One is none, two is one...death of a thesis?

[Mandragola]

Thanks for all the feedback on the list. It's not intended to be final or anything, but I found it useful to have an idea of what fitted in 2000 points.

 

I think I agree that two units of heavy intercessors is unnecessary. However, I do think we'll all need to hold onto our backfield objectives at least somewhat securely. That's the role I think these guys do well. If you have something soft on an objective then an opponent might just take them out with opportunistic fire. Gravis guys aren't going to die all that easily, which is why I think they might be useful.

 

I've got no illusions about their firepower, which is clearly very weak for their cost. Other parts of the army are way more lethal though.

 

A few other things do count against them though. There are actually some good alternatives for long-range shooting in a RG army. Things like eliminators could be very nice, especially since they're now BS2+ (which I've only just realised). A Whirlwind might be useful too, to make enemies fight last. If I'm charging in with multiple units then the interrupt strat is a risk, but not if a Whirlwind (or Judiciar) prevents it.

 

It looks like the best option might be to go down to one unit of Heavy Intercessors. If I also swap the infiltrators for incursors (which are arguably better as well as cheaper) then I'd have the points for a unit of Eliminators and 80 spare points for... something. Candidates include a Reiver LT, Judiciar (I could find 5 points), an invader or various other options. The eliminators can hold a back field objective and they're cheap enough that I can just hide them out of LoS if that's the best option. In some cases I've actually had eliminators infiltrate forward when a load of other stuff was going too. Even if they're not what they were in the last codex they're pretty respectable.

 

It's a bit tough to know who to give the Master of Ambush trait to. The main argument against taking the Reiver LT is that I'd then have to choose between him and the Apothecary getting the trait, when you really want both of them upfield. There are other candidates too - a Librarian, for example. I think this army can probably manage without a psyker though, and it's fairly good at taking out other people's HQs.

[Dracos]

This one ... learning the Ways of the Raven fast he is ;)

[Jacques Corbin]

What about a 10 strong unit of Heavy Intercessors, with 2 Heavy Bolters. Combat squad them. Leave the sergeant and four on the backfield objective, while the other five find a nice piece of terrain to camp in that is closer to the front line, and shoot the enemy. 6 Heavy Bolter shots and 6 Heavy Bolt Rifle shots will be nothing to sneeze at.

 

Has anybody considered running Bolter Aggressors with Heavy Intercessors with Hellstorm Bolt Rifles? Maybe sandwich an Apothecary between the squads. Aggressors up front, and the HI up front. Lots of S5 shots advancing up the board. I wouldn't plan on them making it to the enemy DZ, but they would be great to reinforce or retake a midfield objective. The added bonus, is which squad do you shoot? The Aggressors are scarier all around between shooting and melee, but the HI have Objective Secured.

[Alcyon]

Both ways seem like a lot of points to me. I think you're better off just running six Aggressors. We did see a couple lists from recent events using a single squad of Eliminators or IF Whirlwinds to camp a backline objective, which I think just goes to show that there aren't a lot of threats coming in from behind your lines generally and what there is can be fairly easily zoned out. With all the terrain these days often times my backline units don't even have LoS. Thunderfires would be tempting if they hadn't gotten nerfed so hard.