Iron Warriors ++ Tactica Thread - Iron Warriors ++

[TrawlingCleaner]

IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT

As with the similar tactica threads for other legions, this is aiming to be a one-stop-shop for Iron Warriors Tactics, combos and general tips for the 9th Edition Chaos Space Marine Codex.

 

What rules combinations have you spotted?

How will you build your lists?

What units best leverage the Legion Trait and Stratagems?

How have your games fared?

Have you got any tips new players to the faction?

[Prot]

Okay big IW game coming up today!

If you've seen my thread, you know I'm a very, very long time IW player considering re-launching my force. (Prot's IW pics )

 

While I think the codex looks largely motivated towards assault, and there's so many cool ideas floating around, I don't want to give up just yet on the IW, the Warpsmith, and Landraider core. 

To me Iron Warriors have traditional 'fluffy' units that I want to hope are going to be valid. Like I said, as I write this, it's going to be my first game with the new codex.

Those units that I want to base an IW theme around are:

- Warpsmith (Obvious choice)

- Master of Possession. Working with/protecting Daemon Engines is going to be big in my lists.

- Lord Discordant. Another obvious choice perhaps, but where the Warpsmith is +1 to hit in shooting, and repairing, the Disco Lord goes 'on the road' and keeps the daemon engines hitting on +1, and suppressing charges from the opponent. 

 

I don't see a huge offensive push from IW. It will be a move to use our defensive units, while retaining a push with firepower, and ground units like The Disco Lord, and the Venomcrawler(s).

 

Aside from the HQ's our Heavies are full of good choices for any Legion, but I see IW as being one of the best with Havocs/Oblits/Tanks. 

Unconventionally, I will have a 10 man troop loaded to test the new Mark of Tzeentch on Legionaries with an Icon, and 8 bolters, 2 Autocannons (or Autocanon/HvyBolter).

 

The Troops also beg for Cultists... any type, to use as fodder (anyone remember those poor mechanicians from Storm of Iron?) We can use a strat to basically hide behind them. The wording IS specific: Used at the beginning of your opponent's shooting phase and it's 2 CP, but it will be great for preserving the Havocs for a turn, hopefully!

 

Unconventional units might be necessary for scoring. IW might be habitually slow, so I am using Warp Talons, Spawn, and maybe Bikers for this, as the rest of the list is mostly ranged/mid ranged.

The only thing I'm really not great with in the IW rules is the Terminators. I used to absolutely love taking them, but I feel like the other legions just do them a lot better, including Red Corsairs with their relic armour giving them all a 4++. Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm skipping Termies for now.

 

Lots of our strats assist survival. I plan on using them sparingly. We will have so few CP to start. I'll try to report back how it goes.  I'd love to hear what others are doing.

[USNCenturion]

Still digging through everything and am excited to see the responses to the thread, but off the top of my head one thing I’m intrigued by is the shoot into melee strat and the cultist bodyguards rule. I like to run a forward pressure gun line and the ability to not only tie up a combat unit but to be able to shoot them while they’re locked seems like a neat trick to pull. 
 

The only fast attack I bother with is a venomcrawler. I’m looking forward to seeing how the bikes and raptors work for @Prot      I’m also curious how the tzeentch icon works in game. The Nurgle icon looks effective too, especially with a reaper chaincannon and flamer. 

[Llagos_Tyrant]

My experience with the new codex is limited to one game of Crusade, so it's not easily translatable to matched play games - BUT that being said, the new book was amazing to play with and it was against the top performing player in our Crusade 13-2 W/L ratio, and I tied her in the mission.

A Master of Possession with Obliterators felt amazing - buffing them with the Daemonsmith trait and healing and resurrecting them with the Pact of Flesh psychic power is amazing, and their new gun profiles are great. @Prot above you talk about Terminators, and this was also a clutch unit to have with the Master of Possession and our strats - but it takes the combo to make them shine. Iron Warriors Dour Duty on Terminators to reduce incoming damage by 1 is great, and then if you use Pact of Flesh on Terminators as well to heal and resurrect them, they become a much bigger anvil.

