2k-Krieg Cavalry Combined Arms-I’ve gone off the deep end. . .

[TraumaKitten]

I hit a road block with my previous list, in that I cannot source models  It’s okay though, the main source of my military might was coming from tanks anyhow, and I like the Deathrider models, so I’ve double downed on the theme! I’ll have everything in hand by the end of the month.

 

The Cavalry (2000 Points)

Astra Militarum
Combined Arms
Strike Force (2000 Points)

CHARACTERS

Leman Russ Commander (250 Points)
  • 1x Armoured tracks
  • 1x Demolisher battle cannon
  • 1x Heavy flamer
  • 1x Heavy stubber
  • 1x Hunter-killer missile
  • 2x Plasma cannon
  • Enhancements: Grand Strategist

Lord Marshal Dreir (100 Points)
  • 1x Laspistol
  • 1x Sabre of Sacrifice
  • 1x Savage claws

Rogal Dorn Commander (285 Points)
  • Warlord
  • 1x Armoured tracks
  • 1x Coaxial autocannon
  • 1x Heavy stubber
  • 2x Meltagun
  • 2x Multi-melta
  • 1x Oppressor cannon
  • 1x Pulveriser cannon
  • Enhancements: Drill Commander

Sly Marbo (55 Points)
  • 1x Envenomed blade
  • 1x Ripper pistol

OTHER DATASHEETS

Death Riders (140 Points)
  • 1x Ridemaster
     ◦ 1x Death Rider lascarbine
     ◦ 1x Frag lance
     ◦ 1x Power sabre
     ◦ 1x Savage claws
  • 9x Death Rider
     ◦ 9x Death Rider lascarbine
     ◦ 9x Frag lance
     ◦ 9x Power sabre
     ◦ 9x Savage claws

Death Riders (140 Points)
  • 1x Ridemaster
     ◦ 1x Death Rider lascarbine
     ◦ 1x Frag lance
     ◦ 1x Power sabre
     ◦ 1x Savage claws
  • 9x Death Rider
     ◦ 9x Death Rider lascarbine
     ◦ 9x Frag lance
     ◦ 9x Power sabre
     ◦ 9x Savage claws

Death Riders (140 Points)
  • 1x Ridemaster
     ◦ 1x Death Rider lascarbine
     ◦ 1x Frag lance
     ◦ 1x Power sabre
     ◦ 1x Savage claws
  • 9x Death Rider
     ◦ 9x Death Rider lascarbine
     ◦ 9x Frag lance
     ◦ 9x Power sabre
     ◦ 9x Savage claws

Leman Russ Demolisher (190 Points)
  • 1x Armoured tracks
  • 1x Demolisher battle cannon
  • 1x Heavy flamer
  • 1x Heavy stubber
  • 1x Hunter-killer missile
  • 2x Plasma cannon

Rogal Dorn Battle Tank (240 Points)
  • 1x Armoured tracks
  • 1x Coaxial autocannon
  • 1x Heavy stubber
  • 2x Meltagun
  • 2x Multi-melta
  • 1x Oppressor cannon
  • 1x Pulveriser cannon

Rogal Dorn Battle Tank (240 Points)
  • 1x Armoured tracks
  • 1x Coaxial autocannon
  • 1x Heavy stubber
  • 2x Meltagun
  • 2x Multi-melta
  • 1x Oppressor cannon
  • 1x Pulveriser cannon

Scout Sentinels (110 Points)
  • 2x Scout Sentinel
     ◦ 2x Close combat weapon
     ◦ 2x Hunter-killer missile
     ◦ 2x Plasma cannon
     ◦ 2x Sentinel chainsaw

Scout Sentinels (55 Points)
  • 1x Close combat weapon
  • 1x Hunter-killer missile
  • 1x Plasma cannon
  • 1x Sentinel chainsaw

Scout Sentinels (55 Points)
  • 1x Close combat weapon
  • 1x Hunter-killer missile
  • 1x Plasma cannon
  • 1x Sentinel chainsaw

(Almost)Everything has orders. The scout sentinels provide action monkeys, always beneficial rerolls, and a little extra firepower to help whittle down tougher infantry, low end monsters, etc. The Deathriders provide early screening and a solid source of anti-infantry. The tanks just blow the hell out of everything. Sly wanders doing silly things as required. The army is fairly mobile, healthy amounts of scout and reactive movements should help scoot them around the board. At the very least, it should have an interesting board presence. I believe the Deathriders and Drier will get a point reduction next pass which should allow me to add additional sentinel(s). Overall, I think it should still manage to be casually competitive mainly due to the armor  
 

3 Dorns

2 Demolishers

4 Sentinels

31 genetically engineered suicidal lizard chicken things

1 psychopath

 

Any thoughts that are not “Deathriders suck” or “Driers too expensive and sucks”? 

