I have a preference for escalation leagues to be fairly complicated, with rewards for having stuff painted each round, playing lots of games and collecting a new army. Our club has instead opted for the simplest format - 500 +100Wk points per week, with no other rules. There is no overall winner of the league, it's just a contrived format to help people get gradually introduced to 7th Edition. Probably ideal for our rather erratic gaming group. I'm especially happy because a lot of the players who've moved over to other games like Infinity, Dystopian Wars and Dust in the last year or so are now all black playing 40K, which means I get a variety of games every week.
If I was running the league, the format would probably be something like:
- 500 + 100wk points
- 3 points for a win, 2 for a draw, 1 for a loss
- I have fairly elaborate rules for what constitutes a draw, like if someone wins on kill points but loses on objectives, that's a draw
- You can't score more than 9 points per week (some people can't hang around for that long)
- Pick scores from your best 7 weeks (allows people to miss 3/10 weeks without penalty)
- You score an extra 3 points for every unit you paint to a minimum of 3 colours + basing
- You score 1 extra point for highlighting/detailing, and 1 extra point for advanced basing. This includes models you have already painted before the league starts but never jazzed up
- Standard force organisation chart is in effect. No unbound armies without opponent's permission.
Our league starts on the 6th. I intend to play Space Marines, but if I like the Ork Codex I will switch to them. I was very tempted to get my Chaos Space Marines out, but all the models I have for them are kind of on the sucky side (Basic CSM, 2 demon princes, cultists, a hellbrute, a defiler, some chosen, some bikes). And I don't really like the Chaos play style. I'm very sympathetic to Orks because they don't seem inherently evil, rather a victim of their nature. Every other army in 40K has a severe, conscious character flaw that really bugs me (Imperium: hatred, xenophobia; Eldar: arrogance, xenophobia; Tau: illiberalism, a caste system (!, for fuck's sake); Tyranids: a bit too mindless; Dark Eldar: sadism; etc). I've written quite elaborate fluff for my Marines to say they have renounced the Imperium and fight instead for the Emperor's vision (it was atheist, FYI). I also dig the ork fluff - all the slap-dash inventions and the way they speak. Let's get crumpin'! If I start an army it's going to be Waaaaaaaaagggghhhh Big-knackers and probably have a bit of a GorkaMorka aesthetic (desert scrapyard).
For most of the points values I will playing marines with tacticals, a squad of bikes escorted by a captain and a smattering of thunderfire cannons, legion of the damned, stormtalons and predators (to see what kills wave serpents mostly). I will also be playing Deathwing at some points levels to see how this whole OS land raider things goes and to have a reason to paint all my space hulk terminators. They are some of the best models GW ever made in my opinion.
Speaking of Deathwing - I wish you didn't have to pay so many points for what is actually a pretty balanced army. Why is Belial 190 points! Even taking into consideration his special rules, which all encourage you to deep strike, which is suicide, I'd estimate that you're paying around 60 points for the privilege of taking scoring terminators (compared to a space marine terminator captain). A bit overpriced. 30 points for venerable on the tanks also seems steep, but it does force people to glance your raiders to death, which isn't easy. I think 'It Will Not Die' would have been more useful, but oh wellz.
At 1300 you can get 2 landraiders and two squads of terminators, so I will probably start there. If it goes well I will consider the following army for the 1500 points tournament. That tournament is meant to be very social. Allies are frowned upon, special characters are frowned upon, themed armies are encouraged etc.
Belial w/Lightning claws
Terminator Squad (5) w/Cyclone missile launcher, chainfist
Land Raider Crusader w/Deathwing vehicle, multi-melta
Terminator Squad (5) w/Cyclone missile launcher, chainfist
Land Raider Godhammer* w/Deathwing vehicle
Terminator Squad (5) w/assault cannon
* If I had two Crusaders I would play a different list with just two full man squads (one with a librarian) in two Crusaders. I inherited my Godhammer from a guy who played Chaos as a 12 year old. It was a mess. I'm actually planning to write at article featuring pics of how I cleaned it up and purified it (with liberal application of tank stowage). This thing was covered in Chaos shit that needed to be clipped away, there was negative space everywhere, there was a god-damned hunter killer missile on the thing! Anyway...I'll write some thoughts on Deathwing in 7th edition a little later.
If Deathwing turns out to be shit or my competitive spirit gets the better of me I will play:
WHITE SCARS! (Or in my case, The Emperor's Ghosts supported by their bike company - The Crows; slogan: 'Did somebody request a murder?' *modelling articles to come*)
Chapter Master w/Bike, artificer armour, thunder hammer*, shield eternal
Kor'Sarro Khan w/Bike
Command Squad w/Bikes, grav-gun x4, melta-bombs x3, storm shield x3
Tactical Squad (10) w/Rhino, flamer, combi-flamer
Tactical Squad (10) w/Rhino, plasmagun, combi-plasma
Tactical Squad (10) w/Rhino, plasmagun, combi-plasma
Storm Talon w/Skyhammer missile launcher
Storm Talon w/Skyhammer missile launcher
1500 points exactly
* I hate the look of power fists, so whenever I have five points lying around I will always take the hammer, even if it adds basically nothing, especially now that demon princes are unlikely to be around as much.
This list can't take on a full blown Eldar wave serpent spam list at 1500, but everything else it's looking right as rain. That mini-death star is just so economical and multi-purpose. Dead 'ard and well killy. The tactical squads give you a tonne of solid scoring units at 1500. The talons and plasma guns mean you can kill other people's transports. The talons and flamer give you just enough (I hope) anti horde once you factor in the rapid firing bolter marines. Plus this entire army scouts. I love that so much. Armies that aren't tooled up with all the whizz bangs usually can't handle it when you're up in their face on turn 1. It really throws people's whole game plan off. I've had several opponents (including myself when I first started playing again about 18 months ago and my second game was against Ravenwing) who just have a brain explosion when they see you all up in their business straight off the bat. The Rhinos are nice here because they can provide Line of Sight screens for your bikes. By the time your talons arrive your opponents AA is under so much pressure they may well go unchallenged for the rest of the game. I should have plenty of chances to get a feel for this list in 7th during the course of the escalation league. Might turn out that my mini death-star is actually shite, but so far in a 500 (with shield-less Captain) and 1000 point game (both with bike squad not command squad) it's been great.
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| Scourge (Dark Eldar) wings for those who are interested |
One other thing I'd like to try is a Raven Guard list with Vanguard veterans and Rhinos instead of bikes and Rhinos. I've been itching to paint some Vanguard Veterans for ages so it will probably happen around the 1000-1200 point week. Chapter Master's suck if not on bikes or in terminator armour because they can't easily use orbital bombardment. So I'm thinking of putting two ML2 librarians as the HQs - free force axes and some rolls on biomancy for buffs (endurance would be nice). I can take storm shields on the vets for invulnerable saves. I'm not expecting great things but it's worth a try. Might be worth more of a try if the Blood Angel Codex update rumors are true.
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