Lamenters WIP part 2 & army thoughts

Lamenters have always been one of my favorite Space Marine chapters... I have finally given in to my craving to paint a yellow army.

Firstly, I planned on keeping the model count low, not only to save $$$ but to represent the Lamenters being few in number and an elite force. Second, I wanted to use units that I have not taken in my Dragons army, so even though it'll be using the same codex, it'll have a totally different play style.

My HQ is a Captain with a power sword, infernus pistol and jump pack. Besides the fact I really dislike special characters, none of them make sense to be leading a Lamenters force... And Librarians don't thrill me too much either as they're a dime a dozen in all flavors of marine armies these days. So even though my HQ selection is the same as my Dragons army, his wargear makes him quite different and I'll explain why he's got what he's got.

Jump pack... Well, he's going to be rolling up (or dropping down) with my troops, who are jump pack assault marines, so he'll be needing one of course. Power sword, because I want to make use of that Initiative 5 (I somewhat regret putting a fist on my Dragons captain as I had overlooked this). Infernus pistol, because like the Initiative 5, I'm paying those points to get that nice BS 5... Hitting 2+ melta, yes please.

Troops are 2x 7 man assault marine squads. Strange number, but I that's the amount of models I bought, and it fits in the points value. One squad is equipped to deal with medium/light infantry, toting 2x hand flamers and a sergeant with power weapon. The other squad has a more tank hunters role, with 2x infernus pistols and sergeant w/ fist. The Captain will be rolling with the latter in order to pack 3 melta shots, hopefully downing any vehicle they shoot at.

All the remaining points are saved for the scary stuff. A big 10 man terminator squad, with 2 cyclone missile launchers and 4 chainfists. Unless I'm playing Kill Points, I'll be combat squadding them and putting the 2 CML's in one group to use as a mobile devastator squad which will advance up with the...

 ...Assault Terminator Squad, all equipped with TH/SS in a standard Land Raider w/ extra armor and multi melta.


And that's the 1500 army in a nutshell. 15 models in power armor with jump packs, 15 terminators, and a land raider. It's a small army, but it's hard hitting. Maybe it'll even win a game or two.

More to come

Lamenters WIP pictures

 

More to come

Land Raider Redeemer

The Land Raiders are some of my favorite tanks in 40k. They're hard to kill, they've got machine spirit... and in the case of a Redeemer, you've got a pair of the most badass flamer weapons in the 41st millennium.  

I could go on and on about reasons as to why Land Raiders are excellent tanks, but instead I'm going to argue for why I opted to take the Redeemer variant over the Crusader pattern.

Points wise, the Redeemer is 10 points less than the other two, so not much to argue about here. However, that extra 10 points gives me that very useful Multi melta upgrade. The real differences between the variants is transport capacity and weaponry. The Redeemer can carry 12 models, or 6 terminators compared to the 16 models or 8 terminators of the crusader. It then becomes a question as to whether the flamestorm cannons over the hurricane bolters are worth the loss of 2 terminators inside.

In my opinion? Absolutely worth it. The twin flamestorm cannons transform the Redeemer from a hard to kill transport into a hard to kill battle tank. Hurricane Bolters are just too lackluster. I get the argument from Crusader-toting players all the time, that the 24" range is just so crucial and makes the LRC much more tactically flexible. I don't buy it. I play against Crusaders all the time, and their Hurricane Bolters pretty much always amount to diddly squat vs. my marines. Flamestorm cannons? Boom, say goodbye to that entire tactical squad (or at least most of it). Even if I only fire a flamestorm once per game, they're still overwhelmingly more effective from my experience than multiple turns of Hurricane shooting.

This brings up another point I would like to make in favor of the Redeemer. The last few games I've used my Redeemer in, I've been getting weapon destroyed results on it. Every time, my opponent won't know what to take off. All the weapons are equally devastating in their own right, and losing a flamestorm cannon or assault cannon is no big deal. With a weapon or two lost, the LRR still has the potential to do some serious damage, something that can't be said about an LRC or standard LR.

Lastly, I don't use the LRR as a transport all too often. It's more of a fire magnet to take the pressure off of my more fragile (and valuable) Vindicators. The trio of hard hitting tanks will clear a path all the way to an objective with a squad or two of foot slogging marines hidden behind, and there is little an opponent can do about it when the rest of my army is supporting the advance.

 

Grudge League progress

There's a Grudge League going on in the local store I'm playing at up in Vermont. Players in the league fight for territories which give their armies bonuses such as furious charge, scouts, extra points, and things like that.

My first day of league play I lost twice and won once. I was pretty unhappy by these results as the losses were extremely close and pretty much my own mistakes when it came to capturing objectives. Today I won 3 games which puts me at 4W-2L. I've learned from my mistakes from my losses in the league and hopefully I keep the win streak going.

Been pretty busy this week with school & painting 40k minis. More to come!