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I won my first game at my FLGS for a 1500 point grid-map campaign. I'm wondering how I can tweak this to improve it, it held up alright against Black Templars but more melee-heavy players might chomp through no problem. Any advice? Thanks if you've read this far.

The list:



Basic strat is just a gunline spanning hopefully my whole side of the board.

Lemans are Mordian to gain the 5+ overwatch plus the Fist of the Emperor Tank Comapny field commander to up the overwatch to 4+.

The Cadian company is Emperor's wrath Artillery company, and I ordered the wyvern to shoot twice each turn, and it was pretty brutal.

I can't decide to run astropaths or wyrdvane psykers for the psychic support; is one better than the other?

Thanks to whoever might read this!

So, ok, advice.
Astropaths beat wyrdvanes most all the time cause of character protection and 2d6 denials. Also, an astropath at the front can direct the troops to ignore cover on a target, potentially causing a lot of extra effect to weapons with poor AP (ie, gaurd weaponry and punishers) against even moderately strong armor in cover.
Wyrdvanes are very vulnerable to anything shooting, and an easy unit to let the enemy pick up "kill one" or "kill more" when HE chooses to. Costs 5 points per, to swap to a pistol only astropath. (You might swap only the front one, and keep nightshroud as wyrdvanes on the back, if you are happy with that.) so -5 points

I personally would run all six infantry as cadian, using the 18 points currently spent on flamers to buy instead 6 grenade launchers, and mix the 6 mortars into the 6 squads rather than in 2 very small and vulnerable units of HWS. Saves some 36 points gross that. +31 net.

31 points buys an engenseer repair guy -- with as much armor as you have, he will help a lot, strech a tank or two out a roudn or two, raise the odd bracket back. And be your only melee unit.

This is the least "invasive" change to your army I came up with that would potentially help you keep your tanks running a bit longer, and reduce by 4 units the easy kills the enemy can garner from you, replacing them with 3 character units.

Astropath over wyrdvane. Maybe one day wyrdvanes will be decent again but they've been neglected for a while.

Emperors fist needs to select one detachment, your russes are split over 2 because of Pask. Additionally you need to make one of the TCs the warlord with the Emperors Fist trait if you are trying to stack overwatch. Currently you've got nothing from the Emperors fist detachment other than access to the strategems. Id be inclined to drop the specialist detachment and save a command point.

For over watch Id just rely on the innate Mordian bonus. And if you do get charged you can use defensive gunners to hit on a 4+. If some light trash units are trying to tag/hold up your russes that should knock them off, if something hard that actually wants to get in melee comes by itll likely get in regardless.

I dont see you needing 2 company commanders in the Cadians. Only 4 orderable units in the detachment. I can see you probably wanted to split the warlord and relic holder but Id just take one. Id also take the Emperors wrath relic on the commander to keep near the artillery. Removing cover bonuses is great and really helps your shots stick, especially if using the double shot strategem from the specialist detachment too. Grand strategist is fine.

I'd definitely keep the mortars in their separate squads. Presumably the Mordians will be in front and the Cadians castling behind so getting some heavy weapons teams in there would be good. Would also give some options to stick wounds on things before the artillery fires if you want to use the Cadian Strat. And if you can keep distance with the Mordians a master of ordnance could be good if you've got spare points. Extra shot + reroll.

Pask is nice but pricey. Also as the unique russ is the first target and doable to kill in a turn. Id rearrange the russ groupings a bit, pushing harder hitting ones into the Cadians and punishers into the mordians.

Something like

Cadian Battalion, Emperors Wrath, 996
Foot Commander, Boltgun, Grand Strat, Orbital Tracker
2x Tank Commanders, Battlecannon, Lascannon
3x Guard w/ grenade launcher, lascannon
Astropath
Master of Ordnance
2x Basilisks
Wyvern
HWT w/ 3 mortars

Mordian Battalion, 504
Foot Commander, Boltgun
Tank Commander, Punisher, Heavy bolter
3x Guard
Leman Russ, Punisher, Heavy bolter
HWT w/ 3 mortars

Lost Pask but if theres a big target youd likely use the Cadian Strat and then the tank commanders are effectively the same. With the battlecannons in the cadians you've got access to the cadian tank order for more reliable shot counts. A regular russ in the Mordians gives you one that isnt a 1st choice for enemy shooting but one that you can throw forward without too much concern to get in the way. And in overwatch their regular BS doesnt matter.

Master of Ordnance is a bit of a potshot laugh, if you're inclined swapping them for tech priest would also be of use.

Edit, actually just roll with the tech priest. I forgot about the doctrines effecting vehicles for a bit there.

I learned something staring at this army's list, that its actually good to not have secondary weapons on leman russes if you plan to move them and you are not tallarn.

