winter tourny

[blackbolt]

logan grimnar 275

wolf guard termy 33
powersword 0
storm shield 15
wolfguard termy 33
thunder hammer 15
storm shield 15
wolf guard termy 33
wolf claw 5
wolf claw 10
wolf guard termy 33
storm bolter 0
wolf claw 5
drop pod 35

wolf guard termy 33
heavy flamer 5
powersword 0
wolfguard termy 33
wolf claw 5
storm bolter 0
wolf guard termy 33
thunder hammer 15
storm bolter 0
wolf guard termy 33
power fist 10
storm bolter 0
wolf guard termy 33
frost axe 10
storm bolter 0

wolf scouts X7 105
2 power swords 30
melta bombs X5 25

wolf guard battle leader 70
sega of the hunter 10
frost axe 25
storm bolter 3
wolf tooth necklace 10
melta bomb 5

so this is my list for a 1000 point tourny were doing at my local hobby shop. what do you guys think?

 

[me_in_japan]

Honestly, looking at this from an eldar player's perspective, (in which space wolves, blood angels, dark angels, ultramarines, black templars and any other flavour of space marine you can think of, including chaos ones, boil down to "T4, 3+Sv"), what I'm thinking is:

"just as well I brought all those starcannon"

Space marine armies are very common in the metagame. Any tourny army I put on the table will be chocka with starcannon, and as many of my units as possible will be in wave serpents (with TL starcannon).

I don't mean to say that your list isn't good, but you should think about what you would do if you came up against an eldar army containing 2 or 3 wave serpents, at least one of which would contain fire dragons (and in a cheesemongering list, more than one). If you can answer that question, then your list is a goer. If not, back to the drawing board for a re-think.

Specifically, you have a ton of terminators but not much else for the opponent to worry about. Although they can DS in their pods (can termis not DS anyway?) their mobility after that is very, very limited, so against any army which is mech'd, theyre gonna be scoobed. They'll DS in, and the opponent will simply move far enough away that you can't charge him, and shoot at you with however many plasma weapons he happened to bring. This will be repeated until all the termis are dead.

A good way to critique your list is to look at it from an opponent's perspective. i.e. not "my list can do A, B and C" but "I need to shut down this list. What shall I do with my eldar/orks/nids/whatever." Then, having ascertained what your opponent's danger units are, think how your list can shut them down in turn.

That's what I do, anyway

 

[blackbolt]

well after losing my first battle i must concure. we are aloud to edit our lists after every uh "round"? so i picked up another squad of termy and am planning to turn them into a more ranged squad. i think i might also ditch the scouts and drop pods

 

[me_in_japan]

If you ditch the drop pods you'll have even less mobility than you did initially. One piece of tactical advice I read years ago, written by a far wiser man than I, said:

"The movement phase is the one section of the turn where you have 100% control of what happens. Shooting and combat are dependent on dice rolls, so may or may not go as you had planned. Movement, however, is entirely under your control. That's why it's the most important phase in the game."

or words to that effect. While it holds particularly true for scooty armies like eldar/dark eldar, it's still a valid point for space marine armies. Terminators are good, but they're a hammer unit. A hammer unit isn't useful unless you have an anvil upon which to strike (metaphorically speaking.) In real terms, what this means is that if you only have terminators, the enemy is just going to run away from them (esp. if they have CC weapns only). You need a block of something reasonably scary to close down the enemy's movement. A 10 man squad of tac marines in a rhino, a 5 man squad of long fangs on a hill with good LOS, a squad of bikermarines, or something like that. Basically every time the enemy moves, you should be making him choose between staying where he is and getting clubbed by the terminators, or moving, and getting clubbed by the long fangs on the hill/tac marines/whatever. Making sure your army is mobile allows you to force this decision on the opposition more easily. (note that armies like IG produce a similar result by having such a humungous number of guns pointing onto the table that there's pretty much nowhere the opponent can go without getting shot at, so their choice becomes "do I stay and get shot by the leman russes or move and get shot by the whajamecallits with the huge long gun barrels?"

I'm aware that as a long time eldar/dark eldar player I'm probably biased, but I really think that movement and board control is the way to win a game.

*edit* One other thing is that as an eldar/dark eldar player the idea of taking as many rock 'ard troops as possible and just standing there and soaking up fire with them makes me go "skweeeeee!" and wince, as any eldar player who tried that would last all of...2 turns, if they were lucky. Not saying it doesnt work with marines, but it's outwith my tactical headspace and does not compute, so far as the ol' brain is concerned

 

[blackbolt]

the thing is i had a chance to look at the other armys there. theres 2 vanilla marine armys 2 grey knight armys 2 gaurd armys one DE and one ork. almost all of them have forgone the shooty sie of there armys for cc ability. and we are only plaing on 4' by 4' boards. i have my one termy squad im adding to have a cyclone and a wolf priest which will have the long range abilitys.

wolf guard termy 33
sword and storm bolter 0
cyclone missle launcher 30
wolfguard termy 33
wolf claw 5
storm bolter 0
wolf guard termy 33
wolf claw 5
storm bolter 0
wolf guard termy 33
wolf claw 5
storm bolter 0
rune priest 100
termy armour 20
chooser of the slain 10
wolftooth neckalce 10
and jaws of world wolf and the living lightning power with unlimited range d6 attacks at str 7

 

[me_in_japan]

we are only plaing on 4' by 4' boards.

aaaaah, that changes things, then. Also, having seen the opposition can work wonders for your force composition. With your termi heavy army, you should be fine against the marine/GK armies (unless they mech up in rhinos a lot). Guard could possibly give you some trouble if they get to whale on you with their big whajemecallits that have large blast AP2. (sorry - as you can no doubt tell, I dont play against guard much...) and as for Dark Eldar, if you get into CC with them then the DE player deserves everything he gets (ps: a hint when playing against DE: kill their transports before you kil their heavy support (unless he has a ravager with 3 disintegrator cannon on it. If he does, nail that sunnavabitch asap, or it will be killing a squad of termis a turn.) and try to kill wyches with your bolters rather than in CC, as it will take less time and stop your unit from getting bogged down in CC with a unit who have 4+* saves)

Personally, I'm still inclined to take a long range long fangs unit over more termis, but I suspect that's just my own table-control play style sticking its oar in. I suffer from this a lot. For example, as well as my eldar/dark eldar armies (8000 and 3500ish, respectively) I also have about 3k points of mono-nurgle death guard. I got this army because I wanted something that looked and played completely differently to my eldar. However, I find myself playing with 2 squads of DG marines with 2 melta each, in rhinos (coughfiredragonscough), 1 squad of raptors with melta guns (coughflyingfiredragonscough), a blight drone (coughnurglefastskimmerwhat?!?cough), a squad of bikers with meltaguns (coughfiredragonsonbikescough), and a couple of squads of lesser daemons, which I play as plague bearers if my opponent will let me. For a nurgle army, it plays a hella lot like a fast skimmy shooty army...(ok, I'll concede, I also have a dreadnaught. Neither fast nor skimmy, but hey, the FW nurgle dred is cool. So sue me...) I also like to give my Chosen 5 plasma guns, which granted the eldar dont get, but it's certainly a mono-purpose squad, which is rather eldary, I reckon.

Anyway, I'm wittering on here. The main thing is: on a smaller 4 x 4 table your 3 squads of termis will have a better chance to shut down the opposition. You risk getting splodged by dodgy reserve rolls, however, and the alternative of footslogging is also risky as it gives them plenty time to shoot you.