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The ignoring cover save mechanic has become increasingly important as 6th edition has evolved. Lots of strategies revolving around cover. Plus, it really blunts the force of a horde list to hit them with this simple squad preemptively. The new FAQ ruling about who can die means you can now avoid killing all the closest models with the flame templates if you are careful.

While I do think avoidance is a good tactic if you let that blob hit anything it will chew them apart. It really doesn't do to ignore a Chapter Master, with the blob or not. Azrael's got 5 attacks (6 on the charge), WS6 I5 and with a blob that big there's a lot of table in charge range.

I'm not saying make it a primary target, in fact look to isolate it from the rest of the army, surround it with guns and then put it down with volume fire. Just be aware that Azrael can be a force on his own

 Niiai wrote:
How does he get the +4 invonerable save? As far as I know it only affects models withing 6, not units. at least if we are talking about the same artefact. What more it will affect your models also in CC. Just get in there with feel no pain and have 3+/4++ and feel no pain.

Might wanna look up how Azreal functions before trying to contribute to the discussion...just saying this is completely unhelpful to the discussion.

< Taken by the void dragon. >

simple, full squad of veterans stern guard all with combi-flamers. this is really deadly, if you don't like combi you could even put in some real flamers. I love me some roasted guardsmen

Guardsmen already have a 4+ invul save, it's called an aegis. It's also called ruins. It's also called going to ground everywhere else. Spending that many points to give a guard blob a 4+ invul save is a hideous waste.

Furthermore, you're still talking about a 4+ save on something that's only T3. What you're talking about is guardsmen in carapace, at best, which die only somewhat slower than regular guardsmen.

A 4+ invul isn't ALL that good of a durability upgrade to begin with for guardsmen, and it's competing against options which do more or less the same things for free.

If you were already taking DA allies, then taking Azrael to make your allied wing armies scoring is a good idea. I'd stick him in with deathwing terminators before I wasted him on a blob, though.

 Ailaros wrote:
Guardsmen already have a 4+ invul save, it's called an aegis. It's also called ruins. It's also called going to ground everywhere else. Spending that many points to give a guard blob a 4+ invul save is a hideous waste.

Furthermore, you're still talking about a 4+ save on something that's only T3. What you're talking about is guardsmen in carapace, at best, which die only somewhat slower than regular guardsmen.

A 4+ invul isn't ALL that good of a durability upgrade to begin with for guardsmen, and it's competing against options which do more or less the same things for free.

If you were already taking DA allies, then taking Azrael to make your allied wing armies scoring is a good idea. I'd stick him in with deathwing terminators before I wasted him on a blob, though.

It doesn't matter, this is a nva post. my buddy is taking it not me. i care little how he spends his points.

It's hard for the BA to squeeze DC into a good combined arms list. That's why many people say that the BA aren't a good combined arms list. Obviously, the Space Wolves are better, but that goes without saying. As I said before, the DA can field much problematic things for the depleted BA than this blob.

Azrael really only 15 points to the cost of a Ravenwing Army, Sammael costs 200 points. You need one of these guys to field a Ravenwing army.

To deal with it? I would target the Banner first, this is giving his army its lethality. Its in a small unit. Kill it with lots of shooting.

Then, you have to go and kill Azrael. Call him out in a challenge, BA's have lots of good close combat options.

If you can, avoid getting swamped by the Blob and focus on killing his most lethal parts, the Dev Banner and those meltaguns. That blob as big as it is can only contest or claim one OBJ. Kill his bikes, show them no mercy..

 kaiservonhugal wrote:
Azrael really only 15 points to the cost of a Ravenwing Army, Sammael costs 200 points. You need one of these guys to field a Ravenwing army.

To deal with it? I would target the Banner first, this is giving his army its lethality. Its in a small unit. Kill it with lots of shooting.

Then, you have to go and kill Azrael. Call him out in a challenge, BA's have lots of good close combat options.

If you can, avoid getting swamped by the Blob and focus on killing his most lethal parts, the Dev Banner and those meltaguns. That blob as big as it is can only contest or claim one OBJ. Kill his bikes, show them no mercy..

BA have close combat options, but not that many of them are actually that *good*. The BA special characters are all overpriced except Tycho, and our generic characters don't get things like relic blades or artificer armor.

Martel732 wrote:

 kaiservonhugal wrote:
Azrael really only 15 points to the cost of a Ravenwing Army, Sammael costs 200 points. You need one of these guys to field a Ravenwing army.

To deal with it? I would target the Banner first, this is giving his army its lethality. Its in a small unit. Kill it with lots of shooting.

Then, you have to go and kill Azrael. Call him out in a challenge, BA's have lots of good close combat options.

If you can, avoid getting swamped by the Blob and focus on killing his most lethal parts, the Dev Banner and those meltaguns. That blob as big as it is can only contest or claim one OBJ. Kill his bikes, show them no mercy..

BA have close combat options, but not that many of them are actually that *good*. The BA special characters are all overpriced except Tycho, and our generic characters don't get things like relic blades or artificer armor.

