GG cup last minute scramble...

[Guest]

Exorcists (Imperial Fists)

 

HQ

 

Lysander 230

Librarian (Jump Pack, Storm Bolter, Force Maul, Level 2 Psyker) 110

 

Elites

 

None

 

Troops

 

Scout Squad (10, Cloaks, Missile w/Flakk, Sarge with Combi-melta) 165

tactical Squad (10, Missile w/Flakk, Sarge with CCW+BP) 165

tactical Squad (10, Missile w/Flakk, Sarge with CCW+BP) 165

 

Fast

 

Assault Squad (5) 85

 

Heavy

 

Devastators (10, 2x Lascannons, 1x Multi Melta, Sarge w/BP+CCW) 190

Devastators (10, 2x Lascannons, 1x Multi Melta, Sarge w/BP+CCW) 190

Devastators (10, 2x Heavy Bolter, Sarge w/BP+CCW) 160

 

Fortification Fortress of Redemption 390pts

 

Tower (Void Shield)

Las Bunker (Void Shield)

Missile Bunker (Krakstorm, Void Shield)

Catwalk (4x Heavy Bolters, Void Shield)

 

Total: 1850pts

Okay, so now that I'm well rested, I need to do an evaluation of the above army which I fielded three games. On a side note, this was my first tournament in years. I think I need to do these more often, as I think the deadline will motivate me to paint more...

 

Lysander

Worthless in terms of melee ability. This was entirely due to exceptionally poor rolling, but it is what it is. On the other hand, the 12" bubble of morale and pinning re-rolls proved quite useful with this set up.

 

Librarian

Again, mostly worthless. I just hadn't accounted for the sheer number of enemy psykers dumping 9+ dice into invisibility....I needed stronger psychic defense, or more units that just didn't care regarding invisibility. My psychic powers were also very nerfed by opponent having many more psychic dice and better deny rolls. I need to locate a decent counter to invisibility.

 

Scouts

They were fine. I used them to protect the front of the fortress from pods/DS units. The missile and combi melta were a waste in this role.

 

Tactical Marines

I used both of these squads in 10-man to be flank guards for the fortress, one on each side. They worked well in this role.

 

Assault Marines

These were fortress rear guard, and objective holders (objective was often placed behind the fortress). They were fine in use and proved very useful for their role.

 

Las/Melta Devastator Marines

Split in all games. First 5-man melta team was place in las bunker, second was placed in the krakstorm bunker. The guns were manned from the inside, as per rules regarding them, and the weapons did prove invaluable. Each bunker was destroyed in different games, with the melta teams disembarking via the only access point and securing the objective behind the fortress. The sarge and 2 lascannons were mounted on the top of the tower, and a second team on the top of the krakstorm bunker. They were quite useful in all games.

 

Heavy Bolter Devastator Marines

These were deployed as a 10-man on the catwalk and on the lasbunker, they were joined by lysander. This unit was disturbingly awesome and most certainly the most cheesy use of the chapter tactics. 6 heavy bolters with re-rolling 1s and tank hunters.

 

Fortress of Redemption

I lost only a section in each game. First game, I lost the krakstorm bunker, second game lost the catwalk, and third game lost the lasbunker. The void shields were iffy in all games.

 

In general, there were two key weak points to this fortress:

 

1st, it has extremely limited deployment options. Tournament mission rules required 4" from terrain and 4" from board edge. 2/3 missions were vanguard strike, which allowed only a single legal deployment location.

 

2nd it locked my army into a single way to play the game (come and get me). Tactically, I think this is a huge weak point. In hindsight, I think replacing both tactical marine squad with scout squads would have been smart (if I had the models), as it dramatically alter my deployment options.

 

Army as a Whole

I had lots of issues with this army. I did not bring any melee solutions, not even a legitimate counter assault unit. My psychic defense was lacking and I didn't bring a solid AA solution. That said, I never got wiped.

[pretre]

Tournaments are my primary source of games and they are a great source of painting pressure. :)

[AbusePuppy]

*snip*

 

I think you're hitting a lot of the right conclusions here- having played with the Fortress of Redemption G.I. JOE PLAYSET more than a couple times myself, it definitely leaves you with pretty much a single game plan every time. With that said, though, there are some things you can do to make it more effective.

