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I don't see how Rending is so dangerous if you can tank those wounds to Corbulo with his FNP.
With Biomancy you have a big chance that it will be a T9-unit with either a 2+/FNP5 or a 3+/FNP2
They can survive nearly every shooting and Corbulo can tank those VoF-shots till the end of days.

Will it win you a tournament? No. But nothing in the Codex will do that.

I think there are a few concepts from the BA book that can kinda-sorta work.

First one up is Pods.

5x Assault Marines w/ 1 meltagun, Sgt as 2x Infernus Pistol - 140 points (in a Pod).

Two of these is a good start. You get 4x ObSec units, two anti-tank drops, and you're a bit of a nuisance for not a lot of points.

Add in three Fragiosos and you've got five Pods for less than 800 points; three for punking troops, and two for tanks.

That leaves 1,000 or so points for the rest of the army (depending on point levels) which is enough to get a force that's not so piddly it will fall right over.


Second concept is Land Raider spam.

The biggest problem with this build is that Land Raiders cost a lot of points and don't have a lot of damage output. There are a couple of things that can mitigate this, though.

First one is Death Company. A Reclusiarch (covers the mandatory HQ while we're at it) and five Death Company Marines with one PF (a total of one, not one each) is only 255 points. Only slightly more than a squad of Hammernators (less if they want a Priest to roll with them), and unlike the Hammernators the DC can add a lot of killing power in 20 point increments.

Give these guys a Redeemer with a multimelta and add two units of 5 Assault Marines in stock Land Raiders, and you're at 1135.


And, finally, there's the third concept, which fits well combined with one of the two above: Forge World.

Anything the BA book does, FW does better. Baal Predators? Sicarans are comparable in points and simply better. Devastators? Rapier guns! Whirlwind? Sicarus Whirlwind! It goes on.

If LoWs are on the table, a Typhoon Heavy Siege tank is a great complement to the Land Raider list.


As an example:

Reclusiarch - 130

5x Assault Marines w/ Land Raider - 315

5x Assault Marines w/ Land Raider - 315

5x Death Company w/ 1xPF, Redeemer w/ MM - 375

Whirlwind Scorpius w/ Battle of Keylek - 160

Sicaran Battle Tank w/ HB sponsons - 155

Typhon Heavy Siege Tank w/ 3x HB, Ceramite Armour - 400

1760

You could drop the MM from the LRR for 1750, or you could add more DC for 1850. For 2k you could add a second Sicaran.

You have reach, mobility, durability, anti-tank, anti-infantry, options to push, and at least some flexibility. There's not much in the way of dealing with flyers, but then again, most flyers don't have much to deal with anything in this army.

The biggest problem with Land Raiders is that people 'expect' Imperial Knights and have stocked quite some heavy anti-tank.

The Sicaran is quite great, I would definitely take some Lascannons on the side and give it either Tank or Monster-hunter.
Preferably Tankhunter and save the Monsterhunter for your second Sicaran at 2k points.

 tomjoad wrote:
Well, there are 6 lascannons on the predators, and that many rending shots on the baals and fragiosos can do some anti-tank damage...But, yeah, swapping some assault squad plasmas for meltas is what I'd do.

It's a very rough concept-list, but I suppose that's a fair point. It's not like the list is lacking in anti-infantry firepower.

 Thud wrote:
I think there are a few concepts from the BA book that can kinda-sorta work.

First one up is Pods.

5x Assault Marines w/ 1 meltagun, Sgt as 2x Infernus Pistol - 140 points (in a Pod).

Two of these is a good start. You get 4x ObSec units, two anti-tank drops, and you're a bit of a nuisance for not a lot of points.

Add in three Fragiosos and you've got five Pods for less than 800 points; three for punking troops, and two for tanks.

That leaves 1,000 or so points for the rest of the army (depending on point levels) which is enough to get a force that's not so piddly it will fall right over.


Second concept is Land Raider spam.

The biggest problem with this build is that Land Raiders cost a lot of points and don't have a lot of damage output. There are a couple of things that can mitigate this, though.

First one is Death Company. A Reclusiarch (covers the mandatory HQ while we're at it) and five Death Company Marines with one PF (a total of one, not one each) is only 255 points. Only slightly more than a squad of Hammernators (less if they want a Priest to roll with them), and unlike the Hammernators the DC can add a lot of killing power in 20 point increments.

Give these guys a Redeemer with a multimelta and add two units of 5 Assault Marines in stock Land Raiders, and you're at 1135.


And, finally, there's the third concept, which fits well combined with one of the two above: Forge World.

Anything the BA book does, FW does better. Baal Predators? Sicarans are comparable in points and simply better. Devastators? Rapier guns! Whirlwind? Sicarus Whirlwind! It goes on.

If LoWs are on the table, a Typhoon Heavy Siege tank is a great complement to the Land Raider list.


