"I've had some success with this model of army. The premise is to sit in the backfield and peck at people with long ranged fire-power until they hit at least the midfield, at which point the chimeras move up and use melta and HF to clear objectives and kill key targets. The platoon bubblewraps whatever tanks are most key and least mobile (usually sitting halfway on top of whatever LOS blocking terrain I can put the Manticore behind, with half the unit in cover) and receives orders from the CCS to increase the effectiveness of their AC. One vendetta ferries the demovets onto whatever the nastiest thing in the enemy army is, while the other acts as a standoff gunship with a load of flamers to take objectives late game (also useful for late-game across the board rushes to contest).
I have a tournament coming up that is 1850 NOVA rules, so I'd like some other opinions on tweaking. Your blog is a consistently educational for me (a relatively new 40k player), and I thought I'd see what the experts thought!
So here's the list:
Brimlock 17th Expeditionary Force
CCS, 2 melta, 1 AC, chimera HF/ML
PBS x6, chimera HF/ML
2x Vet squads, 3 melta, AC, chimera HF/ML
Vet Squad, Demolitions, 3 melta
PCS- 4 flamers, krak grenades, PW
3x Infantry Squads- Commissar, 3 AC, 2 meltabombs, 2 PW
Vendetta Gunship
Vendetta Gunship, HB sponsons
Leman Russ Executioner, plasma sponsons, hull HB
2x Hydras, hull HB
Manticore, hull HB
Again, love the blog! Cheers!
Mike"
There's nothing really wrong with the units you've got in this army. Each of them is pretty effective and efficient and has a set and defined role whether it be anti-tank, -infantry or both. The problem? You've only got one of everything. Now BrotherLoring would love this as he hates repeat units but the problem is you don't really have a lot of redundancy built into your army and the way you're playing some of your units is going to make your opponent's target priority a bit easier. What I'd look to do with your list is streamline this.
That being said I'd drop the Executioner for points and go from there. This to me is the one unit that's not so flash as one shaken result takes a lot of points out of the game. I prefer to run this tank with an LRBT for squadron rules or not at all. With what else you're taking I'd go not at all. With that in mind grab another PBS + Chimera squad and another Veteran squad to go in the other Vendetta + a Chimera for the Platoon Command squad. This probably will use up all of your points but any left overs I'd look to get Heavy Weapon Teams with autocannons or more Hydras (don't think you have the points for the Hydras to be honest) to get more direct anti-tank firepower down field.
Ultimately these changes give you some redundancy without significantly changing what your army list does. You've still got a fair amount of firepower wrapped by a big infantry platoon whilst you've also increased your midfield push with five Chimeras + 2 forward Vendettas with a lot of melta weapons for popping tanks and solid and reliable scoring.
