Rough Riders 75pts

Heavy support: Leman russ battle tank, heavy bolter sponsons, lascannon 185pts.

Heavy support: Griffon heavy mortar

This list was designed to bunch up may enemy and then hit him with lots of heavy fire along with annoyances coming out of the side and a formidable unit coming at them in a Valkyrie for supporting fire anti heavy armor with the wool sweaters (also known as carapace armor) to keep them alive for the return fire. The rough riders control my opponents deployment bunching him mostly into the center for fear of losing a good unit to a 24 inch threat out of the board edge. The mortar smashes them from behind cover while the russ charges forward protecting the grenade launcher blob and generally wreaking havoc as it can take out any unit on the field. The autocannons hunt transports, the lascannons heavy armor. they both hold objectives if necessary.

Comments, also looking to increase it to 1500 pts.

Bragg out

Meltavets in a Valkyrie are fast becoming a classic. Griffon is nice for the pie plate, Russ is basic but probably effective.

Your infantry, however... not good. You've split up your heavy and special weapons too much and made your squads vulnerable should you have to split them up. Recommend putting lascannons and specials in the same squad and either mixing the autocannons with GLs in the other squads or keeping the HW squad as-is and setting up your remaining two squads for a different role, maybe even just keeping them with the grenade launchers and using them to fill our our line or giving them cheap heavy weapons like mortars or missile launchers. For example:

Squad 1:
Lascannon, Plasmagun

Squad 2:
Lascannon, Plasmagun

Squad 3:
Autocannon, GL

Squad 4:
Autocannon, GL

At S3, most humans aren't strong enough to put any damage on most things, even if you can bypass saves with a power weapon, you still need to hit (WS4) and wound (S3). At least in the CCS the WS isn't terrible, but for 5 more points you can jump to S6 and guarantee those hits make wounds, make casualties. Also if you are going to gear up for CC, a PW isn't gonna be enough by itself. Bring some bodyguards, or Carapace Armor.

I am going to disagree with Owain's suggestion to put both heavy weapons and specials in the same squads. It is a good way to waste points on squads that are going to eventually get killed. A squad that moves should have special weapons. A squad that you are going to leave on a point, should have heavy weapons. Better yet... you should just take Heavy Weapons Teams, and put them in cover somewhere on your board edge. Put them on the top of a building, or somewhere else that is hard to get to, and deep under cover. Then fire lascannon or autocannon across the map at 4' ranges. That frees up your infantry to only need special weapons and they can stay mobile. Heavy weapons and special weapons generally don't mix, cause range differences, strength differences, and heavy v assault issues generally make it so you would only be able to fire your special, or your heavy. At BS3 you are going to miss with 50% of your shots anyway... don't waste the points. Heavy Weapon Squads are also fantastic with "Bring her down!" because with BS3, twin linked is your best friend.

The exception to this is Veteran Squads, which at BS4 can take 3 GLs and an AC (roughly the same strength) and can sit on a point with Forward Sentries (+1 cover, defensive grenades) and hold an objective all game for you. Since they will take a lot of fire, and will likely get assaulted... the extra cover is good, and the GLs give you extra weapons when the enemy closes. The fact you sit them on a point means you can use the heavy weapon and the enemies will come to you without you having to move. BS4 means even with one heavy weapon, you are still likely going to get a good number of hits.

Never actually used a Melta PCS yet, but I tried to in an Apoc game, and they got destroyed even before their Chimera made it to 12" when I could use them. At least I know my enemies think they are scary? Anyway, I do know that most people will recommend Melta PCS, and Valkyrie are the best transport for the job.

Drop the HBs on the Russ, likely won't get to use them. Especially since it looks like you intend to go tank-hunting.

The Griffon is fun, but I would prefer a Hellhound personally. Same S and AP, template (no cover saves) instead of large blast (with almost no cover saves). You can put a multimelta on a Hellhound, but the Griffon is ordinance (best of 2 dice on vehicle pen). Hellhound has more armor, and can go fast. Griffon can fire indirectly, so should be able to stay obscured but is open topped, so if you don't keep it out of the firefight, it's toast. Twin linked scatter means you can pretty much pick where the shot lands, Hellhound has the Infernocannon so you can pick where the template goes too. Essentially the same effectiveness, so it is mostly personal choice.

No idea what the Rough Riders are doing here... lol. We have tanks, why are you on horses?

As a side note, I hate Plasma. The army as a whole has BS3, thats 50% to miss, and 17% chance to kill yourself. Do you like those odds? I don't, not when you can take cheaper and more reliable special weapons. Leave the plasma for your tanks (Russ, Armored Sentinels), or just bring more lascannon.

Also a BTW, Valks can't be dedicated, so they come off one of your Fast options.

HQ: CCS, PF, 2x Bodyguards, Carapace 115
Troop: Pcs, 4xMelta 70
2x Infantry, 2x Flamers 110
Heavy Weapons Squad 3x AC 75
Heavy Weapons Squad 3x Las 105
Troop: Vets, 3x GLs, AC, FS 125
Fast: Valkyrie, HBs 110
Heavy: Russ, Las 165pts.
Heavy: Griffon, Closedtop 90

With 35pts left, if I did my math right.

