[HH1.0] 30k Alpha Legion Tactics

[Caillum]

^ Except if you're playing Mission 4 - Dominion. Was almost tabled the other day by my mate's IF, but I had racked up so many VPs that I won.

[hivey]

What about the new AL rite? Making headhunters troops seems good. You can use mutable tactics on something other than infiltrate. Even better with alpharius.

[Terminus]

Don't see how it's remotely as good as Pride. The drawbacks are brutal, too. The whole strength of army-wide infiltrate is aggressive deployment of stuff that normally can't do so, like rapiers and large blocks of infantry.

[Unknown Legionnaire]

Yup, IMHO Headhunter Leviathal needs ca. 4 or so Headhunter squads to make it work.

Also, failing to kill the enemies warlord PLUS Martial Hubris will punish you like there's no tomorrow.

 

But it's the 'no allies restriction' that kills this RoW for me. I almost always (80% of games) play with either my 'Warp' Cult allied detachment or AL as allies to a primary Cult detachment.

[Terminus]

Haha, yes, so you must be very happy with Armies of Dark Compliance and the sacrificial rite.  I've been playing with lists around those, as well.  Just like in 40K, "Chaos" works best when all the grunt troop work is done by cultists. :D

[Unknown Legionnaire]

Haha, yes, so you must be very happy with Armies of Dark Compliance and the sacrificial rite.  

Yes, both options of list composition can be very useful, depending on your mission and opponent.

 

'Sacrifical Offering' is more usable in a defending (dug-in) role though, whilst the 'Army of Dark Compliance' allows me to combine AL & Cult units in my primary detachment and still leaves me with the possibility to bring in my Dark Mechanicum units as an allied detachment, which is positively awesome.

 

If I'm not using any RoW at all, I often times field AL as the allied detachment though, circumventing Martial Hubris and allowing me to bring a Force Commander plus two psykers in a primary Cult detachment (one alpha-level, one standard).

[Terminus]

I'm building towards the same, except it's Zardu and the Serrated Sun as allies for all the daemons.

 

Who is your HQ in these allied forces?  You can't bring Dynat (nice photoshop btw), and Skorr's main shtick is choosing his warlord trait, which the Force Command can do even better (while Alpharius has to roll randomly ).  I would definitely want a Rite with allied marines because the tactical squad is too much of a tax.

[Unknown Legionnaire]

I only tend to use Dynat or Skorr in a primary detachment.

In an allied detachment I most often run a Centurion (no Consul upgrade), a Vigilator, or a Forge Lord with rad goodness.

Also, I can cope with one Tac Squad as a compulsory selection in an allied detachment, no problems here.

[Excessus]

I'm building towards the same, except it's Zardu and the Serrated Sun as allies for all the daemons.

 

Who is your HQ in these allied forces?  You can't bring Dynat (nice photoshop btw), and Skorr's main shtick is choosing his warlord trait, which the Force Command can do even better (while Alpharius has to roll randomly ).  I would definitely want a Rite with allied marines because the tactical squad is too much of a tax.

Alpharius doesn't get to roll a warlord trait at all though, he already has one.

[Terminus]

What is his trait?  I'm looking at his page right now.  If you're talking about Insidious Mastermind, that is not a Warlord trait, it is a special rule that is in effect if he is the Warlord, but he also gets to roll a trait on top of that.  Picking would make him even better of a force multiplier, but at least you can resolve warlord traits before mutable tactics, and 1-5 are all solid rolls (although 1 and 5 can be situational).

Edited February 27, 2016 by Terminus

[SkimaskMohawk]

No primarch except fulgrim gets a warlord trait, and then he gets to pick from Strategic. The Primarch rule in LACAL specifies that despite having to be the Warlord, primarchs to not get to roll for a Trait

Edited February 27, 2016 by SkimaskMohawk

[hivey]

Their sire if the legion rule is pretty much their warlord trait.

[Terminus]

Well I learned something new today, I withdraw my objections. Fulgrim was the first Primarch I started putting in lists, so he spoiled me. Typical. :P

[Fallen11]

This weekend I played 2 games. One was 2750 vs iron warriors. I took 6x 10veterans in rhino with melta bombs,2x plasma/melta+combi plasma/melta, some sargents got geared up, alpharius, leviathan in pod. I won the game, veterans were quite good. Only problem is if you don't go outside of rhino 1st turn, you can't have alpharius on board before turn 3(in which case you have to go outside rhino turn 2) which is a bummer. But all in all, 60 veterans worked quite nice! Captured his objective and managed to kill his guys that got on my objective, win for me.

Game 2 was 3100pts, more or less same army, 60 vets in rhinos, 5 new drednoughts,alpharius. He had 3 leviathans, geared thunder hawk and 5-6 drednoughts,command rhino, 3 hq's. Would have been tough fight if the mission didn't favor him at all. 5 objectives and you get point each turn for each objective you control. Needles to say I just infiltrated all my rhinos on objectives and capped each round bunch of points. Alpharius almost went down to single leviathan! Leviathan charged, and made 5 wound on alpharius in single round of combat! I barely managed to kill him next round before he killed me. Again, vets with melta bombs just kill drednoughts. Nice game, if the mission was different, I probably wouldn't crush him that much.

 

btw. while you have your vets in rhino, you can still claim objectives with them, right? And if you only have their rhino on objective, can rhino claim it?

[Caillum]

If the Veterans Squad (that is scoring) is in the Rhino, you would measure from the Rhino. So yes, Tacticals in Rhinos are scoring.

