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Playtesting update!

Ok, I've gotten to play a little more with the list. I am still keeping it the same as a couple of battle reports up. For those of you not following along it is basically

HQ in chimera w' officer of fleet and astropath

6x veteran squads w' 3x specials in each and 1x lascannon each, all mounted in Chimeras

1x lascannon scout sentinel

4x Griffon

1x Basilisk

This week was a rematch with the Dark Eldar player from last week's team game. As a refresher he was playing an entirely mechanized list with raiders/ravagers.

We rolled up mission/deployment and got dawn of war deployment with Capture and Control for the mission. The board was, from my side of the table, a river and hills on the left side of the table (some of the hills were large enough to block LOS) and the right side of the table was mostly bombed out buildings and a couple of patches of woods in the middle.

My opponent's objective was in the back middle of his deployment zone behind a hill. Mine was in the back right corner of my deployment zone on the top of a bombed out two story building.

My opponent won the roll to go first and, frankly, misdeployed. His three starting unit were on his right side of the table (so all of his stuff was to my left) so, naturally, I deployed my stuff in the right corner all taking cover in bombed out buildings. Essentiall, the game was over here so I'm not going to do a full battle report, just some highlights.

The game itself was basically his stuff turbo boosting onto the board turn one for cover saves and my wall of Chimeras coming in turn one and rolling great for nightfighting. Essentially it was all of my army versus about 2/3 of his for the first two turns and it was ugly. Chimeras popped raiders and griffons plus vets with flamers fried the stuff that came out after their ride was busted.

We called the game on turn four because all that my opponent had left was a walking Drachite with two incubi that was too far away from an objective to do anything relevant and two raiders with no guns.

The one highlight from the dark eldar side was the Archyte (wych archon) making over 20 shadow field saves before finally getting popped by a multi laser. She took out both my command squad and a regular squad of vets all by herself over the span of two turns. Definitely, the dark eldar MVP.

I do have some more refined thoughts on the army list now though:

1. Armies that are not kitted out to fight lots of armor can NOT hang against this list. My opponent's list was a balanced list with a mix of dark lances, disintigrators, blasters and splinter cannons and he was really never able to put much pressure on the wall of chimeras. Therefore, he wasn't able to force my guys to disembark and his antipersonnel weapons were a waste.

2. I don't know if the two grffon squads are correct but between them, the basilisk and all of the other anit personel weapons in the list anything on the other side of the table that is not in a vehicle is just meat. My army does struggle some against lots of AV 14 but it really can put the hurt on armies that are either infantry heavy or infantry in light vehicles.

3. Sentinels, the list started with two of them. I was thinking that since they got a price cut they would be worth taking a look at. Then I cut one for an astropath. And now I am thinking that I may cut the remaining one. I don't think that it has done anything in any of my games. It is a liability in kill point missions and in the other missions the one extra BS 3 lascannon shot just doesn't seem to make much of a difference. This game the sentinel spent one turn unable to shoot due to nightfighting, one turn shaken and missed every other shot. Par for the course. I'm pretty sure that he is 50 points that I could better spend elsewhere.

4. Basilisk, I am still iffy on this guy. It was imobilized in the second turn (and couldn't see due to nightfight in the first) but I did park it pointing towards my opponent's objective so I just indirect fired on it the whole game and eventually killed the entire squad of warriors that was holding it. This certainly wasn't trivial but it could have been done by a griffon for 50 points cheaper and also would have been more accurate so one or two of those shots maybe could have been pointed elsewhere and done even more damage (and all for 50 points cheaper).

I am thinking that perhaps I could drop both the basilisk and the sentinel and that plus the 5 points that I am already under 1750 would give me 180 points to play around with. This would definitely give me enough to do somethign interesting. Perhaps a Leman Russ?

I also am thinking that I want a second command HQ squad. The one weakness I am seeing with the list is that stuff gets pinned regularly. With all of the exploding transports it is just a fact of life that during the course of a given game you are going to have one or two units get pinned at inopportune times. The ability to issue "Get back in the fight" makes a big difference. In fact, I am finding that this is the order that I am most often wanting to use with this list. I was expecting "Bring it down" to be my most popular but this has turned out to not be the case. Very interesting.

I am also finding that as it is my one command HQ squad never survives a game and is often not alive when things get ugly and thus when I really need their orders.

The other thing that I am wanting in the army is more flamers. If I could take a 7th veteran squad with three flamers I would. But since I can't I am thinking that a command squad would be the way to go since I could either give them something such as four flamers, three flamers and a company standard, or two flamers and a lascannon (or other heavy weapon). Does anyone have thoughts on this?

JB, how is your list coming along?

tomguycot,

This the list I'm currently building:

CCS, 3 melta Chimera HF 135
CCS, 3 melta Chimera HF 135
Officer of the Fleet 30
Astropath 30
Techpriest 45

Pysker Squad w/overseer, 8 psykers, Chimera HB 155

Vet Sqd w/3 melta guns, Chimera HF 155
Vet Sqd, 3 flamers, Chimera HF 140
Vet Sqd, 3 plasma, AC, Chimera HB 180
Vet Sqd, 2 plasma, AC, Chimera HB 165

Hellhound HB 130

LRBT HB 150
LRBT HB 150
2 Griffon HF 150

TOTAL: 1750 points

I received my two Griffons (OOP GW ones), built them, and am painting them now.

I am also painting eight melta gunners.

I still need the Pysker Squad figs (I'll probably convert figures for this purpose), four sergeants with shotguns, an astropath, and an officer of the fleet.

As you can see, I already decided a second CCS was too good to pass up but that's because it was cheaper than a vet squad and can do almost the same job (3 melta guns for me). It also has the orders and LD 9.

My main concern is that only four vet squads might be too brittle. One thing I'll examine when I get to playtesting is whether or not I should drop the Hellhound or a LRBT in order to add a fifth vet squad back into the list. Right now, I want the Hellhound for its ability to move fast (12") and fire its Inferno Cannon which ignores cover saves.

I'm running a blog thread on the upgrade of my Cadians into a mechanized force (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/235660.page). I need to add a few updates but the blog is keeping me motivated to build and paint. Your thread is also very motivational and educational.

JB, thanks for the link to the army blog. I will be checking it out next.

I like how your list is shaping up. A lot of the things you are running are things that I have thought about as well. I am right there with you on the second command squad. That is one thing that I have found myself wanting in all of my test games so far. It never fails that there is one squad that gets pinned with a juicy target nearby for their meltas/flamers/plasma. Also the occasional, bring it down or, move move move is nice too.

I also have been thinking about hellhounds as the mobile flamer template is quite nice in this sort of list but I still can't quite get past the fact that I can have two griffons (almost) for every one hellhound since they both perform a similar role. The pinning (at -1 LD) from the griffons has also proven to be relevant in all of the games I have played so far. Perhaps the mobility is worth it though, particularly when your army is starting off of the table.

Oh, one other thing I meant to mention in my post above was about heavy flamers on Chimeras and Griffons. I am really thinking that on the griffons in particular heavy flamers for the hull weapon might be a good choice. I've already had a couple of scenarios pop up when stuff gets close to my lines and inside of the griffon's 12" min. range that driving up with the griffons and lighting stuff up with heavy flamers would have been ace.

The downside of this is that I don't know if shooting at stuff up close is actually ever what I want to do with them. Only once have I decided to shoot heavy bolters at things getting too close. Every other time I have just ignored them and focused on making mince meat out of guys on objectives or something similarly important (but far off). In my list I generally have enough veteran squads that I can send one of them to intercept whatever is getting close and so far that seems to be getting the job done.