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Take Off to the Great White North! I'm hoping to be working the Vancouver GT coming up in January. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Canadian GTs go, plus hanging out with the Northwest Gaming Geeks (They ran the Battle in Seattle) and seeing a lot of neat stuff. I might even get a chance to be the Ringer Army. A Ringer army is one that is played by an event organizer, rather than a regular opponent. They are a good standby in case you have an odd number of players (like when someone forgets to set an alarm and wakes up late on the second day of the Grand Tournament or something.) Given my experience at Battle in Seattle, I'll give my DeathWing a chance. They are painted better and will be faster to set up and take down than my other armies, very important for a Ringer army, since it'll be a last minute thing when we discover that somebody's opponent hasn't shown up for the round. I've been toying around with different ideas for the army and I considered making it a SAFH (well, as much as DeathWing can be, anyway.) I'd take 3 squads of 5 Terminators, each squad having two Cyclone Missile Launchers. I'd also take a Master of the DeathWing and a Command squad of 4 including 2 Cyclone Missile Launchers and an Apothecary. Finally, I'd add a full squad of 10 Terminators (2 with Cyclone Launchers) and attach the Apothecary to it. That would give me 10 Missiles per turn to shoot with, plus gobs of Storm Bolters. I'd stick the full squad in front with the attached Apothecary to soak up shooting. (11 Terminators able to ignore 1 failed armor save per turn will definitely soak up shooting!) Admittedly, that's not an incredible amount of firepower, but it's pretty darn good for DeathWing. I think it's a viable list, though it has no vehicles and thus, little mobility. Plus, it has the usual DeathWing difficulty of small numbers. (30 Terminators is a lot, but it's still only 30 models!) The only drawback would be that I currently have 0 Cyclone launchers, so this would require getting and assembling and painting models in my extremely busy schedule. I'll give it some thought. Tactically speaking, this list has some good advantages. It is fairly resilient and puts out a fair (though not overwhelming) amount of firepower. Plus, of course, it has a bunch of Terminators with Powerfists waiting for those that make it through the firepower. The Vancouver GT is using straight 3rd edition rules, meaning no Trial Vehicle rules and no assault rules. Among other things, that means there will be a fair amount of Rhino rushing. I'm not too worried about that, since they'll be rushing into my Terminators, which is really where I want power-armored opponents. I expect I'll have difficulty with characters, since they typically have power weapons of some sort and lots of attacks, which will scythe through my Terminators. I'll just have to try to slow them down with my fire and concentrate on them, since I'll be able to allocate hits to them in assaults. On the shooting side, I think that my lead squad will be able to soak up a lot of damage, but there are some opponents that worry me. A shooty Eldar list (the Star Cannon kind, not the Dark Reaper kind, they can't penetrate Terminator Armor) will be very nasty, though I don't think most others will be. Although an Imperial Guard army is usually thought of as the ultimate in shooting armies, I can wipe out almost 3 squads per turn. Most of their tanks also don't penetrate Terminator armor, so that makes it a little safer as well. 275 Cyclone squad 1: Sergeant w/Powerweapon, 2x Cyclone Launcher and Stormbolter, 3xStormbolter and Powerfist On the other hand, It'd be easier to just go with what I've got. I'd configure it approximately this way: 2x 5 man squad with 2 Heavy Flamers and a LandRaider each. Master of the DeathWing with command squad and 6 Terminators, 1 being an Apothecary and 2 getting Heavy Flamers. This squad would be mounted in a LandRaider Crusader. Obviously, this is a more close combat-oriented list than the other one. I'm relying on those Heavy Flamers and my LandRaiders to wipe out the really nasty enemy assault units before I hit them. This list gives me more mobility, though fewer units and fewer models. It also gives me less vulnerability to enemy shooting, since I'll be behind AV 14 for the most part. The LandRaider Crusader will add to my anti-troop firepower and will help whittle those numbers down when I'm not facing power-armored enemies. I expect that the two biggest threats would be, as above, Eldar Star Cannons and powerweapon-equipped enemies, particularly commanders, since they've got lots of attacks. My best answer to both of these is the LandRaiders. If I stay inside, those weapons can't hurt me, and I can use the firepower from the vehicles to hurt the enemy as much as possible before I come out and play. On the other hand, they will be very vulnerable to Necrons and Bright/Dark Lances, so I'll have to watch my step. As an advantage over the other list, this list would only require the adjustments of turning one of my LandRaiders into a Crusader. I've got all the parts, I'd just need to paint them and attach them, which shouldn't be too big a deal. 505 squad Thunder: Sergeant w/Power weapon and Stormbolter, 2xStorm Bolter and Powerfist, 2x Heavy Flamer and Powerfist, LandRaider Transport. As a final note: since I'm temporarily shelving the idea of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Warband, I'll be renaming the army for now. Since I used a modified Doom Eagles paint scheme, and it's an elite force made up of veteran troopers, I thought I'd pick an appropriate name. Doom Eagles Tactical Strikeforce 1. "When it absolutely, positively has to be destroyed overnight." If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know |