'Ard Boyz preliminary round list

Ok, so I promised it and here it is, the list I used in the preliminary round of 'Ard Boyz.

HQ:
Farseer, Jetbike, Runes of Witnessing, Runes of Warding, Spirit Stones, Fortune, Guide

Autarch, Jetbike, Mandiblasters, Laser Lance

Warlock Unit on Jetbikes
     1x Warlock with Embolden
     3x Warlock with Destructor

Elites:
Fire Dragons
     x4 Fire Dragons (Mounted in Falcon)
     1x Fire Dragon Exarch with Dragons Breath Flamer and Crack Shot

Fire Dragons (Mounted in Falcon)

     x4 Fire Dragons
     1x Fire Dragon Exarch with Dragons Breath Flamer and Crack Shot

Fire Dragons (Mounted in Falcon)
     x6 Fire Dragons
 
Troops:
 
Guardian Jetbike Squad
     4x Guardian Jetbikes with shuriken catapults
     2x Guardian Jetbikes with shuriken cannons
     1x Warlock with Singing Spear and Destructor
 
Guardian Jetbike Squad
     4x Guardian Jetbikes with shuriken catapults
     1x Guardian Jetbikes with shuriken cannons
     1x Warlock with Singing Spear and Destructor
 
Guardian Jetbike Squad
     4x Guardian Jetbikes with shuriken catapults
     1x Guardian Jetbikes with shuriken cannons
     1x Warlock with Singing Spear and Destructor
 
Dire Avengers
     6x Dire Avengers
     1x Dire Avenger Exarch with Dual Shurican catapults and Bladestorm
     Wave Serpent with Twin-Linked Brightlances and Sprit Stones
 
Dire Avengers
     6x Dire Avengers
     1x Dire Avenger Exarch with Dual Shurican catapults and Bladestorm
     Wave Serpent with Twin-Linked Brightlances and Sprit Stones


Falcon Grav Tank with Scatter Laser, Holo-fields and spirit Stones
Falcon Grav Tank with Scatter Laser, Holo-fields and spirit Stones

Falcon Grav Tank with Scatter Laser, Holo-fields and spirit Stones


Army Total: 2497pts


Well there it is, let me know what you think. For the Semi's I am planning on running pretty much the same list. I am thinking of dropping one of the Falcons and cutting the Dire Avenger Squad sizes down, then putting the DA's in the Falcons and giving the Wave Serpents to the Fire Dragons and equipping them with Twin-linked Starcannons, Spirit Stones, and Shuriken Cannon Upgrade. It will boost my ranged anti-infantry firepower and help me to deal with feel no pain units a little better (something I had a problem with in two of my three prelim battles!)

?? The Return of the Starcannon ??

I am thinking of putting a few starcannons back into my standard lists. When I first came back to the game and found them to only be heavy2 instead of the glorydays of heavy3, and the scatter laser getting a bump from heavy d6 to a straight heavy4 it seemed a no brainer to take the extra shots at the much lower points cost. I am beginning to rethink this however, and for one major reason only...

'Feel No Pain'! It seems to me that there are a great number of things out there that benefit from the 'feel no pain' special rule and quite frankly scatterlasers might as well be lasguns for all they're worth against FNP models.

Think about it. Mark of Nurgle models from Chaos Deamons, Nurgle Deamons from Chaos Deamons, both popular troops choices specifically because of feel no pain. Then you have Ork Nobs running (or riding in the case of Nob bikers) around with feel no pain from the painboy upgrade. More recently though we are seeing the ability for certain powers or models to be able to 'give' other units/models feel no pain. In the Blood Angels Codex this comes in the form of the Blood Chalice carried by Sanguinary Priests and for the Tyranids the Hive Tyrant has an ability that allows one unit nearby to gain FNP till the beginning of the next Tyranid turn (I only discovered this this past weekend at 'Ard Boyz and have no idea what the ability is called). I am sure that there are other things out there but these I feel are all going to be common enough to warrant the inclusion of a few FNP ignoring weapons into an army list.

The question then becomes where do I put them? In my usual army lists I don't have to many places where I can upgrade/change heavy weapons other than my grav tanks. So I have to choose between the Falcons or the Wave Serpents. I think this is a no brainer here. The Falcon will usually be firing it's pulse laser if it's firing anything so Starcannons would be a bit wasted here, so the scatter lasers stay here. The wave serpents though with only the one heavy weapon and the fact that they are twin-linked seems like the perfect place.

Now, for most of my time playing 40k I have believed in putting Brightlances on Wave Serpents because it's just about the most reliable place to have them if you want them to do something. I now have enough tankbusting ability, though, between the Pulselasers on my Falcons, my Fire Dragons and all of the singing spears and witchblades running about the table that I feel I can probably get away without those 2 or 3 brightlances. With the Points saved I can even upgrade the shuriken catapults on the Wave Serpents to shuriken cannons adding a bit more dakka to the tank overall.

I don't really know what the Math-hammer comparison is for a str6 ap6 heavy4 weapon vs. a str6 ap2 heavy2 weapon vs. a FNP unit, but I think for my tastes it's got to be good enough to warrant the peace of mind.
What do you think? Does this have any merit whatsoever? Or am I just mad?

Semi-Finals here I come!

So it's happened, two of the original top 3 finishers at the local 'Ard Boyz preliminary round have passed on thier chance to go to the Semi-finals round. So as the 5th place finisher one of those tickets will fall to me. It's not the most glamourus way to advance to the next round, but I'll take it. It's a chance for redemption after that epic fail in game two.

I will obviously will be playing my Eldar again (I will post the list I used soon!), but I think I need to tweak it a bit. More on that later though...

Reflecting on 'Ard Boyz

So 'Ard Boyz was yesterday and I had a great time. All 3 of my opponents were a blast to play against. I wound up coming in 5th overall out of 14 players, which isn't too bad when you consider that my first two opponents ended up taking 1st and 2nd place. Brian did an excellent job running the tournament, especially when you consider he ran two tournaments in as many days! So anyways on to the battles and how I fared in each round...

Fuq'd!

I just saw the scenarios for the upcoming 'Ard Boyz and what the fuck!? The third mission is completely out of whack. It's called 'Kill da Fast Ones'. It uses a modified kill points system that awards 3 points for any unit that can move over 6" in a single phase of the game. That's my whole army! So even if I am in contention after the 1st two battles, unless I get lucky and run into another super fast army, I am going to be seriously handicapped. I guess it's time to go all Reecius (sp?) and bust out the footdar lists again. Then again, probably not! I will just have to adapt and overcome. Still pisses me off that my actual army is going to be that big of a handicap in a tournament. Not the list, not how I use it, but just the fact that my whole army is fast!