Hurr! Ogryn Bone 'Ead!
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So my friend and I almost exclusively play 1250 pt Tempest of War games these days. I recently had the idea of making a 2000 pt list and then scaling that down to 1250 pt to see how well that worked as an approach, but I've been having a lot of trouble trying to figure out how to scale things down properly (so perhaps this isn't the best way to approach list making for me haha). I enjoy running a custom regiment mechanized guard with tanks (I have my own fluff and everything, but that's not really relevant here). Overall, we've decided that we're not using any of the warzone stuff (so we get full CP with 1 CP on your own turn only, the free warlord trait + relic, and can take multiple subfactions in the same army without penalty) and that the specialist detachments are valid. By long tradition, we generally aim to make TAC lists.
I've been watching a bunch of Mordian Glory's videos lately and have been wanting to try out some of the things he's suggested (this is the reason for starting from 2K and trimming to 1250pt since all his advice is geared towards 2K point competitive lists). I've had one game with the 3x heavy flamer demolisher cannons (I used to just take the hull heavy bolter or heavy flamer with no sponsons) with mixed results. I'm excited to try out the medusa to see how it does; it'll be nice if it works out as then all my big guns are demolisher cannons, which is kind of fun. I've also been trying to take to heart his advice of having multiple waves of units as well. Either way, here's the initial list and there's a bit about what my thinking about each unit's role would be in the 2K list at the end.
2000 pts, 10 CP, Battalion
Regimental Doctrines: Gunnery Experts, Spotter Details
---- List-building Stratagems: [-2 CP total] ----
Tank Ace [-1 CP], Emperor’s Blade Assault Company [-1 CP]
---- HQ ----
50 pts - Primaris Psyker (Force Stave, Laspistol, Psychic Barrier, Psychic Maelstrom)
225 pts - Tank Commander (Demolisher Cannon. 3x heavy flamers) -- Warlord, Slow and Purposeful Tank Ace
225 pts - Tank Commander (Demolisher Cannon. 3x heavy flamers) -- Slow and Purposeful Tank Ace, Kurov's Aquila
---- Troops ----
60 pts each - 6x Infantry Squad
- 5x Guardsmen (Lasgun, Frag Grenade)
- Meltagun Guardsman (Meltagun, Frag Grenade)
- Vox-caster Guardsman (Lasgun, Frag Grenade)
- Lascannon Team (Lascannon, Lasgun, Frag Grenade)
- Sergeant (Plasma Pistol, Frag Grenade, Power Sword)
---- Elites ----
35 pts - Astropath (Telepathica Stave, Night shroud)
35 pts - Astropath (Telepathica Stave, Psychic Barrier)
25 pts - Platoon Commander (Plasma Pistol, Frag Grenade, Power Sword)
25 pts - Platoon Commander (Plasma Pistol, Frag Grenade, Power Sword)
---- Heavy Support ----
Medusa Vehicle Squadron
- 140 pts each - 2x Medusa (Medusa Siege Cannon, Heavy flamer)
50 pts - Heavy Weapon Squad (3x Team)
- 3x Mortar Team (Mortar, Lasgun, Frag Grenade)
180 pts - Leman Russ Battle Tank (Demolisher Cannon, 3x Heavy flamer)
---- Dedicated Transport ----
85 pts each - 6x Chimeras (2x Heavy Flamer, Lasgun Array)
---- The Plan ----
The Psykers: My experience has been that the psychic phase is my downfall due to the number of mortal wounds I end up eating in most my lists (my friend has a love of the psychic phase heh). Hence, the trio of psykers gives me up to three denials per turn, so I expect to try to spread them out through my army to my opponent at least has to think a little more during their psychic phase. Trimming down to 1250, I'm guessing I could drop the primaris and still be fairly well covered, right? Or should I drop the primaris and pick up another astropath?
The tank commanders: I played an almost all-Demolisher list last time where I got decent work out of my TCs by nosing them into area terrain and then blapping away while relying on a 2+ base save, AoC, and whatever cover gives me to give me staying power. In this list, I foresee them not pushing up as fast and instead staying outside of consolidation range from my front line units but still close enough to make use of their triple heavy flamers. I like splitting up the Warlord and CP-leeching Relic to minimize an "all my eggs in one basket" situation (especially helps if you run into the you only earn CP if your Warlord is on the table). Side note, this is the first time I've ever used Slow and Purposeful, I'm hoping it will synergize with the Gunnery Expert given that all the TC's weapons are Heavy d6.
