Friday, 8 February 2013

Battlefield Birmingham Army List

Something a little different today, I'm thinking that maybe posting something other than a Dark Angels analysis will break the sloppiness of my writing, I keep missing little bits. The latest mistake post wasn't quite as bad as the previous one, GW releasing a £30 book full of typos didn't help, but that's not an excuse.

With Battlefield Birmingham coming up in 2 weeks time I've finally decided to lock down my list, so that I get familiar with it and how it works together, I already know what everything does but I don't like last minute changes. So, in this post I'm going to be going through what I'm taking and why.

1,750pts: Space Wolves and Imperial Guard


HQ:

Rune Priest (Warlord) w/ Murderous Hurricane, Jaws of the World Wolf and Runic Armour.

Rune Priest w/ Melta Bombs, Jaws of the World Wolf and Living Lightning.

Elites:

Lone Wolf w/ Terminator Armour, Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield.

Lone Wolf w/ Terminator Armour, Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield.

3 Wolf Guard w/ Terminator Armour, Storm Bolters, 2 Power Swords and 1 Power Axe.

Troops:

9 Grey Hunters w/ Wolf Standard, Meltagun and Drop Pod.

7 Grey Hunters w/ Wolf Standard and Meltagun.

7 Grey Hunters w/ Wolf Standard and Meltagun.

Fast Attack:

3 Thunderwolf Cavalry w/ 2 Storm Shields and a Power Fist.

Heavy Support:

6 Long Fangs w/ 5 Missile Launchers.

6 Long Fangs w/ 5 Missile Launchers.

Imperial Guard:

HQ:

Primaris Psyker

Troops:

Veterans Squad w/ Mortar Team

Heavy Support:

Manticore w/ Heavy Flamer

1,749 points.

A few changes to my standard list. The most notable is probably dropping the Vendetta and the 3rd pack of Long Fangs. Starting with the Vendetta, the reason for this is that I'm in the UK, and a lot of our biggest tournaments are allowing Forge World. I'm not going to make my opinions on this clear right now but a side effect of this is that players now have access to a lot of Skyfire and a lot of Interceptor. Against all of the platforms that people are taking a lone Vendetta doesn't stand a chance, probably being blown out of the sky before it can do anything. Points better used elsewhere.

The third Long Fang pack that I usually take contains 2 Missile Launchers and 2 Lascannons, with the Vendetta gone I don't have too many Lascannons, and with them being so expensive I may as well drop the squad, shifting the other missiles into the other Long Fang packs. You can't rely on Long Fangs in this edition for heavy shooting like you could in last edition, with the shift more to torrent of fire due to an increase in infantry, the presence of Daemons and Necrons and the drop in the number of vehicles used. You can give them Heavy Bolters but I find that even then you're not churning out enough shots and you might as well go for Grey Hunters. I still like having that heavy shooting in case I do come up against vehicles, but I don't need to spend as much on it.

So, going through the list. 1 thing that I've found recently is that you really need to be able to get into your opponent's deployment zone. This is because in many close games it can rely on a first blood point, and if you don't get it Linebreaker is probably the best way to cancel it out, you also often need to be able to contest objectives, especially in games like the Scouring where one player will start with more points of objectives than the other (with there being an odd number in play) and again, in close games like the Emperor's will, where contesting can be extremely important.

In 1,500pts last month, all I had to do this was the Vendetta and a single Lone Wolf. In this list I have the Drop Podding squad, 2 Lone Wolves and a pack of Thunderwolf Cavalry.

The Drop Pod squad is where the cheaper Rune Priest goes, I've been trying out the 'Jaws Bomb' recently and I've been really enjoying it, essentially dropping in behind the enemy army, causing a big distraction and hopefully Jaws-ing some important stuff.

I've heard cases made that Lone Wolves are overrated, but what they do really well is survive. They're fantastic for just walking into your opponent's deployment zone and are also fantastic for tying up enemy units. The fact that he's a character is also important, as it often allows him to take less hits by challenging.

The Thunderwolf Cavalry are one of those units that are either excellent or appalling for me. In some games they've just gone through squad after squad, yet on 1 occasion they charged 5 Chaos Chosen (who were unarmed as far as special close combat weapons are concerned), lost combat, got chased down and died. Yet they're another means of getting up in my opponent's face, this is the first time that they'll be used in a tournament.

I've also found that in order to make kill points slightly less of a bad mission for me that I needed to beef up the size of my squads, as the Wolf Guard don't make them durable enough. Of course in this list one of the Wolf Guard go into one of the Long Fang packs, as it won't fit in the drop pod. This also makes them much better at holding objectives. Flyers have been a problem as they just tend to strafe my objectives until the troops are gone. But with the larger squad size it makes them a little harder to budge.

Finally, the Manticore works wonders for me. It doesn't matter that you have to hide it out of Line of Sight, as you can just cast prescience upon it. Yes, it's only AP4, but you can generally get enough hits with the thing to cause some serious damage. Even if your opponent spreads out you can still cause them some problems. For example, spreading out a 50 man guard blob to keep them from taking too much damage, will also mean that its very likely that at least part of the blob will have to walk through difficult terrain, slowing you down, and reducing the number of shots that you get at a certain unit, as man of the guardsmen may be out of range. 

Some notable exclusions from the list. The Guard blob itself actually. The reason for this is simply a lack of models. However, I am working on a Guard army at the minute, although after that I'm still unsure as to whether I will actually use the blob, as it depends on whether they will still be as effective in that meta. 

So, there's my list, all comments are once again welcome, and I should get to the Dark Angels Heavy Support section in the next couple of days.

No comments:

Post a Comment