AOR Thoughts - Local Tournament

[leth]

I just went to a friendly tournament and man.....man our army is strong.  Big shout out to my opponents who let some things slide since it was my first time playing 9th(outside of two online games). 

 

First round I played Deathguard, Round 2 and 3 were against knights.  So my thoughts are in that context. For Reference my army list was:

 

Watchmaster

Phobos Captain - CP regen and cant be targetted unless closest

Primaris Chaplain on Bike with Reroll hits and +2 to charge - Teleport relic and chapter command

 

5x intercessor 5xoutrider - Troops

6x infiltrators, 4x elimintors with sniper rifle - Elite 

5x hellstorm heavy intercessors, one with hellstorm bolter, 4x boltstorm aggressors, 1x bolter inceptor - Aquila

4x Stormshield/Chainsword, 2x thunderhammer storm shield terminators, Bike, van vet, Black shield hammer/CCW, Imperium Sword HTH SGT - Aquila

 

Primaris Apoth - Warlord trait and chapter command - Vox

Company Champion with Aegis dominus

 

Rhino - Had like 90 points left and rather have this than another character. 

 

Overall I found that the army did what it was supposed to do: Put up a wall of -1 bullets thile also having a solid melee threat. I never had problems with controlling objectives, but I did feel strongly constrained in secondaries not have the spare units to perform actions. Anything that went wrong was because I made a mistake and was not using my models efficiently, messed up rules, or just positioned poorly(This one was big). I also picked bad secondaries(didnt read the fine print) and so was forced to take bad decisions to try and get points. 

 

Outside of the proteus kill team, one of the units is going to always be a big threat and that unit is gonna have Transhuman on it. They cant ignore it so its just reduced effectiveness shooting. Once or twice I waited until they fired their small arms at the unit to plink off a model or two so thata now transhuman only costed 1 when the big scary units fired.  Its a very reactionary decision. 

 

I have almost no range above Str 4 -1 and I found that full knight armies werent actually that scary. Had no real issues killing them. My aggressor unit was able to get a castellan to 4 wounds with the tactical doctrine up. Melee was able to solo a knight as well solo.  I forgot some rules, failed to cast re-roll hits, and forgot some attacks, and still got it to 1 wound.

 

The combination of Chapter tactics AND mission tactics is huge for getting efficiency from this army.  I often found that I was picking one for shooting and one for assault. It is going to take a lot of practice to get it right, and to know what to pick. You basically have to plan your entire turn out at the start of the battle round(when picking mission/chapter tactics).

 

Raven Guard: I often made the mistake of using raven guard early, when in reality I feel like it is best as a turn 4/5 ability when the ability to hide a unit is higher while output is less overall. With the way I ran my army(only spectrus being combat squadded) that a lot of tactics didnt do much for me outside of the melee ones.  If you are running 5 man units then a lot of different configs will benefit a lot. 

 

Space Wolves in my mind is a more defensive strategem whan an offensive one.  It is there to prevent objectives from being sniped or contested.  When the entire squad can heroically intervene then you only need a few models actually on the objective to bring in the calvary if someone tries to get it. 

 

Blood Angels just feels broken powerful for my melee proteus kill team.  Combined with the chaplain I was able to basically land anywhere within 26 of the chaplains current point......That is a lot of board threat range. The squad can strike pretty much anywhere I want turn 1 if I start the chaplain near the middle.  It also makes Imperiums sword WLT even more bonkers when you are wounding knights on 2s with no save for 15-20 damage reliably.

 

Flesh Tearers is basically the same, only better if you arent worried about making the charge so we get a solid 2 rounds of offensive melee chapter tactics. 

 

White Scars: Just universally a good choice having the outriders being able to charge almost anyone turn 1(easy to chain them out with trinagles at each end). Advancing aggressors no longer need the full re-rolls and can make do with reroll 1s while geting into range for first turn extremis use. With watch master re-rolls and tactical doctrine the unit easily put 53 wounds at -1 on a unit of blight guards(watchmaster re-roll).  Same for getting those outriders into assault turn one. 

 

Black Templars is amazing into an army that does a lot of Mortal wounds, while also being a melee improvement.  

 

Army Changes - Just a few minor tweeks to the kill teams.  Make the vanguard a claw/shield instead of a double claw, make one of the chainswords a claw(was about 10 points under with the list above).  Another thing I found was that the vox was kinda a trap on the Apothecary.  By having that lee-way I often ended up out of protection range.  I also need to be within 3 to revive anyway(and the aggressor unit was the only one that I really revived) and outside of turn 1 I was often handicapping myself to keep in range. I didnt find myself using the combat revival more than 2 times per game and would rather cost the 1 CP in return for the ability to shoot while performing actions.

