I’ve almost settled on my list for Rapid Fire, and thought I would throw it out there for comments.

As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to try something a little different from the list I ran at the Warrington GT. The GT was pretty brutal, and I was spanked 3 games out of 6. I’m not expecting Rapid Fire to be quite so bad, although I think it’s being used as one of the qualifiers for the Scottish ETC team, so the top tables will be tough.

What I wanted to change” were the Fire Warriors in Devilfish, which were a little lack lustre at the GT. To recap, the problem was that they would hang around for 2-3 turns, before jumping out and killing something, and then dieing to return fire pretty easily. It was also sometimes hard to work out where they needed to be, and often they were hopelessly out of position, particularly if their Devilfish was killed or immobilised.


I had thought about 2 alternatives – Piranhas, and double burst cannon XV8s. I’ve gone for the XV8s, largely because I have them, and don’t have any Piranhas!

So here’s the list (oh, and the tournament does not allow allies)

Commander, Twin Missile Pods, Target Lock, Drone Controller
Commander, Twin Missile Pods, Target Lock, Drone Controller

Riptide, HBC, ECPA, Fusion Blasters, EWO, VT
Riptide, Ion Accelerator, Fusion Blasters, Talisman, EWO

10 Kroot
10 Kroot
3 XV8s with Double Burst Cannons and Stim Injectors
3 XV8s with Double Burst Cannons and Stim Injectors
2 XV8s with Twin Missile Pods, Target Locks, and 4 Marker Drones
2 XV8s with Twin Missile Pods, Target Locks, and 4 Marker Drones

Skyray with BSF
Skyray with BSF
Skyray with BSF

Each Commander goes with a Death Rain Squad, giving me 2 marker light sources, and the ability to shoot missile pods at different targets (I’m expecting a lot of wave serpents!). The Kroot will do what they always do (would like hounds in there, but not enough points). The Riptides are pretty self explanatory. The Earth Caste Piloting Array make the Heavy Burst Cannon particularly deadly (pity I can’t take a Puretide Chip!), and the Talisman keeps everybody safe from Jaws and other psychic nastiness. The Double Burster XV8s will mostly stay in reserve and deep strike down where necessary.

There are 2 things I’m uncertain about – the Stim Injectors on the Double Burst Cannons, and 3 skyrays.

I want to try out the Double Bursters, so I don’t want to change them, but the alternative to Stim Injectors would be 4 Gun Drones. With the help of somebody who knows about these things (i.e. not me) the mathhammer says that Stim Injectors make the suits more or less as resilient as 4 Drones would. The only exception to this is against shooting attacks which are S8 or over, where the shooting attacks could be allocated to Drones instead of suits.

As for the Skyrays, are 3 too many? I would like to keep 2, but is the third worth it? I could use the points saved  for extra Drones on the XV8s, both Marker and/or Gun.

I have another gaming day at the non-club on Saturday to test run the list before Rapid Fire, so I’ll see how it goes there, but suggestions before then would be welcome.