My dreams are crushed!

I had, after weeks of deliberation, finally determined my army list.  It wasn't an overpowered one, but it had a definite strategy and the tools to accomplish it.  I had it.  HAD is the operative word.

You see, Adepticon's team tournament has some specific rules that govern army design.  As part of a 4-man team, players will pair-off and battle against another team's pair in a scenario that the AWC boys invent.  Each player brings a 1,000 point army, using 1 HQ, 1-3 Troops, 0-1 Elite, 0-1 Fast Attack, and 0-1 Heavy Support.  A single player from each team is also allowed to take an extra Elite, Fast Attack, or Heavy Support.  Outside of that, there's not too many other restrictions.  Even Forgeworld models are allowed.  But there's a list for which FW models a team can bring, and limitations on how many may be taken (one of any FW unit per team, so no repeats).  And here's where I got excited.

My army is based on a very specific theme (which I'll go into later as I describe my team's theme), which was based on the Black Library novel, "Know No Fear".  In the book, 5 chapters of Word Bearers gather on Calth with 20 chapters of the Ultramarines in a mighty mustering to supposedly crush a massive Ork Waaaagh in the galactic south.  Little did the Ultramarines realize that this was a very well-planned ambush of treachery.  The majority of the Word Bearers' legion was with their primarch and speeding to Terra to aid Horus in over throwing the Emperor.  But the part of the legion on Calth was awesome nonetheless.

Led by Erebus, the planetary forces consisted of thousands of cultists (who looked like terribly shabby soldiers, and not even good ones at that), thousands of Astartes, and armor in the form of Land Raiders, Land Speeders, and Rhinos (and I'm sure there was a Predator in there somewhere).  Kor Phaeron, on the other hand, led the space-borne assault, using hundreds of Astartes, some Dark Adeptus, and even daemons.  I chose to use the land-bound forces as my theme (for obvious reasons) and developed a strategy to fit that theme.  Here it goes:

First, I have to bring cultists.  Two big units should do the trick.  They didn't have anything special, one would have autoguns and the other would have the CC build-out.  Add to that a typical unit of Marines and BLAM!  3 Troop choices and 55 models on the field already!  To lead the force, I was going to convert up an awesome Erebus model and 'counts-as' him using Huron's rules (on suggestion of one of my 'cheezier' gamer buddies.  Good call, right?!).  Knowing that it wouldn't be enough to cause any real damage to enemy, I chose to take some armor.  That would start with a Predator with lascannon sponsons.  That tank would go armour-killing as well as spraying high-strength firepower into those foolish enough to come at it.  But a Predator is not resilient enough to withstand 2 missile launchers, so I tossed in a Land Raider Proteus.

The Proteus was going to be my 'baby'.  It's a RT-era model, so it represents the Horus Heresy time-frame perfectly.  Its rules are available online, so I don't have to bring an oversized, $80 book to use it.  It's also not great as an assault vehicle (being able to carry less doods and  not having the front ramp make this pretty obvious), so I was content to use it as a firebase.  Most importantly, it is an Elite choice, leaving me to fit into the required FOC and not taking away from one of my other teammates.  With two vehicles on the board, one armor 13 up front with 3 hull points, and the other with armor 14 all around and 4 hull points, I figured this would become a hassle for anyone to handle.  And that hassle would allow my weak Troop choices to do their jobs.  Brilliant, I say!

And then Adepticon put out the 'Allowable Forgeworld Models List', and the Proteus wasn't on there.  I know that the boys in AWC already stated that Horus Heresy stuff wasn't going to be allowed (despite some stuff being on the list), and I know that the rules aren't available in any normal Forgeworld book, but I was surprised.  And crushed.  And frustrated.

After weeks of deliberation and some sense of confidence in my usually-terrible strategic decision-making skills, I was blocked.  And now I'm back to square one.  Yay.  Oh well, I only had 23 army lists written so far, what's a few more?