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So I have a 2k ITC tournament coming up tomorrow. I'm continuing to try and make my missile party list work properly. I dont own any Riptides (I didnt buy them in 6th or 7th, not gonna start now) instead opting to make my swarm of crisis suits work. In 8th this has been... difficult.
Recently my experimenting has happened upon the concept of a full team of 9x suits with missile pods as pretty viable simply because they are the best possible target for Command and Control node. 54x missile shots, rerolling wounds (and ignoring cover, if necessary) is just very very good. Point for point they do quite a bit more damage than riptides but are significantly less tough (T5 vs T7, 3+ vs 2+/5++, 24 pts/wound vs ~21 pts/wound, more easily debuffed as a single unit).
This creates a bit of a glass cannon effect, but if you can keep them alive boy can they dish out pain and most importantly they make my crisis suits relevant again. I've done fairly well in my past few games, won the last tournament I played. With new space marines comes new challenge though.
Taking lessons from Richard Siegler, I've been working on my speed for 6 turn games and my ability to take positional secondaries vs offensive secondaries.
3x detachments, 10 command points, 3x commanders, big crisis team, 3x broadsides, and 34 total drones plus some fixings.
I've tweaked the list a bit:
-Dropping 2x VRT broadsides. Losing these guys hurts, it's a total of 32 shots down and less ability to counter flyers or skimmers. But they are vulnerable to CC and not agile enough to always be in LOS. I kept 3x ATS broadsides, theyll have to be enough.
-Including a min stealth team with drones. These guys can get you recon or king of the hill all on their own (or BOTH) while still being almost on the bubble in damage efficiency/resiliency. In this list they also fill out a vanguard detachment. Also, at least 1x stealth team feels necessary in the age of Invictors. You need SOMETHING to push them back from your deployment zone, a min squad with drones makes a 16 inch line with an 9" buffer in a single drop, pushing those invictors all the way out.
-Including a deepstriking CIB commander (XV8 because I don't have an enforcer) with drones. This guy is to pry out backfield elements; he can reliably kill a thunderfire cannon gunner or intercessor squad squatting on an objective. The drones can often be deployed out of LOS but technically closer, keeping him characterfully safe. I thought of dropping shadowsun for another but honestly I need her for this list; she amplifies my glass cannon and is a great source of CnC node.
The big crisis team and the broadsides bring the pain in this list, total of 76 S7 missiles and 24 S5 missiles between them, 52 of them rerolling wounds every turn. They are focal points and the list revolves around their damage potential but often they act as red herrings; other parts of the list are the ones scoring objectives. I'll often deploy them AWAY from my home objective so that the enemy has to choose which way to rush. An ideal game I Kauyon twice and destroy enough that I can then advance turn 3 onwards with the crisis team (who feel kinda quick w/ 8 inches of movement, plus assaults which I will often do if no power weapons are present).
The Coldstar packs more missiles in favor of fusion blasters; he is contributing from turn 1 and doesnt expose himself except when safe. If I can get the 6 turns I'm aiming for hell do much more damage over the course of the game than a fusion rusher. Late game he picks up objectives. I put the VRT on him because it is one of the very few ways to actually take an objective that is screened. The VRT may be more actually useful on the CIB commander though, lemme know what your opinion is on that!
The mixed drone squads give me plenty of wounds (total of 34 drones) and sufficient markerlights (juuust enough to tag 5 lights on 2 targets turn 1 with standard rolls and networked ML).
What do yall think? Any changes youd recommend? Wrinkles I should exploit? Lemme know.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/13 22:26:14
I'd change your coldstar to a quad fusion. I recently tried that, and its a blast to trade a piece of your choice whenever you want with your opponent. Also you don't have any good answers to 2+ armor, so that helps.
9 suits vs 3 riptides... your issue is that the riptides will have ap-2, your suits have ap-1, so again your giving up a lot against 2+ armor.
Almost enough drones, you might have more marker drones than you need (slightly)
Your marksman isn't needed, and I think the stealth suits are marginal return.
The other issue you have is that there's a hard limit of 1 Commander per detachment, and you have 3 in 1 detachment.
I saw another list with CIBs instead of Missile Pods, if you don't need the range, its a better weapon hands down.
Oh yeah I didnt sort it into detachments for ease of reading but this is a battalion, an outsider, and a vanguard.
My idea for the missile pods vs CIB (on suits) or fusion (for coldstar) is that even vs 2+ arm you do more damage if you shoot for more turns with missiles. CIB and fusion also have the problem of getting screened and being unable to take full advantage of a Kauyon. Have you found that the single fusion coldstar trades well? I'm always worried about a 1 turn trade, cuz on average he just barely kills a chaplain alone...
In a tau mirror match it's closer than it seems because of CnC node; on the huge squad rerolling wounds on 52 missiles vs 18 hbc shots gives the crisis significantly more damage per point compared to riptides, theyll nuke 1.5 riptides a turn at full strength and with just AP -1 they dont care about a 3++. Still comes down to who shoots first a lot of the time and I think riptides are DEFINITELY optimal (I just dont own any lol).
You are right about a weakness vs 2+ arm... what do you think about Through Unity, Devastation as the warlord trait? Turns about 10 of those missile shots from the crisis into AP -2 and about 4 of the broadside missiles to AP -3....
Coldstar Suicide Suits..
Last game I played my coldstar suit and knocked out an eldar crimson hunter flyer on turn 1, and then I hid on the ground floor of a building. I was pretty happy. In a mirror match, A coldstar popped over, decimated one of my skyrays and hid on the ground floor of a different building thanks to vectored thrusters. I had to over dedicate my resources to knock him out. I think the coldstar suicide suit is pretty efficient.
Taking the same list to another tournament, this one using CA2018 eternal war missions. Any changes yall would recommend for that?
I was thinking of breaking my drone units into basically min squads because of the lack of kill points in 5/6 missions. What do yall think?
I could also ditch the stealth suits since recon isnt on the table but they are just so useful vs infiltrating marines and positional shenanigans in general I'm not sure if I could make up their points just by taking 40ish drones instead of 30ish drones...
