Tale of Gamers Month 4 - Heavy Support!

Month 4 Unit Selection

A New Month

A new month is always exciting in Tale of Gamers. Whilst we are adding 250pts a month (well, slightly off for the first few months due to game formats) there is also a campaign ladder where you score points based on what you do. Paint at least one model to completion and you get one point. Turn up and play, get another point. Win your game (making it important to paint more than just one model) and you have another point up for grabs. You can then bank the points for the campaign or spend them on allies, super-heavies, etc.

To encourage some diversity and make things more unpredictable, each month also has a challenge. Month 1 didn't have one as we were starting out but Month 2 was include a Fast Attack choice and Month 3 was paint 6 objective markers. Complete the challenge and you get a point. This can also mess with your army lists and change your plans.

And so Month 4's challenge rolls round. Include a Heavy Support choice. This sounds ideal for "long range anti-tank fire" but it means the Dreadnought and Razorback with twin Lascannons is on hold. The Deathwatch's only Heavy Support choice is the Land Raider which eats all 250pts of the monthly allocation. I could use the Godhammer pattern with a pair of Lascannons but money is also an issue as my tabletop gaming budget for April was eaten by the car. Plus the Godhammer Land Raider doesn't know what it wants to do, stay back and shoot or get up close with passengers?

So I'm delving into the incomplete project shelf for ideas.

For the Guard!

First choice is using Allies. I can just about fit a squad of Veterans, a Lord Commissar and a Basilisk in 250pts. The downside is no upgrades whatsoever. The Guardsman I already have in an unpainted state and a Basilisk that I primed green for an earlier game. The Lord Commissar is from my Scions force and is also unpainted. It'd certainly give some (extreme) long-range firepower to the Deathwatch along with a squad to sit on objectives. It can later be upgraded to a full CAD with the addition of another squad of Veterans.

But that unit tax makes me wonder if it's a good idea. For one it'll cost 5 campaign points to take an allied force from the Guard. I also don't know what I'd do with the Veterans beyond sitting them in a building with no upgrades and firing nine Lasguns at a nearby unit. Alternatively, I could go the route of taking a Wyvern battery. These fit the theme of close support better than driving a Basilisk around like a battle tank, but lack any anti-armour punch. But it does do devastating damage to units of infantry that think they can hide and allows me to take upgrades for the rest of the allied units.

Land Raider Redeemer

The other option is to use a Land Raider Redeemer. This offers no long range capability but acts as a psychological terror weapon. With two giant flamethrowers on the sides, a twin-linked Assault Cannon on the front and a Multi-Melta on top, wherever this vehicle is on the tabletop is where the enemy doesn't want to be. It's close-range firepower is rather obscene and, unlike the Godhammer pattern, isn't in two minds about staying still and shooting or driving right up to the enemies doorstep and incinerating them.

It's biggest drawback is it's cost. For a giant AV14 vehicle all it takes is one lucky Lascannon shot, or for the squad you are driving towards to be packed with Meltaguns, and a quarter of of the army's points are gone. And against faster armies like the Dark Eldar, they will simply fly away whilst taunting that AV14 bulwark with armour piercing lance weapons.

Writing this blog-post, what seems to be a simple choice for Month 4 is actually turning out harder to choose than originally anticipated! It will have to depend on time and money I guess.