Decisions Decisions - Getting ready for Cancon 2018

So Cancon is just around a month away and people have been asking me all about what I'm going to run this year, they think I'm being cagey with my responses but in reality I'm just rusty as hell. Having missing Castle Assault I've not played more than a half dozen games since las Cancon which puts me in a wierd spot. Usually I'd be totally prepped and organise but this year it's going to be super last minute. Here's my thinking process at the moment:

I have no idea about current meta or if there even is one... last year it was all about activations and Eldar, that seems to have settled down so what will this year be?

Really don't have the energy to paint, Star Wars Legion is going to drop soon so most of my effort is going into that, luckily I have about 10 painted Epic forces! Nothing new has grabbed my attention, list development in Epic seems to have stalled badly and even the new model ranges are coming along super slow. I love that companies like onslaught are producing new stuff but there are just so many frustrating gaps in collections. I'd love to do a dark eldar army for example but without the super heavies and Titans it's not worth the energy, so I'll be sticking to something I've got.

Here's the three options I'm largely considering at the moment... of course some of you will think these are deliberate attempts to distract you from my actual master plan... #zacmanning

Option 1 - Chaos Cult 

Incompertus, 2995 POINTS
Lost And The Damned - Redux (0.3 - Experimental)
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COVEN [460]
Daemonic Pact, (Chaos Undivided), Demagogue, 11 Cultists, 6 Land Transporter, Technical, Chaos Altar

COVEN [310]
Daemonic Pact, (Chaos Undivided), Demagogue, 11 Cultists, 6 Land Transporter, Technical

COVEN [225]
Daemonic Pact, (Chaos Undivided), Demagogue, 11 Cultists

PLAGUE ZOMBIE INFESTATION [175]
3D6 Plague Zombie Units

PLAGUE ZOMBIE INFESTATION [175]
3D6 Plague Zombie Units

NURGLE PLAGUE TOWER [300]
Plague Tower

NURGLE PLAGUE TOWER [300]
Plague Tower

TZEENTCH FIRELORD [250]
2 Firelord

TZEENTCH DOOMWINGS [150]
3 Doomwings

HELLFIRE CANNONS [200]
4 Hellfire Cannons

HELLFIRE CANNONS [200]
4 Hellfire Cannons

DAEMON POOL [250]
2 Greater Daemon, 10 Lesser Daemon

Pros - Nobody is going to prepare for it - actually surprisingly important in my experience, if you're doing what everyone expects it never goes well. I don't think anyone has run chaos cult at an Aus comp in my experience...

Looks awesome on the table - dead sexy army if I do say so myself. Greater Daemons - one of the great strengths of the cult is the flexibility to summon daemons where needed and with relative ease. Really hard for your opponent to stop.

Tougher than it looks - yeah the average trooper is a bag of pus but with the plague towers, excellent bombers, macro battle cannons and other other goodies the list hits harder than you might think originally. Also covers all the usual bases like suitable flak, shooting flexibility etc.

Cons:

Easy, I've played a grand total of one game with them which I lost... then again it wouldn't the first time I'd run an army at a comp with no prior experience...

Option 2 – Necrons

Incompertus, 3000 POINTS
Necrons (NetEA Tournament Pack 2013)
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INFANTRY PHALANX [425]
Necron Lord, 6 Warriors, Immortals, Pariahs, 2 Tomb Spyders

INFANTRY PHALANX [225]
Necron Lord, 6 Warriors

INFANTRY PHALANX [225]
Necron Lord, 6 Warriors

VENATOR MANIPLE [275]
6 Flayed Ones, Necron Lord, Tomb Spyders

VENATOR MANIPLE [275]
6 Flayed Ones, Necron Lord, Tomb Spyders

PYLON [200]

PYLON [200]

WARBARQUE [350]
Supreme Commander

MONOLITH PHALANX [275]
3 Monoliths

MONOLITH PHALANX [275]
3 Monoliths

MONOLITH PHALANX [275]
3 Monoliths

 Pros: Super flexible and quite tough, necrons are hard for your opponent to plan for in some respects because though most necrons lists play with similar tactics those tactics are stupidly flexible given the mass teleport options. I have had some games with them! In fact I've had a bunch, some of which I even won!

Capacity to engage all enemy objectives - although it's easy to fall into the trap of spreading thin you do have an amazing ability to choose which ground you will fight over...

Cons: Paper scissor rock - Necrons are great at clipping engage but that's pretty much it. They can't outshoot an orc so if you rock up a table and you're going up against Titans you know that your basic plan is going to struggle. Last time I played against rons I was using my feral orks and it just went so bad for the rons even I was surprised.

When they lose...they lose big - I remember being suprised at how steep the learning curve was with rons after hearing everyone complain about how OP they are but that auto phase out for broken units is just brutal if your opponent knows what they are doing. You can end up with a whole pile of suddenly uncontested objectives and have easily the weakest BTS in the game since you don't actually have to kill it to get the point. Definitely a gamblers army and not forgiving in a comp setting.

Option 3 – Cadians

Incompertus, 3000 POINTS
Cadian Shock Troopers (NetEA v1.5 *DEVELOPMENT*)
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CADIAN REGIMENTAL HEADQUARTERS [600]
1 Imperial Guard Supreme Commander unit, 7 Kasrkin units and 1 Leviathan Mobile Command Centre, Sabre Platforms (3 Sabre Platforms), Commissar

KASRKIN INFANTRY COMPANY [175]
1 Imperial Guard Commander unit and 7 Kasrkin units

KASRKIN INFANTRY COMPANY [175]
1 Imperial Guard Commander unit and 7 Kasrkin units

SUPER HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword, Commissar

SUPER HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword, Commissar

SUPER HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Stormsword, Commissar

SUPER HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Stormsword, Commissar

FLAK BATTERY [150]
3 hydras

SENTINEL SQUADRON [125]
6 Cadian Sentinels, Commissar

WARLORD CLASS TITAN [825]

THUNDERBOLT FIGHTERS [150]
2 Thunderbolts

Pros and cons Interesting I think the Cadians are the opposite of the rons in many respects. They can outshoot pretty much anything. Have the safest BTS you can get (I mean how much of a muppet are you to lose a Warlord Titan) and are still awesome in FF. The downside is though that they are super slow... it's a grind army in a game where board control is vital. You're setup needs to be gold but if you remember to basically feed the warlord two objectives 30cm apart just in front of him he can do a solid job of dealing with chunks of the board. I also suspect I'm some cases that a big Titan/gargant BTS might be a solid counter to activation spam. They can dance all they like but if they can't kill the big boy you can really force the issue. So there's my choices, if you're read this far you might as well drop your thoughts somewhere on what I should run!