Night Lords - Terror Assaulting Advice [2500 points]

[SkimaskMohawk]

Well the problem I have with a pod heavy TA force is that they're best used for alpha strike and TMs aren't really a great alpha strike unit. Vets have all the potential but you already need to buy three units of TMs so you're left with fairly expensive filler. Even then, you need 5 pods to get more than 2 units in turn one. It's better than OA in the sense it doesn't force everything into pods, but it's still not a great pod delivery row; if you really want one of those, just play raven guard.

[Carnivore]

Happy to help, mate. I love this forum for that very reason - everyone on here remembers asking for advice or help at one point or another, and that willingness to help is what makes B&C so special.

I wouldn't rule out the Night Lords just yet, though you may have ruled out this particular Rite of War. The VIIIth Legion is one of the most fun to play in my opinion, and nothing says you can't play a Night Lords' armoured company using Armoured Breakthrough with lots of tanks and Spartans, or a Dread-centric list using Fury of the Ancients. If you like the legion but have some specific units in mind that you love and need to include to be happy, just tinker with some lists and different Rites until you find the one that makes you happiest.

[Terminus]

Everything Skimask said above seems crazy to me. You don't need to stuff more dudes into drop pods for "alpha strikes" and Veterans are actually not any better than Terror Marines at it (in the sense that they are both only decent), you DON'T want to drop your scoring anti-infantry units turn one when most ideal targets are in transports or in reserve, and the drop pod count is very easily padded out with dreadnoughts (who will be your primary anti-tank) and dreadclaws.

 

Melee unit in a Dreadclaw, 3 Terror Squads in Pods, Leviathan in Dreadnought Pod.  Done.

 

I'll most likely revisit the list and probably drop the spartan and go the drop pod route for my Terror Squads. 

 

In all honesty though, it's becoming pretty apparent that I'm trying to play the list in a way it's not optimized for. My tendency to gravitate towards the "cool models" is where the Spartan came from. What use is investing so heavily in the Heresy if I can't use the cool toys? Perhaps my search for the right legion needs to continue elsewhere.

 

I really do appreciate all of the help though, guys. I've received loads of useful feedback from all of you and it's proof of why B&C is such an awesome community.

 

You can use a Spartan, you just need a different Rite.  Run Armoured Breakthrough with elite terror squads and veterans, troop predator tanks, and a spartan with a 20-man despoiler squad in it.  Or Pride of the Legion, etc.

 

You can use the cool toys, but if you just throw them into a completely random list, it's not going to do anything.

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

Everything Skimask said above seems crazy to me. You don't need to stuff more dudes into drop pods for "alpha strikes" and Veterans are actually not any better than Terror Marines at it (in the sense that they are both only decent), you DON'T want to drop your scoring anti-infantry units turn one when most ideal targets are in transports or in reserve, and the drop pod count is very easily padded out with dreadnoughts (who will be your primary anti-tank) and dreadclaws.

 

Melee unit in a Dreadclaw, 3 Terror Squads in Pods, Leviathan in Dreadnought Pod.  Done.

 

In general, the whole advantage of a drop pod is that you instantly put guys where you want them, but things either need to have an impact when they arrive or be very survivable to avoid wasting points if theres a lot removal around. That's why Pod armies are better with alpha strike because its always better coming down and killing them, rather than coming down, waiting to be shot and then doing stuff. Building off that, more units means more enemies engaged and potentially killed or crippled off the drop.

 

So in that sense, Veterans with combi and special weapons have a much higher impact on arrival than volkites and can be built to threaten any target, and having more good shooting units come in turn one would lead to more things being killed in total. Dropping Terror Marines willy-nilly turn one is bad, as you pointed out, because they score and have a very narrow focus.

 

If TAs whole point is to take advantage of Pods like a "better Orbital Assault" why haven't you done so? Instead you took Dreadclaws and DDPs that can already be used freely. Idk, I feel like Pods in TA are best used to push the Dropod Assault threshold by up one, instead of cramming all of your dudes into pods for no reason. It's a nice bonus, but it's not what makes the RoW appealing 

[Terminus]

I should have put it the other way around, instead of padding out the drop pod count with dreadclaws and dreadnought pods, you're using the cheap pods to pad out the count to get those expensive dreadclaws and dreadnought pods out there without buying more expensive dreadclaws and dreadnought pods (basically getting three legion pods for the price of one more specialized and generally available tool).

 

Orbital assault is good because you can take cheap scoring units in pods to facilitate early dropping of bigger threats (and support squads, can't forget support squads). Terror Assault lets you replace tactical marines with terror squads, which is way better. It's a shame you can only take 1 HS in Terror Assault or I'd be throwing a Kharybdis in there too!

[LtDan]

Pretty sure you can still take a karybdis as ded transport for a leviathan

[Terminus]

Why in god's name would I do that?

[LtDan]

For rule of cool

[Terminus]

That does not meet the rule of cool for me.  Rule of cool for me is a Kharybdis that shows up in a blaze of glory with a Primarch and bodyguard or a huge mob of Despoilers.  There is nothing inherently cooler about dropping a Leviathan in a kharybdis rather than standard pod, and it would a really terrible list-building decision.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Yea, the Levi's strength is its crazy good shooting, backed up by its durability and CC capabilities; which is why a DDP is great with it. A kharybdis literally wastes all that potential until turn 2

[LtDan]

Fair enough.

[lanceqi]

Speaking of anti-vehicle, what do you guys think about fielding a squadron of 3 or 5 normal speeders with graviton canon and throwing plates to enemy heavy? TA RoW provides us night fight and graviton canon can be fired at a rather safe range.(hooray, night vision!)