With transports this good, who needs an army?

This is not supposed to be a complaint about our transports being over powered, although my personal view is that GW have under priced all transports to increase their use (and more importantly their sales) at the detriment of competitive foot lists, but that is a discussion for another day.

What I do want to focus on is just how good our transports are, and the risk of negating the troops they should be supporting (and the resulting loss of pain tokens this can cause).

I put this little list together today as an example. I’d be interested to see peoples thoughts on it. It really isn’t something I intend to use, but suspect it would be hideous to actually fight against. I had intended to put together a 1.5k list as that is what I play most, but the numbers fit so well at 1k I called it a day. This can be up’d to 1.5k by adding 3 blaster/lance/cannon-born in even more venoms/raiders.

Haemie
3 Wracks, raider, FF
3 Wracks, raider, FF
3 Wracks, raider, FF
3 Wracks, venom (+SC)
3 Wracks, venom (+SC)
3 Wracks, venom (+SC)
Ravenger, FF, NF
Ravenger, FF, NF
Ravenger, FF

If you want the night shield on the 3rd ravenger, u need to swop out 2 raiders for more venoms. I think a full venom list would also work nicely (and u could even give ur haemie a VB), but thought this does give either more anti tank, or if you are so inclined some dissie fire power to tackle elites.

I think even guard would struggle to get this many vehicles in 1k, bar mech chimera platoon spam, and even 3 wracks would rinse 10 bog standard guardsmen

Of course it does have limited scoring ability, but does have 6 troops. I think what surprised me most is it’s built on assault units, but is a pure shooty army.

I do suspect this would be dull to build and not all that fun to play either, but the shear number of vehicles would be pretty solid.

Thoughts?

(1 humble request....... if you have suggested counters to this sort of thing, then great, I want to hear them, but please do try to keep that in list v list perspective.... and not just.... ‘ahhh well, I could just take x, y or z and table you’ as yes you could, but as you don’t know what u’ll be facing.... would you actually turn up with x, z or y?)

Fatuous wrote:

What I do want to focus on is just how good our transports are, and the risk of negating the troops they should be supporting (and the resulting loss of pain tokens this can cause).

You've gone a bit overboard of course but your reasoning is sound. AV saturation is also a priority of mine. Fact is, bar Trueborn, DE infantry are hopelessly outclassed by their rides when it comes to shooting. But then again, shooty infantry doesn't have much use for Pain tokens in the first place. I guess that's why I favor mech assault lists.

However, consider the following.

Most people think of a Raider as costing 60, and those 60 get you a single DL shot. Not entirely correct, as you're down at least 30 (3 Wracks) to be allowed to take one; in reality you're shelling out 90. Conversely, 5 Warriors w/ Blaster @ 60 add another Blaster shot to the deal - for an effective 30 points increase.

It's always been worth it to me.

Yeah good point, 5 warriors, blaster in a venom is one of my fav units...... so useful and dirty cheap..........

All this really is is a discussion of MSU, the vehicles themselves aren't making the units broken, at best your suggestion is a minimum squad size for Wracks being 3 as opposed to, say, 5 is making the unit too good.

When I consider the other MSU mech spam armies - Wolf Razorspam, IG Chimera spam, ect. ect. I don't particularly see DE as unfairly advantageous.

I think it's an above average and certainly tourney competitive 1,000 point army, though I'd say I also believe my 1,000 point DE army of usual tourney choice could dismantle it, and probably a number of competitive 1,000 point builds could rip it up as well (immediate thought is Ork Green Tide at 1,000 as you'll never handle the Lootas in time).

In a tournament sense I don't find it unusual or overpowering (which I think is your core question)