Arcanacon has set itself up as one of the premier Warhammer 40000 tournaments in the Southern Hemisphere. It draws players from far and wide and regularly hits 100+ players.
Unlike previous years, I plan to
a) Play and;
b) Prepare and think out an army!
My first forays into playtesting my new Plague Marine army follow:
To that end, I have decided to actually playtest and prepare for Arcanacon! My next project is going to be Plague Marines.
Hopefully it won’t take five years to finish, like my Sisters Of Battle army. Certainly, I have a pretty tight timline!
My first game with my new army was against Tim and his marines. Led by Shrike with attached assault squad, a couple of squads of scouts, a Venerable dreadnought and squad of marines in a drop pod.
My army was a Chaos Lord with Jump pack, power weapon and plama pistol, six lesser daemons, three units of Plague Marines in Rhinos and two Obliterators.
The mission was Dawn Of War/Annihilation, a nice, easy kill point mission.
Let me start by putting you out of your misery; I lost six kill points to four.
More importantly, I learnt some lessons.
- SERIOUSLY, don’t leave your lord standing out in the middle of nowhere with no protection, EVEN if there is bugger all of your opponent’s army around.
- If your lord DIES and he’s got the only personal icon, summoning daemons doesn’t happen
- Marines are fully hardcore when you drop "Combat Tactics" and replace it with "Fleet"!
- I SUCK at making "Feel No Pain" rolls. Seriously, I made about three all game.
- Plague Marines are kind of awesome; Blight grenades are brilliant for softening close assaults, toughness five; ’nuff said!
- I still have a bit of play testing to do ..
Having laid awake all night thinking about it, I need to re-work the army a bit. Specifically (and this is first draft), more personal icons, replace the Chaos Lord with a Daemon Prince, add some guns to the Rhinos; havoc launchers are looking like a bit of fun!
The only thing I really need to be mindful of is the 1200 point limit that I have to work to!
That said, I am really enjoying Plague Marines; they’re characterful, offer some brilliant conversion opportunities, and pound for pound are some of the hardest base infantry in the game!
What say you?
+++++ ADDENDUM +++++
Some really cool Nurgle Plague Marine conversions, painting tips and ideas.
Nurgle 101 by Svartmetal: http://forums.relicnews.com/
Svartmetal´s blog: http://forums.relicnews.com/
