Blood Angels

Jut some doodles to start.

HQ - Librarian with two powers depending on opposition (100 pts)

Troop One - 5x Tactical Squad 5 man (90 pts) with Razorback (55 pts)

Troop Two - 5x Tactical Squad (90 pts) with Razorback (55 pts)

Heavy Support - 5x Devastator Squad with 4 missile launchers (130 pts - but not as good as Space Wolves equivalent as can shoot at one target)

Total: 520 pts and as not as effective as the Space Wolves army.

Sub the Devastator squad for a Baal Predator (115 pts) and still 5 pts over.

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HQ - Librarian (100pts) with Jump Packs (25 pts) 125 pt

Troop One - Assault Squad with jump pack and lightning claws for Sargeant (115 pts)
Troop Two - Assault Squad with jump pack and lightning claws for Sargeant (115 pts) (relentless plus other special abilities)
Elite - Sanginary Priests with jump packs (75 pts) and lightning claws (90 pts)

Total: 445

Option one - upgrade Sergeants and Priest's lighting claws to to power fists for 10pts each and/or add melta bombs or meltas to each of the troop units.
Option two - Take Wings of Sanguinius as one of Librarian psker power add meltas or melta bombs to both troops and take Predator.
Option three - One troop takes no jump packs and a dedicated Razor Back as troop transport; get rid of Priest and Librarian's jump packs; Predator. Up grade a Lightening Claw.
Option four - One troop take no jump packs, a dedicated troop transport such as a Razor Back; priest or Librarian also ditch jump packs (total points 440); and both troops up grade their Sergeants' weapons.

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HQ - Librarian - 100 points
Troop One and Two - 10 man Tactical Squad (2 squads) with missile launcher and plasma gun and Sarg with melta bomb and storm bolter (198 pts)
Storm Raven (200 pts)

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Heavy Support - Baal Predator (115 pts)

Total points: too many points, doable with normal Predator or if removing some of the upgrades.

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1000 point ideas

Librarian - 100 points
Tactical Squad - 190 point
Storm Raven - 200 pts
Baal Predator - 115 points
Assault Squad - 200 points
Brother Corbulo 1o5.
Terminator Assult Squad with Priest (285)

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Also tempting - Storm Raven (Fast, Skimmer, Assault Vehicle. 21-26" asault distance is what attracted me to Dark Eldar with Fleet. Without Fleet special rule)

Sanginary Priests (50 pts each, 1-3, confer Feel no Pain and Furious Assault on units within 6"; can take Brother Corbulo for 105 pts for each abilities and toughness)

Death Company (60 pts for 3; 20 pts each for more); Feel No Pain, Furious Charge, Rage, Relentless, and Fearless

Predator (fast, tank) for 70 points! But would probably want to upgrade the gun and/or add side sponsons

A Terminator Assault Squad with a Priest in Terminator Armor with power sword (200 + 85 pts) looks almost unstoppable against most troops and infantry. Pity it cannot be mounted in a Storm Raven.

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Space Wolves

I found some 500 point proposals for Space Wolves 500 point armies on a discussion forum called dakadaka (or something like that). Apologies for my newbieness and apologies for not being able to attribute my design appropriately.

I hybridized the two with some advice from a third and here is my 500 point Space Wolves Army.

HQ: Rune Priest with Living Lightning and Tempest Wrath(100 pts)

Troops One: Grey Hunters x5 with Melta Gun (80 pts)

Transport One: Razorback with Twin Linked Assault Cannons (75 pts)

Troops Two: Grey Hunters x5 with Melta Gun (80 pts)

Transport Two: Razorback with Twin Linked Assault Cannons (75 pts)

Heavy Support: Long Fang x4 with 3x Missile Launcher (90 points)

Basic operational idea: team the Rune Priest with the Heavy Support Unit. The two troop units to push forward and to take objective; Long Fang in support.

To be honest, I think this spends too much on the Razorback Transports. They will die early, but at least there is two of them so it should take a couple of turns.

Space Wolf Option Two

A min/max missile launcher spam approach, might look like this:

HQ: Rune Priest with Living Lightning and Tempest Wrath(100 pts)

Troops One: Grey Hunters x5 with Meltagun (80 pts)

Troops Two: Grey Hunters x5 with Meltagun (80 pts)

Heavy Support: Long Fang x5 with 4x Missile Launcher (115 points)

Heavy Support: Long Fang x5 with 4x Missile Launcher (115 points)

Total: 490 points

This leaves 10 points for minor enhancements. To be honest, the Grey Hunters' Meltaguns are not need given the two Long Fang units. Removing the Meltaguns leaves 20 points to play with.

