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As the title suggests this is a guilliman gunline that is extremely infantry heavy, to pick up some points as well as protect from lucky D6 damage weapons that can pop vehicles quickly, that also features a very heavy scout contingent. The list is atypical for me, and employs a lot more finesse rather than blunt force trauma. Normally I don't worry myself too much about how many command points I have, or making sure I have a decent amount of ObSec units, this is a byproduct of my general indifference towards most troops choices these days, they aren't bad, but I find myself building lists that feature heavily from elites and heavy support. So for this list I wanted to push some aspects of the game I don't normally push: command points, this list has 10, ObSec, the list has four troops choices, and to a lesser degree, mortal wounds and direct character targeting, this list includes a large sniper contingent with telion. I'm pushing the strategic elements of stratagems, board and objectives control with ObSec, and the ability to go after force multipliers with some accuracy. The other half of the list is still the tried and true sledgehammer of heavy weapons, and this segue's nicely into guilliman, basically if you're going to pony up the 360 points for him, put those points to work and surround his 6" bubble with a lot of premium fire power, or else what is the point really? I love how Ultramarines just seem to cheat in so many ways, Guilliman is absurd with +3 CP, regenerating CP on 5+ is absurd, and to a much much lesser extent, I think Chronus is just absurd lol. You have to pay a lot for guilliman and he doesn't cover an HQ requirement, getting to pay a measly 35 points to cover an HQ requirement, make an already great vehicle BS 2, and regenerate a wound a turn, is just silly, and as such Chronus will be in everyone of my Ultramarines lists in 8th. The other two HQ's are a techmarine to again, keep it cheap, and telion - telion is being paired with a ten strong squad of sniper rifle scouts and being kept in range of guillimans bubble. Basically, if you're going to allot some space for direct mortal wounds on enemy characters, go the distance and put the numbers in your favor - a single five man, unsupported unit of snipers will maybe, occasionally, spike a mortal wound or two - the squad I configured puts out ten sniper shots, re rolling to hit and wound, and dishing out mortal wounds on a 5+ thanks to telion's rules, not to mention telion's gun is pretty decent additional fire support having the ap -1 and D3 wounds, it helps. The rest of the scouts sport mainly shotguns and will be infiltrating close to the opponent, two str 5 shots each just seems great, especially against fellow toughness 4 units, the sergeants are bringing power fists to make a little more use of the combat phase, which these guys are intended to do - because my heavy hitters come in infantry form, I want the opponent to have to pay attention to the scouts, and not simply ignore them, hence the three larger units, coming in with str 5 shots, a power fist, and getting in close to both shoot and charge. My hope is the scouts can put out some strong anti-infantry fire power, while distracting some firepower away from the gunline for at least two turns (they can also always try to charge a key unit and lock it in combat for a turn). The rest of the list is the gunline, and honestly, it needs little analysis, heaps and heaps of lascannons and plasma coming in hot, looking to cripple the opposing armies ability to hit back hard. Notable areas of worry for me: possibly not enough anti-infantry, though the scouts and plasma elements can get it done, high number of expensive infantry makes me a bit concerned about durability, and the big one, such a high number of drops making it statistically very tough to go first. If you read all the analysis, thanks for your time, and would love to hear some feedback. The list is tied to it's strategy and philosophy much more than the original units themselves, if you think a different unit will live up to the spirit of the strategy better, please share those ideas, thanks. P.S. the list comes in at exactly 2000 points, sometimes things are just destined, no? =)


Battalion & Spearhead Detachments 10 CP

LoW – Roboute Guilliman

HQ – Sergeant Telion
Troops – 10x Scouts w/ Sniper Rifles

Troops – 8x Scouts w/ 7x Astartes Shotguns, Sergeant w/ Storm Bolter & Power Fist
Troops – 8x Scouts w/ 7x Astartes Shotguns, Sergeant w/ Storm Bolter & Power Fist
Troops – 8x Scouts w/ 7x Astartes Shotguns, Sergeant w/ Storm Bolter & Power Fist

HQ – Techmarine w/ Servo Arm, Boltgun & the Teeth of Terra

HQ – Sergeant Chronus
Heavy Support – Predator w/ 4x Lascannons, Storm Bolter & Hunter Killer Missile

Heavy Support – 5x Devastators w/ 4x Lascannons & Armorium Cherub
Heavy Support – 5x Devastators w/ 4x Lascannons & Armorium Cherub

Heavy Support – 5x Devastators w/ 4x Plasma Cannons

Heavy Support – 5x Hellblasters w/ Plasma Incinerators
Heavy Support – 5x Hellblasters w/ Plasma Incinerators

that Pred is going to be the focus of every single multi wounding shot from your opponent. I would ditch a single tank.

 zedsdead wrote:
that Pred is going to be the focus of every single multi wounding shot from your opponent. I would ditch a single tank.

