[2000pts] Imperial Fists 405th Company.

[Surrender_Monkey]

I've decided to have a go at the whole Heresy thing, partly because 40k is looking like a bit of a mess, partly because I have some ideas for converting my old Chaos marines and mostly because I think the whole concept is great. This will probably be a long term project, building the army up a small bit at a time. No doubt plans will change (especially since IF are in the next book) but I like to have a list on paper before I start.

 

I had my eye on the Imperial Fists anyway, but since I play Crimson Fists in 40k I thought I should pick the 405th company, since their captain Alexis Polux went on to found the Crimson Fists and one would assume this company made up the core of the new chapter. With this in mind I set some ground rules:

 

- Alexis Polux is a Praetor. I am not sure if this is an appropriate rank for him, but since he is a legendary figure he definitely deserves the enhanced stat line. I'm using the stock power armoured Praetor to represent him.

- No Terminators. This is a very lowly ranked company so they haven't got any of the relatively new tactical dreadnought armour yet, there's 404 companies above them in the pecking order! I do like the models and might do some anyway, but for now they're out.

- Alexis himself will have a red left hand, since it's his personal heraldry, the rest of his company will not. I'd like to incorporate some crimson into the scheme somehow, but I think the classic red shoulder pad trim doesn't look fantastic, so any ideas welcome.

 

Anyway I drew up 2000pts to try and get a feel for this army list:

 

HQ

 

Alexis Polux (165)

- Praetor

- Iron Halo

- Paragon Blade

- Digital Lasers

 

Troops

 

Legion Tactical Squad (200)

- 5 Extra Marines

 

Legion Tactical Squad (200)

- 5 Extra Marines

 

Legion Breacher Siege Squad (365)

- 10 Extra Marines

- 4x Volkite Charger

 

Elites

 

Apothecarian Detachment (135)

- 3 Apothecaries

 

Contemptor Mortis Dreadnought (185)

- Twin Linked Lascannon

 

Legion Veteran Tactical Squad (265)

- 4 Extra Veterans

- Melta Bombs

- Heavy Flamer

- 2x Power Sword

- Sergeant w/ Power Sword, Artificer Armour

 

Heavy Support

 

Sicaran Venator (230)

- Lascannon Sponsons

 

Land Raider Phobos (250)

 

I think I've got a decent amount of firepower for both infantry and tanks there, as well as three big squads for taking objectives. The one concern I have is anti air, beyond getting a flyer myself there doesn't seem to be a lot of anti air options in the list, so I went for a Contemptor Mortis, though he is a bit vulnerable.

 

As far as combat goes the praetor and the veterans should be able to carve up most enemy troops, though I might want to avoid stuff like terminators. I am wondering whether I should drop the melta bombs and get more power swords (or power axes), but at 25 points for the whole squad it seemed like a good deal as the squad could wreck vehicles and super heavies easily if there's no infantry to charge at.

 

With no crusaders of redeemers the phobos land raider looks like the most viable transport choice, but I am a little light on anti tank otherwise so it's not a terrible choice, I think I also needed something big and scary to attract fire away from the other vehicles so they can do their thing, between the LR and the Sicaran the Contemptor might manage to avoid dieing.

[Moonstalker]

Well, to start, if you want to work in a bit of red in the color scheme, there is a topic just about that in the HH forum that is probably of interest to you.

I like your list, I think it has a lot of smart choices. Don't underestimate the hardiness of your Contemptor, its AV13 front and 5++ save actually leave the Sicaran as the weakest vehicle in your motor pool. For 30k, the Contemptor-Mortis is probably enough anti-air at 2k points. If you're facing Xenos/4x heldrakes/vendetta spam/necron air force, it obviously won't be. A single Storm Eagle or a Primaris Lightning? Good enough.

I like how you've kept your Praetor cheap and simple.

