Too many choices...

Greetings gentle reader.

As explained in my last blog post, I have very limited time at the moment to assemble and paint models. However, rather than posting nothing at all I thought I would share my thoughts on what I want the first 500 points of my Astra Militarum army to consist of and why.

I wanted the first 500 points to be a small, balanced, scouting force rather than a block of cheese, built for  fighting one specific enemy. With this in mind, my army HQ will be a standard, no frills Company Command Squad (Commissar Yarrick will have to wait!).

The unit consists of 1 Company Commander and 4 Veterans and I want it to sit at the back of the deployment zone and issue Orders.

Orders are buffs that can be applied to a non-vehicle unit during a single shooting phase and bestow additional benefits such as Ignore Cover, providing the unit passes a Leadership test. They are a huge benefit to an Astra Militarum army and I'll cover them in more detail in a separate blog post.

I give the unit a Vox Caster (allows you to re-roll a failed Orders Leadership test), a Regimental Standard (models within 12" re-roll failed Moral, Fear and Pinning tests) a Heavy Weapon. As this unit is going to skulk at the back, I need something with a long range. A Mortar seems like a good choice as it has a 48" range and Barrage, which means it doesn't need line of sight to shoot. This unit totals 85 points.

Next up, the obligatory 2 Troop choices.

Due to the amount of points, I don't think I can afford an Infantry Platoon, although at higher point levels, these are a great choice.

Each Platoon consists of a mini-Command Squad (who can also issue Orders) and between 2-5 units of Guardsmen. Each Guardsmen unit may have one Heavy Weapon and/or one Special Weapon.

The Platoon may also have 0-5 Heavy Weapon squads and 0-3 Special Weapon squads. Therefore, a fully kitted out Platoon could consist of 21 Heavy Weapons and 15 Special Weapons, not including any Chimeras knocking about. Not bad for a single Troop choice!

However, it would clock in at around the 900 point mark, not to mention cost a small fortune in sterling.


For now, I shall simply take 2 Veteran squads. The only difference between these and regular Guardsmen is that they can be taken in individual units, they have a few more equipment options and they are Ballistic Skill 4.

Again, to keep them flexible I think I'll equip both units with a Vox Caster, Grenade Launcher, Flamer and an Autocannon.

This allows the unit to move and still put out a few shots. I may swap the Autocannon for a Missile Launcher, because I prefer the Missile Launcher model.

Currently, these units cost 85 point each.

Right, that's the boring stuff taken care of. Now I can start choosing the proper shooty stuff. I have ALWAYS loved the Leman Russ model. It's nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.

There are seven variants of the Leman Russ tank in the Astra Militarum army list. They cover the full spectrum of roles from tank hunter to infantry mowers and everything in between.

For now, I think I'll just take the vanilla Leman Russ armed with the Battle Cannon, hull mounted Lascannon and Heavy Bolter sponsons to cover all bases.

This little beauty costs 180 points and brings some much needed firepower to the list.

So that's 435 points spent, leaving a very awkward 65 points left.

I'm not quite sure what to add next. I could add a Chimera transport to one of the Veteran units. I could shuffle a few points around and get another unit of Veterans. I think I'm going to have to have to have a little think about this.

However, 25 infantry models and a tank is enough to be getting on with for now!