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Martel, I agree with your comments about TAC lists, but when you tailor a list, for a campaign against a known foe, BA in general, and DC in particular, are very effective.

Not everybody plays TAC lists. Not by a long shot.
A lot of us play storyline games, campaigns etc.

In that setting, tailored lists are much more fun.



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One other thing Martel, you often make good points, but try not to be so extreme.
Its one thing to say "Lemartes is overpriced" but its kind of ridiculous to say he is "rubbish".

I have several opponents who would disagree.

The problem with a lot of 40K players these days is they just want an army that wins from the dex, without any tactical thought or execution required.

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
Take a 5 man assault squad with a flamer and 2 hand flamers. I think it's around 150 points and fairly disposable.

I don't think that's allowed. You may take one specialist weapon (flamer in this case) for every five guys and Sgt. may take the hand flamer.
That'll be 115p if I recall correctly.

True that. It just says make replace his bolt pistol/chainsword rather than saying bolt pistol and/or chainsword.

It still doesn't say he can't replace both. I'll ask my local gaming group tonight to see what the consensus is on the wording. Damn you GW and your ambiguous wording!

Edit~

I did just go back and noticed that in all other sergeant cases it does say and/or. Only the assaul sergeant doest say and of, which would imply you guys are right. Seems like a load of BS why does he get the shaft ? Lol it's not like one hand flamer is that powerful. I guess having a pistol at least allows him a shot at a precision shot to target something special, but I would still rather has two hand flamers.

That would also mean that my other assault sergeant with LC and SS is illeagal. And I have never had anyone tell me he can't take both. Might throw this up in YMDC forum.

But not nearly as killy as five regular flamers. I'm just throwing that out there for the honor guard; I don't think they're really very good, unfortunately.

If it turns of that I can't double up in weapons then I may take them as that, or they'll become foot assault and mech up.


Anyway here is the post in YMDC, lets hash it out there http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/527699.page#5629305

 Endriu Death Coy wrote:
One other thing Martel, you often make good points, but try not to be so extreme.
Its one thing to say "Lemartes is overpriced" but its kind of ridiculous to say he is "rubbish".

I have several opponents who would disagree.

The problem with a lot of 40K players these days is they just want an army that wins from the dex, without any tactical thought or execution required.

Why not take a reclusiarch then, it would be the same price and far more effective (plus it'd save you having to purchase Lemartes + an HQ).

Lemartes is rubbish. He doesn't fill an HQ slot. His price tag is absolutely insane. Where is the utility of boosting the HTH ability of a squad that can already steamroll most HTH combats? Even if you were to come to my FLGS and beat me with a list containing Lemartes, that doesn't make him good. When a codex has the problems the BA do, overpriced = rubbish, since there are overpriced units we can't avoid, we can not afford to exacerbate the problem with choosing even more overpriced units.

The BA need force multipliers, and only the librarian HQ choice really does this. Shield of Sanguinius combined with FNP can push plasma casualties down quite a bit, or if you go divination, the worst you can get is rerolling shooting and HTH to hit rolls for a full turn.

If player A can execute as well as player B, why would player A want to gimp himself with sub-optimal choices? Especially from a codex that *tops out* right now at "medicore"?

 Endriu Death Coy wrote:


The problem with a lot of 40K players these days is they just want an army that wins from the dex, without any tactical thought or execution required.

I'm not sure I understand this statement. I very much do want an army in a codex that can win. I also want multiple flavours that can win from a codex. If you're trying to say that allies are the answer (which I doubt you are) then that's unfair. I don't, and other people don't, want to take allies to win.

Tactical execution has nothing to do with creating a viable list. BA are seriously lacking in viable TAC lists, which many players find off-putting for good reason.

 Griddlelol wrote:

 Endriu Death Coy wrote:


The problem with a lot of 40K players these days is they just want an army that wins from the dex, without any tactical thought or execution required.

I'm not sure I understand this statement. I very much do want an army in a codex that can win. I also want multiple flavours that can win from a codex. If you're trying to say that allies are the answer (which I doubt you are) then that's unfair. I don't, and other people don't, want to take allies to win.

Tactical execution has nothing to do with creating a viable list. BA are seriously lacking in viable TAC lists, which many players find off-putting for good reason.