I also ran a Warpsmith with a Vindicator and Predator with the quad lascannon profile. Both units were more useful than previously - T8 is a great buff, combined with our IW trait to not re-roll wounds, and they performed better with the Siege Lord trait to hand out +1 damage. I did this on both the Predator and Vindicator, and it is certainly a nice plus on the LasPred for 3+D6 damage on the turret weapons. That said, it felt better on the Vindicator weapon because of the better shots, strength, and AP - and felt good paired with Methodical Destruction to re-roll damage. The Vindicator with a 2+ and Armour of Contempt also soaked up a lot of fire with the ability to heal from the Warpsmith kept it going strong - it was one of my two units to survive to the end of the game.

Chosen were interesting, but didn't play a large role - I did consider them a good candidate for Dour Duty, but it never really came up. I also had two squads of Havocs (4x RCC, 4x Las) but only the RCC Havocs had the chance to really shine. Having them and the Oblits covering my flanks gave me a lot of anti-infantry and anti-tank firepower to work with which was great. I also ran a squad of Legionaries but they didn't accomplish much before they were wiped.

I think the Mark of Nurgle will pair well with making our survivable units even harder to knock off - it pairs extremely well with our no re-rolling wounds Legion trait.

These are initial thoughts and based on Crusade, but it was nice to play a full game against the top army in our group's Crusade and not get stomped by the end of Turn 3.

[BrainFireBob]

Can't double on the heavy in Legionaire squads. You get 2 picks but they must be different.

 

MoP, oblits, daemonkin trait. Seems win

[TrawlingCleaner]

As I've mentioned in another thread, we have (potentially) the toughest vehicle in the game with the Landraider:

T9 with 16W and a 2+ armour (with AoC), it can't have wounds rerolled against it. Melta wounds on 5s, Lascannons on 4s which is pretty great! Popping Unholy vigor on it means that they're -1 to Wound against it, so Melta is wounding on 6s, Las on 5s with no Wound rerolls! It can use the Smokescreen strat (-1 to be hit) or can also have Illusiory Supplication chanted on it so it can only be hit on 4+, also with no rerolls.

Would you ever need all of that? I don't think so, most opponents would see the Unholy Vigor strat and just plain ignore it. Even Tau railguns would struggle to deal with it. If the opponent decided to try and MW it to death, you can also drop the Spiteful Endurance Strat for a 5+ Feel no pain!

 

@Prot, on the point about Terminators not being great as IW, I would disagree. With AoC, a terminator needs to be hit by an -4AP weapon before hitting their 5+ Invuln. The majority of weapons that do target them are -2AP and -3AP so a 4+ invuln feels unneeded in my opinion.

A great combo for us would be: Terminator squad with MoT, Black Rune and a Character (probably MoP for Pact of Flesh) with Bastion to give them ObSec. You can string these guys out and be in range of a central objective (even better if you can get on theirs) to be -1W with no rerolls. MoT works well for getting hit by Anti-Tank, just be wary of opponents throwing small arms at them to get them to fail 1 save. Again you can beef them up even further with Illusory Supplication if you want but similar to the Landraider, they'll probably just ignore the unit. Both the Terminators and the Landraider (to a lesser extent) are units that really shouldn't be ignored as they will pump out damage. Mark of Slaanesh could be pretty nice on the Terminators too so that they cancel out any opponent's charge priority. MoN with the Black Rune is functionally useless as you'll be aiming to be on objectives with them at all time anyways.

 

Chaincannon Havoc also seem to have a lot of play in my opinion. With Tank Hunters, they're auto wounding on 6s to hit and getting an additional hit when in Wanton Destruction. With 32 shots, they should have about 5 autowounds with 5 additional hits, which is quite nice.

