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How do!

Got my first game of 3rd Ed Heresy coming up in a couple of weeks. Majority of my Army is all painted, so pretty much just picking a bit of what I fancy, then seeing how the game plays. I’m fielding Dark Angels, he’s fielding Blood Angels. And we’ve agreed 1,500 points.

At that size, I’m not expecting to be able to pack very much in when it comes to Auxiliary Detachments. But I do want to get at least a single Predator (to get a feel for vehicles) and a Dreadnought of some description (I love Dreads, and my current thinking based purely On Paper is they may be less beardy these days, due to multiple damage weapons being much more common).

Troops? Well, I’ve got 60 Tactical Marines ready to go. So I’ve got some nice Line going on, I fancy three squads of 10 with Chainblades, and a unit of 10 Assault Marines with Combat Shields to experiment with low cost Vanguard.

For what seems a piffling 40 points a pop? Whilst I’d need to get them painted, maybe a brace of Rapiers with Quad Heavy Bolters. They’ve a pleasing weight of fire, but also offer some Suppression potential.

Once upgraded, that’s probably around 700 points.

Add in a couple of Centurions for muscle and increased Psychology stats, and of course those lovely unlocks. Which would be five overall.

Predators I’ve options existing models wise. Tempted by the Neutron Blaster, as it can inflict Suppressed, has Armourbane and a nice flat D3.

Will be trying to hammer these early thoughts into a Proper List this afternoon, on my lunch break.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Looking at the Crusade Forces, my two Centurions will open up a total of five Auxiliary Detachments, which honestly feels excessive.

Indeed, I think that, combat potency aside, I’ll only need the one.

Troops come from the Primary Detachment, and I note I can bung in some Transports.

Dreadnought fills one Aux Det. Armoured Support allows for up to four tanks. And if I do want to field some Rapiers, I can go Tactical Support.

So, I’m gonna work within that framework for now.

Command

Centurion
Power Axe, Volkite Charger. 92 points

Troops

Tactical Squad
10 Strong. All have Chain Bayonets, Sarge has Plasma Pistol and Power Sword. 133 points

Tactical Squad
10 Strong. All have Chain Bayonets, Sarge has Plasma Pistol and Powerfist. 138 points

Tactical Squad
10 Strong. All have Chain Bayoners, Sarge has Plasma Pistol and Lightning Claw. 133 points

Legion Assault Squad
10 Strong. All have Combat Shields, two have Power Swords, Sarge has Twin Lightning Claws. 190 points.

So at this point, I’m up to 686 points. Which feels pretty modest for a nice backbone.

War-Engines
Leviathan Dreadnought
Siege Claw with Meltagun, Cyclonic Melta Lance, Twin Volkite Calivers, Phosphex Discharger. 275 points

Armour
Kratos Assault Tank
Volkite Cardanelle, Volkite Calivers, Volkite Culverin Sponsons. 295 points

And that takes me to 1,164. And it’s starting to feel like a fairly round force. Got some serious muscle in the Dread and the Kratos. And plenty infantry for a good scrutt about on objectives.

I do want some ranged anti-armour heft though. Sooooooo…

Sicaran Venator
Lascannon Sponsons. 190 points

Leaves me 146 points. And I’ve an Aux Det open (Centurion is Prime so could go Logistical Benefit). Gonna go think on this. I could squeak in a Tactical Support or Heavy Squad. Could afford 5 with Volkite Culverins, just about.

Keep in mind you're playing 1500... I've found it incredibly frustrating trying to build 3000 lists with the new "no limits but actually more limited than ever" system, if you want any variety you're forced to blow all Command slots on Centurions

Indeed.

I mean, I wouldn’t say I’ve struggled to compile this list within the constraints, but I’ve clearly come kinda close to filling the available slots brought by a single Centurion.

Part of that is Mr Leviathan, seeing as he’s a choice unto himself.

But, on the upside I could fit two more tanks in, and both could be Kratos. Bought a second one at the weekend as I want to try the Melta cannon and Autocannon stuff for more of a general purpose Stuff Hunter.

I think I may have a leg up here, as it’s kinda reminiscent of of 2nd Ed Space Marine, where you’d start with a company card. You could then add a single Special Card, and up to five Support Cards, which might represent specialist squads, tank squadrons etc.

Of course I’ve not gone for a particular theme here. Just taking a bit of a what I fancy mucking about with, and hopefully exposing myself to as much of the core rules and mechanics as possible. If one wanted to pursue a heavy theme, then yes you are going to be more limited and may have to make genuine sacrifices of flexibility.

