Variant Army: Force Majeure

One of the things I try to do with my armies is come up with variant schemes. This way, if my core army isn't really appropriate to the battle being fought, I have something else ready to go; I won't have to scramble to come up with a new force. This is particularly important, because if you have to come up with a new force, you're likely to forget a rule or not coordinate your squads well. If you have another force organization ready, you'll be more familiar with how it plays (at least on paper).

I've long been a fan of the space marines' dreadnoughts. I love mechs, and have always wanted to field a few of them, stomping across the battlefield. Alas, I've never actually gotten to do this. The Helljumpers give me an opportunity to try my hand at fielding dreadnoughts.

One of the problems with dreadnoughts is their movement. They basically stomp across the field of battle towards their objective. Which means they're slow. But they also pack a lot of high-powered weaponry, which makes them a target. A slow moving target is not what I want. Thankfully, they can be fielded with drop pods, which is a core element of my army. So I get to have my dreadnoughts hammer onto the battlefield pretty close to where I want them.

This variant force replaces the terminators with two dreadnoughts. One comes equipped with two, twin-linked autocannons. This means four autocannon shots, each re-rollable. It's basically a walking artillery piece. The other I intend to field in the "classic" pattern of assault cannon and close combat arm with stormbolter. It's pretty much the loadout you always see with this miniature, and I thought I'd give it a try. It's roll will be to support whatever unit I drop it near.

Without the terminators, I can pretty much drop the teleport homing devices from the two scout squads (since no one's going to be teleporting). The other change is that my captain no longer has a squad of terminator-armored monsters to join, so I have to find a place for him. My current plan is to have him join the vanguard squad, so I've given him a storm bolter and powersword; this makes him more assault-friendly. Oh, and the vanguards no longer have jump packs, but instead deploy via drop pod.

This gives me five drop pods in the force (two for the dreadnoughts, one of the tactical squad, one for the sternguard and one for the vanguard/captain). This makes the force ODST-rific! It also pretty much mandates that I equip at least two of the drop pods with locator beacons. This will prevent units from scattering when they arrive later in the battle.

The rules work like this. You must deploy half of your drop pods (rounding up) in the first turn. That's three drop pods in my force. As soon as the tactical squad arrives, it's locator beacon can be used. Which means I can unerringly plop down a dreadnought in support. Then, I can drop the sternguard (which also comes with a locator beacon). On later turns, I can either reinforce the tactical squad with either another dreadnought or the vanguards, or do the same for the sternguard. That's a lot of death from above.