The Inner Circle Gaming Club was putting together something they called a “Pancake Breakfast Tournament” at Games & Stuff in Glen Burnie, MD. With a name like that I knew I was going to have to go and check out what was happening, and with 2000 points to put together a 40K army, it was going to be a few nights of modeling just to put together the units I thought I would like to field.
Taking a page from YTTH, the following is a variation of the Sisters of Battle “Immolator Spam” list I had used at the previous Inner Circle tournament. At the time, I had noticed several things about the army I had been using that made me want to upgrade its capabilities:
First, I didn’t find any significant benefit to having vehicle redundancy (extra transports) for my infantry units. In theory, that makes them harder to knock out of their rides, and provides additional Immolator templates at close range, but I found that in practice – at least given my limited practice with the list – the extra hulls were simply getting in the way, and I was always scrambling to have sufficient meltaguns. Besides, once I got close, I was voluntarily disembarking to get shots at things anyway.
Second, the prior incarnation of the list had no weapons with a range of greater than 24 inches, and the nastiest weapons (meltas, flamers) had an effective range of about 6 inches. This meant that mobile armies could simply outmaneuver me for a turn or two while their long-range firepower did damage to me, then jump on isolated units piecemeal while my transports tried to get into range to help.
Third, my previous list had only two Troops choices (both units of Battle Sisters), and I found myself really struggling in some missions with only two Troops choices to capture objectives. What’s more, units of Battle Sisters are fairly resilient, but they are also relatively expensive for comparatively less value than Celestians and Dominions in Immolators. I definitely wanted MORE Troops choices. And, nothing against resilient objective-grabbing units, but I also wanted Troops choices that contributed more directly to the game as well.
Finally, I really liked having a Psychic Hood to back up the Sisters’ inherent resistance to psychic attacks – but taking an Inquisitor Lord (for the Ld10) was relatively pricey, even if I could mitigate some of the cost by fielding him with several meltaguns (as part of his mandatory retinue).
In the end, I stole a page from Stelek at YTTH and addressed each of the above concerns as follows: took Storm Troopers as basic Troops (cheaper than Battle Sisters), supported by inducted Imperial Guard (extra Troops choices) in Chimeras and with Autocannons (long-range firepower). All of this was led by a Grey Knight Brother-Captain with Psychic Hood (cheaper than the Inquisitor Lord, but still Ld10), who would be hitching a ride in a Chimera due to his mandatory Terminator armor. And, because I had the points, and because I knew that an Eldar Seer Council would be a real problem for me (lots of light vehicles, close-range army, not so good at close-combat), I gave the Grey Knight character an Incinerator.
All in all, a very brutal and gruesome 2000 point list – possibly one of the hardest army lists I’ve ever had the opportunity to field and use in 5th edition. All in all, I’d say only my all-Rending Ripper Swarm army from 3rd edition was clearly nastier than this list.
- HQ: Grey Knight Brother-Captain with Incinerator and Psychic Hood
- HQ: Canoness with Book of St. Lucius, BP/CCW; retinue of 5 Celestians with 2 Meltas; Immolator with Smoke
- Elite: 5 Celestians with 2 Meltas in an Immolator with Smoke
- Elite: same
- Elite: same
- Troop: 5 Adeptus Arbites with 2 Meltas
- Troop: same
- Troop: same
- Troop: Inducted Imperial Guard squad (4 scoring units) -- Command Squad with 4 Flamers and Chimera with Heavy Flamer turret and Heavy Bolter hull, 3x IG squads with Autocannon and Chimera with Multilaser/Heavy Bolter/Pintle-Mounted Heavy Stubber
- Fast: 5 Dominions with 4 Flamers in an Immolator with Smoke
- Fast: same
- Heavy: Immolator with Smoke
- Heavy: same
- Heavy: same
No comments:
Post a Comment