Galron

Vanguard would likely be the best out of the main books with its inherent -1 to hit and getting cover plus a lot of decent infantry strats. Against bugs I use it with my armored force just to try and blunt the insane firepower coming my way.

There are some serious hard counters but yeah it could work in some match ups. Just thinking about who I normally face and my own forces. Nidzilla would roast you and would love you to jump on the objectives early, just means they get that much closer faster. Not sure how my marine anti-Nidzilla list would do if I ran into it, its a lot of vehicles with some big guns but they are big low volume shots. I think my NL chaos force which is slightly more balanced would do better. My IG would really depend on the force I brought, I have too many of those including my own all infantry force. My main IW list would have a field day. But my lists are skewed in a certain direction due to one of my regular opponents whom I have to tailor against which means I will annihilate certain lists but am very weak vs others. I dont bring much melee as its almost pointless until the end for a final punch to take an objective.

The autocannon havocs, especially when they had a hellbrute supporting them still. Didnt fail their warp pact until the very last turn and their squad leader took 2 for the team. Losing my Spartan turn 1 to the very first volley from him was very demoralizing. I expected some damage but wow. I am still shocked by how ridiculously good lictors are for how few points they cost. I would never not have three if I had the option. Theres very few un-named characters in the game that can stand up to one in a duel and none that are anywhere near as cheap and thats before you start adding in special rules like sustained vs infantry or any strats they may have.

2nd Armored had a rough start on its first combined operation. They went against a nemesis of mine, nidzilla and the hive mind was blessing his dice rolls. We played the odd shaped end to end deployment, purge the foe mission, with a mission rule that was pretty useless and neither of us used it. My force was: 2k raiders Chaos lord Master of executions Sorcerer in terminator armor 2 legionnaire squads 10 man chosen squad Havocs with autocannons(MVPs) Raptors Hellbrute with lascannon and missiles Spartan Scorpius Kratos choom wagon Sicarian punisher Most of the infantry rode in the spartan. Knowing how my opponent normally plays i expected him to rush the NML objectives so I planned on a counter charge combined with a massive alpha strike with all the guns. As you will see it didn't work out so well. He fielded his usual invasion fleet. Hive tyrant all melee(mostly to give everything around it advance and shoot) Three of the big brain bugs(don't know the names, d6+6 blast strength 8 -2ap 3dam 18" and -1 to hit inside 6") Three big gun bugs 36" strength 8 -3 ap 3dam and anything it hits, other bugs reroll ones to hit) One giant flamethrower bug 2 pryrovores 1 bio ore 10 gargoyles 6 zoanthropes 1 giant zoanthrope whatever it's called. 2 ridiculously under pointed lictors. I went first. I tried long distance blasting and inflicted heavy damage on the bug flamethrower bug, killed one big gun bug, did chip damage on some brain bugs and hive tyrant. On his T1 he advanced everything. Took two of the three NML objectives but held the center with a lictor on the other side of terrain. Tried to contest the left side NML objective with another lictor but sicarian for some reason has 4 OC. His first shot of the game was 5 of the 6 zoanthropes nuking the spartan. Thankfully, out of the 22 guys on board, only 3 mortal wounds were inflicted and they were able to get out mostly out of range or behind terrain. The left lictor managed to do 6 damage to my sicarian in close combat. My turn 2 didn't go much better. I assaulted the lictor in combat with the sicarian with a legionnaire squad with MoE. Lictor 1st strikes the MOE and dies to the squad. The punisher was able to drop the giant flame thrower bug to 1 wound. I got both engage and whatever my other secondary was. I killed a second brain bug with the autocannon havocs. He made every other save. This started a trend that lasted until turn 4, he could not roll less than a 5 on anything it seemed. Rest of the game highlights: The Sorcerer dropped in the back corner and took on a pyrovore and the ten gargoyles and took a wound a turn but managed to survive but did not end up taking the objective in the end. He did kill the Pyro and half the gargoyles. Raptors died to the giant flamer thrower bug in one shot. Chosen and lord managed a charge through cover to kill 4 of the zoos. He then backed everyone out and shot almost everything at them. Even with armor of contempt, all but the lord died and he died to a overwatch from the giant flamer bug the next turn. The four legionnaires with power fists(heavy melee weapons) that remained after shooting and failed warp pacts killed a big bug gun on the left objective on turn 4. Autocannon squad went on to kill the hive tyrant, and the zoanthropes and a big gun bug all on the center objective. Kratos helped and took the center objective on turn 5 and killed a brain bug engaged with the lord in close combat and the final wound on the giant flame thrower bug. Scorpius died but killed the lictor. Final score was 40-40. He did well on primaries until t4 but didn't score crap on secondaries. I made 4 points a turn on Objective primaries but killed more units than him every round and maxed most of my secondaries. Overwatch is OP. Needs to be limited to just the unit being charged. These left field overwatches you can't do anything about are ridiculous. It's fine vs marine s4 flamers but when you are dealing with d6+x strength alot damage 2 -2ap and 18" range weapons that automatically hit then there are problems. Lictors. So a lone op, strikes first, t6, 5 wound, s7, -2 ap, 2 damage, bucket of precision attacks, infiltrating and rapid ingressing model is only 60 points? WTH is GW thinking that this is somehow balanced? I want something this good. Heck I will trade marine guns for nid guns. We don't have anything remotely this good and points efficient. I don't have anything this good in any of my many armies. Grrr. I might swap out the Scorpius for a predator. I think the spartan thing was just unlucky. Edit: I added the pics during his first turn from my deployment zone. Weirdly enough my other pics were 4.88mg + in size and won't load. Not sure why they took at different sizes since I didn't adjust zooms or anything. Oh well. For reference the havocs are in the building to the right next to the Kratos above the dreadnought.