[Gothical]

I think one of the big questions is whether or not your force wants to take Marks and Icons on some units. Background-wise obviously the Iron Warriors aren't up on worshipping the Pantheon, but at the same time they will use Chaos as a tool and every Warband differs slightly in philosophy and even squads within the Warband may see things differently. You can also justify certain bonuses as being because of improved wargear/bionics rather than dedication to the Gods.

Personally I will be using a sprinkling of Marks - I will be using one Legionaries squad with Mark of Tzeentch and Icon (perhaps with Reaper Autocannon and Heavy Bolter), perhaps a one squad (or two MSU) with Mark of Khorne if I am not using Raptors for the close-assault/Melta role. I might mark a Terminator unit and perhaps Helbrutes for access to additional stratagems and increased toughness, and any Daemon Prince obviously has to have a mark - but the bulk of my force will remain unmarked.

Likewise, I may use a unit of Possessed - my Warsmith views them with disdain and utilises them as a "forlorn hope" unit to storm breaches in fortifications, because they are both efficient weapons and are disposable because of their weakness for making a pact with a Daemon (and/or possession was forced upon them as punishment or as a result of experimenting with applying the principles of Daemon Engines to Power Armour) so benefits the Warband as a whole.

Others may view Marks and Possessed as being a corruption of the Iron Warriors ethos, so elements like that do come down to personal preference, but will alter the tactical options available to an Iron Warriors force.

The Legion Trait:

With the wording of "does not receive the benefits of cover" means it applies to both Light, Heavy and Dense cover, making weapons like the Reaper Chaincannon and the Obliterators' first two profiles an absolute terror to enemy infantry. It is harder to get cover for vehicles in the first place so there is less benefit to Lascannons and the like, but it is nice to have in situations where it does come up. Bypassing Heavy cover is handy for when our units launch the mop-up assaults or try to claim objectives.

The second part of the trait has been modified in the Balance Update, and the combination of Armour of Contempt with preventing re-rolls to Wound can make our units incredibly tough - especially Terminators and vehicles (T9 Land Raider) - and then we have access to excellent stratagems to enhance this even further.

Overall I think we have a pretty nice Legion Trait as both parts are effective and both affect almost every unit in the army on a frequent basis.

The Warlord Traits:

Siege Lord - this only affects one unit per turn, but it can be applied to a wide variety of units as it applies to both Core and Vehicle units - so Terminators, Havocs, Legionaries, Bikers, Raptors, Helbrutes, the regular Tanks and the Daemon Engines all can make use of this trait (even the Lord of Skulls). The damage boost makes Soulshatter Lascannons and Meltaguns absolutely devastating, improves the reliability of all of the flat D6 damage weapons, and can make weapons like the Reaper Chaincannon and Havoc Autocannon a threat to vehicles too, especially if you can improve their AP or ability to wound at the same time. As a side note, a Lord Discordant with Mark of Khorne fulfils all the requirements to make use of this trait and will absolutely tear apart vehicles in melee.

Daemonsmith - this affects the units that carry some of the best firepower available to us and boosts them to hit on 2s but again only affects one unit per turn. If there is a Lord nearby granting re-rolls to 1s to Hit then this can make our weapons ridiculously reliable, or you can use the Exalted Champion's aura to improve the chance to wound alongside the boost to hit. This feels like a great trait for a supporting Warpsmith or Master of Possession that will already be hanging out with the ideal targets anyway.

Unyielding Mettle - a great survivability boost that doesn't use up a Relic slot makes this a fantastic option for the Daemon Prince, Terminator Lord or Lord Discordant who also have innate invulnerable saves. It doesn't provide support for the rest of the army but helps us build a powerful monster of a character without having to choose between survivability and damage output.

