Slowly but surely I'm making my way through 6th edition. I haven't had a ton of time to play with the new rules since they dropped, but I did manage to get a 3rd game in the other week and hoping to get a few more in this month. There's a small 1750pt tournament I'm signed up for at the end of the month, so I really need to figure out what list I'm taking and continue to brush up on the new rules. I had never played this particular points level before, so deciding on what to cut from one of my typical 2000pt lists wasn't easy. I knew I wanted to try out the Storm Talon and at the last minute on a whim, decided I wanted to try Chaplain Cassius as well. It was a hodgepodge list but it was still fun and offered a good learning experience with units I don't normally field.
I played against Ian and his new Astral Claws army, who is also prepping for the same tournament (this was originally supposed to be the Battle at Blob's Park however due to high demand they had to push the date way back in order to make arrangements for a larger-scale tournament/event).
I'm not quite prepared to do full-fledged battle reports since I'm still learning all the new rules and will inevitably make mistakes and forget to do things (like rolling for night fight, etc). But this was the most exciting game of 6th I've played thus far. The mission (the Scouring) kept things interesting all the way to the very end, a full 7 turns. Dice were hot and cold on both sides throughout, but I ultimately lost by 1 victory point due to my own blunders -- could have done more to protect my second objective and should have denied the other 3pt objective with Cassius, but live and learn haha.
This game was a lot of fun and overall felt a lot more engaging than the old 5th edition missions. I still have a few of the new book missions to try out, but overall I'm feeling a lot more comfortable with 6th edition. Enough things have changed in this edition that you can now try anything and everything (at least for the time being) as far as your army list goes, which is the most the fun thing about a new edition. Ian had a really solid list that could pump out a cubic s-ton of firepower and could reliably deal with flyers. I think he's going to fair well with that list in the upcoming tournament. I, on the other hand, really need to nail down what I am bringing then play as many practice games as I can. Right now, I'm between a version of a vanilla marine biker list and my necrons. Other than the small effort I put into the Storm Talon, I've mostly been working on my necron army. I'm now very close to finishing this army which is exciting. I should have some updates on these guys coming shortly.
So what does your bike list look like?
ReplyDeleteAt exactly 1750 points:
Delete-Khan: Moondrakkan
-Command Squad: Bikes, 4x Plasmaguns
-8 Bikes + AB: 2x Meltaguns, Multi-melta, Power fist
-8 Bikes + AB: 2x Meltaguns, Multi-melta, Power fist
-5 Scouts: Telion, 4x snipers
-4 Scout Bikers: 3x Grenade launchers, Melta bombs
-Storm Talon: TL Lascannon, TL Ass Cannon
-3 Attack Bikes: 3x Multi-melta
-Techmarine: Bike, Servo-harness
A couple notes: Techmarine joins the 3 Attack bikes and they outflank. Storm Talon either escorts Scout Bikes or a Bike combat squad (if the Scouts have a good infiltrate option). Snipers are there for backfield objective holding and will deploy in the bolstered terrain from the Techmarine. I'll also need to deploy at least another combat bike squad and/or command squad since I need units on the table until reserves arrive. I know I don't have any anti-psyker capabilities and I wish I could up the model count in general, but the list is fast, tough, and should hit like a ton of bricks... plus I like the overall theme.
Any advice on this list or playing at this points level in general?
Personally Joe, all of the lists I have been looking at for 6th edition are very different then what you have put together. I don't want to radically change your army so lets just work with your basic list.
DeleteMy two concerns are, why the techmarine on bike? Second, why the scout bikes with grenade launchers? It just seems like if you want the benefits of anti-horde (small blasts) and bolstered terrain, you could just drop both of those units and take a thunder fire cannon and with the remaining points take more multi-melta attack bikes and scouts.
Lets do some quick math
techmarine on bike with full servo harness 110
Scout bikes with all that gear 130
Total: 240
Thunder fire cannon 100
Attack bike with multi-melta 50 (take two squads of 2)
5 more scouts 65
Powerfist on the command squad 25
Total: 240
So this slight change increases your model count (by one!) adds to your scoring potential, you have more anti-tank, and a sweet TFC.
Finally, do you find outflanking essential to your list? Given that you don't have a nasty assault unit, it might be worth dropping khan to a regular bike captain and using the spare points for some more models, better guns, or more upgrades.
I lied, I increased your model count by 2
DeleteHonestly, the Techmarine on bike and Scout bikers are in there because I already have the models built and they fit the theme of this list; everything is incredibly fast except for the one sniper squad on foot. I've had some mild success with the Scout bikes in previous games, and the Techmarine adds a flamer, plasma, 2 powerfists, and 2+ save character to help protect and boost the versatility of the attack bikes -- having melta, flamer, plasma, powerfists, and TL bolters coming on from outflank is a swiss army knife in the side of an opponent.
DeleteI completely agree that your 240pt swap is much more efficient. And trust me, I love the TFC, but I rarely get a chance to fire that thing... I need to try it when I can field more than 1, cause my last few games with it, it has died 1st turn before I can even use it :.(
Not having an uber assault unit doesn't concern me as much in regards to Outflank; you can't assault the turn you arrive anyway. So my focus has turned to shooting. I think there is still value in outflanking some shooty squads as they can still impact the opponent's deployment, can get side armor shots, and can make it way easier to grab quarters / objectives depending on mission, etc. Aside from the offensive pressure Outflanking can create, I also view it as defensive for my own units -- it keeps my valuable bikes safe from a couple turns of shooting, keeping them alive longer (which has always been the biggest struggle for me when running the lower model count bike list).
I definitely look forward to butting heads with the ravenguard again in the future, I'll have to retcon some ravenguard units into the Badab War story line lol.
ReplyDelete