In order to get Chronus in the list at only 35 points he needs a tank, plus he hits on 2's, has guilliman re rolls, regenerates 1 wound a turn automatically, plus has a dedicated techmarine for D3 more regenerated wounds a turn, you think with all that, plus all the other heavy hitting elements the opponent would have to ignore to focus fire chronus, that he's still a liability - I'm not quite seeing it. Not to mention, if they do focus fire him, great, I'd rather anything get focused other than the devastators, they're the biggest glass cannon.

The problem is, anti-tank weapons are wasted on infantry, and the other way around. A lascannon that hits a marine kills a marine, a lascannon that hits a vehicle can take half its wounds away. Having all infantry and a single tank means that those lascannons, meltas etc. will have a very juicy target. With zero vehicles (or zero multi-wound models, hellblasters are meh) you basically make every meltagun and lascannon into a glorified bolter. A smart opponent will shoot your tank with heavy weapons, and your devastators with ligher ones, so he can maximize efficiency.

Oh, by the way, I don't see how Telion will make you dish mortal wounds on a 5+... you know he adds 1 to the to hit roll, not the to wound one, right?

Again, I'm ok with Chronus being targeted, he has a lot of regen if they fail to kill him, and despite everything he's still going to be detracting attention from the devastators. Let me clarify, I'm talking about mainly the turn one alpha volley, yes, small arms fire is more efficient against infantry and a smart player will shoot the devastators will small arms fire, not lascannons, but in a turn one scenario, unless they have deep striking or infiltrating units, most small arms fire will be out of range of the devastators camping in the back of my deployment zone.

I was aware that he gives +1 to hit, but for some reason I was thinking the mortal wound triggered on a 6 to hit, forgetting it was 6 to wound, however, would be a sweet rule for him.

peteralmo wrote:
Again, I'm ok with Chronus being targeted, he has a lot of regen if they fail to kill him, and despite everything he's still going to be detracting attention from the devastators. Let me clarify, I'm talking about mainly the turn one alpha volley, yes, small arms fire is more efficient against infantry and a smart player will shoot the devastators will small arms fire, not lascannons, but in a turn one scenario, unless they have deep striking or infiltrating units, most small arms fire will be out of range of the devastators camping in the back of my deployment zone.

I was aware that he gives +1 to hit, but for some reason I was thinking the mortal wound triggered on a 6 to hit, forgetting it was 6 to wound, however, would be a sweet rule for him.

Well the whole point in the forum is to point out weaknesses and strengths in lists and right now the single biggest weakness from an objective stand point is the single tank. By the way he will get shot off the table before he gets to regenerate anything so really your making a predator more expensive for next to nothing in return.

Aside from that it is a decent Guilliman list, Ro be honest it would work better if you went all in on predators since they are a much more efficient way to get 4 las canons and keep them. It takes advantage of RG more as well since they gain more from the rerolls as they take damage. It's hard to argue las devs against a predator, the tank is cheaper then a 10 man squad with one more wound at T7 and more mobility.

 Red Corsair wrote:

peteralmo wrote:
Again, I'm ok with Chronus being targeted, he has a lot of regen if they fail to kill him, and despite everything he's still going to be detracting attention from the devastators. Let me clarify, I'm talking about mainly the turn one alpha volley, yes, small arms fire is more efficient against infantry and a smart player will shoot the devastators will small arms fire, not lascannons, but in a turn one scenario, unless they have deep striking or infiltrating units, most small arms fire will be out of range of the devastators camping in the back of my deployment zone.

I was aware that he gives +1 to hit, but for some reason I was thinking the mortal wound triggered on a 6 to hit, forgetting it was 6 to wound, however, would be a sweet rule for him.

Well the whole point in the forum is to point out weaknesses and strengths in lists and right now the single biggest weakness from an objective stand point is the single tank. By the way he will get shot off the table before he gets to regenerate anything so really your making a predator more expensive for next to nothing in return.

