I looked at Tigurius. His warlord trait lets you grant a buff to shooting. The kind that sometimes gets AP 2 or sometimes gets bonus armour penetration to a nearby unit. I looked at Divination, and was like, "Hey, ignores cover is pretty easy to get with Tiggy's special rules." I looked at 4 Heavy Bolters, in a Dev unit. I thought, that would be fun. It would also be fun, to have a Rending Thunderfire Cannon. With Twin Linked. That can opt to ignore cover. And a couple of Plasma Cannon Dreads, to baby sit them and say "No" to being assaulted.
And then I took some other stuff that I thought would be fun / I had in my collection.
Here's what I wound up with...
1500 pts - Ultramarines CAD165 - Chief Librarian Tigurius
[Warlord]: Bolt Pistol, Psyker lv 3, Hood of Hellfire, Rod of Tigurius
185 - Devastator Squad [10]: Armorium Cherub,
4x Heavy Bolter 210 - Dreadnought [2]: 2x Plasma Cannon, 2x Storm Bolter
100 - Thunderfire Cannon:
245 - Chapter Master: Artificer Armour, Power Fist, Bike, The Shield Eternal
140 - Bike Squad [5]: 2x Grav Gun, Melta Bombs
164 - Assault Squad [7]: 2x Flamer, Veteran Sergeant, Eviscerator, 7x JP
104 - Tactical Squad [6]: Plasma Gun, Melta Bombs
40 - Rhino: Storm Bolter, Dozer Blade
104 - Tactical Squad [6]: Plasma Gun, Melta Bombs
40 - Rhino: Storm Bolter, Dozer Blade
The idea is that the Castle can handle most any target, especially with the extra Rending being thrown around. At 24", the Dev squad can throw 18 Rending shots out there, 24 shots at 12", and it's pretty easy to give them re-rolls to hit, through the Dev Doctrine, Tactical Doctrine, and Tiggy's Primaris Prescience. When the Devs didn't have ideal targets, the TFC got Rending instead, and usually a Prescience, firing IgCo rounds and just smacking the crap out of stuff. When the Dreads had good targets, a quick Prescience gave them a boost. Tac / Dev doctrines helped the Dreads to avoid overheats. If you agree with such things.
It also helped the Tac squads to avoid cooking themselves.
I wound up getting a more or less perfect mission, "The Relic" in which I set up my castle in a ruin, enjoying my MEQ cover save, while I sent the "mobile" stuff forward to grab the Relic.
I managed to snag the relic, and retreat to a LOS blocking ruin... but the game went to 7 turns, and at the top of the 7th [my turn] I inflicted 0 hp on a Knight, point blank, with my twin-linked rending Dev squad. For those of you at home, that was 23 tries [One bolter had died, Tiggy has a Pistol] to rend the last HP off of that Knight, side arc even, but I didn't, and my Tac Sarge holding the Relic got stomped out of existence with a 6. And he failed to take the last HP, with a Meltabomb that hit. Oh well.
I really enjoy the Ultramarine chapter tactics. Getting to pick your buff for the turn is a lot of fun, and rewarding as it adds a layer of strategy / tactics to my turns.
- If I use my Tactical doctrine, then I can get a light boost to everything, but my Tactical squads aren't positioned to make maximum use of that...
- I could use the Devastator doctrine, but the Devs have poor target selection, so they can't maximise...
- I want to assault next turn, but if I use the Assault Doctrine this turn, I'll probably sweep that unit, and then next turn the Tacticals should be in position...
- I could skip using a doctrine this turn... but by the 5th turn I don't know if I'll have much use for a doctrine, as none of my unit look like they could benefit much turn 5, unless my opponent...
I really like that I get a sense of a "long term plan" unfolding in my games. Very rewarding.
So yeah, I had fun with this list, and it uses HB Devastators. I mean, really, how often do you see that?