Goatboy’s 40K – Double FoC Madness!
Goatboy here again and as usual I want to delve into some 6th ideas. Right now the biggest thing I read is the constant desire to create the “ultimate” tournament nonsense event. This is all fine and dandy as I am one of those players that enjoy flying out to these events but I still have issues with people defining what rules need to stay in.
I believe you have the right to play the game whatever you want to play. You can play with any house rules you want. You can play without any limitations, heck you can just play with pretzels and each model that dies is eaten. You can do whatever you want. It is my choice to seek out a game with you just like it is your choice to enter the octagon and meet James Westfall and Dr Kenneth Noisewater. So with that in mind I want to discuss the whole stink about Dual Force Orgs.
Now I believe it will take 6+ months to really figure out a decent tournament system. Of course only a few people will play it as everyone thinks their is the correct option. Again read the paragraph above and move on. So with that in mind let’s look at Dual Force Orgs and see if we can break it in a way that would be considered bad for the game.
Here are a few rules that help you “break” this. First of all we have to have some kind of cheap and effective option in one of the force org charts. This is important as it will be the way we can hurt this and push Spam. Yes Spam seems to be what people complain about so going into those options will be the way to “break” it. Not every army has cheap and effective options so we I won’t be theory/math/etc hammering those armies. We’ll see if the new codices that will be coming out push this or will showcase that this isn’t a bad option for the new landscape of 40k.
First Army – Grey Knights.
Grey Knights have an extremely cheap troop option that fulfills the basics for creating an army. It is a rather weak troop unit that can create a mean batch of shooting. So let’s look at pushing this all the way to the side of annoyance and see if we can create a truly gross list.
HQ: Coteaz – the activator that creates the annoying glue the builds this army. At 100 points he is extremely cheap, effective, and has a name we don’t pronounce correctly.
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, Psybolt – 62pts
or
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, Psybolt, Assault Cannon – 97pts
or
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, TWL Plasmagun/Lascannon – 92pts
Add in some spice with some Dreadnoughts that are 15 points too cheap.
Heavy: Dreadnought, TWL Autocannon X 2, Psybolt – 135pts
So let’s start brewing with this. I know we have all seen this and thought of it, but we can see if it is truly bad.
Army 1
HQ: Coteaz
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, Psybolt
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, Psybolt
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, Psybolt
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, Psybolt, Assault Cannon
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, Psybolt, Assault Cannon
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, Psybolt, Assault Cannon
Heavy: Dreadnought, TWL Autocannon X 2, Psybolt
Heavy: Dreadnought, TWL Autocannon X 2, Psybolt
Heavy: Dreadnought, TWL Autocannon X 2, Psybolt
Total = 982pts
2nd Force Org
HQ: Malleus Inquisitor
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, Psybolt
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, Psybolt
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, Psybolt
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, TWL Plasmagun/Lascannon
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, TWL Plasmagun/Lascannon
Troop: Henchmen – Warrior Acolytes X 3, Razorback, TWL Plasmagun/Lascannon
Heavy: Dreadnought, TWL Autocannon X 2, Psybolt
Heavy: Dreadnought, TWL Autocannon X 2, Psybolt
Heavy: Dreadnought, TWL Autocannon X 2, Psybolt
Formation: Aegis Defense Line
Total: 942pts
Total = 1924 – that is a lot of room to wiggle with some extra nonsense if you want. it has no assault and if the beam weapons end up working this one way we could see a really interesting game as you blast through everything in one line. You will have a really annoying shooting phase as you pound through a bunch of tanks.
Is it fun? Hell no. This is a terrible list that will just have you rolling dice and thinking you are the best in all the basements of the world. This is bad for games as it just doesn’t look fun at all. Of course an easy fix would be to just say the 2nd force org is separated and any special rules that affect the first force org do not affect the 2nd force org. But hey – I don’t write the rules.
Second Army – Space Wolves
You already could take 4 HQ’s and you have access to one of the more decent HQ options in the game – the Rune Priest. You also have one of the more effective Heavy choices with Long Fangs.
First Force Org
HQ: Rune Priest, Meltabombs
Troops: Grey Hunters X 10, Meltagun X 2, Wolf Standard, Rhino
Troops: Grey Hunters X 10, Meltagun X 2, Wolf Standard, Rhino
Troops: Grey Hunters X 10, Meltagun X 2, Wolf Standard, Rhino
Heavy: Long Fangs X 5, Missile Launcher x 4
Heavy: Long Fangs X 5, Missile Launcher x 4
Heavy: Long Fangs X 5, Missile Launcher x 4
Pts: 1050
Second Force Org
HQ: Rune Priest
Troops: Grey Hunters X 5, Plasmagun, Razorback, TWL Plasmagun/Lascannon
Troops: Grey Hunters X 5, Plasmagun, Razorback, TWL Plasmagun/Lascannon
Troops: Grey Hunters X 5, Plasmagun, Razorback, TWL Plasmagun/Lascannon
Heavy: Long Fangs X 5, Missile Launcher x 4
Heavy: Long Fangs X 5, Missile Launcher x 4
Heavy: Long Fangs X 5, Missile Launcher x 4
Pts: 925
There are a lot of missiles coming at you and again I have written up another rather boring list. You choke the field in guys, create an army that takes awhile to break through and continue the shooting until things are dead and you can move on.
Lucky for us, events have been evolving and the terrain has created some things that make lists like this not work nearly as well as their shooting gets consistently neutered as they don’t have lanes of fire to abuse.
Those are just two armies that have ways to abuse getting more toys. Of course the Dual force org allows for some armies to have better options as well. Nids get more access to Elites and that can be a big help as well (if they only had some lower point costs to go with that).
I think the double force orgs are fine when you look at creating balanced lists. In fact, most balanced lists wouldn’t even dip into the dual force org pool. You might try to get an extra elite or just an extra Heavy but all the other options of maxing out a choice wouldn’t work. The biggest limiting factor is in finding places to play with armies like this. I wouldn’t want to play this game as the desire to have an enjoyable game is extremely more important then just beating you up and calling your army list crap.
