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So with every release this year it becomes more and more obvious that the game is now balanced for 2015 codexes and pre-2015 codexes. There'd have to be an astronomical level of skill difference for the latter category to be competitive against the former. This leaves us Blood Angels players out cold, that's obvious. When the marine dex came out earlier this year, I thought about jumping ship, but I only own 3 transports, not the 6-10 needed to play the normal marine dex optimally, and I didn't want to have to rearm a ton of my dudes (I have a lot of marines armed with hand/heavy flamers, inferno pistols, and jump guys with meltas), and also the idea of playing a massive marine army of shooty footsloggers in APCs or pods backed up by tanks isn't particularly appealing to me either (part of the reason why I started playing Blood Angels in the first place).

BUT now that these new Raven Guard rules are out, I feel like I could make the switch without feeling like I'm starting from scratch, and hopefully this will tide me over until Blood Angels again have usable rules, which will hopefully be in one year if we're on a 2 year release cycle, but probably won't be until 2020 since 2010 was the last time they had good rules.

OKAY.

Moving on.

I'm going to go over what I feel like I could do to make a flexible Ravenguard force that can bounce between 1000 and 1850 points with the models I already own, but I'd also like this thread to be for discussing Ravenguard tactics in general and what other Blood Angels players are doing for using their force with these rules with minimal chopping up / rearming of models.


So here's what I have to work with, minus the blood angel models that I simply won't be able to use (bye bye Sanguinary guard, librarian dreadnought, special characters, etc).

The entire 2nd company, if you're nerd enough you know what that entails

10 melee scouts
15 sniper scouts
20 vanguards (these I'm totally willing chop up)
10 foot slooging assault marines (these I'm also totally willing to chop up)
10 sternguards
2 rhinos / razorbacks (magnetized)
1 drop pod
5 man command squad (jump packs / meltas / storm shields)
20ish death company with jump packs (could easily count as vanguards, so I'm not counting these guys as worthless)
1 dreadnought w/ assault cannon
1 dreadnought w/ magnetized gun
1 furioso that I could maybe do as a counts as ironclad, but I'd feel like kind of a dick
1 storm raven
1 fire raptor
1 sicaran
1 predator


SO

the bare minimum loadout, and this is me just off the cuffing it, is

Chaplain w/ jump pack
10 assault marines w/ eviscerator

5 man tactical w/ plasma gun

5 man tactical w/ plasma gun

5 man tactical w/ flamer in drop pod w/ deathwind

5 melee scouts

5 melee scouts

5 snipers scouts

5 devs w/ lascannons


This is 900ish points, and I don't have to re-arm a single model.

To get it up to 1000 you can start adding in upgrades, like plasma or grav pistols for the assault marines or tactical squads, get a bunker for the devs / sniper scouts, add in a few more dev marines, etc, you get the idea.

The idea with this is have the scout snipers let the devs ignore cover, have the footslogging tacticals outflank with the melee scouts who will also let them ignore cover, and hope your tactical squad with the flamer and the assault squad with the eviscerator can cause some havoc of their own.

It's not a great list, but it's better than anything I can think up with the BA dex.

Now, moving to 1850. Here's where this really starts to cook.

It's obvious that formation with the deep striking vanguards that can assault turn 1 is amaaaazing, AND I like that formation with the sternguards / dreadnought / storm raven.

So my two questions going forward are, what would be a good loadout for the vanguards? I've never used them before. Same thing with the sternies? As many combi-meltas as possible? Halp!

Also how do you add something like a Fire Raptor to a list like this? I've never used a 'decurion' style formation before so I have no idea how adding in a normal heavy support choice that's not part of a formation works. Can you? Or do you have add in something like an allied detachment with an HQ and a troop choice to unlock individual slots?

Anyway, thanks in advance to anyone who read all this mess, and hopefully this sparks some conversation that will bring some Blood Angels players back into the sphere of competitive and semi competitive warhamming.

FLY FREE BROTHERS!

Are you intent on using the RG detachment traits, bonuses, and tac objectives? Ignores Cover Lascannons are nice but it's a "single point of failure", and won't necessarily punch through Invul saves, Invisibility or FNP.

That 1st Company Task Force is great, so is the Shadowstrike Kill team. Since you're down to ~600-700pts now, a CAD might be better. This way you can get in Obsec and flexibility to support your list and use the models you already own (and like).

Jeeze, you know, I didn't even think about it that way, and here's how unfamiliar I am with using a decurion style army, I don't even need to do a Talon Strike Force, do I? I could just do a couple of Shadowstrike Kill teams as individual detachments couldn't I? Man.... although I do really like the idea of re-rolling who goes first and deployment and all that...
How do you run your 1st company task force, yoyo? I'd be nice to bust out some terminators for the first time in several editions...

Ha the 1CTF idea is not mine! I'd give credit to th3maninblack on Martel's "BA in the Field" thread.

You really ought to check out that thread, it's been enlightening

I think this is how I'd do it. Keep the core of your army Blood Angels in order to have the Sanguinary Guard, Death Company, Furioso, etc. etc. And then just slap on a shadowstrike kill team or two. That way you can have your assaults from deep-strike jump marines, and eat your bs 4 scouts too.