As an example:

Reclusiarch - 130

5x Assault Marines w/ Land Raider - 315

5x Assault Marines w/ Land Raider - 315

5x Death Company w/ 1xPF, Redeemer w/ MM - 375

Whirlwind Scorpius w/ Battle of Keylek - 160

Sicaran Battle Tank w/ HB sponsons - 155

Typhon Heavy Siege Tank w/ 3x HB, Ceramite Armour - 400

1760

You could drop the MM from the LRR for 1750, or you could add more DC for 1850. For 2k you could add a second Sicaran.

You have reach, mobility, durability, anti-tank, anti-infantry, options to push, and at least some flexibility. There's not much in the way of dealing with flyers, but then again, most flyers don't have much to deal with anything in this army.

Make it a 2000pt list, take a raven for that last HS slot, take schism of mars on the sicaran, add a power weapon to the DC.

Kangodo wrote:
I don't see how Rending is so dangerous if you can tank those wounds to Corbulo with his FNP.

Read the thread and find out, mate. This has been answered a couple times now, and math doesn't lie.

 Thud wrote:
I think there are a few concepts from the BA book that can kinda-sorta work.

First one up is Pods.

5x Assault Marines w/ 1 meltagun, Sgt as 2x Infernus Pistol - 140 points (in a Pod).

Two of these is a good start. You get 4x ObSec units, two anti-tank drops, and you're a bit of a nuisance for not a lot of points.

Add in three Fragiosos and you've got five Pods for less than 800 points; three for punking troops, and two for tanks.

That leaves 1,000 or so points for the rest of the army (depending on point levels) which is enough to get a force that's not so piddly it will fall right over.


Second concept is Land Raider spam.

The biggest problem with this build is that Land Raiders cost a lot of points and don't have a lot of damage output. There are a couple of things that can mitigate this, though.

First one is Death Company. A Reclusiarch (covers the mandatory HQ while we're at it) and five Death Company Marines with one PF (a total of one, not one each) is only 255 points. Only slightly more than a squad of Hammernators (less if they want a Priest to roll with them), and unlike the Hammernators the DC can add a lot of killing power in 20 point increments.

Give these guys a Redeemer with a multimelta and add two units of 5 Assault Marines in stock Land Raiders, and you're at 1135.


And, finally, there's the third concept, which fits well combined with one of the two above: Forge World.

Anything the BA book does, FW does better. Baal Predators? Sicarans are comparable in points and simply better. Devastators? Rapier guns! Whirlwind? Sicarus Whirlwind! It goes on.

If LoWs are on the table, a Typhoon Heavy Siege tank is a great complement to the Land Raider list.


As an example:

Reclusiarch - 130

5x Assault Marines w/ Land Raider - 315

5x Assault Marines w/ Land Raider - 315

5x Death Company w/ 1xPF, Redeemer w/ MM - 375

Whirlwind Scorpius w/ Battle of Keylek - 160

Sicaran Battle Tank w/ HB sponsons - 155

Typhon Heavy Siege Tank w/ 3x HB, Ceramite Armour - 400

1760

You could drop the MM from the LRR for 1750, or you could add more DC for 1850. For 2k you could add a second Sicaran.

You have reach, mobility, durability, anti-tank, anti-infantry, options to push, and at least some flexibility. There's not much in the way of dealing with flyers, but then again, most flyers don't have much to deal with anything in this army.

I think mass drop-pod lurve is the way to go with Blood Angels for the forseeable future. With assault marines you can get the ObjSec pods for free, and with double special weapons you can really lay down the alpha-strike hurt.

You can only buy double special weapons for a ten man squad, thus making the pods not-so-free. Say double plasma for 220pts for example, a vanilla marine tac squad with plasma and combi plasma comes in at 200pts. The tacs also have bolters over bolt pistols and are thus better at holding objectives.

In fact the OS nature of the pods benefits vanilla tac marines more than BA assault squads, as tac marines are better equipped for dealing with holding an objective, thus the pod will not be wasted landing near an objective. Whilst an assault squad doesn't want to hold an objective most of the time - it wants to be in the opponents face, so half the time you won't be landing your immobile pod on an objective, thus its OS is wasted. Vanilla tac squad in pod costs only 5pts more despite the pod for the BA being free.

Going back to double spec weapons - vanilla assault marines can take two flamers in a 5 man squad. Comparably the BA assault squad can take 1 flamer and 2 handflamers (st3). For 30pts more. The vanilla squad has the more cost effective alpha strike (but doesn't have OS).

The best pod squad for BA assault marines has already been mentioned - 1 melta, 2 infernus pistols. 140pts.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

We are here talking about the best stuff Blood Angels have, and one of them happens to be Mephiston/Corbulo combo.

