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Ok, my fello dakkerites,

I need help. having just played at a local 1250pt tournament I'm starting to think about going for other such tournaments in the future.

What i need from you is advice on what works well at that level of gaming and some advice on what stuff to take in the first place

i like grey knights as their small elite units but fell they would just get turned into fine paste by the bigger armies out there.

i have CSM army so i can use them but if they dont work at competition level then they can be replaced easily.

im looking at Eldar, Blood Angels, possible Space wolves ( the new releases for them look awesome) Grey Knights or maybe even Dark Eldar.

But, having done the hobby more for the aesthetics of the models not winning games im in some serious need of councilling from you lot as im sure amongst our numbers there are at least a few ( or more) of you that play Throne of SKulls or even Grand Tournament levels

cheers and I look forward to hearing from you all soon as i really really need help

cheers, Lokki

All the armies you're thinking about tend to be quite small in size (elite troops don't come cheap....) I agree that the new SW stuff looks great, but they are very expensive when it come to the points cost

DE will probably give you the most competitive list at that points value but, frankly, IG, SoB, or Orks are probably a better choice if you really want to win at this level.

Thanks for the post :-) always nice not having to wait days for replies.

so how do you figure sisters of battle and IG (without tank spam) and no i dont mind the elites lists i just felt after glancing at the rules i might get my ass kicked but if GK and BA type lists work why the hell not

My suggestion is to look at what armies are played heavily local to you and try to find a common weakness. If you notice that certain armies are vastly under-represented in your area try and use that. I like bringing out armies that are not common in my area just to make my opponents think a little more about their game plans. If you can find something people are not used to seeing and that has a defined advantage in your area against the common armies go with that. From the list you posted I am guessing that BA, Wolves, Chaos marines and grey knights are pretty common since they are all marine armies. Eldar and Dark Eldar might be your best chances for the less commonly seen armies.

So your vote is eldar of some shape or form yea? i like normal eldar but at my local we have necrons space wolves dark eldar and vanilla marines. there is a sprinkle of tau blood angels grey knights and imperial guard but only about 1 a for each codex....

General rules of thumb for a competitive army if you're starting out:

Have a lot of units/bodies on the table. More guys means more durable. More units means more maneuver options.

Have a lot of scoring units. Scoring units are needed to win the game.

Don't overload on wargear/upgrades. More bodies and more guns is almost always better. Every upgrade should have a specific purpose; if you're throwing on upgrades just to fill points you really need more models.

If you want to post lists of what you have for models, we can work up lists based on those.

i only have CSM at the minute. im wanting to start a new army aswell as start going tournaments more often so i thouhgt why not combind building a new army with making it tournament based too?

i currently have

1 Daemon prince of nurgle

Huron Blackheart

a chaos lord in power armour with combi plasma and power weapon

a sorceror ( space wolf conversion) with force axe and strom bolter ( looks cool but i know i can't use it)

5 terminators, 1 twin-lightning claws, 1 heavy flamer 2 combi melta's one power fist somewhere in there

10 khorne berserkers, 1 plasma pistol and champion with power fist

10 plague marines bolters no speacials weapons, champion with power fist ( these are like 4th ed mini's plastic and kinda hard to convert)

7 fine cast plague marines plasma gun and champion with power fist

5 chosen ( was going to make sorcerors out of em but got chosen intsead) bolt pistols and swords ( can be used as powerweapons )

18 basic CSM champion with power fist and a marine mounting an autocannon. no weapons attached so easy to swap out

6 standard bikers

5 assault marines ( raptors or use as loyalist marines if i choose a different army) champion/sergeant with fist

1x rhino combi bolter and smoke launchers

1x dreadnaught CCW + stormbolter and twin linked auto cannon

and i think thats the lot... i tend to like infantry more then tanks as tanks are a bitch to paint and their a pain to transport aswell ( currently don't own a KR multicase but im working on it)

so that being what i possess can you make anything tournament worthy from CSM or do you think that trying Eldar, Grey Knights, Blood Angels ( or dark angels i like the raven wing stuff ) would be better for the hard lined gitz at said events??




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OH or orks orkies are fun =]

I've done pretty well with Chaos over the last few years. I recently started Blood Angels as a change of pace, but in general I still would rate my win chances as higher with my Chaos due to more practice and having refined my lists.

