Wednesday, July 20, 2011

500 Point IG For Patrol Tourney?

by SandWyrm


Proitius has written in with an interesting IG list request.

Hi SandWyrm,

I'm attending a 500pt patrol tournament in two weeks and I’m having trouble coming up with an effective list. Normally my 500pt list for quick patrol games in GW stores is…

X2 Melta Vets
Scout Sentinel with Autocannons
Griffon Mortar
Hydra

However the tournament has strict rules on army building…

  • Patrols use the standard Force Organisation chart with the following exceptions:
  • Only one Troop choice is compulsory. Troops 2-6 are optional.
  • You may have one HQ choice, but no more than one.
  • You may select one choice each from Elite, Fast attack and Heavy Support but no more
  • Vehicle Squadrons may not number more than 1 vehicle
  • No unit may exceed 21 models at any point (in selection or during the game (inc. attaching characters))
  • No model can have more than 2 Wounds.
  • Tyranids and Necrons may select models with 3 wounds or less
  • No special characters.
  • No 2+ saves.
  • No vehicles with a total Armour value greater than 34.

So far I’ve only come up with two lists…

X2 Melta Vets
Valkyrie with Hellfire Missiles and Heavy Bolters
Hydra

Tried this list out and lost both games as my opponent shot the Valkyrie down before it could do anything. I feel due to the Valkyrie’s threat level it will always be targeted and destroyed in early games.

X2 Grenade Launcher Vets (1 with missile launcher)
Banewolf
Hydra

Thought this list might be a good one as I doubt I’ll come across much heavy armour and the Banewolf is fantastic for dealing with infantry which most armies will likely be based on. Problem is I’d have to proxy the grenade launchers as there is no way I can get the grenade launcher bits in time.

So far these are my only options and since you are an expert on guard I thought I’d ask and see if you could offer any better lists from the models I have?

  • Command Squad: 3 Meltas & Officer Of The Fleet
  • X3 Melta Vets
  • Plasma Vets
  • (All in chimeras with heavy flamer)
  • X2 Vendettas (one with heavy bolters)
  • Banewolf with smoke launchers
  • 2 Hydras
  • 1 Executioner with plasma sponsons
  • 3 Scout Sentinels
  • Hellhound
  • Sniper Vets with missile launcher in chimera with heavy bolter
  • Marbo
  • Griffon Mortar
  • Manticore

SandWyrm's Reply:

This is what I would take at 500 points. It's about as balanced as you can manage at this level. Some armies will just HATE you for being able to bring 36 troops and 3 vehicles to such a small game.

    HQ
70    Primaris Psyker

    Troops
155    Veteran Squad w/3 x Melta, Chimera
105    Platoon Command Squad w/4 x Flamer, Chimera
65    + Infantry Squad w/Autocannon, Grenade Launcher
65    + Infantry Squad w/Autocannon, Grenade Launcher
   
    Fast Attack
40    Scout Sentinel w/Autocannon

Total: 500 Points

But you said that you don't have Grenade Launchers, and you may not have Autocannons. So how about this?

    HQ
70    Primaris Psyker

    Troops
155    Veteran Squad w/3 x Melta, Chimera
155    Veteran Squad w/3 x Melta, Chimera
   
    Fast Attack
45    Scout Sentinel w/Autocannon, Smoke Launcher

    Heavy Support
75    Hydra

Total: 500 points

Not as durable, and a bit less shooty; but it should do OK against most lists.

Community Thoughts?

15 comments:

  1. I love these posts - this is why I started reading this blog! I insist Proitius post the final list and results for completeness...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't really have an opinion on the lists, but I do want to say that I think that a huge weakness of 'competitive' 40k is that for some strange reason, we have defined 'competitive' as 'play basic or near-basic missions at 2000-2500 pts with probably too little terrain'.

    40K is a bigger game than that. Frankly, even though it's not really well balanced overall, it's really not well balanced with those parameters. Tournaments should involve a lot more variability in point levels and mission parameters, rather than this strange default that doesn't really work well for competitive play.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Not a clue what you mean. The missions are drilled down to their most basic form BECAUSE that's the only proper way to do competitive gaming in a game with so many variables.

    Look at Battle Missions, or practically any of the 'Ard Boyz missions of the past. Out of all of them, there's like...two playable, competitive missions. The rest are horribly broken from some or another perspective.

    It's really easy to say "kill points / table quarters / seize ground isn't competitive" but I haven't the slightest clue what you think IS competitive. People have ran thousands and thousands of tournaments with all sorts of variant missions and rules and everything; they come back to those three because they're what work. It's not like they were picked at random.

