Shadows of the Emperor: A Raven Guard Successor Log

[sultansean]

 

The arrival of 8th edition got me back into 40k after a long hiatus. I bought the Dark Imperium set and painted them up to add to my small space marine force. However, after the first few codices came out I moved on to my original love all things Aeldari. 

 

But now I am back, the combination of cool successor chapter tactics, a competitive marine codex, and vanguard space marines that fit my ideas for how my chapter fights. 

 

The goal now is the paint and field a semi-competitive 2000 points ITC list.

 

The first iteration of my list:

 

++ 2x Battalion, 1 Spearhead Detachment (Imperium - Space Marines) [102 PL, 1,997pts, 14CP] ++

 

+ No Force Org Slot +

**Chapter Selection**: Hungry for Battle, Master Artisans, Raven Guard Successor

Relics of the Chapter [-2CP]: 2x Number of extra Relics

 

+ HQ +

Captain [6 PL, 143pts, -1CP]: Jump Pack, Master-Crafted Weapon, Shadowmaster, Storm shield, Stratagem: Master of the Trifold Path, The Imperium's Sword, Thunder hammer, Warlord

 

Captain [6 PL, 143pts]: Jump Pack, Storm shield, Thunder hammer

 

Captain [6 PL, 103pts]: Chainsword, Jump Pack, Storm shield, Teeth of Terra

 

Captain in Phobos Armour [5 PL, 99pts, -1CP]: 6. Marksman's Honors, Camo cloak, Korvidari Bolts, Master-crafted instigator bolt carbine, Stratagem: Hero of the Chapter

 

Chaplain [5 PL, 92pts]: 2. Catechism of Fire, 5. Recitation of Focus, Jump Pack, Litany of Hate, Storm bolter

 

Librarian in Phobos Armour [5 PL, 101pts]: 2) Enveloping Darkness, 4) Shadowstep, Camo cloak, Force sword

 

+ Troops +

Infiltrator Squad [5 PL, 110pts]: 4x Infilltrator, Infiltrator Sergeant

 

Infiltrator Squad [5 PL, 110pts]: 4x Infilltrator, Infiltrator Sergeant

 

Intercessor Squad [10 PL, 180pts]: Auxiliary Grenade Launcher, Bolt rifle
. 9x Intercessor
. Intercessor Sergeant: Power fist

 

Intercessor Squad [5 PL, 95pts]: Auxiliary Grenade Launcher, Bolt rifle
. 4x Intercessor
. Intercessor Sergeant: Power fist

 

Scout Squad [4 PL, 65pts]
. Scout Sergeant: Bolt pistol, Sniper rifle
. 4x Scout w/Sniper Rifle: 4x Sniper rifle

 

Scout Squad [4 PL, 55pts]
. Scout Sergeant: Bolt pistol, Boltgun
. 4x Scout w/Boltgun

 

+ Elites +

Aggressor Squad [10 PL, 222pts]: 5x Aggressor, Aggressor Sergeant
. Auto Boltstorm Gauntlets/Fragstorm Grenade Launcher

 

Vanguard Veteran Squad [14 PL, 243pts]: Jump Pack
. Space Marine Veteran: Storm shield, Thunder hammer
. Space Marine Veteran: Storm shield, Thunder hammer
. Space Marine Veteran: Storm shield, Thunder hammer
. Space Marine Veteran: Storm shield, Thunder hammer
. Space Marine Veteran: Bolt Pistol & Chainsword
. Space Marine Veteran: Bolt Pistol & Chainsword
. Space Marine Veteran: Bolt Pistol & Chainsword
. Space Marine Veteran: Bolt Pistol & Chainsword
. Veteran Sergeant: Storm shield, Thunder hammer

 

+ Heavy Support +

Eliminator Squad [4 PL, 72pts]
. Eliminator Sergeant: Bolt sniper rifle, Camo cloak
. 2x Eliminator with Bolt Sniper: 2x Bolt sniper rifle, 2x Camo cloak

 

Eliminator Squad [4 PL, 72pts]
. Eliminator Sergeant: Bolt sniper rifle, Camo cloak
. 2x Eliminator with Bolt Sniper: 2x Bolt sniper rifle, 2x Camo cloak

 

Thunderfire Cannon [4 PL, 92pts]
. Techmarine Gunner
. . Servo-harness: Flamer, Plasma cutter

 

++ Total: [102 PL, -4CP, 1,997pts] ++ 

 

 

[duz_]

What is this a picture for ants?! We need moar and bigger! :D

 

Welcome to the Ravenspire :tu:

 

The commanders will be by shortly with strategic advice.

