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I'm headed to an upcoming tournament in a couple of weeks, and as far as I know some of the lists are going to be pretty nasty. Lords of War are allowed, however IA is not. So there will be some tough units, incl. a Revenant Titan and an Ork watchamacallit-stompa for 800-ish points including 4-5 meks in its hull. Not all lists are like that of course, but keep it in mind. Missions will be Eternal War.

This was the list I was planning on takng. But two things:

I will be playing as Raven Guard, because that's what I have and like to play as. Not going to change.
I will be taking two Stalkers. They're cheap, and cool, and have served me very well.
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HQ
Librarian - Terminator Armor, Lvl. 2, Stormshield, Force Staff - 125 pts

Elite
Elite
3x Assault Centurions - Squad: 3x TL Flamers, Hurricane Bolters; Sergeant: Omniscope; Land Raider Crusader: Hurricane Bolters,TL Assault Cannon, Multi-Melta - 460 pts

Troops
5x Space Marines - Squad: Gravgun; Sergeant: Gravpistol; Rhino - 135 pts
5x Space Marines - Squad: Gravgun; Sergeant: Gravpistol; Rhino - 135 pts
5x Space Marines - Squad: Gravgun; Sergeant: combi-melta; Rhino - 125 pts

Fast Attack
-

Heavy Support
Stalker - 75 pts
Stalker - 75 pts

Imperial Knight - Paladin - 375 pts

1500 pts


List #2 is more like what I'm used to playing with, only a bit more streamlined and brutal. I can scout the three rhinos up 12" and open fire, while giving my small assault squads LOS-blocking cover. Next turn I hop out and assault. They also give me some much needed harassment units. Always pretty useful. Should I go with it though? How can I optimize it? Please tell me what you think.
_____________________________________________________

HQ
Librarian - Terminator Armor, Lvl. 2, Stormshield, Force Staff - 125 pts

Elite
3x Assault Centurions - Squad: 3x TL Flamers, Hurricane Bolters; Sergeant: Omniscope; Land Raider Crusader: Hurricane Bolters,TL Assault Cannon, Multi-Melta - 460 pts
5x Sternguard Veterans - Squad: 2x Meltagun, 2x Combi-melta; Rhino - 195 pts

Troops
5x Space Marines - Squad: Gravgun; Sergeant: Gravpistol; Rhino - 135 pts
5x Space Marines - Squad: Gravgun; Sergeant: Gravpistol; Rhino - 135 pts

Fast Attack
5x Assault Marines - Squad: 2x Flamer; Sergeant: Meltabombs - 100 pts
5x Assault Marines - Squad: 2x Flamer; Sergeant: Meltabombs - 100 pts

Heavy Support
Thunderfire Cannon - 100 pts
Stalker - 75 pts
Stalker - 75 pts

1500 pts


What list would you rather i go with? The first one I've won my last four games with. The Knight does odd-jobs, but usually does good damage. While the assault cents take on whatever is most threatening - and they have always made up their points + most of the LR and rarely die. Together they're tough to handle. Good times. The problem is usually keeping my troops alive. It's not very Raven Guard-like though, and doesn't much benefit from the CT. Besides the Knight can die pretty easily.

Since you have 500 pts from your first list exchanged in your second, your second list is 1495. Meltabombs for the Sternguard sgt?

I think your second list would provide more flexibility of tactics and not risk losing a Knight Paladin on turn 1-2 from concentrated fire.

I also like your second list better, but that's probably morely because I dislike lords of war. And why not give the stern guard squad a drop pod and drop them in behind an expensive tank and destroy it early game?

Yeah, that's what I feel as well. I get more melta this way, much more ignores cover and much more flexibility of movement to protect my backfield as well as attack. More bodies too. And I can always sacrifice my Assault Marines to stall vs. troublesome units.

So, well. I really want to play the second list, but it's only two weeks until the tournament and very little is painted yet so I'm a bit short on time. Need to decide what to go with pretty soon. :/

About the Sternguard I simply thought that as I already can scout 12" up the field that I would be able to pop a tank anyway right from the start and still help provide my Assault Marines cover on the first few turns. Besides, I'm most worried about Tau gunlines and given the fact that they can intercept I feel that a scouting rhino is just as good.

