Alpha Legion Kill Team Army List

Following on from yesterday's post about the Genestealer Cult Kill Team that I built, today is the turn of the Alpha Legion Kill Team list. Although I wanted to squeeze in a headhunter or two as they seemed very appropriate and fluffy, I knew about the genestealers that I would be facing and therefore wanted something a bit less pricey. So, here's the list.

10 legion tactical squad marines, including 1 vexilla, 1 sergeant with power fist and melta bombs (155 points).

2 heavy support marines with missile launchers (66 points).

2 assault marines (34 points).

1 terminator with thunder hammer (45 points).

The plan here is to be maximally flexible. The heavy support marines set up where they can and use their missile launchers against either armour or infantry clusters.

The assault marines (recent picture of painting progress above, but still needs finishing!) provide a quick moving element to capture any objectives as required or engage lesser enemies. 

The rest of the marines are fundamentally still space marines and can take most things on. The fury of the legion on the tactical marines is just the icing on the proverbial cake. The terminator simply adds to the punch where required. 

Genestealer Cults Kill Team Army List

A few people have been asking me what I've got in the Genestealer Cults Kill Team that I've been posting about recently.

The points value for the tournament is 300 points. Its a little larger than a few Kill Team regular games, but very accessible for new players (which was kind of the point). We're playing with restrictions common to Kill Zone in the sense that one cannot have more than two models with Infiltrate, Outflank (or almost any other special rule or heavy weapon for that matter) with some nuances thrown in for good play as well.

Here's the list (give or take some rounding and a few points here and there thanks to the system we're using).

10 Neophyte Hybrids, including 1 leader with power pick and web pistol, 1 seismic cannon, 1 mining laser (115 points).

3 Hybrid Metamorphs, 1 crushing claw, 1 lash whip, 1 double talons; 2 with hand flamers (41 points).

6 Purestrain Genestealers, half with scything talons (93 points).

1 Armoured Sentinel with plasma cannon (50 points).

The basic plan is simple enough. The sentinel pumps out some blast templates in the shooting phase and hangs back when possible along with the heavy weapon hybrids. The rest of the hybrids (all of them) move up and engage by mobbing up against power armour and the like (making at least 3 or 4 on one combats where possible) and are essentially expendable as either tar pits or large number mobs. The genestealers meanwhile move individually and provide the real punch of the army with an impressive number of attacks on the charge. They pick off anyone (or anything) that they like almost. All in all a nasty close combat kill team with expendable hybrids that is backed up with a plasma cannon in the rear field.

Necron Kill Team

Thinking about necron killteams / killzone squads is no longer a straight forward task thanks to the shiny new codex that is packed full of cool ideas and upgrades.  I've been toying with a couple of ideas and themes, but here's one that I like, based on models that I have (or might be likely to purchase) rather than uber-competitiveness.

7 necron warriors (91 points)

2 canoptek scarab bases (30 points)

2 deathmarks (38 points)

1 lychguard (40 points)

total = 199.

The main weakness is a reliance on gauss weaponry to inflict damage on armoured targets or troop transports.  I just hope that they're going to be uncommon!  The scarabs are there for the beast rule and entropic strike, whilst the death marks deal with any target that looks likely to do significant damage (terminators and the like).  The lychguard is the all-rounder in this team and also the fire magnet, running during the shooting phase and wanting to get in to combat quickly.  

I'd quite like to see how this list would fare against some daemons killteams (especially a Tzeentch killteam, but also a Slaanesh themed killteam might be a good testing ground).  But that's a tale for a different time.

Battle Report: Chaos Space Marines vs. Tyranids (200 points / Kill Zone)

To help promote the Kill Zone rules, this post is a mini battle report on a small band of chaos space marines against a bunch of genestealers. My list cheated slightly: I had (unknowingly) one too many 2+ save models (doh). (Sorry Jim, I clearly didn't read the rules closely enough!).

My Chaos Space Marine team consisted of:
3 Chaos Terminators, 1 combi-melta (95 points) (team leader has the combi melta)
5 Khorne Berzerkers (105 points)

Meanwhile, the opposing tyranids were:
10 genestealers, with 1 broodlord (200 points) (team leader is the broodlord)

We stopped short of having any of the optional upgrades, but the genestealers could have done swift as the wind.

The set-up was a small area, littered with craters and small rubble piles (difficult terrain). I think the set-up will favour my marines since it'll leave the genestealers with precious little cover. The mission is 1.4 (extreme prejudice).

Turn 1.
I bunch my terminators up together and head toward the nearest crater. The shoot and kill two genestealers straight away, despite a cover save. Those twin linked bolters are good, even if they're not storm bolters. The khorne berzerkers, I keep a bit looser and allow them to prowl as lone wolves. They move up on the genestealers but fail to kill any. In return, the genestealers oblige by moving closer and then running even closer.

Turn 2.
Another dead genestealer to my terminators reduces their number to 7, plus the broodlord. One berzerker manages to get in combat with a genestealer but is promptly slain on their sharp claws. Three genestealers charge two more berzerkers. One berzerker dies, but two genestealers also perish.

Turn 3.
Two berzerkers charge the broodlord and kill it. One more berzerker dies in exchange though. The terminators take down a further genestealer, but can't manage a "kill zone" since the unengaged genestealers are spread too far apart. A further berzerker perishes to a genestealer.

Turn 4.
This is the genestealers turn of glory. Taking the initiative and using the reactive assault rule, they wipe out the remaining berzerkers and move toward the terminators in their crater.

Turn 5.
My terminators reduce the genestealers down to four in number (pictured). The genestealers then charge. One dead terminator and two dead genestealers.

Turn 6.
The remaining pair of terminators finally manage to break the genestealers and they rout. As they run, they viciously gun them down. ++ Victory to the forces of chaos. But only just. It was a narrow match!

Finally.
Next time, we're going to look more closely at some of the flavour options! Swift as the wind and armoured might look cool. I'm also going to work toward having a sons of malice kill team that can double up as chaos chosen & terminators in a standard game.

Poll Result: Which Expansions You've Played Recently

Thank you to everyone who took part in the poll on which expansions you played recently. The results were as follows:

Apocalypse: 40%
Cities of Death 25%
Planetstrike 14%
Spearhead 3%
Battle Missions 44%
Kill Team 48%
Linebreaker 1%
Planetary Empires 4%
Other 3%

As predicted by a few commentators in the original posting, Battle Missions performed wonderfully well, probably in large part due to the fact it is a simple bolt-on to regular 40k, particularly for those bored of standard missions. Unsurprising to me (but perhaps surprising to other folks) is how well Kill Team performed -- better than Battle Missions even(!) Such a strong performance from 200 point games is great.

Also performing well is Apocalypse. The long-term impact of the "use everything" game is still looking strong.

Planetstrike gained 14% -- not as much as I thought it might. Perhaps this is indicative that Apocalypse is the most favoured variant 40k game.

Spearhead hasn't done well at all with 3%. Especially given it is the most recent "release". Even Planetary Empires is doing better than Spearhead (I confess that I am a fan of Planetary Empires myself!).

Okay, those are my thoughts. Anyone else want to add anything?