Tales from the Tabletop - Wayland Games 1500 point Doubles Tournament

With the Tale completed and our Imperial forces all mustered, it's time for us to enjoy our lovely painted armies on the tabletop. To celebrate we're all attending a 1500 doubles tournament at Wayland Games this weekend. As it's doubles that means we're pairing off into teams, with Tim and I forming the first pair and Matt and Neil as the other (You can view their post here). This isn't the first time Tim and I have attended a doubles tournament, our first outing was at Warhammer World and resulted in us placing second! That's a feat I'm looking to repeat or beat (bring on 1st!!) but we've got a rather odd pairing of forces for this event...


As the armies we're using are based on the Mustering for Vigilus Tale that means I'll be taking the Custodes to battle and, as it's a 1500 point doubles, it means I'll need to fit my army into 750 points. Which is a large issue when your 'basic' unit costs 52 points for one model! After many many attempts at list building I've settled on something I think should work well on the tabletop whilst using some of the minis I've painted over the course of the last 6 months:

HQ 

Shield-Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike - 164pts

Hurricane Bolter, Misericordia

Warlord: Radiant Mantle

Relic: Auric Aquilis

Troops

Custodian Guard Squad - 161pts

. Custodian: Guardian Spear

. Custodian: Guardian Spear

. Custodian: Sentinel Blade, Storm Shield

Elites 

Contemptor-Achillus Dreadnought - 140pts

Achilus Dreadspear, 2x Lastrum Storm Bolter

Fast Attack 

Vertus Praetors - 282pts

. Vertus Praetor: Hurricane Bolter, Misericordia

. Vertus Praetor: Hurricane Bolter, Misericordia

. Vertus Praetor: Hurricane Bolter, Misericordia

Total: 747pts

There we have it, a whopping 8 models in 750 points. Given the points limitation a battalion was out of the question so I've decided instead to opt for a patrol detachment and rely on a more balanced force that can threaten all areas of an opponents army. The main part of the army is of course the Shield Captain and 3 Vertus Praetors. They've always been a threat in every game I've played, and I imagine at 750 points a player, there'll be little in any army that can actually deal with them effectively. Shield Captain Diocletian has been painted over the last two weeks, just in time to add to the list for the event. I think he's the best of the set of jetbike Custodians I've painted so I'm happy about that. Now just to see how he performs on the table...

The Achillus Dreadnought is there to help provide a bit more heavy hitting anti-vehicle threat to the list as its' Dreadspear packs a mean punch at both range and in melee. On his own he'd be a glorious golden distraction Carnifex but in combination with parts of Tim's army we can actually apply quite a bit of pressure anywhere on the board. 

Speaking of which I'll let him run through what he'll be bringing to pair with the Custodes.

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My Primaris forces will be accompanying James' Custodes to glorious battle in the doubles tournament. In fact, after hearing unfounded reports of my heretical leanings around the time of the Chaos Space Marines big release in March/April, James was very insistent that the Emperor's personal guardians accompany my Primaris forces into battle. And so, frogmarched under the vigilant eye of shield captain Diocletian, I marshalled my army.

In terms of units, once you have filled out a battalion detachment with Deathwatch there isn't that much serious room for manoeuvre, but I nonetheless opted for what I think is a fairly flexible and reasonably competitive list:

BATTALION DETACHMENT: DEATHWATCH

HQ

Watch Captain - 82
storm bolter, power sword
Warlord: Master of Hidden Lore (CP regeneration)
Relic: Tome of Ectoclades

Watch Captain in Terminator Armour - 108

Relic blade, storm bolter

ELITES

Redemptor dreadnought - 155

Heavy onslaught gatling cannon, gatling cannon, 2 storm bolters

TROOPS

Kill Team Primus - 225

7 intercessors, with bolt rifles and 3 hellblasters with plasma incinerators. Includes Intercessor sergeant with bolt rifle, chainsword and auxiliary grenade launcher.

Kill Team Secundus - 90 

5 intercessors, with bolt rifles. Includes Intercessor sergeant with bolt rifle, chainsword and auxiliary grenade launcher.

Kill Team Tertius - 90

5 intercessors, with bolt rifles. Includes Intercessor sergeant with bolt rifle, chainsword and auxiliary grenade launcher.

= 750pts

The dreadnought is quite fun to use as he can come down in a teleport strike for 1CP and provide a bit of helpful pressure for the special issue ammo toting infantry core - especially in combination with James' golden dreadnought to double team an enemy uni. Unfortunately to have a useful 2nd HQ for the battalion I had to bend the all-Primaris rule slightly, but I like the idea of the terminator captain as a grizzled, supervising veteran of the old guard of marines observing the battlefield effectiveness of the new chapter. And a footbased primaris captain with stalker bolt rifle wouldn't be half as fun to play as a deep striking terminator commander who can take the banebolts of Eryxia for some fun hunting enemy support characters and light units.

So in the best, loyal Imperial manner, I present to you my Primaris marines 750pts army in all their photogenic glory:

+++ ... PROCESSING +++

+++ ALERT: TAINTED IMAGE SPOOL +++

+++ ALERT +++

+++ ALERT +++

+++ IMAGE REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE MOST HOLY INQUISITION OF THE GOD-EMPEROR OF MANKIND +++

+++ MESSAGE RECEIVED: SEEKER OF INFORMATION, STATE IDENTITY +++

+++ MESSAGE RECEIVED: STATE IDENTITY IMMEDIATELY ON PAIN OF IMMEDIATE INTERDICTION +++

+++ DEPLOYING INTERDICTION +++

+++ SUBJECT TERMINATED +++

+++ THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: IGNORANCE IS BOTH GIFT AND DUTY +++

... unfortunately, due to my phone giving up the ghost this week, I can't yet give an image of my army for this post! I can only assume that for the purity of readers of this blog, the sacred machine spirits have been ordered not to permit the divulging of this information. Nonetheless, once they have proved themselves worthy in battle over the weekend, I'm looking forward to showing my Primaris off for a final report on the doubles.

Back to James -

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So that's our combined force heading into the doubles this weekend, one of the most elite army combos imaginable (#Elite Imperium). Initially I was a bit worried that we'd struggle to really achieve anything given the lower number of CP we have due to my detachment limits, as well as overall board presence caused by low model count. However during the test game we played I found the lists worked pretty well together, with Tim's firebase providing a strong ranged punch whilst my Custodes moved up the board to eliminate units in melee. One dreadnought on it's own would be easy to deal with, but both combined with the ability to deepstrike them onto the table allows them to provide a surprising amount of pressure onto backfield units.

We'll be playing one Eternal War mission, one Maelstrom of War mission and finally one Open War mission meaning our list will be tested in 3 quite different scenarios. Overall I'm just excited to get to the tournament and play some games with our list. The last doubles event myself and Tim did was great fun and I imagine this one will be no different.

Once the tournaments done we'll be back with a summary of the event and how the list performed.