This coming Saturday I'll be participating in the Fratris Salutem, which is a local narrative-driven 40K event. I won't really call it a tournament, as it's not about individual achievements. Essentially, the field is divided into two teams, and the members of each team play against players from the opposing team. Each player's point total from their three games are added to the collective points of the team to determine the winning side.
We focus heavily on story for this event, with no traditional, "competitive" lists allowed. You can face tough lists for sure, but nothing cutthroat is allowed in the door.
I was the highest-scoring Imperial player in the first event of this type, running an Ultramarine Biker list. This year I felt some serious malaise about my army list options for a narrative event. I didn't want to run bikes yet again, as I felt I'd already told that story. I thought about running a pretty bog-standard Half Battle Company list led by my new Librarian and Command Squad, but I just wasn't enjoying the prospect of running tons of basic Marines.
Then I started looking at units in the book I'd never, ever run before. I didn't want to start a whole new unit, like Centurions or Scout Bikers, as I didn't have the painting time available. Then I landed on Antaro Chronus. I have the model, but had never assembled it. I scavenged his backpack for a bike-riding Techmarine some time ago, but had a couple of leftover old-school servo arm backpacks to replace that.
Once I decided I wanted to run Chronus, I started rereading all the rules for Warlords, Warlord Traits, etc. Making Chronus my Warlord is legal, plus whatever Warlord trait he rolls would still apply to an Unbound army, and so I set about thinking of a way to capitalize on that. Chronus is a tank commander, so I figured an army full of tanks would make sense. I came up with this list:
ELITES
MkV Mortis Dreadnought "Hylas", two missile launchers
FAST ATTACK
Land Speeder Typhoon
Land Speeder Typhoon
HEAVY SUPPORT
Land Raider Crusader with multimelta
Land Raider Crusader with multimelta
Vindicator with Siege Shield
Whirlwind
Whirlwind
Predator with lascannon sponsons, twin-las turret, Sergeant Chronus, and Legacy of Glory: Schism of Mars
TROOPS
Tactical Squad, 5-man, plasma gun, sergeant with bolter
Tactical Squad, 5-man, flamer, sergeant with pistol/chainsword
Razorback with lascannon and twin plasma gun
Essentially, it's an armored assault column led by Chronus in his command Predator. Two small Tactical Squads provide infantry security, as any modern (or far future) mechanized force would have. The Dreadnought is the anti-air platform every tank force needs, and the speeders are the fast-moving flank security and recon element. The Schism of Mars rule is a purchased Legacy of Glory from Imperial Armor 2: Second Edition. It gives the tank the Tank Hunters rule, +1BS when firing at models with the Daemonforge special rule, and the ability to ignore the effects of Haywire hits on a roll of 4+. I originally selected this rule purely for Tank Hunters, as I figured Chronus would be the top tank ace of the Chapter. I wanted him to be more capable of killing tanks.
Then I downloaded and listened to Eye of Vengeance, which is primarily about Sergeant Telion and his scouts, but Chronus makes an appearance as well. In that story, he takes his armored forces out and engages in a huge tank battle with Dark Mechanicum forces. So the bonus to Daemonforge makes sense with that history in place. The save versus haywire is just icing.
I'd already submitted my list for approval by the time I listened to Eye of Vengeance, but was kicking myself because it provided a reason to take a Scout Squad with Telion instead of the two small Tactical Squads. Not a huge deal. The Scouts would have been a weaker choice that adhered to written fluff, while the Tac squads are a slightly stronger choice that adhere to theoretical, non-specific fluff.
I'm pretty excited to see how an army of almost all tanks will fare. I've never done such a thing, but the possibilities for the future are interesting. I've never built more than one Predator because I could never fit more than one in the three Heavy slots of a CAD, and stalled on building my third Land Raider for the same reason. I never touched any of the IG tanks I like so much because of the CAD and Allied requirements. Maybe I can run a combined IG/Marines tank force.
