AL Coils 3000

[Catachan_recruit]

I've been thinking for a while about starting HH, so here i am with my first Alpha Legion list. The players in my area tend to play 3000 points matches.

 

RoW:

-The Coils of the Hydra

 

LoW:

-Alpharius 415

 

HQ:

-Chaplain, artificer, power axe crozius 95

 

Elites:

-3x quad launchers with shatter shells 210

-RoT: 7x invictarus suzerains, 1x thunder hammer, land raider phobos (dozer blade, ceramite) 515

 

Troops:

-10x tacticals, sergeant (artificer, power fist, power dagger), rhino (dozer blade) 195

-10x tacticals, sergeant (artificer, power fist, power dagger), rhino (dozer blade) 195

-10x tacticals, sergeant (artificer, power fist, power dagger), rhino (dozer blade) 195

 

Fast Attack:

-5x seeker, 4x combiplasma, sergeant (artificer, combiplasma), rhino (dozer blade) 230

-5x seeker, 4x combiplasma, sergeant (artificer, combiplasma), rhino (dozer blade) 230

 

Heavy Support:

-10x heavy support squad, 9x vulkite culverin, sergeant (artificer, vulkite culverin) 345

-Sicaran arcus, sponson lasers, skyspear warheads 260

-whirlwind scorpius 115

 

 

The idea is to put Alpharius in the infiltrating Land Raider with the suzerains and the chaplain, "giving up" his masquerading shenanigans to gain preferred enemy from the start and having a re-rollable 4+ to steal the initiative.

 

Thoughts & opinions?

 

P.s. quick question about Coils: when do i have to choose to add +1 to the roll to see who goes first? Before or after rolling the dice?

Edited December 18, 2019 by Catachan_recruit

[Imren]

You have barely any anti AV14 capability, you will be quite helpless against landraider heavy lists.

 

Terminator deathstars are prevalent at 3k games, ask yourself what can your list do against other primarchs accompanied by 5-10 terminators (Firedrakes, Sekhmet, Red butchers, grave wardens etc) delivered in a spartan? As it looks now, not much.

 

At 3k you run a high risk of facing flyers, as single Arcus is not sufficient anti-air at 3k level.

Not giving the Volkite Culverin squad a transport forces your to choose infiltration as mutable tactics.

 

in my opinion, Coils of the hydra works best with skimmers (Javelins (TL cyclone and multimelta) and Scimitars) and a couple of 15 man assaults squads (with power axes and power fist) and a plasma support (that you find ways to deep strike) squad as your troops choice, these can do some heavy lifting, and are versatile.

 

Lot of rhino mounted tacticals give you lot of options to play the mission objectives but doesn't pose much of a threat to your opponent, Rhinos are easy to take out in shooting or in closecombat and the tacticals inside doesn't pose a threat, especially if they have to footslog to their objectives.

 

The advantage of mutable tactics comes from choosing a special rule depending on your opponent's list, you forego that with the heavy support squad.

 

Alpharius is the weakest close combat primarch, he doesn't stand a chance against Magnus, Guilliman, Vulkan, Horus, Fulgrim etc, and if you're facing a primarch you will most likely be challenged in close combat and die losing your army wide preferred enemy rule. You want Alpharius to stay out of close combat, so putting him with the suzerains is a bad idea since they want to get in close combat and they are a threatful unit that your opponent will direct his elite close combat untis against (if he doesn't shoot them down). Your units sitting in rhinos will not output much shooting until disembarking and therefore reducing the preferred enemy buff.

 

I think its better to put an apothecary and nine suzerains with two t.hammers in a dreadclaw that comes in and helps out wherever you struggle on the battlefield regarless of wheter it is tanks, TEQs or whatever the opponent gives your critical headache.

