500 points of trouble.

Hey folks.

So this post is going to take it back to basics a bit. There was a convention in my town a couple of weeks ago, just a very small affair with 50 or 60 people turing up. The organisers put on a little 40K tourney, nothing too serious. Standard Force Org (so HQ and 2 Troops min) and a 500 point limit. All well and good you think. 

I spent weeks trying to come up with a 500 point list that I liked, it took hours and hours and to be honest I am still not happy. The same guy is running a 500pt tourney again in a couple of weeks and my stress levels are through the roof. 

My first issue was what army to take, this meant that I started creating a zillion lists for all the armies I own just trying to find something I like the look of. My problem is that I could create a really good on the board army but if the list doesn't look right then I don't like it. What does "look right" mean I hear you ask..... I have no idea. I just know it when I see it. 

So in the end I went with Orks, some Truks and Boyz. I just went with bodies. Well I played two marine lists and they just generally blew away the Truks and then killed the Boyz. I won one game on scenario and lost the other to a White Scar list. 

The White Scar list was basically one massive unit of tooled up bikes and then two min squads of Tactical Marines. This highlighted to me that at 500 points Death-star lists are good and their only real weakness is being hit with something like a Vindicator etc. 

500 points is really difficult to build a list for that works against all other lists. You could build one kind of list that will slaughter a certain other type of list but then, in turn will itself get slaughtered by certain other lists. 

So far in my fairly limited experience I find 500pt games tend to end in a massacre, I suspect that this is because an Alpha strike in such a small game is usually terminal. Although saying that in the game I won by scenario the fact that I lost all my Truks on turn one meant that I just went to an object and went to ground the whole game, there was no way I was going to kill my opponents models. He only lost because he didn't move up the table to come get me. 

So thats my theory so far that hard hitting Deathstar units are the way to go. Although I might try a cheeky Daemon summoning list, its like an inverse Alpha strike, if I am able to summon a couple of units a turn one I am essentially increasing my armies pts by 25% which makes a big swing in a small game.

So I now have two lists in mind, of course one of them essentially involved me starting a new army (because thats something I would never do right). So first idea was Cult Mechanicus. This is going to be a very low body count army, 8 models in fact.

HQ = Tech Priest Dominus with Eradication Ray.
Troop 1 = 4 Destroyers (2 Plasma Culverin and 2 Heavy Grav-Cannon).
Troop 2 = 3 Breachers (3 Torsion Cannon).

Basically there is enough firepower in these units to wipe out an infantry unit a turn or a vehicle a turn. The Alpha strike potential here is off the chart. Downside - 8 models, T5 2W, but 8 models nonetheless. The models are freaking awesome and I have gone with a theme. Basically Forge World that has been lost in the warp for thousands of years where the Mechanicum have been corrupted by Nurgle. I have painted them in a Nurgle/30K Death Guard scheme. I have this whole thing going on now where I can tie in Knights, Mechanicum and Chaos (I suspect will be a feature of another post). It just means I can create a lot of different army configuration using these models.

Second idea is Daemons.
HQ = Great Unclean One (lvl3).
HQ = Herald of Nurgle (lvl2).
Troop 1 = 10 Plaguebearers.
Troop 2 = 3 Nurgling Bases.

Tactics are just to try and summon as much as possible and win by attrition. With anything from 6 to 11 dice a turn I should in the physic phase I should be able to get some additional units on the table. If the Herald gets the 6 spell then later game I can potentially summon in a second Greater Daemon. Would need to be careful first two turns not to get blown away. I think this list has some merits but not sure, would need to try it out.

So these are the two lists I am going to run with at 500 for a bit, the Daemon list I have all the models for, the Mechanicus list involved me having to go out and get some models. I initially got the Dominus and one box of Destroyers when they were released just because I really liked them so all I needed was two more boxes (6 models, but I need only 4).

I undercoated black and then painted all over with silver. I then did my Bronze and Orange rust affect. I then painted the white bits (had to do three coats). After this applied a 50/50 mix of medium and Agthrax wash to the white bits. Once this was dry I stapled on the damage with a dark brown and then another 50/50 wash. Once dry washed the metal with Nuln Oil, after this had dried gave the metal areas a very gentle edge dry brush with a light silver. I think this looks pretty good, I will be doing a Knight in this scheme so it ties in with my 30K army and I can use it with my 40K Chaos army.

Tech Priest

Destroyers

Until next time......