First 30k Game, is this list any good?

[Tawnis]

Okay, so after ages of trying to find someone to play HH with, I ran into an old friend whose gotten really into it and he offered to show me the ropes. He was playing a more casual list since it was my first game and I just threw together something that seemed both fluffy for my faction and mechanically interesting. I had no idea if it was any good, but I won the game quite handily 9-3 and so I was wondering from some vets of 30K, is this list actually good? (For reference, he was playing Thousand Sons. I don't remember everything but he had 2 20 man tactical blobs one with a character, a dreadnaught, a Terminator blob with another character, some double Kopesh guys, and some ruinstorm deamons that he summoned early on). We were playing 2k points.

 

My List Was:

 

Primary Detachment (Alpha Legion) 
Rite of War: Legion Recon Company 
Warlord Trait: (Loyalist) The Mobius Configuration

 

Centurion Vigilator leading 5 Scout Marines with Nemesis Bolters
Exodus leading 5 Headhunters
Legion Recon Squad (5 Man) x2
Legion Scout Squad (10 Man) x2 (1 with Shotguns, 1 with Chainswords)
Ashen Circle (5 Man) (From Rewards of Treachery, and in Deep Strike because Recon Company)

 

Allied Detachment (Emperor's Children)
Saul Tarvitz leading 10 Palatine Blades with Power Swords riding in a Land Raider Protieus Carrier 
Vindicator
Tactical Squad (20 Man) with Chain Bayonets

 

Saul and the Palatine Blades were a huge threat in the center of the table that managed to eliminate both Tactical blobs fairly early and keep his objective score low. My tactical blob held down a forward objective and got into a slap fight with the Dreadnaught for most of the game. The two Recons squads were amazing, just sitting scoring points while not being able to be shot because of the cumulative -8" to range against them from both Shroud Bombs and the Alpha Legion Special Rule. The Vindicator got popped on my turn 1 to reaction fire and did nothing, so not too sure how good that could have been. The scouts and Headhutners cleaned up the Kopesh guys pretty quickly but were eventually overwhelmed in the end by a combination of the Deamons and the Terminators. On the last turn I even managed to charge Saul into the Dread and get him killed for the extra 1 VP of having by entire allied detachment wiped out. (Though he did almost solo the Dreadnaught himself, which was really impressive, he performed real well the whole game.) 

 

Coming in from 40k, there were certainly some misconceptions I had. I didn't realize that you couldn't charge turn 1 in HH which messed up part of my plan, everything else when pretty good. I also really underestimated how good Deep Strike is in this game, but fortunately I was spread out enough that I basically just lost the 2 units to it and stabilized pretty well after. 

 

So yeah, as someone who still knows very little about HH in general and nothing about the meta, what do you all think of this list? 
 

[Unknown Legionnaire]

Well, first of all, your primary detchment is desperately missing a character with the 'Master of the Legion' rule (MotL) to unlock Rites of War (Row).

 

 

[MARK0SIAN]

I’d say it is a pretty strong list at 2k but I wouldn’t say it’s too strong. Recon marines (and similar units) are good anyway but as Alpha Legion they become really strong. You’ve basically end up with the dream ‘Troops’ combination, small squads that can sit on objectives, are quite difficult to kill, can contribute meaningfully in your own shooting phase and aren’t particularly expensive. Other units can do some of these things together but it’s rare to find all of them together. If you expand your Alpha Legion force I’d try to avoid spamming recon squads as too many can be seriously unfun to play against. 
 

What also affected the outcome though was that Thousand Sons as a Legion just aren’t in the same tier as Alpha Legion. Thousand sons were very strong in first edition, obnoxiously so in some areas, and I think the design team somewhat overcorrected with them this edition. Alpha Legion on the other hand are definitely in the upper tiers of legions this edition. It might’ve been a different story if you’d been facing off against something like Deathguard or another higher tier legion. 
 

You also might’ve struggled more if he’d gone heavier on dreads and vehicles. 
 

As for the vindicator, they’re pretty bad this edition. I ran a couple with my iron warriors at the start of the edition but they now sit firmly on the shelf. Their blast is too small and doesn’t have good enough AP for a single shot weapon. If they had the larger blast or AP2 then I could see some use for them but they’ve been really underwhelming in every game I’ve played with them.

 

Overall I think you’ve got a pretty strong core of a list but it’s not obnoxious or WAAC. My only advice as you expand would be to go wider rather than deeper on unit selection. It’ll be more varied for you and your opponent.

 

EDIT:

 

I’d completely missed what Unlnown Legionnaire points out. As you didn’t have any characters with the ‘Master of the Legion’ rule then you weren’t allowed to take a rite of war. It probably wouldn’t have made much difference in this game but it’s definitely something you’ll need to keep in mind for the future. 

Edited 20 hours ago by MARK0SIAN

[Tawnis]

7 hours ago, Unknown Legionnaire said:

Well, first of all, your primary detchment is desperately missing a character with the 'Master of the Legion' rule (MotL) to unlock Rites of War (Row).

 

 

Yeah, someone else pointed that out to me yesterday. I thought the Centurion Vigilator did that, but clearly I was mistaken. I'll just end up swapping him out for a Preator since he was pretty underwhelming anyway. 

Edited 14 hours ago by Tawnis

[Tawnis]

7 hours ago, MARK0SIAN said:

I’d say it is a pretty strong list at 2k but I wouldn’t say it’s too strong. Recon marines (and similar units) are good anyway but as Alpha Legion they become really strong. You’ve basically end up with the dream ‘Troops’ combination, small squads that can sit on objectives, are quite difficult to kill, can contribute meaningfully in your own shooting phase and aren’t particularly expensive. Other units can do some of these things together but it’s rare to find all of them together. If you expand your Alpha Legion force I’d try to avoid spamming recon squads as too many can be seriously unfun to play against. 
 

What also affected the outcome though was that Thousand Sons as a Legion just aren’t in the same tier as Alpha Legion. Thousand sons were very strong in first edition, obnoxiously so in some areas, and I think the design team somewhat overcorrected with them this edition. Alpha Legion on the other hand are definitely in the upper tiers of legions this edition. It might’ve been a different story if you’d been facing off against something like Deathguard or another higher tier legion. 
 

You also might’ve struggled more if he’d gone heavier on dreads and vehicles. 
 

As for the vindicator, they’re pretty bad this edition. I ran a couple with my iron warriors at the start of the edition but they now sit firmly on the shelf. Their blast is too small and doesn’t have good enough AP for a single shot weapon. If they had the larger blast or AP2 then I could see some use for them but they’ve been really underwhelming in every game I’ve played with them.

 

Overall I think you’ve got a pretty strong core of a list but it’s not obnoxious or WAAC. My only advice as you expand would be to go wider rather than deeper on unit selection. It’ll be more varied for you and your opponent.

 

EDIT:

 

I’d completely missed what Unlnown Legionnaire points out. As you didn’t have any characters with the ‘Master of the Legion’ rule then you weren’t allowed to take a rite of war. It probably wouldn’t have made much difference in this game but it’s definitely something you’ll need to keep in mind for the future. 

Thanks for the info. I'm thinking I'll swap out my Vindicator, Vigilator, and Nemesis scouts for a Preator to get RoW and a Daradeo for some anti heavy infantry/vehicle. 

 

Edited 13 hours ago by Tawnis