 

First up, as you noted, you want a strong counter-assault unit, which your list didn't really have. The PLAYSET's awkward embarkation points can make this difficult, but I still think having something inside that can ward off enemy assault units is a good idea. Assault Marines are an interesting idea here, though personally I think I would go for something a bit harder-hitting. Lysander is actually somewhat useful in this regard, being a major threat to even stuff like Knights, but obviously poor luck can make any unit useless. Something with good close-in firepower (Sternguard, etc) can also potentially fill this role.

 

Second, psychic powers. The reality is that there really aren't any good ways to deal with Invisibility; in theory a Culexus Assassin can shut it down, but that can be tricky to arrange, as they are unlikely to want to be within 12" of him. If you really, REALLY want to stop psykers a Culexus riding inside a Stormraven (or Stormwolf/fang) is your best bet, but that's ~350pts of investment into a unit.

 

Third, firepower. Your list has some, but I feel like if you're going to castle up the way the PLAYSET sorta requires you to, you want to always have superior firepower to the enemy and thus force them to come to you. (Otherwise what's the point?) In that regard you did some stuff right, but I think missed out on some other very important stuff that would've helped a lot. Barrage weapons, for one, are very good with the PLAYSET because they can hide behind its walls and drop shots on the enemy with impunity- and Space Marines have one of the best Barrage weapons around these days in the Thunderfire Cannon. In fact, I would go so far as to say that allying in more Space Marines for the extra HS slot would likely be worthwhile, although not the only option.

 

Fourth, upgrades. I think layering the Void Shield onto every portion of the Fortress is a bit of a mistake overall, as it drastically increases the point cost of an already-expensive selection. There definitely is good reason to put at least one Void Shield (on the main tower), I think, but the others are largely unneeded and restrict you from making use of any of the other possible upgrade options.

 

I know model limitations were one of the things dictating your list, but ignoring that for the time being this is probably what I would try to run:

 

 

SPACE MARINES (IMPERIAL FISTS) COMBINED ARMS DETACHMENT

1 Captain Lysander (Warlord)

5 Assault Terminators

10 Tactical Marines (Heavy Bolter)

10 Tactical Marines (Heavy Bolter)

10 Devastators (4 Lascannon)

10 Devastators (4 Lascannon)

1 Thunderfire Cannon

 

1 Fortress of Redemption G.I. JOE PLAYSET (Remote Fire, Krakstorm Missiles, 4 Heavy Bolters, 1 Void Shield [tower], 1 Escape Hatch [bunker], 1 Ammo Stores [walkway])

 

SPACE MARINES (IRON HANDS) ALLIED DETACHMENT

1 Librarian

5 Scouts (Boltguns)

1 Thunderfire Cannon

 

Two Devastator squads with Lascannons gives you a ton of anti-vehicle firepower; typically you will want to put one up top in the tower (combat squadded) and another inside the walkway. Lysander and the Terminators probably hang out either inside the tower (to fire off weapons via the Remote Fire rule) or shuffle around and get ready to counter-assault something that gets to near. Note that if their section of the building is destroyed, they can assault something immediately on your turn (as long as they didn't use the Escape Hatch.) The TFCs hang out behind the building and pound enemy infantry units. Heavy Bolters were removed from the Devastators and shifted elsewhere because Devastators don't benefit from them particularly more than Tacticals do. The Librarian typically rolls on Telepathy in hopes of getting Shrouding or Invisibility, but Psychic Shriek is a nice point-defense spell to have around.

 

Not an amazing list by any stretch, but it's one that can at least do what it's intended to do. Better versions might be based around SM/IG and make use of some of the Forge World stuff, but I figured you probably wouldn't go that route.

[fluger]

Outside of getting that extra thunderfire cannon, any big reason for going with the Iron Hands?  

 

I REALLY like the concept of this list.  Very Imp Fist.   As you say, probably not even close to top-tier, but pretty nifty.  

