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Hi, looking for some feedback for this mechanized list I've been working on. The rough idea is to use the TCs and HHs as bullies, with the artillery and LRBT providing long-range fire power. The scion battalion is to provide fast obsec troops and a ton of special weapons. Not sure about the Taurox missile launcher though. Scions squads B and C pair up and ride in a prime together.

Battalion
55th Kappic Eagles
1 Additional Relic (-1cp)

HQ
Tempestor Prime - Chainsword + Command Rod. WT = Master Vox. Relic = Tactical Auto-Reliquary
Tempestor Prime - Chainsword + Command Rod. Ex Relic = Kurov's Aquila

Troops
Scion Squad A - 10x Scions, 4 with Plasma (to ride in the valk)
2x Scion Squad B - 5x Scions, 2 with HSVG
2x Scion Squad C - 5x Scions, 2 with melta

Flier
Valkyrie - HB, 2xMultipleRocketPods, LC

Transport
2x Taurox Prime - Missile Launcher and 2x HSVG


Spearhead Detachment
Gunnery Experts and Spotter Details
Tank Ace (-1cp)

HQ
TC - Demolisher, HKM, HB
TC - Executioner, HKM, HB

Elites
Master of Ordnance

Fast Attack
2x Hellhounds - Track Guards

Heavy Support
Basilisk
LRBT - BC, HB
Manticore - Full Payload

See, this may be a clerical error, but the HB on a valkyrie, as I remember, come only in pairs. I guess its possible I remember wrong!

So at this moment in time, a missle launching taurox prime can be compared to a valkyrie with a "fairly similar" loadout.
taurox prime with missles and hsvg = 2 big antitank shots (s8/-2/d6) and 8 hsvg shots all at bs3+. Moves 14 inches, but all the troops either get out first, or sit in it till next turn and can do nothing.
A valkyrie with hellstrike missle, lascannon, and 2 heavy bolter weighs in at only 20 points more, and comes with an extra 8 wounds, FLYS, -1 to be hit, and can drop its 12 (not 10) infantry off with the grav chute so that they can be moved into position and THEN attack.

Stop and consider how much more powerful your list would become with 3 such flyers and no taurox primes, on offense. You could lose (for example) one hellhound to pay for all this, and end up with a better protected force that could move 20 inches forward in hover mode and drop all the scoins out, while shooting all the guns at bs3+ against the enemy.
BUT, you can then step EVERY single scion body out of the flyers and shoot, in the same spot on the board, at the same moment, at very short ranges.

This is a critical thing, because it lets your (now 30 scions of firepower, backed up by the flyers and all the artillery indirect) potentially smash the enemy's local forces. The enemy may be a necron player with a bunch of stuff out of range to fire back, or a tau player whose big guns are behind LOS blocking cover from where you landed, and he can't get them all into position to fire back. Point is, you use that to force his army to take crushing damage on 1/2 of his force (usually a part that has moved from the slower elements and is troops and some light armor) and hope to completely obliterate his ability to shoot back at you.

This "flying big drop" is the only way I know to make scions survive the first round of shooting they get into. But there is more.

By comparison, the 2 taurox primes shots with heavy missles get you almost the exact same anti-armor hits in, and they force you to bring your scions out in drabs or from deepstrike.

Deepstrike isn't BAD, but marine units can auspex your incoming scions and cost you a squad in a heartbeat -- or someone whose snarky little infiltrators are in the wrong place, can exclude your meltas from shooting at all. When you bring the 2 melta squads out of the same flyer, you can use them with precision drop to get in far closer than the enemy screens can usually block them out, and this 12 inch only weapon suddenly is a real threat to the thing he doesn't want you shooting.

Kappic eagles great strength is coming out of transports -- so I am not saying you don't want to come out of transports -- but your guys now can come out after the transport moves instead of before on all three transports, which I think leverages the hell out of your shooting.
Its going to serve you much better than having a ground transport with fewer wounds and less toughness and less speed that you have to get the troops out of before it moves ... when you already plan to have 2 of your 4 squads in the ground transport boxes use weapons that are limited to 12 inch range.

Incidentally, plasma is also effectively a 12 inch range weapon, as it doubles its firepower at under 12 inches. Meltas not useful at all. and hotshotlasguns are doubletap only below 9 inches, so that's not going to hapen for your scions very often with only 30 scions. Result?
You really want to get all your melta to fire, rather than jog into position from across the board and get almost certainly shot before they reach a useful range. Taurox prime are a bit fragile and the enemy may take them out as a priority to keep yoru meltas from his door.,

I recommend cutting back a hellhound not cause they are bad, but because they are going to be point blank range assets that have to get to whereever you plan on contesting with the scions -- so the result is a splitting of your own force firepower into a possible THIRD location, inviting the enemy to defeat your infantry in detail and leaving you with little or no obsec.