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  4. It's a shame you can't take more than 1 Sentinel. Those things shred in small games. That being said, I support the first of SW's lists

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think that the current "standard" tourney environment is really a lowest common denominator thing. It's what works without a lot of extra effort.

    Consider what would happen if you were to announce and hold a tourney where the tables would use 50% terrain instead of 25%. That would totally mix things up and you'd see very different units and armies on the field, with different results, than you're used to at more normal events.

    But that's a hard thing to do when most events have trouble getting enough terrain together to cover even 25% of each table.

    ReplyDelete
  6. @dodger
    saying that the missions which show up all the time are the only ones that are competitive is circular logic. If kill points were not a thing 90% of the time, the competitive landscape would be completely different, and all these MSU armies would cry "unbalanced" any time someone tried to run a tournament that way. If Dawn of War was not in the main book, nobody would EVER want to see shenanigans like that in a tournament. If HQs were always worth three kill points, then the game simply rebalances to be more like warmahordes.

    Now I'm not saying that the Ard Boyz missions were good. I'm saying they were bad because they were confusing, and not because they were unusual. I think one of the signs of a good general is adaptability, and playing the same (lets face it) two missions with the same three deployments over and over again is not testing that factor.

    Long live low point value, tons of terrain tourneys!

    ReplyDelete
  7. No, the mistake you're making is that you seem to assume nobody ever tested these things, and that Quarters / 5 Objective / KP are the only three missions in the history of the world.

    What does Dawn of War have to do with anything? Are you trying to suggest people are just blindly following the rulebook for their tournament scenarios? Because Table Quarters definitely isn't in the rulebook.

    There certainly are other ways to play the game, but to randomly state that the other ways are better and more competitive without even providing any context to what you mean or what "other missions" ARE better just comes across as random, pointless rage against the tournament environment moreso than an actual thought or point of view.

    Especially when you come at it from the angle of "competitive play is an unbalanced way to play the game"--that's just outwardly dismissive of people who actually plan these things. The entire POINT of competitive play is to try to find the most balanced ways to play the game, so saying "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG, OTHER WAYS ARE BETTER" and then not even attempting to provide any hint as to what those other ways are is not only useless, it's borderline rude to anyone who runs these events.

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  8. The list I take at 500 points:

    Primaris Psyker

    Melta Vets, Chimera
    Melta Vets, Chimera

    3 scout sentinels w/ autocannons

    This list has served me well, and likely front armor isn't going to be more than 12, so autocannons are great.

    Alternatively, you could swap a 4 flamer CCS for the psyker, though this would leave one squad without a ride.

    Thinking about opponents though, conceivably a Marine player could bring a Predator (13,11,10 = 34), but meltas should make short work of it.

    ReplyDelete
  9. @nolenweaver

    Go back up and look at the rules he's constrained by. Squadrons of vehicles aren't allowed.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Right, and I missed the FOC changes as well. The original list had them as 3 squads of 1, but with the FOC changes, I screwed that up royally. My apologies.

    That does make things a little trickier...

    Then the list I came up with looks just like the second one you already posted, with the Hydra and the Sentinel with an autocannon.

    I should know better by now to second guess Sandwyrm :).

    ReplyDelete
  11. why include the psyker at all cut one thing and thats two hydras in two squadrons

    ReplyDelete
  12. You're limited to one HQ, Elite, Fast Attack, and/or Heavy Support choice at this event.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I like the looks of SW's first list. It has more individual autocannons than the other list, meaning you can divide your shots, though none are twin-linked by default. Also, the two that are in the infantry squads should theoretically last longer than the Hydra, since they can't be offed by a single lascannon shot (unless the rest of the squad's already dead). I don't play IG, though, so this is just my flat opinion with no real experience behind it.

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  14. People have come back to those missions ever since 5th ed was published, and those were the missions in the book. Just like when 3rd ed or 4th ed were current, and the missions in the book were the ones used for 'competitive' play, because they were what was in the book then.

    I don't really have anything against those missions. They're fine. I just think that they don't represent the full possibilities of a game like 40k, especially not when we play with a very small range of point values on comparatively featureless boards and then use that as some sort of contest of strategic and tactical skill.

    List building is part of the game. It's a major part of the skill of the game, as far as I'm concerned. Limiting that skill to 'what works at 2000 pts on featureless tables' does not, I believe, represent an especially interesting competitive environment.

    ReplyDelete
  15. As long as you are taking Imperial guard you should be ok. at 500points IG are practically broken, Even with/especially when limitations are put.
    Take a hydra, a Hellhound variant, and some melta vets and you'll do fine.

    ReplyDelete

out dang bot!

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