Greetings, fellow future Soylent Green ingredients! Today, I’m going to discuss the new 2000 points tournament list I’m working on.

Indeed, after the rather… disappointing performance at the last tournament I attended, it became clear that something was not working (beyond my tactics, which I have to admit were partly at fault). One part of the problem became pretty obvious very quickly: the huge amount of Tacticals I had just weren’t pulling their weight (a point I’ve covered in depth already).

That said, other issues eventually became difficult to ignore…

The Stormraven, while dealing enormous damage, is just too many points tied into a single target; this is doubly true if you actually use it as a transport and not just a gunboat. As soon as your opponent has a reasonable amount of anti-tank, it’s a dead bird flying. Now that it has had its points increased in Chapter Approved, I see no reason to keep the two I have in my list.

Complete lack of pressure units to mess with my opponent’s battleplan. This is something I realised more while playing “casual” games against my regular Eldar opponent, who used Warp Spiders to great effect against my backfield, whereas his Dark Reapers were free to provide deadly firesupport undisrupted.

Lack of Reserves. Having everything on the board has 2 negative consequences: first, it makes my battleplan easier to read and second it makes it harder to have everything out of LOS/in cover.

Absence of Guilliman. Let’s face it: if you’re playing Ultramarines and you don’t take him, you’re more than likely hindering yourself. The paltry 25 points in cost increase post-Chapter Approved has really done very little to diminish his awesomeness.

With that, I set out to craft my new list.

Composition

First, out went the 30 Tacticals and in went 15 naked Bolter Scouts. These little guys are great: they are cheap(ish) and their ability to deploy in forward positions allows them to effectively screen my force like nobody’s business, and if screens are not needed, they can squirrel unto objectives and hide – an extremely useful ability in ITC missions .

Next, I grabbed some Assassins. These bad mothers are a cheap and efficient way to add pressure units to an Imperial list. Unlike things such as Vanguard Veterans or Assault Terminators, Officio Assassinorum operatives can very reliably get the charge off when popping out of Reserves, thanks to Polymorphine for the Callidus and Frenzon for the Eversor. I am taking two Eversors for general mayhem duty and a single Callidus for her Reign of Confusion ability and Warlord-eating Phase Sword and Neural Shredder.

With the Assassins included, I added Guilliman, 2 units of Gravastators and 2 Assbacks (to carry the Devs) to the list. While Grav looks pretty good on its own on paper, it is very unreliable at doing anything but killing T4-and-under models; the same can be said of Assault Cannons, really. With Guilly’s rerolls, however, they frikking SHRED tanks and monsters. I had my opponent’s Land Raider come into range of the Devs during my first (and so far only) test game – it did not end well for the Raider… The Assbacks got a not-unnoticeable bump in price in Chapter Approved, but so far I think it merely scaled them back from “broken” to “good” – they are still probably the most efficient light-infantry shredders in the Marine codex. And insofar as Guilliman himself is concerned, the fact that the forward-deployed Scouts can now stop my opponent from shooting at him even if they are out of LOS is just lol-silly, but oh well! I don’t make the rules 😛

To provide some long range firepower and a backfield presence, I’m taking my customary Venerable Dreadnoughts (both in Twin Las/Twin Autocannon config), a Lieutenant and a Chronus-ridden Predator Annihilator (or Quad-Las Pred, as it is more commonly known). Because the Dreads and Chronus all hit on 2s, I can use Wisdom of the Ancients to give them all full rerolls to hit, and the Lascannons will be extra reliable thanks to the Lieutenant’s rerolls. I’m going to give the Lieutenant the Teeth of Terra so that he can help deal with any opponent skirmishers that would seek to create a mess in my deployment zone. I’m not super enthused at using my Relic allocation thusly but I’m having an even harder time cutting something like an Eversor or a Scout Squad to fit a Company Ancient in the list (for the Relic standard, of course).

While I could fit all of that in a Battallion, the Assassins would make me lose ObSec on my Scouts and the Ultramarine Chapter Tactic, which may come in handy for my Dreads and Devs. Therefore, I’m going to bite the bullet and shove them into a Vanguard Detachment with Chronus as the HQ (since he doesn’t really have anything to lose from not having the Ultra CT).

And so I give you my list:

Ultramarines Spearhead Detachment:

Lieutenant – The Teeth of Terra, 2 Bolt Pistols

– The Teeth of Terra, 2 Bolt Pistols Venerable Dreadnought – Twin Lascannon, Twin Autocannon

– Twin Lascannon, Twin Autocannon Venerable Dreadnought – Twin Lascannon, Twin Autocannon

– Twin Lascannon, Twin Autocannon 5 Scouts – Boltguns, Sergeant with Boltgun & Chainsword

– Boltguns, Sergeant with Boltgun & Chainsword 5 Scouts – Boltguns, Sergeant with Boltgun & Chainsword

– Boltguns, Sergeant with Boltgun & Chainsword 5 Scouts – Boltguns, Sergeant with Boltgun & Chainsword

– Boltguns, Sergeant with Boltgun & Chainsword 5 Devastators – 4 Gravcannons w/ Grav Amps, Armorium Cherub, Sergeant with Boltgun & Chainsword

– 4 Gravcannons w/ Grav Amps, Armorium Cherub, Sergeant with Boltgun & Chainsword 5 Devastators – 4 Gravcannons w/ Grav Amps, Armorium Cherub, Sergeant with Boltgun & Chainsword

– 4 Gravcannons w/ Grav Amps, Armorium Cherub, Sergeant with Boltgun & Chainsword Predator – Twin Lascannon, 2 Lascannons

– Twin Lascannon, 2 Lascannons Razorback – Twin Assault Cannons, Storm Bolter

– Twin Assault Cannons, Storm Bolter Razorback – Twin Assault Cannons

Imperium Vanguard Detachment:

Sergeant Chronus*

Callidus Assassin

Eversor Assassin

Eversor Assassin

Ultramarines Superheavy Auxiliary Detachment:

Roboute Guilliman

*Before anyone jumps on the fact that Chronus doesn’t appear to have his own tank, please note that Battlescribe actually has this wrong – you don’t buy Chronus his own tank as an HQ; you put him in a tank you have in your army in its own slot.

Alternative Idea

While I think my list is pretty good, I’m pondering doing things a bit differently. For starters, I’m considering dropping both Razorbacks and putting the Devastators in a Drop Pod (*gasp!* a Drop Pod!) and also grabbing a unit of Dakkaceptors to mitigate the loss of the Razors’ anti-chaff output. This would allow me to be more flexible in my battleplan while also avoiding instances of having the Razors and Devs getting alpha’ed off the table and leaving more room for my Pred and Dreads to be deployed out of LoS. The flipside to this is that naturally, Inceptors are nowhere near as tough as Razorbacks, point for point, and that the Grav Devs will have to deploy within Guilliman’s aura to be effective, which kinda mitigates the surprise factor to a certain extent.

Nevertheless, going the pod/’ceptor route leaves me enough points to grab an Inquisitorial Acolyte and a unit of Cenobyte Servitors to add to my backfield screen/free up some Scouts to deploy forward, which is an idea I like. Alternatively, I could upgrade one Eversor to a Culexus to screw with Psychic armies.

Also, an idea that just popped into my head as I was putting the final edits in: what about replacing a single Eversor with Sly Marbo? Hmm…

Thoughts?