Formations and special detachments - good or bad?

A topic that I'm sure has been discussed before, but I'm just getting into seriously considering using formations and alternative detachments.  My armies were pretty much built in the olden days of one force organization chart to rule them all, and even newer ones have been built with that mindset.  I had considered a Khorne Daemonkin army using their special detachment and formations before deciding to just do more regular CSM instead.  I have some other ideas floating around that may fit better with some of the special arrangements out there than a regular combined arms detachment, so I have been thinking more about the idea behind current ones.

Castles in the Sand

I picked these sand castle building buckets up at Dollar Tree, figuring for a buck each they would be worth fooling around with.  I took off the shovel and straps and primed them black.  Chaos temple, bastion stand in, maybe void shield generator?

Welcome back to Warhammer 40K 7th edition

I never played this, but apparently a rubber hose is an unwieldy AP2 weapon.

So, you're coming back to 40K after a long absence.  The last time you played was 5th edition, maybe earlier.  What's different?

Oh boy.  You'd better sit down.

League Battle Report: Sons of Taurus vs. Death Korps of Krieg 1000pts Big Guns Never Tire!

Got in a 1000pt league battle with Scott's Death Korps of Krieg, on his new mat from Gamemat.eu.

League Battle Report: Sons of Taurus vs. Eldar 1000pts

Played a 1000pt game with Cayla's Ulthwe' Eldar as part of our league, rolling up Relic.  Not wanting to immediately get assaulted by the Wraithknight, I chose to let the Eldar go first, which with Jetbikes and the Relic is generally not a good idea.

League Battle Report: Sons of Taurus vs. Imperial Fists 1000pts

My technical incompetence in getting pictures over to my newer computer and photobucket kicked in heavily this time, so it has taken me a while to get this report up.  As part of our escalation league my Sons of Taurus squared off against Leonard's Imperial Fists.  My cultists and minotaur spawn were renforced by a second dread, a maulerfiend, an obliterator and Minos the Malign, a counts-as Huron Blackheart.  The loyalists had two tac squads in pods, ironclad dreadnought in pod, devastator squad with missile launchers, scouts, and a chaplain. We were playing The Scouring (six objectives with variable values) and vanguard strike deployment.

Sons of Taurus: Cultists and Walkers

Finished up the Sons of Taurus cultists and based the walkers.

Went with browns/reds.  One, I think it looks nice, two, think it goes well with the copper of the SoT armor, and similar to the Scythiak in case I want to combine them someday as IA13 Renegades or something.

Half of the assault guys are like the guy seen here second from the left, WHFB Empire Flagellants with Pig Iron heads.  A lot of the cultists have gas masks and/or chemical injectors, thought the Pig Iron heads were a good tie-in.  I figure the masks help feed them with combat drugs as much as keep other stuff out.

Walkers, two dreads and maulerfiend.

I also had another league game today, against Alex and his Tau (proxied at the moment).  Way too many shots for cultists to survive, but I got the spawn and dread up into him.  He was leading 2-1 (first blood and warlord) when the game ended turn 5, if we had gone on to 6 or 7 the SoT would have won and potentially even tabled him.  Them's the breaks.

Escalation League: 500pt snapshots

We've started up an escalation league to encourage new armies/new units.  I'm bringing the Sons of Taurus as that was what I was working on anyways, and it will help motivate me to keep plugging away on them.  We have a number of people nominally signed up, but have not gotten a lot of games in yet.  Hopefully that will change as more stuff gets assembled.  

At least in theory we have:

Sons of Taurus CSM (me)

Dark Angels

Ulthwe Eldar

Death Korps of Krieg

Imperial Fists

Black Scars (SM)

Tau space cops

Necrons

Admech

SOB/Inquisitionx2 with alternate models

Luna Wolves

We get points for battles, playing new people, batreps if you don't win, getting units finished, donating terrain.

My first outing, against the forces of Krieg (with temporary stand-ins):

I've got a dreadnought, 5 minotaurs (spawn), 20 assault cultists and 20 shooting cultists.  Scott's Krieg had a regular Russ and a Punisher (20 shots) and a two-squad platoon with platoon HQ.  We battled over the Relic.

Shooting cultists move up along with dread, minotaurs rush forward, assault cultists hunker down under mortar fire (pinned due to a Warlord trait).  Krieg opens up on the minotaurs and kills one.

Minotaurs charge and wreck the tanks, then move on to the infantry.  One Krieg squad makes it to the center to contest the Relic but gets beaten down.  Victory Chaos!  Screen those tanks!

Second battle, against Leonard's Imperial Fists:

Bulk of the army pushes up the middle to head towards the devastators in the ruins ahead.  Shooty cultists on the flanks to grab objectives.  (Maelstrom mission).  

Pod drops down and wipes out cultists.

While minotaurs run down the devastators, cultists redirect to deal with the pod-squad.  They make it in a bit diminished, but gradually beat the marines down.  The cultist champion even won his challenge with the sergeant, earning +1 initiative.  

Second pod squad drops down and destroys dreadnought, but are close enough for the minotaurs to charge in for revenge.  I had scored more points from the cards, and won the game.  Spawn are nasty at 500pts until you get them whittled down a bit.

I've since gotten the cultists painted, but will wait to post updated pics until they're based and more or less finished.