A TDC Blog: strategies , unit analysis, batreps, observations, tactics

egorey wrote:

At the Los Vegas Open three DelDar lists in the top eight.
Alexander Fennell: Seer Council

2 Farseers, Shard, Stone, Runes of Warding
8 Warlocks, 3 spear
4x 5 DA in WS

Baron
5 Warriors (no upgrades)

That was in fact the winning list. And here it is, in all it's Hello Kitty glory.

OMG, that is awesome

So Ben Mohlie’s Eldar/DE (list unknown) finished first at Spikey Bits RTT. The only other major was templeton which was won by daemons with csm Be"Lakor allies ( there is a surprise). Overall Eldar and DE allies are proving better than Tau at major events. It should be noted too that Ben had stiff competition with a few RTT winners playing ( Ken Boucher and others). And good job, Bugs_N_Orks.

The Daemon player who won Templecon had an interesting list:

LoC, Lvl3, greater, greater, lesser
T-herald, lvl 3, exalted reward
S-herald, exalted locus, greater reward, steed
20 horrors
3 nurglings
6 plague drones
20 hounds
20 seekers

Belakor
10 cultists

Notable is the fact that he only has 2 scoring units so he often doesn't have grimoire since he needs the portal for more troops, although in our game FA scored (so he did take the grimoire). I played him in the final round with the double beast pack list I posted here a page or two back. We were both at 67 battle points while the top 2 guys were at 72 (plague drone-star daemons) and 69 (Cent-star Tau). Sean Nayden was a table below us with his E/DE beast foot army, having faced the aforementioned plague drone-star in round 4 and losing due to his beasts getting tied down by a soul-grinder (I played and basically tabled an Eldar/Tau army. I rolled fortune and went first, game over man).

Anyway in the final round I made some bad choices (in part due to being extremely hung-over and overall just very tired lol), falling for his bait units and not focusing on Belakor and the grimoire carrier early enough. His pregame rolls were amazing (precog/forewarning/4+FNP/3+ armor/ID warlord trait for the LoC, Perfect timing for the T-herald), my powers were good but not mind-blowing (guide, forewarning, misfortune). Basically he never failed grimoire past turn 1, the seekers had a 2++ the whole game and I just couldn't deal with them. Had I focused on the grimoire earlier it would have been a very different game, but I played poorly and he got max points off of me to jump ahead of the top 2 players who had a close 12-8 finish.

My understanding is that you had a great turnout there and some top players despite horrible weather. And it was Tod Silber - a very good player - who won with the daemon list. I feel a lesserr player might not have, lol.

The weather didn't get bad until halfway through the drive home so I'm not sure that kept too many people away.  Competing with the LVO certainly drew off a bunch of great players that probably otherwise would have been there.  As it was though there were a decent number of big names and a bunch of good players that make the tournament rounds but haven't won often enough to become well known (pretty much how I'd describe myself).  Nick Nanivati was generaling the plague drone list and only lost in the last round because his drones lost combat by 1 and he rolled a 12 for morale.  Kurt Clauss had the eldar/tau list I played round 4.  Sean Nayden had his beasts.  Brad Nichols had a mean Tau/Tau (not ovesa star).  There were some other mean looking armies floating around too, 7 serpents, Cron-air, 25 khymera and baron allied into eldar, farsight bomb with eldar support, plus others.  All in all it was a pretty varied field and I was happy with the number of non-net lists.  It was also held as a part of templecon which is a huge steampunk convention so there was tons of other stuff to see and do between rounds if you finished early.

There was almost another darkdar mix army in the top 8.
Mine ;-). I was on table 15. Close, but not close enough. What an awesome tournament

Bug_n_orks.
How did you do at the LVO? What did you bring? Annnd are you a regular TSHFT guy?

Nick's Nanavati's list is interesting but it should be noted that the list that won templeton piloted by Tod Silber was organized quite differently. Nick did well also.

Fateweaver
Epidemius
Herald of Nurgle, Exalted Reward, Exalted Locus
Herald of Nurgle, Exalted Reward, ML 1
2 x 10 Horrors of Tzeentch
1 x 10 Plaguebearers of Nurgle
9 Plague Drones, Champion w/ Greater Reward, Icon, Plague Banner
3 Soulgrinders, Mark of Nurgle, Phlegm

Epid, Drones, Herald o N Which are all traditionally noncompetitive daemons units. But in this list the tally goes up quickly with those grinders following the drones and grimoire can be on the drones or the grinders or Fateweaver. I believe Nick was not allowed to use the dataslate - hence no Be'Lakor so his list is quite different from Tod's.

