What to Bring: A Hoarder's Conundrum

As I've mentioned before, our local shop hosts a 1k Tournament the first Sunday of each month. It's been a while since I was last able to go, but it's looking like I'll be there this Sunday. Of course, not getting to play very often, I probably over think what to bring. One benefit of being an admitted army-hoarder is that I have lots of options, not only within a single army.

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The most likely choices for me are Tyranids (obviously), Orks, or Dark Eldar. Interestingly, I have together the pieces to have allied Eldar for my Dark Eldar (assuming no one takes issue with using the old Codex one day after the new one is released). Very unlikely choices would be Tau or Necrons; they would require some feverish assembly, which I would like to avoid if possible, and both are a little out of date.

If I go Tyranids, I'm tempted to go for the gold - hoping to win both best painted and win overall. That said, going for best painted limits me somewhat in that I wont be able to optimize my list. Not to mention that while my nids have been 5-2-1, and 4-1-1 since updating them, I'm still not winning resoundingly. Most of my wins are by very small margins, which, short of everyone else going 1-1 in the first two rounds, keep me out of the "championship" game. So, more realistically I can go for just best painted and bring my best painted bugs and go from there. The issue is that I'm pinning a goal for the tournament (in which I should just focus on having fun) on circumstances outside my control. Finally, I've actually yet to play a 6th edition game with any other army.

Which brings me to my other options. The foremost are my Orks and my Dark Eldar. My most likely lists for each are very similar - A Warlord and bodyguard that will melt anything they touch in combat while the rest of the army is primarily focused on unleashing hails of fire from their paper transports.Dark Eldar will probably be more efficient at shooting with a similar volume, but the Orks will actually get up when their trukk gets blasted out from underneath them.

Orks:
The most likely list is something like:

Warboss Gnashrak - power klaw, TL shoota, bosspole, 'eavy armor
5 Lootas - Mek (maybe)
8 Nobz - Big Choppas or TL shootas, 'eavy armor, Waaagh! Banner, Painboy, Trukk w/Red paint job
2 x 12 Boyz - Shootas, 2 Big Shootas, Nob w/TL shoota, Trukk w/Red paint job
DakkaJet - Extra TL Supa Shoota
Battlewagon - 4 big shootas, red paint job.

The plan would be to use the boyz as mobile fire screens for the Nobz and boss while the battlewagon houses the Lootas in a mobile bunker. The DakkaJet comes in with a Waaaagh and shoots the juiciest target and then the boyz and nobz jump onto objectives bottom of the final turn, usually third.

The only prep this would require is putting it in a box. The dakkajet is not done, but the wings snap in and everything else can just sit in. The issue is, +Chandler D has done some awesome work on the DakkaJet to light it up and it'd be a bit of a shame to unveil it before it's actually done. If I drop the dakkajet, I could just bring more boyz of course, and maybe drop a Nob or two to get the new boyz in a trukk as well. In objective games, I don't think I could go wrong with having a fourth scoring unit.

Dark Eldar:
I'm considering two flavors of Dark Eldar. The first is the straight up, everything in a Raider and shoot and then drop Incubi and an Archon in someone's face:

Archon - Husk Blade, Shadow Field, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Soul Trap
Haemonculus - Scissorhand and a 5 point item of some sort
6 Incubi - Klaivex with Onslaught
3 x 10 Warriors - Splinter Cannon
Ravager - Night Shields
3 x Raider - 1 with Night Shields

This list would strand one unit of warriors without a raider, but they could camp on a backfield objective in hiding. The rest of the list would swoop around shooting things until something got isolated/close enough to drop off the HQ squad, with the Haemonculus giving the group Feel no Pain to start out.

The other is even more gun-centric, dropping the one serious CC squad and bringing Eldar allies:

Haemonculus - Hexrifle
Farseer - Fortune, Runes of Warding
2 x 10 Warriors - Splinter Cannon, Raider with Night Shields
6 Dire Avengers - Exarch with Diresword and Defend
10 Guardians - Missile Launcher, Warlock with Conceal
Ravager - Night Shields
Falcon - Scatter Laser

Honestly, this list could be called Dark Eldar with Eldar or Eldar with Dark Eldar since I have 2 troop choices with each. The plan here would be to start one squad of warriors on the ground with the haemonculus to give them FnP, then immediately break off and the Warriors jump into their raider while the Haemonculus joins the Guardians and Farseer.

This list also banks on not being expected to use the new Eldar rules, though I could see buying the book in store and giving updating the list on the spot a shot. That could be challenging, but in a fun way I think.

Both space elf lists are completely assembled and almost entirely painted, though not liable to take home best painted unless it's the only fully painted force there.

As the number of blog posts recently evidence, I've slowed my hobbying a bit and I'm thinking that playing a different army might get me going again. I think I've hit a wall for the moment with my Tyranids. In the end, my choice of army might end up being a game-time decision based on what I walk out the door with, but right now it's looking like it won't be the bugs.

Regardless, to anyone who suffered all the way through my ramblings to myself, thank you. Also, to anyone with experience with Orks or Space Elves, any thoughts on the planned lists? Am I making a grave mistake somewhere? For anyone else, do you find yourself shifting gaming gears regularly or do you stick with one army/game/idea for a long time? Would love to hear from you.

PS: Mike from Trouble at T'Mill is doing some awesome giveaways to celebrate 100k views. Here's today's post: http://troubleatthemill.blogspot.com/2013/05/100k-prize-draw-part-4.html