Clan Foraks new Allies: The White Templars!

For some time now I wasn't quite happy with having a home-made Tech marine
So I started thinking of how to make him into a Captain instead, and if so what weapons he should bring.

Theeeen I started thinking maybe I wanted to be able to use the Relics from the main Space marine book. Which I can't with Clan Raukaan. And also if I had another chapter my Marines wouldn't be all black and retardedly boring to paint. So I was looking up if I could ally Raukaan with 'vanilla' Iron hands so I wouldn't have to keep track of two different chapter tactics, and also I could then tackle painting Brazen claws. That would be a cool dream/nightmare to paint but it would look really cool.
But you can't ally like that because they have the same chapter tactic. Bummer.

This Allied Detachment will consist of a Captain, 5 Sternguard and a tactical squad.

So I started looking at other successor chapters and chapter tactics, because I didn't want to pick one of the way too common founding chapters. Some that I like the most are the Silver skulls, Storm lords and yeah...Brazen claws. But looking at chapter tactics Storm lords use the White scars one and that won't benefint me more than to give me hit & run. Sortof not worth it. Silver skulls could be quite good because of the Ultramarine chapter tactics. Well, at least the tactical squad doctrine.

Then I started looking at Black Templars. Now I do like their feel and their chapter tactics a lot. In fact it was one of the possible chapters I chose from when beginning to play Space marines. But they are also nearly entirely clad in black so I googled to see if they had any successor chapters. Two were rumoured to be of Black Templar descent. The Red Templars and the White Templars. Now I didn't want red space marines, it just looks like blood angels, but the White templars would contrast nicely with my Iron hands without looking too far off, being almost exactly reversed in colours!

Then a thought hit me that sealed the deal. Black templars (or White ones in my case) have access to crusader squads and 3 characters! As an Iron hands player I have access to zero special characters, and what I like about IC's is those that either switches around unit types or gives buffs to the army. And bott IC's of the Black Templars do give buffs, and the Emperors Champion is just a total badass.

Altough Black templars are reknown for being an assault oriented army and I'm building a more shooty army with my Iron hands I thought this might be a bad idea too. But after reading a lot of tactica and stuff about the 6th ed Black templars it seems they are quite good as a shooty army now as well.
For example, unlike the other vanilla space marines, Black templars can take a 5 man crusader squad and still have both a heavy and a special weapon. As well as a combi-weapon on the sword brother (their sergeant). That's a lot of firepower on a small squad.
And in the other direction they can take a Crusader squad with 10 space marines and 10 scouts (initiates and neophytes), for a rather cheap price, if you don't equip them for close combat they are a formidable unit to bunker down on obectives with, heck they're good at that even if they only have bolt pistols and chainswords.

So White Templars it is! They have almost no fluff what-so-ever apart from their homeworld being Sanctum.

So my guys are a Crusading Templar chapter that focuses more on ranged combat.

FOR THE EMPEROR!

Maximum Raukaan!

So I wanted to try to maximize the benefits of Clan Raukaan in an army list. What they do is that they can put Dreadnoughts of any kind as Elite or Heavy, they can also field two techmarines for pretty much any HQ and three for a Master of the forge.

Now the Master of the forge also grants the ability to field dreads as elite/heavy but I brought one anyway because it fits the whole Iron hands theme, but you can just substitute him for something else. Altough in a shooty list the conversion beamer is pretty much the only long range weapon the HQ's can have.

Onto the list!

1 Captain with artificier armour, Traitors bane and a storm shield.
a five man Command squad with an apothecary and company champion, 3 grav-guns, riding in a Razorback.
This is my warlord in his sweet ride. Would have been nice to fit a Techmarine in the razorback as well, but he just won't fit!

1 Master of the forge with the conversion beamer and the Ironstone.
Sitting back and holding the line, repairing walkers and buffing their IWND, and blasting fools with the conversion beamer.

4 Techmarines, all with the Servo harness. I could go for 5 but I don't see it as necessary.
Sprinkle them around the army to repair vehicles, sticking some in the tactical squads to buff their combat abilities some with their weaponry and 2+ armour.

2 Dreads with assault cannons and power fists. following the Rhino or the captains razorback around as bodyguards.

2 Ironclad dreads in drop pods, with 2 hunter-killer missiles. Dropping down on the enemy to take out their heavy vehicles.

1 ten man sternguard veteran squad in a drop pod, loaded with combi-flamers and heavy flamer, dropping in on turn 2 or later to clean up infantry. (and allow me to alpha strike the two ironclads on turn 1)

3 nine man tactical squads, plasma gun and sitting in Rhinos. Nine in size so the Techmarines can fit in there.

1 Stormtalon gunship with Typhoon missile launcher. To come in and shoot stuff or provide AA support.

3 more dreads, two with twin-linked autocannons on both arms,  Venerable so they don't blow up as easy
and one of them with a missile launchers and plasma cannon for some blasting, extra armour to stop it from being stunned.


so that's 7 dread, 2 dropping down turn 1 to cause havoc and 5 to stand back and light the enemy up!
lots of techmarines to keep everything alive and a solid core of tactical marines in transports to take and hold objectives. The sternguards should help taking enemy held objectives as well!

Pretty gross. And to be honest, kind of one sided and boring to collect (unless you're REALLY into painting dreadnoughts) And if you want to go for a better shooty list I'd suggest thunderfire cannons, devestators and devestator centurions instead of all dreads.

