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I am just curious as a BA player what you guys start your list with. Each player is always different even with the same army. Depending on points of course. Lets just assume 1500-2000

When I start I usually start with my heavy and fast support.

2 baal preds w/ ss HB

2 pred w/ss LC or 2 vindys or 1 of each.

I never leave home without 2 full squads of Assault Marines and 1 Priest. Doesn't get more Core than that.

haha.true.

reps0l wrote:
I never leave home without 2 full squads of Assault Marines and 1 Priest. Doesn't get more Core than that.

This is pretty much it. Then again, my Blood Angels are violently allergic to not being Jump Infantry, so I skip Heavy Support entirely. My core is generally as follows:

2 squads of 10 Assault Marines with 2 meltaguns, and a sergeant with storm shield and thunder hammer
1 squad of 10 Assault Marines with 2 flamers and a sergeant with 2 hand flamers
2 Sanguinary Priests with Jump Packs and Power Weapons

From there, I generally add a Libarian with a Jump Pack, and the rest is a mix of Honour Guard, Vanguard Veterans, Death Company, and more Assault Marines depending on how I'm feeling that day.

Maybe its our meta. We play in the garage, no tourneys or anything. I always feel the need for armor.

I feel that for 1500 and less, one squad of ASM works best.

These items are in almost every list I build:

One librarian w/jump pack-divination is good; I, in general, think our special HQs are overpriced garbage so I cheap out

One sanguinary priest w/jump pack-FNP love, furious charge is more of a meh

One 10 man jump squad w/meltas-counter attack duty or attack a gun line duty

One auto/las predator-the bottom line of anti troop transport, and can put a few dings on a LR. Can do this while moving and helping with armor saturation

Squadron of attack bikes w/multimelta-probably a signature unit for me. The best anti-tank weapon mounted a mobile platform that is surprisingly hard to kill with FNP.

One Whirlwind-cheap for what it can kill. Can reposition up to 12" and fire. Can ignore cover. Causes pinning tests. Adds to armor saturation. 90 pts. Yes please Over the course of a game, it is even cost effective vs MEQs from wound torrent, particularly if they bunch up. Oh, and can heavy weapon/special weapon snipe too.

Clearly, I like to shoot. My other troops are usually tac squads and 5 man assault teams all in las/plas razors. The only element in my core that ever plans to assault is the 10 man unit. With librarian assitance, they can be can the nuisance while the rest of my list hails down BS 4 shooty death. Best part is, no one expects it

The point level completely deteremines my AA. At 1500, I can't justify a stormraven and use a quad gun. At about 1750, I can start thinking stormraven. If one plays at 1500 with a stormraven, and it fails to show up on turn 2, you are hurting bad in the dakka department.

Troops. Lots and Lots of troops. Since we aren't very shooty, I basically try to counter that with alot of bodies on the field in hopes of holding objectives.

The BA shoot fine. We just don't get riflemen dreads. On many boards, in fact, we are the shootiest marines because we can move our vehicles into better shooting position and still fire all weapons or at least two weapons.

5 Sanguinary Guard with 5 power fists.
Seriously, they are terminators with jump packs, and AP4 storm bolters. You can't go wrong.

-Matt

Other than the fact that when they get shot by plasma, they die like slime. And cost 60+ pts a model. Other than that, not problems at all. And don't score unless you take a mediocre 225 pt HQ, at which point you have sunk over 1/3 of a 1500 pt list into *six* models.

Martel732 wrote:
The BA shoot fine. We just don't get riflemen dreads. On many boards, in fact, we are the shootiest marines because we can move our vehicles into better shooting position and still fire all weapons or at least two weapons.

Thought we did in heavy support?

Martel732 wrote:
Other than the fact that when they get shot by plasma, they die like slime. And cost 60+ pts a model. Other than that, not problems at all. And don't score unless you take a mediocre 225 pt HQ, at which point you have sunk over 1/3 of a 1500 pt list into *six* models.

