Hello Ranters or is that as I am in theory, The Ranter  you should all probably consider yourselves  the Rantees ?  Upon further contemplation my long term readers should, I feel, be deserving of a promotion of sorts, and shall henceforth be christened ‘The Ranted’ you know who you are…

Good day and welcome one and all.

There is a small 1500 point 40 player  Tournament taking place at a local Expo in a few months, Its a fairly chilled affair and is FW friendly.  As it was local I muttered something semi commital about attending , Boomstick  almost immediately challanged me to take my Tantalus.

Two things. I’m not huge on 1500 points anyway and it always always feels thin on the ground and incomplete.  I only seem to be able to properly balance  and ‘finish’armies at 1750 points, obviously I can go bigger too but 1750 has that ‘just right’ feel . Secondly I think the Tantalus is a bit crap for 200+ points , I mean its nearest equivalent is a Stormraven, they have many parallels, one is somewhat better than the other and at roughly the same price point (Much like psyflemen and Ravagers filling the same role in theory) and even then it is considered by some to be a middling choice competitively.

Comparisons aside It ultimately  boils down to wittingly fielding an AV12 open topped vehicle that costs over 200 points, it does not even bring something  you cant get elsewhere to the party and has no meaningful anti vehicle ability, also I cant honestly see it staying alive for more than a turn on the table. (oh FW why can’t you write decent xeno units. Just.Why ?)

I bought the damn thing though, it IS stunning, so I thought ” sod it, I’ll give it a try”  at least my army will look good while I’m handicapping myself .

I thought I would add some other caveats/goals other than trying to get it to not fail completely.  Having a tourney looming really helps to get stuff painted and forces me to be organised and systemtic to how I approach painting, so just for fun my other challange is to incorperate as much of my unpainted stuff as humanly possible too and still have something thats at least vaguely usable .

So this got me to thinking, I already know I can build solid lists and win with them consistently, and any mug can do Venom spam, certain greyknight builds are almost a certain loss no matter what I bring/how well I play/how kind the dice are, so realistically unless I bandwagon I wont  be winning best general any time soon, this gives me carte blanche to play with any army I want with any units I want /to paint/ and not care, It’s quite liberating in a way. Of course if I do win or even put in a decent showing it’s a big fat two fingers to the spammers/bandwagon and a date with some warm fuzzy smug-time.

So I would like to set you all a challenge and there will be prizes for the winner.

Design me a 1500 point list,  it must contain a Tantalus, here is a list of unpainted stuff I own, you must try to use as much of it as possible, but the list must still be functional, so you can use units not in the unpainted list to make it ‘work’ (assume I have it) no coven stuff btw.

Hellions x 14 (there is a recently completed Baron fig to go with)

Duke Sliscus

10 scourges with either HL’s or Haywire guns

Reavers x6 with HL’s

2 x 3 man Truborn squads with DL’s x 2

10 wyches -suitable for any load out

10 warriors , can be split into two 5 man blaster squads

3 Raiders

Razorwing

Reaper

10 harlequins – all trimmings if needs be

Court of the archon- 2 medusa, 3 sslyth , 1 lamean, 3 ur ghul’s

My favorite list WINS and if I decide to actually use it I’ll add to the prize.

To give an example currently one of my best lists is this:

 

HQ

 

Homo 50 lq gun + vblade – 15  = 65

 

Elites

 

9 Harlequins -162 ,8 kisses -32 , troupe master -20, fusion x 2- 20  =234 (travelling by Tantalus Air)

 

Troops

 

Warriors x 5 -45 blaster -15 Raider -60, ff -10 = 130

 

Warriors x 5 -45 blaster- 15 Raider- 60, ff -10 = 130

 

Wyches x 9 – 90, hwg’s -18, hek + Vblade -15 ,Raider -60, ff -10 =193

 

Fast Attack

 

Scourges 110, 2 x Heat Lances -24 =134

 

Scourges 110, 2 x Heat Lances -24 =134

 

Hvy Support

 

Tantalus -215 Shock Prow -5 , Night fields -10 -230 (it may suck but boy can it Ram, NF gives some protection from melta )

 

Ravager- 115, Flicker Field -10  =125

 

Ravager -115, Flicker Field -10 =125

 

Total– 1500 on the nail

Once I have a list I can get to making a  paintting schedule, though the hellions will be getting done now either way as I have started them.

So whatcha got ?

TTFN.