 

I would keep alpharius in a 20 man tactical squad (sgt with p.dagger, p.fist and art.armour) with an apothecary and warmonger (with p.dagger, p.fist and art.armour) that deep strikes the whole unit and fury the legion turn one on any infantry squad not in transports, even if its terminators they will roll suffient (ones to kill half of it depending unit size of course). Then your tacticals can watch out sir for Alpharius and the warmonger and sgt can output enouth S8 attacks to threat TEQs in close combat.

 

Either switch out your 10 man culverin squad or give them an empty rhino to gain all the options in mutable tactics. Another idea is to switch out the culverin squad to a scimitar squad with culverins, although they are only six culveins they are much more mobile and have T5 2+.

 

Seekers scream to be deep striking to unload their one-shot plasmas at rapid fire range against a footslogging elite infantry unit. look into that instead of rhinos.

[Catachan_recruit]

Ok, thank you for the really useful input! I'll have to think the list again. Only thing, it isn't possible to use fury of the legion when you deep strike right?

 

P.s. i'm not entirely decided on which legion to play, at the moment i'm torn between Alpha Legion and Salamanders for fluff and models (i don't care THAT much about game efficiency to the point of choosing a legion based on that). I'm trying to figure out which legion adapts better to my preferred playing style (transport-heavy lists), so i may be posting a few lists for both the legions to work out which to choose

Edited December 18, 2019 by Catachan_recruit

[Imren]

Yes, you're right, I missed that, they cannot fury of the legion out of deep strike, so you rather use the warmonger to deep strike a plasma unit and keep Alpharius with the 20 man squad in the backline babysitting home objectives and buffing the rest of the army.

 

Alpha legion is a bit like dark eldar in 40k or wood elves in fantasy battle, no apparent strong units, you need to be clever and skilled and utilise combos to get good results out of them. In terms of 30k they play a bit something between Raven guard and thousand sons.

 

Salamanders have a bit reduced mobility but top 3 strongest terminators in the game, pyroclasts are strong in zone mortalis type of games. Frontline games you need to write the lsit to overcome your inferior mobility.

[Catachan_recruit]

The "problem" i have with HH is that it's impossible to use drop pods AND tanks. Decapitation strike hits that sweet spot for me, but i don't really like Raven guard's fluff or models. Alpha legion is really interesting but i really find myself in a difficult spot when it comes to create a list that i like.

[The Ironic Warrior]

Alpha Legion are a weird one in terms of power. Alpharius giving the entire army PE everything scales incredibly well, and once you hit 3k it starts to scale into the bonkers region (PE quad launchers, rapiers, plasma support teams, powerfist-wielding terminators, melta-bombs hitting on 3/4's re-rolling 1's) and it gets a little bit nutty at times.

 

The best way to really capitalise on Alpha Legion's strengths are to identify what you want to do with them and play to their strengths. Infantry-heavy is the Alpha Legion way, and they favour boots on the ground over vehicles. Dreads and vehicles do work for them, but you'll get much better results using predominantly infantry, especially if you have Alpharius in your force for that PE bonus.

 

Using Alpharius himself is a fun one, because you can run him either:

• In the open for that bonus right from the get-go or....
• Use him in an elaborate GOTCHA moment when you surprise the enemy with him in a unit. I feel the best way to do that is to have a couple of potential units he could be in, and try to surprise the enemy force with the one they least expect. It kind of plays into the Alpha Legion mindset, but sometimes people play him in a unit and they're like "Hey you see this massive squad in a Spartan, nah I promise he isn't in that, don't worry about firing on it at all". 

Whichever approach you go for, you need to build your list and thought process around maximising his bonuses and application. So in your list, he would be best hiding in the Suzerains but that's a really obvious place for him to go sadly, so you will lose the element of surprise from him being there. A tactic I saw a friend do quite often was 2 identical Veteran squads in Dreadclaws with a throwaway squad in another or a Deathstorm drop pod or something. The 2 squads turn up at the beginning of the game, and charge the second turn - but you had no idea whether Alpharius was hidden in them or not, and which squad had him?