I can make a pretty good Chaos list out of that stuff; the main changes will be some different upgrades/weapons as you don't in many cases have the best/most-needed stuff. You definitely need more Rhinos, though. You need to get your guys where they're going with speed. You're also missing long-ranged fire support (Havocs, Oblits, or Las/Auto Predators), which hurts, but we'll try to make up for it with bodies, speed, and meltaguns.

Daemon Prince, Nurgle, Wings: 150
Sorcerer, Mark of Slaanesh, Lash: 125
4 Terminators, 2 combi meltas, 1 heavy flamer, 1 power fist: 145
5 Chosen, 4 meltaguns: 130
Rhino w/Combi-melta: 45
Dreadnought with autocannon & CCW: 110
8 Berserkers, personal icon, champ with fist: 213
Rhino with combi-melta: 45
7 Plagues, 2 meltas, personal icon, champ with fist: 226
Rhino with combi-melta: 45
10 CSMs, 2 meltas, icon of Chaos glory, champ with fist: 220
Rhino with combi-melta: 45
1499

That should work pretty well, though will take a bit of practice.

The wench on the couch next to me also suggests you take 5 flaming dragons for 250 points, but sadly they're not a codex option.

Looks good man, but what about for a new army. as i've been pottering around with my chaos for awhile and am slightly bored so if i can get a new army aswell would be awesome.
what would work? SoB would be nice but with them being all metal models im kind of dis inclined to take them because of moneys. and played Blod Angels today in my 1250pts tourny so could work with that quite easily

Lokki wrote:i like grey knights as their small elite units but fell they would just get turned into fine paste by the bigger armies out there.

GK are fine, and extremely competitive.
To the point of over powered if you create your list to be.

I enjoy Blood Angels, but if you've been playing Chaos for a bit you might want to build something that's a bigger departure in terms of models.

Any of the armies you've mentioned can be good. The biggest catch is that you've said you don't want to use a lot of vehicles, and the rules in 5th edition make vehicles REALLY good and usually mean you're at a disadvantage without a bunch of them.

That being said, Blood Angels, Dark Eldar, Grey Knights and Space Wolves each have at least one good army list which doesn't use a lot of vehicles.

Blood Angels can make a very good list using mostly jump pack assault marines, priests to give them Feel No Pain and Furious Assault, and Devastators with a bunch of missile launchers for fire support. Getting all the MLs you need for the devs tends to be a bit pricy/difficult, but you save money not being spent on transports, so that's kind of a wash.

Dark Eldar can make a nasty assault list using Webway portals, big squads of Wyches, and big squads of Beasts and beastmasters. The official models for Razorwing Flocks and Kymeras are quite expensive, but you can convert or substitute pretty easily from other model lines. Do you mostly play at an official GW store?

Grey Knights can make nasty non-mech lists focusing on a large number of Strike Squads on foot (like Hulksmash used to win a GT recently), or on Draigo leading a bunch of Paladins (extra-super-tough Terminators). You generally need to convert dreadnoughts with two twin-linked Autocannon arms for fire support. A Dreadknight or two can also be helpful.

Space Wolves can make a good foot-based list using squads of Wolfguard each led by a model in terminator armor with a cyclone missile launcher. Logan Grimnar as your HQ makes them Troops. A Runepriest is helpful for psychic defense, and Living Lightning combines well with Logan's ability to give a squad Tank Hunter. Long fangs with missile launchers are good fire support; possibly one squad with multimeltas led by Logan, as he can make them Relentles so they can move & shoot. Thunderwolves can make a nice assault component once you start getting up to bigger games.

Do any of those lists sound particularly interesting to you? I could point up a specific build if you like one of them.

I i like the grey knights idea, both the strike squad and draigo, and blood angels the best i think, so im guessing good eldar are vehicle based then ??

I first started playing Eldar. (which is a totally awesome army tbh)

But when I wanted a change from my usual Eldar gameplay, (fast, and elite) I searched for an army that was the super-opposite of that army.
It turned out to be Orks who are blunt, slow and tough.

So, the question is, would you like something totally different to CSM? What is your current playstyle / armylist like?

You can try to find the exact opposite. Like: CSM, few (elite) models, heavy CC vs. Imperial Guard a LOT of (weak) models with a lot of shooting.