This is a tactics forum, not a "never say anything bad about the factions I like" forum. Can you explain how Meph/Corbulo is anything other than overpriced and slow and begging to be tar-pitted or ripped to pieces by rending?

I would rather that Blood Angels players who jump into this thread have their feelings hurt by the stark and honest reality of their army's limitations rather than being deluded into thinking that a particular build or strategy is powerful by people who apparently can't even be bothered to defend their opinions.

I've pointed out the limitations of Meph-Star with objective measurements. You think Meph-Star is powerful, cool. Tell us why, then be prepared to defend your assertion.

Mainly because it is
a) highly survivable. Let's compare it to Wraithknight. More wounds, better armor save (Meph) Feel no Pain (possibility for 2+). Lower toughness and more expensive, yes. Worse option? Possibly.
b) can be further buffed with psychic powers. If he rolls Iron Arm, the unit is now T9 which makes it superior to the Knight in terms of surviving.
And rolling Endurance invalidates your point of them dying to S8+. They will likely get at least one of those powers.
c) it also has great potential is close combat, dishing out 6 attacks at I7 with S7 AP3 and 5 with S5 Rending. It has great potential to fight MC's and medium sized squads.

You may argue that many MC's do damage from longer distance and that is true, but isn't it true on all BA units?

And you completely missed with that shot. You somehow seem to think that I don't understand the limitations of Blood Angels, which shows that you have hardly read my comments.
I understand them and accept them. If. I say that unit A is the best one in a codex of generally bad units, does that mean that I live in some fantasy world where my codex is the best and those who badmouth it are wrong? Does that mean that I think that the unit is the best one in the game? No.
But you somehow seem to interpretate that so. At least it seems so to me. I claim that they are the best stuff we have, never did I claim that they were awesome overall. Blood Anglels are in deep pit and few of their stuff is worth it and competitive, that's why we have this thread.

For a second, let's get back to the survability I mentioned, shall we? There was one enormous mistake in there. Comparing it to Wraithknight. A model from entirely another codex. That comparison is irrelevant when we discuss about competitive BA.
Wraithknight won that, but now I ask you to show me a unit in C:BA with same survability/points. Then you have made a point.

Respecting, using and defending that unit is my answer to the question of this thread, what is yours?

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 soomemafia wrote:
So if your contribution to this thread is that Daemons beat Blood Angels bloody, you're about an edition too late and basicly not helping a lot.

If that's all you've come away with from reading my posts and this discussion, that says more about you than me.

We are here talking about the best stuff Blood Angels have, and one of them happens to be Mephiston/Corbulo combo.

This is a tactics forum, not a "never say anything bad about the factions I like" forum. Can you explain how Meph/Corbulo is anything other than overpriced and slow and begging to be tar-pitted or ripped to pieces by rending?

I would rather that Blood Angels players who jump into this thread have their feelings hurt by the stark and honest reality of their army's limitations rather than being deluded into thinking that a particular build or strategy is powerful by people who apparently can't even be bothered to defend their opinions.

I've pointed out the limitations of Meph-Star with objective measurements. You think Meph-Star is powerful, cool. Tell us why, then be prepared to defend your assertion.

The slow part really kills any use for Mephiston/Corbulo. Unless your opponent is a slow castle, you'll mostly be running around the board trying to make assault with something whilst being shot.

Poly Ranger wrote:
You can only buy double special weapons for a ten man squad, thus making the pods not-so-free. Say double plasma for 220pts for example, a vanilla marine tac squad with plasma and combi plasma comes in at 200pts. The tacs also have bolters over bolt pistols and are thus better at holding objectives.

In fact the OS nature of the pods benefits vanilla tac marines more than BA assault squads, as tac marines are better equipped for dealing with holding an objective, thus the pod will not be wasted landing near an objective. Whilst an assault squad doesn't want to hold an objective most of the time - it wants to be in the opponents face, so half the time you won't be landing your immobile pod on an objective, thus its OS is wasted. Vanilla tac squad in pod costs only 5pts more despite the pod for the BA being free.

Going back to double spec weapons - vanilla assault marines can take two flamers in a 5 man squad. Comparably the BA assault squad can take 1 flamer and 2 handflamers (st3). For 30pts more. The vanilla squad has the more cost effective alpha strike (but doesn't have OS).

The best pod squad for BA assault marines has already been mentioned - 1 melta, 2 infernus pistols. 140pts.

Poly Ranger is spot on here re Drop Pods for BA. It also applies to Deep Striking jumpers too.
Really, Assault Marines are terrible obsec troops as they're so short ranged. If you want an Obsec troop, it's Razorbacks, Land Raiders, Tacticals or allies.

I spotted a funky-looking BA list the other day.

Two Squads of Scouts with Bolters and Camo Cloaks. Why them when Tacticals are the same price and have better armor/BS?
The objectives were placed near ruins. He inflintrated there and held two objectives with 3+ cover.