Thank you everyone for your replies. A lot of good points. I made some adjustments to the list. Everything is Cadian now, and I dropped one of the CCs and a unit of Wyrdvanes to add two Astropaths. I also added another unit of mortars because, why not? (Just built another box haha). I kept Pask, but maybe it's worth it to drop him for a normal Leman and a tech priest?

Here's the new list:

I wouldn't look to make Pask the warlord. Hes got no real use of the trait.

If you want to run the wyrdvanes because you just do then do it, only 20 points

I still feel it's a bit of a shame to have no special or heavy weapons in the squads. And also feel you're spending a lot of CP to get those relics and specialist detachments. Id still loose the emperors fist and save 2 CP. 2 CP is another overlapping fields of fire strategem. I dont think the payoff from the specialist detachment would outweigh that.

Look at your army differently.
Troop command : 1 company commander 30 points. relic/field commander for arillery. Problem/issue .. 7 units will go unordered at present each turn out of 9. Solution. Pick an extra company commander with the relic of lost cadia (that's important!) and with the superior tactical training. 30 points spent!
Tank command : FIVE commanders over 4 tanks (thank you pask!) ... but only 4 tanks to order. Problem/issue Pask has the ability to order more tanks than he has tanks to order, even before the warlord trait that he doesn't need here makes it likely he can order even more tanks he doesn't have. Solution. Pask is no longer warlord. Problem. Pask+battlecannon + lascannon is the only target i n your army, besides the hammer of sunderance + lascannon, that most people will target with serious antitank on round 1. Solution. Lose the lascannons, save 24 points, get heavy bolters. (and add a heavy stubber to each tank commander, just cause)... 18 points redemmed.
Troops. 240 regular infantry + 54 heavy weapon infantry
troop / total infantry wargear 9 HWT mortars 45 points. Two of these 9 units will be ordered to reroll their shots each turn (likely 6 mortars) Problem/issue These units are more effective when ordered for many, many reasons, and would be much more effective with a grenade launcher and a mortar and a bolter in each squad. Remove 6 heavy weapons teams from squads and integrate into the units, saving 36 points. This gives you enough points to give everyone here a grenade launcher and a bolter in each 10 man squad, and pay off the 12 points you are in the hole after the first two changes.
psykers: 73 points for 3 fairly reliable support spells and 2 denials. (Good choices all, I think, although wyrdvanes still make me nervous cause people can jsut shoot them.)
Artillery. The Wrath of the Wyvern and the Pretty Wrathlike Basilisk 211 points. Solid, perfeclty supported by the company commander / field warlord / relic.

Another VERY valid warlord choice here would be the old grudges. Battlecannon shots become as lascannon shots and then some, when old grudges are in play. Some enemies might have a knight crusader in the 1500 point list but very few will go up to castellan. Lowly krak grenade squads trail their near useless last couple infantry back to the warlord aura, and let their krak grenades roll wound shots twice. Roughly 1 in 2 will go through, and 1 in 3 lasguns will generate wounds against such a knight. You have a lot of lasguns and lasgun equivalent firepower in your mortars, meaning, you can actually strip a few wounds off even a smug knight player's big mecha with just orders and a bad attitude. He can be an old grudgy tank commander or an old grudgy company commander, even, either can find its way to the midfield to synergize with all the tanks and all the troops.

Your army now has increased each squad to throw out 2d6+16 shots (and some of them bolters) at close range, which is hell on hordes, or 2d6+8 shots at LONGER ranges (up to 24) and d6 up to 48. When you start stacking orders on these, it gets to be a real anti-horde capable group.

If this army were mine, I would not run pask at all, but make him a conquerer battle cannon coaxial stormbolter and heavy bolter and heavy stubber normal tank.
Then I could afford (if I dropped the basilisk) to give each squad a bolter, grenade launcher, and missle launcher, and pick up TWO company commanders. Now six grenade launchers and six missle launchers offer a significant fire base each roudn, synergized iwth old grudges against the first target (rerolling all misses) and synergized with the relic of lost cadia against the second big target (rerolling all one's).
Company commander 1 : warlord, old grudges, kurov's aquila
company commander 2 : field commander with the relic to make the wyvern awesome
company commander 3 : relic of lost cadia. Because.

This lets you pass six orders to 6 infantry squads with 6 missles and 6 grenades, turning your infantry into an actual and valid anti-tank threat, in addition to having a hws of mortars still on the side. Conquerer battlecannon tanks reroll all their battlecannon misses, for any target they also shoot the stormbolter at that is glued on its barrel. (You can make one by cutting down the barrel of a normal battlecannon a bit and gluing a stormbolter on it). They benefit from interlocking fields of fire like everyone else, so basically, you are firing a bs3 tank that rerolls all its misses instead of a bs2 tank that rerolls all its 1's. Its actually pretty similar, surprising most people, to the firepower pask's main gun can put out, but oyu don't feel foolish about using the FIST strategem to move it and then fire as if it didn't move. Cause you didn't just stick PASK in the enemey's face.

