Tanks! Build more tanks!

So... I took a peek at Imperial Armour Volume 1 (2nd Edition) - Imperial Guard. And I thought two things:

One - There is a gaping hole in my armies. I have:

Blood Angels - Ludicrous violence in gun and blade with little regard for actual objectives.
Necrons - A relentless, nigh-unkillable phalanx with lots of technological wizardry to mess up any opponent.
Chaos - A traditional MEQ list (or at least as close as I'm willing to come to one), with lotsa different support units for all occasions.
Deathwing - A super elite army with tremendous durability and killiness per model, and almost no room for error.

I need something different...

Cue Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights... 

 I need tanks. 1,750 pts of NOTHING. BUT. TANKS. And a pair of Vendettas, just because.

The other thing I thought of was this guy.



I do actually have a whole heap of tank models waiting to be built. The only reason I haven't yet is that I just couldn't be bothered to get off my ass and paint up enough infantry models to put an actual Imperial Guard army on the board. So, I was kind of chuffed to see the Armoured Battle Group army list in the Imperial Armour book. Kind of, mind you...

On the one hand, yay! Tanks, tanks, tanks! I can put 1,750 pts on the board without a single infantry model! Granted, that meant I would actually be putting about a dozen models on the board or less...

On the other hand, god DAMMIT, GW, Y U NO PROFESSIONALISM?? Here are a couple of gems from the book:

pg 250: What is this "Ablative armour" the Commisar tank can get for 20 pts? It isn't explained in the wargear section! Artificer hull, I presume?

pg 255: For the Siege Tank Squadron, the words "Any model may take any of the following:" and the subsequent lists of wargear appear twice. Three times if you include  "Any model in the squadron may take any of the following:" What is the point of that, eh? Has somebody been a little too enthusiastic with the copypasta without actually reading what they've done? Come ON! This isn't a frickin' Youtube comment!

pg 269: For the Hellhound's Inferno cannon, these are the instructions:
"To fire the inferno cannon place the template so that the narrow end within 18" of the weapon and the wider end is no closer to the weapon than the narrow end. The inferno cannon is then treated like any other template weapon."
EIGHTEEN inches? 6" extra over the Torrent USR? And for no extra points cost? What manner of sorcery is this? By the way, if anyone I know is reading this, don't worry; I'm not enough of a douchebag to use this mysteriously upgraded version of the Inferno cannon.

And for some reason, the Manticore is nowhere to be found in the army list?

And those are just the bits which I could be bothered to scrutinize, seeing as they were relevant to my desired army. Given the amount one pays for a Codex or an Imperial Armour book, you'd think GW would have the goddamn common courtesy to proofread before actually selling. And don't even get me started on the absurdly overpriced hardback codices that have been popping out peppered with silly little errors and typos that just give the impression that GW simply doesn't give a toss what they sell us, as long as we buy it. There are people in that office with a seriously bad attitude...

I could go on, but sod it, enough ranting. Time to talk lists.

Building more tanks!

So, the thing about a 100% vehicle list with not even a walker plodding about is this: No assault phase. Which is to say, I don't get an assault phase, and I really want to stay the hell away from enemy assault. As such, I need firepower in diabolical quantities to address the usual questions in list building (in no particular order):

1) How do I deal with hordes?
2) How do I deal with flyers?
3) How do I deal with enemy armour?
4) How do I deal with an enemy deathstar? For the sake of argument, let's say the traditional Assault Terminators in a Land Raider?

This is not something that can be solved with battlecannon spam. An AV 14 Land Raider or two would just laugh in my face and sooner or later gut my tanks. A pair of Trygons could pop up behind my lines and wreak havoc. Blood Angels could drop from the sky in numbers with their ungodly precision and nuke my tanks with meltaguns... The list goes on.

Losing plasma cannons is a good start... 

I will need many tanks. And redundancy. Each role, i.e. anti-armour, light-infantry eraser, heavy infantry eraser and anti-aircraft, must be fulfilled by at least 2 vehicles. I will need mobility, of a sort. Because I cannot afford to let the foe touch me with their filthy paws, I cannot afford to have artillery pieces in the back field. So here's the beginnings of a list:

Company Command Tank (Leman Russ Vanquisher) with coaxial heavy stubber, Beast Hunter shells, hull lascannon and Artificer Hull
Company Command Tank (Leman Russ Vanquisher) with coaxial heavy stubber, Beast Hunter shells, hull lascannon and Artificer Hull
Commisar Tank (Leman Russ Exterminator) with hull heavy bolter, heavy bolter sponsons and Artificer Hull
Commisar Tank (Leman Russ Exterminator) with hull heavy bolter, heavy bolter sponsons and Artificer Hull
Leman Russ Battletank with hull heavy bolter
Leman Russ Battletank with hull heavy bolter
Leman Russ Demolisher with hull heavy bolter
Leman Russ Demolisher with hull heavy bolter
Vendetta gunship
Vendetta gunship
Hellhound

This comes to about 1,740 pts, leaving 10 pts more to spend on miscellaneous wargear. Here's a breakdown of what's what:

Long range abuse: The 2 Leman Russes. I'm thinking these are best placed one in each corner to just hurl battlecannon shells where needed. S8 AP3 Large blast solves many problems, especially when you can hurl them right across the board...

Short range horribly powerful guns: The 2 Demolishers. These move forward to put pressure on a static enemy, or back up while pummeling an advancing enemy.

Assassins: The 2 Vanquishers. These guys are there for those occasions when something really has to die ASAP. The coaxial heavy stubbers will pretty much guarantee a reroll to hit with those lovely Vanquisher cannons, essentially giving a 72" meltagun. The Beast Hunter shells help with assassinating troublesome Monstrous Creatures. S8 AP2 Blast and Instant Death. C'mere Swarmlord, I've got a present for ya...

Bullet storms: The 2 Exterminators. The only reason for the Commisar Tanks to be here is really the BS4 to take full advantage of the Exterminators' direct fire weaponry. Since the big horrible blasts of battlecannons and demolisher cannons can't really put that many wounds on low model count units, these tanks are there to deal the finishing blows on infantry that have already been mauled by the other tanks. And of course, that many S7 and S5 shots is great for wrecking lighter vehicles.

Air support: 2 Vendettas. Nuff said, really.

Horrible burning death: The Hellhound is to stay close to the Demolishers, roasting infantry out of cover wherever possible.

So there you have it. The major threats on the 6th ed battlefield are mostly addressed, I think. There are 8 AV14 vehicles on the board to laugh in the face of small arms fire. As for the small matter of actually scoring... Well, anyone who's played against my Blood Angel FTO list would know I've never let that stop me...

Is it enough?  I wanna test this...