Tod obviously prefers the LoC over Fatey as he has Be'Lakor powers anyway to buff his units and can rgtherefore get away with no grimoire and use the portaglyph in some match ups. His list is also very, very fast although just two troop slots is a bit scary to run.

It is an intersting comparison.

So the LVO was an amazing tournament and I love there scoring system and the duel missions.

The first day was hard as I had been up since around 9am on the Thursday. We drove from Vancouver Canada around 1am Friday morning to the Bellingham airport to Vegas. We landed in Vegas around 10am and had to head straight to the tournament which started at noon. I had zero sleep and was crazy exhausted... But I pulled through and went 2-1 day one. My loss being to Alex Fennell winner of the LVO in round 2. I made him sweat as he thought he would have a fairly easy victory against me. But I pulled some tricks and made him work for it. We almost tabled each other by the end of turn two. If I didn't make a stupid decision turn 1 things could have gone much differently. But I will go over that later this week as I post battle reports and observations from my games on here.

here is my LVO list
Tomorrow I will post some things I am considering changing for the Gottacon tournament in Victoria BC. I would love your opinions as to what you think I should change as well

Eldar/Dark Eldar

ELDAR PRIMARY

Farseer w/ Jetbike, Shard of Anaris (fearless for beasts is awesome), ruins of warding (to protect against those hated spells like enfeeble, misfortune, hallucination ect...)

2x5 dire avengers
2 serpents w/ twin scatter, shuriken cannon.

2x3 jetbikes

6 warp spiders

1 hornet w/ 2 pulse lasers

3 war walkers with 2 scatter lasers

wraithknight w/ standard load out

DARK ELDAR ALLIES

Baron

5 kabalites
Venom w/ 2 splinter cannons

Beast packs w/ 5 masters, 7 4++ dogs, 6 razor flocks.

i look forward to this ... like to see reports from both you and bugs.

I want to know who Bugs is.

WHO YOU BE BUGS!?!

I'm loving the discussion of some guys that actually go to tournies! I would really love to see your guys input on the crazy lists Eg and I come up with. The list colin has here is nice. I like that it has variety compared to serpent spam that the winner had! I look forward to some batreps to see how these lists work. I'd also love to hear your opinion on using DE main with Eldar allies instead of Eldar primary.

I usually play dark eldar primary. It was strange playing eldar as primary as I am so used to the fragile nature of dark Eldar. This was actually my first time using serpents. I think that I played them fairly well so far.

I don't like spamming very much as it is very boring for me. I will usually have multiple of the same units, but not to the point of being considered spammy.

Over the course of the tournament there are few things that I am considering changing in my list.
Here are a few of my ideas.

For starters I would like more of a reliable back line that can deal with alpha strikers more without having to keep my wraithknight and beast back behind to deal with them. I would also like more mid field control and to be able to be more aggressive with my troops so that I can clear objective contesters more. And to have more than just min size scoring units.
So what am I thinking?
I am thinking of dropping the Kabalite venom (65pts). And changing the 5 man dire avenger units into 10 guardian defenders. This is an extra 25pts per dire avenger unit. This gived me 10 extra bodies and about twice the fire power. I think this will do trick and fill the rolls that I want above.
I will miss the venom, but I think the extra bodies and close range fire power more than makes up for this. As for the extra 15 points I am not too sure of what to do? Maybe holo fields on one serpent? Or drop a spider and have holo fields on both? Or even a shuriken cannon to 1 or both units?


Something that I love in my army is my hornet with two pulse lasers. With scout and acute senses this guy is great for out flanking and being a pain in the ass.
But! 1 hornet does not seem to be quite enough. He either hardly kills his vehicle target or doesn't do anything.
1 hornet is more or less to be a minor threat.
I think taking a second hornet would be much better for my army. They should usually drop their target, kill MCs, hurt rip tides/meq. As well as give me that valuable ap2.
But where will I get the points from?
I could drop the venom and a spider for another hornet?
Or I could remove a war walker for one.

I am leaning towards dropping the venom and a war walker and taking the guardians and a hornet.


What do you guys think? Guardians? It worth dropping a war walker for a hornet?
Any other suggestions?

Bugs. That 2 beast pack list looks fun.

