"And an iron fist falling from the sky crushed them"

[Pi666]

Hi, that enigmatic name is the one I imagine this list deserves. It was created by a friend of mine and me. It's 2k points of space marines.

HQ
Master of the Forge w Conversion Beam

ELITE
3x Ironclad Dreadnought w Meltagun & Heavy Flamer, drop pod

TROOPS
3x 5-men scouts with CC weapon
2x 10-men Tactical squads, flamer, missile launcher and drop pod

FAST ATTACK
3x Land Speeder Storm

HEAVY SUPPORT
3x Ironclad Dreadnought, 2 heavy flamers, drop pod

Tactics
Simple, first turn you can throw at your opponents face 4 ironclads that will make him cry (and forget any battleplan he had) and the rest of the army is designed for acquiring objectives more than to provide killing, but they can do some job.

Comments are welcome.

[Unholy_Martyr]

All I can think of is "Owww". The shear amount of Melta's is just beautiful. I have a few questions/ideas:

1) With your drop pods, I am assuming you are taking locator beacons. If I'm incorrect, let me know. Now if you aren't you could do something along these lines: While speeders can deepstrike as well as carry those scouts into the action I was going to say you could put forth a squad of scout bikers. Don't tool them up too much and give them a locator beacon. That way, later on in the game in case you need precision placement of firepower, you can get it where you need it with a platfom that can get almost anywhere when you need it.

2) Master of the Forge: Trying to figure out exactly where he's going in your army...If he dropping in with a Tactical squad or doing something a little more interesting? I've seen noticed a player in my area who loves to place him in a scout squad with sniper rifles in a place with excellent Line of Sight dropping pie plates of pain, and from what I can tell, it is quite the crowd pleaser. (This would play in well with the scout bikers as you could exchange one speeder for the bikers and have pinpoint firing and dropping that would steal some mobility from Mech/ Speed Freak style players and lists).

Outside of that, I see nothing else to comment on or otherwise. I certainly would be concerned with the intensity of an assault by this force...

[Chumbalaya]

Drop Pod armies are a big risk. If your opponent holds his army in reserve, has any mobility, or deploys in a way to counter your deployment (spreading out infantry, bringing Mystics, vehicle walls, etc) you will be hard pressed to get anything done.

I'd avoid Storms, open-topped AV10 and only carrying 5 models kinda sucks. Normal MM/HF speeders work so much better.

[Confuddled]

Think that the vulnerability of drop-pod armies has already been mentioned – basically, going first is a BAD thing for your army, since the other guy is now free to force you to commit your podding units before he reacts to them.

(When my battle plan is to have my vehicles come into play 30+” from your Ironclads and hammer them from WAAAY outside their effective range, you’re going to be quite unhappy…)


Just to recap, though – single biggest weakness of a drop-pod army? The limited ability of the first wave to redeploy once the game starts.


So, keeping that in mind, and keeping 6 Dreadnoughts in play, I’d actually split your Dreadnoughts into two discrete groups.


Group 1
The dedicated close-combat, in-your-face contingent – this is where you’d put the 3-4 Ironclads.


Group 2
Instead of Ironclads, I’d actually go with 2-3 fire-support Dreadnoughts - take your pick of heavy weapons. Tacking a couple of hunter-killers onto the Ironclads might not be a bad idea either.


Trick is:

1) You want to give at least some of your units a little more reach, making it that much harder for the other guy to out-maneouvre you.

2) With two discrete groups of Dreadnoughts, you’ve got a few more options when it comes to deployment.

They’re all variations on a theme, but basically, by bringing along at least a couple of long-ranged Dreadnoughts (or Venerable Dreadnoughts if you’ve got the points), but the key thing is that you’d now have the option of bringing your entire army to bear on the opposition right from the start.

(The Dreadnoughts with long guns can deploy in/behind cover whilst the pods come down empty and still have an impact on the game from turn 1, whilst the other guy is forced to deal with the 3-4 Ironclads that just landed in his deployment zone)




As for the rest of your list….

1) Scouts in Storms are cute, but honestly, 3 is too much, seeing as how:
a) They’re horribly vulnerable to anything with S4 or higher.
b) Scouts are only WS3.