 

What is the chapters name?

[sultansean]

If you click on the picture does it not get bigger? I'm trying to use BnC's gallery option. 

 

The chapter's name is Shadows of the Emperor. 

[Shadow Captain Vyper]

What is this a picture for ants?! We need moar and bigger!

 

That's my line!

 

On topic: I shall provide a more thought out reply in the AM.

 

Welcome to the Ravenspire! 

[sultansean]

GAME 1

 

VS. Chaos Knights and Red Corsairs. 

 

ITC Mission 4, table diagonals. I choose to go first. 

 

RG Secondaries

BGH, HH, Recon

 

Chaos Secondaries

HH, BB, Recon

 

He had:

 

Double Thermal Knight

2x helverin

2x Wargllaive

3x Disco Lords

1x Demon Prince w/ Wings

1x Demon Prince

3x5 Chaos Marines

 

 

PRE- GAME

 

I mastered of Ambushed the scouts to block off his three disco lords. And moved the Vets up to be able to charge the Warglaive on his far right flank. 

 

The vets smashed the warglaive. I had thought about trying to wrap the infantry, but that would have let his disco lord charge me on his turn. So I stayed on my side of the terrain and hoped to survive the shooting.  

 

Stymied by the noble sacrifice of the scouts the Disco Lords were stuck, but used their bale flamers to remove the Vets. Before removing the scouts in combat. The demon prince warp timed himself forward and killed my librarian in combat.  

 

Chaplain and chain captain moved to engage the demon prince, who gets softened up by my backfield shooting. The eliminators and everyone with range concentrates on one Disco Lord getting him down to three wounds. The TFC double tremor shells the other two Discos. Aggressors drop down by the big knight and wither intercessors chip 8 wounds off it. Smash warlord hops forward and assistant smash captain drops down by the helverin on my far right. Both smash captains make it in as well as the chaplain and chain captain, but the aggressors do not.  These creates a action priority issues, because both the Knight and demon prince can interrupt and do work.

I activate smash warlord first and he just kills the knight putting 4 wounds through for 16 damage. He blows it up on a 4 and does 4 mortal wounds. The Demon Prince interrupts and kills the chain captain, but falls to the chaplain. Warglaive survives the other Smash captain with 3 wounds left. 

 

 

The wounded Disco Lord comes over to say hi to the smash lord along with the demon prince on foot. Warglaive shoots and then charges the smash captain. The two slowed disco lords keep coming forward, but fail long charges into the infiltrators. He picks up the aggressors with helverin and bale flamer shooting. But the Smash lord lives and so does the smash captain. 

 

He now has the same problem as me for order of activation. He goes with the demon prince first, who kills the capatain. I use fight on death split my attacks 2 on the Disco with 4 wounds left and 3 on the DP with 8, killing both of them. A good trade. We now ponder whether I can use the interrupt strat to fight again, the wording is unclear, so I don't.  Warglaive fails to kill the Smash Captain, he drops him to 6 wounds.  

 

 

RG Turn 3:

 

Smash Captain kill the warglaive and consolidates in the Helverin. 

 

All the rest of my shooting kills a disco lord and wounds another, which the chaplain and infiltrators pick up in combat.

 

Chaos Turn 3:

 

His marines come out and shoot off the smash captain. The full health Helverin, picks up the last of the scouts.

 

RG Turn 4:

 

Everything moves forward. TFC kills the wounded Helverin. and Infiltrators and Chaplain kill a small marine unit.

 

Chaos Turn 4:

 

Helverin fails to kill the infiltrators and we call it there.

 

He has an early lead on points as he was controlling the board, but I moved ahead of  him in the end, after I started killing stuff. My list feels surprisingly short ranged. I did not fully realize how powerful master of Ambush is and should have kept the aggressors on the table and deep struck the Intercessors. But it really worked out for me, moving the scouts. I feel like I therw the Vets away, but it was my only chance for a kill on turn 1, I did no think he shooting would do that much.  

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

You could improve your list slightly if you put the stormshields on the vanguard vets with chainswords instead of the guys with hammers.  That way when you take losses you dont lose expensive hammer vets.

[sultansean]

You could improve your list slightly if you put the stormshields on the vanguard vets with chainswords instead of the guys with hammers.  That way when you take losses you dont lose expensive hammer vets.

