I’ve continued to play 30k with my tank force. I’m perhaps 20 or more games into my silly list. It’s been fun and I’ve learned a lot, but I think I can say quite solidly that it’s not a good list. Let’s take a look:

 

Armored Spearhead

HQ

Predator Tank Warlord

Terminator Praetor

Elites

Ten man lightning claw Terminators inside a Spartan with their Terminator Praetor HQ

Ten man Invictus Suzerain squad inside a Carrier

Troops

2x Predators with all lascannons

2x Rhinos full of 10 standard Tactical marines

Heavy

Kratos

 

So off the cuff there’s a few things to note. I lack any dreadnoughts, lascannon heavy squads, or other classically “Good” units. My terminators have lightning claws, making them particularly good at killing normal marines—a target they haven’t seen much of. My Suzerain are good anti-elites, sometimes great depending on target. The predators can really output some harm but die really easily. The Kratos and Spartan tend to make it halfway through the game before getting immobilized or killed.

My original plan was to get my infantry into my opponent’s face and follow up with supporting fire from the various tanks, while finally landing my rhinos and predators onto objectives to gain some points. The fundamental flaws become apparent pretty fast: much of the list dies quickly. The terminators aren’t great against real problems (20 man marine blob? No issue. Other terminators? Uh…) and I lack real damage output or durability due to being so elite.

To a degree, I did this to myself. I chose a list back in August and decided I’d really play it out as a way to learn the game and get my feet under me. Over the last month it’s started to hurt my love of the game, and this week I finally came to the conclusion that I need to change course or otherwise just sell my army.

I see two choices in front of me to modify this list. One is entirely on theme, one is sacrificing theme for function. The decision point between them? Cost. Real world cost. Let’s take a look.

Option 1: Theme the Meme

For this option, I acquire six more predators and revamp my list to have nine total predator tanks. Survival through saturation and a serious increase in firepower. It’s leaning into the “Tank army” shtick so hard that it overwhelms my opponent’s ability to proper respond. It’s also, honestly, fun. I love the idea of bringing 9 Deimos pattern tanks to the field. It fits my theme and really nails my objective.

The problem? It’s still somewhat subpar, depending on how I distribute armaments, but it’s also almost $600.

Okay, yeah. I signed up for Horus Heresy. It’s “expensive.” In reality, it’s no worse than the other GW games. I’m already hundreds of dollars into it… but expanding by such a large chunk of change is hard to justify. It’s not the dollar cost, but the opportunity cost. That’s a whole faction in Infinity—two factions, even. That’s a set of beautiful prepainted terrain. That’s numerous historical armies. I could buy and paint the entire European theater in 15mm and have enough leftover for MDF terrain kits.

Normally, I try to ignore cost in my assessment of games, but at some point it just becomes relevant. This is, I acknowledge, somewhat my own fault. Tanks are a lot of plastic, to be fair. I’ve usually had no issue acquiring multiple tanks at once—in fact, I just bought four tanks for my WW2 Germans in 28mm. They were… $110.

Okay, again, cool. I’ve set myself up to fail on this one. Let’s look at option 2.

Option 2: Dread the Lore Revamp

Option 2 is my leader recognizes his folly and starts bringing dreadnoughts, possibly followed by infantry. I’d start by introducing a few dreadnoughts to the force structure—they are technically armor, after all. If that doesn’t do enough to round things out, I further add necessary infantry elements, like lascannon or plasma squads. It’s not irrational and my force is still Ultramarines, the guys known for flexible tactics.

The kicker here is I have a dread to build and acquiring more isn’t exactly expensive. Via my play group I can get two more for around $80 and that’s a full-on list revamp. At this point it’s probably obvious what path I’m taking.

I figure I’ll start with the dreads, and if it’s working, I may slowly acquire the predators over time. One or two a month will allow me to reintroduce them to the force bit by bit and in the end I’ll end up with two major company structures: one with pure tanks, one with mixed armored elements.

I’m still on theme but relaxing a little is honestly quite freeing. I may even paint the dreads without the signature green banding the rest of my force has—they’re not necessarily Aurora Company core pieces.

At least it’s gotten me revved up for Horus Heresy again—for that much I’m thankful. My approach to this game was different that my past approaches. I’ve bought only what I’ve needed and built almost everything I purchased (I’m missing a few basic marines by merit of needing to decide what weapons to assign them, and the aforementioned dreadnought I got with the starter).

This has left me in a position, four months in, where I no longer have the rabid drive to spend whatever money is needed to develop my force. It’s a weird state to be in. Normally, I’d have built out 5,000 points and never settled on a list, burning out because I can’t focus. Here, I risked burnout due to lacking options. Maybe I should have just gone with a cheese list to start and then fleshed out the fluffy options? Maybe overpurchase, but less so?

There’s probably a middle ground somewhere in there—we’ll find out next time I run off and start a whole new game on a whim. I just did so with Horus Heresy in July, and Infinity this last month, so I’m probably due for another course change come January, fool that I am. Taking bets on what it’ll be! New historical game? Yu Ching in Infinity? Demon army for Heresy? Time will tell!