[DemonGSides]

As long as your plans don't involve heavily leaning on the non drier death riders I think you'll squeak by on sheer armor alone. 3 dorns has yet to fail me. 

[TraumaKitten]

@DemonGSides

The idea was to skirmish and hopefully direct them into small units on objectives

[DemonGSides]

Yeah that's gonna be a fine use then. They just don't have the oomph that Rough Riders have but have the exact same defensive profile so it's tough to suggest them, as their ability is interesting but mostly useless outside of corner cases.

 

Drier himself has been ok in my use, but the Riders have basically just been free pick up for my enemy. Just not a lot going for them right now, though the models themselves are slick. 

[TraumaKitten]

@DemonGSides

i can always just swap them for a Helverin, 2 Warglaives, and two more Sentinels!  

[DemonGSides]

2 hours ago, TraumaKitten said:

@DemonGSides

i can always just swap them for a Helverin, 2 Warglaives, and two more Sentinels!  

 

I'll never advocate for armigers (probably my least favorite imperial unit), but I do love a good sentinel!

 

I think the DRiders can be fine speed bumps as long as you can get them into melee combat. Otherwise they just get obliterated by even a slightly OK weapon.

 

Basically use em as trap door spiders.

[sairence]

Just fyi, Drill Commander only works if the officer is leading a unit. Tank Commanders can't join units, so the enhancement does nothing for them, unfortunately. You're bettwr off moving Grand Strategist to the Dorn, or giving your LR Commander a longer range gun (plasmaturret is pretty decent).

 

Though generally you'd prob be better of running the LR TC as a regular Demolisher and upgrading a second Dorn to a Commander. ;-)

 

And with that many tanks you might be better off running this as Hammer instead of Combined.

[casb1965]

39 minutes ago, sairence said:

Just fyi, Drill Commander only works if the officer is leading a unit. Tank Commanders can't join units, so the enhancement does nothing for them, unfortunately. You're bettwr off moving Grand Strategist to the Dorn, or giving your LR Commander a longer range gun (plasmaturret is pretty decent).

 

Though generally you'd prob be better of running the LR TC as a regular Demolisher and upgrading a second Dorn to a Commander. ;-)

 

And with that many tanks you might be better off running this as Hammer instead of Combined.

 

I was thinking with that number of cavalry and Sentinels that running it as a Recon Element for the extra cover might work best.

[sairence]

Recon is weird. It's the only current detachment I haven't been able to make a list for that wouldn't work better in a different detachment.

 

And at the end of the day, the meat of your list is the tanks.

[casb1965]

2 hours ago, sairence said:

Recon is weird. It's the only current detachment I haven't been able to make a list for that wouldn't work better in a different detachment.

 

And at the end of the day, the meat of your list is the tanks.

 

And Hammer definitely plays in to that. 

 

I looked at Reckn purely on the basis of keeping those Death Riders and Sentinels alive a little longer with the 'always in cover' and +1 to save if already in cover. Plus there's the Scouting Outriders strat for reserve shenanigans.

Plus the tanks should really be able to look after themselves more than the Death Riders can.

[DemonGSides]

Personally I'm of the mind that it's better to make you're already good stuff into great stuff than it is to make your bad stuff into middling stuff.  Benefit of Cover is nice, but it's not like the Death Riders are going to have a bunch of high AP stuff targeted at them. 

[casb1965]

1 hour ago, DemonGSides said:

Personally I'm of the mind that it's better to make you're already good stuff into great stuff than it is to make your bad stuff into middling stuff.  Benefit of Cover is nice, but it's not like the Death Riders are going to have a bunch of high AP stuff targeted at them. 

 

I normally would be as well.

I just don't think there is enough benefit in using Hammer on the OP list.

The detachment rule negates the best thing tanks do, shooting. You don't need to be advancing down the table to be effective, you just need good line of sight and that can be achieved usually just by a simple move.

Advancing down the table,  strangely, is the role of cavalry and Sentinels and then you need to keep them alive. Recon helps do that.

[DemonGSides]

2 hours ago, casb1965 said:

I normally would be as well.

