Scout Squad Ultis

As the Badab War ground on and the number of casualties mounted, the Mantis Warriors were forced recruit an ever growing number of initiates to compensate for the Chapter's Battle companies inability to keep a full contingent of Tactical Squads. In an effort to ensure that the Chapter could still call upon full strength Battle companies to defend the Mantis Warriors home world, the chapter's Reserve and Scout Companies were dissolved and their numbers were added to the remaining Battle Companies. In doing so, several Scout Squads were permanently added to Captain Mantodea's second company, a shift from the Codex Astartes that has continued long after the the Mantis Warriors reunification with the Imperium. 

Scout Squad Ultis was formed late in the Siege of Tranquility. Although their sniper rifles were poor use against the Carcharodon Terminator legions, they mainly attacked from the rear of the advance, taking out servitors, chapter surfs, and other non-combat personnel in an effort to slow down the Space Shark warmachine and ultimately make any time spent on Tranquility as miserable as possible for the invaders.

That was a bit of a long winded fluff piece but I hope you enjoyed it. To be honest I don't recall why I decided to paint up these scouts. I've played a few games with them and they are terrible. BS3 with sniper rifles is rubbish, not to mention the squad costs the same as 10 Eldar Rangers. Well they are painted now so I'm sure they will make their way into some future lists.

I'm in the Movies: Sisters vs Mantis Warriors

Friendly game at Dragon's Lair a week ago. Apparently the last turn has been lost in the Warp, don't worry you didn't miss much.

A Trio of More Scouts

Painted up three more scouts today. Two more to add to my Sniper squad and a Combat scout to round out the other unit to 10.

View of the cam.

For some reason I want three 10 man units of scouts... still have a few wholes to fill still.

Sniper Scouts

Made more progress on the sniper scouts tonight while watching Baseball. 

Will do a little fluff bit when I have a ten man squad is complete.

Tranquility Camo

 Been working on some Sniper Scouts for the Shrike list lately and here are their Camo Cloaks on display. I'd say they are still a bit WIP as some of the black "leaves" are a bit wispy for my taste.

1500 point Shrike Thoughts

The local gaming community in Austin has been talking about reducing the size of standard pick-up games from 2000 points to a smaller number between 1850 and 1500. It has been a long time since 1500 points was the normal around town; 10 years maybe? Anyway it got me thinking about the differences in army list construction between 1500 and 2000.

After being used to 2000 for so long, 1500pts created quite a dilemma for me during army list construction. There is just not enough points to fill out two HQ slots, all the scoring units necessary for a 5 objective game, and the necessary Elite/Fast/Heavy slots to do the heavy lifting/killing.

Recently I've been toying around with a Shrike list, with heavy component of scouts, as a change of pace from Khan or Sicarius. I am hoping that the reduced price of my scoring units will leave me enough points left over to still bring a strong army at 1500pts.

HQ
Captain Shrike
Chaplain; jump pack, digi-lasers, melta bombs

TROOPS
Tactical Squad*10; power fist, combi-melta, melta gun, multi-melta
Drop Pod; locator beacon

Scouts*10; sniper rifles, combi-plasma, heavy bolter
Scouts*10; power fist, teleport homer

ELITES
Assault Terminators*5; thunder hammers*3, lightning claws*2

FAST ATTACK
Assault Marines*8; power first
Attack Bike; multi-melta

HEAVY SUPPORT
Devastators*5; missile launcher*4


~the idea is pretty simple. Infiltrate as close as possible with the assault scouts and assault marines+characters and hope for a first turn assault with both. Tac squad drops in first turn, combined with decent weight of fire from the sniper scouts and devs to weaken enemy before termis deep strike ASAP. It is a very aggressive army with a fairly major weak link: 20 scouts making up the majority of my scoring models. After a few games I'll post how it does. Any thoughts or words of wisdom for using Shrike or Scouts?

Scout Sergeants; the only good thing in the unit

I've been messing around with a Shriek list in my last couple of games. I lost both of them but got me thinking about what I would need to add to my collection to make a Shriek list work for me... solution; more scouts?

 not the best pics but it was done quicly

 plasma gun/sniper sergeant, never seen one so we'll see how it goes

 Back slung Sniper Rifle.

 I always thought that SM power fists looked awkwardly large on scout arms. 

 Teleport Homer.

This is an old old Catachan power fist with a Cadian flamer hose and some putty.