 

Yes that is a good idea. What I would really like to do is dropping the sniper rifles on the scouts and giving all the Vets storm shields. But the issue is finding more storm shields.

 

I should look and see if I can pop a couple arms off without too much trouble.

[duz_]

Storm shield you say?

https://www.shapeways.com/product/MHFPF9FQ7/raven-veteran-right-storm-shields-x5

:tu:

Actually it's been awhile since I've had to look for some there's some awesome ones on there these days

 

Also this might help with getting the pictures larger in your posts

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348631-posting-pictures-from-bc-gallery/

[Claws and Effect]

The chapter's name is Shadows of the Emperor.

Awesome.

 

Was naming the Chapter after the Raven Guard's Great Crusade/Heresy flagship deliberate or a happy accident?

 

If you didn't know, the RG Gloriana-class battleship was named Shadow of the Emperor. It was destroyed during the Dropsite Massacre.

[sultansean]

Claws, I initially called them the Emperor's Shadows, but found it a bit clunky to say so was thinking about changing it. Then read the names of Corax's flagship and that decided it. They have always been Shadow Marines though.   

[Shadow Captain Vyper]

Good looking list and batrep

 

When I was reading the batrep and saw your choices with the VVs I thought "Been there before, they're dead". SG has the right advice with moving the shields around to help with combat effectiveness. A big part of using a unit like that is understanding what IS going to shoot back at them, depending on where you choose to jump to, and based on what can, can they survive? See, But remain unseen can be huge, as is transhuman physiology. Against some lists they are just simply going to die, and if that is the case, you have to decide if you're going to use them for a glorious death (straight up the middle with Infiltrate) and then try to kill one thing/wrap/give the bad touch to another, OR: If you want to hang them somewhere where they are a looming threat (like area cover in your opponents DZ) to threaten but not commit.

 

Always look for what you can kill, but then also what you can tri-point to stay alive. If you CAN tri-point something, that's usually your best option.

 

Kinda confused on why you used MoA on scouts instead of their inbuilt concealed positions, unless it was an odd deployment zone map and you needed to be closer? Typically MoA on Aggressors is prio #1 (Im sure you know this)

 

I like your list, especially all the punch. My biggest eyebrow raise to your choices is the ToT Captain and the Phobos Captain (my personal opinion is Phobos LT with RG relic rifle is better).

 

Look forward to seeing how those units perform in more batreps to come!

 

(Side note: your table looks a tad light on terrain if you're trying to test for ITC, specifically in center-oriented tall LOS blocking pieces. These pieces are quite beneficial to RG and detrimental to most gun-line lists)

Edited January 23, 2020 by Shadow Captain Vyper

[sultansean]

So I'll talk about my list choices first. 

 

1. Teeth of Terra captain, is super cheap and good against primaris marines.
2. Phobos Captain, if my opponent has 3 wound characters he takes korvidari bolts, if he has 4 wound characters I make a choice whether he takes Marksman's honour as well as the bolts, instead of Master of Ambush on the chaplain or Shadowmaster on the Smash Captain.  
3. I have now switched two storm shields onto Chainsword guys.

   

Game decisions:

- Yeah the VV's was probably a mistake, but I didn't have a good ruin to hide in, because it was already filled with infiltrators. 

- I deployed the scouts up on the ruin, then realized that I wasn't going to have the movement to get in front of the Disco's because those GW ruins are so tall. 

- I placed the Aggressors in deep strike rather than Intercessors, which are normally my choice, because I thought it would be good to have the range on the board if I did not get first turn.

 

And a Pic of my HQs and Vanguard Vets.

 

Interested for any suggestions for basing. I'm trying to find the sweet spot of bases that make the models show up but that make sense for their camo. I'm leaning towards brown dirt with a bit of grass.  

 

Edited January 24, 2020 by sultansean

[sultansean]

First bit of the patch came done on the infiltrators. Now for the dark grey. 

 

[sultansean]

Got smashed by a 5 Ctan Necron Army.

 

I was playing a Raven Guard Successor. No Centurions, but Aggressors and Vanguard Vets,  2 Smash Captains, 1 Thunderfire, 2 eliminators. Basically what I think a competitive RG list will be after Centurions get balanced.

 

Necron player had: Nightbringer, Deveiver, 3x Transcendent Ctan, 2x6 Wraiths, Imhotek, Immortals. Basically the Ctan and the Immortals.
We played Mission 1 from the 2020 ITC. Necrons won the roll and choose to attack.  Marines took HH, GB, Engineers. Necrons took BB, Recon, Behind Enemy Lines.