This. BAs tailor quite well still, but my opponents don't email me their army choice before I show up to play. So TAC it is, and that's the problem with BA. I simply don't have the $$ for allies atm. And I'm not sure if I would play into GWs scheme anyway. Winning is not that important to me.

Martel732 wrote:
... I simply don't have the $$ for allies atm. And I'm not sure if I would play into GWs scheme anyway. Winning is not that important to me.

To be fair, you can avoid buying anything from GW when/if you make an allied detachment. You aren't supporting them by using eBay or the Swap Shop, and when money or time allow you can get your 500 points of Guard relatively cheaply (extremely cheaply, even, if you're willing to use those ghastly Catachans). I, personally, have built up about 3000 points worth of Blood Angels and IG in the past year without handing over a dime to GW, and my policy of not directly supporting them is not going to change any time soon.

The whole GW thing is really secondary. They've been at this for decades now. I just simply don't have the resources to add on all these allied bodies. Additionally, I *hate* the infantry blob with ATSKNF scheme. I'd rather lose. Which is what I do quite often.

If your gonna infantry blob, you want Azrael and the DA, not he BA anyway.

 Griddlelol wrote:

 Endriu Death Coy wrote:


The problem with a lot of 40K players these days is they just want an army that wins from the dex, without any tactical thought or execution required.

I'm not sure I understand this statement. I very much do want an army in a codex that can win. I also want multiple flavours that can win from a codex. If you're trying to say that allies are the answer (which I doubt you are) then that's unfair. I don't, and other people don't, want to take allies to win.

Tactical execution has nothing to do with creating a viable list. BA are seriously lacking in viable TAC lists, which many players find off-putting for good reason.

I think he's trying to say that "40k players want straightforward, auto-win units". The assumption here though is that Lemartes has hidden usefulness, but just requires tactical finesse to unlock it (like a Dark Eldar player). With Lemartes this isn't really the case imho. You're honestly better off spending those 150pts on a Chaplain or Reclusiarch, because he's not adding anything they aren't (with the exception of an occasional and dangerous S and A buff). And like Martel said, do Death Company really need to steamroll a unit in 1 turn so they can get shot up the next turn?

The DC will steam roll so many units without any kind of support already. WS 5, ST 5, 5 swings per model on the charge. Then the next turn is a slaughter fest. Good opponents will send out the crap patrol to suck up the charge.

Let's face it. Very little in the BA codex has "hidden usefulness". It's all so expensive that it needs to be good on its face to be properly costed.

Yes, it's worthy to note that BA aren't even the best doing infantry blob even if I went that route.

Martel732 wrote:
Yes, it's worthy to note that BA aren't even the best doing infantry blob even if I went that route.

Not that they really should be, they're more of an elite combat army (although they're mediocre in combat atm). Nids or Orks would fill that niche better.

Martel, you don't have to send the DC straight at the "crap patrol" any more.

And as for the opponent not emailing an army list, with most armies you can make a very good guess as to what they are going to take, especially if you are playing the same people on a regular basis.

With Lemartes, I just find him useful against several of the opponents I face. DC will wipe most opponents in H2H but I have been facing large Chaos SM squads, so the extra rolls to hit and wound can be useful in that situation. Also he counts as part of the unit, not HQ, not Elite.

At both tournaments and my FLGS, I never know who the next player will be, much less what army list he is even playing. Most players seem to have multiple lists anyway. I'm an oddball in only having BA.

Lemartes is way overcosted for what he brings to the fight. He's 25 pts more than libby with a jump pack.

Yeah, you kind of do with the DC, depending on their deployment. Unless you are cool with them sucking up another turn of fire. Which, in my experience, means you're not going to have any DC left to assault with anyway. This is why I prefer the Land Raider for them, where I might have the time the clear out a couple of garbage units in my way. The downside to this, of course, is that you have *500* points sunk into non-scoring units right there.

Fair enough Martel, of course I don't live in the US, and in my area (both NZ and where I live now) most people have one or two armies, and we tend to play campaign rather than tournament games, so both players generally know what they are facing. We do, however, tend to play large games.

I often use DC in a LRC, it does put the wind up most players. It can be a points sink, but is is a very very effective one in my experience.

Can corbulo be given a jump pack?

