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How do!

First stab at a Heresy list. No particular thoughts toward overall synergy and that, instead being a list intended to provide me with a decent selection of units to learn the ropes with, with some competence in every area except Psychics.

Only thing I added “to make up points” are the Meltabombs on the squad. Without them I was at 1,463 points which just seemed wasteful.

Ready?

Dark Angels 1,500

Legion Centurion - 77

Volkite Charger (2), Power Axe (15)

Legion Contemptor Talon - 225

Kheres Assault Cannon (15), Gravis Chainfist (10) in-built Meltagun (15), Havoc Launcher (10)

Legion Tactical Squad - 148
10, 9 Chainbayonets (18), Lightning Claw (10), Plasma Pistol (10), Melta Bombs (10)

Legion Tactical Squad - 153
10, 9 Chainbayonets (18), Power Fist (15), Plasma Pistol (10), Melta Bombs (10)

Legion Assault Squad - 190
2 Power Swords (10) 2 Volite Serpenta (10), Two Lightning Claws (15), Melta Bombs (10)

Legion Tactical Support Squad - 245
5 additional Legionnaries (60) Volkite Calivers (100)

Legion Sky-Hunter Squadron - 150
3 Multi-Melta (45)

Legion Predator Squadron - 155
Sponson Mounted Volkite Culverins (10) Volkite Macro-Saker (25)

Legion Predator Squadron - 150
Sponson Mounted Lascannons (10), Magna-Melta Cannon (20)

TOTAL - 1,493

I don’t have my codex infront of me, but IIRC calivers are best used on HSS due to heavy type and being straight up cheaper?

What’s HSS precious?

Oh wait, Heavy Support Squad! I’ve a squad armed with Culverins. And they are indeed cheaper.

Hmmm. That’s a fair point.

Volkite Calivers are extremely, very, not good. Chargers are at least free, and not Heavy.

Volkite Calivers are paying more than Culverins and getting less than Culverins, all for the price of being a non-compulsory troops slot and a slight discount on the basic body (although arguably that body discount is for the cost of re-rolling saves against blasts for being Heavy)

I understand you're not looking to optimize and like the Volkite and such, gathered from context from posts of yours in other threads, but I think you'd be doing yourself a pretty large favor by making that support squad a heavy squad and giving them Culverins

I could comfortably swap them out for a Culverin squad, but I feel it’d make my army too Heavy Support oriented.

Plus I really, really want to field the Calivers. There’s just something amusing to my idiot mind of such a bog standard looking weapon being incredibly shooty.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I could comfortably swap them out for a Culverin squad, but I feel it’d make my army too Heavy Support oriented.

Plus I really, really want to field the Calivers*. There’s just something amusing to my idiot mind of such a bog standard looking weapon being incredibly shooty.

*i understand perfectly but still

If you wanted surprisingly shooty the chargers would've done the trick.

I do think if the calivers would be rapid fire 2 then we 'd be talking a lot diffrently about them.

____________

Is your centurion unequipped? Also potentially your list is a tad slow for having so many points invested into melee upgrades. Consider a rhino or two.


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 morganfreeman wrote:
I don’t have my codex infront of me, but IIRC calivers are best used on HSS due to heavy type and being straight up cheaper?

Calivers the 3 shot for 10 pts one. The culverin is the one on the HSS with 5 shots for 5 pts i believe. (honestly there's too many volkite variants with too close names. But i know the Sup Squad one is not good whilest the HSS one is actually worth a consideration)

Basically it's the one gun i brought up somewhere else in regards to obvious faults in pts.

Centurion has a Power Axe and Volkite Charger.

The Culverin is certainly the more impressive of the two.

Maybe I’ll change my mind.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Centurion has a Power Axe and Volkite Charger.

The Culverin is certainly the more impressive of the two.

Maybe I’ll change my mind.

Why not go count as chargers and use the points to improve the centurion with an upgrade from the consularis list?

Afterall no better way to get into the thick of it by using all the mechanics available.

Just want to keep things fairly basic, so I can focus on turn structure and the changes and that.

Plus I’ve got other things on on Saturday, not least a hair appointment to sort out my roots, so hoping for maybe a couple of hours gaming.


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End of the day, if it does all come flooding back and we wrap up quickly, we can always arrange a second game on Sunday or Monday (as it’s a Bank Holiday)

But for now, basics will do me fine

No terminators, Dok? Fully aprove the heavy use of volkite and melta though.

Nope, no Terminators. Swapped my Cataphractii for MOAR MKVI.

I may at a future point be in the market for those Fancy Dan Cenobium ones though. Mostly because they look hella cool.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Nope, no Terminators. Swapped my Cataphractii for MOAR MKVI.

I may at a future point be in the market for those Fancy Dan Cenobium ones though. Mostly because they look hella cool.

And are "hella strong", as well.

It is certainly a balanced list that gives you a bit of everything to see how the game works, and it absolutely feels 30K. You have units with Line which is important for scoring. You have lots of Volkite which are very 30K.

From a competitiveness standpoint I echo going for a Heavy Support Squad with Volkite Culverins instead of the Tactical Support one with Calivers. I use them to handle enemy Lascannon squads to allow my armour to move into the open. If you find yourself short of Heavy Support slots in future games then you have the Tactical Support Squad to swap out.

Predators are quite squishy in Horus Heresy. The Contemptor, though is a great unit. Dreadnoughts are very good in Horus Heresy.

Ignoring my advice from the other thread about your first game, from a Legion perspective your Tactical Squads will certainly want to be Stormwing while your Assault Squad will like to be Deathwing. If you have not modeled them yet I would emphasize swords to get the bonus. The Predators would likely go Ironwing for the higher BS for snap shots in addition to the rerolls of 1 against vehicles.

