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I'd like feedback on this 2,000 pt. army list (not intended for friendly play)

Started by GoodTower, November 21, 2015, 12:20:46 AM

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GoodTower

First of all I want to mention that I do not intend to use this list in friendly play. It is intended only for cutthroat tournament play. That being said I'd like some feedback along the following lines:
1. How could the list be made more effective?
2. What do you think are it's weaknesses and/or strengths?
3. How would you trim it down to 1,850 pts.?
4. If you wanted to use a list with essentially the same characteristics (very mobile, lots of razorbacks) in a friendly game how would you modify this list to make it not cheesy?
Thank you!

GLADIUS STRIKE FORCE w/ 2 Demi Companies, Anti-Air Defence Force, Inquisitorial Allied Detachment

DEMI COMPANY 1
Kor'Sarro Kahn w/ Moondrakken (Warlord)
Command Squad on Bikes w/ Company Champion (Power Lance), Apothecary, 2X Grav Guns, 1X Power Axe, Banner of the Eagle (Gives Squad Fleet and Furious Charge)
FREE Dedicated-Transport Razorback w/ TwL Heavy Bolters, Storm Bolter

5X Marine Tactical Squad w/ Flamer + FREE Dedicated-Transport Razorback w/ TwL Assault Cannons, Storm Bolter
5X Marine Tactical Squad w/ Plasma Cannon + FREE Dedicated-Transport Razorback w/ Lascannon, TwL Plasma Guns
5X Marine Tactical Squad w/ Plasma Cannon + FREE Dedicated-Transport Razorback w/ Lascannon, TwL Plasma Guns

Attack Bike w/ Multi-Melta

5X Marine Devestator Squad w/ 2X Grav Cannons + FREE Dedicated-Transport Rhino


DEMI COMPANY 2
Chaplain w/ Bike
Command Squad on Bikes w/ Company Champion (Power Lance), Apothecary, 2X Grav Guns, 1X Power Axe
FREE  FREE Dedicated-Transport Razorback w/ Lascannon, TwL Plasma Guns

5X Marine Tactical Squad w/ Heavy Bolter + FREE Dedicated-Transport Razorback w/ Lascannon, TwL Plasma Guns
5X Marine Tactical Squad w/ Plasma Cannon + FREE Dedicated-Transport Razorback w/ Lascannon, TwL Plasma Guns
5X Marine Tactical Squad w/ Plasma Cannon + FREE Dedicated-Transport Razorback w/ Lascannon, TwL Plasma Guns

Attack Bike w/ Multi-Melta

5X Marine Devestator Squad w/ 2X Plasma Cannons + FREE Dedicated-Transport Razorback w/ Lascannon, TwL Plasma Guns


ANTI-AIR DEFENSE FORCE
1X Hunter
2X Stalkers

INQUISITORIAL ALLIES DETACHMENT
Inquisitor Coteaz

My thinking is as follows:
With Coteaz along for the ride I'll be going first roughly 2/3 of the time and I'll almost never be surprised by the enemy seizing the initiative (1/36th of the time). If I win the roll for table edge selection / going first I'll deploy aggressively towards the front of my deployment zone and use Kor'Sarro Kahn's special rules to SCOUT my Grav-Cannon Devestators into range during deployment, along with as many squads of marines I feel the need to put on objectives. The bike squads SCOUT forward as well along the flanks, positioned to charge any enemy death stars or other HtH meanies that get too close to my front lines. Coteaz deploys smack in the middle of my formation, near the Grav Cannon devestators. Any squad not in their razorback (to give the razorback SCOUT - most tacticals will be deployed OUTSIDE their razorbacks) starts near their dedicated transports right on the leading edge of my deployment zone.

Turn 1: Razorbacks edge forward to get into plasma gun range. My Grav-Cannon Devs are already in 24" range and wipe out whatever enemy infantry unit looks like it'll cause me the most trouble. Massed Las-Plas fire from my tacticals and Razorbacks do as much damage to enemy MCs and Death Stars as possible. Everyone else opens up on targets of opportunity. End of turn 1 enemy army is badly damaged, many transports are shaken or destroyed. Survivors get to march into hail of fire on turn 2, get counterattacked by by Command Bike squads, and by turn 3 it is all mop-up.

