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[Galron]

Ever since I saw the original paint scheme of the Red Scorpions Angstrom Incident camo scheme I have wanted to do some. Well among my many other projects and with the release of the new terminators and cool looking assault intercessors I decided to go for it. Given the entire episode is pretty light on actual fluff aside from the camo scheme, the fact the world has shifting red light and black shadows, and the Red Scorpions made some sort of long term deal/oath with the mechanicum there in exchange for siding with the allies instead of remaining neutral. This was also obviously before the silly fluff change of Red Scorpions not using camo, which I am completely ignoring. This list uses Shrike although the model is customized, which is why I have it in the Raven Guard section. I have an alternative version simply using the new jump captain. 

2k Vanguard

Shrike

Ancient in Terminator Armor

Libby in Phobos

Libby in Phobos execute and redeploy.

Libby in Terminator armor

 

Assault Intercessors x5 -T-hammer

 

Assault Intercessors with jump packs x10

Eliminator Squad x2 with las fusils

Inceptors x3 with plasma

Infiltrator squad x2 5 dudes each

Terminator squad x2 x10 dudes with 2 cyclones

 

Ballistus Dread

 

The idea is mechanicus has called in its favor and the Red Scorpions have responded with an infiltration force and will call in the terminators and inceptors once they need to destroy a target as a deep striking fast deployment force. Painting the terminators in standard Red Scorpion colors while the rest are in Angstrom approved colors. I found a pretty easy way to do the crazy red and black scheme. I took the execute and redeploy as I had 20 points to spare. 

 

 

 

Edited April 23 by Galron

[Galron]

[Dracos]

That looks like a fun color scheme 

[Galron]

A couple more done. I found a slightly better way to do the black. Really tempted to just order some black air paint to save me time having to thin it. Note the white dot on the jump dudes shoulder is a piece of dust I didnt see at the time.

 

I'm pretty much doing three guys at a time. I need 5 more assault intercessors for the squad and need to build 5 more terminators and toss ten in my Awesome vat to get repainted for the 4th time back into red scorpion colors like they were 10 years ago.

 

On a side note I hate how pictures let you zoom in and notice things you missed lol.

[duz_]

This is great! Love the scheme and all the detail you've put into them! Can't wait to see more 

[Dracos]

I think the Phobos Librarian is my favorite so far 

[Galron]

Thinking about attending a small tournament if I can get enough units painted up. I have recently diagnosed myself as being extremely goal oriented and needing to have an end goal to get me motivated to work on things. So I decided to work on these guys and I have two weeks roughly. 

Here is the list as is: How does it look for a 1k event?

Vanguard-

Shrike

Biologis Blade driven deep

6 aggressors

10 Assault Jump pack intercessors

5 incursers

3x Plasma Inceptors

3x Eliminators with Lasfusils

Devastator squad with lascannons

 

I think I have most bases covered. I have the phobos dudes for bouncing around to objectives. Devs for the few armored targets I would anticipate running into.

A dedicated assault unit that is hard to hit, and a mass lethal shooting unit as well as a mobile medium power shooting unit. 

As far as builds go:

 

 

Other options

Option 2

Shrike

Biologis blade driven deep

Phobos librarian with shadow war vet

6 aggressors

10 assault jump ints

5 infiltrators

3 eliminators

5 devs with lascannons

 

 

OR the minimalist approach

Option 3

Shrike

10 Terminators with 2 Cyclones

10 Assault Ints with jump packs

5 Intercessors

5 incursers

3 eliminators

5 devs with lascannons

 

Any help would be appreciated although I am leaning towards option 2.

 

Edited April 23 by Galron

[WAR]

I like option 2

[Galron]

I have actually changed it around again. I ditched the Devs and inflitrators and added a Ballistus Dread and Incursers. Last game I played with my Dork Angels I had a Ballistus and it did really well in a multi-role function and survived a lot of fire that would have killed a 5 man dev squad who have no rerolls.

[jpwyrm]

I like Option 2 also. Lone Op is a very good ability, it will definitely help you move around the board and score objectives. I have played Shrike for a good amount of time now and I have to say his worth is probably not as a beatstick. I've played him with 10 Vanguard Vets with a mix of Shields and pistols and they will do okay against MEQ and such, but they're not the powerful assault units they used to be. This is also true for Assault Intercessors with jump pack. My advice would be to split the unit in two, have one run with Shrike for the extra protection and use them as Assassins and skirmish unit. This will also help you get the best of Hammer of Wrath since it can be hard to get 11 models in engagement range at times, but squeezing 5-6 is a lot easier and you can do it on two separate targets if you have two squads of AssInt. Also, cut a Lasfusil on your Eliminators to get the carbine. It is worth loosing a powerful shot to get the ability to move back into cover after shooting, or move further to get on an objective or score Engage/behind enemy line.

