Valiant Last Stand, change in army playstyle

After playing with Basilisks over the last few games, I find that I don't really like them. Yeah, they did well against a bunch of Tyranids, but I find that my Leman Russ tanks do far more damage. I've to say, I'm not very impressed with the Basilisks. Sure, they have high strength weapons with awesome AP, but the D6 shots really hurt them. Unlike Leman Russ tanks, who can shoot twice if they didn't move, they only put out 3-4 shots on average (and my rolling has been pretty bad, so I usually get 2-3 shots even with the discarding the lower dice), and they miss most of their shots (you think I would get at least 50% hits, but no, I'm lucky if I get 1 or 2 hits even if I roll hot on my D6). Furthermore, their low (relatively) Toughness and number of wounds make them hard to play, especially when compared to my Leman Russ tanks. Ugh.

So...I guess I'll sell my Basilisks away and get more tanks. Well, I don't need more Leman Russ tanks. In fact, I'm selling one of my Leman Russ Annihilator tanks because I find that I don't really use them anymore, and I prefer the Executioner tanks (especially after Chapter Approved, when they receive a massive points cut with all their executioner plasma cannons and sponson plasma cannons). So my future games will mostly revolve around my Leman Russ Executioner tanks as the core of my army, supplemented by plasma gun-wielding infantry and other tanks.

Enter the Carnodon tank. Well, I mean...why sell the Leman Russ Annihilator if I'm going to get a Carnodon tank anyway? For one thing...Volkite. For another, it's a lot cheaper and fits into my armor theme more. Rather than the random D6 shots, I'm probably going for 8 Volkite shots (and probably some multilaser shots on top of that). Plus I can get 4 lascannon shots for 7/10 the price, compared to 5 lascannon shots (granted, I get 2D3 plasma cannon shots, more wounds and higher Toughness). Even so, 62 points (or 57 if I throw in a multilaser) is no joke, especially for an army like Imperial Guard. That's more than enough points for a command squad or infantry squad with special weapons! Furthermore, because I tend to play my Imperial Guard army with Imperial Knights, those 62 points make a lot of difference as well - the difference between a Knight Gallant and a Knight Paladin, or the price of 3 Icarus twin autocannons, or a Stormspear rocket pod and an Ironstorm missile pod. So yeah, I think I might want to try the Carnodon tank...and if I really want to save on points further, I would just settle for the volkite. I have a feeling that the hi-tech volkite weapons would supplement my Leman Russ Executioner tanks' plasma weapons more than the Basilisks' projectile weapons. Especially since my Draconian Armor Defenders are supposed to be closely affiliated with the forge world Draconis IV, so they tend to have a lot of more advanced and ancient tech than other Imperial Guard regiments. Hence the higher concentration of plasma weapons and even Volkite! Ever since the Martian Priesthood has reinstated the Standard Template Construct for the Carnodon tank, Draconis IV have embraced full-scale production of the medium tank, which makes an ideal escort for the slower and heavier Leman Russ Executioner tanks. Yes, I'm a little sad that I can't mount plasma cannons on the Carnodon, but I actually love the Volkite weapons. A great throwback to the days of the Solar Auxilia!



Another thing I'm getting is my Knight Valiant. Yay. I've built him just last week and I can't wait to try him out in a match. Let's hope he makes a valiant last stand before he gets blown up! Yeah, I'm wondering why I'm not getting the Knight Castellan. Probably because I'm sick of seeing him dominate the tournament scene, and I wanted to try something different. Yeah, the plasma decimator probably complements my Draconian Armor's plasma theme more, but...come on. Let's not cheese, shall we?

Last on my list of to-do is to rebuild my Skitarii. I have no idea what's going to happen, but I'm experimenting with getting a couple of cheap boxes to rebuild my Skitarii as defenders of the forge world Draconis IV. Again, they are not meant to be a standalone force, but to supplement my Knights or my Imperial Guard. I might sell my Deathwatch if anyone is willing to buy it at a reasonable price, otherwise I'm fine with hanging on to my Deathwatch and playing more games with it (especially if I meet opponents who absolutely detest playing against Knights).

Oh, and let's not forget the Thousand Sons. I'll probably swap the poor Osiron Dreadnought out for 2 normal Helbrutes (I don't like the Chaos Helbrutes so I'll just use the Loyalist Dreadnoughts and paint them in my Thousand Sons, Sons of Shadow colors). And swap the Leviathan siege claw and grav-flux bombard/soulburner ribaudkin out for 2 butcher cannon arrays. We'll see. One of the things my Thousand Sons army lack the most (which was made obvious when I played against a Space Marine army of 10 Dreadnoughts) was mid-range anti-tank. Okay, long-range anti-tank, actually. But you know what I mean. The Leviathan Dreadnought died too quickly, and I think he would be better off just sitting in the back and unleashing 16 Strength 8 AP -1 shots instead of wading through the front and eating everything my opponent has. I hope I'll be able to figure something out!