Continuing with the Dark Mechanicus

Its been a couple of months now playing the dark mechanicus list.  The list has proven to me that it has some merit and for the most part will stand up to a majority of other army lists.  Recently I faced an imperial guard player who played a mechguard list with 10-12 chimeras, and 3 Vendettas.  We played 1750 points, rolled up big guns never tire with vanguard strike.  I played my 1750 list which included the warpsmith, 3 csm squads, an ageis defense line, 3 oblits, a forgefiend, and a maulerfiend.   Like the daemon player I faced in the tournament, this would be a challenging opponent and another that would test my list to the fullest.  I do have to say that one of the unsung heros in my army is the Ageis defense line.  I will never leave my army without it, it provides me with my own piece of cover, a defensive position where I could place my firebase and with the quad gun a weapon that could skyfire.  In this game, it allowed me to weather my opponent's first turn without taking much damage.  My forgefiend opened up and netted me first blood by blowing up a chimera.  My Oblits went next and blew up another chimera with my HQ havoc squad blowing up a third one.  My dice were definitely on fire that first turn and pretty much decided how the game went.  By concentrating on his tanks in the front, I forced my opponent to have to move around his wrecks or roll dangerous terrain tests.  This was the first game I took my maulerfiend which I hid for the first 2 turns as there was nothing in charge range.  By turn 3 I decided to move him up but of course he became bullet bait once his 3 vendettas came on.  My forgefiend also fell prey to them and if it wasnt for my dragons, would have run amok the entire game.  In turns 3-4 the bulk of the heavy lifting came from my 2 CSM squads and the 3 oblits that took turns hammering my opponents chimeras.  I have to say I really hate these multiple veterans squads with either 3 meltas or 3 plasmas, they are way to cheap, these guys kept my opponent in the game and would have won him the game along with his 3 vendettas if it wasnt for the 2 dragons and my obits.  My dragons actually took out 2 of the vendettas with the oblits taking out the last one using twin linked plasma guns.  After taking out his air force it was just a matter of moping up and playing hide and seek with his veteran squads with the 3 plasmas, killing their ride and having the heldrakes munch on them. 

The game ended on turn 6 with my opponent holding 1 objective and me 2 and also having first blood and slay the warlord.  The army is still showing me that it has legs to stand on but I am definitely seeing something.  The list is very dependant on the heldrakes.  They are definitely MVPs every game and I believe until every army gets updated to 6th edition, they will continue to be one of the most hated models on the table top.  I plan on running more troops by adding in more cultists so I might drop one of the heldrakes.  I recently acquired 40 cultists and a dark apostle that I converted using one of the chosen models from the starter box and feel that by having 70 bodies as troops, this might make the game more fun for both me and my opponent.  Fliers are extremely OP right now, having 2 of the most powerful ones might be a little too much for friendly games so I might use the 2nd one for tourneys only. 

Dark Mechanicus test drive

A couple of weeks ago, I finally got the chance to test drive my dark mechanicus army.  I didnt have time to test the list in normal games so actually took the list untested to the local GW's final 40k tournament before it closed its doors as a battle bunker.  The tournament was 1500 points, modified book missions and it was 3 games long.  I would certainly get a feel of the list playing it against 3 different armies.  In terms of the list I took the 1500 pts list I posted in my last post which contained a warpsmith, 3 CSM squads with extra close combat weapons; one with plasma and autocannon, 2 with melta gun and plasma, 2 Heldrakes with baleflamers an Oblit squad and a forgefiend.

Game 1 vs. Tyranids - Without a doubt the coolest guy I played at the Tourney, here was a guy who just made the game fun to play.  His list was what I would call an elite nid list with a flying hive tyrant, a tyrant on foot, big warrior squad, a tyranofex, a Zoai, trygon, and 2 squads of 15 guants.  My army obliterated the nids with knocking the hive tyrant out of the air and killing it by turn 2, my forgefiend killing his 6 man squad of warriors in one salvo.. ok I got lucky with my rolling, and the 2 heldrakes just flying around and killing stuff.  The made mince meat of the trygon that popped up with vector strikes and killing off his 2 troop choices that were left.  By the top of 4, my opponent and I called it.  I tell you what, this guy took it in the teeth and still had a great time.  I dont know how I would have felt with my big HQ dying by turn 2 without feeling like crap.  My army proved to me that it was shooty in this first game with MVPs going to the Warpsmith and his squad behind the ageis and the Forgefiend.

Game 2 vs. Orks - Was this game ever tough, my opponent was running an extremely different ork list, one that I have never seen before.  His army was what I call a killa can list made up of 2 mega deff dreads, 9 killa cans, and 3 deff dreads.  His only unit of infantry came in the form of a 10 man boyz squad in a truck that he hid on his home objective.  We drew vanguard strike and emperors will as the primary mission and I would like to say that my generalship won me the game but truth be told, my dice were on fire.  My heldrakes were the scourge of the battlefield, vector striking, and flaming cans and deff dreads down.  The daemonforge ability helped quite a lot in this battle giving me the ability to re roll damage pens rolls against the Killa Cans and deff dreads and really helped with damaging my opponents ability to move as I concentrated on killing the models in front of his battle line thus forcing him to have to go around or roll dangerous terrain.  Placing the heldrakes in front of the dreads also helped in this as he had to move around them and needed to keep at least 1 inch away from their bases.  By Turn 4, I knew that the game was mine as he only had 2 cans left, 1 deff dread, and 1 mega deff dread that was immobilized and not going anywhere.  One of my Heldrakes had taken out his 1 scoring infantry unit and I had gotten first blood and kill the warlord.  We called it by the bottom of turn 5 as there was no way he could win or tie the game.  MVP's of this game was again the forgefiend, my HQ "Havoc" squad unit, and of course the Heldrakes.

Game 3 vs. Chaos Daemons - By the time the 3rd game around, I was 2-0 and on one of the top tables.  Up until this time, I didnt think my list had legs especially in a tourney setting. My opponent this time around was running one of the most hated netlists of all time. This game of course took place before the new daemon codex had come out so of course the guy was running fateweaver, 3 squads of flamers, 4 small squads of horrors, and 2 max squads of screamers. I deployed as best I could knowing that I had one turn to kill as many of his units as possible and then hope for the best. I concentrated all my forces in a corner giving him few avenues where he could deepstrike safely. I lucked out that he didnt get his preferred wave but due to a huge line of sight blocking terrain piece, he very wisely hid this 4 - 5 man horror squads behind it. I was able to kill 1 squad and mauled another one but that was all I could do before hell broke lose. Next turn he got all of his units in and with it my chance of winning the game. I did my best at holding him off until my dragons came on and was able to actually hold my own when both came on. MVPs of this game were believe it or not a squad of CSM's that wiped out a squad of flamers and put the hurt on a squad of screamers before dying. My forge fiend got to fire once before his other squad of screamers took him down. The game went on to about turn 4 before I decided to call it to save myself from tabling as all I had was 1 dragon left. He did pay me a compliment that I was able to kill the most of his units in all 3 of his games so I will take that as a morale victory. Hard, hard game but glad I wont be facing that list anymore as the new Daemon codex is out. All in all a great first outing for the dark mechanicus. The army is a blast to play and looks quite striking on the table top. I plan on adding in the maulerfiend and a helbrute to give me even more daemon engines. The pics in this post are of my maulerfiend and the warpsmith. Let me know what you think.