Skip to main content

1850 is Hard




I played a good game with a buddy in our local game group tonight.   It did really well against his mixed Dark Angels list with a Dev squad with missiles, a Lascannon Predator, two Tac Squads with lascannons, 10 Deathwing (TH/SS, lightning claws, cyclone, chain fist, and assault cannon), Sammel, an attack bike, and a bunch of bike squads.  He took a lot of melta and he kind of rolled for shit, so I'm not sure really what to take home from the game.  I know the game would've been a far sight more difficult if he'd rolled better, but I also know my overall play was also not bad.

Here's my list:

Adepticon 0016


1 Mad Doc Drillteef, D.D.S., 160 pts
5 Meganobz, 330 pts (Count as Troop Troops; Cybork Body)
   1 Battlewagon (The Fat Pig) (Red Paint Job; Reinforced Ram; Big Shoota x1)

19 'Ard Boyz, 240 pts
   1 'Ard Boyz Nob (Bosspole; Power Klaw)
1 Battlewagon (Orktimus Prime), 105 pts (Red Paint Job; Reinforced Ram; Big Shoota x1)

1 Warboss, 135 pts (Bosspole; Warbike; Power Klaw; Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-weapon) (Warlord)
29 Boyz, 235 pts (Shootas; Big Shoota x2)
   1 Boyz Nob (Bosspole; Power Klaw; Big Shoota)

12 Gretchin, 46 pts
   1 Runtherd

1 Dakkajet, 130 pts (Fighta Ace; TL Supa Shoota)
1 Dakkajet, 130 pts (Fighta Ace; TL Supa Shoota)

5 Lootas, 75 pts
5 Lootas, 75 pts

3 Big Gunz, 94 pts (Lobba; Additional Gun Krew; Ammo Runt x3)
   6 Gretchin
   1 Runtherd
3 Big Gunz, 94 pts (Lobba; Additional Gun Krew; Ammo Runt x3)
   6 Gretchin
   1 Runtherd

Tactics:


I've been working on some deployments and I have found that even against veteran players, if I scoot my battlewagons forward and to one side, they will turn their vehicles to face me even if they have turrets.  I'm not sure if this behavior comes from either being used to other vehicles actually having some kind of shooting ability or from past editions when a turret could get locked into one position(?).  At any rate, it seems to work every time and when the Dakkajets come screaming in, they're getting side shots on said vehicles.

Leaving the 30 Boyz in reserve along with the Warboss in Vanguard Strike seems to be a good gambit (even though tonight I rolled for crap when I came on).  I've seen countless opponents make the mistake of skirting too close to my board edge in 6th (and also in the table corners deployment in 5th edition) and shoota boyz can certainly take advantage of this oversight while taking a distant objective.


Winning List Elements:


The Warboss on Bike keeps on over-performing in comparison to my expectations.  The fact that he can basically add another 5 to 6 inches of movement to a squad of boyz is simply priceless.  I make moves and charges I would otherwise never be able to accomplish. The fact that he's a Strength 10, Toughess 6 monstrosity who comes with a built-in 4+ cover save for 135-140 points is just icing on the cake.

The Lobbas killed quite a bit.  My opponent was forced to target my more dangerous units with his deepstriking Terminators for fear of suffering a counter-assault.  For this reason, the Lobbas actually survived until the end of the game.  I think the Lobbas need to stay in my list, especially if I am bringing Dakkajets; they're the sure way of deleting a unit holding a Quad Gun in turn 1 (or at least Fuegan or Telion).


Possible Replacements:


I discussed the list with my opponent who was pretty big on the tournament scene back in 5th and knows my book almost as well as I do.  He feels that Mad Doc is my weak point. I agree. I've known this for some time, but I really feel like he's The Man in my army. Without him I really don't have as much character.  I really feel weird about losing him in the list.  If I did this, I might drop the Meganobz down to a unit of 4, put them in a Trukk, and use Kommandos and Snikrot to put burnas in my opponent's butthole.

I also feel like I could conserve some serious points and add a third unit of Lobbas if I could ditch the Battlewagon and 'Eavy Armor on the boyz squad, and also add 10 more boyz and switch to shootas in that squad.

That would leave zero battlewagons to "do the dance" with and bait enemy units, something I feel I'm good at.  It's tough to dominate the movement phase when all of your models only move six inches.

The Lootas also feel like a liability because they're so small.  Having said that, they are amazing at drawing fire away from my Troops choices, especially since there are two units and that can be very frustrating a hypothetical opponent who brings a more "elite" list.  Historically, hunkering down in area terrain for a 3+ save is pretty good at keeping them from taking that dreaded 2 wounds per turn (even though it didn't really work tonight).

If I enact all those changes, then I'm basically slogging around along the flanks and probably getting my troops blown apart thanks to Perfect Timing, Prescience, Fortune, and Doom in a lot of games.  I guess if I did do that, it's fortunate that the "Out of Range" FAQ will be in place for the tournament.

I dunno. I really have to finalize this list soon.  Adepticon is only a month away!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How Did it Come to This? 10,000 Points of Painted Orks

One can only make so many milestone posts before people eventually get soul-crushingly bored of them.  However, I'm going to make an exception here because with my Vengeance Batteries, I've reached a total of 10,000 points painted with my Orks.  These points include reasonable upgrades, but not ridiculous add-ons like Kill Kannons for the Battlewagons.  Let's not be silly . Here's a video of the army.  Unlike the one I did for 7,000, this does not include a running commentary of each unit.  I simply cannot find the time to do that.  However, at the end of the post, please find a complete army list. Please try to view in YouTube instead of this embed because I uploaded it at full resolution and it took me forever.  You won't be disappointed! I started playing this game in 2010 when some friends and I suddenly realized that we finally had grown-up jobs and could actually afford it.  I'd always danced around the idea of collecting Orks either for F

Joke Armies - an Editorial

Ponies and Smurfs and Gundams! Oh my! Sometimes someone posts a joke army they've built and painted on the internet and the internet lashes out against it, sometimes quite vociferously. I have a problem with the strong objections to these armies, with caveats. Please note that, throughout this article, I will refer to armies which break the 4th wall and are incongruous to the 40k fluff as "joke armies".  Of course, I do realize many hobbyists who choose to build their armies in this way do not mean them as a joke and take it very seriously, but I need some kind of general term for the article. Shannon's Smurf Drop Pod Army Hobbyist Reasoning The hobbyists who choose this kind of path for their army express four-ish common reasons for doing so, sometimes citing two or three of them simultaneously. Cost:  Cost can be a big driver towards building this kind of army. A lot of the time, it's quite a bit cheaper to use toys to stand in for 40k models.  An

Loopy Paints Unto Others - Space Marines (Brown)

I've completed another commission for Frontline Gaming.  For this one, the customer chose a brown scheme using the Ravenwing iconography for a generic chapter or chapter of his own devising.  This was a LEVEL 1 commission which means just one highlight. This was the first time I'd ever done Edge Highlighting which is the preferred method for doing this level of commission.  I know it may seem strange that someone doing commission work hasn't done edge highlighting, but it's just not my preferred method.  I prefer to wet blend everything or just do blocked highlights over darker colors and washes. The first go-around they looked terrible.  I tried really hard to keep the edge highlights thin and vague, but instead they came out kind of sloppy.  Because of that, I had to spend an additional 4 hours on making the highlight heavier and more pronounced.  The good thing is, I know what I'm doing now and won't make the same mistake again; therefore an army lik