UKGT - Starting Preparations Early for a Change...

So I've decided to go to the UKGT in January despite the fact that it's only 1500 points and none of my armies seem to work very well at that points value.

I need to start thinking about which army to take early enough so I can make sure the army is thoroughly tested and adequately painted.

Though painting isn't really my thing I still need to put a little effort in so I don't embarrass myself too badly next to all the armies that have inevitably been painted to some ridiculous 'Golden Demon' standard.

Start at the beginning.

I have two basic options as a starting point,

1) Use an army I already have semi-painted so I don't need to do much work

2) Start a new army from scratch specifically for the tournament.

1500 points is in of itself somewhat of an issue as you inevitably have problems creating a balanced list. At that points level you tend to have to sacrifice redundancy in some areas leaving you vulnerable to the 'Rock' to your 'Scissors' with certain builds.

What do I need?

Lets start with the tournament 'essentials',

1) Troops

2) Enough high strength anti-tank to deal with Land Raider spam or other massed heavy tanks.

3) A high enough quantity of mid strength weaponry to deal with MSU mech armies.

4) Anti-Infantry firepower, preferably that ignores cover (Flamers being the obvious choice).

And move on to the 'could do with',

5) Psychic defence.

6) The ability to threaten multiple objectives while holding my own.

7) A decent close combat element in case fire-power doesn't do the job.

8) Redundancy.

And finish with the 'would be nice'.

9) Rubbish opponents who's luck runs out and whose dice abandon them when they play me...

Okay, point (9) is probably a long shot but the others are most likely doable.

Army Options.

Lets start with armies I can do easily or already have done.

Editors Note - I've provided links to the armies that are in the blog somewhere rather than type them all out again.

1) Chaos Daemons - Has serious issues with heavy armour and is forced to do everything up close due to it's total lack of shooting. I've tried this one at 1500 point tournaments and it has problems with Land Raiders and MSU vehicle armies.

2) Space Marines (1) - I only used this list about 5 times but it had consistently good results. With a little tweaking this one could do well despite it's reliance on the 'Rock' unit to do the heavy work.

3) Space Marines (2) - A fairly standard shooty Mech Marine list. It was a bit short on Melta and I gave the Librarian the wrong powers but other than that it's fairly solid.

4) Space Marines (3) - The 'original' Stelek inspired 'Best Of' Space Marine list. A bit dated now that people have caught up with how 5th ed. works but the underlying concept is still solid.

I have more than enough Rhino/Razorbacks, Predators, Dreadnoughts, Landspeeders, etc. to do pretty much any Mech Marine list of any flavour you can think of so they're all solid options for me.

Now for the 'risky' ones,

5) My current infantry Imperial guard Project has possibilities but that's a lot of play-testing and painting to get done. It's also somewhat unusual for me due to the fact that it was designed around a 'theme' and then optimised based around that theme rather than being designed as a competitive army from the outset and as such it has some weaknesses.

6) My Tyranid list was designed with a 1750+ points value in mind and I'm hard pressed to drop any 250 point block of stuff without the list Synergy falling apart.

7) I have enough basic bikes assembled to make a good start on a Space Marine bike army. It would require me to make a Command Squad but I have the bitz to do it even if the motivation may be somewhat lacking.

8) I have a Jump Pack Blood Angels list at about the same stage of assembly as the above mentioned bike list. Though I like the idea of Jump Pack lists, the turn I spend sitting there in deep strike formation getting it in the ass before I can actually kick the shit out of stuff is somewhat of a concern.

I'd like to use option 5 as it's my current 'Project' but option 2 was a lot of fun the few times I used it.

So there it is then...Decisions, decisions...

Thoughts, Comments or 1500 point list suggestions are (as usual) most welcome.