For the emperor!

An update on painting my Iron hands

Yesterday I was browsing through the successor chapters of the Iron hands, because nigh all black isn't that exciting when colouring. But I only really liked the Brazen claws and Sons of medusa. But I'm not that keen on an all green space marine army, or painting the half red half blue pattern of the brazen claws either.

I had seen some artworks were the Iron hands shoulder pads had metal coloured trims and I decided to try that out as you can see below:

I think it really lifted the look of the Iron hands, contrasting against the black armour nicely, making them look more painted and less 'just primed in black'.

Don't think I've posted pictures of my chapter master painted before so here he is!
I'm thinking of turning the cloak grey or something as I think it adds too much blue-

and the plasma pistols glow looks more like it's been dipped in goo. Eew!

added some more paint splashes to my centurion devestators as well, mostly the blue spot colours, and some glow on the grav-cannon and grav amps (also blue). The grav weapons glow green on most pictures in the codex but in my mind that will always be the colour of plasma.

Sternguards assembled! This guy is packing grenades all round his belt! xD

Might help me to remember I can use them... But it probably won't.

My 1250 pts Tourney list for Clan Raukaan

Clan Forak of the Iron hands (clan Raukaan supplement) 

Chapter Master

Artificier armor 

Axe of Medusa 

Plasma pistol = 190 pts 

5 Honour guard 

chapter banner, 4 power swords, 1 power axe =160 

Ironclad Dreadnaught + Drop pod

2 Hunter-killer missiles
heavy flamer, meltagun = 200 

5 Scouts 

4 sniper rifles 

1 missile launcher with flakk = 84

10 Tactical Squad Space Marines 

Sergeant with grav pistol, chainsword, meltabombs 

1 Heavy bolter, 1 meltagun =180

3 Attack bikes 

2 Heavy Bolter, 1 multimelta = 145 

3 Devestator Centurions 

3 chest missile launchers 2 Grav cannons with grav-amp 

Centurion sergeant, Omniscope, Twin-linked Lascannon

As far as competetive lists go, I'm fairly sure this is the least competetive one ever. Or at least in our tourney.
The only real aces are the ironclad suicide drop, the foot-slogging chapter master, and the three devestator centurions...

Chaos Space Marines vs. Iron hands (Clan Raukaan) Tournament batrep 1250pts

The emperors will and deplpyment on the short table edges. I've actually never rolled that deployment until now, which is kind of crazy.

my tournament army list can be found Here

The CSM player, Kim, brought a cool black/purple painted army containing a Bastion with the long range las cannon thingy, 10 havocs with 2 missile launchers and 2 las-cannons, a chaos space marine Lord, two units of 10 cultists, one of them sitting in a Rhino and the other on foot, a predator with a tl-las cannon, two heavy bolters and a havoc launcher, 10 raptors with 2 flamers,
5 terminators with mark of nurgle and a chaos sorcerer in terminator armour, the sorcerer was his warlord as well. Quite the bodyguard he got there!

He got first turn and moved his predator and rhino up on his right flank, the Sorceror and his bodyguard moving along his left flank.

the bastion fired at the centurions and managed to wound one of them.

Not much else he could do due to how far apart our armies where at this point

my scouts shuffled around a bit in the ruin to the missile launcher could get LoS on the tanks approaching and the attack bikes sped forward to try and get into range with the multimelta.

On my right flank I moved my chapter master and his honour guard up followed by the centurions.

My drop pod-ing Ironclad dreadbert had a bit of a conundrum. He wouldn't do much against the terminators with his ap3 weaponry so the only viable targets were the predator tank or going after the cultists hodling the objective on the CSM deployment.

I decided to land near the cultists and let them feel the warmth of my heavy flamer and meltagun. Deciding to hold back the hunter-killer missiles in case it would survive a turn. That was a bad mistake! I killed all but one lousy cultist, and to add insult to injury he passed his leadership test!

the chaos space marines returned the favour by blowing up the Ironclad and his drop pod.

they also fired on the attack bikes and scouts but both made their cover saves, and a scout even made his 6+ Feel no pain roll.

On my turn I decided it was time to drop some orbital bombardment on the Chaos sorcerer and his retinue.

A strength 10 ap1 hit would decimate them, but alas it scattered almost 11 inches off target.

the sorcerer cast hallucination on my chapter master and his squad, and made them unable to shoot, run and charge or strike in melee! Yikes!

other than that it was another amazing round of making 5+ jink saves with the attack bikes and 4+ cover saves with the scouts in the ruin, but I think I lost one or two scouts eventually.

Being rid of the hallucination I had two options, charge with the honour guard & chapter master or play it safe and stay in cover and hope the centurions could take care of the terminators and sorcerer.

I decided to play it safe because that bastion full of havocs had their eye on my warlord for sure!
The centurions opened up and killed two terminators and managed 2 wounds on the sorcerer, who apperantly only has two wounds, so a slay the warlord for me so the score for now was equal.

two nurgle terminators remains, luckily for them the sorcerer left them with a parting gift of fearless.

a bit of a consolation for Kim was that I forgot to move my attack bikes so they wouldn't get any jink saves this turn, I think I got a bit carried away with the centurions.

still they managed to wither the storm kinda good, only taking one wound, and then killing two raptors in overwatch, making them fail their charge!

the Centurions took another wound, but I had accidentaly shifted them around when moving so the guy who previously took  a wound was actually in the back, so no casualties!