I just don't think there is enough benefit in using Hammer on the OP list.

The detachment rule negates the best thing tanks do, shooting. You don't need to be advancing down the table to be effective, you just need good line of sight and that can be achieved usually just by a simple move.

Advancing down the table,  strangely, is the role of cavalry and Sentinels and then you need to keep them alive. Recon helps do that.

 

I don't think it's worth the less effective strategems for what the gameplan is with this list to get benefit of cover on a unit that's so weak to begin with.  Like I get the thought process behind "Well maybe I can get one fo those Death Riders into strategic reserves on like T3 to have a come from behind outflank on T4" but your Death Riders are going to be dead, or if they were sitting near board edge to not get targetted and blasted, they were wasted for 3 turns and should've probably just sat in reserves to start, and then you place them and immediately pull them off again, which feels worthless as well.  The rest of Recon's strategems are fine but aren't exactly beating down the door for usability in this list.

Hammer at least you can synergize with some Blazing Advance if you want to, but you can basically ignore the detatchment rule if you want to and still benefit greatly from Tactical Withdrawal (With this many tanks one fo them getting charged is actually quite likely), Crash Through helps with positioning on the things that really need it in this list, Furious Cannonade has lots of really solid shooting to make great, and Ablative Plating even shores up some fo the weakness of a RDTC.

All that's to say I still wouldn't suggest Hammer either, I think Combined Arms is probably still our best bet overall, and especially with this list which is pretty much exactly what Combined Arms wants; a little bit of everything.  There's probably some solid play in this with Siege Regiment too, giving Smoke to your Death Rider blobs as you huck them up the field.  I just think Recon is overall my most meh of our detatchments.

Edited Friday at 07:54 PM by DemonGSides

[TraumaKitten]

These are all fair and interesting points. However, the stratagems/detachment rules in either Hammer or recon  don’t benefit a portion of the army. GW dropped the ball a bit with these while creating the codex, imo. Most are “meh”. The Hammer ones are, for the most part, highly situational. I really don’t care if I can auto advance 6” when I need all my guns shooting every turn  Recon does nothing for my armor. At least universal lethal hits benefits everything, and the strats aren’t terrible. Siege regiment is. . .doable. Giving the Deathriders stealth would keep them stay more alive’r. Realistically, id only be using two strats the entire time; Flare and Fusillade. A a

[DemonGSides]

On 3/22/2025 at 2:38 PM, TraumaKitten said:

GW dropped the ball a bit with these while creating the codex, imo. Most are “meh”

 

I agree with the sentiment that Combined Arms is probably the obvious best one, but that's almost a guarantee; getting 5 perfectly balanced detatchments is a fools errand and shouldn't be aspired to, because it'd be worse overall for any given detatchment.

I think most of our detatchments at least have a use, compared to something like, idk, Tau or something on release where they really only had like one detatchment.  Or god forbid something like Mechanicum, which were absolutely terrible in every respect.

We've got great datasheets and pretty good detatchments.  That most of the detatchments hew towards a specific strategy is actually a good thing, not a negative; if every one of our detatchments was aimed at buffing the entire army, we'd have a lot of boring or same-y detatchments and that would be a bummer.

Edited Monday at 12:38 PM by DemonGSides

[TraumaKitten]

Ive managed to source some models, so I dont have to take a hard dive into concrete waters! Still keeping 20 Deathriders but adding 30 engineers and an artillery emplacement. The points ended up a bit weird, but the artillery fit. I figure with the heavy mortar giving a more reliable d6+3 shots, and still doing solid 2d at str8, I can park it on a back field objective and specifically target other chaff units hiding on objectives around the board. Im happier now that I can keep the engineers. Mortal wound machines are back on the table.  

 

Hmm mkII (2000 Points)

Astra Militarum
Combined Arms
Strike Force (2000 Points)

CHARACTERS

Lord Marshal Dreir (100 Points)
  • 1x Laspistol
  • 1x Sabre of Sacrifice
  • 1x Savage claws

Rogal Dorn Commander (275 Points)
  • Warlord
  • 1x Armoured tracks
  • 1x Coaxial autocannon
  • 1x Heavy stubber
  • 2x Meltagun
  • 2x Multi-melta
  • 1x Oppressor cannon
  • 1x Pulveriser cannon
  • Enhancements: Death Mask of Ollanius

