Adepticon Build-Up: The Stractics

Well, yesterday you got the setup.  Today it’s time for the punchline.  It was a deliberate choice to go for a full Bastion instead of the traditional Aegis Line plus Quad Gun and it was made for two reasons.  The first is that every bugger brings an Aegis Line, and I like to try different things to the choices everyone else is making.  The second is to see how many people know how buildings work.  It’s a point of curiosity to me.  Buildings are big, they can be scary, but they are nowhere near as hard to take down as people think.  They also force a different style of play to counter them.  I mean, yeah the usual heavy tank-busting equipment can certainly do for them, like anything else, but anti-troop stuff can actually be more effective.  If you can clear out the occupants, then you can take the building for yourself, and that can be a hell of an advantage.  All it takes is a few frag and krak grenades and maybe a couple of flamers.  You just need to get close.

Anyway, the basic plan behind the army focuses round the Bastion, set up in a non-dickish manner (that is certainly something to bear in mind when using buildings) and fully populated.  One of the problems I have with this list is that it seems a little troop-light.  It’s got 50 foot troops in it, sure, but they are all really quite squishy, and what can I do if they get wiped out?  The Bastion should go a fair way to keeping some of troops alive for the late game objective rush.  I plan to have the small squad of cultists occupying the building and a squad of bloodletters on the battlements with the Quad Gun.  The Bloodletters, despite being a heavy assault unit are actually really well suited to this kind of duty.  They all have a Ballistic Skill of 5, making them excellent gunners regardless of who in the squad is taking the job and they automatically pass all Morale tests, mean that they can’t be forced off base.  Always go for Fearless (or semi-Fearless) when manning battlements if you can.  You really don’t want them panicking and flinging themselves off the building!

For outside the building, I have some big guns, in the shape of my two Soul Grinders and the Forgefiend, who can fling a decent amount of fire downfield, although the Grinders will have to be on the advance for me to get to most out of them.  All three are also handy for dealing with incoming air traffic; the Grinders skyfiring and the fiend just soaking the skies with S8, all the while supported by a twin-linked BS5 Quad Gun.  A decent wall of flak there.  Now we’re talking about aerial superiority, I have the Bloodthirster and the Heldrake as a pair of durable flying units (although not entirely effective versus other flyers) to help keep the pressure on the opponent’s defences.  Both are very capable of dealing with ground targets, whilst being scary in their own right.

My Warpsmith pulls double duty in this list, useful in aiding and repairing my various vehicles, but also able to really hurt something in assault.  Provided I don’t roll a 1 for the daemon weapon, he’s pulling a hefty 8 AP2 attacks in a single turn.  His Weapon Skill and Ballistic Skill take downgrades due to the weapon, but if he’s against Marines, then he’s still more than capable of chewing through squad leaders or even most characters.  Particularly because most of the weapons that can nullify his 2+ armour save will be striking after him in an assault.  For most of the game, he’ll be tooling around with a squad of 20 cultists for a bit of survivability versus enemy fire, although concentrated flak will definitely whittle that number down quickly.  I’m hoping that he and his squad will be overlooked in favour of the multitude of bigger, nastier things that’ll be taking the field with them.

The main weakness in this army, from my view, is the troops.  Once they are gone (and it won’t take too much to make that happen), then I have practically no denial units in the entire army and that spells trouble for any list.  The basic plan will have to be to concentrate on taking down enemy troop number to limit their objective-scoring capacity and bring it in line with mine before going in for the kill.  I should have enough high strength firepower to deal with a wall of light to medium vehicles.  The heavier ones will have to be dealt with in assault though.  Hopefully my Bloodthirster is up to the job there.

That's about it, really.  I’ve just got to hope to play well, and roll high on the Warp Storm table!

So long.