For 1500, I recommend Storm Troopers, Ratlings if you need a cheap 50pt option, some Vets with a Heavy Weapon and Forward Sentries, Hellhounds, Basilisks, more Russ. Any combonations of those. Or even consider grabbing some named characters like Creed and Kell.

Ah, thank you, Lathrop. Forgot to mention the Rough Riders... yes, bad idea in a defensive army.

Lathrop's ideas make sense, although that would be a more or less total change to your army.

To use your original list without buying new models or anything, you could swap the plasma pistol on the platoon commander for 2 voxes (one on the lascannon blob squad, one on the CCS) and swap the grenadier upgrade on the vets for MRPs on the valkyrie - a 4+ save is not going to save the unit once it drops into melta range of the enemy.

Ultimately I think you need to decide between an infantry based list - maybe with some artillery and LRBTs backing it up - and an offensive list including stuff like your valkyrie squad and rough riders. Currently your force is split between those elements and the army kind of lacks focus.

Rough Riders are just a bad choice, imo. They get to charge ONCE at S5 I5 and swing power weapons. At T3 and W1, you can never use them on anything that has more than I4 otherwise they would just die before they even can cause any damage. At WS3 you are likely going to lose most of your melee attacks. So if you brought a squad of 10, you could get 21 attacks on a charge. WS3 means you are going to have a 50% chance to hit. so say about 10-11 hits. 1s still fail wounds, against T3 opponents, and if you are fighting anything with T4, 2s fail too. So say maybe 7 or 8 wounds. No armor saves, means you will likely get 7 or 8 casualties. That means you could successfully hit one squad with about 8 models (or 8 total wounds), that has lower than I5. Once. Then the squad goes to being S3 I3, and would be like assaulting 12" with guardsmen.

If you were really lucky one battle you could kill one unit for 105 pts, then they would get shot to pieces, or die in the last half of the assault. That 105 pts could be used towards a squad of vets with a heavy weapon, or could be put towards a vehicle, like a Hydra, or a Sentinel Squad.

The only real use I could see them being good for is with Mogul Kamir (making the squad even more expensive) and assaulting a high priced unit with high saves, like termies, and suicidal the squad to tie them up for a turn and try to kill at least half of the squad on turn 1 so they cannot inflict a lot of damage. But at that point you could just bring a Basilisk and do almost the same thing.

Ok one thanks for the comments. I do have to make a point about the rough riders. Their goal is not to survive or to inflict serious damage. Their point is to control where my opponents deployment. The idea that str 5 power weps are coming out of the side of the board means that either they are going to waste a good close combat unit to screen the board edge, or most likely they are going to bunch up the good important units with expendable units along the side. Then blast weps smash into them when they are clumped together. on that note are they still as useless, or can I control my opponents deployment more effectively.

Second Lathrop how are the grenade launchers getting into the hands of the veterans. the point of them was to be a sucker punch unit to the throat of my enemy hitting him where they will do the most damage, not holding them back defensively. They are the single unit that is offensive and as such need the best chance at surviving, which is why I gave them grenadiers.

Interesting idea of the hellhound. I wanted to held back with blast templates but maybe a maneuverable and more heavily armored vehicle to guard that twenty man special weps blob. Also @ elderly the vox caster is something I tend to steer away from because it has much less use then it used to but I may be wrong, I throw it in and see where it goes.

Bragg out

Try Again Bragg wrote:Second Lathrop how are the grenade launchers getting into the hands of the veterans. the point of them was to be a sucker punch unit to the throat of my enemy hitting him where they will do the most damage, not holding them back defensively. They are the single unit that is offensive and as such need the best chance at surviving, which is why I gave them grenadiers.

I use Vets for holding objectives. You take a squad of Vets, load them up with a heavy weapon and a few grenade launchers or flamers and you have them move to the first objective you can take. They then bunker down with Forward Sentries (+1 cover, defensive grenades) and they fire their heavy weapon at your enemies, adding needed strength to your other advancing troops that don't have heavy weapons. A mobile army suffers from not being able to use heavy weapons. With Vets like this, you can still have them hold objectives, while they provide that heavy weapon support that you need to provide. The grenade launchers or flamers that you add help for when the enemy wants to take back your objective. You can then drop templates or some extra S6 krak grenades along with your heavy weapon shots. The Forward Sentries just gives you extra cover which makes it really difficult to kill the squad from range (2+ cover, generally, if you go to ground). And the defensive grenades are nifty for keeping the squad alive after being assaulted... before you counter assault with a CC unit.

In the army I suggested, you have the Heavy Weapons Teams set up on your side of the board, ideally in cover and on an objective. The Vets follow with your Platoon, and take an objective in No Man's or on the opponents table edge, and set up defensively on another objective. If you play it correctly, the Vets are a huge offensive asset... even though they achieve their offensive move via a strong defensive build. The infantry in the platoon will support with flamers, and sheer numbers. The PCS breaks vehicles, and the CCS travels with the advancing infantry squads to issue orders and to counter assault when you get assaulted.

Looking at my list again, I might recommend getting rid of the closed top on the Griffon and adding a Chimera to the PCS Melta squad so you can take the Vets in the Valk. This way you can speed across the map to grab an objective and start laying down the extra heavy fire from a flanking position right away.