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Alright, so I have a highlander tournament coming up soon, and, it being a tournament, I. Trying to bring a mean list. It's a pretty standard highlander comp rules, but I'll give it a brief rundown:

No gargantuan creatures or super heavies(no Knights).
Only one of each unit allowed, including dedicated transports.
Troops have a small exception; you are allowed to take a second of the same troop choice only if you have taken one of each other troop choice. (Using tau as an example, you can only take a second fire warrior squad after you have taken a kroot squad.)

You can pick 2 of the following:

0-1 combined arms detachment (SM in my case)
0-1 Codex specific (Inq in my case)
0-1 allied detachment

NO Formations!

0-1 Fortificatins allowed, but no Fortification networks and no mighty bulwark

So, no transcendent c'tan, no firebases, no Knights, no serpent spam. I can work with that. I normally take 3 bike squads, so I'll have to figure out how to reallocate points.

List 1:

HQ:

Chapter Master: Bike, Shield Eternal, Power Fist(ing), artificer armor, melta bomb - 250
Tigurius: - 165

Troops:

Bike Squads: 2 Meltaguns, 5 bikes - 125
Scouts: 5 scouts, sniper rifles, camo cloaks - 70

Heavy Support

Dev Centurions: 4 Centurions, Grav Cannon and Grav Amp, Chest Missile Launchers, Omniscope -380
Thunderfire Cannon: - 100
Relic Sicarian Battle Tank: sponson heavy bolters, hull heavy bolter, accelerator autocannon, armoured ceramite, Schism of Mars - 200

Inquisition:

Coteaz: - 100
Ordo Xenos Inquisitor: 3 servo skulls, psychic mastery level 1, force sword, bolt pistol, liber heresius, rad and psykotrope grenades - 109

Total: 1499

Alright, that's list one a bit of a doozy, but let's see list 2:

Space Marines:

HQ:

Chapter Master: power fist, artificer armor, melta bombs, shield eternal, bike - 250
Tigurius: - 165

Troops:

Bike Squad: 2 Meltaguns, 5 bikes - 125
Scouts: 5 scouts, sniper rifles, camo cloaks - 70

Heavy Support:

Thunderfire Cannon: - 100
Dev Centurons: 4 Centurions, grav cannons and grav amps, chest missile launchers, omniscope - 380
Stormraven: twin-linked assault cannon, twin-linked multi melta, 2 hurricane bolter sponsons, 4 stormstrike missiles - 230

Inquisition:

Coteaz: - 100
Ordo Xenos Inquisitor: 3 servo skulls, psychic mastery level 1, force sword, bolt pistol, liber heresius - 79

Total: 1499

A third thought was to sub the Sicarian from list one and putting Cypher in to provide the main unit with hit and run (in addition to his amazing shooting). Or even infiltrate with the scouts to serve as a distraction carnifex. Probably with the main unit, though.

But, with the main two lists, the pros and cons of both are:

List one pros:

Psykotrope and rad grenades are a decent deterrent to being charged.

The Sicarian is on the board turn one, and makes a laughing stock of light infantry and vehicles. The tank hunters allow it to have a decent shot against any heavier vehicle. The accelerator autocannons ignore jink, rend and are twin linked, meaning that they can even serve as anti air in a pinch. It's fast, on top of that, meaning it can continue to fire if it needs to reposition.

Sicarian syncs well with the grav star, it dismounts troops, troops die horribly from being shot by weaponised Gravity.

The scouts are there to camp a my side objective separate from the fire, or outflank if the mission needs me to visit the opponents board edge.

Cons:

No dedicated anti air, meaning that if there's a stormtalon, stormraven and Fire raptor, I'm in trouble. Or belakor, lord of change, daemon prince

Dedicated anti tank will make the Sicarian cry, as it's the only av value target on the board.

Reliant, as always, on tiggy get invisibility.


List 2 pros:

The storm raven can shoot down pesky vendettas, doom scythes, and heldrakes. The lonely flyrants or daemon princes as well.If there is no planes to shoot, it can shoot at tanks and infantry. Power of the machine spirit is helpful with that, because then I can shoot both!

The scouts can ride In the plane to try to deny kill points. They can also outflank, as above.

Cons:

less board presence turn one, and less anti infantry firepower. Once the stormstrike are gone, all ot has is the multimelta to shoot down tanks,and the assault cannon won't really get to shoot at anything in rapid fire range of the hurricane bolters.

One plane is going to get all of the hatred from aegis guns. Sure, 4+ jink, but if it jinks, it isn't shooting worth a damn.

Reliant on psychic powers, as a lot of points is In The main blob.

(Lists end)

So, naturally, both lists are a grav star. Coteaz provides some deep strike protection, the Ordo Xenos gives scout and protection from enemy scouts. The chapter master is there to tank for them, and to break off and clean up any infantry units once invisibility is out. Tigurius is Tigurius, and I'm thinking of having him as the warlord so the chapter master may go to town without worrying about giving up warlord. In addition, if I lack psychic dice, I can use it storm of fire to give the centurions one turn of prescience.

On the psychic power front, Tigurius is fishing for invisibility in telepathy. Depending on the enemy, he might follow it up with fishing for levitation, to give them more movement with little risk. If he hits the third power, and having gotten the other two, he'll take a telepathy again for psychic shriek. Coteaz is going to go straight sanctuary (unless he has to emergency roll for invisibility), ideally getting sanctuary or gate of infinity. Again, depending on the enemy, he might instead play around in divination, looking for forewarning or perfect timing. The ordo Xenos will roll on divination, for prescience, and ideally rolling one of the previously mentioned two.

The liber heresius will be used for scout, split fire if I want the chapter master to drop a nuke from orbit (since split fire applies to the unit), and the close combat buffs for if they get stuck in. Counter attack or hatred is pretty grand.

We all know what a thunderfire cannon is used for. Target infantry blob, cackle as you roll a handful of dice to murder infantry blob.

I kind of regret building my centurions with hurricane bolters. While the ability to pack a longer ranged punch has come in handy, it's a decent amount of points that could have been reallocated. Ah well, such is life.

An additional note: I also have a dual kheres contemptor Mortis that could serve as a middle ground. However, with the cyclone launcher on top, it clocks in at 235, making it the most expensive option. It's less shots than the Sicarian with shorter range, doesn't have the anti tank than the stormraven has, and is less durable than both. But, it's 12 assault cannon shots (and two missile shots) that can shoot air targets if necessary.

Thank you all in advance for input, if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

I'm not sure if my wall of text scared everyone off, if so, :(.