Bastion - Being able to apply Hold Steady to a unit of Reaper Chaincannon Havocs is really going to ruin a charging units day, likewise applying Set to Defend to a unit of Legionaries with Chainswords, Chosen, Terminators or even a Helbrute means that the models which survive the charge (which with the defensive boosts we can give Helbrutes and Terminators should be a decent number) are going to hit back hard. The second part of the trait means out incredibly tanky Terminators can hold objectives extremely well, it means you don't have to escort Havocs with Legionaries to claim backfield objectives, and that Legionaries can content objectives against both tough elite units and hordes like Orks. It is not one that looks devastating on paper but I think in-game will be surprisingly powerful.

Architect of Destruction - this is fantastic for our ranged support squads and vehicles. Sadly it doesn't affect Obliterators, but it means units of Havocs and Predators/Vindicators/Forgefiends/Land Raiders/Lord of Skulls get the exploding 6s back in later turns, further enhancing our firepower.

Implacable Taskmaster - whilst Havocs already have this ability built in, being able to make a normal move but still fire to full effect (not just the Heavy weapons but also applies to Malicious Volleys from the Boltguns) allows us to build a more traditional gunline but not be kept out of the objective game. Being able to reposition in the first turn and fire at full effect with Wanton Destruction active should mean a solid first-turn shooting phase, and helps out Legionaries units push on to objectives early and be closer for using Wanton Massacre into the second round.

The Stratagems:

Bitter Enmity - a fluffy stratagem that won't come up often, but when it does it will help boost the output of Terminators, Chosen and Possessed against the very elite units like Bladeguard Veterans that they otherwise might bounce off of, and allows Legionaries and Raptors to overcome the more regular line units.

Tank Destroyers - I had to re-read this one several times. This is absolutely fantastic as you select one ENEMY vehicle and ANY Iron Warriors unit gets the bonus against the target. This is nice when so many of our Warlord traits are restricted to a single friendly unit. It also helps the mid-strength weapons like Reaper Chaincannons, Daemon Shell Heavy Bolters and Havoc Autocannons to put damage on otherwise tough vehicles.

Dour Duty - applies to Core Infantry or Daemonkin, meaning that our Terminators, Possessed and Obliterators can have their survivability boosted even further. Combined with the potential for Marks (on the Terminators) and Psychic Powers (on all) we can create some devastatingly tanky units. It can be used on other targets in a pinch, but those three seem like the best general use for the stratagem.

Cold-Hearted Malignity - This is really nice for those units the opponent hasn't quite finished off, making the remaining models (say a Heavy Weapon trooper, lone Meltagunner or a Melee squad leader) more dangerous and helps bog down the opponent's resources.

Methodical Annihilation - this can be placed on any unit, in theory allowing a Legionaries unit with Lascannon/Meltagun a re-roll to damage (but must be declared in advance) or a Havoc unit with Missile Launchers to bombard a squad with Frag missiles, but I think the best use for it will be on a Defiler or Vindicator. Personally I am thinking of using this on a Vindicator with Combi-Melta, allowing a potential re-roll on the D6+2 Meltagun shot and getting maximum output from the Vindicator Cannon (boosting number of shots against MSU units and re-rolling damage on one of those hits if not needed on the Meltagun). The Vindicator is a really tough cookie for the Iron Warriors - T8 2+ Save ignoring 1 AP and you cannot re-roll wounds against it, and it ignores cover with an improved cannon and access to this Stratagem and the Siege Lord Warlord Trait). It can be played on a Lord of Skulls for the damage boost and maximising the hits through the Blast rule, even though the Lord of Skulls can already fire blast weapons within engagement range (and suffers no penalty for doing so), worth bearing in mind given it can have two Blast weapons with a significant number of potential shots.

Unholy Vigour - combine this with Armour of Contempt, the modified Legion Trait and that Chaos Land Raider, Lord Discordant, Maulerfiend or Lord of Skulls is utterly menacing.

