I’d like to take a moment to preface this article by saying that The Prince originally dared me to play Iron Warriors Drop Pod Assault last edition, when it was bad. The same Prince also was one of the voices complaining about me playing Drop Pod Assault in this edition, when it is good. Unsurprisingly, I did not know this in advance, so I guess I lucked out!

14th Grand Battalion Drop Company

What I Took

• Perturabo with the Hammer
• 7 Dominators, all hammers, one multi-melta, six combi-volkites
• Legion Herald with a power sword and volkite charger
• 9-man Vets squad, eight combi-meltas
• 2x 10-man tactical squad with a power fist on the sergeant
• 2x 9-man plasma support squad with augury scanners and an attached apothecary
• 5 Tyrants with chainfists
• Two deathstorm drop pods
• 5 regular pods
• A dreadclaw for the tyrants
• A kharybdis for Perty and the boys

Now, a small but important point here. I was informed by my round one opponent that the deathstorm drop pods technically can’t go in the list. This is because drop pod assault says that anything which isn’t coming down in the initial assault has to go in to Reserves and cannot take part in “any alternative deployments (such as deep strike assault or flanking assault)”. I misread this as “You cannot deep strike or outflank”, and because I used to use the deathstorms in my 1.0 list when they just had the Drop Pod Assault special rule, I didn’t think anything of it. However, I did dutifully go and confess my sins to the TO, praise be to the Glorious Ed, who said it was ok as he didn’t wouldn’t have realised my mistake either.

The Games

Overall a good variety of opponents. Apologies for the lack of photographs, storage is limited on the phone!

Round 1

Round One, of the first event of Heresy 2.0, was against Imperial Fists. Of course it was. My opponent’s list was along the lines of:

• A librarian, a castellan, and a master of signals (walk in to a bar)
• Two 9-man lascannon squads
• Two 6-man recon squads with snipers
• Three tactical squads in rhinos
• Two xiphons
• Three heavy bolter rapiers
• Two boxnaughts with double lascannons
• 5-man tartaros command squad with shields
• Dorn

No rite of war.

The mission was a take-and-hold style game with three objectives in No Man’s Land. In the missions at this event, you scored at the end of your turn, starting from the first. My opponent won the roll-off to go first, and grabbed 3pts at the end of his 1st turn. The game was relatively close, Perty and the Boys turned Dorn and the command squad in to jam, then killed a boxnaught. Tyrants shot down one Xiphon but got lasered by the other, plasma guns killed most of his infantry but not quite enough. Deathstorm pods got intercepted by lascannon units and neither got to fire. All in all, was a closer game than I make it sound, but I lost 11-7. Did get my first primarch kill of the day, however. (1-0)

Round 2

Round two was against The Casual. We’ve played this match-up before, and this game went much the same way as those other games have gone before. The mission was one objective dead in the centre, so all I had to do was a massed central drop to contest it and fight the DA away from my dudes. Perty died to Sedras, but he also killed 5 terminators in the melee, and Sedras, so it was worth it. If you want to know more detail, go read his article. (1-1)

Round 3

Round 3 was against a friend of mine, Neil. His Ultramarines regularly appear in event cabinets and he’s always a gent to play against. His list was roughly:

• Guilliman
• 10 Suzerain with 3 hammers
• Chaplain
• Apothecary
• 3 tactical squads
• Spartan
• 2 Javelins with lascannons
• Contemptor
• Leviathan
• 5 man seeker squad
• Combi-melta vets in a termite

No rite of war

This mission however was not in his favour. 6 objectives, in no man’s land, that when you scored you removed them from the board. I got the first turn, dropped in, secured 3/6, and got first blood killing his contemptor, which according to the event pack was worth 2pts if you kill an HQ or Elites. At this point, Neil could only play for a draw if he got all three remaining objectives and killed Perturabo, without losing Guilliman. At the end of my second turn I bagged a fourth objective and the win was sealed, though we spent the remaining turns slogging it out just to roll dice and kill each other. (2-1)

Round 4

This was a strange round to say the least. My opponent was plying dark angels, with a list along the lines of:

• Praetor with a sword and shield
• Hekatonistica paladin consul
• 2x 10 man tactical squads
• 6-man plasma support squad
• A single laser destroyer rapier
• A single quad mortar
• 2 contemptors, one kheres and fist, the other melta and fist
• 2 leviathans, one with storm cannon and snips, the other storm cannon and grav-flux
• A spartan
• A fire raptor
• A fellblade

The mission was a single objective in either deployment zone, worth 1pt each or 4pts if you have both, and my opponent was going first. I had to remind him that the Fire Raptor can’t start on the board, even if it hovers (because that’s a 40k thing), and that even if your transport has enough internal capacity, only one unit can embark at a time (unless you have a transport bay). His first turn sees him secure his objective for a point, then it’s my time to drop in.

