Optimizing without optimizing, Part 2

This army can get things done, but is pointswise terribly inefficient.

In my first part on optimizing without optimizing I was discussing four different approaches on what type of army to bring to a casual game. In this second and concluding part I would like to discuss the topic based on a few exemplary army lists.

When deciding what army to bring to a casual game, probably the only save answer is to look at fully optimized tournament lists as an example on what not to bring. Let's consider the following list posted by Ender on BoLS:

1850 pts – BAAL STRIKE FORCE – PRIMARY
90 Sanguinary Priest (60), The Angel’s Wing (25), M-Bombs (5)
55 Scouts x5 (55), CCW
55 Scouts x5 (55), CCW
207 Death Company x9 (180), Jump Packs (27)
207 Death Company x9 (180), Jump Packs (27)
135 Death Company Dreadnought (125), Talons (10), Grapple
135 Death Company Dreadnought (125), Talons (10). Grapple
220 Commander Dante [WARLORD]

ANGEL’S FURY SPEARHEAD FORCE
140 Tacticals x10, Locator Beacon (Free)
140 Tacticals x10, Locator Beacon (Free)
140 Tacticals x10, Locator Beacon (Free)
200 Stormraven (TL Las, MM)
200 Stormraven (TL Las, MM)
200 Stormraven (TL Las, MM)

The basic idea of this list of throwing everything into the fray on turn 1 and 2 latest to tie down the enemy as quickly as possible. It is a very fast and hard hitting list, optimized for total point efficiency at 1850pts. As one of its symptoms, this list has many copy and paste units because once you have determined the most efficient units, you want to use as many of them as possible. Definitely a good list, but probably not the one you want to bring to a casual game as it could be both too strong and too boring for your fellow player.

Custom kitbash Librarian WIP

On the other hand, this is what I brought to my casual games lately with all models painted as the primary reason for their inclusion:

Blood Angels (Combined Arms detachment, Primary detachment)

---------- HQ (1) ----------
Mephiston (175 points)

---------- Troops (3) ----------
10x Tactical Squad (190 points)- Flamer, Multi-melta- Sergeant (Veteran Sergeant, Bolt Pistol, Melee Weapon (Power Fist))

10x Tactical Squad (190 points)- Flamer, Multi-melta- Sergeant (Veteran Sergeant, Bolt Pistol, Melee Weapon (Power Fist))

5x Scout Squad (94 points)- 3x Sniper Rifle, Missile Launcher, Camo Cloaks- Scout Sergeant (Veteran Sergeant, Sniper Rifle, Bolt Pistol)

---------- Elite (3) ----------
11x Death Company Squad (313 points)- 11x Bolt Pistol, 8x Chain Sword, Thunder Hammer, Jump Pack- 2x Power Weapon ()

Lemartes (130 points)

Furioso Dreadnought (125 points)- Pair of Power Fists, Storm Bolter & Meltagun, Smoke Launchers

---------- Heavy Support (2) ----------
Baal Predator (140 points)- Twin-linked Assault Cannon, Heavy Flamer sponsons, Storm Bolter

Baal Predator (140 points)- Twin-linked Assault Cannon, Heavy Flamer sponsons, Storm Bolter
______________________________________________
1497 points

This army list has a couple issues that immediately pop out when playing against a better player:

• Mephiston spends most of the game doing nothing because he has no dedicated transport. If you are lucky, you may pull Wings of Sanguinius, though.
• The Powerfist on the Sergeant is useless whenever an enemy character with a Powerweapon challenges you for a duel. The Veteran Sergeant upgrade is also mostly useless as you can't really hide sergeants in your infantry blobs anymore, so they have become just an additional wound you want to keep cheap.
• The Multi-melta is probably only going to fire Snapshots all game.
• The Death Company blob is too big and costly against an opponent with serious fire capacity, plasma weapons surely being the deadliest rain of death here. Basically it means to invest 450pts to be shot into pieces.
• 40K 7th Edition has become a game with many fast moving units combined with easier To Hit rolls against vehicles, so rear armor 10 on the Baal Predators makes them very vulnerable targets in close combat.

So what to do with these issues? Simply ignore them and continue to play casual? Or optimize one's army for 7th Edition to a certain degree, but what degree exactly?