[Guest]

<A bunch of good advice>

Unfortunately, the biggest issue for my list was a lack of painted/complete models, print outs for heavily converted models, and organization to find all of the models I was needing within my disorganized home. Much of this relates to a more recent attempt to both change codex to represent the army and to change my paint scheme to a slightly different version that look better.

 

I will note I've done the Fortress with void shields only in the tower and remote fire. Huge disaster. First issue is that remote fire doesn't allow the unit in the main tower to fire the other weapons at different targets, as it doesn't just simply allow use of the BS, the unit embarked in the main tower fires both the krakstorm missiles and the skyfire TL lascannon. Second issue is that models on the battlements are much much more vulnerable without the void shields, as the void shields make them immune to lasguns, bolter, poison, sniper and flamer fire until that AV12 shield is destroyed. Third issue is that if enemy models are occupy the battlements or building of the las or krakstorm bunker, those weapons cannot fire. This one hasn't come up, but presents a rather damaging potential disaster.

 

I will further note that when creating the list, I was under the impression that the fortification was it's own detachment, and prevented me from bringing allies. This was clearly spelled out in the tournament rules, though again, I seem to be the only person that tried to follow them as written...Captain A corrected it for me, but at the time, I was not aware that he was running the event, so I didn't think it was official, just speculation. I really didn't want to show up and get removed from the event for an illegal list, as the rules suggested would happen.

 

Anyway, this game brought some interesting ideas on how to use the "GIJoe Playset" in alternate ways. At the top of the list is to field it bare, as a TLOS blocker. It is pretty superb in this role. Another idea that came to mind was to use it as a decoy, as it seems that every opponent assumes I'll be using it for deploying my entire army around. The really tempting one would be to experiment with the booby traps option...

 

I will also note from past games, that it is possible to place desperate/come the apocalypse allies in that top tower and legally place the primary detachment in the bottom due to the sheer height of that tower.

 

I do think that manning the building with models with better cover than armor is probably the correct route. I should look into eldar, dark eldar or imperial guard, rather than space marines.

 

I still wish I could field it without the krakstorm or the lascannon, and just how open space to place models in those bunkers. Way more potent...

[generalripphook]

Could you just run scouts with camo cloaks?

[Guest]

Could you just run scouts with camo cloaks?

You mean with the fortress, right? If so:

 

To a certain extent.

 

The BS3 scouts hurt. If I try the heavy bolter spam option, plus only one heavy bolter per unit in addition to the ones the building purchases. They work just fine in the bunkers manning the guns as their squad leader is BS4 without upgrade, though the imperial fists chapter tactic benefit of tank hunters only applies to the devastator units (and devastator centurions).

 

In the DA codex, all scouts get "free" sniper rifles and coincidentally cost 1pt more than their SM brethren. The DA scouts lack chapter tactics (which for DA, would be Grim Resolve). In this respect, DA sniper scouts are more practical. For SM, the bolter scout is more practical at range, as it makes for cheaper unit. The DA also have the Dark Shroud option, which grants stealth in a 6" AoE. This can negate the need for the cloaks, or just make their scouts with cloaks much more impressive.

 

In regards to the GG Cup, I ran a single unit of scouts with cloaks due to a lack of additional scout models. My melee scouts got damaged are no longer WYSIWYG (20), so I have my sniper scouts (10) and my bolter scouts (brought, 10). I used to also have about 40 INQ stormtroopers that I was using as scouts, but with the militarum tempustes book, I felt that I could no longer field them without confusion, so those have been set aside to be re-painted/re-purposed. I also have another 10+ scouts of various roles which are lacking final conversions (and heads...). My Exorcists are supposed to have 3 scout companies, so I often field scouts.

 

Actually, in regards to scouts, the void shields are quite impressive, as cover denial is quite common, but often low strength, so they do work well together, from a defensive stand point. 

 

Offensively, the scouts make my limited shooting power even more so, as their BS 3 and no special weapon access does really hurt.

 

I'm thinking about doing eldar rangers on the fortress. Same stealth as the camo scouts, but I'm thinking the BS4 default will be much more impressive.