I gave considered trying that a few times. Is that something that you still run? I was thinking of running a large beast pack and a slightly smaller one of 5 dogs and 4-6 flocks

Hey guys, sorry I was travelling this weekend and didn't have time to sit down and write a decent reply until now.

Here's a re-cap of my Templecon schedule, I don't have pics but I can do a play-by-play battle report for any of the ones you guys would like.

Round 1 vs. S8/AP1 spam Sisters allied w/Coteaz/Xenos Inq./DCA in a Land Raider won 17-3
Round 2 vs. Logan Drop Wolves won 20-0
Round 3 vs. Fast assault CSM/CD tied 10-10 (largely because I was too timid at the start)
Round 4 vs. Serpent spam w/Tau allies won 20-0
Round 5 vs. Fast assault CD/CSM lost 0-20

@ Colin: I'm actually an East Coast player, currently living in NJ, but I keep track of tourney results and am always a fan of DE winning. I was on the TSHFT website a while back and it had your name listed as one of the winners for the Vancouver tourney and I remebered you mentioning that you were going on your army list thread. I didn't make it to LVO, but went to the smaller Onslaught GT at Templecon in Rhode Island the same weekend. Unfortunately I won't be making it to Adepticon this year (girlfriend's best friend's wedding), and NOVA is prob the next really big event I'll be at.

As far as the double beast list goes, it's tons of fun and def what I'll be running for a while. By keeping the characters towards the center and being able to jump them to either squad, the two packs can threaten pretty much the entire table by T2 (unlees it's H&A deployment) which makes things very tricky for your opponent. The talos and warriors hang out in the back making it very tough for DSers (if you focus on the warriors you risk getting flamed and charged by a talos, if you go for a talos you're looking at eating 48, probably guided, poison shots). Plus there's a knight and spiders running around plugging gaps wherever they need to. There's also some pretty mean tricks you can do with the characters if you get the right powers (Invisibility and mental fortitude being the funniest, hello 2 invisible fearless beast packs and warrior blob) If you've got the models (or enough to proxy them) try out my list and see how you like it. Against 90% of armies you want to take first and get aggressive no matter the mission (the games I lost or tied in the tourney were pretty much because I was too passive).

I'll think about the options you mentioned for your list and get back to you, but off the top of my head I'd say that holo-fields, while awesome, fall into the category of making your easy match-ups easier and not really doing anything for your tough match-ups.

gottacon is 1750.
I am thinking of either the list I have above with a few changes or something close to your duel beast pack list.

here is what I am thinking

Baron

5 kabalites

5 kabalites

20 kabalites w/ 2 splinter cannons a sybarite. (I am think I might prefer two 10 man units? saves 10pts as well)

Could even run 3 10 man with cannons?

beast pack. 5 masters. 8 4++ dogs, 6 flocks

beast pack. 5 masters. 8 4++ dogs, 6 flocks

Talos w/ twin splinter cannon and liquefier.


Farseer w/ bike, shard and ruins of warding.

2x3 bikes

7 warp spiders (I only have 7 painted, but I own more so one unpainted model would be ok to make this unit

Wraithknight. stock


total points 1642 (1632 if I take 2x10 man kabalites and no sybarite)
with the left over points I am thinking of taking maybe a ravanger with dark lances and a gruesome talisman (110pts or a venom with duel cannons and gruesome talisman (70pts)

Bugs ... what was the problem you were having with CD:CSM lists? Were these Be'Lakor lists? Was one the plague drone list?

@colin: Have you ever played with a 20 man warrior unit? I'd suggest you try it out a couple times before you start breaking it apart. With baron and the farseer in the army having big units to buff is pretty nice. I used to prefer an MSU approach with my troops, but since trying the big squad I don't think I'd ever go back.

@egorey: I didn't play Nick and his Drones but I have in practice games (we play at the same store), and it's always a pretty close game (though I'm currently up 1 game), a full beast pack is one of the few things that can tie down the drones for multiple turns and with jetbikes you can position them so the drones can't all consolidate in. It basically turns into my army minus one pack vs. 3 Grinders and Fatey, until he rolls an 11 for warpstorm and my farseer gets zapped (which he seems to do every time we play haha).


