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Hey everyone,

So I've just started my new blood angels army, and I'm not unfamiliar with how to play assault heavy armies, however with the new blood angels I think its extremely vital to get the charge for all their bonuses including
the +1 Initiative from their detachment. Just wondering if anyone has any tips on how to help ensure that I do get that charge, against other mobile and assault heavy units.

For example I'll be using multiple units of death company with jump packs (around 8-10 models), and my friend primarily uses thunder wolf cavalry units that are just as if not more mobile. We'll both be trying to get
the charge against the other, but it's way more vital for me.

Also we do play with a lots of terrain (LOS blocking included) at my local store and anywhere else we play if that is also a factor.

Thanks in advance as always, and I look forward to any comments, cheers

Twc have a heavy advantage on getting the charge as they have fleet and are two wound models. The only really good thing to do I use sacrificial units to draw 8 your opponent. Space wolves normally don't care as much as they have counter attack, but your +1 initiative does make a difference.

1. If it's long LoS blocking terrain, you can jump over it with jps. Use that to your advantage.
2. Use sacraficial scout units and shove them in the opponents face. Either he has to charge them, then you counter charge in your turn, or he goes around them, giving you a good chance to charge anyway.
3. Run DC in squads of 5 if you know you are facing TWC, always within 6" of 2 other DC squads. He will charge, and most likely wipe out one squad, giving your other 10-15 a guaranteed charge.
4. Set up a lane of fire with multiple vindis, his storm shields will help him out, but 2-3 st10 pies plates will still cause significant damage. Set up your DC so if he avoids these lanes of fire, he puts himself in charge range.
5. Use assault transports such as LRs or Stormravens - this starts to dramatically increase the cost of the charge of course.
6. Use the BA formation with 3 stormravens which guarentees the charge from deepstrike.

Of course your opponent may combat these with other units firepower (apart from #6, but that one is the most expensive by far) so they are not sure deals.

Liking bits of what I'm seeing here.

spaguatyrine wrote:
Twc have a heavy advantage on getting the charge as they have fleet and are two wound models. The only really good thing to do I use sacrificial units to draw 8 your opponent. Space wolves normally don't care as much as they have counter attack, but your +1 initiative does make a difference.

Not sure how the 2 wound thing comes into play here; two wounds generally makes you worry less about getting the charge, particularly when you've got a good save-let them waste their hits, then smack back. Space wolves in particular don't care so much about the charge (other than the fact that fluff says you have to go for the throat ) because of Counter-Attack. Sacrificial units are a good idea; let him cluster on one unit, then bring in everything else you can. This tactic will probably only work once or twice per game though, unless your sacrifice is quite juicy.

3. Run DC in squads of 5 if you know you are facing TWC, always within 6" of 2 other DC squads. He will charge, and most likely wipe out one squad, giving your other 10-15 a guaranteed charge.

Further away than that. TWC bases are big; my tactic at this sort of distance would be to use a disordered charge and tie up at least two units, denying you most of the initiative bonus. TWC can take a few hits without much bother, and the extra attack for an ordered charge isn't that important against small units. The TWC bases are 60mm wide-two bases would be ~5 inches altogether, so you can keep coherency at this distance.

4. Set up a lane of fire with multiple vindis, his storm shields will help him out, but 2-3 st10 pies plates will still cause significant damage. Set up your DC so if he avoids these lanes of fire, he puts himself in charge range

Too tight a tolerence-remember, scatter is a thing. This will hurt you much more if it goes badly. Plus, if you're going that far, you might as well drop the DC and just rely on the pie plates.

5. Use assault transports such as LRs or Stormravens - this starts to dramatically increase the cost of the charge of course.
6. Use the BA formation with 3 stormravens which guarentees the charge from deepstrike.

This will work, but as noted, will tend to get quite expensive, as well as costing you versatility. You can probably kill quite a few units with this combo, but in essence you're sinking ~500pts into killing one unit. Still, worth considering.

1. If it's long LoS blocking terrain, you can jump over it with jps. Use that to your advantage.
2. Use sacraficial scout units and shove them in the opponents face. Either he has to charge them, then you counter charge in your turn, or he goes around them, giving you a good chance to charge anyway.

These are both decent plays (with my thoughts on 2. outlined above). I would combine the two tactics as a 'first attempt', with a minor modification. Set up a nice heavy hitting force that can soak up a few hits (tanks/dreadnaughts will be needed, and a sanguinary priest would be a good thing to place in here with anything on foot), and run your DC a bit off to the side of the unit. Your heavy hitter gets charged, you bring in the DC. He starts heading for the DC, you gut him with the heavy hitter.

