Figured out what's been bugging me about my meta

[Belfast]

I've finally figured out what's been confounding me about my local meta. We play 1850 tourneys with a strict 2 hour time limit and three matches per player. Also, each table is preset for terrain and here in lies the distinction. There is completely too much terrain on most of these tables and too many points for the time limit. The terrain is set up for a "story" battle field which means that fire lanes can be extremely hard to solidify, in some set ups non existant, and there is cover everywhere. This was especially the case in my last tourney (finished 4th out of 8), my first match only went 2 and a half rounds (didn't get my turn). I would have won at the end of two with a score of 6-4 (FB, Linebreaker, 1 obj, 1 heavy kill to 1 obj and line breaker) but his Khorne Berzerker VotLW list hit my lines on 3 and killed my scoring LF squad my objective as well as killing my warlord(2- 6). I would have tied or possibly won it at the end of three :D

 

Basically, with the sheer amount of terrain/cover and the strict 2 hour time limit, it is rare for a match to go past round 4 (end of 3 is usually where we have to stop) and it heavily favors assault oriented and fast armies since most of the units will still be alive by turn three due to all the cover. I have realized that my space wolves are "too slow" for my meta even though I've been running three rhino's every week (It seems I can't roll cover saves) and 4 TWC in my last tourney.

 

What I've determined is that drop pods are probably the way to go for this environment (planning on running three but have 2 more I can assemble) and another unit or two that can cover the board quickly would also be helpful. Now, I'm not a WAAC kind of player, but my FLGS has a $20 buy in that turns to store credit if you play all 3 rounds and the top half of competitors get some form of extra credit (I got $10 for 4th with 8 players) so it behooves me to do well in these since I get free stuff for doing well. The lowest I've seen 1st get is $30 (6 players) in credit on top of their $20. Although, one month we had 16 people and the payout was ridiculous (I got $20 for 6th).

 

One added bonus to all the terrain is that drop pods won't be scattering as far as they would with more empty tables since they will be limited in space and there will be plenty of cover/LoS to abuse in protecting the units I drop.

 

With all this in mind, here's what I'm thinking about running:

 

 

HQ - TDA rune priest - Divination powers - mastery 2 - 170

 

T1 - 10x GH - 2x Plasma gun, Wolf Standard, MotW, drop pod - 220

 

T2 - 10x GH - 2x Melta gun, Wolf standard, MotW, Drop pod - 215

 

T3 - 10x GH - 2x Plasma gun, wolf standard, MotW - 185 (really want to get this squad a transport of some kind.

 

T4 - 10x GH - 2x Plasma gun, wolf standard, MotW - 185

 

E1 - Dreadnaught - MM, HF, Drop Pod, DCCW - 150

 

E2 - Lone Wolf - TDA, CF, SS - 85

 

F1 - 4x TWC - 2x SS, Pfist - 285

 

H1 - 5x LF + SL - 5x ML - 140

 

H2 - 4x LF + SL - 4x ML - 115

 

Fort - Aegis Defense Line + quad gun - 100 (could easily switch to com relay - probably would with 5+ drop pods/ reserves)

 

 

I'm going to play test this Thursday and play for the win on round 3 or 4. The things I'm not sure about are the lone wolf and the dreadnaught. I've had mixed experiences with lone wolves. On one hand they can assault and destroy a LR on turn one if the LRC moved 12 and tar pit many passenger options after that. On the other hand, they're slow as molasses and with how much difficult terrain there usually is they frequently won't make it to enemy gun lines until turn 3 assuming he's still alive. The dreadnaught is tempting because it can do some real damage on turn one and tar pit with the best of them but is going to be easily taken out with anti-tank weapons. In other words, the dreadnaught and the lone wolf fill the same role and the dread drop pod is more mobile but weaker per point than the LF.

 

Also, I've had mixed reactions with TWC; either they decimate a unit or get decimated and rarely survive the match either way.

 

Other options I have are:

 

2 unassembled drop pods

 

2 or 3 Dreadnaughts - can swap weapons around

 

10 WG TDA - magnetized- waiting for bits order to make combi weapons

 

10 Black reach termies - Pfist + Stormbolters... Meh

 

1 LRC - WGBL or wolf priest with saga of the hunter leading WG/GH would be very potent

 

1 LRC/LRR - see above

 

2 more TWC - one with SS

 

1 TWC lord /wgBL - TH, SS, runic armor

 

 

The ironic part to all this is that I have a ton of unassembled bikes and land speeders that I never built for my old BT army 4 years ago. Also, I traded my DV box so my buddy could get cultists and ended up with double DA. Assuming the situation doesn't change, I should have a rather large Raven wing list that I can ally with my SW (heresy, I know) so I'm not really interested in buying new units that I may not use often (so no swiftclaws or sky claws) but I might be down for more drop pods.

 

Am I going in the right direction with this given my local meta?

[greysquigg]

I'd be half tempted to drop the dread and lone wolf, prune a bit elsewhere and go with a LRR

 

I run a very similar army to you by way of unit choice, and find that the raider will more than hold it's own point-wise, especially with all that cover. It will get you that scary "come and shoot me" sign keeping the scarier weapons from either shooting your twc or LF. Not to mention those flame storm cannons making zerker bbq turn 2.

If you're running your drop pods then it will go some ways to drawing fire off of that turn 1 pod, you can give em the ol' 1-2 :D

 

Hope this helps

 

GS

[Godhead]

I am thinking more and more that a drop pod army with wolves might be the way to go. Also with the changes to the strategic reserves roll, people cannot just hold "everything in reserves" against this list. With everything in a drop pod, though, you get to do exactly that. This allows you to null deploy against those alpha striking gun lines and gives you wicked mobility. Plus it also provides you the opportunity to react to their deployment and hit a weaker flank, etc..

[Vlk]

Drop Pod army all the way. I´ve used Pods for all my 6th ed battles and the game is usually practically over by the fourth round. The following rounds are almost always just mopping up of what´s left from either you or your opponent .)

[Belfast]

Thanks for the input all. I'm really anxious to try it out tonight

 

Drop Pod army all the way. I´ve used Pods for all my 6th ed battles and the game is usually practically over by the fourth round. The following rounds are almost always just mopping up of what´s left from either you or your opponent .)

 

Yea that's the one thing I'm worried about. There's 2 list at our tourneys that will be rough for drop pods. Both are open top transport spam: one DE, one Necron.

 

Will definitely take a bit of practice and fine tuning

[Godhead]

Drop Pod army all the way. I´ve used Pods for all my 6th ed battles and the game is usually practically over by the fourth round. The following rounds are almost always just mopping up of what´s left from either you or your opponent .)

 

How are you tooling out your lists? How many pods, any longfang support? I was thinking that if I did actually include longfangs, that I would just put them in a pod as well. Anyways, i look forward to your input.