You've got plenty of anti-infantry in your troops choices, I think you're missing out on a big opportunity of the breacher squad by not giving them meltaguns instead of those volkites. Not only would that be fluffy, but it also makes the squad more versatile. IMO, you could at least mix a couple meltas with a couple volkites instead of going for 4 of one.

I've been pretty vocal about the shortcomings of the Venator in other sections of the forums. I think the standard Sicaran with lascannon sponsons is a better tank overall, with more versatility and a reliable ability to strip hull points off even AV14 vehicles. The Venator (without sponsons) is a slightly more expensive sidegrade, more focused on taking down large vehicles/trading in a bit of a chance for taking off hull points for a slightly higher chance of dealing a fatal blow in one shot. Personally, I'd rather see a standard Sicaran with LC sponsons instead of the Venator, but if you want to keep the Venator I think you'd be better off with no sponsons or Heavy Bolter sponsons. Since the neutron laser it has is Ordnance, you're only going to be able to fire the sponsons with snap shots.

The points saved there could pay for some armored ceramite on your Phobos or upgrades elsewhere. One thing I feel uncertain about is the amount of points you're throwing into the Vet Squad/Praetor/Phobos. You're going to have 400+ points of models inside 250+ points of transport, or about 1/3 of your army overall. That's going to be a huge target. If you want to keep it, IMO, add the armored ceramite, maybe an auxilliary drive if you can swing it, and make sure that Phobos stays up and gets where it needs to go. Having that many points stranded, out of position, or just plain dead is not going to be good.

I would consider dropping the Vet squad for a squad of 5 cataphractii terminators, and parking the Praetor with your Breachers. It would help alleviate that problem, free up some more points for you to play around with, and give you the opportunity for some more special weapons via combiplasma/combimelta on the terminators. Their close combat ability would also be fairly helpful. 5 suits of the relatively old cataphractii armor could've trickled down to this company, but I understand your objection to including them.

I would consider Legion Vexillas in your troop squads to make them a little more reliable, leadership-wise.

[Surrender_Monkey]

Hi kitwulfen, thanks for the advice. There's obviously a lot of stuff to take in with this list and I made some mistakes, like thinking the Volkite Chargers were 24" range, I see now they're only 15" which makes them much less useful, I also overlooked the fact that the Sicaran's sponsons couldn't fire when I fired the ordinance, which again makes it much less useful.

 

So now the list looks like this:

 

HQ

 

Alexis Polux (167)

- Praetor

- Iron Halo

- Paragon Blade

- Boltgun

- Digital Lasers

 

Troops

 

Legion Tactical Squad (210)

- 5 Extra Marines

- Legion Vexilla

 

Legion Tactical Squad (210)

- 5 Extra Marines

- Legion Vexilla

 

Legion Breacher Siege Squad (390)

- 10 Extra Marines

- Sergeant w/ Melta bombs.

- 4x Meltaguns

 

Elites

 

Apothecarian Detachment (150)

- 3 Apothecaries

- Augury Scanner each.

 

Contemptor Mortis Dreadnought (185)

- Twin Linked Lascannon

 

Legion Terminator Squad (233)

- Cataphractii Armour

- Heavy Flamer

- 4x Combi Melta

- Chainfist

- Sergeant w/ Grenade Harness

 

Heavy Support

 

Sicaran Battle Tank (175)

- Lascannon Sponsons

 

Land Raider Phobos (280)

- Armoured Ceramite

- Auxiliary Drive

 

I swapped the veterans for Terminators as suggested, and the Venator for a regular Sicaran, then spent the points on tooling things up, in the end I had 15 points kicking around so went for Augury Scanners on the apothecaries, which should help ward off aggressive deep striking.

 

The wording on the Augury Scanner rule is very strange, I can attack deep striking units in the shooting phase as if I had interceptor, but usually interceptor shooting is done in the enemy movement phase?

