[alcibiates]

First off, this posted here and not army boards because no one ever goes in army boards and I actually want comments on this.

[size=16pt]1000 Points 'Balanced' Ordos Hereticus[/size]

[size=12pt]Headquarters I
Inquisitor Lord[/size]
-Psychic Hood
-Excruciators
_Hammer of the Witches
_Scourging
2 Chirurgeons
1 Familiar
[size=8pt]140 Points[/size]
[size=8pt]I took the Inquisitor Lord because I love psychic hoods and I bring them in every Ordos army that I can jam them into, save for themed GK armies. Between the numerous Eldar players, the SMurf Libbies and the 13th company player, he gets plenty of use. Excruciators because I don't have a
better way to spend the points and the extra victory points will be fantastic. If they don't bring a psyker then he can run around scourging stuff. Chirurgeons because the concept is awesome to me. Familiar because he needed a second psychic power.[/size]

[size=12pt]Elites I
4 Arco Flaggellants[/size]
[size=8pt]140 Points[/size]
[size=12pt]Elites II
4 Arco Flaggellants[/size]
[size=8pt]140 Points[/size]
[size=8pt]These guys are just awesome in my eyes. They bring a wonderful CC punch to the army along with some speed. The army was essentially built around them and support for them. I'm not sure it was the best idea but I'm sure it's going to be a fun one. The idea is to try to get them within 15 or so inches of a unit to charge (preferably heavy armored ones) and set the stim injectors and charge. Average of 4.5 attacks per arco on the charge turns into about 1.25 kills per Arco. I expect them to do well the first game but I'm not so sure how they'll fair as my opponents learn them...[/size]

[size=12pt]Troops I
7 Storm Troopers[/size]
-2 Flamers
-5 Shotguns
[size=12pt]Priest[/size]
-Power Weapon
-Brazier of Holy Fire
-Auspex
[size=8pt]142 Points
[size=12pt]Troops II
7 Storm Troopers[/size]
-2 Flamers
-5 Shotguns
[size=12pt]Priest[/size]
-Power Weapon
-Brazier of Holy Fire
-Auspex
[size=8pt]142 Points
These were originally just units to bury my Priests in, but with a little upgrading they became a decent fighting unit packing 3 flamers. Not sure if they‘ll ever get in range to use the, but they have them. It makes them a dangerous target that my opponent has to pay attention to or risk being burnt. Shotguns because I want them to be able to charge after shooting. Brazier went on the priest because I got down to 29 points and didn‘t have anything that I really wanted to spend it on because I like symmetry in my armies, so I dropped 24 on the auspexes and braziers and the last five on the Excruciators with my lord..[/size]

[size=12pt]Heavy Support I
8 Retributors[/size]
-4 Bolters
-4 Heavy Bolters
[Size=8pt]
148 Points
[size=12pt]Heavy Support II
8 Retributors[/size]
-4 Bolters
-4 Heavy Bolters
[Size=8pt]
148 Points
Fire support. Kinda obvious, eh? Stick ‘em in a corner and let loose with heavy bolter fire all game.[/size]

So! That’s my list. We rarely play with tanks, especially at 1000 points. The most I’ll have to worry about is a Vyper here or there.

The only real problem I have with the list is expanding it out to 1500. I’m completely lost as to what to do. I don’t want to use any faithful sisters but I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to bring tanks because there aren’t enough tanks to spread the fire evenly and they’ll just get blasted. I had thought about bringing Dominions and just separating them from their transport during deployment and giving them melta guns for anti-tank work.

Any ideas/comments?

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

When you say balanced, what do you mean by it? Because, frankly, it's not balanced. All your points are locked up on an Inquisitor, small 4 man units of Arcos that have no shielding, and some power armor heavy bolters. Then you have a handful of storm troopers with zero mobility nor real firepower and small squad sizes, where the priest actually costs more than the unit he is attached to. This simply won't work in a standard mission and it won't take on all-comers. So not to be negative, but what's balanced about it?

Anyhow,

So! That’s my list. We rarely play with tanks, especially at 1000 points. The most I’ll have to worry about is a Vyper here or there.

The only real problem I have with the list is expanding it out to 1500. I’m completely lost as to what to do. I don’t want to use any faithful sisters but I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to bring tanks because there aren’t enough tanks to spread the fire evenly and they’ll just get blasted. I had thought about bringing Dominions and just separating them from their transport during deployment and giving them melta guns for anti-tank work.

Any ideas/comments?

HQ - He's fine really, but you could get a lot more use simply by outfitting a heavy bolter in there with some ablative wounds, to give them a better reason and ability to do things. As it is, a single heavy bolter removes all your henchmen and you lose a scoring unit. Hammer is fun, but not that great. Scourging is good, but you have BS4 and you're not going to do very much good damage with it, as you didn't have a sage. I'd rework this.