By 60+ points you mean 50?
Yeah, that 5+ invul is so much better than the 5+ cover...
My Sanguinary Guard have repeatedly out performed my terminators, and my opponents terminators. Jump packs make all the difference. I can dictate the combat, get the charging bonus attack (and hammer of wraith), or move quickly to a more favorable match up.
Being able to sweep is a big advantage that terminators lack.

-Matt

But BA riflemen dreads step on the toes of stormravens, predators, etc, so we might as well not have them.

I was thinking of SG with inferno, powerfist, banner. For 50, yes, you can get just powerfist. I wasn't really trying to compare them to terminators. I don't use either of them very often at all. They are very expensive, T4 W1 models that die to low AP or torrent.

Also, you can't assume cover. I suppose you can put a sanguinary priest in the squad, which I would, to grant FNP.

Maybe I'm too timid to field such units, but I just feel that in especially in small games, units like this are just asking for things to go badly.

Martel732 wrote:
But BA riflemen dreads step on the toes of stormravens, predators, etc, so we might as well not have them.

I was thinking of SG with inferno, powerfist, banner. For 50, yes, you can get just powerfist. I wasn't really trying to compare them to terminators. I don't use either of them very often at all. They are very expensive, T4 W1 models that die to low AP or torrent.

Also, you can't assume cover. I suppose you can put a sanguinary priest in the squad, which I would, to grant FNP.

Maybe I'm too timid to field such units, but I just feel that in especially in small games, units like this are just asking for things to go badly.

Cover is super easy to get in an army that has jump troop core, and librarians that create a bubble of cover. You don't need to stick the priest in the unit either, it's an area of effect feel no pain.
I find that ~2 priests will give my whole army feel no pain and furious charge.

Storm Ravens are good, but it's kind of a large point sink that can be dropped by a single lucky hit. I'd take one, but not more than that. I'm too worried about my opponent having significant Air to Air and shooting my army out of the sky.
Heavy support predators? Huh, I only run the fast attack versions.
Funny enough, blood angles Rifle Dreads and 5 points cheaper than the Generic Marine version. I never really thought about rifle dreads before in my BA, but it's a pretty good deal for 120 points.
Even better, the dreads might get furious charge for free as well.

I might have to try a triple Rifle dread and defense line with quad gun. That would give my 16 S7 shots with re-rolls for ~460 points.

-Matt

I guess there is the spell from the BA list. It's probably the most potent spell on that list. Obviously this will not work very well vs nids or Eldar, but in general, I agree that this is not a bad plan.

The auto/las pred is my favorite predator, much more so than Baal preds. I often use a combination of both. The auto/las pred is very good against many types of targets. My auto/las preds have killed a ton of monstrous creatures and 2+ armor troops in my career. OH, and its got AV 13 in the front, which is much better than AV 12.

to pass up a TL AC...I love the Baal Pred much more than the regular Pred. BUT. Thats why I run each of them in pairs. They are good at different things, but BOTH are good at what they do.

Crack open a rhino with the TL LC and AC, then run your Baals up to what ever got out and just unload on it. Thats 4 TL S7 and 6 S6 shots coming their way. For the mediocore price of 145. Not a bad deal I think. The Baal is just good all around. Rending too. Rending. Rending.

The Baal is our vehicle.

We have access to 3 very different dreads though. I usually take the Fury over the rest just because of the 13 front armor. Makes it where not just anything can get it. Give it wings and its something of a force to be reckoned with.

I personally would take the Pred over the Heavy Dread just because its more mobile, better armor, better eqipped for ranged combat and only for 10 points more. But all of this is subject to what else your playing. Everything we have is fast, we pay more for it, so use it.

Something to keep in mind about the auto/las pred is the range. The long range of the weapons allows them to keep their AV 13 front pointed towards the enemy almost the whole game. The Baal's range requires it to often move into a position where opponents can get side shots.

Plus, I never count on rending working. Ever. Or when it does work for me, it's a case where it doesn't matter.