Intro to 40K: List building pt 4 – Competition List

Photo: Jorvic BoLS

Ok, so we return for the final installment of the 40K: List Building series.  Today we’re going to take a look at a typical competitive build that you may see on you local tournament table.  Now there are some things to be said about what makes a competitive list unique versus other builds.  First thing is that there often is a high amount of repetition of “spam” in unit compositions.  The general idea here is that the player is less dependent on a single unit to accomplish a goal so therefore has numerous answers to any given problem.  Lets look at the example of the mechanized army list against our own guys.  To effectively eliminate numerous vehicles you need lots of high strength (S) weapons, Melta being the best of them.  These high S and low armor piercing (AP) weapons also excel at damaging monstrous creatures (MC’s) or sniping independent characters (IC’s) and instant killing them with the high S value of the weapon.  So a competitive build will often take numerous units loaded out with as much melta as they can fit in the unit.

Second, competitive lists tend to exclude many of the “flavor” units, like Vanguard Veterans and Legion of the Damned out of the Space Marine codex, for more cost effective and “spammable” units like Sternguard, Attack Bikes, and Terminators.  Competitive lists are a combination of ruthless efficiency and delicate symbiosis between units.  The interesting thing is that while the new FAQ’s that just release have possibly bumped the “Vanilla” Space Marine Codex up on the competitive circuit, when it comes to Marines and competition, Space Wolves reign supreme.  That being said we are still going to be using the Space Marine Codex for this list as we’ve been using it for all the other lists as well.  Also most competitions take place at 1850 pts, but we will continue to stay at the 1500 pt level for the example, so lets get to it!

Photo: Ardousius form BoLS

Space Marine 1500 pt Competition List

Headquarter

Forgefather Vulkan He’Stan

Troops

Tactical Squad

10 Man, Powerfist, Flamer, Muli-Melta, Rhino

Tactical Squad

10 Man, Powerfist, Flamer, Muli-Melta, Rhino

Elite

Assault Terminator Squad

4x’s Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield, Pair of Lightning Claws, Landraider Redeemer, Multi-Melta

Sternguard Squad

7 Man, Meltabombs, 5x’s Combi-melta, 2x’s Meltagun, Rhino

Dreadnought

Heavy Flamer, Drop Pod

All righty, so here we have a nice list capitalizing on the benefits from Vulkan, but with a very low model count.  Mobility and resilience are going to have to work closely together to maximize the damage potential of the army list.  Starting off with Vulkan, we place him with the Terminators in the Landraider Redeemer.  This is your hammer unit, it goes after anything big and nasty or multi assaults vehicle walls.  Vulkan’s ability to make all Flamers, Melta, and Thunder Hammers in the army re-rollable, is just down right nasty.  The Land Raider makes them exceptionally resilient and able to get right where you want them and into the assault.  The Redeemer has anti-vehicle punch with its multi-melta, and can still do damage to light transports with the flame cannons as well as destroying any models that are forced to disembark from destroyed transports.

Photo: Jorvic from BoLS

The Sternguard squad is your heavy anti-mech squad.  All the re-rollable melta is sure to take down any vehicle or MC.  The Rhino allows them mobility and the two meltaguns to fire out the ports each turn without having to expose the entire unit to enemy fire.  Likewise the same method will be used for the Tactical Squads.  The multi-melta and flamers can fire out of the Rhinos without any danger to being mowed down by enemy fire.

The Dreadnought can be deployed in a couple of ways.  You can drop it ahead, first turn either on the enemy lines to take out a vehicle or unit with the multi-melta or heavy flamer.  It could be dropped mid field so it’s closer to your advancing Redeemer and Rhinos.  The option always exists that the pod can be dropped on it’s own, directly on top of an objective or on a location to block an enemy angle of fire or approach.  The Dread can then be walked up behind the Redeemer, using it as cover from enemy fire.

One of the biggest keys to success with a low model count army is focused damage output and target priority.  The great thing about this list is there are so many threats to your opponent that any choice they make may well be a bad one.  Elite, low model count armies require a focused spearhead approach to the attack.  Attacking heavily on a single flank and picking your opponent apart unit by unit is your goal.  The biggest things you have to worry about is losing your mobility and becoming locked in with tar pit units, low value, high model count dispensable units intended to slow down hammer units.

So there you have it the final installment in the list building set.  What units do you take in your competition lists?  And what is your answer to the heavy spam lists so frequently seen on the net?