My centurions split fire between the bastion and the remaining terminators, killing the nurgle infested tactical dreadnought wearing traitors easily, and the twin linked lascannon managed to kill a guy inside the bastion.

The Raptors closed in real good on my attack bikes, and this time easuly made the charge. 

They only managed to get one wound through though, and that was with their hammer of wrath attacks!

in return they lost one of their own, ending the assault in a stalemate.

Night fighting came on on turn 5, which was mostly good for me. my only ranged unit having night fighting from the omniscope. I decided to split fire, making one of my centurions fire on the Rhino and the other two on the bastion. I managed to immobilize the Rhino and kill another guy inside the bastion.

My chapter master and his bodyguard moved up to the next cover, just barely managing a short sprint into the safety of a ruin.

the attack bikes vs raptor fight went on and the attack bikes killed two more raptors but the raptors morale held, even though they didn't get a single wound through. 

the cultists jumped out of the rhino and moved to helt the raptors, but a crater was in the way for them to get a good charge in this turn.

the chaos predator tank moved up and did its best to kille the scouts, felling one of the surprisingly durable snipers. (seriously, I rolled cover and FNP saves like a God Emperor!)

The raptors lost another of their kin without inflicting a wound on the attack bikes and finally broke morale and fled. Only for the Cultists to take their place. Which was really bad for me because that multimelta would have been really nice to get a shot off behind the predator tank!

the bastion and its inhabitants fired upon the honour guard but 2+ armour saves and cover saves were made with great success, not losing a single honour guard.

On my turn I realized I had an opportunity to get another victory point by risking my chapter master and honour guard out in the open, running across for his deployment zone. I took it and moved out of the cover and with the run move, coming about half an inch short! If the game would go on for another turn and my elite warriors would survive another turn of shooting, I could win this!

My Centurions did their best to work the bastion, grav-cannons being useless against buildings.

They only managed to kill another guy inside the bastion, not really reducing their damage output by any noticeable amount. I did do the desperate mistake of split firing and trying to kill the cultist on top of the building but his cover save was way too good.

The bastion and its occupants opened fire on the Honour guard, killing four of them!

Luckily I made my leadership test and so stood my ground, a single honour guard and the Chaper master left standing.

I was getting worried that his forces on the other flank would start to get to my tactical marines in the back that were holding on to my objective (and in doing so, not even firing a single bolter round!)

but the attack bikes and scouts held firm despite the overwhelming odds.

I managed to move into his deployment, and even rolled a decent run distance, making it into cover, should the game go on for yet another turn. 

My centurions fired at the bastion again, all to protect my chapter master and that one deciding victory point he could bring me!

the lascannon did a pen this time, and then I rolled a 5 on the building damage table, being +1 thanks to ap2 it had the result of a structural collapse, killing almost everyone inside and wounding the chaos lord operating the icarus lascannon on the roof, altough the cultist managed to survive the fall.

And with that the game ended, 5-4 to Clan Raukaan.

DEATH TO THE TRAITOR!

It was a fun game that I think could have gone very differently had I not had insane luck with the dice, or if I had managed to kill all the cultists on turn 1. That 6+ FNP might not be much to write home about but it sure feels nice to get to roll another save, and it feels even better when you roll a six on that save.

FOR THE EMPEROR!

Gifts of the Gorgon

Hello everyone, today I'm taking a look at all the artefacts/relics avalibale to Iron Hands Clan Raukaan, called Gifts of the gorgon and sharing my thoughts on them.

first of is the Mindforge stave
now, this replaces the librarians (the only ones who can take this) force weapon for 15 points.
And it's basically a power fist! With concussive and Force added to them. so a Force Fist...
unfortunately this means its unwieldy. It has its ups and downs, first off the librarian will now hit at strength 8, instant-deathing toughness 4 models and ignoring armour because of ap2. But since Force lets you (for a Psychic test) get Instant-death attacks anyway it's pretty mute. Good if you expect to be hitting vehicles I suppose.

Next up is the Axe of Medusa. Now this one I like a lot more. it's basically your average power axe, but with +2 strenght instead of +1, master-crafted and the real kicker is that to hit rolls of 6 are +4 instead of +2
as a none specialist weapon, carrying a pistol will net the wearer an extra attack as well, so it's best used on a chapter master or captain. 25 points so it's the same cost as a power fist, and will sometimes hit at the same strength, personally I think it wins out because of the master-crafted and an additional attack.

The Ironstone us a neat item that has a 6" boost to vehicles and walkers IWND rolls, allowing them to pass on a 4+. 6's repair weapon destroyed or immobilised as well. 30 pts is a little steep so you better keep quite a few tanks/walkers in range of it to be worth it. Obviously best on a master of the forge sitting in a vehicle in the centre of your army. Sitting him in a Landraider could be quite nasty as he can also repair it on your turn before the IWND rolls.

Betrayer's bane is a weapon I think many mistook for just a combi-meltagun with mastercrafted.
This is not quite the case! It is more of a bolter with a normal meltagun attached. It can be fired as either as many times as you can get the chance. Since it's a master crafted meltagun it might also be a good idea to give whomever you equip this with Digital weapons, allowing a re-roll on its to wound roll as well.
This makes it highly likely to pen a vehicle, and we all know what happens to vehicles who get pen'd by a melta... It is 25 points though, so it might be a bit steep. But with digital weapons it could be quite worth it!


