Another View: Terminators and Techmarines

Kirby... this is just... bad. Sorry buddy, but I gotta get in and comment on this one.

It's not a DS list, BTW, to all the people thinking that. Techmarines can't DS.

First off, what are the interceptors doing in this list? They're clearly not a melee component with 5 guys, so why aren't they strike squads? SS come in 30 points cheaper and can still DS, or just walk for like a turn and start firing. The Intercepters are just a little out of place, especially given how slow the list is. Swap them for strike squads with a single psycannon. (Hammer isn't good on five, where it often dies before swinging and won't win you the combat anyway.) Saved 90 points there, and added 2 scoring units.

Second, the techmarines are a waste. Techmarines are ONLY useful over ordo xenos if they're buffing terrain, or fixing vehicles. This list doesn't at all benifit from terrain in your deployment zone, and guess what? There are ZERO vehicles! I know that the request was to try and include techmarines, and techmarines ARE good, but they just don't work well in this list.

So, drop one techmarine for an ordo xenos inquisitor. We're going to give him the cool grenades: psychotroke and rad. Since we know he's sticking with terminators, he gets a plasma siphon as well because F getting double tapped by plasma. Also, he buys the skulls instead of the Librarian because it's cheaper. (9 instead of 15) Oh, and power armor, of course. We don't really care about making his attacks better, because the rest of the unit is I6 or I1 anyway, so the enemy can't wound allocate to help himself out. An inquisitor with this loadout costs 82 points, which is 33 points less than the techmarine.

Also, as a side note the inquisitor is MUCH less likely to get killed by torrent fire than the techmarine. Side benefit.

Do we really need the second techmarine? No, he's not really doing much. We're dropping him as well. 115 points saved.

So, now we've gone from 70 points to play with to 244. Now that we've cut chaff, we can start working some magic. This is our current list:

Libby w/Quicksilver, Summoning, Shrouding, Sanctuary, Might
Ordo Xenos Inqusitor w/Rad, Psykotroke grenades, Plasma Siphon, Powered Armor, 3x Skulls
2x10x GKT w/2x psycannons, 8 halberds, 2 hammers, psy bolt ammo
2x5x Strike Squad w/psycannon
2x Dreadknight

Alllllllright. Now, what is this list missing?

If you said “Long range AT” you get a cookie from biscuit!

Terminator and deathstar lists are, BTW, exactly the ones you want psyflemen dreads in. However, the OP wanted dreadknights, and I already cut his techmarines, so let's see what we can do.

We need our dreadknights to shoot. They both get Heavy Incinerators. Not only are HI passable for damaging vehicles, but they brutalize a lot of infantry and give our DK something to do while they're not CCing. This costs us 60 points, leaving 184.

In that last HS slot, let's cram in a psyfleman. Now we're at 49

Hmm, what to do with 49 points? We'll have to do upgrades. With this kind of list, it's better if we don't try to evenly buff our small units, we're playing terminator ball and we know it. So one of those squads is getting a Brotherhood Banner and a Warding Stave. The BB because it's an obvious addition to a 10 man squad, and the warding stave because trust me, you'll be happy for it when you either fail to kill off that powerfist, or you lose guys and can't wipe in a single round anymore.

Four points left! We can... um... put a searchlight on the dread? 3 points left! And under!

Our list is now:

Libby w/Quicksilver, Summoning, Shrouding, Sanctuary, Might
Ordo Xenos Inqusitor w/Rad, Psykotroke grenades, Plasma Siphon, Powered Armor, 3x Skulls
10x GKT w/2x psycannons, Brotherhood Banner, Warding Stave, 6 halberds, 2 hammers, psy bolt ammo
10x GKT w/2x psycannons, 8 halberds, 2 hammers, psy bolt ammo
2x5x Strike Squad w/psycannon
2x Dreadknight w/Heavy Incinerators
Psyfleman Dread w/searchlight

Total: 1918

Whaaaaaaat. Well, guess I'm bad at math then! Or I just didn't have my initial calculated as well as I thought. At any rate, 82 points to play around with!

The Strike Squads get rhinos so that we can have mobile walls, and so they can move to score stuff if they need to. Congrats guys!

Libby w/Quicksilver, Summoning, Shrouding, Sanctuary, Might
Ordo Xenos Inqusitor w/Rad, Psykotroke grenades, Plasma Siphon, Powered Armor, 3x Skulls
10x GKT w/2x psycannons, Brotherhood Banner, Warding Stave, 6 halberds, 2 hammers, psy bolt ammo
10x GKT w/2x psycannons, 8 halberds, 2 hammers, psy bolt ammo
2x5x Strike Squad w/psycannon, rhino
2x Dreadknight w/Heavy Incinerators
Psyfleman Dread w/searchlight

Total: 1998

Combat squad the second terminator unit every time, and run the full one with the libby. You don't need BOTH grenades and the libby unless you think you won't get the charge off, so skip the inquisitor over to whatever unit looks like it'll need melee help. The whole list walks. Yes, even the dreadknights, you have a surprisingly far range. (Can nick stuff up to 20” away with their flamers.)

Alright, now we look like we have a solid list. Got some fire support, scary melee, and a comfortable ability to score objectives. It's a decent deathstar build.

By the way, for those wondering what I would say is the best version of this build, (or these elements, at any rate) this:

Libby w/Quicksilver, Summoning, Shrouding, Sanctuary, Might, 3x Skulls
Ordo Xenos Inqusitor w/Rad, Psykotroke grenades, Plasma Siphon, Powered Armor, 3x Skulls
10x GKT w/2x psycannons, Brotherhood Banner, Warding Stave, 6 halberds, 2 hammers, psy bolt ammo
10x GKT w/2x psycannons, 8 halberds, 2 hammers, psy bolt ammo
2x5x Strike Squad w/psycannon, razorback, psybolt ammo, hunter-killer, searchlight
3x Psyfleman Dread w/searchlight

Total: 1997

Either should work okay though, and while I wouldn't say that these are necessarily “top-tier” builds, they should perform quite well in almost any situation.