Inspired by a couple of lists here, the EpicUK Vanaheim List and the EpicFR Catachan List, as well to present yet another approach to a fast, mobile Imperial Guard Army I present the Mobile Forces of Catachan.
I wanted to avoid a drop-army, because, from my personal point of view, these lists are boring. Think more of an old style Catachan force from ye old days, with Ogryns, Demolishers, Hellhounds, lots and lots of Infantry combined with Vietnam-era Mobile Divisions.
Background of the Mobile Forces of Catachan
The army is one of the many armies from the planet Catachan. Compared to other Deathworld Regiments, the Mobile Forces of Catachan take a rather unconservative approach to Warfare and rely heavily on a combined arms approach. Roughly half of the regiment is organized in mobile air companies, while the rest is organized in ground companies, light artillery companies, mortar companies and so on. The army is one of the few to utilize the Valkyrie Albatross, a heavy lifting and transport VTOL normally used to transport troops, small vehicles or goods between different places. It is, compared to other crafts with similar size, weakly armed. The army prefers the VTOL nonetheless due to the thicker armour it provides.
In battle, the force uses forward scouts to infiltrate the enemy positions, be these experienced light infantry as well as Sentinels and Salamanders. After identifiying a target, the army uses hit and run tactics with the Valkyrie mounted troops. After an enemy position has been cleared out, infantry on foot secures the positions. If a position is well protected, the mobile forces of Catachan rely on Griffons and mortars to keep the enemy with their heads down and to flush them out of their position with the help of Ogryns and Hellhounds.
Their weakness is clearly an ongoing battle where they cannot retreat to a safer position with their mobile elements.
Design Concept and Design Ideas
- The list contains the Valkyrie Albatross, basically three valkyries welded together, just "unorky". So far it is just a rough idea to get some super heavy skimmer in the list. Try thinking of the Iron Vulture from Tail Spin Mashed up with Gothic Grimdarkness and silly VTOL-Guard Aerodynamics like reversed wings.
- The Tornado is not an actual GW unit, but I think it makes sense. Basically a weaker armoured but upgunned Land Speeder. With slightly increased costs (40 pts vs 50 pts).
- The regular Russ, the Demolisher and the regular Super Heavies are all out due to balancing reasons.
- The Chimaeras have gone in favor of Valkyries and variants to give the force a unique approach to play as well to differentiate the army from the regular Steel Legion.
- The Deathstrike is in because the army needs something apart from the Spaceship to deal with WEs. Without the Shadowsword the army would probably struggle much against armies like Krieg for example.
- I think Stormtroopers would fit quite well with the Valkyrie Albatross, but having a scouting WE is something I want to avoid as much as possible. As there are regular Stormtroopers, a makeshift special rule does not work well either, or you must model two types of "Stormtroopers". So, balancing reasons
- No Titans - otherwise the scouting, super-fast Valkyrie formations would be too good. Basically its vanilla-Steel Legion tactics, but with disrupt BP. I wanted to avoid this by making at least the Warhounds unavailable. Since they are not available I left out Reaver and Warhound too
- Spaceship! Spaceship! SPACESHIP! Well, why not? No one is using it anyway
The strong and the weak points
+ Very fast and mobile army
+ Average/good FF values and a solid way to get the troops where they are needed
+ A tough VTOL War Engine
+ Some very cheap units
+ Scout everywhere
+ Easy access to BP weapons
o Only Deathstrikes to reliable deal damage to bigger War Engines (think of Reaver, Leviathan etc)
o Initative of 2+, Strategy 2+
o Boring aircraft (only defaults, no Lightning or "big" Bombers)
- Not much MW (apart from the Valkyrie Tornado)
- No WE except the Valkyrie Albatross
- No tough units (no AV with a save better than 5+, most have 6+ save)
- No Warhound(s)
- Weak/Easy to kill BTS
- As always, Support formations are more interesting than core. All MW and useful units are in the Support section (Stormtroopers, Valkyrie Tornado, Deathstrikes, MW Sentinels...)
- Bad in CC except for Ogryns
This is revision 0.1, the initial release. This is to be regarded as super-experimental, especially as it includes two non-official models.
If you have feedback please let me know
CHANGELOG:
rev 0.3.4
- added Critical Effect to the Albatross
- reduced TC back to 8 to be more in line with other WE
- added a second Albatross to the Ogryns, increased cost a little
- fixed an error with the PDF, not showing all units in the summary
rev 0.3.3
- increased the cost of the Vulture/vulture Tornado Upgrade to be in line with the Mirali Skyraiders list
- fixed range on the Vulture Tornado and the number of Multilasers on the regular Valkyries
rev 0.3.2
- added some transport capacity on the Valkyrie Albatross to actually fit all Ogryns in
- renamed the Valkyrie Albatross to Albatross Super Heavy Assault Carrier as suggested
rev 0.3.1
- added the 0-1 limitation on the Deathstrikes
rev 0.3
- removed some typos
- added the profiles for the autocannons on the basic-infantry as I forgot those
- increased the AP value of the Punisher to 3+ to reduce it effectiveness
rev 0.2
- changed the Trannsport capacity of the Albatross to eight.
- Increased Core-Formation points slightly.
rev 0.1
- Initial release
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