Hard Boyz Tournament

In preparing for the Hard Boyz Tournament I had settled on using an upgraded version of Dreadnought Spam list and drop pod spam list that I had used at 1850pts a month or so ago.

Vulkan - 190

Master of the forge - powerweapon, - 115

Tactical Squad - Multimelta, meltagun, combi-melta, powerfist, drop pod - 245

Tactical Squad - Multimelta, meltagun, combi-melta, powerfist, drop pod - 245

Tactical Squad - Multimelta, flamer, combiflamer, powerfist, drop pod - 240

Dreadnought - Multimelta, drop pod - 140

Venerable Dreadnought - Multimelta, heavy flamer, extra armor, drop pod - 225

Venerable Dreadnought - Multimelta, heavy flamer, extra armor, drop pod - 225

Ironclad Dreadnought - heavy flamer, drop pod, locator beacon - 190

Ironclad Dreadnought - heavy flamer, drop pod, locator beacon - 190

Assault Squad - (7) flamer, thunder hammer, drop pod - 176

Vanguard Squad - (7) jump packs, relic blade w/ storm shield, thunder hammer, melta bomb, storm shield, 3 regular - 315

I tested the list against Lord Victor's Eldar list and it performed well enough. But then against my friend Alex's foot Imperial Guard list. In a few games using the newly released missions for the actual Hard Boyz event the list did not fare well. My infantry were overrun and though the Dreadnoughts proved hard for his guardsmen to deal with in combat the list was not particularly effective and I felt that it was also not necessarily meshing with my play style.

The vanguard had proven in tests that they were every bit as worthless as they had always looked to me. I thought about changing them to terminators. However this would only reinforce the idea that I was trying to play a drop pod assault army... which is precisely opposite the way I think of Marines, especially the
Drop pod variety.

So at midnight before the Hard Boys event I swapped my list.

Vulkan - 190

Master of the forge - 100

Tactical Squad - Multimelta, meltagun, combi-melta, powerfist, drop pod - 245

Tactical Squad - Multimelta, flamer, combiflamer, powerfist, drop pod - 240

Tactical Squad - Multimelta, flamer, combiflamer, powerfist, drop pod - 240

Dreadnought - Multimelta, drop pod - 140

Venerable Dreadnought - Multimelta, heavy flamer, extra armor, drop pod - 225

Venerable Dreadnought - Multimelta, heavy flamer, extra armor, drop pod - 225

Ironclad Dreadnought - heavy flamer, drop pod - 180

Ironclad Dreadnought - heavy flamer, drop pod - 180

Sternguard - 4 combimelta, 2 heavy flamer, powerfist, drop pod - 350

Sternguard - 1 combimelta, 2 melta guns, powerfist, drop pod - 325

The sternguard are far more effective as drop pod units than anything else in the marine codex, due to the sheer volume and power of their short range firepower. Which means they are effective on the turn they arrive and due to their veteran status still durable in the counter assault scenarios that will likely occur. This change also gave me more boots on the ground and a much more flexible core that would be able to deal with large hordes that bog down the dreadnoughts in combat.

In the three games the next day the change did wonders. I took the top spot out of the 10-12 players that were at the event. Ill try to post some of the few pictures I got and do up some battle reports for the three games soon.