[Moonstalker]

I wouldn't worry too much about the funky wording on the Augury Scanner.  Just treat it as it appears intended: Enemy models deployed using deep strike within 18 inches of the carrying model can be attacked with rapid fire and heavy weapons in the unit as if they had the Interceptor USR.  If you're particularly concerned, you can send an email to FW at forgeworld@gwplc.com and get clarification straight from the source.  FW is pretty notorious for having questionable wording, grammar, and spelling in their books.

 

For your Terminator sergeant, you might consider taking off his grenade harness and giving your Phobos a set of Frag assault launchers.  It's the same points, so it's a straight swap, but that's probably down to personal preference.  Just some different benefits and drawbacks - the grenade harness goes with the terminators, so if they have to disembark and foot slog to get to where they need to be to punch people, they've got their grenades with them.  Downside, if they need to pop their combimeltas in the shooting phase to take out a transport, they then don't have their grenade harness shot on the squad inside (unless, of course, you fired the grenade harness at the vehicle?  I think that would still give them their frag grenades for the turn).  It's also one use, so after it's used up, you have no more opportunities for grenades.  The frag assault launchers will, of course, only work when they are charging out of the Phobos, but it leaves them free to fire their combiweapons if needed and would work a second time.  The second usage would be kind of a rarity, though, since you'd basically have to charge out of the Phobos, kill something, get back in in your next movement phase, then get out again.  A lot of time spent getting in and out of the transport, so the second usage just may never come into play.

 

In this list, I'd probably prefer combi-plasma on the terminators for gunning down MCs/other terminators/primarchs/etc.  But that's going to come down to personal preference again.  With the Land Raider, Sicaran, and Contemptor bringing a whole laser rave party along with the meltaguns in the breacher squad and the chainfist in the terminator squad, I'd probably feel comfortable in having enough anti-tank.

ETA: Depending on whether you choose power swords or power axes for your Terminator squad, the grenade harness might not be useful at all.  Striking at initiative doesn't help when the only weapons you have are Unwieldy.  If you go swords, I would definitely heavily consider combiplasma instead of combimeltas on them so they have some way of handling 2+ save opponents.

[Surrender_Monkey]

The assumption on the Terminators was Power Swords, and I felt that tieing the grenades to the tank was putting even more eggs in that basket, as you say I don't envisage charging out of the tank more than once in a game anyway. I figured the extra fire wouldn't be particularly missed if I were assaulting infantry, and the grenades not needed if I was going after vehicles.

 

My fear re: Combi-Melta vs Plasma is that I end up killing enough enemies that I don't get the charge in, which leaves me vulnerable, it is a bit of a toss up though and something that is relatively easy to change later. There's quite a few bits and pieces in this list, like the combi weapons, that are in there because I had some points left over, but not so many that I could get another worthwhile unit in, which is something of a rarity for me because usually I do the opposite (take upgrades away from stuff to squeeze in one more unit). I think it might be the nature of Heresy where the emphasis seems to be on big units which naturally eat up a lot of points.

[Moonstalker]

I was thinking more in terms of charging a squad of infantry after you shoot them out of their transport with the meltaguns.  Particularly if you're assaulting through the wreckage of the vehicle to do it.

 

Plasma vs melta, sword vs axe, entirely down to your preference for the squad.  Personally, I prefer having the option/firepower to kill my opponent's terminators without risking mine in melee with them.  If I shoot myself out of charge range, that's okay - assuming I've dealt fatal or near-fatal damage to the squad or enemy that I felt was high value enough to warrant the use of my combiweapons.  If the enemy's shooting is so dangerous that you 100% want to be stuck in with your terminators, all you have to do is just not fire - or only choose to activate some of the combiweapons, and save a couple more for later.  Sword vs axe... I almost always prefer swords visually, but axes have the AP2 that I feel is necessary on terminators, and terminators have the armor necessary to make sure they get hits with unwieldy weapons.

 

And then, nothing says you can't mix.  Two melta, two plasma, two swords, two axes, one flamer, one chainfist.