Fielding 1 is nifty enough for attempting a first-turn charge and/or outflanking to grab/contest objectives in the rear – its cheap enough that additional tactical options justifies the cost.

Fielding 2 is nice for the redundancy, especially if you choose to have them outflank. A little more expensive, though.

Fielding 3 is just too much.


2) You really don’t need 8 drop pods - you only need 7 to deliver the 4 Ironclads forward of your deployment zone, after all. Settle for 3 Ironclads and you can go with 6 pods (no need to waste a pod on a Tactical squad)

That being said, I suppose you could get away with fielding one Tactical squad to a drop pod is fine (you can always use them as a garrison unit and have the pod drop empty), but the other squad, at the very least, would probably benefit more from a Rhino or Razorback as a dedicated transport.

[Confuddled]

Off the top of my head, I’d actually call it something like this:



Master of the Forge, Conversion Beamer, Bike
Because being able to move and shoot with the Beamer is just that cool…


10 Tactical Marines, free upgrades, power weapon, Razorback/Rhino

10 Tactical Marines, free upgrades, power weapon, Razorback/Rhino
- Gives your Tactical Marines a little more in-game mobility.
- Razorbacks give you the option to hold back and shoot, while the Rhinos let you push the entire squad forward. Your call, really.


5 Scouts, Land Speeder Storm with heavy flamer

5 Scouts, Land Speeder Storm with heavy flamer
It can be fun, and the flamer actually lets the Storm do something productive once the Scouts jump off. You’d probably want to outflank rather than scout, though….


Ironclad, Assault Launchers, heavy flamer, melta gun, drop pod

Ironclad, Assault Launchers, heavy flamer, melta gun, drop pod

Ironclad, Assault Launchers, heavy flamer, melta gun, drop pod
Assault launchers are a bargain for the point cost – anything that reduces the number of power/chain-fist attacks coming your way is a GOOD thing for a Dreadnought.


Dreadnought, 2xautocannon, drop pod

Dreadnought, 2xautocannon, drop pod

Dreadnought, 2xautocannon, drop pod
Cheapest dedicated fire-support Dreadnought around, these are the guys who’ll be starting the game on the table (or walking on come turn 1, in the case of a Dawn of War mission) – their pods can drop empty for all you should care!

At the same time, the volume of S7 shots means that they can seriously threaten all but the very heaviest tanks – ie the transports/skimmers that are most likely to attempt to out-maneouvre the Ironclads...




Leaves you about 60-70 points (depending on whether you field Rhinos or Razorbacks) to spend on other stuff.

Just enough points to stick 2 hunter-killers on each of the Ironclads to give them some sort of initial long-ranged punch, perhaps?

[Pi666]

Good points, but this is an all-or-nothing army I guess. Is important to take all Ironclads for av:13. NO lucky krak grenades, and someome with a power fist is going to need a 5 to glance. Also in shooting it provides more strength against all s7 or less weapons. I mean, the intention is drop them in front of wathever you want to burn and flame them, or pop the vehicle you want in turn one.

The Storms is the weak point here, I itend to use them far enough from the enemy, they're not for combat, they're just for claiming objectives or in desperate case, attack some unit. I think keeping them far enough and full speed movement make them quite survivable (does this word exist?, lol). I like the point of no needing the second pod for the tacticals, but we don't want to give the enemy something easy to shoot turn one. And about the Master of the forge in bike, we were thinking on it but it wasn't clear to us if he couls shoot the conversion beam (i always understood the guns that can be fired like he hasn't moved were the guns mounted on the bike, not the guns carried by the biker), but apart of being cool (and t:5) it would make a super-cool conversion (driving the bike with mech arms and firing the conversion beam... nice!(btw, anyone knows how does a conversion beam look like?))

[Confuddled]

Is important to take all Ironclads for av:13. NO lucky krak grenades, and someome with a power fist is going to need a 5 to glance


Oh absolutely. Which is why I suggest that you keep the 3 Ironclads – AV13 is a very significant improvement,

On the other hand, its not quite as important for fire-support Dreadnoughts, especially since they’re relatively small – they don’t need all that much terrain to be able to claim a cover save.

