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Well, I have a large BA army that hit the shelf when the pdf codex came out.
The new codex seems to be playable. Here is my first list.


Librarian w/ terminator armor - 125

5 Assault Termies w/ th,ss - 220
Land Raider Crusader w/ multi melta - 260

Sanguinius Priest w/ terminator armor - 85

8 DC w/ power fist
Rhino - 275

10 Tactical Marines w/ flamer, plasma cannon
incl. Sergent w/ power fist
Rhino - 250

10 Tactical Marines w/ flamer, plasma cannon
incl. Sergent w/ power weapon, melta bombs
Rhino - 245

Baal Predator w/ heavy bolter sponsons - 145

Baal Predator w/ heavy bolter sponsons - 145

2 Assault Bikes w/ multimelta - 100

Total: 1850 pts.

Sorry man but I can't see what's supposedly competitive about this list. Is this list based on the models you have available, or did you go with an army like this out of all the possible BA power builds available by choice?

Did you post this list because you just want to let us know what you play with, or do you want us to make you a better list? What models do you have available to you? I assume a lot since you said you're BA army is large.

If no changes are made, it's a nice enough list with some variety and some hallmark BA units. It would for example suit a White Dwarf battle report pretty well.

Well, actually I want you to improve the list.
I have a large BA army (incl. a large DC unit with jump packs) and so have almost all models available.

wuestenfux wrote:Well, actually I want you to improve the list.
I have a large BA army (incl. a large DC unit with jump packs) and so have almost all models available.

Well, when I give advice to people about their lists there's always the danger that I'm just trying to make their lists identical to mine. People need to discover what works and what doesn't on their own or otherwise they won't do well with them regardless of any other factors. What I really like about your army is that it doesn't have any truly garbage choices and still looks rather friendly. By friendly I don't mean that it tries to lose, but that it is nearly something that could be taken from a fluff book or a WD battle report.

I also think that I made a mistake in saying it's not competitive. Being competitive is always relative to the opposition and since you've purposefully avoided garbage units that make no sense whatsoever you've made a decent enough army. That said, there are still units that are better than others, and if you want to try to be as competitive as you can be, then you need to take advantage of those units. Additionally, being as competitive as you can be always leads to spamming and therefore redundancy and will probably lead to a less fluffy looking army list. Atleast less so than what you have now. I like to get over that last hurdle by making sure the army's miniatures are converted and painted well enough to make them visually very pleasing and therefore masking the fact that the units are mostly multiples of the same and the list is as powerful as I could make it. I'm sure you understand what I'm trying to say here.

I'd ask what units or what kind of a playstyle you definately want to keep before changing it from top to bottom. I wouldn't use Land Raiders, Terminators, characters in Terminator armour, Tactical Marines or Death Company in a Blood Angels army, so you see from that already that I would go a bit different way.

This just seems like a Vanilla Marine list with FnP Hammernators. I don't think this is the type of list that BAs will do well with. Rhinos are never a great choice for assault troops. Remember everything can take a LR as a dedicated transport (that would make your DC far more useful).

Other than that Tac squads in BA lists aren't great. Assault squads will do you better in almost every situation.

I think you really need to look at the BA codex with fresh eyes and see it for it's merits and then decide from there what type of list you're going to build.

I have to agree with Flingit, this is a vanilla space marine army with a model giving out feel no pain.

There's a lot better and unqiue choices in the angels codex which you could use.

Well, Assault Marines in Rhinos would be an option, but
also jump packing Assault Marines with a S. Priest close enough to benefit from FNP.

Best options for BA in basic spamming terms:

Assault squads with Sanguinary preists (remember you can get 3 for 1 Elite slot).

Assault squads in Razorback supported by loads of Predators (you can spam assault cannons and Lascannons better than anyone).

Min Assault squads in Land Raiders (got to love the Raider spam, now with added deep strike ability ).

Flyings dreads.

Libbies giving all your vehicles cover saves.

Flyings dreads.

What does that mean? Storm Ravens?

No it mean dreads with wings of sangiunius.

FlingitNow wrote:No it mean dreads with wings of sangiunius.

That's absolutely evil.

That's absolutely evil.

Yes it is...

I agree with the rest. I think FNP hammernators are nice and I would probably have brought that same unit - but Terminator armor is a waste of points on characters and priests imho.

DC in a rhino is the least useful build for them. Either go LR(C) or jump pack them if you have the points. For larger units you might as well land raider them.

Librarian Dreads (ie. flying/blood lance) are just sick. DS'ing two of them on turn one gives you psychic hoods and a good chance of popping lots of mobility in the opponent's army.

Storm ravens are nice, but I think they need a completely subordinate build to make them work. IE. an army built around using them.

If you have a huge DC contingent at your disposal, from what I've seen in the codex an enormous squad or two could be good as the core of an army (or 14-15 w/character in LRC).

They excel in face-to-face bashes that fly in the face of objectives. In a BA army I think you are going for the massacre every time. In that respect they are fields away different from vanilla marines where 3 tac squads seems to be the 'minimum' at 1850. Who cares if you take Astorath and only take 2 DC squads as troops? I sure don't. If the vanilla marines are face pounded off the field...

As Fling stated above quite clearly, spamming LR is a good reason to take more troops, but otherwise, go with what is absolutely more effective at shredding opposing armies. Playtest some Sang Guard, jump pack assault spam, DC blocks with Astorath/Lemartes, LR spam, etc.

Min Assault squads in Land Raiders (got to love the Raider spam, now with added deep strike ability ).

Minimum Assault squads in LR's doing what? I guess just sitting inside.
I'd be more inclined to beef them up so that they can do some damage.

Minimum Assault squads in LR's doing what? I guess just sitting inside.
I'd be more inclined to beef them up so that they can do some damage

The idea of that build is that the LRs win you the battle the assault squads never leave and do nothing other than make the LR scoring. The assault squad becomes essentially a 65 point upgrade to make the tank scoring.

At 1850 you could fit in 5 Land Raiders and 2 Libbies to give them cover saves. Not many armies at 1850 will be set up to deal with that many Land raiders.

I'm not saying it is the best list ever but it is a good spam list that will do well against most all comers lists. It obviously has it's weaknesses (it is essentially a 5 model army).

Otherwise just use the LRs as dedicated transports for things like Death Company.

FlingitNow wrote:

Minimum Assault squads in LR's doing what? I guess just sitting inside.
I'd be more inclined to beef them up so that they can do some damage

The idea of that build is that the LRs win you the battle the assault squads never leave and do nothing other than make the LR scoring. The assault squad becomes essentially a 65 point upgrade to make the tank scoring.

At 1850 you could fit in 5 Land Raiders and 2 Libbies to give them cover saves. Not many armies at 1850 will be set up to deal with that many Land raiders.

I'm not saying it is the best list ever but it is a good spam list that will do well against most all comers lists. It obviously has it's weaknesses (it is essentially a 5 model army).

Otherwise just use the LRs as dedicated transports for things like Death Company.

I like the latter thought.

The damage output of even 5 Land Raiders is too low if you face an MC Nids list or an Ork army with Nob Bikerz.
My mech Eldar army always includes 2 units of Fire Dragons able to take down 2 LRs early in the game,
while the Seer Council can take on another with ease.