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Thursday 23 October 2014

IA13 - War Machines of the Lost and the Damned...redux

Small follow up post to the one I did a few days back on IA13.

I got my infantry out and read more of the army list rules to see how I could re-arrange them to suit the new list and to decide what direction I wanted to go.

So Devotion wise I selected Arch-Heretic Revolutionary.

This would give me a Command Squad which were Zealots, which combined with their Fanatic rule (allowing me to roll two dice and discard the lowest score when determining their Ld value) should give me a solid Command squad which will hopefully stay around - once boosted with a Sigil and Enforcer (+1 Ld to the squad) they will be solid...well as solid as they can be.

I want the army to be somewhere in the middle of the Chaos line - if one end is just rabble, an untrained horde while at the other end they are resolute, devoted elite these guys will be the middle ground, trained but nothing out of the ordinary. While they need direction and encouragement (the Devotion allows more Enforcers to be taken than normal) they have some level of 'professionalism'.


So above you see the infantry laid out.

We have four 20 man infantry squads (all one Troop slot). These are made up of my old infantry squads, special weapon squads, platoon command squad and two heavy weapon squads.

Three squads form a gun line with 2 missile launchers and 2 plasma guns. With a vox, chaos sigil and attached Enforcer they have the best chance of not running away at the first opportunity.

The fourth squad will be held behind the lines to plug any gaps. Armed with CCW, pistols and toting 2 flamers and a melta gun they'll be hurled in to any dire situation.

I will need to break down and rebuild a number of the models and I'll have to convert a couple of new standard bearers.

My old Demo Charger guys won't be taken apart after all, they instead join the 4th squad. The bombs they wield will stand in for the krak grenades the squad carries.

Top left in the pic is the HQ squad including the Demagogue. To take advantage of the squads BS4 they have a Lascannon and a plasma gun.

Meantime top right are seven Enforcers, enough for these five squads plus my second Troop choice which at the moment I am leaning towards a small Mutant squad, mainly for the fun of converting them...though I may go for Plague Zombies if I take the Covenant of Nurgle for my Demagogue.


Talking of Covenants I haven't decided what to take for the infantry squads. I may go for a mix (such as Khorne for the reserve assaulty squad, with Nurgle on the others to give them more survivability). I may play around with taking different ones to begin with before I decide what to stick with. With my Devotion I also have the option to upgrade these squads by making them Fanatics, but this is pricey so I may go without for now and see how they perform.



Alas I can't find a place for these three:


Those two renegade psykers are two of my favourite models in the CRM range, but I just can't find a place in the army they fit. I would have taken the Primaris-rogue Psyker Devotion but it really didn't suit what I wanted the army to be.



To get more heavy weapons in the army I am thinking I will take a HW Squad as a Heavy Support slot. I have five remaining Lascannon teams which I can form into one squad. Might be a bit overkill but it should get the job done.

I am tempted though to mix mortars in with them. Partly because I want to use the models I have built and partly because no matter what the squad will be able to do something - when the Lascannon can't see a target the mortars can still fire at something, plus it would give the squad some very cheap ablative wounds in the shape of the mortars. Something to ponder...

It took me ages to make all of these mini-dioramas for the HW teams...

I still plan on taking a couple of more squads of infantry in the form of either Disciple Squads (Elite) or Vet squads (Troop). They are very similar, while Disciples are BS4 Vets are WS4 and both can take Carapace armour and have access to special weapons - though very limited in number. If I take Vets I may drop the Mutant/Zombie unit.

Disciples can take a heavy weapon but Vets can take a USR's (such as Deep Strike, Scout etc). Overall the two options are pretty equal so I'm a little uncertain which way to go at the moment.


Whatever I do I am currently looking at around 120 infantry models (including Command squad, Enforcers & HW teams). That's a lot. What I will do next is start fleshing out the rest of the army, When I get a better idea of what else I want to take I may come back to the infantry and have a re-think, possible dropping one of those infantry squads. This will come down to points, I can't neglect the tanks and other choices I so definitely want in the army. So many choices...


Oh I will also have some Rough Riders eventually...