Round 3, my main misplay was not being aggressive enough from the start. I played Ragnar Anderson, he makes the tournament rounds and is a solid player (he's won at least one best overall at tourneys I've been to). He had a Fast assault CSM/CD list with roughly
Nurgle Mace lord on Bike
Khorne Axe lord on Jugg.
10 cultists
10 cultists
10 cultists
5 nurgle spawn
5 spawn
Heldrake
3 nurgle VotLW oblits
Khorne herald w/Greater reward on Jugg.
bunch of Daemonettes
bunch of Horrors
20ish hounds
Aegis w/comms

The mission had 5 NOVA style objectives (one in center of table, one in center of each quarter) and was continuous scoring at the end of your opponents turn starting on turn 2 (center objective worth 2 points and each other worth 1), plus annihilation and standard secondaries. He won the roll to chose table sides and got a big L-shaped BLoS ruin made out of a couple bastion kits, and the side where the center ruin allowed him to camp the objective while mostly out of LoS. I wasn't sure how the beasts would hold up to being charged by all 3 of his Fast assault units (and he didn't want to let me charge beasts into only one squad), so we danced around eachother for 2-3 turns with my shooting taking a decent toll on his units (Knight focus firing unmarked spawn, cannons downing hounds,/spawn/forcing break checks on cultists), but by doing that I let him get out to an early lead on objectives. Once all his reserves came on (so my 3 since he had bottom), I made a push at his weaker flank and crushed it pretty soundly, and was on the way to nearly tabling him but the game ended on 5.

In hindsight I should have just gotten in his face early on, smashed the Daemonettes holding the center objective and just eaten the counter charge. That pack would have gotten pretty banged up (but probably not been wiped out) but his units would take a beating as well, and I could have H&R out, switched the characters to the other pack and started pulling him apart sooner. I think part of the reason I played so conservatively was just inexperience with the list, I'd only actually played 4 test games with it before the tourney, and in all my one pack lists if the pack goes down early and my enemy has multiple fast assault units it's generally bad news. I had another minor misplay later on that would have gotten me another KP to put me in the lead by 2, I wanted to use the talos's LG so badly I massively overkilled his Daemonettes with Talos+Beasts#1 while Beasts#2 killed a lone spawn, talos should have killed the spawn while Beasts#2 hit a cultist unit before his khorne lord joined them.


Round 5 was aganst Todd Silber (won ended up winning) running:

LoC, Lvl3, greater, greater, lesser
T-herald, lvl 3, exalted reward
S-herald, exalted locus, greater reward, steed
20 horrors
3 nurglings
6 plague drones
20 hounds
20 seekers

Belakor
10 cultists

I started making mistakes with choice of table side, they were about even but I took the side that had the 1 story ruin rather than the 2 story (I could have proabaly fit the entire 20 man unit on the 2 story ruin to make them immune to seekers). From the start I didn't prioritize correctly and let belakor and his Grimoire live far too long. I shoved a beast pack with 4++s and the characters at him and charged his Plague drones killing all but 1 after Combat Res, and H&R into his backfield (I probably could have gotten a multi-charge off against the horrors but for whatever reason I just didn't bother). He turned his entire army's attention to the beasts and they got charged by Invisible Prescienced Hounds, 2++ Seekers (also rerolling hits thanks to the locus), Precoged LoC, and Belakor. Through all that my farseer and baron barely survived (farseer with one wound left, baron was fine), and H&R out. Farseer boosted back to the other beasts to join up next turn and baron joined the Spiders who had just dropped in (dumb since that just means they can't battle focus or use their full assault-jump, and it's 2 easy kills for my opponent next turn). Hounds wiped out Baron+Spiders. It took his seekers a turn to get into position but they charged my big warrior unit and killed them (seekers still with a 2++). I used a wraithknight with a 4++ to pull them off an objective (FA scored) for a turn, and then a talos with 4++ and FNP to keep them off for another turn, but the seekers sliced their way through them with enough time to score. Meanwhile his Precoged/3+ armor/4+ FNP LoC tied down my other pack to keep them from getting at his weaker units. Had I taken out Belakor and the Grimoire earlier, I would've been able to take out the seekers with a 4++ beast pack but as it was I didn't have an answer to them and they ran through my army with 2++s the whole game. I also got to pick turns and chose second, despite it being an objective game I think taking first would have been better as it would have meant a bunch of Splinter/wraith cannon shots before he got flying and all his buffs up. All in all I def deserved to lose that game. Todd might be coming to an RTT at my local store this weekend so we'll see if I get a chance for a rematch.

Yeah I have used the blob. I used it a lot before eldar got the update as allies. The seer used to sit in the unit.

I am usually a msu style player. The only concern I have with the blob plus 2 big beast units is the army losing mobility as the three units take up lots of room.
But i may give the list a try soon. Maybe even take it to gottacon for a test spin

Thanks Bugs -- I wonder how you would fare against my Nurgle list? I think it might be an interesting match.

