1500pt Local Tournament List
My area was fortunate enough to have a small gaming shop start up a few months ago. As a proper welcome, I am running our first 40k tournament to help get a bit more interest going. It feels so good to be playing a game and have young folks come in with wonder in their eyes (woah, what is THIS game?)Though I am basically running the tourney, we have few players, so I'll be participating. Plus I love playing. Here is the list that I'll be bringing in only a couple short weeks.
The List
Farsight Enclaves Combined Arms Detachment
- Commander: Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blades, Stims, Talisman of Moloch
- Crisis Team (x3 Shas'Ui): x6 Plasma Rifle
- Crisis Team (x3 Shas'Ui): x6 Missile Pods, x3 Target Locks, x6 Marker Drones
- Riptide: Ion Accelerator, TL Fusion Blaster, Earth Caste Pilot Array, Stims, Early Warning Override
- Sniper Drone Team: x3 Sniper Drones, x3 Firesight Marksmen
Tau Empire Allied Detachment
- Commander: Iridium Armour, Puretide Engram Neurochip, Command&Control Node, Multi-Spectrum Sensor Suite, Onager Gauntlet, Neuroweb System Jammer, Drone Controller
- Stealth Team (x6 Shas'Ui): x6 Burst Cannon
- Kroot (x10): Sniper Rounds
- Broadside Team (x2 Shas'Ui): x2 High Yield Missile Pod, x2 Smart Missile System, x2 Early Warning Override
How it fits together...
- Deathrain-D plus allied Commander: expensive, and a large footprint. The commander buffs the squad like crazy, making it my super Alpha Strike squad. Pretty much whatever it shoots at, it will kill, and the highly accurate markerlights will help my followup units kill something else.
- Burning Eye-D plus enclaves Commander: high profile target with lots of AP2 and warlord. Will likely hide in the backfield until they are needed, or Deep Strike if the board is open enough. With a few markerlight hits, this unit becomes mega-deadly. This is my mid-game heavy hitter, that targets my opponent's costly units after they've been committed.
- Riptide, Broadsides, SDT: my army's solid anchor. They do a little bit of everything and the Riptide can take a beating. The EWO gives me some decent Deep Strike protection (plus the commander's NSJ) and will be the bait against assault oriented armies
- Stealths and Kroot: they fulfil the same role, one is just much more expensive. Outflanking and hitting exposed enemy infantry or vehicles from the flank will be their main goal, but against a horde army they may serve as an assault screen. Stealths end up as my MVP's all the time and I never even give them any markerlight support, so I can't wait to try them out with even a single marker hit.
Thoughts
This list is a bit different for me. I've never fielded Kroot nor SDT's and I've only played one game with Broadsides. I also have never actually used a true Support'O either. These things are new, but I'm hoping that my overall experience with the codex will make up the deficit.
Something that I really like about this list, is that I've worked redundancy into the list without duplicating units. AP2 firepower from Burning Eyes and the Riptide, Missile fire from the Deathrains and Broadsides, Markerlights from the Deathrains and SDT, anti-infantry from the Stealths and the Kroot, etc.
Something that I really like about this list, is that I've worked redundancy into the list without duplicating units. AP2 firepower from Burning Eyes and the Riptide, Missile fire from the Deathrains and Broadsides, Markerlights from the Deathrains and SDT, anti-infantry from the Stealths and the Kroot, etc.
You will notice that I have elected to forego dedicated anti-air, as well as very little anti-AV14. This is partly due to my area, as I rarely see fliers (aside from a Storm Raven) and so far have only faced Leman Russes for AV14. There are always Land Raider and Monolith dangers, but I am hoping to outmanoeuvre those dangers.
My opponents so far will be Astra Militarum, Grey Knights, and Space Wolves. Tyranids, Necrons, Tau, Chaos Space Marines, Daemons are also possibilities, but not confirmed. My main worry is Astra Militarum with their tough tanks, cheap psykers, and massive infantry blobs. Pretty much anything with a lot of cheap models will be hard for my small elite force to deal with, and AM has the range. Executioner Leman Russes, in particular, will likely be something I'll face, and they will be absolute murder on my battlesuits.
This tournament is shaping up to be a fairly competitive one, as it is the first tournament we've been able to hold at this game store. I'm very excited to give this list a try, as I haven't participated in a tournament since I won the local Feast of Blades qualifier back in Idaho.
Let me know what you think of the list. I'm very excited to get it on the table, but I've still got lots of stuff to do for the tournament! Time to whip up some cardboard terrain and some purity seal fridge magnets as prizes...