Cannon Fodder - excellent for protecting either small model-count units (Havocs, MSU Legionaries) or expensive ones (Possessed, Terminators) or both (Obliterators). This stratagem alone makes me want to take a 10-man Terminator squad and walk them up the board behind a bow-wave of Cultists. It costs a lot of CP to use for more than one turn, but sometimes weathering just one turn of firepower will be enough to get the Terminators into the enemy lines (eg out of range first turn, screened second turn, charging 3rd turn). A great foil for the anti-elite units like Hellblasters and high-damage blast weapons.

Spiteful Endurance - only applies to Mortal Wounds but now we have great multi-wound profiles Mortal Wounds are one of the better counters to CSM units. Combined with other stratagems, relics, Warlord traits and so forth this is anther tool in our arsenal to have utterly brick-like units.

[DesuVult]

I am applying marks and icons liberally to represent the more elite nature of veterans of the long war.  At 15 points the Mark of Tzeentch costs less than a body but can be expected to save you one so makes for a decent default to me.

[Kythnos]

On 7/6/2022 at 9:24 PM, Prot said:

Okay big IW game coming up today!

How did your game go, Prot? I always appreciate your battle reports and your thoughts on those. 

[USNCenturion]

4 hours ago, Kythnos said:

How did your game go, Prot? I always appreciate your battle reports and your thoughts on those. 

I’m also looking forward to a write up, though I haven’t even gamed with mine yet and am dreading his reports on what units are already not working lol!

[Kythnos]

18 hours ago, EnsignJoker said:

I haven’t even gamed with mine yet 

Me neither. I haven't even been able to get hold of the codex yet. Tried to get it in two shops on Monday instead of ordering online for a change and it was already sold out. Made my IV legion paranoia kick in 

[Prot]

I did a brief write up.  Honestly I don’t think there’s a lot I would change aside from perhaps experimenting a little too much on 10 man Legionnaires with marks/icons, and upgrades. 
 

Oblits were mixed, the Landraider was so fun, but it was a good matchup. Deny cover with AP1 bolters and Havocs with Chaincannons go “burrrrrr” against the right enemy. 
 

just right now I really don’t l8ke the CP management issues. Here you want to try the flavour of your army, with strats and toys, and you just can’t right now. 

[MegaVolt87]

I'm not very happy with the codex, however I acknowledge the  design direction the devs have gone in. In light of that and the general 40k meta IW's are actually well positioned to play for objectives to win on exclusively. The following reflects that as a pure CSM build, no mortals or FW units- 

IW 2,000pts
Battalion detachment

HQ

Master of possesion
ASPIRING LORD (-1CP) 
WLT- UNYIELDING METTLE
SMITE
CURSED EARTH
MUTATED INVIGORATION
-105pts

Dark Apostle
Mark of Nurgle
Dark zelotry
Feculent Beseechment
Benediction of darkness
WARLORD
RELIC- INSIDIUM (-1CP)
WLT- BASTION (-1CP)
-110 pts

TROOPS

x10 CSM
Icon
Mark of Nurgle
Champ w/ PF + bolter
Heavy Chainaxe
8 bolter
- 220pts

x10 CSM
Icon
Mark of Nurgle
Champ w/ PF + bolter
Heavy Chainaxe
8 bolter
-220pts

x10 CSM
Icon
Mark of Nurgle
Champ w/ PF + bolter
Heavy Chainaxe
8 bolter
-220pts

ELITE

x9 possesed
-252pts

x9 terminators
Mark of Nurgle
x3 powerfist
Chainfist
-332pts

HEAVY SUPPORT

x2 Obliterators
-180pts

x2 Obliterators
-180pts

x2 Obliterators
-180pts

ARMY TOTAL-1,999pts
 

Going all in to buff out staying power for objectives scoring. Burning up the CP straight away to keep our HQ's going longer, the WLT Bastion coming in clutch to get our termi's or possessed obsec. The classic cheese of 2 man oblits deepstrike makes its debut once again. Ideally, termi's should get icon access to get those combi bolters cranking, but I can live with their upped tank to compensate. We are CSM, we are used to not having our cake and eating it too. So, you just camp and die on objectives and hit things that get close or be more active if you are losing too many models or will lose models quickly. Limited things to do, you will have quick turns and fast games with this list. 