The Gorgon's Chain. I've already covered this in a previous post. Take it on a chapter master/captain if you intend to tank wounds and win challenges! 45 points and I'd argue its way cheesier than the Shield Eternal. And cooler as it at least gets worse when you do lose wounds. (and then it gets better again if you pass your IWND).

The Tempered helm is mainly for buffing ranged damage dealers. at 35 points I think it's a bit expensive for what it does. it has a 24" bubble that lets units use the wielders Ls on morale and pinning tests, it's not super useful because space marines aren't really lacking in good Ls. the other ability is probably the main reason to get this helmet. on each friendly shooting phase the wielder can nominate a unit within 12" to reroll all 1´s on their to hit rolls. Might be nice on a master of the forge with a conversion beamer sitting in a devestator squad, altough that's a lot of points. can also be effective with a character supporting a unit of sternguards, as you really want these guys to hit home with their special ammo, also it should save them from gets hot with their vengeance rounds.

All in all I'd say the Gorgon's chain is easily the most powerful item from the gifts of the gorgon, but I really like the Axe of medusa and I think you can have some fun with the Betrayer's bane and Tempered helmet as well.

1700 pts Iron hands Vs. Tyranids

played a 1700 pts game against Anders 'new' Nids outside of the local tournament.

Mission was The Emperors will, long sides deployment (dawn of war?)

My list was almost my usual one with 10 tactical marines, 5 snipers scouts with a ML+flakk, 3 attack bikes (all heavy bolters now), 3 Centurion Devestators with 2 Grav-cannons, a TL-lascannon and all missile launchers + the Omniscope

Chapter master with Chains of the Gorgon, plasma pistol and a thunder hammer, 5 Honour guards with chapter banner, power swords and one power axe. In a Razorback with storm bolter and TL-heavy flamer, another 10 man tactical squad with plasma cannon & plasma gun. And lastly a stormtalon gunship with the heavy 2 s8 ap3 shot weapon (thunderstrike?)

The nids consisted of 30 termagaunts, 2 Zoanthropes, 1 Venomthrope

2 Carnifexes (as one brood, with TL-devourers)

one Tervigon, a Foot-slogging hive tyrant and one flying with TL-devourers

An Exocrine and 3 hive guard.

Tyranids got first turn, I think night fighting was on. one of the Zoans hit the scouts with The Terror psychic power and managed to pin them

he then basically just moved up, his flying Hive tyrant shooting at my scouts 

(because they have the flakk ML)

despite being in area terrain, gone to ground and having camo cloaks

he managed to kill all but two Scouts with his Twin-linked Devourers

Luckily for me, he had placed his other Zoanthrope a bit off and it could not see the Razorback

On my turn I moved the razorback up, trying to keep it in some cover by the rocks up ahead.

The Ironclad Dreadbert dropped behind enemy lines and fired all his weaponry into the venomthrope, because if I could bring it down, it would be way easier to take out the rest of the Tyranids. It however failed to kill it, leaving it with one wound, as well as getting a few hits in on the carnifexes and termagaunts with the heavy flamer, killing two termagaunts. the Drop pod fired its Deathwind launcher, hitting the carnifexes and tervigon, I think it managed to make a wound on one Carnifex. In my opinion 15 points for a  s5 large blast is quite worth it if you expect to drop in close to massed infantry.

My attack bikes fired at the flying hive tyrant to try and bring it down, but failed to do so. The two remaining, and pinned, scouts shot at it as well (with snap shots, they might as well), but failed to hit it.

my plasma toting tactical squad moved up behind the razorback, with some covering fire coming from the heavy bolter on the first tactical squad.

The Centurions fired at the Exocrine, because I needed this beast dead! An Ap2 large blast hitting my honour guard? No thank you!
They felled the monsterous creature with combined missile launchers, grav-cannnons and the TL-lascannons.
One less to worry about!

The Nids once again surged forwards, the Zoanthrope (nicknamed Zoey) blew up the razorback this time, leaving a crater full of honour guard, and the chapter master took a wound! but rather him than killing off an honour guard.

 the two Carnifexes charged the Ironclad, taking wounds from its massive melee weapons and heavy flamer on overwatch, but succeeding in blowing it up. The Tervigon charged the Drop pod and turned it into scrap.

the Flying hive tyrant murderized the scouts with 11 hits from the TL-Devourers.

My honour guard nudged into the cover of the rocks, making sure to still protect the chapter master

who called down an orbital bombardment but it scattered way off target and hit nothing.

The attack bikes moved up to get line of sight on a Zoanthrope on the left flank, and managed to take it out.

The Centurions took out Zoey, the Other Zoanthrope. Ridding me of their pesky psychic powers.

The Stormtalon came in and I made the tactical error of moving it way too close to the Flying hive tyrant,

the TL-Devourers only having a range of 18" against the Stormtalons 48".

Tactical error aside the Stormtalon opened fire with its Twin-linked autocannon and typhoon missile launcher. Unfortunately, not only did the Hive tyrant survive, it wasn't even grounded!