Going forward to 2000 points, I would consider Deathwing Companions to go with a Deathwing Praetor with a Terranic Greatsword mounted in a Land Raider Proteus. They hit hard in close combat against anything under a Dreadnought (and can even have a chance against those). Inner Circle Knight Cenobium squads are also very, very good! I find that standard Terminators tend to underperform, as other folks tend to bring specialized ones from their Legions that are WS 5. The Cenobium guys fight well into other elites, especially when Deathwing. They also look great. Dreadwing Interemptors can also do serious work and they really bring out that 30K Dark Angels vibe, even if their name is a bit wonky.

But for now you have good starting army that will let you explore the space!

Oh there’s a lot more than that to my collection.

Check my sig, see my cabinet stuffed to the gunnels with painted models!

Hmmm - thanks to this thread I realised that I had effed up both my Heresy Space Wolf list and a couple of the models. I had volkite calivers on 2 of my Command Squad instead of volkite charges (must have been building under the influence of alcohol), and I hadn't realised that my Recon Squads don't count towards compulsory Troops. I'm going to need more Grey Stalkers...

Should be getting setup in about an hour.

Got me listed sorted, models packed, dice, templates and tape measure dug out. And of course the two books I need.

Have stuck with the Volite Calivers though. I do get the Culverins are just….better. But Volkite is Volkite!

Well, this my force. Bit geared toward anti-infantry, and my opponent is fielding Mechanicum…with a pair of Thanatar.

However that’s pretty much his muscle. Skitarii and Tech Thralls should get very dead fairly quickly. And from there I think just play the Objective Game.




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Ouch.

My pride.

That did not go well 🤣🤣

Thanatars double teamed the Volkite and Assault squad turn one, and I never really recovered. Didn’t realise they ignored cover see, so I just sort of went splat.

Still, all part of the learning curve.


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So….what did go wrong?

First, my army selection wasn’t suited to Battle Automata. At all.

Second? Why didn’t I space my squad members? Thanatars are nasty, but being all bunched up just made my opponent’s life super easy.

Third, if I’d known (as in, read up) that Thanatar ignore Cover, my Volkite squad would stayed put and just pilled the heat and hurt on the Tech Thralls or Skitarii, with a reasonable chance of deleting them.

Give the mission (VPs.for being in his deployment zone) I think my plan of “go for speed over stopping power” was probably not too bad. But I’m so rusty and out of touch I made far too many blunders. Also the Domitar’s reaction (he used an ability to grant it Reactions) stuffed four wounds off my Contemptor.

Definitely up for a rematch, despite my opponent apologising for blootering my force 🤣🤣

I’ll be back, and I’ll be better. Much better. I mean, I could hardly be any worse!

It was Newly Panted Model Syndrome. Now that’s out of the way, your dudes will kick butt and take names. Although they do still need basing…

It must have felt good to have your army on the table - at least for the short period before the pain began.

Hope that you have better luck next time Dok. But you seem to be learning the ropes. Always remember: Know thy enemy.

It was nice to be back at it, and with a fully painted army.

I think I’m going to have to invest in the other Index books now. Mostly so I can suss out what’s what and have a clear idea of the various nasty ways to die.

I cannot stress enough how much those Plasma Mortars ignoring cover wrecked me. If I’d known, my Volkite squad would’ve remained stationary and obliterated his Tech Thralls.

But a lot of it was just forgetting basics - like exploiting squad coherency to make life harder for blast templates.

Change to army comp? Drop the Volkite Predator for as many Autocannon Heavy Support Marines as the freed up points allow.

Also dont charge the Domitar when it has Reaction. Those haywire hammer things hurt.

I've faced off against Mechanicum a couple of times now and they can be a tough nut to crack. They hit hard in the shooting phase, sure enough, but they're not super crash-hot in melee out side of a few dedicated melee units like the Arlatax and Vorax.
Their high toughness does mean they can be a pain in the arse, but most of the time they're Initiative 3 or even 2, which means you can generally dogpile them and drag them down with weight of attacks before they can strike back.

Units with Terranic Greatswords do well against Mechanicum as the ability to both rend and instant death makes a mockery of the high toughness high wound nature of the mechanicum robots. To that end, power swords and lightning claws also do well thanks to rend. Lightning claw armed Cataphractii are really useful with 5 rending attacks on the charge, that also reroll to wound thanks to shred.
Same goes for shooting. Auto weapons of all sorts are your go to here. HSS w/autocannons, Contemptors w/twin Kheres or even a brace of predators with their predator cannons can throw enough rending shots down range that they'll turn most things into swiss cheese.

Another good option, although slightly less effective then rending, is massed plasma attacks. There is very little that can withstand 20 or 30 breaching shots hitting them in the face. And thanks to the tactical support squads ability to take plasma repeaters, that is easily achieved. I cannot overstate how brutally effective they are.


Dark Angels are in a reasonably strong position to take on Mechanicum.
All our HQ's can take Terranic Greatswords.
Companions and Cenobium get them too. And are both bloody tough units in their own right.
Veteran squad with powerswords and Deathwing can put a reasonable amount of hurt on a unit.
Cataphractii with twin lightning claws have pulled their weight against both the big robots and Myrmidons for me a couple of times now. Trying to assault Myrmidons is fearsome prospect if they've got those special plasma weapons. The 4+ invul on the Cats gives them a reasonable chance of surviving the inevitable overwatch.
All of the above (lightning cats especially) are greatly boosted by a chaplain. Those rerolls to hit really ensure you get the attacks piling up.

I think massed Murderous Strike is gonna help. Even with Atomantic Shielding reducing it to “just” D3 wounds, there’s a decent panelling to be given.