Edited July 12, 2022 by MegaVolt87

[Muskie]

I'm an Iron Warrior or will be at some point, I will run the Diseased Sons as Iron Warriors with the Mark of Nurgle as I have lots of Havocs plus other units I can't field with the Death Guard Codex, plus I can still run Plague Marines as Elites. I actually think Iron Warriors look pretty great, I always struggle with shooting especially at enemy armour so the various boosts available will help me personally I imagine. Haven't gotten in any games yet, but I've been scheming and reading up so will follow along on this thread too.

[USNCenturion]

Has anyone tried using the legion secondary? Was it at all successful to achieve?

[Prot]

Nope. I haven't even bothered. I just take Long War and go for other secondaries based on the mission/list I have.

I just don't like the wording of it at all... I think you can start it normally, but it completes the action next turn. Just way too easy to shut down (if I recall the description.)

Edited July 13, 2022 by Prot

[MegaVolt87]

"at the end of the turn" yeah, guess it should say player turn to actually be decent I guess.  Another issue is where the markers will actually go, they could be in really awkward spots. 

[Relic]

In terms of Secondaries for Iron Warriors - I think Long War is decent, Raise the Banners (as we are durable to take off them) and the last one is a throw up in the air. Definitely not our Legion one anyways as it is awful! 

Played a few games now with the new codex:

1. I think we build around Dour Duty. -1 damage for a CP is fantastic. It makes your small MSU squads annoyingly hard to kill.
2. Bastion WL is a given as well I think. Obsec on a core unit and the associated hold/defend bonus is really solid. 
3. MoP with Liber Book and DA with Illusory Supplication is clearly very strong and takes two of your 3 HQ slots. The last HQ slot, I like re-rolls so have used an exalted champion who is more bare bones, but Lords can be spicy as well. Our Warpsmith is very solid as well, able to heal 3 wounds with his relic and dish out mortals. 
4. Black Rune of Damnation - crazy good for a unit relic. 
5. I've had fun with a Master of Executions with unyielding mettle (5+++, +1T) and Insidium (+St, T & W). He combos nicely with 12" cursed earth off off the MoP to get a 4++. Not as killy as other legions, but he can tank a lot. Also the daemon keyword gives you access to Dour Duty. 
6. On the fence regarding Oblits. They get more from our Legion Trait then anyone else and are quite durable with cursed earth. More of a tank unit now that does some shooting/close combat. Honestly happy when people shoot them instead of terminators, warp talons etc! We can bring back a dead model with Pact of Flesh as well, so opponent needs to wipe a unit in one go.
7.  Overall enjoying the 4th so far with the new codex. We have a really strong legion trait and some good strats. Where we may fall down is our secondary game. Not having 3 really go to picks puts us in an awkward spot. 

 

Edited July 15, 2022 by Relic

[Plague _Lord]

Had my first game with the new codex and it was a very interesting game since it was... a mirror match against iron warriors! We had pretty different lists so we got a lot of insights from this game:

My list was a tanky disco lord with MoT, gorget, unyielding mettle, MoP with book, Warpsmith with Daemonsmith, 3x10 cultists, 10 MoS terminators with full fisting power, 2x5 MoK chosen in a Land Raider, 1 venomcrawler, 1 vindicator, 3 oblits.

My opponent had a killy disco lord with flames of spite and ulocca the black, MoP, Priest, 10 termies kitted for shooting, 3x10 cultists, 3 oblits, 2 plasma fiends, 2x5 raptors, 2x5 possessed.

