Ok, so by the time you read this the tournament will actually be all done and dusted! I also have 4 warm up games to write up as well, which I will get around to but the new job has cut deep in to my hobby time and at the moment I'm concentrating on getting some painting done,such as my deathwatch dreadnoughts, which I will.post about in due course.
Anyway the tournament list that I took with me to Northern Invasion was a very infantry heavy list, with 155 infantry (including 9 heavy weapons teams for 164 infantry models) plus two aircraft, because why not.
This is not really a tournament optimised list but more of a fun list that I wanted to take. I'll get in to the details in a second but the basic plan is to trade bodies for points.
Almost the whole army, there's another 10 guardsmen to add.
The list, while long, is very simple and really only consists of a handful of index cards, 13 to be precise but there are multiples of many of the units.
The detachment is fairly self-explanatory, it's the only option we have.
Detachment: Combined Regiment
The characters are quite simple, Castellans to go with the cadian squads to issue orders. The platoon command squad will be with the big infantry squad to hold my lines. The commissar will go with a cadian squad and try to stabilise some of the squads, probably around the centre of the board. Lastly the psykers will be used for their defensive buffs mostly and their psychic powers being used when the opportunity arises.
+ Character +
Cadian Castellan: Bolt Pistol, Grand Strategist, Power Weapon
Cadian Castellan: Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon
Commissar: Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon
Platoon Command Squad: Platoon Commander: Death Mask of Ollanius, Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon, Plasma Gun, Master Vox, Medi-pack, Regimental Standard
Primaris Psyker
Primaris Psyker
The battle line units are simple, the big 20 man infantry squad will sit back the rest will be used to push up and take objectives and secondary missions, trading their lives away for points.
+ Battleline +
Cadian Shock Troops (10): Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun
Cadian Shock Troops (10): Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gu
Cadian Shock Troops (20): 2x Grenade Launcher, 2x Plasma Gun
Cadian Shock Troops (10): Drum-fed Autogun, Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun
Cadian Shock Troop (10): Bolt Pistol, Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun
Cadian Shock Troop (10): Bolt Pistol, Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun
Death Korps of Krieg (10): Medi-pack, Grenade Launcher, Meltagun, Plasma Gun, Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon
Infantry Squad (10): 2x Grenade Launcher, 2x Grenade Launcher. 2x HWT Autocannon
This is where my mistake in my list occured, the third cadian squad, with 20 guardsmen is a result of me.messing up battle scribe and ending up with an illegal 13 man squad. I've had to take a full 20 man squad when I would have rather taken two ten man squads, one cadian and one infantry with heavy weapon. I would have liked to take a DKoK squad but I would have been 5 points over, unless I took a catachan squad with them but then it would have gotten very complicated! So I've ended up with a 20 man squad, but then again it will work better with the reinforcements startagem!
The infantry units (none of which are really infantry) are the support and deep strike squads. The mortars will sit at the back and drop shots on to anything and everything I can or need to, even if I can't see them. The missiles are in because I only have two mortar squads and they can do a similar job with frag missiles plus they have the benefit of switching to Krak if I need to. The three Scion squads are basically cheep disposable units for grabbing things like engage on all fronts or capturing the enemy objective. They are fully tooled up because I can, if I had to pay points for special.weapons and the like, they would be running bare bones.
+ Infantry +
Heavy Weapons Squad: 3x Mortar
Heavy Weapons Squad: 3x Mortar
Heavy Weapons Squad: 3x Missile Launchers
Tempestus Scions (5): Plasma Pistol, Power Fist, Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Vox-caster
Tempestus Scions (5): Plasma Pistol, Power Fist, Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Vox-caster
Tempestus Scions (5): Plasma Pistol, Power Fist, Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Vox-caster
The two flyers are here mostly because I wanted to bring them and no other reason. They are not a very competitive choice at all and will mostly likely die to a stiff breeze. While they survive they will be flying around the table, as hovering seems like a terrible idea at the moment. Anyway, the Valkyrie with hellstrike missiles (my old vendetta) is pretty much the only dedicated anti-vehicle and anti-monster shooting I have, even if it's best against flyers.
+ Vehicle +
Valkyrie: Hellstrike Missiles, Lascannon, Heavy Bolters
Valkyrie: Militarum Multi-laser, Heavy Bolters, Multiple Rocket Pods
Now we have the allied units and these are a mixed bag of units, the Breachers have been taken purely because I wanted to put the Imperial Navy Breachers in the Imperial Navy Valkyries. They are not a great unit, cost basically the same as two catachan units and only have short ranged weapons but it's narrative as hell. The Inquisitor is again narrative, all my forces are lead by Inquisitors as so is this one. The Vindicate assassin is probably the only good choice here, giving me a somewhat potent anti-character weapon.
+ Allied Units +
Imperial Navy Breachers: chainfist, demo charge, heavy shotgun, power weapon, Navis las-volleys, Bolt pistol and power weapon
Imperial Navy Breachers: Meltagun
Inquisitor: Bolt pistol, Inquisitorial melee weapon, Psychic gifts, Warlord
Vindicare Assassin
Overall this is not the most optimised list and I feel that there are some obvious weaknesses in the list, mostly the lack of anti-vehicle and anti-monster firepower. Yes the Valkyrie has a couple of weapons and there is the heavy weapons teams but overall, if I face more than a couple of big things then I wont be able to deal with them, but hopefully, they won’t be able to deal with my numbers either.
This army is going to play towards the missions and objectives more than killing the enemy and I feel that I have a good chance of being able to achieve at least one victory during the four games.