Just Nurgle

Herald of Nurgle, Etherblade, Locus of Fecundity, Lvl 1 105
Herald of Nurgle, Etherblade, Locus of Fecundity, Lvl 1 105
Herald of Nurgle, Portaglyph, Locus of Fecundity, Lvl 1 125

4 Beasts of Nurgle 208
4 Beasts of Nurgle 208

5 Nurgling Bases 75
20 Plaguebearers, Plagueridden, Etherblade 185

7 Plague Drones, Death's Head, Plague Banner 369

2x Soul Grinder, Phlegm, Mark of Nurgle 360

(1750)

I play similar tricks hoping my FNP Heralds between squads. I also trail them and slingshot them of course. My Nurglings are really bait. I just want them taking up my opponents attention early. With a Plague Banner I can choose what to DS but it is usually the PBs. They are great AI and AT. I also try and crush a flank then head towards an objective ... hoping I have got something out of my portaglyph of course. And the list can shoot a bit - you will get your lvl 1 nurgle powers and the death's heads and the grinder shots. For Nurgle that is actually a lot.

Any skyfire is wasted here. I have no flyers. I'm not reliant on psychic powers. I can get to grips with an opponent turn two (if I choose to). I was not surprised Nurgle did well at some venues. They have largely been ignored so no one is really meta building for them. That said - DE destroys daemons. Poison is the great equalizer. And DE has the dakka. I am not afraid of DLs. It is splinter cannons and dissies that do me in. Beastpacks can go toe to toe with drones or nurgle beasts. It is not a good match for me generally.

I think because Nick has done so well and now Tod Silber too, they are going to garner a bit more attention. Drones and beasts were largely ignored in the meta and were never considered a threat until now. But when you have a few very fast units that are also quite durable the game mechanics change. It is a real departure from playing fragile DE - although Khyms in a beastpack are pretty tough nuts.

This is a topic visited in the past. The real problem olaying against this list is deciding what constitutes the greatest threat. Because the Heralds can pop between units any squad on the board can do some major damage. All the squads will be testing the opponent early.

Now before accusing the duck of band wagon jumping - Mush and I were discussing and playing Nurgle daemons long before the results of the last few tournaments. And we have had moderate success with them. The list is above is modified - I admit it - but I already extolled the virtue of beasts and how nurglings can function.

Great to see so much discussion everyone!!!  Now with some of the big tournaments by us, we have some interesting things to look at in the fast changing game of 40k. The Las Vegas Open hosted by Frontline Gaming did an interesting exit poll showing that there has been a shift in the thinking of allowing Escalation...though many voted there should be Escalation but with restrictions (which I am of agreement of).  This is due to deathstar 40k of course and the overall ability to take a pounding against such armies. Some would love D weapons to just wipe out those pesky deathstars...but I think that's a bit (/sarcasm) over powered.  

What am I getting at? You may just start to see people play with super heavies in tournies...not all of them obviously but some just may have side events or just go balls to the wall and try them out to see how unrestricted 40k goes.  Furthermore, there are rumors of 7th edition (updated 6th with escalation and stronghold assault all rolled officially into the book) right around the corner...like as early as May! The question is of course will they make D weapons properly playable? Let's hope so. Not only is 7th edition coming, but Imperials Knights just dropped...and they are gorgeous models...heck I preordered one last night (GW got me to impulse buy...maybe their methods do work...huh haha!).  Anyways, as far as superheavies go these guys are pretty tame, but because of that and depending on how they can ally into the imperial and chaos armies, I think we could see escalation take off more even though Knights are rumored to be an actual faction and not LoW slots. Marine armies will love this because the Thawk is just too damn expensive to buy so this gives marine players something to play with though you give up an ally slot to do so...though you could take 3!

So we will have to keep a close eye to see how the competitive environment changes and see what we can do to keep up as DE.  Of course competitive environments aren't the end all be all...heck I've only ever played in one tourny (something I'd like to change!) and to this end I have a "mini-tourny" with a small group of friends in a few weeks. I will post a list soon that I'm going to try...it will want to win without going too far I think into making my friends hate me haha!


Thoughts on Knights and the potential rise of escalation and the effect on deathstar 40k?