Plus he'll have chump Sgts and stuff so i can't "challenge snipe" him as someone called it earlier.

It's the same solutions I keep coming back to with BA: heavy shooting with minimal assault or go basically all in on jumpers. Both approaches have common lists from top armies that will crush them.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

 Sarigar wrote:
Barrage kills under pie plates, not direct fire pie plates, unless I've missed the rule somewhere: direct fire templates you still utilize normal casualty removal rules.

Shooting a fearless blob squad with a 4+ inv save takes a lot of shooting and can be a real borefest in an assault. I've run Azreal + 50 IG and it's not easy to shoot down nor is it really easy to kill off in assault.

Which is why I advised to have your opponent play against something similar. Except I think the DC/Dante/Azreal combo will work better than the IG/Azreal combo.

Wait, so your advice on how to beat his Azrael IG blob is to bring an Azrael IG blob of your own?

Yes. It makes for a horribly boring game and it would be good for the OP opponent to see it. I played the IG blob and Azreal and after getting into the assault I wanted to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon. If you want to get sillier, have Straken in the CCS so you can pick up counterattack and furious charge...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Arthas367 wrote:

 Sarigar wrote:
You can fight fire with fire to see how your opponent likes it. Take Azreal and Dante and put them in a large footslogging DC. Add in a 5 man DA tactical squad and have fun. This way you can hit and run out of assault. With the size of both units, it will be a bit hard to stay out of each others range. I personally prefer bolters, but your mileage may vary.

Also, how are IG getting FnP? They dont benefit from Azreal's Warlord trait? This combo is barely a month old, how is it already winning tourneys?

I was wrong on the the fnp front, but they most definitely can gain the warlord trait of a battlebrother ally, So Azreal is free to give furious charge or coldblooded

Blktom is completely right, people are putting way to much pointless ineffective effort into killing them, templates plain and simple, or waste all your points on bad dc and watch them crumble before firepower without doing anythinof noteg

The Battlebrother ally was never in question nor were the other abilities; it was how FnP was being given as the DA codex specifically stated DA models.

What I have learned from running the Azreal/IG Blob squad is the it is a HUGE footprint if you run it 50 strong (which is what I did). Missions like the Relic are less than fun as I just move and run my blob onto the relic and it pretty much is contested the entire game. Azreal makes the unit Fearless and it is simply a massive borefest handling assault with such huge units.

Things like trying to figure out who is in rapid fire range, LOS, Overwatch and then combine it with things like Prescience (which I did) makes for such a slow, clunky and boring game, I recommend doing it to your opponent as well so they can see what it's like. Personally, I found this type of game horribly boring and tedious. However...

To crush the IG blob squad quickly, you need to be able to remove Azreal (and possibly an attached Librarian) as this will remove Fearless and you can actually assault the blob and make them go away fast. A couple of things immediately come to mind:

-Jaws of the World Wolf. This was done to me and once a second Jaws hit me, I rolled a 6 for Azreal and away he went. Lucky for me, I had the DA Librarian in the squad which still made them Fearless. Granted, Azreal only fails on a '6', but the more times you can cast it, the more likely he will fail the roll.
-Vindicare Assassin manning an Icarus Lascannon. Because of the latest GW FAQ, you cannot LoS shots from the Vindicare. This is a case where Azreal gets his 4+ inv; if he fails he is removed as he does not have Eternal Warrior. IIRC, you can also utilize Telion to the same effect, but I'm not positive with his particular ruling.

A blob without without the Space Marine support (giving them some type of special ability such as ATSKNF or Fearless) makes them fairly susceptable in assault from dedicated assault elements (folks will bemoan that assault is dead, but assault is what can kill these squads quickly). Overwatch isn't overly scary, especially if assaulting with a unit having a 2+ save or IC with 2+ save in front. Because the IG blob squads are so large, they tend to be somewhat spaced out to avoid template/large blast death and it is nearly impossible to get all of them in close enough to even attack back at initiative 3. Some folks may have Power Axes in their squads, but again, watch very carefully the positioning in assault; it is quite possible the IG SGTs won't even be in range to attack. Win the assault on the first turn and if they don't have something modifying their LD, they go away quick.

The DC have some interesting concepts, but are prone to any deathstar in the game; you lose your deathstar too early and you likely will lose the game. Dante/DC/Azreal brings and interesting mix to the table. You have two models that have a 2+ save and can LoS away wounds while the rest have a 3+/4++/5+ FnP to absorb other hits. They are all Fearless and have Hit and Run which only fails on a '6'. They can Rapid Fire and still assault if need be. Now throw in a Librarian, and cast Prescience on the unit. While the DC are not a Scoring unit, they certainly are a Denial unit which can be just as useful.

30 Death Company with 2 Power Fists are 650 points; definitely a Death Star, but I think one that is more fun than the IG blob squad. With Dante and Azreal, I believe has utility.

Also, for the BA players, this has the potential to survive triple Helldrakes which I really anticipate will become the new hotness (albeit off topic a bit). Then again, Draigowing doesn't really care about triple Helldrakes.