Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

2000pts - Realspace Spookemup. Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue, Test of Skill/Trophy Takers Wych Cult, Coven of the Dark Creed
Command points: 11 (Alliance of Agony, Prizes of the Dark City, Webway Portal)

HQ: Archon 65, Huskblade 5, Blast Pistol 5, Splintered Genius 15. Warlord Trait: Eternal Hatred. Relic: The Djin Blade
HQ: Succubus 60, Archite Glaive and Agonizer. Warlord Trait: Precision Blows, Relic: The Triptch Whip. Choose drug: +1A on charge.
HQ: Haemonculus 80. Warlord Trait: Fear Incarnate

Troops: Wyches 100, Bloodbrides 20, Shardnet+Impaler 10, Phantasm Grenade Launcher 5, Blast Pistol 5, Hydra Gauntlets 5, Razorflails 5. Choose Drug: +1S.
Troops: Wracks 40, 2 Liquifiers 20.
Troops: Kabalites 80, Splinter Cannon 10, Phantasm Grenade Launcher 5
Troops: 14x Kabalites 112, 1x splinter cannon 10 (webway portal)

Heavy: 3x Talos 330, 3x Gauntlets 15, 2x Injectors 0, 1x Liquifiers 15, 3x Heat Lances 0
Heavy: 3x Talos 330, 3x Gauntlets 15, 2x Injectors 0, 1x Liquifiers 15, 3x Heat Lances 0
Heavy: 1x Cronos 70 Spirit Probe 5, Spirit Vortex 10

Fast: 5x Hellions 85 1x Phantasm Grenade Launcher 5 (rolling 2 drugs)
Fast: 5x Hellions 85 1x Phantasm Grenade Launcher 5 (rolling 2 drugs)
Fast: 5x Hellions 85 1x Phantasm Grenade Launcher 5 (rolling 2 drugs)

Transport: Raider 85, Grisly Trophies 5, Phantasm Grenade Launcher 5 (Dark Creed)
Transport: Raider 85, Splinter Racks 10, Phantasm Grenade Launcher 5 (Dark Creed)
Transport: Venom 65, Grisly Trophies 5 (Poisoned Tongue)

1997 points.

Battle strategy: against all but the most ld-immune opponents I will be trying to achieve the 'score 1 point for each model that flees from morale' secondary objective. Since Hellions still boast the INFANTRY keyword, i've got my choice of raise the banners if I'm in a good map setup to stick banners on 3 and roll the Wall of Pain out in front of them, or Deploy Scramblers if I don't have that. And because I've got a bunch of independent mobile msu elements, Engage on All Fronts seems like a no-brainer as well.

The wracks and bloodbrides and their transports are intended as the primary distraction away from shooting up the Talos engines turn 1 - they're going to try and get right up in the enemy's grill and get that -3ld on a bunch of stuff to set up early scoring by setting up -2 attrition tests on any screening units present in the opponent's list. Primary goal for the talos is to move up from the line of scrimmage and try and score an easy vehicle kill using the 6x heat lances, which will be getting reroll 1s to hit from the archon and +1 to hit from Dark Creed (many factions' vehicles start lower-LD than Talos, and no factions' vehicles will be higher ld if I have one of my two Grisly Trophies transports within 3").

One of the nice things about this list is I'm absolutely perfectly happy killing exactly what my opponent wants me to be killing on turn 1 - some random medium vehicle like a dreadnought or a transport is perfectly good for getting Pain Syphon up on one of my two talos squads, and light infantry screens are EXACTLY what I want to see across the board from me to help me rack up spookemup points early. My opponent is likely to choose between either focusing on my fast elements (transports, hellions) or focusing on my pain engines, and it'll probably be determined by whatever they have more of, dedicated anti-tank weaponry or midstrength anti-MEQ weaponry. If I see a lot of midstrength D2 across from me, I'll have the hellions set up the banners near my deployment zone, roll the wall of pain engines out in front of them, and play to bring down anything that threatens the pain engines in the opposing list while essentially sacrificing the Raider and bloodbrides to set up some LD-bomb points turn 1. If I see a lot of dedicated anti-tank, I'll be a little more cautious with the bloodbrides' raider, plan on losing one of the two squads of talos and prioritize getting Pain Syphon up on the other one so that they can be obnoxious in the middle turns of the game.