HQx - The priests are 62 points each. Why take two? That's 124 points just practically lost to 5 man storm trooper teams. You only need one, so take one. And flesh out units with more tangible bodies.

Elites - Totally fine. 4 man squads are brutal. But they're not good unless you can deliver, and without something to hide behind that advances and blocks line of sight, they're just T5 models with 4+ saves that save against everything, but one in two wounds means a dead model. And you lose hard when you lose even one model here. Switching them on early gets them killed faster, and walking them slow gets them killed anyways. I would suggest freeing up points for a smoked rhino to lead their way, otherwise, consider something else. And if you plan on using terrain for this job, well, unless your opponents are chimps, they can use terrain as well and it will just be a gamble of who gets to charge who. Arcos don't do well in terrain either, unless switched on. So not worth it.

Troops - Auspexes with 12" range shot guns and 8" range templates. Completely useless unfortunately, as nothing in line of sight will be within 12" of you as it's impossible. Power weapons and flamers are nice, when they get the drop on the opponent. But when you're just walking, and you only have 6 models, you're not going to get much of a drop on anyone, other than removing models as casualties. 2 casualties is your first morale check, after that, you're morale is testing with each one. And then you're at -1 and you have an armorless priest. Normal bolters at 24" range will simply crush them. Special guns with range of any kind remove them, fast. They will not survive to score, and simply can't move fast enough to deliver those templates nor attacks. Lots of points for a handful of Str3 hits, and not much chance to use the better parts of the unit (the flamers). I'd rework mobility in here, or get a lot more storm troopers (and even then, sisters would be better, by far).

Heavies - These are perfect.

--- For expanding, well, increase your model count about 3 times. Lose the excess priest and wasted wargear on several units. Get mobility. Seraphim would be better option than Dominions. If you don't want vehicles, then you need to focus more on having armor saves. Storm Troopers on foot will do very little and are push overs. Even then, they don't even have meltaguns to use their BS4 with. Get firepower or get combat ability that is deliverable. You'll need a lot more of both to make an armorless foot slogging army with few models to do much of anything. If you want to do the armorless slogging thing, I would recommend Zealots. They're better than Storm Troopers for that job.

Cheers!

[alcibiates]

You hurt my pride, Mal :'(

I realized it was messed up, was just wondering how messed up it would be. I wanted to use the Arcos, but I should have realized it just wasn't going to happen. I think I might use them in an expansion to this list, but we'll see. I think I may just stick with 1000 and deal with the fact that I can't use Arco's effectively unless I play an army type that I really don't wanna play.

But, looked back at some old lists, I did some quick math and realized I could swap out some stuff in a list and end up with a list like this, that I rather like:

Adepta Sororitas Heroine - 120 Points
Canoness
--Blessed Weapon
-Book of St. Lucius
-Cloak of St. Aspira
-Jump Pack

Grey Knights Terminators - 199 Points
3 Grey Knight Terminators
--3 Nemesis Force Weapons
--3 Storm Bolters
Grey Knight Brother-Captain
--Nemesis Force Weapon
--Storm Bolter
-Auspex

Battle Sisters Squad - 175 Points
13 Battle Sisters
--13 Bolters
Veteran Superior
--Bolter
-Book of St. Lucius
-Auspex

Battle Sisters Squad - 175 Points
13 Battle Sisters
--13 Bolters
Veteran Superior
--Bolter
-Book of St. Lucius
-Auspex

Retributor Squad - 162 Points
7 Retributors
-3 Bolters
-4 Heavy Bolters
Veteran Superior
--Bolter
-Auspex

Retributor Squad - 162 Points
7 Retributors
-3 Bolters
-4 Heavy Bolters
Veteran superior
--Bolter
-Auspex

999 total
6 faith points

A small worry about scoring units, but I think I should be able to keep the terminators at scoring and along with a couple sisters squads. Theory being that my opponent is going to divert a lot from the retributors to the termies, at least long enough for them to do their damage.

[Scooter the Outlaw]

Actually, with some tweaks your original list remains viable, and is one I'd rather see than the rather standard Knights/Sisters kind of thing. It seemed like in your original list, your whole goal was to use the Arco-Flagellants... and now you don't even have them. That makes me sad... I like those things.

I hope you don't mind but I've chosen to examine your previous list in hopes of convincing you to play it with a little tweaking action.

In general, I'd like to advise this: you have ISTs and Sisters of Battle mixed. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially for the purposes of having squads for the Priest to hang out in, if I were you I'd leave them at home if you plan on bringing any Sisters at all. The reasoning is that Faith is too good to pass up in any way, especially when you're using Heavy Bolter sisters. My experience with Retributors is when unleashing a focused hail of heavy bolter shots, using Divine Guidance makes them into a force to be reckoned with; Terminator squads dissove with disturbing speed under that sheer volume of fire, and the increased number of shots from the improved rate of fire means better chances for more sixes.

