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I mentioned the eldar army because someone here asked how I did versus other types of armies.

* shrugs *

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:

targetawg wrote:Rhino's:

3 Rhinos or 4 Rhinos, Is that a big difference to 9 BS4 lascannons?

9 BS4 Lascannons = 6 hits = 4 Pens, 1 Glance

Remember that the rhinos can pop smoke so on average that is only 2 pens... the Chaos player will need to roll a 6 to remove it from the table. If the rhino can move onto an objective and is only wrecked it has served it's purpose.

So anyways the list is a concept so is only theory hammer but I think that is the best place to start. It is based on other BA armies I have played a lot in tournies so I do have some practical experience. I am looking for constructive feedback so I can perfect the overall design.

G

I run a Dual Lash, Oblits, and PMs army. And as a heads up even if you pop smoke I usually end up getting at least 2 pens out of each squad. Maybe I'm just lucky or you underestimating someone rolling a 3+ then a 4+.

Would you shoot all your Oblits at one rhino per turn or spread out your target selection?

G

I played a virtually identical BA list to this above at the GT. It was game 5 and we were on table 12 so he wasn't dreadful...

I was using :

Dual Lash
Plague Marines x3
6 Oblits

By turn 3 the game was over, by 5 his army was wiped out and I was rolling pretty bad.

There is very little you can do against dual lash. You HAVE to kill the demon prince and/or oblits to have any chance vs the csm army and you dont really have any ranged way of even softening them up.

And the suggestion that veteran nob bikers (who have a 24" movement if necessary) will charge a unit which has a counter charge set up next turn is a little naive. Using your example from the rhinos, a noob will do it but anyone with any idea what they're doing will take another path. Remember, he only has to contest one to win bases and is so much faster than you for objectives.

If I'm honest, I think it is very difficult to write a list that can do well against those armies with any list and still be ok vs most other stuff. I think it is virtually impossible with blood angels... If you're an amazing player and lucky then maybe but it's gonna be a tough battle staying on the top tables without psychic protection on an elite army where every hit counts.... (not sure if BA can take hoods???)

As a final note, I would not like the chances of this list vs horde armies (nids/orkies) or really anything mechy / really fast (queer council on bikes /falcons etc) - again, assuming you arn't playing a fool

Thanks for the honest and very helpful feedback. Sounds like I will have to go back to the drawing board again... I am going to do some play testing first with this list so I can decide better where to go from here. I have used rhinos a lot I think they are better than given credit here... to me they are definitely better than drop pods.

"And the suggestion that veteran nob bikers (who have a 24" movement if necessary) will charge a unit which has a counter charge set up next turn is a little naive."

My point was I think the nob bikers would be hesitant to charge any of the troops knowing they would be counter charged. It would probably be a game of cat and mouse.


G

That is actually very true (cat & mouse) and could be what to do to beat them.... I usually make at least one mistake a game though and with that list that'd be the end...

As for the moaning about rhinos - they are awesome... I had 3 KP games in the GT this year and lost 3 in total (took 2)... Even if they do die they still make good cover

: )

G

played the test match today against a very good gamer. Very close game... Could have gone either way.

Second game dismantled a SW drop pod army running two iron class and a venerable.

These were both 1750 point games. Can easily fit in a venerable Furioso at 1850 points to kill the war bosses.

G

No experience with blood angels, but what if you swapped out some of those rhinos for some vindicators.

Consider: You retain your moving terrain for your jump packers, you have something that at least isn't going to evaporate the first time a lascannon hits it (probably) and you've got S10 blast templates that help with hordes, oblits, Plague Marines and Nob Bikers.

Now, I understand that no self respecting Nob biker boss is going to prance around in a neat formation for you to blow the crap out of him, but as long as those vindicators are still alive, he has to think hard about committing to a charge. If he gets bunched up in C&C, he might eat demolisher rounds

the one thing to remember is nob biker squad bigger than or equal to 6. how many nob bikers does 6 rending hits kill?

zero!!!!!
you put one rend on each nob and then roll your 5+ inv

The DC unit costs 40 points... that is simply the cost of the rhino and I might as well take them. Sure the rends are small potatoes in the grand scheme of things but if they help to kill two to three nobs they have more than made back their points.

In my opinion the vindicator is a big waste of points unless you feel very lucky.

G

The vindicator is indeed your best bet against the nob biker list, here's why:

Even if they've managed to maximize their spread out, you'll catch at minimum 3 nob bikers, even with scatter if they're spread out, you're going to get a few.

That template will get 3-4 wounds depending on how many you touch, and anything under there is dead if they cant roll the 4+ cover save.

Thats a couple dead nob bikers per vindicator, play it right, and you should be able to get off 2 shots before they charge in, that goes a loooong way towards weakening them and lowering the mob rule number and such making them easier to break later on.

Nob bikers bane is the double toughness weapon, the vindicator even is double toughness for the warboss (uh oh!), 3 vindicators = bad day for nob biker.

If only I could still play my Armored company...gotta wait till the IG dex I guess!

I am not saying vindis are not good but here is why I wouldn't use them:

Everything you take in a BA army is expensive. You probably need two vindis to make sure they do some damage to the nob bikers. Two vindis would take away from other areas in my army and I am not sure how well they would fare against other armies such as lash/Oblit/PM spam. I do think they could do okay versus hordes though. My list is so tweaked now I have no spare points... I wish I could fit in a venerable Furioso in a drop pod but then I would have to drop one of my three troop choices, which I will not do.

I think nob bikers would turbo boost towards the tanks, rely on their 3+ cover save then destroy them the next turn... 24" turbo boost + 12" move + 6" charge equals 42"... it's hard to hide the tanks and they only have an effective range of 30".

G

Here is what I did learn playing against the nob bikers:

It does boil down to a cat and mouse game when you play for objectives. Obviously the nob bikers will have to eventually charge you since their main strength is close combat... therefore it is fairly easy to setup up a counter charge. You can destroy a whole unit by drenching them with meltas then counter charging them with a ton of power fist attacks. The preferred enemy rule for Dante and the -1 to their WS really hurts them. There is still a very good chance that the nob bikers will kill everything that charges them, so you must have enough of your army left after the first bike squad is gone to be able to kill the other squad... that is very hard to do and you will need hot dice.

Setup your units in cover if possible to force them to take dangerous terrain tests... while it is not going to remove any of the nobs from the table every wound counts. The nob biker army is very small so single wounds here and there do add up over the course of several turns.

There is no need to charge in with your HQ if their special rules are still in effect. One mistake I made was charging in Dante and Corbulo the same turn... they could have hung back so the rest of my army would have benefitted from them for close combats following the initial assaults.

Force them to assault your weakest units firsts, such as my rhinos and attack bikes... keep your units embarked inside the transports then spill out when the rhinos are destroyed so you have more hard hitting units to counter charge.

G