For a first stab though, it wasn’t as tricky as I first thought.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edited the title to something hopefully a bit more open and inviting of interaction.

Ah also make sure to check your faction detachments. Ease of list building seems to be the bigger part of Dark Angels faction rules and all those Prime Slots let you squeeze in a bunch of Dreadnoughts.

I’ve not even looked at those to be honest.

Probably should get on that 😂


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First look and Ironwing is quite nice, allowing me to mix Armour and Heavy Transport.

Have you tried building a list for your AdMech conglomeration of stuff you've built?

Not yet, but they’ll be up next I’d imagine.

Not sure if this is common knowledge, or if it was just me that missed it, but when organizing for my local HH League (running Alpha Legion at 1k against Dark Angels for my first game in a couple weeks.) It was pointed out to me that while a Centurion gives you 2 Auxiliary detachments, the others still give you 1, so depending on your army composition, the smaller points levels are still reasonably flexible, it's the big ones that might get a little challenging.

I know it was pointed out in the Warcom article, but I totally missed in on my read through of that, and of the base rules. XD

From what I can figure though, you have the base 3 Command slots, then an additional 2 if you choose the Officer Cadre as your Apex detachment. So that would give you 5-10 detachments, plus 3 additional units as Prime advantages.

However, if you took an allied detachment in your army, that does offer an additional 2 Command slots (2-4 detachments) and an extra 1 Prime advantage for more units as well.

Mechanicum are weird.

Our only Troops, so far, are Techpriests. But they have their uses, as they can join Automata to make them Real Boys, and so able to score (Fnarr), react and that.

I've signed up to an Escalation League which climbs from 1000 to 3000pts in 500pt increments. It is quite a headache to plan that out as you are constantly readjusting what slots you have access to.
I'm playing Iron Hands and am blessed in the sense that Spearhead Phalanx looks like a very good way to add in multiple useful slots. I'm also able to add 2 Dreadnoughts to my Crusade Detachment via Prime benefits.
Exact progression to be confirmed but my rough plan is likely;

1000pts- Crusade Primary plus Spearhead Phalanx Auxiliary (1 Commander) gives me a solid infantry core plus Logistics Dreadnought
1500pts- Pack out the Spearhead with some Armour/Heavy Transport
2000pts- Centurion brings out some utility slots via Techmarine Covenant and a second Spearhead Phalanx (Armour and/or Heavy Transport tbc). Prime Techmarine is another free Logistics pick. Might take some Veterans here.
2500pts- Iron Father turns up with his Thallax buddies and a Medusan Vanguard for some Heavy Assault.
3000pts- Backfill whatever slots remain. I can also take a free Warlord detachment here and get some Morlock Terminators and/or another Heavy Transport.

It just happens that I like Armour, Heavy Transport and Heavy Armour slots. There's also loads of ways to sneak in free picks with Logistics and the Warlord detachment.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Mechanicum are weird.

Our only Troops, so far, are Techpriests. But they have their uses, as they can join Automata to make them Real Boys, and so able to score (Fnarr), react and that.

So you use the Tech-Priest as essentially an 40kish Leader to make your other units better?

Yeah.

Best way to look at is like an Undead Army. If you don’t stock up on your “Casters”, your muscle is going to suffer some.

I’ll have a proper ponder on it tomorrow, as I need to select disciplines and that, which can help open up new Aux Dets. Also Cyberthurgy.

Not sure if this is the right place to ask but does anyone know of a good online army builder?

LegionBuilder App was invaluable for Legions Imperialis, just wondering if anyone had seen anything similar for HH.

Not my bag so I’m afraid I can’t be of much help there.

There was a question in another thread, where an army builder wasn’t quite right.

But it is early days, and just as the game’s rules will need FAQ, we can only expect wonk and bugs in early army builders.

 Pacific wrote:
Not sure if this is the right place to ask but does anyone know of a good online army builder?

LegionBuilder App was invaluable for Legions Imperialis, just wondering if anyone had seen anything similar for HH.

Once newrecruit.eu gets updated it'll be great, but they use wahapedia for their files, so it'll be a minute.

Thanks a lot guys. I will keep an eye out on Newrecruit.eu, I see at the moment it is still the 2022 version.

Very early days for my army so will just pen & paper it until something comes along. I assume there will be more work than usual as you have lots of getting unit X means you can now have unit Y, and so forth.