Furthermore, Sisters are more survivable than ISTs in every way, and if you're using the ISTs with anything but plasma, they're offering you nothing the Sisters can't do better (save the smaller minimum squad sizes). For the points it'll cost you, I think it'd be worth it (and, of course, if you have the models).

That said, and keeping in mind your original comments on what you would/wouldn't like to keep:

HQ -
I've never been big on Inquisitors, but as far as I can see your setup is fine. However, if you're going to listen to my above comment on the Sisters, take a Heroine here. The extra faith is worth it; even consider a bare-bones Canoness with a bolter stuck in with troops as a second HQ, she's well worth it for the faith alone.

Elites -
I love Arco-Flagellants, so try and keep them around. It's true that you need a way to protect them, but if you play Cities of Death, the abundance of cover will rarely fail you. Rolling Rhino cover is still better, though. One thing you might want to consider is breaking them down into a single squad of six, though, to help better round out your army. In my experience, the six arco-flagellants will do plenty of damage and the extra points will really help bulk up the list.

Troops -
Priests are among the worst models in the game for their cost, if you ask me, and certainly the worst thing in the WH codex other than maybe Repentia. That said, only use one.

If you want to keep the ISTs, the flamers do not play to their strengths. The main thing they offer a WH force is the ability to use plasma, in my view, or a cheap Melta delivery function. If you want to keep them, give them plasma or melta weapons and consider using the Chimera. It's a great transport that can fire an outrageous number of shots, will screen your rushing Arco-Flagellants, and give your ISTs the ability to perform dirty drive-by shootings with great weapons.

Otherwise, if you want the most mileage for the faith on your heavy bolters, 10-woman Sisters squads in Rhinos will give you what you need. The only problem there is they can't have a Priest and still fit into the Rhino... but on the other hand, if you really want a screen for your Arcos, you don't need to have them in the Rhino at any given time and can afford to send the highly delicate Rhinos around tank shocking things and protecting your valuble units as they advance.

Heavy -
Fine, but for maximum effectiveness, I can't recommend the use of faith enough, which implies adding VSS to the squad.

...in conclusion, that was probably a bit rambling. But i the end, if comes down to what you want to keep and what you have, and how far you're willing to change the original list. Myself, I'm just happy to see somebody try Arco-Flagellants and would like to see your first list carried out to completion.

[alcibiates]

Well, the biggest problem that I've found with them is the models. I've always wanted some GK models (and I may eventually go back to them, I don't know. But for now I'm going to work with the sisters) and I finally looked at the arco-flagellant models and... wow... Those things are UGLY. They're a cool model but the biggest problem I run into with them in 1000 points is a delivery mechanism. I have nothing to get them into combat.

When I expand out to 1500 with my witch hunters I fully plan on slapping some Arcos in there, but for 1000 it just doesn't work for me.

For now, with the 1000 points, I'm going to play test the knights a couple times. I tried them out today in my game and they scattered off board. There were no real good places for me to deep strike them to, so I went with the gutsy shot and pray for low/no scatter and get some work out of them. I still won the game, but I didn't get to try them out. I'm a little sad I don't get to pack in a couple psycannons with them, but I've already got 8 heavy bolters. I'm not hurtin'

I like how the list played for the most part of this game. Well, I should say how it would have played. My Canoness failed her spirit of the matyr and got smacked with a libbie's pwep and dropped in her second round of combat. She took a couple scouts with her, but far from paid for herself. And my knights missed. Both quite bad, and left me with no CC punch.

For my 1500 I'm thinking a squad of Seraphim to play around with (or maybe another jump pack canoness, I'm not sure; possibly even some more Terminators) and some Arcos. That'll open up some more CC options because my sisters just got pounded in CC. A 14 model squad got chewed up by one veteran sergeant. Took him three turns, but he still did it. I'm not having that happen again >_< The other squad got chewed up by bad distance calculation on my part. I had to guess the distance around a building and I got it wrong by about 2". Not a lot, but enough.

The only real thing I don't like about the list that I foresee as a problem is that I can't drop av12 (short of termies walking up to it and beating on it) but I only know one guy that brings any serious tanks in 1k and that's a tau player with a hammerhead. And there's the other fool that brings a land raider... but whatever. I don't count him. He's a moron.

Kinda rambling at this point. I'll call it an end.

[Pontus]

I think you should remove the word "balanced" from this army list. Doesent look like thats what you are trying at all.
Eight heavy bolters and grey knight terminators in 1000 points aint balanced anywhere.

If you want balanced don't include allies.. especially not grey knights. And don't do identically squads (my except for core troops), especially not heavies. Actually more then one of each hq, heavy, elite or fast choices would not be balanced. One HQ, one or maybe two if they are cheap of elite, fast and heavy and the rest troops is more like balanced.