Chaos Lord Chris

I'm 99% sure the supposed "Knight detachment" will work mostly like the current Inquisitorial Detachments, in that it still acts according to their ally matrix but occupies it's own force org slot rather than eating your ally slot.

I'm sure the Knights themselves will be scoring if they're taken as a Primary Detachment. There is probably another rules blurb explaining exactly how it works that we haven't seen yet, but the bit we have seen seems fairly self-explanatory. In any case, Scoring/Troops Walkers are unusual but hardly unheard of, although the fact that they're Superheavy is certainly new.

I'd find the points (you're 4 short if you have 9 leftover now) to take a Seraphim Superior as Leader instead, because you need two "Seraphim" (of which the Superior counts as 1) in your list to unlock their Act of Faith which is really good, and because having a Jump Pack on a melee leader is so incredibly beyond useful it isn't even funny. I'm not too fond of the Multi-melta because it's Heavy, and Heavy weapons tend to have LOS issues in Kill Team, and because it doesn't really benefit from the Ret Act of Faith like a HB does. Melta-stuff is mostly good because you can use it to pop around corners and instagib T4 multi-wound guys (like, say, every MEQ leader ever), but the MM doesn't do that too well due to being Heavy.

Are you particularly attached to the Imperial Fists chapter tactic? If not, I'd throw in the idea of taking Ultras for Tigurius. He's so much better than a standard Libby it isn't even funny (ML3, reroll any or all of his powers, access to Divination, re-roll failed psychic tests, re-roll reserves for those Stormtalons, and a pretty decent fixed Warlord trait). Sure you lose a bit of oomph on the bolters, but the Ultra Tactical Doctrine will give ALL your weapons a boost for a turn, and Tig will be there to hand out Divination buffs like candy.

Celestine could be a good stand-in for a Seraphim Superior with the Sword of St. Sabbat and a Blessed Mantle, which would make a good Leader I think. As for Core, 10 Battle Sisters would make a good backbone, although you're really light on special/heavy weapons. Flamers are pretty good, but I'd pick up a Meltagun and heavy bolters for use as Retributors if at all possible to round out the force. For Specials I'm fond of HB Rets and Seraphim (with double hand flamers if possible). I'm not sold on Repentia, they aren't quite cheap or fast enough to be a credible distraction unit, and they'll die if any gun in the world looks at them funny. A Hospitaller might be a decent choice for the 6" FNP bubble too.

As far as I'm concerned the new Nid book is Codex: Really Cool Kill-Teams. In fact I'm buying some just for kill team games, because they look like they will actually be decent both in the GW and HoR rulesets. But in real games, unless my opponent is running a really min-maxed list, I'm probably going to intentionally take some really sub-optimal stuff that I wouldn't normally run just to make it fair, because... wow. The codex just doesn't have very many reasonably priced good options and breaking the synapse net will cause certain army builds to just self-destruct.

Guh, nevermind, I had forgotten this Saturday was D&D day for me. Unless that explodes at the last minute it looks like I won't make it this time.

If you guys have room for one more I might head over, I've been itching to get more games in.

I'm not a fan of heavy weapons on Sternguard in general in KT. Their Special Issue Ammo is just so freaking good I can't justify paying points and losing access to it, because after the Heavy replaces his boltgun the Stern is just a super-expensive Tac for all practical purposes. I'd either put the Heavy on a Tac or just skip it entirely and throw a combi-plas or two on the sternguard or leader.

Problem with the Cent is that, while it's firepower is certainly absurd, it can only kill one model per turn and you're looking at a 60pt investment for just the base weapon loadouts. And S&P hurts a lot because not being able to run and only having standard Infantry movement will make it super easy to out-maneuver it. It's the kind of thing I'd bring later in a campaign when I felt like I really needed to bust out the big guns, but in a starting team it just seems like too many points on a single slow model.

Just a heads up for anyone interested, we're going to be starting a HoR Campaign up at Mythic Realm Games in Vancouver starting this Tuesday the 14th at 6pm. As of now I'm estimating we'll have enough space for 2-3 more players to comfortably cram into the table space. It's mostly HoR newbies so far. Anyone interested feel free to show up, even if you're not totally familiar with the rules I fully expect everyone else to slack off and not read them either, so we'll probably end up doing some demo games for people who need them. I'll be there by 5:30 to set up tables and stuff if anyone feels like showing early.

