Recently I made the jump back into 40k with 7th edition, and if you
are like me, one of the major barriers was general cost of entry (or
re-entry in my case) into the game. However, the latest Dark Vengeance
box could alleviate a lot of the issue, with a little creative thinking
in either the fluff or crafting department. (Or both). With that in
mind, I'll be going over all the contents of box, along with my
thinking, and my approach to using and building a list out of the Dark
Vengeance box set.
My initial approach To start with, to get
the most out of box, you want to do one of the following, either a.)
have to come up with a way to use the entire box in a single army, or
b.) trade a friend one side of your box for their matching side. (I.e.
Trade your DA stuff for their chaos, or vise versa). For me, the easiest
way was to go with first option and come up with a fluffy way to use
the contents of the entire box in a single army. There is a number of
ways to do it, you could paint the whole army up as Fallen Angels,
heavily convert all the models into something else, or go the route I
did, and create a Red Corsairs army. To further flesh out the army, I
decided to have the librarian that came in the box be a true Fallen
Angel Psyker, already working with/for Huron Blackheart, that used his
psychic powers on the remnants of a contingent of loyal Dark Angels
hunting him to show them the "truth" of Luther and the Lion, thus
convincing/converting them to his cause. So, now that I have my initial
idea all fleshed out, let's take a look at the contents of the box,
what all I have to work worth, and see how large of an army I can
create...
The box contents
Here's what I had to work worth:
Chaos side:
20x cultists
6x chosen
1x Hellbrute
1x aspiring champion
1x chaos lord
Dark Angels side:
10x Tactical Marines
5x Terminators
3x Bikes
1x Librarian
1x Company master
Taking
a closer look, here's what I noticed: first, that there is a plasma
cannon in the tactical squad that I could not use, because codex CSM
doesn't have the plasma cannon option. Also, there are a few too many
characters, so I planned to have the company master relegated to an
aspiring champion with a power weapon to go with tactical squad, while
the sergeant will be relegated to the squad's icon-bearer. I'd also
need to either do a "counts as" or convert one of the terminator's
assault cannon into a reaper autocannon. On the chaos side, I planned
to have the aspiring champion join the unit of chosen. I'd also need to
be careful with how I kitted and converted the unit, as they come
modeled with a lot special weapons and I want to make sure I stick to
WYSIWYG as much as possible.
The list
Here's basis for the list.
Looking at all the contents I mentioned above, taking into account some
of changes I felt I'd need, I sat down and just built each unit on
paper, without a specific points target in mind. Anyone can easily
follow and do what I did, making changes as they see fit as well, so
your total points costs may vary. For me, the overall idea was that
this would be a "base army", I had hoped to get a good, solid start on
an army that I could grow and expand upon. I should also note that a
few extra bits, in the form of flamers, meltas, and an icon or two,
will be needed to duplicate my exact squad configuration if you choose
to do so. I'm a novice when it comes to conversions, so everything was
actually rather simple. Anyway, here's the base list I came up with:
HQ - 270 pts
Lord - Mark of Khorne, Sigil, Powerweapon, Burning brand of Skalathrax -145 pts
Sorcerer - level 3, Familiar - 125 pts
ELITE - 585 pts
7x Chosen - MoK, Icon of Wrath, 1x Powerfist, 1x Lightning Claws,
1x Powerweapon, 2x Meltas, Champion w/ Powerweapon and combi-melta - 260
pts
5x Terminators - Reaper Autocannon, Icon of Vengeance, 3x Powerfist, 1x chainfist, 2x combi-flamer, 2x combi-plasma - 210 pts
Hellbrute - heavy flamer - 115 pts
FAST - 141 pts
3x Bikers - MoK, Icon of Wrath, 2x meltas, champ w/ Powerfist - 141 pts
TROOPS - 310
20x Cultist - 2x Flamers - 100 pts
10x CSM - 2x Plasmaguns, Icon of Vengeance, Champ w/ Powerweapon - 210 pts
Total: 1306
So
essentially, for less than $100 (I got a discount at my LGS) I've got a
workable, starting 1300 pt 40k list! Also, you'll notice I did not go too heavy
with marks, which would raise the points cost, similarly, you could
alter or drop some upgrades to lower the points total as well.
Where to go from here?
With the base army
figure out, my next goal will be to expand further and flesh out the
army as a whole. I'll probably end up dropping or swapping the
characters around. Since it is a Red Corsairs army, I'd like to fit
Huron Blackheart in. He'll give me access to a bit of infiltration, and
right now the idea is to give himself the infiltrate ability and attach
him to the chosen. I also plan to swap a few things around with the
chosen, add another body or two, and put them all in a Landraider.
Next, I'd like to add a few more bikes to the biker unit, along with a
lord with the axe of blind fury. The idea being to pop transports and
assault all the chewy stuff inside afterwards. The Hellbrute may get
dropped to make room for more stuff. I'd also like to bulk up the
cultists up to max, their only job is to try and hold/contest
objectives. The CSM squad will probably get a rhino to go after
objectives, or may get swapped around, or dropped all together. I also
plan to convert a loyalist flyer into a Helldrake, and for at least one
of them. Not only do I not care for the current Helldrake model, but
converting a loyalist flyer would also lend itself to the whole Red
Corsair, loyalist-turned-traitor theme.
So, just to sum things up on my
expansion plans:
- Add in Huron
- Bulk up chosen, add Landraider
- Bulk up bikes, add lord
- Add Helldrakes
- Bulk up cultists
- Modify other things as needed
What about you guys, what do you think of my idea? What of the latest 40k box set as a whole?
This is exactly what I was hoping to find! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked it, thanks for checking out my blog! =)
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