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Have any of you guys flexed with this rite of war yet?
I'm a long time fan of dreadnoughts, I own a ton of 'em, so naturally this rite of war appeals to me.

I'm toying with the idea of making a unified front list, meaning you give your opponent only one 'type' of unit to shoot at, such as in this case armor 12+ vehicles for instance, so all their S<6 weaponry is useless right off the bat.

This was a tactic I'd use to make dreadnoughts slightly viable in editions of 40k where they were terrible (like 3rd). One paper-armor dread can get blow'd up pretty easily. Six, not so much.
I realize dreads are actually good in 30k, but I still think it'd be fun to run this list.

The prob with that is, this rite of war requires you deploy a praetorian, a medicae, and a war smith, three very expensive infantry models, one of whom exists mainly to buff other infantry, which right away messes with a unified front. I'm sure this was deliberate, as Forge World seems to care about game balance, which is good.

My way to slightly get around this is to just blob the three of those guys together, with 4 servitors, and have them hug cover and stop of the field with the dreads. The war smith can repair, and the praetorian can tank hits. He'd be T5, 2+/4++/5+++ with 3 wounds, so he would not go down easy, even against massed bolter fire.

I can drop that blob (suitably armed with nice close combat weapons and melta bombs),
a regular dread with a missile launcher and a havoc launcher to cap a point on my side of the board,
a close combat contemptor to stop up the field to cap a point on my opponent's side of the board
a sicaran and fire raptor for overall anti-everything fire support

this comes out to about 1200 points, which for 30k is TINY

to buff the list I could add in a predator for more dakka, more dreads to have more point capping ability, and a pair of knights if I really wanted to play at a higher point level. (just going based on models I own)

Sorry, I know this is a little power game-y, and I realize a bunch of you 30k folk hate that. That's fine. Those of you who like talking tactics, get at me!

I have fun with it, but it is admitantly a pretty bad RoW: a MINIMUM of 2 HQ slots filled (if you bring a primarch), every dead dread gives the other guy a VP, no allies. But from a fun factor: the thing is highlarious!

my roughly 3k list looks something like this:

1 praetor w/ some death shroud
1 medicae (in the death shroud)
1 forge lord w/ 3 servo (gives majority toughness 5)

6 box dreads
3 contemptor dreads
3 rapiers when I can swing it

3 leviathans
1 deredeo

3 techmarines w/ 3 servo each

from here, you can basically flood the field with heavy weapons, (or do as I'm testing and run all the dreads in separate slots, and drop pod them all in around the techmarines ) A fire raptor isn't needed in this list, since dreads can swing heavy fire power about and with easy access to sky fire, and a sicaran's main draw seems to be it being a cheap, anti-medium AV/infantry tank, again something dreads can do

Really, this ROW shines in the 3,000+ points level. while it could be good in lower points, you just don't have the models to deal with higher model count armies. One thing I wanna do is play this RoW in a 4k game with morty and some more infantry support just to really kick teeth in Especially since if I were to bring morty I could bring a siege breaker and drop some lovely phosphex around (ignore the fact that leviathan's already do )

Yeah, Blood Angels player here, so no primarch for me, and a lot of the rites aren't even options due to the limitations of the chapter or me not having the models.

I'm a little concerned about the idea of running a massive dread blob with this list at a huge point level because that's giving away a TON of victory points.
10 victory points for ten dreads going down is more than enough to swing a game.
That's why I was thinking, keep it small, a couple of dreads to cap points and surprise your opponent, tanks knights and planes to back them up with fire support.

 Walnuts wrote:
Yeah, Blood Angels player here, so no primarch for me, and a lot of the rites aren't even options due to the limitations of the chapter or me not having the models.

I'm a little concerned about the idea of running a massive dread blob with this list at a huge point level because that's giving away a TON of victory points.
10 victory points for ten dreads going down is more than enough to swing a game.
That's why I was thinking, keep it small, a couple of dreads to cap points and surprise your opponent, tanks knights and planes to back them up with fire support.

You can't be afraid of giving up those VPs, especially with larger dreads on the board + multiple techmarines running about. this issue is also mitigated if you bring a dreadnought drop pod list (since they are assault vehicles, you land turn 1 and 2, and then wreck face ) As for keeping the number of dreads small, it would probably be better to just use a few elite slots and run a more effective, less punishing ROW (or no ROW, you don't always need one)

Well yeah you won't give up VPs if you just totally table your opponent, but I'm not going to assume that dread spam is THAT effective (until I see it in action at least ).

As for running a different rite of war, and just leaving your dreads as elites, you're still sort of back to the problem of dropping super expensive infantry squads. Two tactical squads is 500 points without upgrades. Two dreads is half that (without upgrades). You can see the appeal for small lists here.

It's an interesting force. As noted, giving up victory points from the dreadnoughts will hurt, but they should make for a nice force.