 

Rhino on it's own is NOT scoring.

 

Shame about the Leviathan doing a number on Alpharius... Big A should be striking first, hitting on 3's and with S6 Armourbane!

[Fallen11]

Big A is striking first but failed to kill leviathan. Leviathan was targeting squad so he was hitting on 3's he did 5 or 6 wounds, after squad died, Big A almost died with them,lol...so far usually he is really bad in cc. Against nids he was in combat vs tyrant for 2 rounds and failed to do a single wound needed to kill it,lol

[Lord Asvaldir]

Well that's just really bad luck, alpharious should have no problem killing a hive tyrant given he only needs to get one wound with his s6 and the tyrant is dead. Yes alpharious is pretty weak when it comes to primarch vs primarch fights, but he's still no pushover in a fight, any character without eternal warrior won't last long against him. Plus his greatest uses are really the buffs he provides for his legion, army wide preffered enemy is probably one of the best primarch buffs out there. 

[Terminus]

Are you factoring in his preferred enemy and counter charge?  Statistically, against a Tyrant charging or being charged, in the first round you get 6 attacks hitting/wounding on 4s re-rolling 1s, which nets you 2 wounds before saves (in follow-up rounds it's like ~1.7 wounds).  They just had hot saving throws, I guess, because on average he kills a Tyrant in the first round.

 

He's not the greatest duelist in the world, but anything without eternal warrior should be in for a bad time.

 

Against a Leviathan, they should be just chipping a point off of each other per round, with Alpharius having 6 wounds, IWND, and a slight statistical advantage in pushing through damage, while the Leviathan has the randomness of the claw that could spell Alphy's doom.  But again it sounds like your opponents have rolled super hot against him.

Edited March 1, 2016 by Terminus

[A/O]

With the updates to HH armies and units in the latest red book, do some units now become viable options for Rewards of Treason e.g Justaerin?

[shandwen]

Justaerin recieved a huge boost, as did the Ravenguard jump troop guys (they all have the suped up claws now). There is the question of if the tax built into the row makes any option viable, but that really depends on meta and your normal list builds.

[A/O]

Justaerin recieved a huge boost, as did the Ravenguard jump troop guys (they all have the suped up claws now). There is the question of if the tax built into the row makes any option viable, but that really depends on meta and your normal list builds.

My meta is non-existant. I'm a returning 3rd Edition player that lives in an area where I know no other 30K/40K players currently.

 

I was thinking about building a 2.5K all comers list and going from there. I'd like to be as fluffy and as realistic/pragmatic as an Alpha Legion player can be and Lernean and Headhunters don't appear too good value for points or only be useful given certain circumstances.

[Fallen11]

If you wanna take coils there is that 3x tactical tax. On the other hand you can take vets as Troops row and for exampme ally detachment of soh. You take their hq that makes reavers and veterans as troops and there you go. They won't get infiltrate, but it's not that big loss, you eanna have them in spartan/kharbydis/dreadclaw either way. Vets can always outflank if needed.

[Unknown Legionnaire]

 

 I'd like to be as fluffy and as realistic/pragmatic as an Alpha Legion player can be and Lernean and Headhunters don't appear too good value for points or only be useful given certain circumstances.

 

 

Headhunters are highly situational and it still feels to me like they have been nerfed in their latest incarnation. The Headhunter Leviathal RoW can be neat with the right combination of units, but personally I don't dig it.

 

What's not to like about stubborn USR for 3 pts. / model on your terminators though ?

Edited March 2, 2016 by Unknown Legionnaire

[Terminus]

Headhunters weren't nerfed.

Headhunters are not great, it's true, but they are better in a way than they used to be. Their only use before was a small retinue to give an attached character preferred enemy (so for example Exodus plus 5-man squad with a heavy bolter put out a decent amount of AP4 fire, and while far from an optimal use of points, wasn't too much like shooting yourself in the foot either).

Now they are essentially a side-grade to Seekers, who trade their one turn of preferred enemy for infiltrate, and swap special issue rounds for banestrike, daggers and venom spheres, and are 15 points cheaper for a 5-man unit with combi-weapons. Each additional guy makes that point-cost advantage shrink by 2 points.

If you like seekers (sooo expensive) and are running Alpharius, they are a better choice since the seekers' marked for death rule becomes redundant, and headhunters can utilize PE at range and in melee (however poorly in the latter case, still better than seekers).

So there you go, either use them as cool-looking seekers, or with Alpharius, as better seekers. Sons and Ravens still do it better, but you can't have everything. The only sad part is in addition to using up a special unit slot on a mediocre unit, we also got an awful rite built around them.

Edited March 2, 2016 by Slipstreams
Try and keep it family friendly ^_^

[A/O]

 

 

I'd like to be as fluffy and as realistic/pragmatic as an Alpha Le gion player can be and Lernean and Headhunters don't appear too good value for points or only be useful given certain circumstances.

 

Headhunters are highly situational and it still feels to me like they have been nerfed in their latest incarnation. The Headhunter Leviathal RoW can be neat with the right combination of units, but personally I don't dig it.

 

What's not to like about stubborn USR for 3 pts. / model on your terminators though ?

Nothing is inherently wrong with the Lernean Terminators. And their WS5 is also a nice bonus but do they offer value for points invested or can other units fulfill their role better?

 

Of course the question is what is their typical role? And following on, are the the best unit for that role?

 

Take this with a grain of salt and bear in mind my very limited 30K knowledge/experience, but the Lernean's seem like a "generalist" terminator considering their equipment.

Edited March 2, 2016 by A/O