He deployed on the line with the wraiths and Ctan, I castled up behind a ruin, because I was trying to avoid the LOS Ctan powers and did not want to give the Wraiths any wraps. (This was a mistake and I should have spread out more and screened).

 

He redeployed the Nightbringer, Deceiver and Ctan into my face. Then his turn moved them closer right up to me. Each cast the all enemy units within 9" take D3 mortals on a 4+. Along with the other two doing long range power, he proceeded to do 47 mortal wounds to me turn 1, and he did not actually roll very well.  My deployment was a mistake, but I did not think he would be able to move up that much. Some Ctan can move and advance 20" so they are super mobile.

 

My turn 1 I managed to kill those three close Ctan but then the two units of wraiths (Which are very good against primaris) and the two other Ctan got to me.

Long story short the game ended with him maxing his score 42-12, and I was basically tabled by the end of turn 2.

We talked about if I could have done anything different, and other than spreading out more (which would of had its own problems), we couldn't think of much that would have changed the game.

 

The mortal wound output combined with the combat threat of the Wraiths and Ctan, seems like it is extremely strong in the current meta.

Has anyone else faced this list and have and thoughts on it?

[Shadow Captain Vyper]

I don't get a very diverse crack at play-testing in my group, but ironically this is one list I can say I have played, and quite a few times!

 

 The C'tan build is very good against low-model-count armies, so in the case of Raven Guard with large investment in high cost units (Cents, Aggressors, VVs, etc), it is quite strong. The only success I have had against a list like this is running larger numbers of primaris troops to maximize the 2-wound bodies that I can use to hem in their ability to move up the board. 

 

Some things I have learned playing against this list:

 

1. It's effective range is middling, so spreading out and taking faster units is helpful. While you can't spread out entirely, you do need to minimize the powers that hit everything in X range, as those do the most quantitative damage. 
2. It isn't exactly what I would call a fast list - but neither are Marines (in general). It's good to keep this in mind when trying to exploit #1 and play to the objectives. IIRC not all of them can move that 20", isnt that restricted to a strat or a power? (They have a base 8" move)
3. The list has a LOT of bad matchups in the meta. High model count and/or resilient lists really gatekeep this type of list, so its one you are less likely to see at an ITC event, imo.
4. You will likely have to use your own redeploy/infiltrators/scouts to screen out the Deceiver redeploy to minimize T1.
5. They are T7 with 8 wounds - so effectively dreadnoughts with a 4+ invul. Side note: A stormcannon leviathan dreadnought (which is easy to protect/screen) can easily delete 2 C'tan a turn.

It plays similar to that of some Grey Knight lists in terms of raw mortal alpha output. Screen well, spread out to minimize AoE powers, play to the objectives and try to pull him apart.

[Dracos]

I’ll be facing a similar list soon in our Escalation League. I’m going to use most of Vyper’s advice. I’ll follow up with a Battle Report. I think I’ll try a Phobos Lt. And Lord of Deceit to try and create a deployment barrier. I’d pull the Eliminators back and leave the Incursors as road bump and ObSec T1. We’ll see.

[sultansean]

Ok haven't been posting for a while but social distancing spurred me to finish my new years resolution of getting 2000 points of the Shadows of the Emperor done. Well that is now completed and I have acquired a few more reinforcements to move the army into the hyper-competitive scene (assault centurions).  I had been acquiring a collection of the small house hawk shroud decals to use on the shoulder pads, but of course now that I am ready for them, I cannot find them. So the army has removed all chapter markings for the duration of this special operations campaign.

The full 2000+ points 

 

 

The HQ contingent, including the Chapter Master in Mark XIII experimental power armour for when they want to act like Ultramarines.   

 

 

The Vanguard Veterans, a glass cannon, but hits like a truck. 

 

[Dracos]

Those bases are perfect for the scheme. I only hope for the plans for mine work out nearly as well.

[sultansean]

Thanks man. I was really struggling with choosing bases that made realistic sense with the camo vs. bases that would help the miniatures show up more. Luckily I feel like the realistic scheme worked out well.

[sultansean]

Played a solo game against my Aeldari. Two ITC tournament style lists. I did a battle report up on my old blog if you want to check it out and give me any feedback. 

 

I made a couple mistakes for both sides. So good learning. 

 

https://theruleslawyer.blogspot.com/2020/04/solo-pandemic-battle-report-40k-aeldari.html