Welcome back! If you’re just arriving and are interested to know where this story begins, please see Part 1 and Part 2. Thanks for joining me on the road!

League Night

Over the weekend I had a Frozen North league match against Reed Sto. He is an excellent opponent and a fun guy that you definitely want to play against whether you’re winning or losing. If you’ve never met him before Reed is basically the answer to the question, “What if Channing Tatum from 21 Jump Street but also Warhammer?” Fun fact about Reed; he has been asked to autograph something by a child who had mistaken him for John Cena… He’s a real life action hero whose superpower is trolling me into an insensible political rant in our team chat. Awesome.

Anyway, I’m not going to dive into the details of his list but suffice to say it’s a bunch of Chaos choo-choos, one of which is pictured below, with some additional support elements.

Reed Sto – Chaos – ITC Mission 3

Deployment: Dawn of War

This will be the last test run of my original Vibro Cannon list for the time being. In all honesty, the list couldn’t have been more purpose-built to defeat Reed’s which featured an abundance of T8 – going first against it basically put him in a hole. Ironically, I did not actually kill anything on Turn 1 but did do an outrageous amount of damage. By the time Turn 2 rolled around the stacking of damage from the first round plunged Reed into a deep hole, even with a few failures on my part (Shining Spears failed a 5″ charge that resulted in them being wiped on his turn) it proved to be too much for him to dig out, and by Turn 4 it was over. The list performed very well and the damage output is still remarkable, however the same concerns about mobility and sight lines remain as I found myself moving my cannons each turn. Moving forward my plan is to test one of my alternatives for the next two weeks and make a decision by the 13th for submission.

Key Takeaways:

I had not used the Fire Prisms extensively in the past and what I’ve learned about them is that they are extremely consistent and reliable but not necessarily going to do huge damage in a turn. I’ve previously thought they were my heavy hitters and while they’re great they’re not necessarily the linchpin. This realization actually makes me approach the list with a much more balanced perspective.

The Falcons continue to perform well. With Expert Crafters they are a unit that I can rely on to provide steady damage against high Toughness units and elite armies while not being something I fear losing – especially with Avenging Strike Dire Avengers inside. With the embarked Avengers and the extra slot they lower my drop count significantly and provide a pretty solid source of both anti-armor and anti-infantry – I’m really liking how these play at their cost.

they are a unit that I can rely on to provide steady damage against high Toughness units and elite armies while not being something I fear losing – especially with Dire Avengers inside. With the embarked Avengers and the extra slot they lower my drop count significantly and provide a pretty solid source of both anti-armor and anti-infantry – I’m really liking how these play at their cost. The Night Spinner was great with a Doomed target or alternatively to snipe some guys that then open sight lines on characters. This game confirmed my need for a second ‘Spinner.

The Vibro Cannons were a steady source of 2-damage shooting and may have been the heavy hitters all game. I’ve also noticed that they present a sort of targeting challenge for my opponent, who is forced to choose between the tanks and targeting individual platforms, all of which are steady in their damage output.

I have not found myself needing the 4th squad of Dire Avengers in any of my games – I think the role played by the Wave Serpent to capture mid-table objectives might be better substituted with a Falcon, allowing me to redirect the combined point savings to other options.

I’m so torn on the Vibro Cannons but I’m starting to come back around to including them. With that in mind I made a revised original list which I think strikes a much better balance (please see Part 2 for list options 2 and 3). It keeps most of the cannons and importantly adds a Night Spinner and swaps out the Wave Serpent and a squad of Dire Avengers for another Falcon.