Friday, October 8, 2010

Shooty Death Lists

In a recent YTTH thread, Fearspect wanted advice on which of 3 armies he should bring to Throne of Skulls. It is a 1500 point tournament, and the first list he posted was rather interesting, but very poorly received.

CCS w/ Lascannon
CCS w / Lascannon, Master of Ordinance

5 Stormtroopers w / 2x Meltagun
5 Stormtroopers w / 2x Meltagun

PCS w / Autocanon
Platoon w / Lascannon
Platoon w / Lascannon
Conscripts
HWS w / 3x AC
HWS w / 3x AC
HWS w / 3x AC
HWS w / 3x AC

PCS w / Autocanon
Platoon w / Lascannon
Platoon w / Lascannon
Conscripts
HWS w / 3x AC
HWS w / 3x AC
HWS w / 3x AC
HWS w / 3x AC

This is an IG list with 26 autocannons, 6 lascannons, 4 meltaguns, and about 90 lasguns. Not really much of anything else, but what more do you need at 1500 points? The general consensus in the comments was "lawl, this list auto-loses to tri-raider, gg" There were a few people interjecting to say that tri-raider is garbage (especially at 1500) and that saying it sucks because it loses to a single list that also sucks (and therefore isn't likely to be present, or at the same tables anyways) is dumb. If Stelek's NOVA list was auto-lose against Necrons, it would still be a strong list, amiright?*

The other complaint was that it isn't fun to play. Frankly, this looks like so much fun to play. Fun to model/paint? No. Fun to deploy? No. Fun to skip the movement phase and roll 52 S7 dice per turn every turn? Oh yeah. Maybe I have a warped sense of fun, but gunlines and spam entertain me to no end.**

Anyways, it inspired my curiosity to make what I could with the Space Wolves codex. Hence:

WGBL

5GH + MG
5GH + MG

2LST
2LST
2LST

10LF + 9ML
10LF + 9ML
10LF + 9ML

1500 on the dot. Maybe not quite as good as the IG list, but 39 missiles per turn is hilarious. Imagine, just for the sake of funny, shooting 39 frag missiles at a single target. It would look like one of those bombardment templates from Apocalypse by the end.

Imagine:
"Hahaha, my 1500pt Nob Biker list is invicible! What have you to bring to the table?"
"39 krak missiles.'
"GULP"

I mean, ultimately this list fails miserably where the IG one actually is pretty strong. Where that list has almost 100 lasguns with first rank second rank fire, this list has... 10 boltguns.

Let's see, 20 S4 shots will kill 2 and a quarter(ish) MEq's out of cover. Not bad, not bad. 270 S3 shots kills 15. Moral: don't get too close to 90 flashlights. Bad things happen. And that's what it boils down to. At range, 39 S8 AP3 shots is pretty comparable to 52 S7 Ap4 shots, but inside 24" 90 lasguns >>> 10 boltguns.

This fact allows the IG list to prioritize more easily. Example, against my favorite 1500 shooty nids list, the IG focus the T-fexxen. HG won't be in range yet, and nothing else is a threat. Sure he can make a bunch of gants, but who cares? They'll get mulched immediately once they get into 24 inches. Tervigons aren't a threat, because the only thing dangerous they do is crap out gants. I don't care about gants, therefore I don't care about tervigons.

This SW list, however, needs to spread its fire a lot more because the gants matter. I might even say the tervigons need to be focused first before anything else. I can put wounds on the ranged stuff easily enough later, if I don't stop those gants now I'm going to get overrun.

Anyways, nobody ever suggested this Space Wolf list or anything so it is sort of pointless analyzing it. I just thought it was hilarious, so I wanted to put it up.

============================================

* - Also, this wouldn't auto-lose to tri-raider. Sure, it can't touch AV14 reliably (6 lascannons and 4 meltaguns can hurt LR's, but in such small numbers you can only expect so much out of them) but it will totally shred what small amount of troops they will have with fully half of their army spent on the 3 tanks. The LR's can hurricane bolter or flamestorm all they want, they still won't be able to kill enough guys to make a difference before they're the only things left on the board. (such is my opinion anyways)

Objective games could be tough. If it were my tri-raider, I would park them on top of the objectives then just not get the troops out. Who cares if I can count my KPs on one finger, you aren't going to get these objectives from me. Period.

** - People often complain about horde Ork lists necessitating slow play because there are so many models the turns take too long. I feel like totally static shooting lists like this IG one will probably take just as long. You aren't going to be rolling all 52 dice at once, so designating and rolling for each unit individually, I think, would probably take quite a bit of time.

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