Another angle could be, what army that you play against, do you hate the most because it owns you everytime?

The third angle could be, what models do you like the most...

If you find 1 army that puts those 3 together, it would be a win-win-win ofcourse.

I like the eldar models and their game play seems to be more stay at a safe distance and shoot the hell out of the target ( unless its banshees but the models look awesome) and at the minute i run a balanced shooty / combat CSM army, and i play agasint necrons tau blood angels and dark eldar mostly, this was why i was thinking grey knights eldar or dark angels seldom see them and the models for all of them are pretty cool. i would go guard but their not just squishy there REALLY squishy and would take forever to build and paint

Lokki wrote: SoB would be nice but with them being all metal models im kind of dis inclined to take them because of moneys.

Yeah... that's always gonna be a stumbling block, I can't see GW releasing plastics anytime soon :(

I only recommended them as they are quite effective at 1250pts, not alot of people play them so you will be able to surprise a few opponents, and they are a great looking army on the tabletop although they are very difficult to convert.

Shame really , im sure if gw released SoB as a plastic and fine cast range everyone would love them for it =)


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And on a side note have you seen the Chaos Contemptor pattern dreadnaught from forgeworld? OMG it looks awesome !!!!

Lokki wrote:I i like the grey knights idea, both the strike squad and draigo, and blood angels the best i think, so im guessing good eldar are vehicle based then ??

Yup. There's a non-mechanized build nicknamed "Footdar", but the only people I know who run it are really experienced. The main good Eldar builds involve using a pile (like 8-10) of grav tanks and war walkers, putting out up to 70 or 80 S6 scatter laser and shuriken cannot shots per turn. The troops mostly just hide in the tanks, with Fire Dragons jumping out strictly to melt/kill the biggest, nastiest enemy vehicles.

Here's a link to the Strike Squad army just used to win a GT:
http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2012/02/dark-star-list.html#more

Here's a successful Draigo & paladins list:
http://blackmoors40k.blogspot.com/2012/01/winning-draigowing-list-in-under-20.html

I highly recommend reading both of those blogs in general, BTW. Those guys are two of the best players in the country. Blackmoor gives some really good advice and battle reports illustrating how to use the army too.

A good non-vehicle Blood Angels army might be something like:

Librarian with Unleash Rage, Blood Lance, Jump Pack: 125
Priest with Jump Pack, combi-melta: 85 (joins assault marines)
Priest with Jump Pack, meltabombs: 80 (likewise)
Priest with nothing: 50 (hangs out with devastators)
10 Assault Marines with 2 meltaguns, sgt with power fist: 235
10 Assault Marines with 2 meltaguns, sgt with power fist: 235
10 Assault Marines with 2 meltaguns, sgt with power fist: 235
10 Assault Marines with 2 flamers, sgt with power fist: 225
6 Vanguard Veterans with jump packs, power weapon, sgt with power fist: 220
5 Devastators with 4 missile launchers: 130
5 Devastators with 4 missile launchers: 130

1750. You could easily swap the Vanguard for 10 more AMs, but the Vanguard are fun.

Just seen a dark angels ravenwing army that looked quite good using just bikes landspeeders and a couple of scout squads. would this be useful at 1500-1750??

You could try it, but Ravenwing are mostly overpriced compared to more modern codices. Jervis really did a bad job on that codex. They're really not a very competitive army. If they could take squadrons of multiple Typhoon speeders they'd be a bit better, but they can't.

Oh well was only an idea. maybe a new codex will come out soon. so what would work well with bikes? blood angels? i used 2x10 man assault marines, 9x multimelta attack bikes and mephiston and a sanguine priest in my 1250 tournament and i only lost my 3rd game becuase i had meltas not heavy bolters and was playing a tyranid army of mostly monstorous creatures....


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So what kind of space wolf lists work well? ignoring the infantry thing for a moment. i know the long fang units can take 5 heavy weapons but what other benefits would there be. only asking as the new thunderwolf models look sweet and they realeased pretty much every model in fine cast aswell

Almost everything in Space Wolves works well, except Blood Claws. Grey Hunters are arguably the best Troop choice in the game, point for point. Long Fangs are the best squad of their type in the game. Thunderwolves are quite good, too.