I find the above set-up hard to beat. I think it is the one I would play as a Space Wolf. However, finding all the necessary Missile Launcher bits to build this micro army will be extremely difficult, or extremely expensive $$$-wise.

I've been playing about with the Dark Eldar list again, but cannot make a decision.

This is probably why I'm obsessing about 500 point armies; the design space is so constrained there is little room for choice. And yet... that is where it becomes interesting. Design is about constraints. However, in WH 40k, as in many other games, there is amble opportunity to min/max, or be "cheesey"... as my upcoming lists will show... well, I think they will.

My previous lists were a little obsessed with worried about armor. However, after a bit of research I release that in the 500 point space there will not be much armor to worry about other than low armor level transports and the like. Sure an Imperial guard player could min/max to get a Leman Russ Battle tank; but a little anti-armor melta insurance should take care of that.

One idea is to switch the Dark lances on my original idea to change the Ravager's Dark Lances in my original (1.0) list to Disintergrators (and maybe the Raiders the other way) to up the anti- infantry and anti-swarm capacity. In this philosophy some Melta gun type stuff needs to be retained somewhere just in case.

The problem with my Dark Eldar list arises from countering the 500 point army I will post next. There are probably many more problems, but the problems of countering Space Marines has to be high on one's list of concerns. The problem really is how to counter Space Marines (of what ever flavor) that takes one or more Devastator Squads armed with multiple missile launchers. Those missile launchers will make short work of ANY Dark Eldar Vehicle on the field of play.

My [maybe] final Dark Eldar list for fighting space marine units is:

HQ: Archon with Agonizer, Ghostplate Armor and Clone Field*, and drugs (120 pts)

Troop One: Wyches x7: with Shardnet and Impaler (80 pts)

Transport: Raider with Dark Lance Cannon (60 pts)

Troop Two: Wyches x7: Hekatrix, Agonizer (100 pts)

Transport: Raider with Dark Lance Cannon (60 pts)

Fast attack: Reavers x3 (66)

The idea here is to use the Reavers to shut down the Space Marines Devastator Squad early. The Reavers are both a distraction (flies buzzing around) and able to take out a small unit with concentrated fire power.

Actually, this list sucks... no anti tank.

The problem with Dark Eldar is this... they need transports, but transports cost too much. The Dark Lance (or Disintegrator Cannon) is great, but only if you expect the Raider to last more than the first round of shooting. Rhino's cost 30 points. Take away the Dark Lance, maybe replace it with a twin linked splinter rifle and give the raider a base cost of 35-40 points (with a Dark Lance or Disintegrator Cannon upgrade for 20-25 points) and you have a winning transport option on par with the Rhino or Razorback. As it stands, Raiders suck in terms of price, and this kills Dark Eldar as a viable option.

My list... with Raiders costing 35 points will be forthcoming :)

* Shadow Field is an equivalent point option to Ghostplate Armor + Clone Field but I have come to the conclusion that Clone Field, buffed a bit with Ghostplate is the the best option in low point set-ups.

Dark Eldar

My second 500 point army design is for Dark Eldar. Dark Eldar offers more flexibility in terms of army design.

I came up a few options. My criteria was to avoid investing too many points in any one unit and to maintain some target diversity.

Option One (going for a balanced approach):

HQ: Archon with Agonizer, Shadow Field (or Ghostplate Armor and Clone Field), and drugs (120 pts)

Troop One: Kabalite Warriors x10 with Blaster and Dark Lance (125 pts)

Troop Two: Wyches x7 with Shardnet and Impaler (80 pts)

Transport: Raider with Disintegrator Cannon (60 pts)

Heavy Support: Ravager with 3x Dark Lance and Night Shields (115 pts)

Operations: Load Archon and Wyches in the raider and move them forward to get up close and personal with enemy infantry. Kabalite Warriors and Ravager hang back to offer fire support and deal with any armor.

Option 1.2

An interesting and fun variant might be to replace the Ravager with a unit of Reavers (3-5 Reavers for 66-110 points); replace the Raider's Disintegrator with a Dark Lance. The basic idea with this set-up is have the Reavers continually turbo-boosting and moving flat-out (36") and flying over enemy ground units using Bladevanes (d3 S4 attacks from each Reaver on each flyover of a unit) The Reavers maintain a 3+ cover saves. This would probably only work on a large board. It also seems like the only way to ever get the very cool looking Reavers into an army.

