Marker Drone Platforms

I have a 2 day tournament in 2 weeks time, and I need to think about my list. It’s 1750pts, no forge world, 5 games. Most of the Scottish ETC team will be there, together with a bunch of regular Scottish tournament goers, so, it’ll be reasonably competitive.

The 1,750 list I took to the last tourney was

Ethereal

Commander with Drone Controller, Iridium Armour, Target Lock, 2 Missile Pods, Puretide Chip, 2 Marker Drones

11 Fire Warriors in a Fish

12 Fire Warriors in a Fish

10 Kroot, 1 Hound

10 Kroot, 1 Hound

Riptide with Ion Accelerator, Fusion Blaster, EWO, Velocity Tracker

Riptide with Ion Accelerator, Fusion Blaster, EWO, Velocity Tracker

7 Marker Drones

Longstrike in a Hammer Head with D’pods

Skyray with D’pods

Skyray with D’pods

I don’t want to change the list radically (e.g. swapping in Broadsides, and/or ditching the D’fish), as I still haven’t  played enough games to get a real idea of how it performs.  However, I think I want to “tweak” a few things based on how it performed at the last tourney, and on a few games I’ve played since.

The thing I’ve been playing about with is dropping the Hammer Head, and taking 3 double death rain XV8s. I’ve been playing them with target locks and 2 marker Drones, and attaching the Commander to that unit. What this does is give me a pretty hard hitting unit (16 s7 AP4 shots from the missile pods that can have Monster Hunter or Tank Hunter)) but that can also push out 8 BS5 Marker Light hits at a different target. However, it does so at the expense of another AV13 tank chasis, and a Tank Hunting S10 AP1 Railgun.

However, I think I’m sold. I’m afraid Hammer Heads remain an unrequited love – even with Longstrike I find them unreliable in popping armour. The Tank Hunting Missile pods are just more effective (except for AV14 of course), and more importantly, far more flexible.

One question I’m pondering however is whether it would be more effective to take a Shas’vre in the XV8 unit, and kit him out with a C&CN and M3S, making the unit twin linked and allowing them to ignore cover. The Shas’vre can’t shoot with he uses the C&CN or M3S, so I would take of the missile pods.

On average twin linking makes up for losing the missile pods. The big advantage is the M3S, making the whole squad ignore cover. Now I could rely on the Skyray’s marker lights to boost the squad to BS4 (more or less the equivalent of twin linked BS3) and to grant them Ignores Cover, however with the C&CN and the M3S the whole squad gets the benefit, meaning I can shoot 2 Deathrains at one target, and the Commander at another. Also it almost guarantees 8 marker light hits. Now, some may call this wasteful, but an S8 AP2 large blast from a Riptide, that ignores cover and is also BS9 (so doesn’t scatter much) is nice….!

My concern, having played this set up a couple of times, is 2 fold. First, it has a large foot print and is difficult to manage, and second, it makes my opponent’s target priority easier (i.e. gives them on important target to focus on).  

An alternative, would be to run the Commander with a squad of marker drones, and run the XV8 squad separately.

So the Options are

Option 1

Commander, 2 Pods, Iridium Armour, Drone Controller, Target Lock, Puretide Chip, 2 Marker Drones

XV8 Shas’vre, C&CN, M3S, 2 Marker Drones

XV8  Shash’ui. 2 Pods, Target Lock, 2 Marker Drones

XV8  Shash’ui. 2 Pods, Target Lock, 2 Marker Drones

445pts

The advantage of this Option is that the Signature Systems (the Puretide Chip, the C&CN and the M3S) effect the maximum number of suits, everything is twin linked and everything ignores cover. In addition, having the marker lights twin linked helps in putting marker light hits on flyers.The disadvantage is that it has a large “footprint” on the board, making it difficult to organise. It’s inflexible (i.e. you can’t split the Marker Lights from the Missiles) and it makes your opponents target priority easier.

Option 2

Commander, 2 Pods, Iridium Armour, Drone Controler, Target Lock, Puretide Chip, 2 Marker Drones

XV8 Shas’ui, 2 Pods, Target Lock, 2 Marker Drones

XV8  Shash’ui. 2 Pods, Target Lock, 2 Marker Drones

XV8  Shash’ui. 2 Pods, Target Lock, 2 Marker Drones

435pts

This options is similar to the first, but gives up the C&CN and M3S for 2 more missile pods. It has all the disadvantages of Option 1, but is not twin linked nor does it ignore cover. If you can “guarantee” three marker light hits (one to boost the Shas’uis to BS3, and 2 to ignore cover) then it is almost as good as option 1. Almost as good, because Option one can split fire and still be twin linked and ignore cover on each target.

Option 3

Commander, Iridium Armour, Drone Controller, C&CN, 2 Marker Drones

Attached to 6 Marker Drones

XV8 Shas’vre, 2 Pods, Puretide Chip

XV8  Sash’ui. 2 Pods,

XV8  Sash’ui. 2 Pods,

457pts

Here the Commander is there simply to buff and protect the Drones. The XV8 team is a missile pod platform. In this way you split the 2 functions of the units in Options 1 and 2 (i.e. Marker Light platform and missile platform) into 2 separate units. It addresses the 2 disadvantages of the first 2 options by decreasing the units footprint, increasing flexibility, and making target priority decisions harder. However, it’s more expensive points wise, and the XV8 team has no “tanking” character and no ablative Drones…. on the other hand, it might not be shot as often.

I’m tending towards keeping it simple and going for Option 3 (I can drop a Marker Drone to get the point values closer if I need to).

Thoughts?

EYIG