 

It worked really well and it meant he could deliver a Primarch a lot more safely to where he wanted to be in a somewhat killy unit anyway without it being 100% obvious. 

 

I would suggest dropping the Arcus for a Deredeo with the new missiles and Lascannon Array. It'll kill vehicles more easily, threaten Spartans much more effectively and swat aircraft out the sky the second they show up, plus can be hidden out of sight and still intercept which the Arcus cannot do.

 

If you can squeeze the points for a Siegebreaker and Phosphex on your quad mortars, you'll learn to love the idea of poison 3+ with preferred enemy, which will give you incredible mid-field board control (moreso if you pick infiltrate and pop them in no-mans land like a good little snake).

 

It's a list with potential, but needs a little tweaking to get that perfect "Just as planned" synergy that Alpha Legion really needs to punish anyone who dares question their loyalty...

[Catachan_recruit]

Thanks! It's hard deciding which legion to play. Seeing your reply, i may sway away from Alpha legion, i'm more a lover of the "tank force" playstyle and not much of a "boots on the ground" type of guy :D which legions do you guys think go better with a tank-heavy type of list?

[The Ironic Warrior]

Iron hands I'd recommend for tanks

[Catachan_recruit]

Iron hands I'd recommend for tanks

That's true, that's true. I may look further into them (a quite like the model for Ferrus Manus). I've seen quite a few lists with "Covenant of fire" for Salamanders with some tanks, are they a viable option?

[The Ironic Warrior]

Salamanders work well as a mechanised army, as their move-through-cover from Covenant of Fire is really handy for just bulldozing towards the enemy without worrying about breaking their tracks on a piece of barbed wire. 

 

They don't gain any other real benefits for tanks beyond that one, so they would work as well (or as poorly) as any other non-bonuses legion would when fielding tanks. In general Salamanders want to use dreadnoughts, land raiders and angry squads in those land raiders such as Firedrakes, or the hilarious Pyroclasts in outflanking Protei (seriously try it, it's really effective and is guaranteed to trigger people you play against if you have one or two of them).

[Catachan_recruit]

Since we are speaking about it, how iron hamds fare with lists filled with tanks and transports?

[The Ironic Warrior]

They do pretty well, Head of the Gorgon is a very solid RoW as outflanking Vindicator squads fixes their biggest weakness (getting into range and being shot off the board before they can fire). Ferrus Manus is also pretty solid for buffing your vehicles and smacking people around with his hammer, and Orth is a very good addition if you have a superheavy like a Glaive or Fellblade for him to snuggle inside.

 

Other than that, tacticals and veterans in rhinos work just as well as any other legion, but make sure you take advantage of the -1S when shooting and position yourself boldly when you face things like battle cannons and meltaguns to keep hold of your FNP if you have brought an apothecary with you...

[Ultramarinebo]

Nice start man,

 

Personally I really like the tacticals in rhinos, classic infiltrate AL style, great for objectives. I also think the seekers with combi plasma are an excellent choice, in fact I'd be aim to make them 8 man squads over 5. The quad launchers are also an excellent supportive touch.

 

The big volkite support squad should be reduced in numbers to save points, it'd attract way too much CC attention at 10 man.

 

As stated above, your major flaw is in the horrendously expensive alpharius - suzie squad. Based on what you've got so far, I'd be dropping Alphie and the land raider out right. You could still utilise Suzies but I'd be chucking them in a cheap as piss anvillus pod. I'd even go murder machine paragron Paetor with them. You'd get more mileage for half the points.

 

That gives you 500+ spare points to pour into Mortis Las Dreads, Lightnings, drop podding chain fisting Dreads, more troops ... you name it. Depends how you want to play it. In objective based 'dominion' style games I've had ridiculous success with massing infiltrating troops. You don't even need to remove the enemies units, you'll out score them any day.

 

Keep experimenting with your writing, great foundation.