I think I would go for the following set-up: 3 Reavers (66 pts). That way I only need to buy one pack of three reavers, which $$$-wise is very desirable. This leaves 49 points to play with. I think equipping a Reaver with a Blaster Cannon (15 pts) is a good option. This frees up 34 points that could be spent to give the Archon a Blaster (15 points) and the Wyches Haywire Grenades (14 points). Alternatively, skip the Reaver's Blaster Cannon; get two more Wyches (20 pts) and give them and the Archon Haywire Grenades (23 pts). Or again: equip one Reavers with Grav-talon (10 pts; pinning) and one with Heat Lance (12 pts); one extra Wych (10 pts) plus Haywire grenades for Wyches (16 pts). This might be the better, more fun option.

Option Two (min/maxing for heavy support):

HQ: Haemonculus with Liquifer gun (60 points)

Troop One: 5 Kabalite Warriors (45 pts)

Troop Two: 5 Wyches with Hekatrix and Agonizer (80 pts)

Heavy Support: 3 Ravagers with Dark Lances (315 pts)

Operations: Hang back and blast everything that approaches with the Ravagers. Troops are the infantry screen for any deep strikes etc. Join Haemonculus with Wyches to give them the pain token and to make a reasonably tough CC unit. Another version of this approach could replace the 3 ravagers with 2 Razorwing Jetfighters with Night Shields (310 pts) if the models were available.

Option Three (Focusing on close combat but trying to retain a little anti-armor capability):

HQ: Archon with Agonizer, Shadow Field (or Ghostplate Armor and Clone Field), blaster pistol and PGL (140 pts)

Troop One: 5 Wyches with Hekatrix and Agonizer and Haywire Grenades and Raider with Dark Lance (150 pts)

Troop Two: 5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades (60 pts)

Elites: 4 Incubi and Raider with Dark Lance: (148 pts)

Operations: Put the Archon in a team with the Incubi. Move to CC as quickly as possible. This group feels weak against armor and ranged heavy armies. It will all depend on getting into CC fast. Does anybody have a better idea for a CC focused build?

I think some variant of option one is what I would go for. I think one of the Reaver variants, played on a large board, would be great fun. Buzzing enemy troops and drawing their fire while closing in with Wyches and the Archon would be awesome.

First Army - Necrons

My son has started collecting Necrons. It has how I got into this damned Warhammer mess... er... hobby.

A 500 point army for Necrons is very straightforward. By straightforward I mean there are very few choices to make.

Let's look at the requirements for a legal army. It has to have a minimum of two troop units and one HQ unit.

Necrons only have one choice of troops - Necron Warriors - and one choice of HQ - Necron Lord.

Necron warriors

* unit size 10-20

* basic cost: 18

= 2 troop units of 10 Warriors for 360 points

Necron Lord:

* independent character

* basic cost 100

= one HQ unit for 100 points.

That leaves us with 40 points. There are two viable options for these remaining points, and both are an upgrade to our Necron Lord. Before discussing those, it is worth mentioning I have ruled out buying two more warriors (for 36 points) and equipping the two Warrior units with disruption fields (for 40 points). Two more warriors does not add much interest or diversity to the army; disruption fields seem unnecessary give the anti-tank capabilities of the warriors' guas weapons.

Upgrade One:

* resurrection orb: 40 points.

* benefits: helps with "we'll be back" roles and that helps prevent fade out.

Upgrade Two:

* Warscythe: 10 points

* Destroyer Body: 30 points

* Benefits: Agile, jet bike movement for the Lord; improved +1 toughness; strong CC weapon, able to chop-up vehicle armor, or take out the enemy's HQ unit.

Well, there they are. Any thoughts?

Edit: There is a third option for the last 40 points: three scarab swarms with disruption fields for 36 points. This creates more target opportunities; a way to tie up units and even armor while warriors advance.

500 Point Army for Warhammer 40K

I've recently become fascinated with Warhammer 40K.

Living in Australia it is a very expensive hobby.

I'm also interested in design. By design, I roughly mean working within sets of understood constrains and rules to arrive at the best, or optimal solution to a problem.

So, I've been playing with the various Warhammer codex to see if I can design small, capable armies; 500 point armies.

This is what this blog will be about. Hopefully other Warhammer 40K enthusiasts will find this blog and also post their ideas.