Once again the Tyranids moved up, theTervigon hiding the venomthrope behind it and the gaunts screening the advance. 

The Flying hive tyrant moved towards the table edge, and then shot the stormtalon out of the sky by glancing off its two hull points!

the carnifexes opened fire on the tactical squad with plasmas and took out a few of them with the help of the hive guard.

The Hive tyrant (on foot) tried to charge the attack bikes that I had moved up too far, but instead failed his charge distance and managed to instead take a wound from overwatch!

on my turn I moved the honour guard up and debated for awhile wether to charge the Tervigon but suffer terrain hindrance and fight at initiative 1 (against a creature with ap2...) or tarpit myself  in the termagaunts.

I chose the latter and charged into them, slaying somewhere around 15 of them in a single go while only losing my honour guard champion. Then we remembered that he had cast the feel no pain on his gaunts and he saved 10! altough we forgot that some of those should not have gotten FNP from the wounds caused by my chapter masters thunder hammer.

the attack bikes moved back, away from the Hive tyrant. My centurions moved up and shot at the tervigon, putting some wounds on it.

when the gaunts piled in they completely surrounded the chapter master and his honour guard, thus denying the tervigon and carnifexes from charging in, so they instead moved towards my objective, the carnifexes and hive guard shooting at the tactical squad again, leaving only two standing! who failed their morale test and almost ran off the board.

on my turn the combined fire of the centurions, tactical squad and attack bikes, killed of the carnifexes and the tervigon, and at that point Anders conceded and it was gg!

I have a concern that the venomthrope, while being amazeballs, sometimes seem to almost hold the tyranids back, being a crutch almost as many units in the Tyranid army need to get across the board and into melee, but it's kind of hard to move fast and keep in range of the shrouded at the same time. Oh wel, just a thought (and having multiple venomthropes should fix that I think)

FOR THE EMPEROR!

Honour guard or Assault Centurions?

So, today someone on Dakka dakka suggested Centurions to accompany a chapter master, giving him slow and purposeful so he can get out and use that Orbital bombardment without standing still for a turn (because of Ordnance, something I had missed. I also missed that barrage gives pinning).

So I started looking at Centurion Assault squads.
My original intent was to increase the number of honour guard to ten and bring them and the Chapter master in a Land raider Redeemer wich has a transport capacity of 12. Maybe fit a master of the forge in there too with the Clan Raukaan Ironstone (so the Land raider will pass its IWND on 4+).

But now it's leaning towards 5 Assault Centurions, exchanging their ironclad assault launchers for hurricane bolters (for free). They'd have to take the Land raider crusader because it has a transport capacity of 16. Centurions being Very bulky thus one of them counts as three models. This leaves no room for the master of the forge though.

To break it down, in close combat a single honour guard has three attacks ws4 ap3 (if they use power swords). axes brings them to s5 ap2 but are unwieldy so they'd hit at initiative 1... So lets say they have power swords.

10 honour guard in other words have 30 attacks, 40 on the charge and a stunning 50 with the chapter banner. They are about 25 points cheaper with the banner than 5 Assault Centurions.

lets say they are attacking an opponent unit with ws4, t4.
with 30 attacks, about 15 hit (50/50 chance) and roughly half of those gets through. if the enemy has a 3+ save or worse they are toast. if they have 2+ and/or a higher toughness it will go downhill fast for the honour guard.

but 50 attacks ap3 is nothing short of crazy. though against tough opponents or opponents with 2+ armour it wound look as badass at the end of it all. if half of those attacks hit home, it's down to 25, and half of that again is around 12-13 wounds. if the enemy is toughness 4. even fewer wounds if they are toughness 5 or 6.
And lets be frank, whatever my finest warriors is up against won't be (shouldn't be) lowly cannon fodder. preferably they will be up against my opponents elite units and they will likely have either really good saves or high as hell stat lines. This is where I think Assault centurions will fare a bit better even though they don't even come close in the number of attacks. their attacks are reliable when they hit home, and only invulnerable saves can stop them.

The Centurions on the other hand only have two attacks each. one base and an extra because they have two siege drills. on the other hand these are s9, ap2 attacks (with armourbane so bye bye vehicles).
They also have toughness 5, the same save as an honour guard (2+) and two wounds each. so in total these two units have the same amount of wounds, but the Centurions are a bit more resilent due to t5.

5 Assault centurions have 10 attacks in total, 15 on the charge.

against the same enemy they'd hit with about half (ws4 vs ws4 here too).  so 5 hits. strenght 9 hits though so anything t4 or less is insta-killed. and pretty much wounding everything else on a 2+ or 3+. meaning 4-5 wounds. These are ap2 so the enemy has to survive on having at least toughness 5 and/or an invuln save.

so, fewer wounds but more likely to get through. Another strength is that because they are two wounds each and a bit more durable, they won't lose as many attacks when they take unsaved wounds compared to the honour guard who will lose 3 base attacks per unsaved wound. So if lets say 3 honour guard fall the next round of combat will be more grim for them, because 3 wounds on the centurions is still only one model lost.

I'd also like to point out as an Iron hands player that the Centurion Sergeant gets IWND due to being a character, something that I think is easily missed! Also Centurions are a bit more likely to get to take their 6+ FNP due to higher toughness (not as much that can instant-death them), it's not much but it's something!