As you can see pretty different armies. This game was SUPER WEIRD and not because we made a lot of mistakes and forgot a bunch of rules. It was weird because we both had a lot left on the board at the end of the game. It was a true war of attrition. We basically had a long terminator filled melee for the middle objective and it was pretty brutal. In the end I came out winning 60-48 because I managed to get to the middle a bit earlier. We both had similiar problems - the biggest one for both of us was picking secondaries and we both ended up scoring really low on them. I took banners, engage (lol got like 4 points out of this) and no prisoners and he took really similiar ones. We also both found our shooting lacking, even though mine was doing damage I had like 3 times that 1 possessed was left standing on an objective and no more firepower to take the last one out.

 

Some key observations:

- Cursed earth is dead. I took this with buffing obliterators and the venomcrawler in mind but it didn't end up doing anything. AoC has killed this spell and I was a dumbo for taking it over the resurection one. Had I done that, my win would have been much smoother.

- Warp marked on the other hand is amazing. +1 to wound does wonders. I ended up taking the lowest profile on oblits due to this and making my opponent take A LOT of saves. 24'' range from the book and not needing LoS is amazing.

- Vindicator is still bad sadly. It killed 2 terminators that just got rezzed later on. I'm still going to take it to the RTT tommorrow, it just needs a suitable target i.e. tanks.

- Land Raider was pretty good, I don't think it even got shot at - it's just too tough. The khorne chosen comming out of it also did decent work any were suprisingly durable. S6 and ap-4 is pretty good vs AoC.

- I like Obliterators though I think they cost around 5-10ppm too much. They are still pretty random and I wound up using the bottom two profiles through the whole game thanks to getting warp marked off. This game I was using the daemonsmith buff on the LR and vindicator but during the RTT I will be probably buffing the oblits with +1 to hit just to maximise their output. Still on the fence on whether to DS them or start them on the board. 24'' is pretty limiting.

- Terminators with MoS and black rune where amazing. Really tough and I didn't even have the ressurection power.

 

Iron warriors in general felt really cool - ignore cover is amazing and the no rerolls to wounds comes in handy to keeping the vehicles alive. Changed my list a bit for tommorrow's tournament - cut some terminators in favor of a 2nd venomcrawler just to get some more aggro in.

[Kythnos]

Fellow warsmiths,

I finally got around to building my first list with the new codex to try in a game soonish, probably against a loyalist chapter.

The idea is to have the Warpsmith buffing the Predator and Forgefiend, while Legionnairies, Chosen and Cultists push ahead, depending on the mission.

Important to note is that we play in narrative mode and missions with PL and mostly WYSIWYG. So no secondary objectives to keep in mind.

What do you think about the unit selection? Anything else you would recommend trying? I wanted to keep things relatively simple for the first game with the new codex.

 

++ Patrol Detachment 0CP (Chaos - Chaos Space Marines) [49 PL, 2CP, 990pts] ++

+ Configuration +

Battle Size [3CP]: 1. Combat Patrol (0-50 Total PL / 0-500 Points) 

Detachment Command Cost

Gametype: Narrative (Non Crusade)

Legion: Iron Warriors

 

+ HQ +

Warpsmith [6 PL, 95pts]: 2. Daemonsmith, Exalted power axe, Fleshmetal Exoskeleton, Mark of Tzeentch, Warlord

 

+ Troops +

Accursed Cultists [6 PL, 150pts]

. 10x Mutant: 10x Blasphemous appendages

. 6x Torment: 6x Hideous mutations

 

Legionaries [13 PL, 230pts]: Chaos Icon, Mark of Tzeentch

. Aspiring Champion: Bolt pistol, Power fist

. 7x Marine w/ boltgun: 7x Bolt pistol, 7x Boltgun, 7x Frag & Krak grenades

. Marine w/ heavy weapon: Havoc autocannon

. Marine w/ special weapon: Plasma gun

 

+ Elites +

Chosen [8 PL, -1CP, 145pts]: Chaos Icon, Mark of Khorne

. Chosen: Bolt pistol, Boltgun

. Chosen: Bolt pistol, Boltgun

. Chosen: Bolt pistol, Boltgun

. Chosen: Bolt pistol, Boltgun

. Chosen Champion: Black Rune of Damnation, Bolt pistol, Boltgun, Trophies of the Long War

