The Road to Adepticon: The Themed List Development

As I prepare for the epic war that is Adepticon, I find myself putting a lot of time and effort into developing a list. The tournament circuit is pretty competitive and I have taken it upon myself to play, what many call an uncompetitive kind of army list. The purely themed list. In an atmosphere of massed las/plas razorbacks, imperial guard mechanized armies and general min maxed army flagrancy I have given myself a monumental task.

So I ask myself what elements are needed for a competitive list and what do I need to do to keep it in the theme. These two things are not diametrically opposed as some would think. Sadly you can make some strongly themed lists that are still min maxed with some of the codex’s out there, Space Wolves, and I have to take that into consideration as well

What I need for the competitive side of the list is enough troops choices to take and hold objectives. I also need to be able to kill armor and be able to withstand assaults. Basically I need to be able to get kill points and not give them up. In a purely themes Ulthwe list I need to be Guardian heavy and lite on Aspect Warriors.

With that in mind I designed a nice guardian heavy army centered around 3 Guardian units, one of which was on bikes. I bolster the Guardians with Warlocks and The Avatar. I have a nice size Seer council as well.

This is just known as “The List” I don't want to give away details as I don't want to see any carbon copies and its still under development. I did get a chance to use “The List” Yesterday though. The Judge and I squared off. Unknown to me was the fact The Judge was trying out a Space Wolves list. Lots of Long Fangs and Grey Hunters in drop pods . It was a take and hold spear head deployment. The Judge Got the First turn. I deployed all my forces with the exception of one unit out flanking. I set up nice a spread out leaving no gas for drop pods to come in. This forced The Judge to land his first 3 pods in front of my army. The long fangs took out Eldrads wave serpent and the prism cannon off one of the fire prisms. All in all it was not bad. Eldrad and the Avatar rallied the troops and gave a retort to the space wolves attack. Shooting saw numerous Grey Hunter killed and a Long Fang pack wiped from the board. In the Assault phase 2 Grey Hunter packs were wiped out by Eldrad and his Warlocks and the Avatar. Turn two saw the arrival of a dreadnought. He engaged the Guardians holding my objective with his heavy flamer. The long fangs continued their barrage. They apparently had gone senile as their aim was off and the superior technology of the Eldar prevailed over the silly rockets of the Mon-keigh. Eldrad moved in support of the Bike squad that was sadly wiped out in the pace wolves assault phase, but not before taking 4 Grey hunters with them. Eldrad and his warlocks saw to the death of the remaining Mon-Keigh swine. The fire Prism laid into a long fang pack and killed a a couple of them. The avatar started destroying drop pods as no targets were in range to vent his rage upon. Eldrad moved towards the dreadnought as did the Avatar in the wake of the assault phase.

Turn 3 saw the arrival of the wolf guard battle leader and the 4^th pack of Grey Hunters, now the last pack. The second dreadnought also arrived. Sadly the combined fire of the dreads followed by an assault by one wiped out my severely depleted unit of Guardians on my objective. After a mass of shuriken fire the last Guardian unit charged the Grey hunters and the battle leader. This was to delay them until the Avatar and Eldrad could get there. I should have moved them away to preserve my remaining troops choice. They held out until turn 4. Sadly a really bad roll for difficult terrain by the Avatar costed me the game. He failed to get to the Grey Hunter pack so the Guardians were wiped out and the treacherous and sneaky battle leader lead his squad in a cowardly retreat towards my objective. Apparently I was to consumed with the battle lust of Khaine to remember that the Grey hunters were troops. So with that as his only unit on the board, besides one drop pod, The Judge managed to win as we did not get a turn 6.

I am pretty happy with how the list did. It was purely tactical errors that caused my loss. I think I may change it a bit. The jet bike squad may get shrunken and turned into a late game contestor or support unit. I may just remove it and put in some close combat troops as well or even some dark reapers. We will see. I plan on trying it out Saturday.

So next time another bat rep and some more Dark Eldar talk. I am going to cover my favorite new toy. The Void Raven Bomber.

Until Then......

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!