So, they honour guards put more wounds on enemy units? Not before the assault that's for sure (which might be good, but considering you're charging out of a land raider you can afford to get super-safe-to-charge-close). 10 honour guard on the charge means 10 bolt pistol shots. bs4 s4 ap5 shots. around 7 of these will hit, half of those will fail to wound against t4, most units will get to save against them.

Assault Centurions with hurricane bolters put out 3 shots each. 6 because they'll easily be in rapid fire range. that's 30 shots instead of 10. and they are twin linked so maybe about one will miss. lets say they all hit (with my rolling they won't), half of those will fail to wound, leaving around 15 wounds, instead of 3-4.
But that's not the end of that shooting. each Centurion have a twin-linked flamer as well (or a TL-meltagun if you so want)  in the case of the flamers that should be a nice amount of hits, with rerolls to wound!
with meltaguns on all of them, being twin linked they should hit home, maybe missing at the most 1 or 2 shots. meltaguns being s8 is really good, and ap1. As we're expecting them to attack really hard as nails enemies that might be preferable.

The biggest danger here might be wiping the enemy unit in shooting, or whittling them down so you miss the charge, or kill them in one turn of combat, and that leaves you standing there for the enemy to shoot at them. But that last part should happen sooner or later anyway, and then you're better off being almost unscathed when it happens than emerging from a brutal melee. Plus if you finnish something off in one turn you can continue the rampage that much sooner!

Honour guard wins out in number of attacks in melee, but Centurions have quality here as well as whooping out a lot of shots before the assault and I think that evens it out quite a bit. 30 bolter shots, twin linked, that could fell quite a few enemies even if they have a 3+ save. The only drawback is slow and purposeful not allowing them to overwatch should the charge fail or another enemy unit charge them after they've dealt with the first one. Their move after a close combat should be to get back into the Land Raider until it's time for them to charge again.

Thoughts?

Iron Hands vs. Ultramarines 1500 pts picture batrep

Tried out a bit of a different list against a guy named Andreas and his Ultramarines. I think the mission was either Crusade or The Emperors will. it was 3 Objectives in total anyway.

at 1500 pts I brought my chapter master with the axe of medusa, 5 honour guard in a razorback with a TL-lascannon.
My centurions, but without the Omniscope this time due to point constraints.
left my attack bikes at home and brought a Master of the forge with the Conversion beamer and another 10 man tactical squad with plasmagun, plasma cannon and a sgt. with a plasma pistol. I forgot I had the plasma cannon for half the battle as it was proxied with a multimelta.
My scouts got camo cloaks this time! (4 snipers and a missile launcher)
my first tactical squad, armed with a heavy bolter and a meltagun got to take the drop pod, and Dreadbert got to footslog it this time, trading his power fist for a hurricane bolter (don't ever do that... Hurricane bolters are the worst, heck, they would be better of as just being 6 bolters instead of three Twin linked bolters).

I was up against 2 rhinos with 2 ten man tactical squads, 5 scouts with bolters,
a dreadnought, a razorback with a command squad with an apothecary accompanied by Chaplain Cassius!
A thunderfire cannon, a predator and a drop pod with ten Sternguard veterans. as well as a devestator squad with assorted heavy weapons. All in all a pretty decently standard SM army, with some nasty surprises in the form of Cassius and ten Sternguards. Way better balanced than mine, but on the other hand I think Andreas has a total of 5000 pts to choose from (awesome!)

Andreas got first turn but I managed to sieze the initiative. But night fighting was on, and I placed my centurions os far back that they could not actually reach anything else but a 5.

I drove up my Razorback in behind a building for LoS blocking cover.  Drop podded my tactical squad to try and take out his Thunderfire cannon.
I managed to put one wound on it with, My other tactical squad tried to shoot out the scouts in a nearby ruin, but they went to ground and made all their cover saves. then my sniper scouts, centurions and ironclad dread shot at them as well and managed to do nothing! my first turn of shooting squandered on trying to kill five scouts, and I didn't even get one of them!
My Razorback shot at his razorback, but he managed to save himself with the stealth 6+ cover due to night fighting!  Lucky!

If only I had placed my Centurions a bith farther up, they could have shot at the Predator tank and probably killed it. And if only I had not decided it would be fun to try and drop pod the tactical marines instead of Dreadbert I probably would have gotten first blood.

on his first turn he drop podded the Sternguard squad on my right flank, pretty close to my snipers but he was gunning for the Centurions. between the special ammo wounding on 2+ and his grav-gun he managed to kill all three of them, which was an incredible blow to my firepower so early in the game.

He moved his razorback towards mine for an upcoming epic showdown between cassius and my chapter master, he did however manage to blow up my Razorback. I think his predator shot at my scouts but didn't do any damage. He moved one of his Rhinos up against my drop podded tactical squad, and the other took position on his opposite flank next to an objective.

His thunderfire cannon tried to shoot my drop podded tactical squad but failed to get a good hit in.

My tactical squad that landed via drop pod charged the Thunderfire cannon to stop it from shooting. killing it and then regrouping (not the correct term) 6 inches so they pretty much just walked back from where they came, hoping to claim some cover.

the missile thingy on the drop pod scattered a bit and hit one of my guys and one of his but it didn't kill any model.

my chapter master and honour guards moved up, couldn't really fire at anything of worth so they shot at the scouts, but again failed to kill any of them. 

as did my dreadbert. the tactical squad in my central area fired at the damn Sternguard with their plasma cannon and the master of the forge's Conversion beam, killing 4 of them. the Scouts, being super close to the sternguard and probably dead meat due to this, fired at the sternguard but failed to do anything.

