Do you enjoy burying your opponent under waves and waves of dudes? Do you see Stalingrad as a source of good tactics? It looks like you want to play Valhallans then, let’s dive in! And Check the Tactics Corner for more great articles!
Hey boys and girls, BigVik here with the next article in my series of looks at list builds for the new Astra Militarum codex. Today we’ll be looking at Valhalla!
If you need to bone up on the regimental rules check out Reece’s overview of the Astra Militarum Codex, Part 1, and Part 2.
Valhallan armies often use a tide of bodies to protect the waves of tanks coming which do the actual work for the army. With proper support, a line of tanks kept behind a tide of bodies can keep shooting for two more turns than would otherwise be possible, ensuring whatever needs killing gets it.
Now let’s dive into the army!
Spearhead Detachment (Valhallan, +1 CP, Leman Russes gain ObSec)
- Tank Commander w/ Punisher cannon, 3 heavy bolters
- 3x Leman Russ w/ Punisher cannon, 3 heavy bolters
Supreme Command Detachment (Valhallan, +1 CP)
- 3x HQ- Primaris Psyker
- Lord of War- Shadowsword w/ full turrets
Battalion Detachment (Valhallan, +3 CP, Troops gain ObSec)
- HQ- Lord Commissar
- HQ- Company Commander
- 3x ELITE- Commissar
- TROOPS- 24 Conscripts
- 5x TROOPS- 20 Conscripts
What the list does: This list is a blunt object. It has a Shadowsword for anti-tank, Leman Russes for anti-infantry, Primaris Psykers for support and mortal wound application, and conscripts with commissars to keep everything else alive (Note: even with the change to the Commissar rule, Valhalla is very good at running Conscripts+Commissar as they take half casualties from morale losses)! This list will try to sit on an entire side of the board and make you bleed for every inch you take, trying to either table you or keep you off the Guard player’s objectives at all costs, ensuring a mission point win at the end of the round
What Relics to take: You can take the Valhallan pistol to give you an “old school” commissar, though Kurov’s Aquila, and the out-flank dagger are always a good buy. The reason you might take the pistol is to have 5 commissars, this means that you can have either one large brick with overlapping circles of discipline, or you can make 2 blobs in deployment to force your opponent to split their efforts between 2 bricks of bubble wrap surrounding lots of tanks.
What its Strengths are: This list can spread out and grab objectives, and it can kill a lot stuff. Your opponent got a lotta infantry, all good, they got a knight or two? STILL all good, not to mention the shear number of models you need to get through to get to those tanks, and the shear ruggedness of those tanks with the Valhallan Regimental traits ensures that just about until those tanks blow up, they’re still at tip top efficiency.
What its Weaknesses are: If you can peel an arbitrary number of conscripts off of those tanks, then you can box them in, and round them up in a couple rounds. Now with 124 conscripts, it may take a couple turns, and you’ll be getting the full 50 dice treatment 4x a turn, not to mention the doomsday laser hooked onto the Shadowsword ensuring any center piece models go away very quickly, but remember Line of Sight is a thing, on a good table, you might very well be able to force the Shadowsword into a compromising position where you can get to it, or deny a critical target to it for a turn or two. With how expensive that dang model is, making it waste volcano cannon shots, can be a counter play in and of it self!
Well that’s all I’ve got for today, tune back in next time when we continue looking at the Regiments of Renown of Astra Militarum!
And as always, Frontline Gaming sells gaming goodies at a discount, every day!
Frontline Gaming will buy your used models for cash or store credit!
It reads like it was written before GW summarily executed the commissars rules ?
Was this article posted late?
The valhallan trait actually keeps the conscripts viable. The commissars boost morale to a decent number and if you keep the blobs to 20 a piece they have to basically be wiped off the table before they suffer from morale enough to not be viable.
Yeah, Valhalla largely gets around the changes.
Yeah, I think I would just take the Valhallan relic that makes your Company commander into the old commissar.
Yeah, pretty much. Then, who cares about the nerf? lol
There are lots of ways to get around it.
Similar, but alternative view.
Conscripts + High Toughness tanks is a solid combo, but really what you are solving here is stuffing an alpha strike.
With that in mind, I don’t think you really want to go down the “eggs in one basket” super heavy approach with Vahallans. You get more T8 wounds and fire power from just going straight Leman Russes.
The list also stacks ALL the tank hunting with 1 super heavy. I’m not sure about your meta, but my local lists will easily pop a shadow sword, turn 1, without any issue.
IMO this list is better with all lemans with the front turret being lascannons. This makes it really difficult to shut down the Valhallan firepower.
I also think it’s worth discussing this list as a Beta strike list. Thinking under those terms, you obviously get a lot out of reserve units like scions as a detachment.
Finally, as much as I love Lemans, I actually think the best way to run Valhallans is pure infantry. Very Few lists have the small arms fire power to deal with something like 900 points of regenerating, fearless, conscripts. Especially, when paired with something like Elysians, which are very cheap reserve specialists that pack a punch.
In general, I just think most players would be disappointed with a build of 1 Valhallan super heavy.
It would have been cool to see a list that used all the Valhallan relics, orders, and stratagems. I don’t see anything that makes this list especially “Valhallan”.