#44: Boots on the ground...

Firstly, Happy Australia Day, everyone!

Having enjoyed a relaxing four-day weekend of eating, painting and binge-watching the Australian Open, it's now time to get back to reality. And what better way to spend my evening than to continue my thoughts and perspectives on the Horus Heresy and all of its wonders. Please keep in mind that these reviews (for lack of a better term) and from the perspectives of both a Salamander player and a player who has very little experience in 30k, so everything that I say is based upon what i have read and the very few games i have had the chance to play!

So, with my ignorance on the topic now being public knowledge, lets commence the next step of our Legion review. This week, we're going to look at Troops.

Troops are very often the first things I purchase alongside my warlord, being a base-level requirement of any list. And while I dont typically like to invest a fortune of points into Troops, 30k is an exception. Not only does the Salamander Rite of War (Covenant of Fire) demand that my Fast Attack and Heavy Support choices combined may not outnumber my Troops, but troops are the only unit type that can hold objectives, making them vital to victory. To top it off, you have certain units that count as non-compulsary troops, meaning that (to my limited knowledge) they can still hold objectives but may not count towards your minimum troops choices.

Lets kick off. First in the line are trusty Tactical Squads. Minimum size of ten, maximum size of twenty (TWENTY?!?), these are not the typical format that I think of, having come directly from the 41st Millenium. Every model carries a boltgun. There are no special weapons. There are no heavy weapons. These are your stock standard marines, and by far the most common. This irked me to begin with, having to pour points into a unit that wasn't all that effective against power armour in a game saturated in power armour. But as I play more games, I realise that these squads form a great backbone to the army. After the initial outlay of points, these boys are very cheap, being only 10 points a body after the first ten in the squad. The sergeant is spoilt for choice when it comes to wargear, even having access to Articifier armour, what with it being much more common back then. For Sallies, these squads are hard to shift off an objective with their bonus re-rolls for morale. Then, showing their true strength, they come with a nifty little special rule called Fury of the Legion. With FotL, if the squad stands still, they can fore double their usual shots, essentially pulling the trigger until the mag empties. Sure, they can't shoot in their following turn, but this ability can be truly brutal at flooding the enemy with so many saves, that inevitably, some will fail. To round it out, these guys can be equipped with Nuncio-Voxes, allowing your artillery to draw line of site from the squad, who play the role of spotter for the big guns These are my current picks for my two compulsary troops.

Tactical Support Squads are your go-to guys for special weapons. Following the trends of 30k, every man in the squad carries the same gun, allowing you do dedicate the squad to a specific role, but in turn making them a potentially very expensive unit! The most common I have seen fielded so far is just a five-man squad rocking plasma guns in a Rhino, but there are many uses for this particular slot! A ten-man squad carrying Volkite Calivers (30" S6 Heavy 2) can dish out a horrifying amount of firepower and can potentially cause more hits if unsaved wounds get through on the target squad. And all for an affordable 250 points! Meltaguns, Flamers and Volkite Chargers can also be handed to this squad. The one disappointing thing about these boys is that they can be equipped with very cool Rotor Cannons (essentially hand-held miniguns), but they only hit at a lackluster Strength 3...

Assault Squads are very much the same as their 40k counterparts, with access to several nasty pistols and Melta bombs all round, Not only that, but you can take twenty in the squad, making an assault from these guys quite undesirable. If I'm honest, I probably won't use these chaps much, mainly because of the debilitating drawbacks for Salamanders in combat. For my assaults to be effective, i really need a hard-hitting unit geared up to slay whatever they touch. I can't afford to get run down as easily as Salamanders have a habit of doing.

Breacher squads are tough as nails, carrying Boarding Shields and being encased in hardened armour. In my mind, these guys seem best suited for game types such as Zone Mortalis, but I'm yet to see these fine gentlemen in action on the open battlefield, so I shall hold my tongue lest I say something foolish.

Lastly we have the Recon Squad. As the name suggests, these guys are your first contact with the enemy. With Acute Senses, Outflank, Scout and ready access to Stealth thanks to Cameleoline, they can be a real thorn in your opponent's side. They are also particularly adept with the use of Sniper Rifles, and can come in real handy when trying to pick off that pesky character or silence a nuncio-vox! This squad particularly opens up some great potential for modelling.

So there you have it. Now, it should be noted that many legions and Rites of War allow for other units to be taken as Troops, but that's a topic for another day!

Hopefully, you enjoyed the read. What are your favourite choices when it comes to boots on the ground?

Thanks for reading,
Gabriel

  

#43: The Greater Bad...

A local store had recently announced that they were holding an army painting challenge, followed by a tournament; something I haven't attended in quite some time now for a variety of reasons. And I, having the attention span of a fruit fly, didn't hesitate to commit to painting a cool thousand point army. 