Rogal Dorn Commander (265 Points)
  • 1x Armoured tracks
  • 1x Coaxial autocannon
  • 1x Heavy stubber
  • 2x Meltagun
  • 2x Multi-melta
  • 1x Oppressor cannon
  • 1x Pulveriser cannon

Sly Marbo (55 Points)
  • 1x Envenomed blade
  • 1x Ripper pistol

OTHER DATASHEETS

Artillery Team (95 Points)
  • 1x Crew close combat weapons
  • 1x Heavy mortar
  • 1x Lasgun

Death Riders (140 Points)
  • 1x Ridemaster
     ◦ 1x Death Rider lascarbine
     ◦ 1x Frag lance
     ◦ 1x Power sabre
     ◦ 1x Savage claws
  • 9x Death Rider
     ◦ 9x Death Rider lascarbine
     ◦ 9x Frag lance
     ◦ 9x Power sabre
     ◦ 9x Savage claws

Death Riders (140 Points)
  • 1x Ridemaster
     ◦ 1x Death Rider lascarbine
     ◦ 1x Frag lance
     ◦ 1x Power sabre
     ◦ 1x Savage claws
  • 9x Death Rider
     ◦ 9x Death Rider lascarbine
     ◦ 9x Frag lance
     ◦ 9x Power sabre
     ◦ 9x Savage claws

Krieg Combat Engineers (95 Points)
  • 1x Krieg Engineer Watchmaster
     ◦ 1x Hand flamer
     ◦ 1x Power weapon
  • 9x Krieg Combat Engineer
     ◦ 1x Autopistol
     ◦ 9x Close combat weapon
     ◦ 7x Combat shotgun
     ◦ 1x Flamer
     ◦ 1x Remote Mine

Krieg Combat Engineers (95 Points)
  • 1x Krieg Engineer Watchmaster
     ◦ 1x Hand flamer
     ◦ 1x Power weapon
  • 9x Krieg Combat Engineer
     ◦ 1x Autopistol
     ◦ 9x Close combat weapon
     ◦ 7x Combat shotgun
     ◦ 1x Flamer
     ◦ 1x Remote Mine

Krieg Combat Engineers (95 Points)
  • 1x Krieg Engineer Watchmaster
     ◦ 1x Hand flamer
     ◦ 1x Power weapon
  • 9x Krieg Combat Engineer
     ◦ 1x Autopistol
     ◦ 9x Close combat weapon
     ◦ 7x Combat shotgun
     ◦ 1x Flamer
     ◦ 1x Remote Mine

Rogal Dorn Battle Tank (240 Points)
  • 1x Armoured tracks
  • 1x Coaxial autocannon
  • 1x Heavy stubber
  • 2x Meltagun
  • 2x Multi-melta
  • 1x Oppressor cannon
  • 1x Pulveriser cannon

Rogal Dorn Battle Tank (240 Points)
  • 1x Armoured tracks
  • 1x Coaxial autocannon
  • 1x Heavy stubber
  • 2x Meltagun
  • 2x Multi-melta
  • 1x Oppressor cannon
  • 1x Pulveriser cannon

Scout Sentinels (55 Points)
  • 1x Close combat weapon
  • 1x Hunter-killer missile
  • 1x Plasma cannon
  • 1x Sentinel chainsaw

Scout Sentinels (55 Points)
  • 1x Close combat weapon
  • 1x Hunter-killer missile
  • 1x Plasma cannon
  • 1x Sentinel chainsaw

Scout Sentinels (55 Points)
  • 1x Close combat weapon
  • 1x Hunter-killer missile
  • 1x Plasma cannon
  • 1x Sentinel chainsaw

 

Edited yesterday at 11:24 AM by TraumaKitten

[DemonGSides]

That's a lot of engineers. I'd be tempted to just go down to their 5 man variants and slip in one more unit of 5 man death riders. Probably about a wash overall tho.

 

Love 4 dorns. Making me feel like I need one more myself...

[TraumaKitten]

@DemonGSides

Dropping the engis to 5 mans only saves me 75 points!  I guess that would be enough to cram in a Krieg heavy weapons team. I could do the heavy flamers to act as a deterrent for anything dropping backfield 

[DemonGSides]

2 hours ago, TraumaKitten said:

@DemonGSides

Dropping the engis to 5 mans only saves me 75 points!  I guess that would be enough to cram in a Krieg heavy weapons team. I could do the heavy flamers to act as a deterrent for anything dropping backfield 

 

Yeah it's not much but could give a few more riders which was the genesis of this whole thing even tho we have replaced our hooves with treads lol