Tournament prep: dreads

I have decided that I want to include 2 dreads in my 1500 pt tourney list. I am going to play my Lamenters army the same way Grey Knights are played - by using an LR as a bunker with dreads hiding behind it for cover and to be there for a speed bump when I need it.

The las + ccw is the best combo for this. With a ML/autocannon I can't fire most of the time anyway as half of the dread is going to be covered by the LR - and the ccw is there to protect the castle from incoming troops. If I had points leftover I'd take lascannons on both dreads, but the second dread is getting a plasma cannon instead.

This sucker needs to be painted by Saturday!

This army list I'll be using will be Blood Angels in name only. LR + dread castle, 10 terminators, nothing about that is traditional BA. Will it work? I think it can, I have had success running the same strat with my own GK force.

Terminator Librarian finished + pics

So I finally finished up my Librarian in terminator armor today. This is the model from space hulk, only difference is that I decided to do a little conversion work and give him a helmet.

Tactics wise... Well, I am thinking of giving him Blood Lance and dropping down with my 2x CML squad to for added tank punching.

More to come



Blood Angels Godhammer LR capacity

I didn't notice this until now but the BA standard LR has a capacity of 10 which is mega lame. Vanil Marines have 12 capacity, as do DA I believe. Not sure about BT. Yes, as a BA player I have very little ground to stand on when it comes to whining...  I wouldn't care so much but the other (and more useful) LR's in the BA codex have appropriate capacities - 12 and 16 for the redeemer and crusader respectively... 

I tried googling the subject to see if anyone noticed the same oddity here. I guess I am the only BA player crazy enough to be using a godhammer LR in their army.

Lamenters Stormraven / Furioso

Finished painting this a while back (actually before the kit was released, this is a black box one) but never got around to posting pics. I've only had a chance to use it in a couple of games as these past weekends I had been using my Blood Dragons for tourney practice.

Anyway, I loaded it for deep strike use: assault cannons and TL multimelta. I was strongly considering going TL las and typhoon though, as said configuration can pump out 4 bloodstrikes, 2 kraks and the TL las turn 1 if you're deployed starting on the table. That's some serious AT firepower no doubt. I'd only do such a thing if I had first turn though.

 

It's a cool unit and fun to use... But is the Stormraven actually worth its points? It's killed easy, but it does have a certain "surprise mothafucka!" factor that I seem to be running with in my Lamenters. I am really considering bringing it to the 1500 pt finals up in VT - loaded with a furioso dread ofc. 

That brings me to the Furioso. I debated for a long time whether or not to give it a heavy flamer or just run with the regular stormbolter. I went with the flamer and decided I could always rip it off and downgrade later if it came to that. I know that generally flamers on dreads aren't so great, because you want to stay in combat for a turn and not kill off a whole squad in one go - but I can't imagine the Furioso amassing a lot of kills using Blood Fists. I opted for the Blood Fists over the Talons for the sake of versatility. There is no denying that Blood Talons are crazy awesome, I just think that I would be a little better off with the Str 10 in my army.

Librarian Terminator WIP

Here are some WIP shots of a Librarian Terminator I just started painting about 3 hours ago. The blue armor on him is almost done; it's a style of painting I've never tried on 40k minis - but I think he is coming along great. The pictures don't do him justice, as it's too dark out =[

This guy is for my Lamenters army, where the power armored Librarian is for my dragons.

In other news, it turns out I get a chance at redemption. The qualifier was recently changed to top 6 advance instead of top 4, which means that I am now moving onward to the final event. I'm not sure if this is because a store dropped out or more space became available or whatever, but I'll take it.

Now the question is... Do I give the Dragons a second chance? Or do the Lamenters need to drop down and crush face?

More to come

Tournament... Failure

I was unable to place in the top 4 in the qualifier tournament today. I went 2W-1L-1D, which I'm not really pleased with at all. I made mistakes against an experienced Tau player and it cost me the game during the 3rd round. Drew against Witch Hunters, and won vs IG and Daemons. Everyone brought their A-game and A-lists, and there were a lot of really tough pairings straight off the bat.

It sucks to not advance onward, but at least I have learned a little bit about fielding a mech list. Perhaps it was too ambitious to run a tank heavy list with little practice beforehand, and perhaps I would have been better off using Lamenters who have a 1st and 3rd record in the 2 tournaments they've been used in.

Onto individual unit performance...

The librarian was pretty good overall, the shield of sanguinius is incredibly sub-par (I can't roll those 5 up covers for jack) but the blood lance has been surprisingly effective. Pretty much the only good rolling I did all day was with the blood lance (I know I know, poor dice can't take all the blame).

Land Raider Redeemer is always a solid unit for me and proved to be definitely worth it. The flamestorms are always a hit or miss, some games I wont fire them and others I'll wipe a squad clean off the table... but the strength of using it as an AV14 command bunker is priceless.

Vindicators straight up SUCKED until round 4. Sure, they had some really bad luck in the first three games but I was not pleased with their performance at all. Will I get rid of them? Probably not, I still like having the demolisher cannons at my disposal. Like the redeemer they're usually hit or miss, just today they were definitely more of a miss. Some weekends they have been really nasty though. Problem is, reliability is key for tournament play- so does the random nature of the vindicator give it any merit in a tourney list?

Baal Preds were reliable, and usually always are. They aren't amazing by any means, but they are definitely solid choices. Their sheer volume of shots and versatility makes them hard to suck even when I'm not rolling so hot. I am certainly interested in getting a 3rd asscan baal for my Dragons for higher pt games.

Rhino and tac squad were pretty mediocre, but how good could they have been? Lascannon out the top hatch was a bad plan, and next go-around I won't take a heavy weapon in the squad or just opt for the free missile launcher. I do however think the 12" move - unload - double tap of the boltgun is more useful over even a free ML, and I need to trick my sergeants with either a bolter or combi-melta instead of their bolt pistols (hangovers from 4th ed when you got the +1 A bonus).

Lastly I had a single las-auto pred. It fared alright. I don't recall it going above and beyond in any games, but it's got some decent firepower and at least it's mobile (and AV13) unlike the devastator team I was previously fielding.

Did some touchups to the army before I brought it in today, and hopefully I'll get some pics up sometime of the new and improved Dragons. Even though today was a lackluster showing, I won't be shelving them for future tourneys by any means. The army could use a little more refinement to get up to competitive 5th standards, but I definitely have some strengths going on and I like playing a varied tank force in contrast to my other armies.

Librarian

Finished my "Blood Dragons" Librarian for the upcoming 1500 pt tournament...

More to come