 

+ Heavy Support +

Chaos Predator Annihilator [8 PL, 175pts]: Combi-bolter

. Two lascannons: 2x Lascannon

Forgefiend [8 PL, 175pts]: 2x Heavy hades autocannons, Ectoplasma cannon

++ Total: [49 PL, 2CP, 970pts] ++

Edited July 26, 2022 by Kythnos

[Relic]

Nice, hard to say much without knowing your collection but my tidbits would be:

 

• For the Warpsmith I highly suggest taking his Techno-venomous Mechatendrils. It heals a flat three wounds and there is nothing stooping you using all of his 9  attacks with the Mechatendrils for an average of 6 mortal wounds in close combat. No need to take a mark on him. 

 

• I don't think you need that much gear on your Legionaries. I'd probably run two bare bone squads without marks for holding objectives. 

 

• If you could work the points, a Dark Apostle with the illusory supplication is a very solid HQ slot. If you drop the gear on the legionairies and marks in your list+icons, I think you get close to the points. 

Best of luck with the game! 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Relic

[Kythnos]

1 hour ago, Relic said:

Nice, hard to say much without knowing your collection

Apart from Vindicator, Possessed, Warp Talons and Bikers I should be able to field everything in the codex.

1 hour ago, Relic said:

For the Warpsmith I highly suggest taking his Techno-venomous Mechatendrils. It heals a flat three wounds and there is nothing stooping you using all of his 9  attacks with the Mechatendrils for an average of 6 mortal wounds in close combat. No need to take a mark on him. 

Good idea, I never thought about using his regular attacks with the mechatendrils. That is quite the output for the Warpsmith.

1 hour ago, Relic said:

I don't think you need that much gear on your Legionaries. I'd probably run two bare bone squads without marks for holding objectives. 

Probably not, that is true. But I do like my Legionaries well-equiped as an Iron Warrior. At least I skipped on the psyker and the axe.

1 hour ago, Relic said:

If you could work the points, a Dark Apostle with the illusory supplication is a very solid HQ slot. If you drop the gear on the legionairies and marks in your list+icons, I think you get close to the points

Pointswise that might work, but we use PL here. That would require larger changes. Generally speaking, are two HQs at 50PL useful? My previous experiences have been that this made me have too few units. What are everyone 's experiences?

[Relic]

To be honest - I never play at 1K/PL so hard for me to say - you may well be right that one HQ is enough! For what it is worth, whilst I don't hate our troops, they aren't stellar either so i'd likely divest into other things and taking bastion on the warlord to hand out obsec. A five man terminator squad with the black rune would seem a strong core to a small list. 

My experience so far is that our shooting is not stellar, we're to be honest a close combat army now I think, with some supplementary fire support. So i'd build around that personally.

[MegaVolt87]

Any codex operates differently with big skew below 2k points. The better way to do that would be to make a 2k goal list first, then shrink that with the goal to build up to that. Nothing worse than slow growing and buying stuff that won't work effectively at 2k pts, thats what 40k has been balanced to for a long time now. 

[Kythnos]

Thanks for the additional feedback, Relic. You might very well be right about close combat as the bigger strength in our book. I think the easiest way to shift the list in that direction without changing much would be to change the Legionaries to a CC loadout. Will give this a thought.

9 hours ago, MegaVolt87 said:

Any codex operates differently with big skew below 2k points. The better way to do that would be to make a 2k goal list first, then shrink that with the goal to build up to that. Nothing worse than slow growing and buying stuff that won't work effectively at 2k pts, thats what 40k has been balanced to for a long time now. 

That is actually nothing I am worrying about, since I have about 6k points of IW at home.

The main reason for using small-scale battles in our gaming group is actually time. 9th edition games tend to take very long from our experiences, so we try to fit those into our limited time budgets via using less points/PL.