Group 2: Tricksy, My Preciousss
Necrons
➢ Two Infantry Phalanxes, each with: 3 stands of Immortals including a Necron Lord, 6 stands of Necron Warriors, a stand of Pariahs, and 3 Tomb Spyders
➢ A Pylon
➢ Three Monolith Maniples, each with: 2 Monoliths and 2 Obelisks (which predate and basically have the same battlefield role as Doomsday Arks - vehicles a bit less hard than monoliths with a long-range tankbusting weapon)
➢ An Aeonic Orb (Tetrahedron, whatever. Orbs are hard to scratchbuild, heh.)
➢ A Tomb Complex (a special objective with a portal)
These guys are sort of the wildcard, since I’ve never actually played a game with them yet. But they have solid, elite infantry formations which will be very hard to shift once they get dug into cover (they do indeed bring destroyed units back into play, and the way a few of their rules work together means the infantry formations will want to play defensively), rock-hard vehicles, and a war engine that’s basically this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6ZbKjxn7p8 On the other hand, they’re quite slow (unless they’re utilizing their portal network), and have an annoying tendency to disappear from the battlefield entirely when coming under heavy fire. Things to watch out for: The Monolith formations, although hard as nails, are quite small, and can be broken by enough sustained fire even if they don’t take any casualties. As the Monoliths and their Portals are your main form of transport for your troops, you’ll want to be careful with them. Your entire army’s inability to take March orders means objective snatching (and countering same) will be difficult. This is also the only army with no Supreme Commander to give you an Initiative re-roll each turn – I thought a big old star-in-a-box would be more fun than a C’tan.
Blood Angels
➢ Death Company: 4 stands of Death Company led by a Chaplain, in 2 Rhinos.
➢ Tactical Detachment: 6 stands of Tactical Marines, led by the Chapter Master, in 3 Land Raiders
➢ Tactical Detachment: 6 stands of Tactical Marines, led by a Chaplain, in 3 Stormraven Gunships
➢ Devastator Detachment: 4 stands of Devastators, led by a Librarian, in 2 Land Raiders
➢ Assault Detachment: 8 stands of Assault Marines, led by a Chaplain, in a Thunderhawk
➢ Whirlwind Detachment: 4 Whirlwinds and a Hunter
➢ Thunderbolt Squadron: 2 Thunderbolt Fighters
Marines in Epic have to be used carefully. They’re very mobile – the way Epic works, being able to rapidly redeploy in Rhinos (or Land Raiders, Stormravens or Thunderhawks) is very powerful, and Marines have it in spades. Individual marines, as you’d guess, are as good as other armies’ specialist units at anything they choose to do, and Chaplains, Captains and Librarians add a big punch. But, they have tiny tiny formations that, although they take a lot of work to suppress and are very reliable, won’t stand up to sustained shooting and will generally be outnumbered in an assault. Also they don’t have access to much in the way of war engines or titan-killer weapons, which means they can struggle against armor-heavy forces. Blood Angels also are a tad more unreliable than baseline marines in some circumstances, with a strong preference for launching an assault if they’re in range to do so. Things to watch out for: Timing on the Thunderhawk assault may be tricky, as an unsupported assault detachment will rapidly whither to sustained fire, and the Death Company will need to stick close to the Chapter Master (and his Combined Assault ability) as they are far too few to be very effective in an assault on their own.
Eldar
➢ Aspect Warrior Warhost: 2 stands each of Dire Avengers, Striking Scorpions, Howling Banshees and Dark Reapers, including a Dark Reaper Exarch and a Howling Banshee Autarch, in 4 Wave Serpents
➢ Guardian Warhost: 1 stand of Warlocks led by a Farseer, 4 stands of Guardians, and 3 Scatter Laser Platforms, in 4 Wave Serpents
➢ Guardian Warhost: 1 stand of Warlocks led by a Farseer, 7 stands of Guardians, 3 D-Cannon Platforms, and 2 stands of Wraithguard
➢ Ranger Troupe: 8 stands of Rangers
➢ Swords of Vaul Troupe: 3 Fire Prisms, 2 Falcons, and a Firestorm
➢ Engines of Vaul Troupe: 2 Scorpions
➢ 2 Revenant Scout Titans
➢ An Avatar
➢ A Wraithgate (a special objective with a webway portal)
Eldar have some special rules that you’ll have to take advantage of to not die terribly. As you’d expect, they’re very specialized, very fast, and very very fragile. Aspect Warriors (and even Guardians with their shuriken catapults, warlocks and wraithguard support) are unrivaled in an assault but have almost no conventional shooting attacks. Falcons and Fire Prisms are mobile and shooty, but if you try to use them like main battle tanks they’ll evaporate under enemy fire. Superheavies and titans are very mobile (for war engines), well-armored (for Eldar), and very shooty indeed (by any measure), but again won’t stand up to sustained fire. Fortunately, the big Eldar rule-bend in Epic is the ability to shoot-and-scoot, so if you’re careful you can stay out of harm’s way. But you have to be careful. (Side-note: This army list is actually a good deal less tricky than it could be, since it only uses the one, static, Wraithgate for the unmounted Guardians to deploy through. For a similar points cost I could have all 3 Warhosts on reserves in the webway, and supplement the Engines of Vaul with a Wraithgate-carrying Storm Serpent to deploy them from, but that just adds another level of trickiness to the list for a new-player general.)
I'll post a third and final thread when I get the room reservation (knock on wood) but at the moment we're going forward with a Saturday 8 December date.
