"Kirby and Co.
I've emailed you before for advice on my 2,000pt Raven Guard list and I ended up taking
some of it to completely redo my list. Here is a list I'm currently play testing:
Shrike 195
Lib w/NZ and Avenger 100
2 x 10 Terms (1 LC, 9 TH/SS) 800
10 Tac w/Flamer, LasCan, Rhino 215
10 Tac w/Melta, MM, Combi-Melta, Rhino 220
3 x Dakka Preds 255
10 ASM w/PFist 215
Total 2,000
My 4 playtest game results:
Win vs. Chaos w/ deamons - DOW, Kill points
Win vs. "Leafblower" - Spearhead, 3 Objectives
Loss vs. "Footdar" - Pitched battle, 5 Objectives (lost 1-0)
Tie vs. Sisters - DOW, 3 objectives (7th turn killed me)
Granted, 4 games is not a great sample, but I think the army is doing pretty well so far.
What I've learned:
- 20 Assault Terms with fleet make people cringe.
- those Terms draw lots of fire.
- KP missions = golden, Objectives = much tougher.
- I roll a lot of 1s, especially when moving vehicles through terrain
- I hate Eldrad
Anyway, I'm thinking I may need another scoring unit (insert VT2 criticsm here :)) and/or a touch more ranged Anti-tank or suppression fire. Now, I love the ASM squad infiltrating, counter-assaulting, or out-flanking with Shrike, but they are mainly a harraser unit designed to tie things up until TH/SS can get there. so, I'm looking at dropping the ASM squad. That frees up 215pts. If I drop the Las Cannon to a MM and the Combi-Melta from the tac squads, I'll have 235pts. So my range is 215 - 235pts to fill in. Possible options I'm toying with:
Shrike 195
Lib w/NZ and Avenger 100
2 x 10 Terms (1 LC, 9 TH/SS) 800
10 Tac w/Flamer, MM, Combi-melta, Rhino 215
10 Tac w/Melta, MM, Combi-Melta, Rhino 220
10 Tac w/Flamer, Lascannon, Rhino 215
3 x Dakka Preds 255
Total 2,000
Little more change, taking out 1 Pred and the ASM:
Shrike 195
Lib w/NZ and Avenger 100
2 x 10 Terms (1 LC, 9 TH/SS) 800
10 Tac w/Flamer, MM, Rhino 205
10 Tac w/Flamer, MM, Combi-melta, Rhino 215
10 Scout Snipers, Camo 180
2 x Dakka Preds 170
5 Devs w/3 Missile 135
Total 2,000
Your thoughts? What would you substitute?
Side note, this army is very much WIP, so I promise to provide you some pictures as things get further along.
Thanks in advance.
Gramps (Tim)"
20 marines is certainly not a lot of scoring at 2000 points and your suggestion of dropping the ASM is probably the best choice. You could also simply drop the Libby and take a scout squad with cloaks to infiltrate and sit on an objective. The lack of psychic defense and null zone is crappy but 295 points on HQs is pretty expensive. You get the same effect by running only 5 ASM and using the spare points to buy a cheap scout squad. Dropping a dakka Pred is also an option though you lose a bit of suppression fire which this list surely needs.
You should also consider LasPlas squads which offer up more suppression fire and are cheaper than the tactical squads. You lose some midfield support but the Terminators by themselves are scary enough.
If you don't want to use the LasPlas though I'd go with the changed list which drops the ASM but also drop the Libby and a Pred and add in 2x Typhoons as you need to get more shooting into the list. If you want you can replace those 3x 10 Tacs for 4 LasPlas or do a mix and match to get some more ranged shooting whilst maintaining midfield support.