Cassius and his command squad disembarked and opened fire on the honour guard, with the help of the razorback they put down 2 out of the 5 guards. 

Then the bloody scouts fired, and put 3 wounds on the honour guard, and I rolled three 1's!
Now it was only my Chapter Master left standing (deja vu)...

His tactical squad shot at my squad that killed the thunderfire cannon, and killed a few.

And then my tactical squad fired back and killed a few as well. Dakkamarathon!

His sternguard wiped out the scouts with the help of the Predator.

on my turn I moved the Chapter master up, charged the command squad and killed their sergeant (the poor fella' has to issue/accept challenges). 

my central tactical squad tried to shoot the sternguards but failed to do much damage and that's about it.

Cassius then challenged my Chapter master and managed to put a wound on him, but cassius only had one wound left after that. 

Can't really remember what happened after at this point except that Cassius died, the dreadnought charged in and the chapter master IWND his wounds back, killed all but the apothecary in the command squad and then the game ended at turn 5.  And I lost 4-1

He got first blood, 3 pts for his objective and I got slay the warlord.

For the Emperor (x2 in this batrep).

New ideas for an Iron hands 3k wishlist!

Did I say I was gonna change my mind a few times? I sure did!

New ideas.

10 honour guard instead of 5, riding in a Land Raider redeemer (the one with flamers). it can hold both the honour guard and Chapter master and a Master of the forge, who I will give the Ironstone making the Land raider pass IWND's on a 4+
The Land Raider is heavily armoured and armed, as well as being an assault vehicle. Meaning my melee masters can get out and charge the enemy when the LR is close, for maximum protection. Also 10 honour guards instead of 5 means they will stick around even longer, even if I roll a lot of 1's...

Also the Redeemer is 10 pts cheaper than the other Raiders, not having the TL-lascannons of the original Raider, but instead two ap3 s6 flamers. those 10 pts will be spent on a multimelta as well. So it can certainly pop vehicles as it gets in there!

I would probably have chosen the Lascannon Land Raider but it only has a transport capacity of 10. Meaning I can't take a full honour guard squad if I want to bring my Chapter Master along, or the Master of the forge. Most of the time the Master of the forge will probably stay in the vehicle to keep it alive (being able to repair it on top of boosting its It will not die roll should be worth it!), but in more of a crisis that dude can certainly hop out and help in close combat as well!

I've scrapped the idea of a librarian and assault marines, as well as the command squad. My army needs to be more about firepower. I've also dropped the two extra dreads for two Whirlwind tanks to barrage/ordnance bomb my enemies with s5 large blasts. 65 pts each instead of over a 100 pts for a dread and they don't even require line of sight to fire, which means I can hide them behind stuff in my deployment zone.

freeing up a lot of points lets me take two rhinos for my tactical squads, and since my Chapter master is chillaxing in a Land Raider at this points value I'll get 5-6 Sternguard veterans to ride in the Razorback I got, they can drive up and put some pressure on the enemy with the TL-Lascannon and they sternguards special ammo.

also 5 scouts in a land speeder storm should be good to protect from deep striking units, last game (not posted yet!) my Centurions bit the dust due to a deep striking unit getting the upper hand on them.

That makes this list pretty vehicle heavy (at least for being a list from me) with 2 Rhinos, a Razorback, 2 Whirlwinds, a Land speeder Storm, a drop podded Ironclad Dreadnought, Stormtalon gunship and the moving fortress of a Land Raider Redeemer.


Still want more dreads though. and about everything else in the damn codex xD

FOR THE EMPEROR!

Iron hands Vs Orks. 1250 pts Tourney batrep

First of all I want to say thank you to Anders for his awesome article on the new Tyranid Codex, if anyone wants to write a guest article you're very welcome to shoot me a mail at hollstrom@mikepic.se and we can discuss it!

Now on to the Batrep!


So, my second Tournament battle was against the Orks Anders had just faced. Let's see if my small space marine army can survive the green tide of Da WAAAAGH!


We played the Scouring with deployment on the long table edges, The Orks won the roll off and elected that the Marines get first turn. Night fighting was on turn 1 as well.

my Army list for the tournament. <-

I deployed in the way I feel I SHOULD deploy this time (unlike in the last batrep, where I deployed like a total dumbass!), My Cenutrions in the centre, backing up my tactical squad and my honour guard.

Then my snipers deployed in a forest on my right, holding an objective and my Attack bikes on my left flank.

The Ork army I was facing included A warboss on a warbike with a power claw, cybork body and 'eavy armor (this is what I remember he had anyway). Two Deffdreads all kitted for melee. A Battle wagon full of shoota boys, a truck with 12 shoota boys, 10 gretchin with a mek with a shock attack gun, 8 lootas, a dakka jet and a single deffcopta.

A few more units than I field...