Ive even got the first of my five additional talos painted up. Whqt a good spooky boi, hes gonna get ya with his tummy mouth, yes he is!

Why don't you spare points cutting some liquifiers/gauntlets from talos, splinter cannons from kablite units and upgrade 10 kabalite to trueborn? With PGL, 2 blasters and lance possibly. I don't think the splinter racks upgrade worths the 10 points investment either. I don't know what your meta looks like but IMHO cutting a few flamers and a couple of splinter cannons for an additional 3 anti tank weapons and +1BS to a squad of kabalites sounds too good to skip.

A few Talos with only their 6++ and 5+++ to protect them will likely go down before reaching action, it might be useful to bring a cheaper body in each squad as their upgrades are either flamers or close combat weapons.

But we're talking about details actually. Overall the list is very close to the archetype I'd like to play as well and the lists I'm writing, exploiting Dark Creed and PGLs synergies, and I like it a lot.

 Blackie wrote:
Why don't you spare points cutting some liquifiers/gauntlets from talos, splinter cannons from kablite units and upgrade 10 kabalite to trueborn? With PGL, 2 blasters and lance possibly. I don't think the splinter racks upgrade worths the 10 points investment either. I don't know what your meta looks like but IMHO cutting a few flamers and a couple of splinter cannons for an additional 3 anti tank weapons and +1BS to a squad of kabalites sounds too good to skip.

A few Talos with only their 6++ and 5+++ to protect them will likely go down before reaching action, it might be useful to bring a cheaper body in each squad as their upgrades are either flamers or close combat weapons.

But we're talking about details actually. Overall the list is very close to the archetype I'd like to play as well and the lists I'm writing, exploiting Dark Creed and PGLs synergies, and I like it a lot.

The reason I specifically didn't upgrade the kabalites in the raider in exactly that way, is if you look at the list you'll see: I actually only have one poisoned tongue unit on the board ready to plink wounds off stuff to get my leadership attrition test -1 on. My goal is to keep them playing cautiously (so I don't want them within 18" to use blasters) and also I want the splinter cannon in there because poison 3+ splinter cannon yes please. Their job is to sit in the back, super safe, just barely 24" away from a couple target units, and split their fire such that they do 1-2 wounds to ideally 2-3 units so I can set them up for a potential spooking. I want to avoid an opponent playing say Guard seeing me pick the 'lose guys to LD tests' secondary and then firing tank commanders at my kabalites raider turn 1 to take it out and make it so the only way I can augment attrition tests is to get dark creed within 6".

I think in most situations you're 100% right - if you're bringing kabalites, you might as well upgrade them, and that holds true for most of our infantry tbh our upgrades tend to be pretty good. And maybe I will run into a ton of situations where my opponent just has no light infantry at all and I really wish they had a pair of blasters in there to allow them to threaten tanks and I'll trim out the twin liquifiers and the spirit vortex to give them 2 blasters and up them to trueborn. I dunno.

I could run a cheaper talos in each squad....but it'd be a 5pts cheaper talos. And I think it's a more likely scenario that when they get into combat, one unit of talos will be basically undamaged, while the other unit of talos will be just gone, because I've got healing in there from two sources, one of which isn't just healing but potentially resurrection, so I'm guessing my opponents will focus fire and try to get one unit gone. The cronos is kind of in there as a cheaper alternative target that my opponent could try to take out early because it's giving out a reroll to wound buff and can potentially heal/resurrect taloi

Running a couple of cheaper talos could make sense in order save a few points points to upgrade the kabalites. If you don't want/need the trueborn or other special weapons, those points invested on talos' upgrades are definitely well spent points.