I just can't fathom why they wouldn't want to write tight rules. A good ruleset benefits everyone, even the fluffy bunnies and beer & pretzel guys. Its not like 40k isn't fairly rules-dense already so complexity clearly isn't the issue, its just that the rules seem almost tailor made to drive artificial wedges into the player base based on even small variances in how competitive players are. I wouldn't call my armies particularly competitive. They're good sure, but if I went up against any of the big tourney-stomper lists I'd get butchered 9 times out of 10, and yet my lists stomp even slightly more casual players to the point that I've got to dumb down my list building to keep things enjoyable. I'm not some tactical genius, and I'd wager that neither are the people playing the lists that just naturally curbstomp mine, but these massive gulfs in army effectiveness are just built in to the system and that can't be healthy for the game as a whole.

No, the GW rules are not squad based. You have to buy guys in squads according to their normal limitations, but in-game there are no squad or coherency based rules. The GW rules are decent for quick 20-minute pick up games because they're simple, but they clearly aren't fully thought out, and for the most part they didn't make any army/unit specific tweaks which results in some rules (or whole units in the case of Pink Horrors) becoming basically nonfunctional in KT. They also lack any sort of Campaign rules, which as far as I'm concerned is the biggest sin a skirmish game can commit.

I got 2 games in today, against Orks and Grey Knights. My list: Iron Hands Space Marines Leader: Veteran Sergeant with Jump Pack, Bolter with Special issue ammo, Powerfist, Armor of Alacrity Special: Sternguard with Combi-Plasma Core1: 5x Tactical marines, 1 with Plasma Gun Core2: 3x Assault Marines Game 1 vs Orks: He had a Mega-armored Nob leader with a combi-skorcha, 5 Lootas, and 20 Slugga Boyz. Gametype was Breakthrough, with me as the defender. I managed to hold him off long enough to whittle down his team below half strength, after which he failed a Run Away check and the remaining Orks fled the field. It was pretty close considering I only had 4 Tacticals and 1 Assault left alive when he fled, if he had passed the check the next turn would have been painful. MVP was my Sergeant, who used his Jump Pack and special issue ammo to take the high ground in a midfield ruin and managed to kill 3 Lootas in 3 turns while tanking their return fire, after which he jumped down and heroically sacrificed himself to get a mutual kill on the Nob Leader. The Darwin Award goes to my Sternguard, who died to a plasma overheat while attempting to gun down the Nob. His abject failure was what made my Sergeant's murder-suicide attack necessary. Game 2 vs GK: He had a Knight of the Flame and 7 Purifiers, all with Psybolt ammo, with some miscellaneous upgrades on the leader that never came into play. Gametype was Sabotage. This game was significantly less exciting. I utilized the AP2/3 on my Plasmagun and Vengeance Rounds to inflict casualties and capitalize on his low model count, the mobility of my Jump Packs and smart use of line-of-sight to limit his return fire, and the threat of my Powerfist Sergeant sneaking around the side to force him to split his forces between defending his objective and attempting to attack mine. Things got slightly tense at the end when he finally closed to within 12", but a final flurry of bolter fire put the last two GK down before they could reach close combat. I ended up wiping him out before either of our objectives were destroyed, with only 3 casualties on my side. A few things I concluded after these matches: -Mobility is key. The speed and ability to navigate terrain made my Jump Packs worth their weight in gold. In my opinion, if your team doesn't include at least a few highly mobile models you're probably making a mistake. -Don't be afraid to take generic troops rather than going crazy on expensive Special units. Run Away checks are murder, so you need enough models on the field to both have some resistance to them, and to be able to kill enough enemy troops to force them. Low model count armies will likely struggle in both regards.

Disregard this post, I'm a derp. Looks like a good team.

AP, the Thunderfire doesn't need to shoot down planes, planes don't score objectives. Troops do, and guess what Thunderfires mulch? The issue is they're both in the HS slot, which is pretty busy for any Marine list that isn't Podspam or Bikes. There is just too much going on in the HS slot to justify taking sub-par AA platforms. Flyers aren't a huge issue for good SM lists, and good SM lists don't run Hunter/Stalkers, its just as simple as that. They don't do their job efficiently enough, and they're borderline incapable of doing anything outside their singular niche.

Lack of Interceptor, and the fact that you're chewing a whole HS slot just for a single dedicated-AA vehicle, make them kinda underwhelming. AV12 isn't terribly good, and lack of Interceptor means your opponent will have a whole shooting phase after his Flyers enter to prevent your AA tonk from shooting if he wants. They're cheap enough they won't hamstring you (much), but I can't see any scenario where I would rather have a Hunter/Stalker over putting those points towards a Thunderfire/Stormtalon/Fortification instead.