Two Land Raiders.
First one with regular Assault Squad
Second one with Librarian in TDA and five Assault Terminators.

And on the top of it, a Knight Paladin.

I think it was 1500 points. Seemed effective, won a White Scars list with Khan.

 th3maninblak wrote:
Our preds are wayyy overcosted. Try running a mix of vindicators and stormravens in your heavy support slot.

Im thinking our most competitive list is some mix of mechanized and mephistar. More to come on that later.

Ironically a naked pred with an auto cannon is cheaper than say its dark angel counterpart and has fast. A pred destructor is only 5 more still with fast. Now of course annihilators are 40 points more and make me want to cry ;(

Using IA:2 we can build a solid firebase for cheap.
A reclusiarch is nedded so:

Reclusiarch

Javelin x3
With tl typhoon ml, mm and 2 hk missiles

Sicaran
With schism of mars and lascannons

3 rapier quad heavy bolters

3 rapier laser destroyers

Comes to 900pts (with reclusiarch), and gives us:
6 tl st8 ap3 48"
6 st8 ap2 72" one use
3 st8 ap1 24" melta
6 tl st7 ap4 rending ignores jink tank hunter
2 st9 ap2 tank hunter
3 tl st9 ap2 ordnance
18 tl st5 ap4.

Build the other 950pts from troops, elites + more 1hq.

Say 3 furiosos and assault marines in razors...

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 th3maninblak wrote:
Which mephy strikes before, at init7. If they roll iron arm you literally cant wound them. What does this herald daemonette squad of doom consist of?

The 6 wounds I posted above is taking into consideration Mephiston being T9. And having feel no pain.

The squad is 20 daemonettes+Herald, which is putting out a total of 65 WS5 rending attacks, including the herald's 5 WS7/I7 attacks. The Herald's locus is making all of the 65 attacks re-roll failed to-hits, and rending doesn't give a gak about your toughness. The locus also allows the Herald to pick any character it wants to challenge, and the challenged character can't decline it, though in this case one wouldn't bother since Mephiston is a beast and Corbulo is borderline unkillable.

So what would happen is that the daemons would charge the Meph-star, the Herald would hide like a biotch and decline all challenges while Mephiston strikes first, killing a whopping 2 daemonettes, then they strike back and kill him- Corbulo most likely survives the wounds that spill over, he kills one daemonette, and then dies next turn.

And, this is all assuming that the Herald-Daemonettes don't have invisibility, which is rather unlikely.

I believe you're playing it wrong. Only 1 locus can ever be active in the unit (the highest locus) so either you re-roll to hit OR you can choose challenges, but not both.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Using IA:2 we can build a solid firebase for cheap.
A reclusiarch is nedded so:

Reclusiarch

Javelin x3
With tl typhoon ml, mm and 2 hk missiles

Sicaran
With schism of mars and lascannons

3 rapier quad heavy bolters

3 rapier laser destroyers

Comes to 900pts (with reclusiarch), and gives us:
6 tl st8 ap3 48"
6 st8 ap2 72" one use
3 st8 ap1 24" melta
6 tl st7 ap4 rending ignores jink tank hunter
2 st9 ap2 tank hunter
3 tl st9 ap2 ordnance
18 tl st5 ap4.

Build the other 950pts from troops, elites + more 1hq.

Say 3 furiosos and assault marines in razors...

That sounds pretty interesting. My only problem with it (from a fluffy POV) is that it's pretty static and I want my BA moving around. This is a thread for competitive BA lists, so the feel of the army shouldn't factor into it.

D

 evildrcheese wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Using IA:2 we can build a solid firebase for cheap.
A reclusiarch is nedded so:

Reclusiarch

Javelin x3
With tl typhoon ml, mm and 2 hk missiles

Sicaran
With schism of mars and lascannons

3 rapier quad heavy bolters

3 rapier laser destroyers

Comes to 900pts (with reclusiarch), and gives us:
6 tl st8 ap3 48"
6 st8 ap2 72" one use
3 st8 ap1 24" melta
6 tl st7 ap4 rending ignores jink tank hunter
2 st9 ap2 tank hunter
3 tl st9 ap2 ordnance
18 tl st5 ap4.

Build the other 950pts from troops, elites + more 1hq.

Say 3 furiosos and assault marines in razors...

That sounds pretty interesting. My only problem with it (from a fluffy POV) is that it's pretty static and I want my BA moving around. This is a thread for competitive BA lists, so the feel of the army shouldn't factor into it.

D

I know what you're saying. Although the sicaran is fast and the javelins are fast skimmers, so it would only be the two artillery batteries which are static. Could always spend those 285pts somewhere else, it's just that 3 tl st9 ap2 ordnance and 18 tl st5 ap4 is a steal for 285pts. Especially when you consider that they come with 24 t7 3+ wounds...