Quite a rambling post that...mainly me thinking out loud. Next one will make more sense. Almost certainly.

12 comments:

  1. Sounds like a good plan to me. I really like mixing in the mortars for some cheap extra wounds.

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    1. Yeah it won't save a huge amount of points but it'll give me another option and i'd rather have a mortar die than a lascannon...

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  2. Excellent write up! I am in the very same position as you are. I have an existing mish-mash of renengades and chaos tanks, demons, CSM, etc. but with the recent release of a new army list, I've got to get back to the drawing board and renew how I want this army to come together.

    How are the mutants, mechanics wise? I'm interested in taking a big brick of 20 but Im not going to go through the process of converting each individual one (and then painting all of them...) if they're just sucktastic on the tabletop. They at least have to be a viable speed bump lol

    Also, somebody mentioned that you could somehow work noise marines into a renegades list...is that true? and if so, how?

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    1. Mutants are very cheap, 20 without upgrades would be 60 points, coming with pistol, CCW and frag. They have random Ld as regular Renegades with an option to take a 6+ save. Stat wise they aren't great, very basic and the mutation table isn't brilliant but gives them some bonuses. I would take a champion with a Covenant, the Covenant will give them a cheap boost - e.g. with Khorne they get to re-roll rolls to Wound on the first round of combat, a big mob charging in and doing that could do some real damage even at Str. 3. I am tempted by them.

      Overall they aren't great, but they are cheap and used en masse could really tie up the enemy and do some damage.

      To take Noise Marines you need to give your Demagogue the Covenant of Slaanesh. You can then take a unit of Noise Marines and/or a Sonic Dreadnought as Elite.

      Hope thet helps.

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  3. I am in the middle of building a force of renegades and played two games with them last night.

    I think what you are going for will work really well. But i am curious, i gave most units covenants of one god or another, any reason why you have gone for the sigil instead? is it just the added reliability?

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    1. How did they do?

      I went for the Sigil partly for more reliability and partly because I think it'll look good...I may end up including the model but not paying for it if after a few games it turns out to be unneeded. But at only 5pts each I thought it was worth the expense. With Vox and Enforcers it may turn out to be a waste so I could always swap it for another special weapon instead.

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    2. I tried two different lists, i used a mutant master vs orks and got murdered. While i like the mutants using them as a key unit didn't work that time.

      In the second game i used a more elite force with a lot of covenants of tzeentch and beat a elisian D-99 force quite easily. Over all i love the army list.

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    3. Interesting, I don't think I would go for a Mutant heavy force, but I find them appealing as a cheap unit to throw into the fray.

      Have to agree there is a lot to love in the army list.

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  4. By the Emperor I need to get this book. I am curious about your thoughts on replacing cultists with renegades. I have close to 200 cultists and traitor guard converted, but I lost steam because holy crap the rules have sucked for a while and they have been nearly unplayable. If I can take different mixes of renegades, cultist type fanatics, and mutants in my army then I can actually use all my damned models for once!

    How have renegade ogryns changed? Their old rules were very wonky and didn't work well at all, are they usable now? And do they finally at least have the option to take guns as an upgrade?

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    1. There are lots of options, for example if you want cheap cultists you can take infantry squads with BS/WS2 with CCW and pistols, flamers etc. You want more professional traitor guards give them the Militia training to give them BS/WS3 and then give them lasguns for free an so on. You can take up to five squads in one Troop choice and you can decide on a squad to squad basis if they get training etc.

      As for the Renegade Ogryns they have more options and special rules than the original unit in Vraks, but no guns. They are very much an assault unit. You now have a mixed unit in which you can take the chaos hounds. Options for flak or carapace armour. You can also give them a Covenant of Chaos which will give them a boost (e.g. Cov of Slaanesh gives them Fleet). Tbh i've never used the old unit so with no experience I can't say if these are genuinely better or not. They do look nice though...

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    2. Ok well I guess I'll start replacing guns with big axes then. That's actually easier as I've been using minotaurs as the basis for the conversion. What is the min-max squad size for heretics?

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    3. Ogryn are 1-10 in a unit, plus up to 6 hounds.

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