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Hi, Looking for any and all advice and criticism. This is to be played at my local club and at the adepticon championship, as far as that goes my desire would be to have fun and not get steamrolled, I would like to put up the best fight with the theme I have going.

Army List
1850 Points - Adepticon Rules Compliant
Primary Detachment - CAD: Codex Astra Militarum
Secondary Detachment - Skitarii Maniple: Codex AdMech Skitarii

Siege Line
Unit 1
3x Heavy Artillery Carriage Battery (Medusa with Bastion Breacher Shells)
1x Primaris Psyker (Mastery Level 2 & Force Axe)
Upgraded Crew (Total 16x Guardsmen with Lasgun and CCW)
1x Ministorum Priest
1x Commissar Yarrick

Unit 2
2x Field Artillery Battery (Heavy Quad Mortars)

Unit 3
Heavy Weapon Squad (3x Autocannon)

Fortification - Aegis Defense Line

Rear Guard (Objective Camper)
Unit 4
1x Veterans (1x Autocannon, 1x Flamer, Forward Sentries)

Unit 5
Heavy Weapon Squad (3x Autocannon)


Assault Group (March Up The Field)

Unit 6
1x Platoon Command Squad (1x Boltgun, 1x Flamer)

Unit 7
40x Conscripts
1x Ministorum Priest
1x Commissar

Unit 8
1x Infantry Squad (1x Boltgun, 1x Flamer)

Unit 9
1x Infantry Squad (1x Boltgun, 1x Flamer)

Unit 10
Skitarii Vanguards (10x Men, Alpha: Conversion Field)

Unit 11
Skitarii Vanguards (10x Men, 1x Plasma Caliver)

Unit 12
Skitarii Vanguards (10x Men, Alpha: Conversion Field)

Support
Unit 13
1x Vulture Gunship (Punisher Cannon)


Battle Plan

Rear action group hammers Dakka down the field while Infantry Advances, if Skitarii survive until late game use their extra movement to seize objectives.

Plans relies on the fact that with exception of a single hard to hit flyer I am presenting my opponent only with infantry targets. Plan relies on Siege Line and Naval support to eliminate any vehicle threat, while infantry can concentrate on other infantry and monstrous creatures.

While not a death star, the siege line anchor unit is a blob of 18 guard with significant support

First of all, I do something somewhat similar, i.e. IG artillery with allied support and a conscript blob.

I think your list has a problem similar to my previous list: I don't think it can kill a riptide in a full turn of shooting. If you can, it's because of the skitarii, which I'm not so familiar with.

Also, you've made it very hard to read what you're bringing. I don't need to know about the names of the units. For a while I thought "light infantry" was the name of a unit I hadn't heard of until I realized it was a heading.

OK, now for some honest unit analysis:

Why give the veterans forward sentries when your autocannon teams are more valuable and more vulnerable already? And why give them a flamer if they're camping in the back firing an autocannon? How about a grenade launcher instead?

You have too little anti-tank weaponry. Here's what you have in total with strength 6 or more:
1 Plasma caliver.
7 autocannon teams, 6 of which have no meatshields.
3 Medusa shots.
It just isn't enough. Not against riptides, battle companies, wraithknights... or your own list. How long would it take your own gunline to take out your 350 points of artillery with your ministorum priest keeping them fearless?


Here's what I'm thinking. Take ideas you like and please poke holes in my list, too.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/712227.page

I agree with the above, there's nothing particularly scary about this list. Once your opponent's alpha strike takes care of the artillery your list completely lacks any punch. And believe me, they will be prioritized because there are no other viable targets.

Assuming you'd hit with every shot, your army would take four turns to kill a single Riptide. That should tell you two things: 1) you have nowhere nearly enough hard-hitting weapons in your army 2) Riptides are completely broken.

Also, clean up the list. The names of the units are completely unnecessary information. Get rid of the extra apostrophes while you're at it.

Celerior wrote:
First of all, I do something somewhat similar, i.e. IG artillery with allied support and a conscript blob.

I think your list has a problem similar to my previous list: I don't think it can kill a riptide in a full turn of shooting. If you can, it's because of the skitarii, which I'm not so familiar with.

Also, you've made it very hard to read what you're bringing. I don't need to know about the names of the units. For a while I thought "light infantry" was the name of a unit I hadn't heard of until I realized it was a heading.

OK, now for some honest unit analysis:

Why give the veterans forward sentries when your autocannon teams are more valuable and more vulnerable already? And why give them a flamer if they're camping in the back firing an autocannon? How about a grenade launcher instead?

You have too little anti-tank weaponry. Here's what you have in total with strength 6 or more:
1 Plasma caliver.
7 autocannon teams, 6 of which have no meatshields.
3 Medusa shots.
It just isn't enough. Not against riptides, battle companies, wraithknights... or your own list. How long would it take your own gunline to take out your 350 points of artillery with your ministorum priest keeping them fearless?


Here's what I'm thinking. Take ideas you like and please poke holes in my list, too.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/712227.page

Hey guys, thanks so much, I really appreciate the hard hitting criticism, I'm just getting back in after a hiatus from 5th and this is good stuff. I think I understand both of your points, more Dakka, I'm going to tweak around with that see where to improve including looking at your list.

A couple of questions:
1. I notice you didn't mention the Vulture with the punisher, it seemed from the math hammer I did on it it was quite good at glancing things to death, any thoughts, that could easily be something else so that one place I am looking.

2. The medusa with bastion breaching, with TL from the psyker, and ignore cover from the senior officer , has (on my napkin calculation, which could be crap) a 73.8% average change of getting a destroy result on AV14 in one turn. I don't have the riptides stat lines but I am surprised that plus the AC team isn't enough (which is a good lesson you guys are teaching me). Whats the magic strength number to kill a rip tide, what are the average number of hits needed?