Old School Techmarine WIP

As I was playing along with myarmy I eventually came up with this list idea:

Blood Angels (Combined Arms detachment, Primary detachment)

---------- HQ (2) ----------
Librarian (125 points)- Psyker Mastery Level 2, Power Armour, Bolt Pistol, Digital Weapons, Jump Pack, The Crown Angelic- Force Weapon (Force Sword)

Techmarine (95 points)- Warlord, Servo-harness, Boltgun, Bolt Pistol- 2x Servitors ()

---------- Troops (5) ----------
10x Tactical Squad (210 points)- Meltagun, Multi-melta- Sergeant (Boltgun, Bolt Pistol, Melta Bombs)- Rhino ()

10x Tactical Squad (210 points)- Meltagun, Multi-melta- Sergeant (Boltgun, Bolt Pistol, Melta Bombs)- Rhino ()

5x Scout Squad (89 points)- 3x Sniper Rifle, Missile Launcher, Camo Cloaks- Scout Sergeant (Sniper Rifle, Bolt Pistol, Melta Bombs)

5x Scout Squad (89 points)- 3x Sniper Rifle, Missile Launcher, Camo Cloaks- Scout Sergeant (Sniper Rifle, Bolt Pistol, Melta Bombs)

5x Scout Squad (90 points)- 4x Close combat weapon- Scout Sergeant (Veteran Sergeant, Boltgun, Melee Weapon (Power Fist))

---------- Elite (3) ----------
5x Death Company Squad (130 points)- Bolt Pistol, 4x Boltgun, 4x Chain Sword, Jump Pack- Power Weapon ()

5x Death Company Squad (130 points)- Bolt Pistol, 4x Boltgun, 4x Chain Sword, Jump Pack- Power Weapon ()

5x Death Company Squad (130 points)- Bolt Pistol, 4x Boltgun, 4x Chain Sword, Jump Pack- Power Weapon ()

---------- Heavy Support (1) ----------
Stormraven Gunship (200 points)- Twin-linked Assault Cannon, Twin-linked Multi-Melta
______________________________________________
1498 points

Now this list has a couple optimizations for 7th while it avoids to optimize everything like in the first tournament list above.

You can't have too many...

...Scouts in 7th Edition.

The Librarian was picked because point for point he is a very point efficient character. In the 7th Edition's Maelstrom Missions I can also get points for certain psychic goals, so it's nice to get them, too. Finally, with a lucky pull he may also beef up one Death Company squad considerably and thus mitigate the lack of Astorath (who is basically a must have by giving rerolls to hit and to wound to the Death Company and in the current codex you always want Death Company).

The Techmarine was picked because for the last three codices he was voted the worst and most pointless character model. However, when I read Black Library novels, I always feel great respect for the Brothers Techmarines. He is going to ride in the Stormraven with his two Servitors repairing the Stormraven on a 2+ roll. I hope this will be enough to boost the survivability of the Stormraven, although I may be unlucky and see the Stormraven crash on turn two including the Techmarine and his Servitors. However, in my game against nu55kill I learned that one Stormraven may be your only hope against getting tabled. Also by making my Techmarine the warlord, I may pull off some warlord denial and prevent my other player from getting precious victory points. Last but not least the Techmarine may reinforce a ruin where one of my scout squads is hiding.

The Tactical Squads have three different requirements: to be fast (Rhino), secure objectives (Combined Arms), and tank killers (Melta weapons).  For further optimization I would either have to pick a Heavy Flamer (more effective against incoming troops) or a Plasma Cannon/Las Cannon (additional long range fire support after combat squadding), but I'll leave it there. For some reason I find combat squadding odd - if Tactical Squads are supposed to be the well trained allround units, it makes sense if they fight as a unit of 10, no?

The Scouts are pretty standard except for the Sergeant wearing the Powerfist, which once again is probably a total waste of points in 7th Edition. However, I once read a battle report in White Dwarf where a Sergeant with Powerfist saved the day against a Greater Daemon. He is probably going to be shot into pieces most of the time, but maybe he'll have his short moments of glory when he kills a Leman Russ tank or something.

With Death Company I mostly had the idea of getting away from the one big expensive blob that may kill anything, but easily can get shot into pieces as well. Virtually everyone plays the Death Company as a dedicated close combat unit, but a couple voices on Bolter & Chainsword say that running them with Bolters is very effective, too. They are relentless and ideally fire their Bolters twice before charging in with still 3 attacks each. If the Librarian has the spell to give them rerolls, they are still a considerable CC threat.

So in conclusion, this is my idea of optimizing an army list in order to prevent it from being too dumb without optimizing it too much and have my fellow player roll his eyes on every turn. This list incorporates rarely seen ("bad") units that still have a purpose with strong units selected for specific tactic goals in mind. That way I hope to give my fellow player a fun yet challenging game at the right level. Now play testing has to show if my assumption is right. ;-)