On turn 1 I dead great, the emperor was with me and we where chilling and shit!
My Drop pod landed in front of the warboss and battle wagon, after a long discussion and thinking I opted to shoot the battle wagon, instead of my intended target the Warboss. (I figured I could bring him to one wound, and if he charged my heavy flamer might finish him, and if not the ironclad would get to strike first).
But considering the battle wagon had a deff rolla and there was a deffcopta that could drive a rokkit in my rear armor, as well as a nearby deff dread. I figured I might have to go for first blood at least.
I shot the battle wagon, blowing it up. then I orbital bombarded, there where no real juicy targets so I shot it at the now disembarked Boys in a way that it would also hit the warboss. it was a direct hit and killed all but one shoota boy and put a wound on the warboss (dangit, I could have killed him!).

Next my centurions opened up and made scraps of the Deff Dread that was threatening my Ironclad Dreadbert.

My attack bikes single multimelta failed to do any harm (by missing) and the snipers did nothing of worth.

Orks turn 1 began and he moved his second Deff dread to his right flank, closely followed by the trukk.

The deffcopta swung around and took off a hull point of dreadbert, and the shock attack gun rollde double 2's allowing me to place the large blast. s4 isn't enough to really do much to his trukk/deff dread so I put it in the ruins on the lootas and killed one of them.

The warboss then charged and took another wound from overwatch due to the heavy flamer! He was now down to one wound but of course I totally failed to wound him in close combat and he killed poor dreadbert! Emperor, don't go! The battle has just begun! T__T

On my second turn I moved up my attack bikes to get within 12" of the Deff dread, to blow it up with the multimelta in Melta range. But of course I missed again!

The Centurions finished the job instead and wrecked it. My Drop pod failed to kill the lone Ork that actually passed his Ld test!

My tactical squad, holding on to an objective, fired their heavy bolter on the trukk but despite hitting with all three shots the trukk remained unscathed due to cover saves.

Snipers fired at the warboss, but failed to wound him. And the Honour guard simply moved up, trying to get to close combat.

The Orks Trukk moved up and spilled out Shoota boys near the attack bikes, the warboss also moved up into charge range of the honour guard, but was a bit hesitant to charge these elite warriros, especially since their champion has to declare/accept challenges meaning he would fight the warboss and possibly slay him.

Luckily the Dakka jet didn't appear on this turn.

instead the shock attack gun fired, direct hit and strength 7. killing every single Honour guard (two due to Look out sir!), leaving only the Chapter Master standing... Uh oh!

The warboss charged, my overwatch unfortunately missing. And since both struck on initiative 1, we pulped each other to death, in a pure epic fashion!

Then the shoota boys put a wound on the attack bikes, and then charged them. 2 heavy bolters, a multimelta and 3 twin-linked bolters managed to only kill one Ork on overwatch. Then they killed two Orks in melee, but lost an attack bike and another took a wound.

With only my tactical squad, snipers and centurinos left in the fight (attack bikes getting bogged down in ork boys and therefore kinda useless) I decided to move the Tac.Squad up towards the central objective (which was worth 4 points, they were sitting on a two pointer). They did in the process get their meltagun in range of the trukk so they made it explode.

centurions caught wind of the deffcopta, and split fired between it and the lootas. faling to wound the deffkopta but killing another loota (or two?). The Snipers decided to finish off the deffkopta and actually managed to do so!

Then the Orks retaliated with the dakkajet coming in on a mighty WAAAAAAGH!

Its guns chewing through most of the tactical squad, leaving about 4 marines standing. The Lootas finishing them off. Almost! one brave Marine was still standing.
The Shock attack gun fired at the Centurions and managed to hit with strenght 8, killing one of them.

the fight of the boys vs the attack bikes ended with 0 wounds on both sides. What a stalemate! But it was more worth it for the Orks, tying up my fast attack so it couldn't move up and shoot at the shock attack gun.

The combined fire of the two centurions and the snipers flakk missile put two hull points off the dakka jet and immobilized it. The lone Tactical marine passed his Leadership test and moved up to cover in the centre.

The Dakka jeft flew on, and managed to kill 3 out of five scouts, killing the missile launcher!

The lootas then finished the job on the tactical marines, the boys killed the attack bikes, and the lone ork boy from the battle wagon hid behind a rock, claming an objective as well...

The shock attack gun once again hit the Centurions, but this time with a strength 6 shot, only causing one wound.

With not much left the centurions shot at the dakkajet, hoping to score a point for killing a fast attack before it moved off the board edge. It dove/dodged and didn't take the hits that got through. But we later read that Immobilized flyers can't evade so we recounted is as a kill.

the lone sniper tried to shoot the shock attack gun, but whiffed.

The ork boys moved towards another objective on my left flank, the one were my attack bikes deployed. the dakka jet flew of the board (and then we realized it was really dead!). the shock attack gun missed the centurions but the lootas killed the last scout. My Centurions moved up to try and stop the gretchin from scoring the central objective worth 4 points but fell an inch short from denying it, and failed to kill enough of them to stop them from reaching it! they would have had to kill two more, but alas one of the missiles scattered way off and Grav weapons only wound on a 6+ against opponents with no armour saves.

It was game over!

I had two centurions standing and I scored 4 points, 2 for killing two fast attacks (dakka jet and deffcopta), slay the warlord and First blood.

The Orks had a total of 13 points! from objectives held by the Gretchin, the lone Ork boy, the other ork boys, slay the warlord and linebreaker.

Good game that started out ridiculously well for me on turn one and then a few large blast ap2 shots later looked really grim, and then I lost with only two models still standing!