Being asked to tailor a tourney list

[Frostglaive]

A buddy of mine is going to play in a tournament in a few weeks. 2,000pts, ITC missions. He's built up a list that he has been asking people to tailor against and fight. And I volunteered to do this as well. The list is:

 

Hawkshroud super-heavy detachment w/ 2 Helverins and a Knight Valiant

 

Sister of Battle battalion w/ 3 5-man battle sisters w/ 3 storm bolters, a canoness and a missionary

 

Stygies VIII battalion w/ Dominus, Enginseer, 4x 5-man Rangers, 3 Icarus array crawlers, and 3 lascannon ironstriders

 

Valiant obviously has a CP spent for Ion Bulwark. Not sure about flamer relic though, he never said. Unsure about Sisters' order.

 

His thinking was Stygies VIII to help with survivability, the Icarus Arrays to help deal with Eldar and flyers, Ironstriders with lascannons for cheap anti-tank, rangers for bodies. The Sisters are meant for bodies, and to pop the 1CP strat to beef up the storm bolters in a shooting phase. Helverins as Hawkshroud because Helverins are awesome. And the Valiant... He knows a lot of tournament lists run Castellan knights in them, but not the Valiant. He wants to try and make it work for him. He has a tendency of taking things (armies, units, etc) that are considered "lower-tier" and trying to make them work (not that a Valiant is some push-over, but still).

 

Anyways, I have my game against him later today or tomorrow. He asked me to tailor against it, so that's what I'm going to do. Problem is, I'm not 100% sure entirely on how  to tailor this. And I'd like some help if you can offer it.

 

I have access to Helverins, Warglaives, a Gallant and Crusader for my Knights, but I do prefer playing pure AdMech though. I can get a lot more bodies with a lot more guns on the table that way. But looking at his list and listening to what my buddy has to say, he's going to have a hard time with T8 units (aka Knights). My AdMech I have access to just about everything other than Ironstriders and Corpuscarii. 12 Kataphrons, 8 Robots, 4 Crawlers, PLENTY of Skitarii, Fulgurites, Sicarians, etc. I can build just about whatever list I want. The problem is, what do I build? 

 

My thinking right now is I have a few options: 1. Run my pure AdMech. I have one list that gives me a lot of bodies and a lot of guns. And I'll be most likely out of range of that Valiant for at least a turn, giving me some time to try and bring it down (or outmaneuver it). 2. I can bring in my Gallant OR Crusader with a couple armigers. Gallant could try and charge that Valiant and hope it survives that oversized flamer's overwatch. Or Gallant or Crusader could stomp around across all his bodies and shoot his anti-tank stuff. Or... 3. I double down on Knights and bring as many as I can in addition to a cheap AdMech battalion or two for CP. Capitalize on his weakness to T8.

 

What do you guys think? Any advice or suggestions? 

[Prot]

Hawkshroud is an interesting choice along side Mechanicus. Valiant over the Castelan is also interesting.

 

I can see your conundrum though... matching essentially a Knight/Admech list to a Knight/Admech or pure Admech list is really hard since we are talking a mirror match. That being said you have the advantage..... you don't have to worry about all comers.

 

Looking at his list, and restricting myself to Admech/ Knights I think it would be fun to try a very strong CC list against this with some backline for Objectives.

 

Conversely you're looking at trying to outshoot at range, and picking off Sisters/Skitarrii for kill points and avoiding the Valiant. Ideally IF I were facing your friend's list, I would go super heavy Psyker. 

 

I mention CC because it could be a fun exercise for you squeezing what you can out of the assault Admech stuff, and Knight CC is no joke, all the while you're avoiding the whole Stygies -1 thing to a large degree. 

 

There's a lot of ways you could go with this... either way it won't be easy to play (what is more or less) a mirror match. :)

[Clingy]

You smash your Gallant into his Valiant for sure! Shame you don’t have a Castellan as I would if it were me counter with the following

 

Gallant

Gallant

Castellan

Stygies Bat

5 Dragoons

Spend the rest on whatever tickles you (maybe a neutron crawler)

 

Send 3 scary things up the board and pew pew lasers from the Castellan

[Mushkilla]

I'd run the crusader as krast with a battle cannon, headsman's mark and first knight. So he gets +2 damage against titanic on all his weapons and re-rolls to ones to hit in all phases.

[Frostglaive]

So the game got delayed for a bit. He's still tweaking his list apparently. I doubt much will change to be honest. He keeps falling back to what I listed above.

 

I do think I'm going to run a CC army. Super-Heavy with a Gallant and 2 Warglaives to charge into his lines (Gallant after the Valiant, Warglaives after... well, everything else I guess). Stygies battalion with some Dragoons and maybe a Spearhead with Neutronagers. I'll do proper list-building once I'm off work.

[Clingy]

The above sounds solid, let us know what you settle on

[Frostglaive]

List is going to be:

 

Stygies Battalion w/ Dominus and Enginseer, 3 barebone squads of Rangers, and 2 Neutronagers

Stygies Outrider w/ Enginseer and 3x 3-man Dragoon squads

Krast Super-Heavy w/ Gallant (Landstrider and Paragon Gauntlet) and 3 Warglaives w/ meltaguns

 

Since his list will probably not be charging me horrendously, the idea is the Rangers bubblewrap the Neutronagers, which castle up in the back and pop tanks while Rangers shoot Rangers and Sisters. Dominus and Enginseers chill back as well to offer repairs and reroll 1's to hit. Dragoons all get Stygies strat'd up 9in and get the Turn 1 charge. Warglaives and Gallant roll together, run up the board and try to Turn 1 charge the Valiant and Helverins (Gallant will use Full Tilt to guarantee this, Warglaives will use the Pack Hunter(? is that what it's called? I forget) strat so they can all charge as well, all benefiting from the +2" from Landstrider).