For bike armies, Codex: Space Marines does well because if you take a Captain on Bike as one of your HQs (you'll want a Null Zone Librarian, Pedro, or Vulkan as the other), you can have bike squads as Troops.

Ok so vanilla marines might work well then... how come pedro and vulkan? and whats null zone do? ( sorry choas player dont know many other codexs off the top of my head )

Null Zone is cast at the beginning of your shooting phase, and makes all enemy units within 24" of the Librarian re-roll any successful invulnerable saves until the end of your turn. It's a great ace in the hole and allows SM to kill a lot of normally-very tough units much easier. It's pretty much the mandatory power. If you go to the Battle Reports forum and read the Fists of Redemption reports from the Warm Fabric Nationals GT this last weekend, check out his army list.

Pedro makes Sternguard into scoring units, and gives +1A to all of your units within 6" of him. He's a nasty force multiplier. Vulkan makes all the flamers, heavy flamers, and melta weapons in your army twin-linked, and thunder hammers master-crafted. He's widely seen as obligatory in competitive SM armies, though I've seen successful armies without him.

The last good biker army I played against used four squads of bikers, Pedro and some assault terminators in a land raider as a nasty assault force. He also had two squads of 5 sternguard each with a pair of lascannons for fire support, and since Pedro makes the scoring, they could hold objectives on his side of the table, giving him six scoring units.

The pedro list sounds good but surely only 1 raider with terminators is just a big fat target for your opponent?

woulld scout bikers be useful in a bike list? give em a teleport homer and make them just a cheap unit for the terminators to teleport down to??

If you want to win every game you play without trying, play Grey Knights, they are slow proof.

If you loose with grey knights, EVER , your bad.

Sure, the LR with terminators is a target, but they're only really easy to kill with meltaguns up close. From across the table they're pretty darn durable. In a codex: marines list you're mostly using it for counter-assault and threatening the center of the table, rather than driving it straight at the enemy.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/435944.page#4024625
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/435877.page#4019655
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/428290.page#3887652

Scout bikers are neat. The homing beacon combo is interesting; the tricky part with Scout Bikers is that with just a 4+ armor save, if the opponent really focuses on them, they tend to die quickly. They can be a really nasty turn 1 threat, but you don't see them on tables much because they're rather expensive in real money for the points.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/361978.page#2689044
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/418814.page#3712831
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/416503.page#3672630

I know that at the FLGS scout bikers and normal marine bikers cost the same £7.50 IIRC and that the box set of 3 biker marines with sergeant bits = £25.50... But the amount of flexibility from bikes is forgotten move 12 and rapid fire twin-linked bolters and have attack bike support with H.Bolters and Multi Melta's? seems the only reason you dont see these sort of lists alot is because of cash flow issues... which is fine by me as i was thinking about buying them piecemeal and painting them while i use my chaos. i have 6 bikes in my CSM list but they cost a feth load more points and in my opinion are nerfed by not being able to have attack bikers to run with them. The only thing i dont get is how you get FNP on a scout biker?

Bikes can be pretty cool. The only way I know of to get FNP on scout bikers is to play Blood Angels and have a Sanguinary Priest within 6" of the unit.

Lokki wrote:I know that at the FLGS scout bikers and normal marine bikers cost the same £7.50 IIRC and that the box set of 3 biker marines with sergeant bits = £25.50... But the amount of flexibility from bikes is forgotten move 12 and rapid fire twin-linked bolters and have attack bike support with H.Bolters and Multi Melta's? seems the only reason you dont see these sort of lists alot is because of cash flow issues... which is fine by me as i was thinking about buying them piecemeal and painting them while i use my chaos. i have 6 bikes in my CSM list but they cost a feth load more points and in my opinion are nerfed by not being able to have attack bikers to run with them. The only thing i dont get is how you get FNP on a scout biker?

ok two words

GREY KNIGHTS

they wont loose




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Mannahnin wrote:Bikes can be pretty cool. The only way I know of to get FNP on scout bikers is to play Blood Angels and have a Sanguinary Priest within 6" of the unit.

Uh when was the last time you saw bikes in a competitive list

Just tell the guy to play Grey Knights so he can win every game

Seriously? The last time I faced bikes in a competitive list was in January when I played against the guy who just won the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre GT.

I'm enjoying giving good advice. What are you doing?