Thursday, August 23, 2012

Logan – Friend to the Little People



As most of you might have guessed I have a wee-bit of a crush on Logan. He’s just an all-star! That being said I recently went all in on a plastic daemon army that I’m going to be slowly painting up. But while I’m painting that up I have my Iron Warriors that I started and those need paint and I truly love all the conversion opportunities I’ve got in that army. And since Iron Warriors still hold the record for longest hold on my attention span in a row (1.5 years with no interruptions!!!!!) and there is a new codex coming I’ve gotten even more excited.


Well that Daemon army in plastic pretty much made my Admech Daemon army kinda superfluous. So I was thinking of transitioning them into allies for my Iron Warriors.  That being said the flamers, fiends, and screamers are pretty easy. I can just add some chaotic bits on them and start the repaint. My horrors are also pretty easy but I got to thinking that an IG ally with special rules how they are might not be a bad idea.

And since I’ve been moving my iron warriors towards being my every army due to modeling fun I got to thinking about Logan.

If you’re still with me after my tangent it’ll now be a bit more clear. I’m considering running my Iron Warriors as Space Wovles, at least until the new book comes out. That being said I started looking at Logan leading a blob squad. Now his FAQ states he gives his ability to himself and any space wolf unit he’s attached to one of several special rules. But the brb states that some special rules are transferred to a unit if a single model has them. So Logan gives the ability only to himself in a squad that’s not SW but transfers certain abilities per the brb to the squad he’s with. The only one he doesn’t transfer is relentless which, while a little sad, isn’t a huge deal when you talking about stubborn, fearless, tank hunting, or preferred enemy.

I started looking at my list that I was running for my Loganwing toward the end of 5th. It looked pretty much like this:

Logan
2xLone Wolves in TA w/CF
4x5 WG w/Stormbolter, Cyclone, CF
7 WG in TA w/WC’s, 2 Chainfists, 2 Cyclones, and some combi-plasma
3x5 Long Fangs w/4 Missiles and attach WG

This list would tag at 1850 and could be played with to get it to 2k if needed. But looking at this and the rules for 6th I started to think about what they big WG squad was providing. That squad costs 415pts. It’s a solid squad for sure but I started to look at Logan rules and suddenly I thought of IG. Yes, I have to pay for a command squad to get access to a platoon but let’s start by taking a look at the platoon:

Infantry Squad – 85
Power Axe, Auto-Cannon, Plasma Gun

So 5 of these are 425. Now you do have to add in a CCS and PCS so that’s an additional 80pts. 30 of those points go to the PCS which for me is the unit you tuck behind a building and hold an objective similar to grots. The CCS, while more costly, combined with Logan leading a squad is absolutely ridiculous. Don’t like a vehicle? Re-roll to hit and to pen with Bring it Down and Logan’s tank hunters. Want to keep from barbequing yourself with plasma? I hear Preferred Enemy isn’t so bad. Combine that with FRFSRF and it’s even more gross. Logan is stubborn LD10 with a re-roll so you won’t have to use fearless often. The squad can afford to lose 30 models before it starts to take casualties that matter. And it has 5 sergeants attacking with 15 St4 power weapons without the charge. That’s pretty darned impressive.

Granted all 5 squads would probably only be welcome at 2k since they wouldn’t quite fit at 1,850 without dropping something extremely useful. But at 2k you could even add Krak Grenades to make any vehicle army fear the wrath of the IG charging wall.

Is it a deathstar and a gimmick? I’m not so sure. What you have here is a unit that can stand toe to toe with most “deathstars” like Nobs w/Biker Boss, Draigo & Paladins, Various Terminator Deathstars, TWC squads led by Lords, and pretty much everything else. This is a unit that can take an obscene amount of wounds before starting to lose its shooting viability and since it’s CC is pretty much reliant on Logan and 5 sergeants (anything else in the squad that kills something is a bonus) it takes even longer for it to start to lose it CC viability.

You can use this squad to pick off flyers/vehicle on the move, it puts out insane numbers of shots with PE and FRFSRF. It let’s go of 5 St7 AP2 and 10 St7 AP4 shots at 24” and even more plasma close up. And even better, if you don’t need a giant sponge/counter deathstar unit it can break up into smaller squads to provide supporting fire for advancing SW’s. Basically it’s a massive utility unit.

This unit is in comparison to 16 Bolter & 4 Krak Missile shots at range and 10 st4 re-roll to wound pw attacks and 4 chainfist attacks in CC. Granted the Terminators have amazingly higher survivability outside of AP2.

So what do you guys think? How would you handle a unit like this? Can your army built as it handle something like this?

As a sidenote Chaos should be Battle Brothers with IG. It’s a little stupid that they aren’t fluff and gaming wise….oh well J