I drop one tactical squad on my objective, the other on his, with Perty in the middle ready to fight a contemptor for first blood. The melta vets land next to the fellblade and get seven penetrating hits, four of which are explodes results. For my extra D3s I roll three 1s and a single 2, giving me exactly the right amount of damage to kill it, bagging me 2pts from the Clash at Arms mission’s equivalent of the Price of Failure. My deathstorms get lucky and kill the rapier laser destroyer, for 2pts of First Blood. I move to go to my assault phase to start getting Perty and the Boys stuck in to some dreadnoughts, but instead, my opponent chooses to concede. This threw me off a little, as there was still a game to be had here, though on reflection after the match I would have scored 5 points by the end of my 1st turn, to my opponent’s 1. In theory, if he ousted me from both objectives, he could have had the game on points, but this isn’t Yu-Gi-Oh! so I couldn’t exactly refuse his concession. with 2hrs20 left on the round timer, I saw out the rest of the morning in Bugman’s, or wandering around speaking to my teammates.

Round 5

This round was a much more enjoyable experience, playing against a lovely White Scars player from Norway. His list was roughly:

• Chaplain
• 2x 10 man tactical squads in rhinos
• 20-man tactical squad
• 2x kheres/fist contemptors
• 8-man legion terminator unit with power/chainfists
• 10-man heavy bolter support squad
• spartan
• storm eagle
• 2x 1-model javelin units with lascannons
• The Khan

There was a single objective that was placed in no man’s land, and then scattered 2D6". I had the first turn so I put it on the edge of my deployment, then it scattered 8" back toward my board edge. Dropped a tactical squad on to it, everything else went up front. Popped the spartan like a can of beans, plasma guns dealt with the dreadnoughts, tyrants dealt with one javelin, Perturabo dealt with the khan. On my opponent’s turn 2, the storm eagle shot across the board with the 20 tactical marines and chaplain in it, only to get intercepted. This caused it to crash and burn, killing 19 out of twenty tactical marines, but the sergeant and chaplain parachuted on to the objective and contested it until the end of the game. In the end, it was a 5-0 win to me (first blood, slay the khan, one objective point). (4-1)

Thoughts on What I Brought

If you hadn’t heard, Drop Pod Assault is pretty good. The kharybdis is an assault vehicle, so you can disembark and charge turn 1, which is horrible with a primarch deathstar. Dreadclaws are no longer assault vehicles, presumably as a balancing decision, which is fine. Plasma guns were good for dealing with dreadnoughts, as breaching is pretty strong, and the +1 strength for being an Iron Warrior means you wound contemptors on 3s, and anything that wound a leviathan breaches as well.

If I were to make a couple of changes, I’d consider swapping the tyrants for a contemptor in a drop pod, as a tough fire support unit, likely with a lascannon and a fist. The other amusing choice I’d have liked to make would be ditching the veterans and the herald for an esoterist and a big block of daemons. It gives you another unit that can charge turn 1 by bringing the daemons in through their portal from reserve, however their army list isn’t out yet. Something like twenty bloodletters (or equivalent) would be fun. For me. (I also want to paint some daemons)

Looking toward November

The general consensus on “a very good list to play” is to run Fury of the Ancients, but not to necessarily run the “oops all dreadnoughts” equivalent of the list. Warlord contemptor with double lascannon, tyrant of lyssatra, and helical targeting sounds like fun. Blasting out six lascannon shots seems fun, and you have the 4+ invuln to tank the gets hot at AP2. My other ideas all revolve around the contents of the liber mechanicus book, so that’s a bit more of a wait-and-see job.

My other plan would be to see how much of my Thousand Sons I can get finished in time. 3000pts may be a bit of an ask without some supplemental financial investment, but we’ll see soon!

To Conclude

Overall it was a great weekend! Shame the traitors didn’t win, but was great to get to see fellow event-goers again, and 4-1 is a pretty respectable record. I’m going to start stepping up some of the posting as I work my way through my XVth legion, so watch this space; more to follow soon!