1st turn pressure

Ok this is a 1k list combination of my "nid" style list and 2talos engines.

Vect(for better chance of turn 1)
4 squads of 5x kabalite warriors:raider. (All stock)
5x kabalite trueborn(2x splinter-cannons): raider (stock)
2x talos pain engines(stock)

Straight forward. 5 lances and 4 splinter cannons, and 28 splinter rifles. If dice gods show any favor it can potentialy wipe out HALF a typical SM army. Before they even get a turn.

Before commenting Im expecting the typical responsses vects too costly, talos must have chain flails, ect. The focus on this list is versatility and quanity not power house. Talos is playing a ranged support for AI and if anything lives AT in CC.

I'd rather get Baron over Vect. A standard roll for t1 (ie no modifiers on opponents side) gives vect 66,67% to start the game and Baron 61,8%.

Vect (0,5*5/6+0,5*3/6)=4/6 =66,67%
Baron (21/31*5/6+10/31*1/6) =61,8% (using 31 instead of 36 as 5 rolls are equal and will be rerolled)

Dropping Vect will give you 135p to play around with whilst not decreasing your chances of t1 too drastically.

Just my two cents and like you said, you have already considered this.

Would barons stack with vect? Granted its a bigger point sink to go first but thats usualy the game decider for my lists.

I wonder if the Taloi really fit your strategy in this list. You are specifically looking to put out a lot of damage first turn, yes they have ranged potential, but for the points it just seems like a glaringly sub-optimal choice.

Assuming you don't feel the need for more AT I would think Disi Ravagers or even just more warriors would have a much larger potential for first turn impact.

ST

Edit: That is not to say I dislike you use of the Talos over the above two choices, after all is there anything more dull to add than more warriors or Ravagers!!

Another thought might be Scourge or similar, if you are looking to use the less common units, they would provide a greater potential first turn damage output, though they lack the CC ability and toughness

forest1990 wrote:

Would barons stack with vect?  Granted its a bigger point sink to go first but thats usualy the game decider for my lists.

No, if you mean would Vect then seize on a three. But if you fielded both, you could win the roll off to decide who goes first using the Baron, then let your opponent deploy first. You then deploy in response to him and seize the initiative right back on a 4  

The list won't wipe out half a space marine army before they get a turn though, even with the blessings of the dice gods, unless you're playing on a table that's half the standard size. The splinter rifles won't be in rapid-fire range turn one unless you're snap shooting with them, which you shouldn't be because that means you just moved really close to the opposing army to take 10 ballistic skill 1 shots that aren't re-rollable because you don't have any splinter racks. I'm not sure there is a "standard" marine army as such - it stikes me that these days the uniqueness and variety of builds you can have within the codex is their main appeal - uniqueness is their USP, if you like.

The nearest your opponent could be to you in turn one is 24", in any of the standard deployments in the rule book. Realistically, the only things in your army that will even be in any kind of effective range on turn one are the Raiders, and that just gives you five lance shots. The splinter cannons will be too, but if you move they're firing eight shots, which isn't great if your opponent brought transports which your five lances failed to crack (and they probably will fail, one at a time and very depressingly. That's statistics!) And if you sit them still to fire the full twelve shots, they get no save, because you haven't given them flickerfields.

That's not to say this is a bad list. It's not one I would use myself, having tried a Talos and not had much fun with it, the big slow crab man! However, you should probably get the first turn alpha strike mentality out of your head - it is not going to happen with this list. If I were you, using the models you have, I would increase the size of the Warrior squads in the Raiders. Five guys with splinter rifles and no spinter racks just aren't going to do anything. If you're just taking them to get a lance platform, that's fine, but there are easier ways to spam lances that give you more flexibility and greater tactical options (Reavers spring to mind). Heat lances on the pain engines wouldn't be a bad idea either for that matter. In fact, dropping one Raider and dividing the guys inside it into a couple of the others will instantly make them much more effective, plus you'd be able to afford heat lances for the engines, as well as some vehicle upgrades (consider Night Shields, Flickerfields and Splinter Racks, specifically). And if you haven't painted your Trueborn differently to your Warriors, the two guys who seem to be in there almost to make up numbers could go in enlarged Warrior squads too, as once that Raider gets blown up they're just ablative wounds in a squad that can't afford to take any casualties anyway.

MSU is a viable, competitive choice, don't get me wrong. But with what you have, I think you need to maximise the effectiveness of your core rather than trying to spam small units - they'll give up victory points way, WAY too easily, not doing much damage before they do.

Terminators and everything else in tanks whenever able. As far as im concerned even just to nake tgose termis role a a couple dice is worth it. And the wariors are useless if i can get the rest out of their tanks.


Talos felt like a versatile enough unit that he can do both roles and not be cheap shotted with s double down weapon. They can reach and thats the big factor. If anything gets close its either weakend or fleeing.

Mr Believer is correct, there isn't the fire power in this list to pressure a SM list in turn 1. For that you need Baron, ravagers and venoms. This should give you opportunity and range to get a couple of decent turns in before you sustain any real damage.

Baron (105)
3 Ravagers (315)
5 Venoms 2SC (325)
25 Warriors (225)

You even have 30 points left over for a couple of blasters if my points are right.

9 Lances, 60 36" range poison shots and potentially 25 24" range poison shots. Boring maybe.

kenny3760 wrote:

Baron (105)
3 Ravagers (315)
5 Venoms 2SC (325)
25 Warriors (225)

You even have 30 points left over for a couple of blasters if my points are right.

9 Lances, 60 36" range poison shots and potentially 25 24" range poison shots. Boring maybe.

It might not have the most interesting units, it's true, but it'd be solid - I find a core of at least one or two Ravagers as my ranged power to be a good starting point, things like anti-infantry fire come about almost accidentally for us. Other armies have to work out ways of dealing with monstrous creatures and the like whilst we just brush them off as if they weren't even there. You almost have to try and build a list that's bad at AI with Dark Eldar, so it's your anti tank that needs nailing down first - everything after that is personal preference, pretty much.

Incidentally, if you've got the bits to make the Baron and have four Hellions kicking around not doing anything because of that, you could do a lot worse than buying another box and seeing how they work out for you as a small unit. You don't have any units in your army for the Baron to join that won't slow him down, so that could be something worth considering.

I used to run the Baron/Hellions combo in 5th to great effect, I put a tactica or something on here about it. Since 6th Hellions have been a bit of a let down and for competitive lists it's the standard beast pack for the Baron to hide in for me.
I suppose you could drop a venom/warrior unit from the list above and use those points to get Hellions, 110 points plus 30 spare, would get you 8 Hellions to run with the Baron. And theres another AT unit right there, 24 S4 and 5 S6 attacks on the charge, enough to glance any rear AV 10 tank to a standstill.