Aside from that it is a decent Guilliman list, Ro be honest it would work better if you went all in on predators since they are a much more efficient way to get 4 las canons and keep them. It takes advantage of RG more as well since they gain more from the rerolls as they take damage. It's hard to argue las devs against a predator, the tank is cheaper then a 10 man squad with one more wound at T7 and more mobility.

Much more efficient? 4 lascannon pred is 190 points, plus storm bolter / missile if you want, 5 man devastators with lascannons in 165 points, 170 with the cherub, same BS, one has less total wounds and is more susceptible to small arms fire, boltguns can kill your devs, there not going to hurt the pred much, meanwhile the pred is much more vulnerable to damage D6 weapons, two melta guns can drop a pred with a little luck, two melta guns on the 5 devs is going to kill the sergeant and maybe nab a single lascannon. They both have strengths and weaknesses, especially depending on the type of army you are facing. I like preds and agree they are good, but much more efficient? I'm not sure that's categorically correct.

looks like you have all the answers... have fun with it.

It's not about having all the answers, the forums are a place for discussion, and on this point, I don't fully agree with some of the group-thinky aspects of this particular idea. Namely, the idea of shot efficiency as it relates to both mathammer and real life situations. Saying something like, shooting lascannons at one wound models is wildly inefficient, is technically true, it's mathematically true, but it's only practically true some of the time. Let me explain. If you show up with a heavy weapon heavy army, and you sit across from green tide, that's true infantry only, with no high wound models, what are you going to do? Well I guess I'll just concede, because you have nothing for me to shoot at, so good game I guess. No, you're going to bite the bullet and shoot your best guns at their best stuff. And that's my point, people focus so much on mathematical efficiency as it relates to theory they sometime forget another valuable rule of tabletop gaming - shoot your best guns at there best stuff, or the biggest threat. If I were to swap that predator out for devs, making it a full heavy infantry list, my opponent would still have to shoot his heavy weapons at something, and it would probably be my devastators, which by the way, inefficient or not, will melt to lascannon shots. On the flip side, if I swap out the two dev units for predators, fielding three predators, one being chronus, why exactly would chronus then magically take less attention? The opponent would then have three predators to deal with, yes, but we all know they would still start by pouring there attention into chronus first, as he's the biggest threat of the three. So in short, I'm not saying your wrong, technically, or mathematically, but in practical game-time terms, it's never as simple as "you must shoot these things at these other things or else the sky falls in." I've lost the last few wounds of a tank to bolter fire, heck even flamer fire - I've lost units of devastators to fire dragons, at the end of the day, no matter how inefficient mathematically it seemed at the time, my stuff still died, and it still affected the outcome of the game.

I honestly didn't read your wall of text...paragraphing...It was probably awesome and explained a tonne but... to much

I gather you scouts are your screens and the rest sits back and tables them or gunline... (just hope there is not a lot of terrain where you play).

A few suggestions if going gun line:

You have no redundancy in your Dev units. If you lose a model it is a lot of points. I would suggest make you Dev units 3x heavy weap, 1x serg and 1x pleb (if have points I personally would go 3x Heavy, 2x pleb and 1x Serg).

Hordes are gunna be a problem what happens when they smash your screen and push into you back line... you have no fast movers or back objective of enemy table area grabbers, you have no real anti-cc apart for GM.

I think you hope shot guns are enough but they are not. if going gun line you need 2 lines and some anti-infantry... Your only anti-infantry is PC and they are not great and the 3 units of scouts and they cant screen past turn 1 for some armies.

To suggest changes (idk seems like from comments you are set). Starters I would drop PC and LC Devs for maybe 4x Devs squads (2x lascannons, 1x Heavy bolter, 1x Bolter, 1x Serg Cherub) think is similar (maybe some left over)

I personally don't like hellblasters (you have enough anti-armour), maybe go for some quick moving objective grabbers or some good CC... You have devastators for anti-armour/multi wound etc... you don't need more.

Just how I would change it.

Any who, Some thoughts. Hope goes well
SC

I like chronus, don't like techmarines

For same/similar points, drop the tech, chronus and pred, take 2 ac razorback and a librarian for defence

The scouts I would go with 5 man squads with a combi flamer on the sarge and use them to block deep striking (so deploying exactly 17 away from other units)

How about sniper scouts? To counter characters?

Telion I like, but he works better with snipers

If you're going heavy support infantry based, always take an ancient and an apothecary, give the ancient the relic banner.

When a dev/hellblaster dies, they shoot on a 3+ (and because it isn't the shooting phase can target characters) then the following turn they get back up on a 4+