As many of the times I comment, its a matter of playstyle, really, but if it were my army to throw together I would (sticking with kappic eagles) do it like this.

same tempest primes (put one in flyer A and one in flyer B)
10 scion plasma squad
.... in flyer A, valkyrie with hellstrike, hb2, lc
5 scion hsvg squad
5 scion hsvg squad
....in flyer B
5 scion melta squad
5 scion melta squad
... in flyer C.

These guys now can all hit the same spot -- even, if you REALLY need to, on turn 1, and for 1 cp you can land all the meltas 5.1 inches from the enemy, even 48 inches away from where they started. hat gives you all sorts of chances to slip past enemy screens if the enemy hasn't screend the whole board.

then..

Same gaurd group, but you have given back 1 hellhound. That point difference to buy the 2 valkyries leaves enough points leftover to purchase a single sentinal with a misslel auncher and hunterkiller missle. Not the best thing ever, but it will get a few shots off and can potentially stand by an objective somewhere.

Someone fighting you has to spend as much effort to blow up 1 of your flyers as they would have spent to blow up both taurox primes .. casue the flyers start at -1 to be hit, and have more wounds to soak, etc etc. They have to screen on the sides and back of their army instead of just the front, because the flyers can move THAT far, and still drump off scoin troops with minimal casualties. A lot of people will tend to overcastle as a result, waiting for that punch to zip in and land, and that means you could also drop all that obsec on objectives instead.

Basically, that's my advice. Its not certain this will let your scion troops survive to use their objective secure powers on a few objectives, but I think its their best overall chance.

Dukeofstuff wrote:
So at this moment in time, a missile launching Taurox Prime can be compared to a valkyrie with a "fairly similar" loadout taurox prime with missles and hsvg = 2 big antitank shots (s8/-2/d6) and 8 hsvg shots all at bs3+. Moves 14 inches, but all the troops either get out first, or sit in it till next turn and can do nothing. A valkyrie with hellstrike missle, lascannon, and 2 heavy bolter weighs in at only 20 points more, and comes with an extra 8 wounds, FLYS, -1 to be hit, and can drop its 12 (not 10) infantry off with the grav chute so that they can be moved into position and THEN attack.

While I can certainly appreciate a points vs. points comparison to determine the most "efficient" unit, your evaluation doesn't take into account some pretty significant differences.

1. The Valkyrie cannot hold objectives, whereas the Taurox can. That point, and that point alone, completely throws into question any unit-to-unit comparison between them. 9th edition is not about killing stuff like 8th edition was. Board control and objective holding are far more important. You're telling me that with a Taurox I get the same firepower for 20 points less AND the ability to hold objectives?... That is an argument for the Taurox, not against it.
2. The Valkyrie is BS4 and the Taurox Prime is BS3. Yes, the Valkyrie can become BS3 by dropping into hover, but it loses the -1 to hit when it does that unless you've paid for Reactive Countermeasures, which costs pre-game CP. In addition, when hovering, the Valkyrie can be assaulted by anything and everything that moves. This might have just been a typo on your part, but Valkyries have 4 more wounds, not 8. All of that is to say that the additional survivability of the Valkyrie is really brought into question when you try to get it to perform offensively the same as a Taurox.
3. Valkyries do not have Regimental Doctrines. In Kappic Eagles, that is a moot point, but if the OP decides to try out a different regiment, the Valkyries will not benefit from the regimental doctrine and stratagem.

What I'm ultimately getting at is that nothing should be labelled as absolute this early into the edition and math-hammer only gets you so far. I much prefer the OP's original configuration of one Valkyrie and two Taurox. I think that kind of combined arms approach will be the path forward, but there's still a lot ot be revealed about the edition.

You make good points (8 points is two x the 4 point difference, I stated that a bit unclearly) and I certainly wouldn't want my advice to be taken as an "absolute". I think I will think about that some, but yeah, those aren't bad observations you made. Some is playstyle related, of course, I tend to the aggressive "big drop" attack to try to clear an area where scions and other fragile things can survive cause few things can shoot back locally. It has mixed success. (I wasn't trying to show "efficiency" so much as "relatively close" and "look this one has THAT capability and this one has these capabilities. Cause he may not have thought of the points either you or I make, I reckon this discussion is good both ways.