Army Building: Popping the Bubble Wrap

Back in Feb I did a post about Building a Brick Wall in which I discussed my thoughts on how to give my army some defense. I wanted something decent as a wall, that could act as bubble wrap for my tanks etc. but could take some punishment. TH/SS fitted this bill quite well I thought and so they were dropped nicely into my 1500pt army.

In the months since then, I've seen how that choice in February has played out. After all, since then I've been in the clubs Campaign as well as the Throne of Skulls at Warhammer World. I accounted well for myself in both winning all 1v1's in the Campaign and only losing one of the 2v2's - at Throne of Skulls I went 2-1-2 which I was also happy with for a first tourney.

So how has the bubble wrap done? Well, the funny thing is they haven't been the wall I anticipated - taking attacks head on and being a buffer. What they did, and did well to be fair, was prove a target. Most opponents target them as the priority target in my army which does allow me to essentially get a free turn for everything else where it doesn't tend to get shot at.

However, over time, their status as priority target has gone down. I think part of the reason is that they are solely close combat. They bring nothing ranged to the table so can be, to a degree, ignored for a turn or two. Plus, their status as SOLID WALL OF DEATH has been dented by my god awful dice rolling. You'd think I was the Yahtzee champion of the world with the amount of 1's I roll when making 2+ saves.

I also thought their prowess in combat would be necessary with all the incoming elite units, but my army is so firepower heavy that they've been left redundant in that field too as often the weight of firepower I can bring to bear is more than enough to win a fight before it gets to close combat. My Captain and Command Squad for example are often more than a match for everything from monstrous creatures to light tanks to elite close combat units simply through the weight of Plasma fire they are capable of generating.



So, what options are there? Well, I like terminators so the simplest idea seems to be to switch from Assault Terminators to Tactical Terminators. However, it isn't a straight swap as I need to free up some points from the rest of the army to cover their additional equipment. The easiest choice seems to be the Relic Blade on the Captain, which whilst cool sees very little action - so swapping that out for a power weapon saves me 15 points. I can also drop the filler points spent on his Digital Weapons and Melta Bombs. My Lascannon tacticals also suffer with their wildly inaccurate weapons, so dropping the Lascannons for Plasma Cannons seems wise (I like Plasma!), although my combat squads are often useless when leaping from their razorbacks, so points saved on Lascannons will probably get thrown onto meltaguns. Removing random additional tat from the list should free up some more points.

How to equip them? Well despite my general love of assault cannons, I am tempted to use the heavier Cyclone Missile Launcher. I think I also need to grab a couple of Chain Fists to give them some decent close combat punch when coming up against vehicles. It should make them an all round threat then more so than the TH/SS's have been. I do have a load of Space Hulk miniatures waiting in the wings, so I am tempted to get them prepped and ready to jump in and take charge.

There is also the terminator librarian I have waiting for when I push the points to 1750 (left)!

Either way, I need to see now how this revised list hangs together and whether the new dynamic will sustain the army.