3. I ran the simulation you suggested on the medusa unit using my own armies long range firepower, the medusa as a 24 wound, t7 unit would survive it seems between 3 and 4 turns. isn't that a good thing? doesn't that mean by then I have destroyed what I needed to destroy with that unit and they didnt touch my now dangerous infantry.

4. On having no meat shield for the Heavy Weapons Squads, I do have an aegis line, is that at all useful to this situation? I thought that would be better than 5+ save of having a guard unit stand in front of them.

Guys again thanks for the detailed replies, it was more than I was hoping for. also I did attempt to clean up the list, sorry for that.

jbragg77 wrote:

Celerior wrote:
First of all, I do something somewhat similar, i.e. IG artillery with allied support and a conscript blob.

I think your list has a problem similar to my previous list: I don't think it can kill a riptide in a full turn of shooting. If you can, it's because of the skitarii, which I'm not so familiar with.

Also, you've made it very hard to read what you're bringing. I don't need to know about the names of the units. For a while I thought "light infantry" was the name of a unit I hadn't heard of until I realized it was a heading.

OK, now for some honest unit analysis:

Why give the veterans forward sentries when your autocannon teams are more valuable and more vulnerable already? And why give them a flamer if they're camping in the back firing an autocannon? How about a grenade launcher instead?

You have too little anti-tank weaponry. Here's what you have in total with strength 6 or more:
1 Plasma caliver.
7 autocannon teams, 6 of which have no meatshields.
3 Medusa shots.
It just isn't enough. Not against riptides, battle companies, wraithknights... or your own list. How long would it take your own gunline to take out your 350 points of artillery with your ministorum priest keeping them fearless?


Here's what I'm thinking. Take ideas you like and please poke holes in my list, too.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/712227.page

Hey guys, thanks so much, I really appreciate the hard hitting criticism, I'm just getting back in after a hiatus from 5th and this is good stuff. I think I understand both of your points, more Dakka, I'm going to tweak around with that see where to improve including looking at your list.

A couple of questions:
1. I notice you didn't mention the Vulture with the punisher, it seemed from the math hammer I did on it it was quite good at glancing things to death, any thoughts, that could easily be something else so that one place I am looking.

2. The medusa with bastion breaching, with TL from the psyker, and ignore cover from the senior officer , has (on my napkin calculation, which could be crap) a 73.8% average change of getting a destroy result on AV14 in one turn. I don't have the riptides stat lines but I am surprised that plus the AC team isn't enough (which is a good lesson you guys are teaching me). Whats the magic strength number to kill a rip tide, what are the average number of hits needed?

3. I ran the simulation you suggested on the medusa unit using my own armies long range firepower, the medusa as a 24 wound, t7 unit would survive it seems between 3 and 4 turns. isn't that a good thing? doesn't that mean by then I have destroyed what I needed to destroy with that unit and they didnt touch my now dangerous infantry.

4. On having no meat shield for the Heavy Weapons Squads, I do have an aegis line, is that at all useful to this situation? I thought that would be better than 5+ save of having a guard unit stand in front of them.

Guys again thanks for the detailed replies, it was more than I was hoping for. also I did attempt to clean up the list, sorry for that.

1. While BS4 from Strafing Run with a TL Punisher might sound good the sad fact is that it can't even touch anything that is AV 12 or higher. You can only do some light vehicle hunting with that gun and even then not reliably. You can pretty reliably glance a Rhino to death in one turn but these are not the vehicles you should be worried about. You can never penetrate anything higher than AV 10 with this gun and you can never explode a vehicle (unless it's open-topped).

2. The siege shells are not large blasts, are they? With the gakky BS that guardsmen have you can't rely on hitting your target every turn with all shots, twin linking does indeed help a bit here though. It is however pretty unlikely for you to face any Land Raiders and such, exactly because how easy it is to blow them up. You should be more worried about monstrous creatures (and gargantuans of course). The Riptide has T6, 5 wounds, 2+, 3++ and Feel No Pain (from wargear). On average you need 54 (fifty-four) Lascannons at BS 3 to take it out in one turn.

3. The overwhelming majority of opponents, especially in a tournament setting, will quite decisively outgun you. Having a massive number of crew with the artillery also presents a lot of targets, making you exceedingly vulnerable to the blast weapons of your opponents. Even a single LRBT coud ruin your day completely, comfortably bombarding yououtside your firing range and there'd be next to nothing you could do about it. Imperial Knights would be a nightmare to face, shooting twice the blasts a LRBT does while being a ton more durable and mobile.

4. Meat shields in this situation means ablative wounds in the same unit, not someone providing cover.

Edit: messed up my math

3++? Isn't that only with stims?
Ways to kill a riptide:
Beat it in the assault.
Huge numbers of sniper rifles or scatter lasers.
Strength D.
And, apparently, chasing it away with tank shock or psychic powers.
Lots of Grav.

Stims give it FNP, nova-charging the shield gives it 3++. Since the OP said something about bringing his army to Adepticon I'm going to assume that the Riptides he'd be facing are in the wing formation, giving them a 8/9 chance of getting the shield up.

At a tournament a few months ago I faced a list of 5 riptides with 2 imperial knights and nothing else. I barely won, using a battle company with guard allies, without killing a single model, by objective control.

I had 2 losses to similar lists, one at the same tournament, one at another a month or two later. In each of those I managed to kill a couple models, but no riptides.

It's not pleasant to admit the extent to which that one model, the riptide, made me set aside my old list concept (which other than vs. Tau has a nearly unbeaten record) and try experimenting with something new.