If I don't get first-turn, and especially if I'm facing I-Guard (Astra Militarum - wot??) leaf-blower armies with innumerable pie-plates of death I'll use my near-universal SCOUT ability to essentially do a Null-Deployment and (hopefully) get awesome reserve rolls thanks to Coteaz's Divination, then I'll attack from both flanks in close quarters and have a full turn of minimally impacted shooting (because many of my heavy weapons are on vehicles) before my opponent gets to retaliate. I'll (again, hopefully) be able to grav, melta, and las the enemies that I'm most concerned about to death before the whole thing devolves into a giant melee.

The short version of the army concept is that it either gets first turn and out-shoots enemies while having enough HtH oomph to counter-attack anything that I can't kill with shooting, and if it doesn't get first turn it steals it anyway by doing a null deployment.

Thoughts? 


BigToof

It's a good base list.

To trim it down, you might want to go single command squad, as it looks like you're pretty thin beyond that, and just play cautiously with the single squad.

As things you might want to try:

1.  Hunter's Eye for the Chaplain for Ignores Covers and get more Gravguns for the Bikes.  Also good to join up with the CentStar.  You might need more grav or the like depending on how heavy the Gargantuan/Super Heavy models are in your local meta.
2.  Switching something else out for the anti-air.  I'm just not too impressed by the Hunter or the Stalker.
3.  Librarian Conclave.  It gives you anti-psycher ability and also gives you a good chance at getting Invisibility.  Give that to your Command Squad, put all the ICs on it and go to town.

To make it nicer, just focus on taking a single CAD and sprinkle in some more fluffier units.  You could try taking some of another army type (like Raven Guard?) and you could make it similar to the Daemoncleas Gulf assault in the new Kauyon book.

Best,
-BT
BigToof Points:

Cammerz: 8
Waaaghpower: 1
The Man They Call Jayne: 3
Mabbz: 6
Archon Sharrek: 3

Waaaghpower

To preface this, my playstyle trends very heavily towards the "They can't hurt you if they're dead" method of thought. So, when I see a list like yours, I think...



You shouldn't be splitting the effectiveness of the Combat Squads. They need to be either shooty, OR stabby. To quote a great man: Never half ass two things. Whole ass one thing. If half of your squad is dedicated to shooting, and the other half is dedicated to melee, then when you try and shoot you're not going to cause enough damage and when you try and assault you won't win. (That is, unless you're fighting a unit that already can't handle Melee, but at that point, well... You're fighting a unit that can't handle melee. I don't know what else to say.) I would personally just take two squads with shooting capabilities, but if that's not your cup of tea, then at least take one squad with pure shooting and one with pure melee.

Also: This is a weakness in every Gladius list, but your damage output is low. You've effectively got two squads with good (*But not great) damage output and two with decent, and then the rest of your army is sitting around taking up space and peppering the enemy with very light gunfire. You really need something big, tough, and extremely powerful at your core in order to knock out big threats, but since you need to spend a ton of points in a Gladius list just to get it in working order, you really can't do that in an 1850 list without cutting points everywhere else.

If you go up against an army with lots of jink saves and mobility, (Eldar or certain Dark Angels,) or who use Invulns over armor (Daemons,) you're dead. Your shooting is simply incapable of dealing with tough targets who don't rely on straight armor saves.

Similarly, if you go up against a good Alpha Strike list that doesn't care about your first turn, you're dead. (Drop Pod Spam comes to mind.) Having your tactical squads in tanks means it'll take some creative shooting to kill them in one turn, but the problem is that three of your four threat units, (The ones that actually pose some kind of serious firepower problem to the enemy,) are going to be sitting outside of vehicles. (Namely, your bikes and your plasma cannons.)

I also don't see this dealing well with Orks or Tyranids, who can shrug off the losses that you'll inflict without giving a crap and respond by clobbering you over the head in Melee. (And Ork Warbikers double up on your counters by combining their horde-like Melee prowess with 3+ Jink Saves.) You have a lot of bodies on the field, but without being able to scratch your opponent, overwhelming multicharges will be your undoing. 




However, there is some good news. Against smaller, more elite army lists, they won't have the volume of firepower to put you down. Having Objective Secured on effectively  your entire army means that, should you survive to the end of the game with your troops intact, you'll be very likely to win. D-Spam will bounce off of you impotently, since you've got nothing in your army worth hitting with the D. Similarly, powerful but singular Assault units (Daemon Princes and other Monstrous Creatures come to mind) will not do much to injure you, and neither will Imperial Knights.
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