I suspect these armies are all very strong in the BAO format which has progressive scoring and (as I understand it) objectives in all games. However, transplanting them to regular book missions won't work very well in my opinion.
The main reason is that there are two missions in the book that these armies would suck at - The Relic and Purge the Heretic (kill points). They don't really have enough speed for the former or enough Dakka for the latter. Wave serpents have both speed and dakka, so they're sweet. Perhaps some Leman Russes give the guard army enough dakka, but I'm pretty skeptical because of the BS and AP values. Chimera's also aren't fast enough to get in, grab a relic and get out before an opponent with fewer troops starts blowing everything up. White Scars/Raven Guard Rhinos might be fast enough because of the scout rule, but certainly don't have enough dakka. A 10 man tactical squad (in two blocks of 5) in a Rhino sets you back 175 points with no equipment, and if you're expecting a lot of transports that need killing I figure you'll bring a plasma gun and combi-plasma. That's 200 points. Take four, add in a HQ and you're already at 900. Not much room left for killing power. That's always been the weakness of tactical squads - dead 'ard but not very killy, especially as you can't put two special weapons in a squad. What's more, all these transport spam lists bring a lot of units that yield kill points easily (except wave serpent spam; yet again the exception).
I had a think about some other transport spam lists that might be more viable. One thought was Crimson fists Sternguard spam in drop pods. Something like...
Kantor
Sternguard (10) in pod with combi-melta x4
Sternguard (10) in pod with combi-melta x4
Sternguard (9) in pod with combi-plasma x4*
Tactical Squad (10) in Rhino w/plasma gun, combi-plasma
Tactical Squad (10) in Rhino w/plasma gun, combi-plasma
Vindicator
Vindicator
Vindicator
* I'm not at all comfortable with this load-out. I originally had them with no equipment but then had 40 points leftover. Plasma does give you the option of blowing up transports, which is neat. What else could you do with the points? Power fists in Sternguard aren't generally worth it because they die too fast post drop.
That's 10(!) objective secured units. The two melta-gun sternguard units drop down turn 1 and try to kill whatever scares you the most (Wyverns, for example). They are very nice against wave serpents because the combat squad with the meltaguns (and krak grenade!) can often pop a wave serpent and then the other combat squad can rapid fire the contents to death. The 2+ poison ammo is golden against Wraithknights, Tyranids and big demons. Tau aren't going to be around as much anymore and Quad guns took a nerf, so you don't need to be so afraid of interceptor. Kantor's squad comes down turn 2 right on top of an objective so the pod scores unless your opponent shoots it, and fires into an infantry squad. Kantor tanks wounds if possible (more on Pedro later). Then on turn three the Sternguard move away, Kantor stands still and fires Orbital bombardment. Ideally he would then charge something, but your opponent would have to be pretty dumb to let that happen. He's probably dead after that, but if your vindicators and sternguard are enough of a distraction then maybe not. Hopefully you can give your opponent enough targets for a few turns that they can't devote any attention to your OS transports and you win on objectives. If it's the capture the flag mission you've got a good shot because half your army will land in his deployment zone, the two Rhino squads can hold the backfield and the vindicators can run interference through the middle. If it's kill points you can kill plenty of stuff with Sternguard and Vindicators (and transports/horde with those tactical squads), but that's your toughest mission by far because your two main sternguard squads are in combat squads (you can change everyone else to full size for that mission) and you have a tonne of low armour and open topped transports. You have a shot at the relic because you can drop Kantor's pod on your opponent's side of the relic (making your opponent drive around it and giving you cover from his shooting), disembark on to it with a 10 strong squad and then have them jump in a Rhino that drives up from back field. As your opponent arrives you can drop another Sternguard squad into the mosh pit.
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| Real men wear loincloths |
Some unit selection points. I think Vindicators are good for this army is because you want everything that isn't coming down in pods to be able to drive up and support the sternguard. I think three pods is optimal because it means you get two turn 1 and you army doesn't start in reserve. More pods mean tacticals in pods, which isn't really adding much to them and means you are almost totally immobile post drop. Kantor blows. He can't use his orbital the turn he pods in. If he uses it the turn after then he can't charge, which means he will probably get shot to pieces the turn after. He only has a 3+/4++ and no eternal warrior, so he can't effectively tank wounds. There's no unit he really gels with. His only saving grace is that his sternguard as scoring upgrade only costs about 10 points.
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| Kantor standing around, as always |
Might be worth trying something similar with Space Wolves dropping Grey Hunters who are cheaper than Sternguard and pack enough assault potency and special weapons to make up for it.
Another OS transport army that I think might be quite competitive is Deathwing in land raiders. Here its quality over quantity rather than spam. In my experience (with Grav-centurions inside in 6th edition), land raiders are very hard to kill because nowadays, thanks to hull points, people only bring a limited number of strength 8+ weapons, e.g. two riptides, two wraithknights, a single command squad with melta bombs etc. If you can take those units out then your land raiders are unkillable and can just park on an objective thereafter. They can sometimes even deny the objective outright because they can use their bulk to screen enemy units 3". Even if you can't kill those units, the Venerable vehicle thing means killing raiders with penetrating shots is going to be extremely difficult. Terminators are a bit shit, and Deathwing have to pay a bunch of points for largely useless deep strike oriented benefits, but I am going to give this a try at some point:
Azrael*
Librarian ** w/ terminator armour, ML2
Terminator Squad (7) w/Cyclone, chainfist, TH/SS x2 (for the invulnearable)
Land Raider Crusader w/Multi-melta, Deathwing Vehicle
Terminator Squad (7) w/Cyclone, chainfist (uses Azrael's 4++ invuln bubble)
Land Raider Crusader w/Multi-melta, Deathwing vehicle
Terminator Squad (5) w/assault cannon
1851 point ***
* Belial charges about 60 pionts to give you terminator troops. Azrael charges about 30 and brings a 4+ invuln bubble
** I would prefer a chaplain but they can't take terminator armour in DA. PFG generator doesn't protect land raiders and ruins your power fists in assault, so I don't think it is worth it. I'm tempted to drop this guy and just make the deep striking squad bigger, but psychic powers might be nice.
*** Deathwing have some of the weirdest costings. Every list I try to build I end up with strange quantities of points leftover. I get the feeling they didn't really play test this half of the DA book
Anyway, that's enough ranting for today.
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