You have so little higher strength firepower then you will want the missile launcher upgrade.

I have yet to use them but I agree with MG's philosophy on them. If you use them, you use them in threes. One is kind of a waste and you are better off with a battle cannon. Three means 1.5 will hit barring no other modifiers or rerolls.

My latest additions. I have a dreadnought/hellbrute for fire support sitting on my desk right now. I am going to get him, a punisher sicarian, a rhino, a land raider and a scorpius to the matt varnish point before weathering them all at one time for uniformity.

My incubi finally done. Holy crap they took forever. And I could still work on them for another few hours. Not happy with the OSL on their masks, I might just go back and paint them white again and leave them at that. Onto some mandrakes, something much easier to make forward progress on.

No biggie. I in theory will have the pre-weathering stages done on the two vehicles mentioned above maybe even tonight and more done on the terminators. I tool an admin day off yesterday(because theres a real fear they are going to yank them from us) and I was planning on just hitting the gym and painting all day, my version of a mental health day I guess lol. Didnt work out so well when I woke up to intense pain from one of my kidneys. Go go kidney stone! Needless to say, I got a little done last night after the ER trip before the pain meds wore off. Feeling much better this morning.

I could have sworn I posted them before too. But oh well. I have the Spartan, Kratos, contekar, + the terminator praetor, and Sevie on the bench right now. Sevie is 95%, contekars are 75% and the two vehicles are about 50%. Gotta finish the lightning bolts on the vehicles and decals then some varnish before I start weathering them. Terminators have all their base colors done as well as shading, they just need highlighting. Sevie, I really dont know what more he needs but I am not happy with him yet.

Could have sworn I had posted my Night lords here previously. I guess not. I'll take some further pics since these are older. I dont play tournaments typically so I dont have any hang-ups on using Legends. I also have a HH Armored Spear of Night Lords I treat as loyalists fluffwise but I bounce back and forth as need arises. My head canon here and I do have a story I am working on about them is a lost warfleet that jumped with its escorts before they could be turned on rather than fire on them when the legion betrayed its imperial army/navy allies. So it still has a full complement of heresy era tanks and the means to get them there. I think chaos still suits them better and I can play off the warp pact abilities as veteran skills and the occasional mortal wound as equipment break down over time. My list can be played as either Raiders or Seige Host with a simple change of enhancements. Not sure which version I like better. I mostly just enjoy tossing interesting vehicles on the board so people go "WTH is that?" Current 2k using Siege Host Chaos Lord - bastion plate (goes with chosen in spartan) Terminator sorceror with warp tracer Master of executions- iron artifice (goes with legionaries in Spartan) 5 legionaries meltagun melee build (rides in spartan) 5 chosen full loadout 5 havoc 4 autocannons- I am aware they would be better with lascannons but in Raiders they are pretty good with ACs 10 man Nemesis claw full loadout 5 Warp Talons Hellbrute with missile launcher and twin lascannon (stands next to Kratos) Kratos HK, 2 volkite calvers, 2vulkite culverins, volkite cardanelle, multi-melta, autocannon Sicaran Punisher HK, 3 Heavy bolters, Punisher rotary cannon, storm bolter(? really editors?) Spartan- twin heavy bolter, multi-melta pintle, two quad lascannons Scorpius- HK- storm bolter I really want to bring my Leviathan but the only one I would want to bring would be the dual Grav version. Its cool but if I go against big bugs its worthless. Hopefully one change they make next edition is anti-vehicle works for monsters too. Kind of silly that it doesnt and an entire army is immune despite being the equivalent except with chitin instead of steel. I have a different version that drops the lord, MoE, chosen and nemesis claw and replaces them with a term lord and 10 man terminator squad and a cultist squad. and for siege comes in at exactly 2k.

I had one of these in my old 6th edition army. It was a cool if unusual vehicle.

You are implying that they actually require reasons to have a price increase other than "Its that time of the year."

Or they simply "fix" and "improve" scourges by letting them be equipped with 1 dark lance, 1 haywire blaster, 1 heat gun, and 1 splinter cannon or follow the DKoK squad confusion and have several blocks of weapons to choose from but no more than 1 weapon from each section and no doubles unless you have more than 5 guys but still no more than 2 of the same weapon to a maximum of 4 special weapons and now we have to take shard carbines.