Anyone with a competitive eye that can give me a quick rundown? Haven't been to a tournament before. :(

I would go second list, better use of the CT. I assume the libby goes with the centurions?

Libby rides with the cents.

Yeah, it feels more fun and right at the very least. The only qualm I have with it is that I would have loved to add a melta to my Cent captain for split fire and an Auspex to my Sternguard, but I'm missing 10 points. What do you guys think? :/

Anyway, I'll test the list tonight and let you know how it goes.

If there's one thing I hear most often about sergeants in C:SM armies, it's that giving them a specialist pistol is seldom worth the points. That could open up some options.

List 2:

Drop the assault squads and get melta guns on the assault cents; drop the omni-scope. Those things will rip open a Stompa that way. I don't think you'll be able to kill the revenant titan, so just hope not to play him I guess.. It's too fast for your list unless you get lucky on your scouted rhinos? Honestly, just beef up the rhinos of Tac squads so that each one is 3 units of OS models to clear from an Objective. Plus, I'd give them melta weapons for scouting up. After you scout, can you be in melta range with a regular melta gun or multi-melta? I'd also take a stormraven and more melta Tac marines in rhinos over the knight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Maybe ally in an Inquisotor with the Liber Heresius to scout the LRC up with the rest of the list? Also, I'd trade the Libby for a cheap chaplain for the cents.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Chaplain - melta bombs
Command Squad (5) - melta x4, rhino
Tac Squad (10) - melta, combi-melta, rhino
Tac Squad (10) - melta, combi-melta, rhino
Tac Squad (10) - melta, combi-melta, rhino
Stalker
Stalker
Assault Centurions (3) - melta x3, hurricane bolters
Land Raider Redeemer - multimelta

Ordo Xenos Inquisitor - liber Heresius

Wow, that's a cool way to play. How many points for the Ordo Xenos Inquisitor with liber heresius? Removing my Assault Marines is a tough choice. Wether I should be making the list a bit more fluffy or not was the point of this topic.

I can shoot 12" into an enemy's deployment zone IF I disembark to do so, so for the Melta-rule range it's a little situational. Melta is cheaper though, so I do save points. What should I go with?

The reason I went grav is for Wraithknights and C'tans among other things. Not only for the damage, but for the concussion special rule which drops initiative. That way my Centurions can finish those off.

 Corvus_corax wrote:
Wow, that's a cool way to play. How many points for the Ordo Xenos Inquisitor with liber heresius? Removing my Assault Marines is a tough choice. Wether I should be making the list a bit more fluffy or not was the point of this topic.

I can shoot 12" into an enemy's deployment zone IF I disembark to do so, so for the Melta-rule range it's a little situational. Melta is cheaper though, so I do save points. What should I go with?

The reason I went grav is for Wraithknights and C'tans among other things. Not only for the damage, but for the concussion special rule which drops initiative. That way my Centurions can finish those off.

Don't the assault centurions swing at initiative 4? The LRR has frag assault launchers on it, so they preserve their initiative?

Anyway, yeah you will want to take a MM and grav gun in the Rhinos then, so you can have one combat squad fire out at a vehicle, and one maybe disembark with the grav; I get what you're goin for and it's good. The 12" range for meltas is too unreliable, so yeah, stick to your grav and a MM. I would honestly just ditch the assault squads... the rest of your list is competitive and they're not :(

An Ordo Xenos Inquisitor with the Liber Heresius is 40 points. You can add rad grenades for the price of a grav gun too and just wreck stuff.

Yes, but the Wraithknight has Initiative 5, correct? So they would have to survive his Instakilling attacks before striking (though the Libby's 3++ invul is there to soak up most of the damage). If I inflict a wound with a gravgun he would be reduced to Initiative 1.

Well, think about it a bit. I scout up 12", can move 6" and fire at full bs - which means I'll be firing 6" into my enemy's deployment zone with melta and 6"/3" with the grav pistol/gravgun (salvo, remember). Disembark, and add 6" to that number. So the gravgun is actually shorter range when it moves, and a MM will only be able to snap-shot.

The grav is definitely nice though, since I can fire 3 shots a turn while moving, and the melta is only 2 shots on turn 1, then 1 shot a turn for the rest of the game.

All good points. I'm not used to scouting everything up and shooting like that so I guess I never really did the measurements on it.

Sounds like a plan, let us know how it goes!