[Galron]

Half tempted to get rid of the Librarian and replace him with the Combi-LT with the same enhancement. Interesting idea on the Assault intercessors. I would have to pull some arms off a dude to make a new power fist sergeant. 

 

In theory, I could drop the librarian for a jump pack captain with a thunderhammer as well. Not sure how effective smash captains are this edition though. Sitting here looking at the stats after having been working on HH stuff for the last couple months and going wait, he only has a 3+ save? He is a captain, where is his artificer armor? Could give him the Ghostweave cloak too and when and if the 2nd Assault intercessor unit dies he now gets Lone Op.

This means I would get to upgrade the incursors to full Infiltrators although now that I am comparing the two, incursors seem like a better force multiplier. I honestly dont see too many deep strike forces in my meta although I am sure there will be some Blood angels. 

 

Not sure if I have a carbine sgt built for the eliminators. 

 

I have a practice game set up for Saturday. We will see how it does. I am still on the fence about the Librarian with shadow war vet making the incursors pretty much untargettable or Smash Captain with ghost weave(spare points) for the extra damage and free CP use. I'll probably roll a dice to see which I use

Edited April 25 by Galron

[Galron]

Wow. That was two sets of ass-kickings. Whoever says aggressors is on crack. Maybe in Gladius where there is enhancements and strats to make them useful, but in Vangaurd they are worthless. Not enough volume of fire to make lethal worth it, they have to get too close to really operate. I am going to try a 5 man terminator squad. Most opponent played a 10 model bug army. 2 hive tyrants, 2 squads of 3 floating brain bugs that never die, one big gun bug and one maloceptor?

-Ballistus was worth its weight in gold on this one. I wish I had an extra.

-Aggressors useless wastes of points.

-incursors did well with the libby

-Shrike is useless in combat and the 4 chain swords in the intercessors with him were more effective.

-Eliminators didnt do much either. 2 lasfusils are not enough firepower to threaten anything.

Now granted, whoever wrote the nid codex was on crack giving everything 4++ saves, 10+ toughness, 10+ wounds, a lot of means to heal, multiple 0cp options, no bracketing and so on. Why these guys are not the top of the tournament scene is beyond me.

 

So I am thinking adding a terminator squad and either a Lancer or another Ballistus and dropping the aggressors and the biologis. Then using the last 15 points to upgrade the incursors to infiltrators. Try to avoid combat with Shrike because he is horrible. If it wasnt for Lone operative he wouldnt be worth it.

 

I might try with Gladius also. I lose the free armor of contempt and -1 to hit for my range guys but gain the lance strat on my assault intercessors meaning they might actually hurt something.

 

Just a quick rundown now that I have time:

Game 1: Corner Deployment. He had everything as far forward as he could and got first turn. I had things in cover or behind cover and against my board edge as much as possible. He advanced forward and nuked Skrikes squad leaving 2 guys. On the bottom he managed to kill 5 of the 6 aggressors. I managed to drop his brain bug down to four wounds with an oath of the moment. Dreadnought, 5 intercessors, eliminators, 5 incursors, the lone aggressor. My entire army remaining minus Shrike and his two guys didnt even kill one model in his ten man force. When my 5 man intercessors failed their 5" charge even with a reroll, I conceded the game and we reset.

 

Game2: Played from short end to short end. I had pretty good set up spread out. He set up on his deployment line. I got first turn this time. Oathed his big gun bug. Moved aggressors , incursors, eliminators to be in range of the big gun bug.. Everything together dropped it to 2 wounds. He moved forward and killed 2 incursors in with a poor volley with the big gun bug. He managed to get his hive tyrant into close combat with my aggressors and killed 4 and took 6 damage in return.  MY T2: On my turn I withdrew the aggressors. brought Shrike up, Oathed the big bug. Moved the other intercessors up to the 3 neurothropes(?) which for some insane reason they bumped an already hard to kill unit to T5. I hope they fired the writer for the nids, or at least put him on a Personal Improvement Plan. Shrike's squad had a chainsword do 1 damage to the hive tyrant. I think the Ballistus did something, cant remember what. The intercessors managed to do 2 damage to the Neurothropes.  HIS T2: He disengaged with the neurothropes and in a wierd show  of fluffage, he missed or failed to wound with almost everything and did 1 wound killing a wounded intercessor. Shrikes team wiffed again and did nothing to the hive tyrant who then ate them all.  He charged my assault intercessors with his Neurothropes and I killed one with no damage in return. MY T3: Oathed his gun bug with 1 wound left. I figured I could take both the gun bug and the hive tyrant. News Flash, Ballistus failed with everything or he saved. I did get a wound through with my eliminators finally killing the gun bug who didnt deadly demise. My itercessors killed another neurothrope and 2 damage on the last one. HIS T3: Now the shenanigans kicked in. He did the whole everyone takes a battleshock test. Of course the assault intercessors failed. He followed this up with the roll 6 dice and take a mortal on every 3+ and my 4 turned into 2 who then got leached and took another wound.  He killed the incursors but not the librarian with them. The Hive Tyrant charged the Ballistus and I overwatched and got him with a stormbolter. MY T4: I fired my ballistus at the giant bug in the center. Wiffed with everything thanks to the ridiculous T11 and 4++.

