Goatboy’s 40k Thoughts: Meet Imperium Soup Armies
Goatboy here again to tell you all about Imperial “soup” armies that take a little of this and a little of that to win.
The army that won WarGames con is something I am familiar with as its style beat the crap out of me at the ATC this year. It is an Imperium Soup army that utilizes the power of Characters and forcing bad shooting interactions due to the Character rule. It utilizes the Culexus Assassins as border agents to help mitigate damage to their “better” characters as well as to ensure some psychic protection. It has some very specific weaknesses as it is a highly elite army. Fast hordes that can do a lot of attacks mixed with rerolls is a nightmare for these lists – so while interesting I do not see it crushing the table top anytime soon. It does present a very annoying issue to static gun lines as they only have access to shooting a Culexus that has built in protection and a decent amount of wounds.
The Army utilizes the Vanguard Detachment to activate a ton of “Elite” choices in the Assassin unit. It uses all of them to create a suite of problem solvers for a lot of the common “alpha strike” style armies we see. Sure it has a ton of drops but it can really set up to no care too much going 1st and still be a pain in the butt for an army to deal with. Most of the time I see 3-5 Culexus Assassins, 3-5 Eversor Assassins, 1 Callidus, and 2 Vindicare as the Assassin make up. You get enough board space with the Culexus to always guarantee that is the closet Character to shoot, a few Eversor’s to cause pandemonium in your opponents army, and a set of Vindicare that can hopefully combine to take out a character or two.
From there you choose your favorite Imperium characters to either have set up within a Supreme Command detachment or as the token HQ for the Vanguard Detachment. Normally there is the Saint plus another beat stick like hero. The Saint is able to double move herself so it is very hard to “escape” her pain traint. Colin picked Draigo and Roboute as his other “beatsticks” but I feel that missing out on Roboute’s abilities make his choice not the best. The other HQ that sees a lot of use is the Primarius Psyker from the AM book. It is a cheap Smite outlet and probably worth to take as the Culexus shut off opponent Psychics but not your own. Inquisitors might also be a decent choice here as well as Greyfax can be annoying. Basically you need any Character that is under 10 wounds and decent enough to smash an opponent or two. Heck I bet Mephiston would be a great addition and the ATC opponent played Bjorn. The Dark Angel Sammie with his Bike was also in the list and his speed and movement actually might be good as well.
Of course this army feels so anti fluffy as it is just taking the best “characters” and shoving them in the glue that is the Vanguard/Assassin Detachment. If you have a ton of cool converted characters and want a small army this is choice for you. I expect as more books come out this type of list will move to the wayside as losing your “armies” extra abilities and stratagems will be too much to lose. It also hinges on not fighting a ton of Sniper Rifles as well and with Ratlings showing up in a lot of AM lists you can expect your “glue” characters to get a ton of bullets in the eye. The Jump Ork armies that are out there will just swarm these guys, any massed Flamer armies that can auto hit the Assassins as well as any fast, hard hitting, horde style lists should be a major issue.
So enough on how it works – lets build a list so you can recognize this if you see a ton of Assassins on the table top and what you might do.
Imperium Soup – Vanguard Detachment
HQ: The Saint Herself but no Friends
HQ: Primaris Psyker
Elite: Culexius Assassin
Elite: Culexius Assassin
Elite: Culexius Assassin
Elite: Culexius Assassin
Elite: Eversor Assassin
Elite: Vindicare Assassin
Imperium Soup – Vanguard Detachment
HQ: Mephiston
HQ: Primaris Psyker
Elite: Eversor Assassin
Elite: Eversor Assassin
Elite: Eversor Assassin
Elite: Vindcare Assassin
Elite: Callidus Assassin
Elite: Culexius Assassin
Supreme Command Detachment
HQ: Primaris Psyker
HQ: Primaris Psyker
HQ: Draigo
HQ: Sammie on his Super Bike
HQ: Inquisitor Greyfax
Elite: Eversor Assassin
Sits around 2000 pts and is just full of dumb stuff. It does run low on Command points at 6 but you are just using rerolls most of the time to ensure your Eversor do Mortal wounds to things.
God does this army look like a pile of no fun. It is just full of characters that don’t really belong together but work alright together as most have fast movement, good abilities, or a cheap option to smite someone in the face. I think with Objective secured showing up a lot more now and a return of bodies on the table top these types of lists will be seen less and less. If you know someone who bought a ton of the Assassin game for cheap then be on the look out for way too many Assassins coming to take all your candy away.
~What’s your take on Imperial Soup, and what do you think the solution is to keep the Imperium on an even playing field with the other armies?