If you have no stomach for that radical a redesign (yes, basilisks are nice, I have a basilisk addiction, I usually have at least 1) then still consider downgrading pask to a conquerer, and shoving him forward with the strategem. Its cheaper than pask but still tends to focus your enemies fire on the flashy thing with the boomka in front of your army. The drop in cost still pays for 6 bolters, 6 mortars, and 6 grenade launchers even if you keep all 9 hwt mortars in their teams. And has 12 poitns left over,+ 12 more if you drop the sunderance lascannon to a heavy bolter, to take a single platoon commander with the relic of lost cadia in his grubby little paws.

Pask is awesome, yes, but he is not hte only way to have a battlecannon hit the target a bunch. I mean, you are actually able to replicate his total firepower for about 204 points by putting 6 laser cannon, six grenade, and six bolter in your squads and just holding still, interlocking fields, and passing out a bunch of fire orders )cause you can afford 2 extra commanders, too.
Enemies with flyersppam are probably sort of rare at 1500 points.

You raise a lot of good points. You're right, I'm not brave enough for a such a daring remodel of my army, mostly because I have to work with what I've got right now, and I don't own any grenade launchers or missile launchers for the squads. I was running them barebones so they can be mobile screens and readjust after my line breaks.

But I followed your advise and dropped Pask and replaced him with a LR Conqueror, and I swapped the Lascannon for a Heavy Bolter on that model. Then I added in 2 more Company Commanders for the maximum orders. I'm running Grand Strategist on the Warlord to try and make back a few Command Points as I'm a bit short after all of my Field Commanders and Heirlooms. I was also able to swap the Wyrdvanes for another Astropath instead.

I have a game later today, and if you're interested I'll let you guys know how it goes. Thanks for your help.

Here's the new list (I'm sure I could make it much better but this is it for today):

Good Hunting! And of COURSE interested.

So I won the game, (against some scout/tank heavy Black Templars). The conqueror was killed on the first turn, and my warlord was sniped on the first turn as well. Over the course of the game I lost 5 out of my 6 infantry squads, one mortar squad, my warlord, the conqueror, and that's it. My guardsmen screen suffered but ultimately did its job. Tank Commanders and Basilisks remained untouched. The Wyvern miraculously survived 3 straight rounds of shooting. All in all I think it went pretty well. I also was very happy I took your guy's advice on dropping Pask, even if I did lose the conqueror, after I lost one CC I was very glad i had brought 2 more.

Thanks for all the advice!

I'm thinking I need to invest in some additional guardsmen squads, 60 seems like barely enough.

I almost discussed alpha strike snipers in my advice earlier, because the new marine eliminators and a lot of lists with scout snipers set up in the "front" area can greatly threaten any gaurd command element.
But first, yay!
The conquerer worked PERFECTLY. If the enemy hadn';t killed it, they would have been firing on a slightly more expensive tank commander.. That's really what its for (although cagey opponents will often kill everything except that tank first, and then discover to their horror that its got inherent rerolls on the turret, and is now 23.9 inches away.., so its basically another tank commander in sheeps clothing.)
The subtle concept here is your resilience balance (there is likely a better term for that) vs enemy weapon classes. For example, 3 gaurd squads are just dead, cause everyeone has SOMETHING that swats troops. ... and 1 or 2 leman russes are just dead, cause everyone has something that kills at least a few tanks. But tripple either number, the TAC list probably can't react against an overload of things that require those specific methods (many small hits, or a few high strength ones) to kill..
so you ain't wrong. 60 IS barely enough. but if you start cutting tanks away from the pile, you risk the anti-tank fire being enouhg to winnow your big guns down. This ain't an easy answer, but I note your current mix served well and maybe you will refine it to match your own exact playstyle over time, better than any advice any of us could give on how to emulate exactly our own playstyles.
hmm, decisions. I suspect you got a clearer picture how the company commanders work in this particular list -- and how many you really need in play for 6 troop (cause I think you are using them mainly for moving troops around, right now)
Properly, the only clever answer to early snipers shooting at you (cause eliminators ignore line of site and start in range) is probably to buy a couple ogryn bodygaurds. They can also serve to stiffen the melee potential of the center group a good bit.

I am also always happy when I see a mono gaurd list do well! As a side comment, you can buy some special weapons for gaurd in 5 packs from forgeworld, if you go in to a games workshop store and order them there. I bet you could pick up a few that way, of plasma, or grenade, or whateger, and greatly alter the dynamics of your 6 squads for very few in game points.