Edited Sunday at 04:43 AM by Galron

[WAR]

Ohh that sounds like it was a rough day of gaming, 

[Galron]

I knew it would be. He is a buddy of mine and we typically try to avoid playing each other as he is extremely hyper competitive. He is nice about it though, but when I want a "that guy" to bounce my list off of, he is who I call up. Even though he doesnt get near as many games in as he would like, he knows the system and can calculate what are the most broken combos even when they arent meta. He came from a national circuit Magic competitive background and at the time wouldnt think twice about sinking thousands in a deck to keep up, but typically again saw the combos and power cards and would buy them in advance by the dozens and then 9 times out of 10 his theory would come true and he would make thousands from selling them.  He does speculative real estate for work lol. We had a team league and he was the beat stick on my team for dealing with a DB player on a team I knew we would butt heads with a "Mr. I AM THE NUMBER 5 DG PLAYER IN THE COUNTRY RA RA RA..." the kind of person who brought a Plague Burst Crawler to a fun, mostly new person 500point league with death shroud and as many pox walkers as he could pile in and Mortarion to 1k. Point Eli and say "Sick em!" and drive the DG player nuts,

 

So I have another game with a much more casual player set up for this coming Saturday so maybe I will get a chance to actually use some strats other than armor of contempt and get to play off my back foot. I am adding a second Ballistus, a terminator squad with cyclone, upgrading the incursors to Infiltrators, and dropping the aggressors and Biologicus. Weirdly I have no need for blade driven deep. So my unaugmented firepower gets upped a bit, and a little better staying power on the back line with a DS bubble. The goal is to simply try and avoid close combat and cap objectives while my dreads kill things. Knowing there are new players I will play with the teleport homer and hold off on the terminators just to mess with them. 

[jpwyrm]

Yikes! That's rough gaming weekend. I know the feeling though, I faced Monster Mash Nidz last year in an event and got stomped too. I totally understand the sentiment of "But why do you have T10, 2+ SV, 4++ AND good shooting and Melee?!?"

 

Now you understand what I meant by Shrike not being a beatstick! Someone pointed out a very good way of looking at Shrike + 5 VanVets (or Assault Intercerssors, they do the same job really) : that 205 pts unit can't go toe to toe with a 205 pts melee unit. What it can do though, is consistently punk around 100 pts worth of models each turn and score objectives or deny your opponent objectives. From what I can understand from your games, it looks like you tried to take down high Tougness targets with Shrike and Coy and that is a mistake - they just can't do it. On the other hand, he would've been great against the Nerothropes (?), T5 vs Shrike's Str5 twin-linked claws is nice, plus the Mortal Wounds on the Charge from the unit and all the Chainswords attack will add chip damage. For high T 3+/2+ saves with or without Invulnerable saves, you want better quality attacks. In your updated list, this comes from the Balllistus. When a big beasty is reduce to 5 Wounds or less, then it becomes worth it to approach with Shrike and Assault Intercessors with jump pack. Get close, throw grenades at it and if still alive, then charge and deal more MW with Hammer of Wrath. If the big beasty has more wounds than that, scoot arount it and don't engage with Shrike, you will loose the unit for nohing.

 

Even with two Ballistus, the issue is volume of wounds vs a 50-50 chance to deny wounds from your target and then probably some Feel no Pain saves to further reduce damage. If you have the model, try playing with a Vindicator. They have the potential for massive amount of damages and will attract a lot of attention from your opponent. Especially the first time you roll 6 for the number of shots and now there is 7-9 hits rolling to wound a big beasty!

[Galron]

Ugg lol I totally forgot about the mortal wounds when I charged Shrikes unit. That hive tyrant only had like one or two wounds left which was why I charged it. Weirdly I remembered it on the other assault intercessor unit that charged the same turn lol. DOH! He had his other Hive Tyrant close enough he probably could have tried a charge though if not blown them up with his gun bug. This is why I need practice. 

 

I thought about a Vindicator as I actually do have an unpainted one sitting around. Problem even dropping the infiltrators down to incursors, I am still short 30 points.

I can drop the eliminators which will leave me with 65 points. So maybe a scout squad? I am pretty sure I have some old scouts with shotguns lying around I can rebase. I have heard they are pretty good. 

 

Or I can keep the Two Ballistus and add a Vindicator and drop the Terminators for an even swap. Weirdest scouting force ever.

Edited Monday at 03:31 PM by Galron