Side note, how have the assault cents performed for you in the past? I always loved playing TH/SS termies but never tried out the armourbane power of the assault cents. Are they effective?

They are surprisingly effective and fantastic due to the fact that they have slightly more staying power and deal more damage allround. That is, T5 and they don't disappear once they've lost 1 wound and can really dish out a lot of firepower even when they're not in combat. In other words they are more flexible than Terminators and can do several jobs at once, even within a single player turn.


To give you a little idea of in what way they do great I'll tell you how I generally play them. During placement the Land Raider Crusader is usually set up where I deem that the main approach will be, centrally or with the option of veering towards the center. My Rhinos scout 12" so I can usually set up nicely around my LRC if my opponent tried fooling me during deployment. First turn is used to either counter charge (often opponents will come to me) or get close enough that by turn 2 I end up 4" or less from my opponent after my Centurions disembark. If my opponents are for example Wraiths with a Lord in the unit I will fire everything at them - killing 1-2 - and then charge, killing at least another 1-2 due to instakill. Even if there are 4 Wraiths left, they would usually only do about 1 wound with rending, and thus not even reducing my number, so I would slowly chew through them. 1-3 turns of combat and they'd be dead.

But what I really like about them is that they are so good against any kind of opponent, even those that are not neccessarily Elites. Last time I had 2x 5 bikers with 2 gravs/comb-grav which I disembarked up to. I ended up decimating one squad with bolters and flamers (leaving only 1 left) while charging the second due the fact that I had split-fired. I basically wiped out both units in one turn.

They're surprisingly tough to chew through, and all my opponents at my local store agree with me that they always do a great job. I highly recommend them.

After playing the previous list I realized I needed to change it up a little bit. Needed to make it a little bit more like the other list in that I need another big theat, preferably armor to add to the saturation, so added the Vindicator for that Purpose. This also gives me a large blast template and added anti-armor, so win-win over the Thunderfire. Not too worried about things in cover as I'll be moving up to take such things out now that I have added an Inquisitor and given my Centurions and Landraider Scout as well. Also the Assault MArines work better in such a list with a lot of armor to work in combimation with. Could bunch them up and save 15 points.

Not sure about how I should equip the Tacticals, but this is a compromise and should work ok. I think this list will work better than either of those before, but more interested in getting someone else's view on things. So what do you guys think?


HQ
Librarian - Terminator Armor, Stormshield, Force Staff; Mastery Lvl. 2 - 125 pts (Goes with Centurions in LRC)
[ALLY] Ordo Xenos Inquisitor - Liber Hereticus - 40 pts (Goes with Centurions in LRC)

Elite
3x Assault Centurions - Squad: 2 TL Meltagun, Hurricane Bolters; Sergeant: TL Meltagun, Omniscope; Land Raider Crusader: Hurricane Bolters,TL Assault Cannon, Multi-Melta - 475 pts

Troops
5x Space Marines - Squad: Meltagun; Sergeant: Combi-Grav; Rhino - 125 pts
5x Space Marines - Squad: Meltagun; Sergeant: Combi-Grav; Rhino - 125 pts
5x Space Marines - Squad: Meltagun; Sergeant: Combi-Grav; Rhino - 125 pts

Fast Attack
5x Assault Marines - Squad: 2x Flamer; Sergeant: Meltabombs - 100 pts
5x Assault Marines - Squad: 2x Flamer; Sergeant: Meltabombs - 100 pts

Heavy Support
Vindicator - 135 pts
Stalker - 75 pts
Stalker - 75 pts

1500 pts

No one has any thoughts about the newest version? I need to hand in my army list to the tournament administration by tomorrow. Any thoughts or ideas would be much appreciated. :(

I like it - and I agree that Ravenguard should feature units with jump packs!

That said, for only 5 more points than your current assault squads, you could slot in a command squad on bikes with x5 gravguns. It's a _very_ killy unit, and one that you can probably hide behind your rhinos and land raider if you have to until they pop out and absolutely ruin something's day.

With 15 grav shots a turn, they can also strip off the odd hull point or two if they have to. I'd drop the omniscope to find the extra five points for the squad

There's a bit of a trade off, as it means five fewer bodes in a list that's already light on boots on the ground, but they'll annihilate whatever they shoot at - except for orks and gaurdsmen lol. It's something to think about anyway.