 

Phobos captain got me 20-30 points each game, but will have to see if I can protect him from faster moving opponents with FLY. If I cant keep him safe then I will probably swap the HQ slot for a librarian or shield captain(although I dont wanna). I have considered dropping the warlord trait on the apothecary to get the ability to shoot while performing actions.  On the fence about swapping from Hellstorm Bolter for Executioner bolter. Most likely will since the way the unit is buffed, having the DMG 3 shots will do more than a damage 2(down to 1 often) shots.

 

I might just drop from a chief to a regular, Move the Vox to the Chaplain, and have him double up on Aura Warlord traits. I could also make the Stealth captain a Shield captain(which frees up 55 points)

For example

 

Watchmaster - Warlord - CP regen, Optimised Aura(1CP)

Primaris Master of Sanctity on Bike - Teleport Relic - Wise Orator(1CP) - Powers are Litany of Hate, Faith, Hate

Phobos Captain - Stealthy WL Trait(1CP)

Company Champion - Aegis Eternal(1CP)

Deathwatch Veteran SGT - Imperiums Sword(1CP) 

 

So I start the game at 7, gives me a guaranteed 12, with the potential for 4 extra from the Warlord trait. 

 

Second Idea is swap the Phobos captain for a shield Captain and do the following

Watchmaster - Warlord - CP regen, Optimised Aura(1CP) 

Shield Captain - Dominus Aegis

Primaris Master of Sanctity on Bike - Teleport Relic(1CP) - Wise Orator(1CP) - Powers are Litany of Hate, Faith, Hate

Deathwatch Veteran SGT - Imperiums Sword(1CP) 

 

Dropping the Rhino, company champion, and apothecary upgrade takes me to about 150ish points to work with could be a small kill team of something. Really would have to point it out.

Edited November 23, 2021 by leth

[leth]

Follow up thoughts.

 

For my next variation of the same list I am gonna try making a few changes to help with secondaries.

 

Captain on Bike with 5 point weapon and Aegis Eternal

Chaplain - change to +2 charges and 5+ against Mortals

Watchmaster - Warlord, Tome of Ecto, 5+CP regen, Be able to shoot while performing actions

 

Drop the company champion and rhino

Take a 5 man intercessor squad with 20 point venator tax. 

Move warlord trait from Imperiums sword to Stealthy on the phobos SGT.  Having a spectrum kill team be untargettable in the eliminators half really makes it easier to position them in places where they can fire instead of needing to hide. Frees the medic to go with the 5 person infiltrator squad and actually make them a bit more obnoxious to remove. 

 

These changes open up a LOT of secondary options as well as provide an extra few primaris bodies.  What I really like about this army is that it forces your opponent to make bad decisions.  

 

Looking at my army it relies heavily on having two rounds of tactical doctrine available.  But honestly? If something can still have a lot of things after two turns of tactical doctrine? Then I screwed up my priority. 

 

Shots - STR - AP - DMG

Indomitor Kill Team - 12 5/0/1, 2 5/-2/3, 6 5/-1/1, 24 4/0/1, 4d6 4/0/1 - 58 shots

Fortis Kill Team - 15  4/0/1, 20 4/-1/1 - 35 shots

Fortis Kill Team 2 - 15 4/0/1

Spectrus Kill Team - 20 4/0/1 4 5/-1/1 - 25 shots

 

So thats a solid 120+ shots that are almost all an additional -1 AP in tactical(which is the most important AP unless they have some special rule, so T sons are a worry) that have lots of opportunities to reroll to hit and re-roll to wound(or just flat out ignore needing to wound).

 

I feel like this is a solid strength since there is little doubt about what I am going to do. If I dont think it will be a good turn of shooting or I dont need the AP this turn, Assault Doctrine. If I dont have a unit that will charge, Devastator Doctrine. Otherwise Tactical.  By having my entire army be assault/rapid fire weapons I am able to maximize the returns/target priority for those two turns. 

 

In Melee its 

4x 8 -3 4

11x 8 -2 3

19 4 -1 1

 

Attacks right now which should do work against most targets. However this is REALLY reliant on either getting the re-rolls to hit off from the chaplain, or being in Space Wolves for the +1 to hit.  I might work in some Lightning Claws if I can free up 6 points. Its just really tight getting that 5th kill team in. 

Edited November 23, 2021 by leth