My first choice was what army to take. I had painted up a handful of Tau for a kill team (which shall feature in an upcoming battle report), and it took the tiniest of nudges for me to commit to expanding to at least 1000 points of the Greater Good. 

My second choice was significantly more difficult. The players pack is fantastic, and has been specifically designed to diversify the forces attending the tournament. I have to take a single Combined Arms Detachment, but instead of a HQ and two Troops being the only obligatory choices, I had to also include at least one Elite, Fast and Heavy Support slot. This is cleverly designed to avoid such shenanigans as "Min-Maxxing' and Death Stars. However, once we tick the boxes for our six obligatory units, we can spend any remaining points on whatever we choose. This left me with a set of difficult choices. After flicking through the Tau Empire codex, I realised that I had no idea where to even start! So many brilliant choices.   

Do I run a gun line?

Do i mechanize everything?

How many Riptides is too many?

After changing my list a multitude of times, and purchasing models that would eventually not make the cut, i settled on a list that contained a healthy mix of everything. In the spirit of people having more than enough time to plan my crushing defeat, I thought i would publish my list for your thoughts and critiques. 

Fireblade (Warlord)

11 Fire Warriors with Pulse Rifles and a DX8 Turret

8 Breachers in a Devilfish equipped with a Blacksun Filter and Disruption Pods

Riptide with an Ion Accelerator

3 Crisis Suits with 6 Burst Cannons

3 Crisis Suits with 6 Plasma Rifles

5 Pathfinders

Broadside with High-Yield Missile Pods

Tide Wall Shieldline

So there it is. A neat little bundle of half blind, trigger-happy xenos. It took me a while to find the balance, but here's how it all fell into place. The Fireblade (being cheap) complimented the big unit of Fire Warriors (being a cheap and bountiful source of mid-strength shooting). The Breachers mounted in their Fish was an easy choice, as no one can really ignore this unit. Not only is the Devilfish Objective Secured thanks to being a Dedicated Transport for Troops, but the Breachers can really deliver the knockout punch, thanks to their lethal shotguns. 

The Pathfinders and Missile Broadside were both easy choices, as they add a lot to my shooting phase, as well as being both pretty cheap points-wise. With these two purchases, I had the freedom to spend my remaining points however I chose. Being new to Tau, I simply couldn't resist the lure of Battlesuits. My initial instinct was to get my hands on a Ghostkeel, which I did, before changing my mind and picking two three-man Crisis teams, one sporting double Plasma Rifles for any pesky Terminators I might come across, while the other team was decked out with two Burst Cannons each, capable of dishing out a whopping 24 S5 shots from only three models. Terrifying. These two purchases gives me two aces up my sleeve, as I plan on leaving them in reserves and Deep Striking them wherever they can most effectively bring their considerable firepower to the conflict. 

The last choice, and one I would not typically be inclined toward (being a reckless, impulsive Ork player at heart), was a Shieldline. Not only is this piece of floating architecture incredibly practical, and conveniently big enough to house my Fire Warriors, Fireblade and Pathfinders, it looks fantastic and makes for a focal centre piece for display, and a tactical anchor for my xenos force. The one thing I didn't want was to play a bland, boring gun-line where my movement phase consisted of taking one step closer to the shooting phase, and i think i have successfully avoided that. While I do have a fire base of sorts, this list is quite mobile and quite reactive, and I hope it has the answers to deal with most threats I may come across in this tournament.

So how does this army actually perform on the table? Well, I've played two games with it so far, once against Eldar, and once against White Scars. While I actually fielded a second Broadside in both of these games, having not purchased a Shield Line yet, the results were brutal. 

My game against Eldar was predictably challenging, as my opponent and his superior mobility kept me on the back foot for the majority of the game, eventually beating me after five bloody and violent turns.   

The second game against White Scars was rife with errors on my part. Not only did I forget to use my Riptide's Nova Reactor and Assault Phase jump, resulting in an untimely death, but I simply didn't play to the army's strengths; They absolutely do have strengths, there's no denying that. The book is disgustingly efficient. My skills, however, require some fine tuning.

I'm hoping to get several more games in before the Tournament on Feb 7th, as I still don't feel like I've settled into the army yet, but time shall see if I can bring my A-game on the day! 

So, what is your project for 2016? A new army, or perhaps expanding on an old one?

I'll be continuing the series on my impressions of the Horus Heresy Crusade list next week, tackling the Troops slot. In all honesty, that was intended to be tonight's post, but I'm so focused on madly painting Tau at present, it was hard not to dedicate this evening's entry to the xenos.

But, as it is getting quite late, and I must be up before the sun, i must leave you here, my good friend. 2016 is going to be a big year for the Rune Axe, and I look forward to sharing my big plans with you in coming weeks! Oh, what plans! 

As always, Thanks for reading and for the support that you have all shown me on this humble blog. I hope that you'll continue following the Rune Axe as our little community grows.

Gabe