Thanks for the all responses! Lots of good stuff to think about and I'll definitely use em. Just for reference here is my list going in. Also my friend runs 1 or 2 large squads of thunder wolves which eat up a lot of points but overall he doesn't have a lot of shooting at all.

List at 2000 Points-

Baal Strike Force

HQ-

Librarian- 120
-ML2, Jump Pack, melta bomb

Librarian- 120
-ML2, Jump Pack, Gallian's Staff, melta bomb

Troops-

Tactical Squad- x5 -125
-Drop pod, Heavy Flamer, Combi-flamer

Tactical Squad- x5 -125
-Drop pod, Heavy Flamer, Combi-flamer

Tactical Squad- x5 -125
-Drop pod, Heavy Flamer, Combi-flamer

Elites-

Death Company Squad- x8 -209
-Jump packs, 1x Powerfist (with boltgun)

Death Company Squad- x8 -209
-Jump packs, 1x Powerfist (with boltgun)

Death Company Squad- x8 -209
-Jump packs, 1x Powerfist (with boltgun)

Fast Attack-

Assault Squad- x5- 115
-2x melta guns, combi-melta

Assault Squad- x5- 115
-2x melta guns, combi-melta

Assault Squad- x5- 115
-2x melta guns, combi-melta

Heavy Support-

Storm Raven -200
-TL Multi melta, TL lascannon

Lord of War-

Dante- 220

TOTAL- 1997

Not much shooting? Then a hard heavy unit to attract attention should work reasonably well; he'll have to come in close to dislodge it.

just in reference to my list above, its my all comers list going into our local GWs tourney in a couple weeks, so I don't want changes to tailor it against my friend as I'll be facing a lot of other armies i imagine


Automatically Appended Next Post:

skolirvarden wrote:
Not much shooting? Then a hard heavy unit to attract attention should work reasonably well; he'll have to come in close to dislodge it.

I was thinking since my friend doesn't have a lot of armor or shooting in general, I would use the drop pods and assault squads to slow the TWC units down while the DC move up

Its a nice list. A way of changing it around to help you out against him but still making it TAC would be the following:
1. You obviously want 3 pods for 2 appearing T1. I would drop the packs off 1 assault squad, give them the 3rd pod, drop a tac squad (125pts for a flamer and heavy flamer template is excessive when no longer a tax), and with the 125pts take 2 scout squads with meltabombs on the sarges. This will take you to 1992pts. The 2 squads of scouts will provide more of a threat against a greater variety of opponents and can act as speed bumps against your SW friend.
2. Use your 4th elites slot. Split your DC into 4 squads of 6. Drop one powerfist and with your spare points get 2 poweraxes. Leaves 2 units with powerfists and 2 units with a poweraxe. Gives you more options on the board.

Minor changes that will help you against your SW player whilst still staying TAC.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Its a nice list. A way of changing it around to help you out against him but still making it TAC would be the following:
1. You obviously want 3 pods for 2 appearing T1. I would drop the packs off 1 assault squad, give them the 3rd pod, drop a tac squad (125pts for a flamer and heavy flamer template is excessive when no longer a tax), and with the 125pts take 2 scout squads with meltabombs on the sarges. This will take you to 1992pts. The 2 squads of scouts will provide more of a threat against a greater variety of opponents and can act as speed bumps against your SW friend.
2. Use your 4th elites slot. Split your DC into 4 squads of 6. Drop one powerfist and with your spare points get 2 poweraxes. Leaves 2 units with powerfists and 2 units with a poweraxe. Gives you more options on the board.

Minor changes that will help you against your SW player whilst still staying TAC.

thank you for the response. I don't have scouts unfortunately so I didn't consider them, but I've definitely been considering them recently. You say they provide accurate threat, can you elaborate a bit more? Again never used or owned them so not sure how to use em really. Otherwise thanks again for the tips!

With infiltrate and scout they can be set up to provide a real threat to opponents support units, especially with melta bombs. On the charge they will get 3 st5 I5 attacks each, which can seriously screw with units twice their cost. Then if the opponent invests in shooting up your 60pt unit - he is not shooting at your advancing DC.

Poly Ranger wrote:
With infiltrate and scout they can be set up to provide a real threat to opponents support units, especially with melta bombs. On the charge they will get 3 st5 I5 attacks each, which can seriously screw with units twice their cost. Then if the opponent invests in shooting up your 60pt unit - he is not shooting at your advancing DC.

oh sweet. I'll definitely have to grab 2 boxes of those soon, but probably won't be able to before this tourny. I was thinking though just in the mean time that I actually really like the idea of 4 squads of DC, what I could do, is I drop the 3rd Tac squad, still have the 3rd pod with an assault squad like you suggested. This way i can have 4 units of death company with 7 models and a powerfist in each unit, and still have about 20 points leftover. Think that's an improvement or am I going backwards you think?