Infantry squads: This is the first time I'll be running meltaguns rather than plasmaguns. I'm curios to see how they do. I considered going 50-50 meltagun and plasmagun, but decided to just keep thinks simple...we already take ages to play our games since we're still working on mastering the 9th edition rules...no sense in complicating it with too many stat lines. The general idea is to push forward with a few of them mounted up and dump them into cover and/or onto an objective or two. With the Emperor's Blade strat Rapid Redeploy, I can still fire with one of those squads. The others, I'm thinking, will probably start off not mounted up in their chimeras (remember, we're ignoring all the warzone materials, so we don't have the requirement of starting everything embarked) and these will form the second wave and will probably foot slog it up in front of their chimeras.
The platoon commanders are my source of infantry orders, so I'm thinking I'd stick them in my second wave (the vox casters should give them range to the first wave units) spread out similar to the psykers.
Medusa squad: Originally, I was thinking about deploying one medusa per flank to try and force my opponent to the center, but ended up putting them in a squad so can't do that. With them in a squad, I'd probably try to deploy them behind a building as close to the center of my deployment zone as possible to maximize coverage. I'm assuming I'll end up dropping the LRBT, so I could break the squad into individual units and use my original plan in the 1250 pt list if I don't need to drop one (or both) of them.
I expect to stick the heavy weapon squad on my home objective and perhaps hide it behind a chimera I leave behind or something if the home objectives are out in the open. Then they can pot away with their mortars for the match.
As for the LRBT, I expect this is one place I can easily make up the points I need to drop. I'd probably use it in a similar way to the TCs in the 2000 point list.
Chimeras: As I mentioned with the infantry, these will mostly be pushing up behind the infantry so I can take advantage of the Emperor's Blade strat "Mechanized Fire Support" to overwatch using the chimeras when my infantry are charged.
---- Trimming thoughts so far ----
I need to find 750 pts to complete this trimming. I expect that I'll keep a battalion since that gives me plenty of fancy slots to work with and it seems unlikely that I wouldn't end up with at least 2 HQ and 3 Troops in the 1250 pt list. The chimera-infantry combos are 145 pts each, but I hate to give up too many of those as that cuts into the whole multiple waves of units concept I was hoping to test. Maybe that can't be implemented the same way at 1250 pts that I envision implementing it at 2000 points or maybe I can still pull it off with fewer chimera/squad combos per wave at 1250 pts. The lone LRBT can probably be dropped without too much trouble to give me 180 points, leaving us to find 570 points via trimming. Dropping the Primaris and picking up a third astropath would net me an extra 15 points or I could stick with just two astropaths to net me 50 points. I suppose I could swap out one or both medusa for one or two basalisks or a single manticore and then move my tank aces over to them for full payload, but I'd certainly prefer to stick with at least one medusa if possible (maybe it's not possible for this list? I can always test out the medusa some other time). I guess I could also swap out the two platoon commanders for a single company commander to save some points. Other places I see points that could potentially be cut are the tank sponsons and the turret-mounted flamer on the Chimeras.
A couple of final notes. I'm aiming to have the trimmed list still be a mechanized list, but I might have to settle for mechanized-ish heh. We play over TTS, so there's no worry about what models I own. Also, while there aren't any must includes, the original plan was to make a 2K list and trim it down...that said, given that "this 2K list can't be effective if trimmed to a 1250pt list" is perfectly valid advice, I'm open to suggestions for swapping out units as well. As I said at the start, my friend and I pretty much only play Tempest of War (neither of us enjoy picking secondaries). We don't use the warzone books and specialist detachments are allowed. Finally, I've never really been a fan of taking the named regiments. While I'm not wild about changing the custom regiment traits, I'm not 100% against it (not that I think any of the other ones would be a better choice).
What are y'all's thoughts? What do I drop to get to 1250 pts?
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