I'd like to throw out a random thought on how D-weapons could be used in regular 40k as well.
-I'm thinking the D-weapon (ranged in this case) should be able to fire its weapon as str D ONCE per game (this would include models with multiple guns...they get 1 D shot for the entire model...NOT per gun). Otherwise the gun shoots str10 ap1 shots.  I think this is a cool way to play it because first of all it still combats deathstar 40k...but 1 large blast of such magnitude shouldn't shake the game to the core as hard as always shooting D shots everywhere. The result of this nerf would allow superheavies to be playable for the most part and not allow overly ridiculous spam of the big D.  I'd love to hear thoughts on potentially creating some house rules on D-weapons for potential use in a tournament or such. Just curious what we could come up with.

@egorey: I like your list. The lack of troops is a bit worrying, and against player who are disciplined enough to focus on them it'll be a problem, but ignoring beasts drones and grinders is easier said than done. I've never used or played against beasts, just out of curiousity, what makes you take them over more drones? Also your list looks like it's made for Epidemius. Those Grinders help get the tally up early and once it hits 14 your drones and beasts become T6 and much harder to gib.

@ligolski: Personally I'm not all that opposed to either escalation or stronghold assault (both of which are pretty restricted in tournaments around me). The only thing I don't particularly like about super heavies is that for a number of armies, the only way to deal with them is by taking your own super heavy, and with certain buffs they become very imbalanced. For example, Lord of Skulls vs. grimoired lord of skulls on a skyshield, Revenant vs. Fortuned 4++ Revenant (unless there's some rule about not buffing superheavies that I missed). I also don't think D-weapons themselves are the problem, the problem is that they tend to come on incredibly tough platforms and for the most part have a long range and large blast, which basically makes them too good at killing anything and everything, while being very difficult to remove without your own D-weapons. I think blast D-weapons should be available to all armies in VERY limited numbers, to help combat the fairly overwhelming number of deathstar based lists in competitive play at the moment, but on more killable and/or shorter ranged platforms. If something like the DE Dark Gate was a D-weapon, it would be a useful tool for dealing with deathstars, but in no way would it be game breaking, being short ranged, 1-shot, and 1 per army (likewise other 1-shot, limited number things like the Deathstrike and orbital bombardment certainly wouldn't be overpowered if they used the D-weapon rules with a modest point increase). Other non-1-shot D-weapons should either be short ranged (like 18-24") or not have a blast marker. To build off your proposed fix, I'd make current D-weapons that use a blast/template S10 AP1 with the ability to become strength D but they lose their blast/template.

The Newest Deathstar on the Block

Captain Kor’Sarro Khan on Moondrakkan
CM on a bike with Shield Eternal, Thunderhammer
Rune Priest on a Bike, Chooser of the Slain (Living Lightning / JAWS)
Wolf Lord on a bike, Thunsderhammer, Storm Shield (Saga of the Bear)
Command Squad on Bikes with Company Banner, Apothcary

First off RPs on a bike now really huirt a lot of lists. Seer councils hate them. Nids have to watch their MC non-flyers. Skimmers ( Wave Serpemts Tau Skimmers, Raiders, Venoms, etc.) need to be fearful of Living Lightning. Chooser of the Slain is very useful too.

What do we have here you ask? It has 2+ armor saves, two models with EW, a Rune Priest, 4+ DtW, two thunderhammers, grav guns, scout, skilled rider and hit and run as a direct counter to the psychic death stars currently ruling the roost.

This squad is expensive and it can work but I went a different route my last game and fielded this squad ...

Chapter Master; Artificier Armour; Shield Eternal; Power Fist; Auspex; Bike -- Iron Hands 
Rune Priest: Runic Axe; Runic Armour; Bike; Chooser of the Slain; Lvl 1; Jaws/Living LightningL  --  Space Wolves
Rune Priest: Runic Axe; Runic Armour; Bike; Meltabombs; Lvl 1; Jaws/Murderous Hurricane  --  Space Wolves
5 Bikers: 2 Graviton Guns; Combi-Graviton -- Iron Hands

This is somewhat cheaper and still packs a punch and it is a scoring unit. It lacks hit and run though so you really need to win all your combats and not get bogged down. But IH grants FNP, IWND and you still have one model with EW tanking wounds and two with 2+/5+. I also have to force weapons. Ignore cover will not bring it down before it hits the squad that has ignore cover. I played this against TauDar on Sunday and it completely dominated the table.

Welcome to deathstar 40k. Look at the latest winning lists ... dronestar, beaststar, seerstar, o'vesastar,  screamerstar ... it is getting crowded out there boys.