I'd be tempted to just go Consul Delegatus/Consul Forge Lord/Consul Primus Medicae and attach them all to a Legion Terminator squad. It's probably the safest place to put them.

If you're just looking for a cheap way to take troops, I'd rather use Pride Of The Legion.

I'm als a fan of the list, for it's drop-pod potential. But I run Word Bearers, which unfortunately means I MUST take Erebus or Lorgar to be able to use it!

One of the annoying thing about the dreadnought drop pod idea is that, in this list, you have to take Dreadnought Drop Pods at 65pts each rather than regular ones (using Orbital Strike).

Not sure if there is a way to get that many Dreads in a list otherwise, though? If you want to use Orbital Strike then you're limited to 3 single dreads in your Elites slots??

locarno24 wrote:
It's an interesting force. As noted, giving up victory points from the dreadnoughts will hurt, but they should make for a nice force.

I'd be tempted to just go Consul Delegatus/Consul Forge Lord/Consul Primus Medicae and attach them all to a Legion Terminator squad. It's probably the safest place to put them.

If you're just looking for a cheap way to take troops, I'd rather use Pride Of The Legion.

Pride of the legion gives you 10 non-upgradaed marines for 250 points. That would last five seconds. Two dreadnoughts for the same cost is way more bueno.

I like your idea of using a consul delegatus to save some points tho, will def consider that (you lose a wound and a point of invul save for something like 40 pts, but if I'm really trying to squeeze stuff in at a low point level, might still be worth it)

bringing minimum troops is not as effective as it may look on the tin in 30k. unless you're also bringing a metric TON of terminators or other form of scoring, you better pray that you don't get an objective game if you build your list in that manner. I say just dedicate a minimum of 500-600 points to troops, that way you can have a solid, scoring core and that would STILL leave you ~2,000 points to play with at standard 30k point levels.

It's not as much about bringing minimum troops, as it is about bring cheap troops with an armor value and long range firepower.
Marines can camp a point on your side of the board, but they can't shoot anything more than 24" away and are expensive.

A tactical squad is 250, a breacher squad is 350ish, and my assault squad is over 500.

Working those into a 1000 point battle ain't easy.

A dread with a missile and havoc launcher is 150 points, can drop twin linked blast templates onto marine squads, or fire S8 missiles at light / medium vehicles that won't miss, both at 48". Get him half behind a building for a cover save and he'll be durable too.

That's a really cheap appealing troop option that performs nothing like the options a marine player normally has available.

So far I've played 2 games of 30k. One was an 1850 point game, where I had 3 scoring units and my opponent had one. The other was a 2000 point game where I had two scoring units and my opponent also had two as well.

In game 1 I had a tactical squad do thing but run towards my opponent's deployment zone while absorbing hits, and in another they just camped a point on my side of the board and didn't one shot or take a hit. You can see why I'm looking at other options here.

I'm also into the idea of doing a militia detachment for capping points. 40 or 50 points for twenty bodies that can sieze objectives, AND I get to drop a leman russ?

Just gotta build up a heavy stubber armed command squad and I'm doing this.

form your first half, it sounds like your using your tactical squads in an odd manner. if you're buying a 20-man tactical squad to sit on a back-field objective, you're being silly. The 20-man blob pushes forward, and grabs mid-field/enemy objectives. Same goes for breachers and assault marines (the latter of which should really be going after soft targets like rapiers as opposed to objectives. ~150 points for a 10-man tactical squad that can sit on a back field objective is more durrable than a dread in the same role as 1) easier access to cover, and 2) who's gonna waste heavy fire power on 10 dudes in the back with bolters?

Someone has to grab back objectives. If you have a tactical squad and an assault squad, and your enemy has a line of tanks, why would you have your tactical squad sally forth into no man's land never to return?
You'd keep em in reserve, neutralize some enemy tanks turn 1, have em walk onto the table turn 2 or 3 when it's safer and cap that back objective. There were only three objectives on the table. I grabbed two. That was literally as good as I could have possibly done and I won by a landslide.


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But to answer your questions, no a ten man tactical squad is not more durable than a dreadnought. At least not 100% of the time. Not when you're getting hit by small arms, and not when huge blasts are coming your way. I has a single Scorpius barrage take out 17 tactical Marines in cover once. That same attack would have probably done 1 or 2 hull points worth of damage to a normal dread. I don't think it's easier to get the tacticals behind cover. Just about any tiny building or piece of rubble can get your dread a 4+ cover save, now it's taking hits like a contemptor. Also who would wast firepower on ten tacticals in the backfield? A smart opponent, if it gets them off of an objective. Lastly, those tacticals do nothing while they sit back there. The dreadnought can shoot at anything 48" away can can at least theoretically threaten any model shy of a flare shield Spartan, IE armor 15. That's suuuuch an improvement.