If you are in cover your opponent has a -2 inches to their charge range, so if you feel ballsy sit in some terrain and watch them fail a charge...

 akwing00 wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
With infiltrate and scout they can be set up to provide a real threat to opponents support units, especially with melta bombs. On the charge they will get 3 st5 I5 attacks each, which can seriously screw with units twice their cost. Then if the opponent invests in shooting up your 60pt unit - he is not shooting at your advancing DC.

oh sweet. I'll definitely have to grab 2 boxes of those soon, but probably won't be able to before this tourny. I was thinking though just in the mean time that I actually really like the idea of 4 squads of DC, what I could do, is I drop the 3rd Tac squad, still have the 3rd pod with an assault squad like you suggested. This way i can have 4 units of death company with 7 models and a powerfist in each unit, and still have about 20 points leftover. Think that's an improvement or am I going backwards you think?

Definite improvement!
Word of warning when it comes to scouts - don't expect them to achieve miracles. Use them as a distraction unit that has to be dealt with. Now and again they will pull of a charge that will wreck something which cost far more points then they did. But primarily use them to take a volley, to get in the way of an opponents unit that wants to assault, or force him to redeploy a unit or two. Or even better to provide units behind them with mobile cover (5+ to shoot through a unit). If they are still standing after achieving such a goal, let them go smash something or hold up a unit with damaging firepower. They are so underrated if used correctly it beggers belief.

Poly Ranger wrote:

 akwing00 wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
With infiltrate and scout they can be set up to provide a real threat to opponents support units, especially with melta bombs. On the charge they will get 3 st5 I5 attacks each, which can seriously screw with units twice their cost. Then if the opponent invests in shooting up your 60pt unit - he is not shooting at your advancing DC.

oh sweet. I'll definitely have to grab 2 boxes of those soon, but probably won't be able to before this tourny. I was thinking though just in the mean time that I actually really like the idea of 4 squads of DC, what I could do, is I drop the 3rd Tac squad, still have the 3rd pod with an assault squad like you suggested. This way i can have 4 units of death company with 7 models and a powerfist in each unit, and still have about 20 points leftover. Think that's an improvement or am I going backwards you think?

Definite improvement!
Word of warning when it comes to scouts - don't expect them to achieve miracles. Use them as a distraction unit that has to be dealt with. Now and again they will pull of a charge that will wreck something which cost far more points then they did. But primarily use them to take a volley, to get in the way of an opponents unit that wants to assault, or force him to redeploy a unit or two. Or even better to provide units behind them with mobile cover (5+ to shoot through a unit). If they are still standing after achieving such a goal, let them go smash something or hold up a unit with damaging firepower. They are so underrated if used correctly it beggers belief.

thanks again for all the help, and to everyone who responded

Not sure if this is obvious, but this is based on my experience as an Ork vs other melee armies:

* Vehicles you can assault out of are your friend against footslogging melee units.

* Since you are BA, you still have decent shooting. Use it to take out speed bump units to ensure that your assault units don't get held up en route to their intended targets.

* Following on from the above, other melee armies will often just charge forward as quickly as they can, and expect you to do the same. Don't be afraid to hang back and wait until they are close, THEN charge once they are in range. Basically, you want to tempt them out of position.

Hope this helps!

 Krusha wrote:
Not sure if this is obvious, but this is based on my experience as an Ork vs other melee armies:

* Vehicles you can assault out of are your friend against footslogging melee units.

* Since you are BA, you still have decent shooting. Use it to take out speed bump units to ensure that your assault units don't get held up en route to their intended targets.

* Following on from the above, other melee armies will often just charge forward as quickly as they can, and expect you to do the same. Don't be afraid to hang back and wait until they are close, THEN charge once they are in range. Basically, you want to tempt them out of position.

Hope this helps!

thanks, yup very helpful

When it comes to my SWs friend he uses ruin priests on bikes to give his large unit endurance, and if that goes off and I fail to deny it, yeah i probably won't be charging it that turn, so staying back will help me pick and choose when to charge

On topic, but moving away from playing against SW, how would we improve our changes on getting the charge vs Orks who have alot of assault vehicles?

D

I know this isn't the answer you are looking for, but as a BA player, it's just much easier to shoot TWC to death.

Martel732 wrote:
I know this isn't the answer you are looking for, but as a BA player, it's just much easier to shoot TWC to death.

yeah i agree, just with my current list I do have plenty of assault units, so I was just looking for advice and how to make best of the situation