SMMSjosh14 wrote:
Can corbulo be given a jump pack?

Unfortunately no...

^ darn, thanks though

I have nothing to contribute but wanted to thank the OP for starting this thread because I too am thinking of starting a BA army. so thanks.

For the DC, it all depends on how desperately you want to kill *one* unit.

Presumably, the BA will be much better when their codex drops. But that's really anyone's guess at this point. As it stands now, just know you are getting into one of the weakest incarnations of meqs. And meq lists aren't what they used to be, either.

Just as an exercise, build a BA list with no knowledge of your opponent at all. Then take this list and go compare to other lists in threads for other armies. A codex that requires tailoring to be effective is the definition of a bad codex.

Well, when tailored, the BA do tend to roll over what they are facing. Just remember Danny, there is a big difference between tournament play, and playing opponents regularly.
One is not better or worse than the other, they are just different. Despite what some people may think, and they are entitled to their opinion.

Tailoring was always half the fun of building an army in the old days.

Also allies have been around for a long time, I remember all the whining when the alliance part was dropped a couple of editions ago.

Some people are never happy.

At the rate they are popping out Codex's we won't be waiting that long.

On the subject of the next codex, I would like to see a return to the "Equip whole Death Company with Jump Packs for +50" which meant it was amazingly cheap to equip a large DC with them.

When tailored, the BA are average. We still have the problem of many overcosted units, which hurts our throw weight of fire and ability to absorb punishment.

When TAC, the BA are pretty bad. The overcosted problem comes back in spades and we simply can't cover enough bases to be a TAC threat.

The other problem with tailoring is that many 40K players own multiple armies. What if that Necron player brings his Dark Eldar instead or something? List tailoring is not a good fall back position. Remember, the BA can be tailored for as well, and lots of STR 8 means lots of FNP denial. The better lists can tailor better than we can because they are..... better lists.

Let's stop getting down on ourselves & talk about what's possible. I was wondering about 6th or 7th Company themed army. Basicaly trying to keep it down to mostly Tac squads. Has anyone had any luck with running large numbers of squads? I'm thinking 6, combat squaded Tac squads. Cover as much of the board as you can & throw in a DivLibb with 2 priests for buffs. Then use the remaining points for some tailoring.

Imo lib dread is under rated wings + shield is good wings + blood lance vs tank lists is Epic plus if you take a lib and roll on div get lucky enough to roll n get invisibility. well looky their 2+ cover 12" move dread force weapon or str 10 with fist ap 2



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On another note. personally not a fan of foot slogging Blood angel tacticals but my meta involves like 3 people with hell drakes or 2 tau player who will just beat them in shooting

You are talking about the "Ultramarines with FNP" approach. I honestly haven't tried this, because I don't own enough tactical marines to attempt it. Nor have I seen it played. But from a theory hammer standpoint:

1) You gain FNP and divination support

BUT

2) You don't have combat tactics

3) You are paying full price for fast BA transports

4) Our HQs are inferior to C:SM HQs across the board.

5) 10 man drop pods instead of 12

6) No thunderfire cannons

7) Shooty dreads in the heavy slot

8) No Stormtalon for dedicated anti-flier

Another permutation of what you speak is the "Red Tide". This is 50+ jumpers with priest support. This list is the reverse of your proposal. It completely tanks the shooting part of the game for the assault part.

Given that marines are paying for a statline that supports HTH and shooting, I'd say most good lists need to do some of each. But the BA codex has a lot of way to spit out lists that have these HTH specialists that aren't really that good that can't contribute in the shooting phase.

The hell of it is that a generic CSM or GH is better than anything in our codex.

Actually, it could work... with Astorath and plenty of bolter DC. You don't have to take Priests AND they can't be picked off leaving you without FNP...your troops can also use Rapid Fire and charge in the same turn, and each unit could take one or two fists/hammers in case of being tarpitted by heavy targets. AND those models can't then be challenged out of harm's way in the same way a Tactical Sergeant can.

That's a lot of points tied up in Troops, so you have your pick of tanks, speeders and the like from the other slots to add armour and heavy weapons. Essentially you have an equivalent of Green Tide with less models, but that's ok because each one is choppy AND shooty. Its only real weakness is that you can't take objectives, but you can still easily contest them.