Ironclads drop in his face, fire-support Dreads stay waaaay back.




Also in shooting it provides more strength against all s7 or less weapons. I mean, the intention is drop them in front of wathever you want to burn and flame them, or pop the vehicle you want in turn one.

1st problem – Fielding a full 6 Ironclads is a waste:
a) You’re not actually going to have 6 Ironclads to shock the opponent. You’ll only (!!) have 4, with no control over when the other 2 arrive if you keep them in pods.

b) The remaining 2 Ironclads have to slog across the table if you have them in play, but that could be anywhere from 2 to 4 turns, depending on deployment options, during which time they’re going to have a minimal impact on the game.




2nd problem – the easiest counter to drop-podding Ironclads is to force you to go first and/or keep my entire army in reserve.

a) Once that happens, you no longer get the first shot – I do.

b) Once your Ironclads are down, its not all that hard to avoid them – not when I’ve got a full 6’ of table edge for my units to come in from and they’re restricted to infantry speed.

Either you deploy them in a cluster, in which case they’re ridiculously easy to evade until I have sufficient force to hammer them, OR you spread them out, which allows me to gang up on one Ironclad at a time.


By taking 2-3 fire support Dreadnoughts, you’ve got the chance to counter someone who DOES keep his entire army in reserve -

a) The 3-4 Ironclads can still drop in 12” from his table edge

b) In the meantime, you can also deploy the fire-support dreadnoughts on the table (their drop pods arrive empty) where they can walk over to cover the spots where your Ironclads can NOT reach.



The Storms is the weak point here, I itend to use them far enough from the enemy, they're not for combat, they're just for claiming objectives or in desperate case, attack some unit. I think keeping them far enough and full speed movement make them quite survivable (does this word exist?, lol). I like the point of no needing the second pod for the tacticals, but we don't want to give the enemy something easy to shoot turn one.

Like I said:

1) if the other guy gets first turn, you deploy the softer units (Rhinos/Razorbacks, fire-support Dreadnoughts) in reserve.

AT the very least, hide the Dreadnoughts (they can move and shoot, after all, and you can always use a Rhino for cover!) – if the transports get popped, no big deal. The Marines can still move, after all, and by the time your turn rolls around, your opponent should have 6 Dreadnoughts (3-4 Ironclads, 2-3 fire-support Dreads), NOT 4 Dreads, to deal with.



2) If you really want to maximise the Storms’ survivability, then keep them in reserve and have them outflank – if they’re not on the table, they can’t be shot at, after all. If it works for the opposition, it works for you as well.

Once the Storms arrive, then they can turbo-boost until they grab an objective.



And yes, he can move and shoot. See p. 53 and 76 of the rulebook.

[Pi666]

Of course the idea was keeping the Stoirms in reserve for flanking (maybe i forgot to mention that). We'll test the two options (full ¡ronclad and the mixed dreads) and let's see how they work. But I'm afraid in case the mixed dreads option will have lots of problems against Orks (or should i say loota problems?)

[Confuddled]

. But I'm afraid in case the mixed dreads option will have lots of problems against Orks (or should i say loota problems?)

What's the problem?

If you get first turn:
The Ork player has two choices:
1) Deploy on the table and find himself facing 3-4 Ironclads landing in front of him on turn 1 - the fire-support Dreads can hang back and just concentrate fire on random Ork mobs and/or other support units.

2) Keep stuff in reserve, in which case his lootas are going to waste at least 1 round of shooting, AND he's still going to have to deal with the Ironclads forward and fire-support Dreads hovering in the back.


If the Ork player takes the first turn:
All you have to do to neutralise his shooting is deploy the Dreads more than 48" away from his lootas and move them up in your turn when the Ironclads arrive.

And that's ignoring such things as terrain, using the Rhinos to block LOS to the fire-support Dreads and whatnot.

[Pi666]

Remember always iniatitive can be stolen. I think 15-45 s7 shot can be a huge problem for the dreads, but i think they would be more concerned about the closest Ironclads too.