Even better - use the sanguinary guard as counts as vanguard vets to sell the cross over even more. Yeah, you lose artificer armor on them, but you can get power weapons for super cheap.

Using sang as vanguards is a bad idea, because every model has a bolt pistol and a power sword or axe. I feel like that is a wayyyy less than optimal loadout for vanguards. Plus, I already have plenty of vanguard models. Trying to keep rebuilding to a minimum here. Also using a Blood Angels CAD is still kind of tough, because then you get stuck with awful scouts or awful tactical marines, and Furiosos suck compared to ironclads. It's not worth loading up on that much suck just to unlock a squad or two of decent death company.

Fair point on the Sanguinary Guard. And I guess if your heart is set on getting access to vanilla marine goodies, then yeah it's time to cut bait. I don't know though. From the proposed list you put up it seems a bit extreme to switch codexes just for a bunch of bs4 melee scouts. You're not even indulging in grav-cannon goodness on your dev squad or your tacticals.

Since you don't need the space marine decurion to unlock the shadowstrike kill team, it seems like a big hassle for not much benefit. I think there's still some life in Blood Angel Tac squads with heavy flamers, and in melta assault squads. And with furious charge, the blood angel scouts are better than vanilla ones anyway if they get the charge, and essentially identical otherwise. Is the bs4 really that important with bolt pistols?

There are certainly reasons to switch from blood angels to space marines - but you can grab most of the good stuff with a formation or two.

That's just the bare-minimum point list though, which is admittedly a touch weak. It's not just just for a WS / BS bonus on my scouts though. It also comes with re-roll who goes first, re-roll missions, re-roll table side, +1 to night fighting roll, free outflank for the tacticals, free ignore cover for the shooty units, shrouded for almost everything on turn 1, and re-roll charge range / hammer for the jump units.
I think I can easily live without furious charge for all that, like, OH MY GOD. Then start factoring all the other crap you can start easily throwing it and the slightly higher point totals.

I have no idea why I'd bother using a blood angel tactical squad or scout squad that has none of that for my primary detachment. Ever. For any reason. Unlocking death company isn't worth it. Neither are Meph, Corbulo, Dante, or Sanguinary priests, and LITERALLY everything else in the codex is worse than its vanilla marine equivalent.

Also, then whatever detachments I add don't benefit from the Raven Guard command rules! Like ohhhhh man do I want to use that vanguard deep strike / assault formation! But shoot, should I voluntarily make it lose the ability to show up turn 1 and have shrouded just to have the privilege of paying for worse scouts and worse tacticals? Like hell, at that point, if I REALLY want to use death company or dante THAT BADLY, might as well tack on a blood angel allied detachment. That actually makes way more sense. Raven guard primary detachment, then once I get all my awesome scouts, tacticals, and assault marines, I can tack on a blood angel allied detachment, just bite it on a five scouts, and then throw in meph, some death company and a sicaran or fire raptor.

If Raven Guard rules work well for me, I actually probably will invest in some grav-cannons. That'd be a cheap and easy re-arming. I'm not totally opposed to re-arming my dudes, I just want to minimize it. I waited until now to consider this because using that free transport marine build would have required me building like 5 transports, shelving ALL of my jump dudes, building some bikes, and re-arming a substantial portion of my foot slogging marines. Might as well start a dif army or give up at that point. If all I have to do to make this work is build a few grav cannon dudes, well, I'm on it.

Side question:

I am seeing two sets of new Raven Guard rules. One with the Pinion Battle Company and the other with the Shadow Talon. Where can I buy these new rules? (i.e. which box set / books are each in)?

Yoyoyo wrote:
Ha the 1CTF idea is not mine! I'd give credit to th3maninblack on Martel's "BA in the Field" thread.

You really ought to check out that thread, it's been enlightening

Yay!! I'm influential on Dakka!!

But for real, why not play both? Oddly enough raven guard go really well with BA. A captain or chapter master with the Armor of Shadows attached to a death co squad gives you stealth and another combat character, not to mention the 1st turn shrouding bonuses from chapter tactics.

 th3maninblak wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
Ha the 1CTF idea is not mine! I'd give credit to th3maninblack on Martel's "BA in the Field" thread.

You really ought to check out that thread, it's been enlightening

Yay!! I'm influential on Dakka!!

But for real, why not play both? Oddly enough raven guard go really well with BA. A captain or chapter master with the Armor of Shadows attached to a death co squad gives you stealth and another combat character, not to mention the 1st turn shrouding bonuses from chapter tactics.

Doesn't the stealth only apply if you haven't moved though?

 th3maninblak wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
Ha the 1CTF idea is not mine! I'd give credit to th3maninblack on Martel's "BA in the Field" thread.

You really ought to check out that thread, it's been enlightening

Yay!! I'm influential on Dakka!!

But for real, why not play both? Oddly enough raven guard go really well with BA. A captain or chapter master with the Armor of Shadows attached to a death co squad gives you stealth and another combat character, not to mention the 1st turn shrouding bonuses from chapter tactics.

No, if you mingle chapters you get no chapter tactics. They are nullified. Void. They do not stack. So if you put a Raven Guard character in a BA unit not only do you not get Shrouded but you lose your BA chapter tactics as well, at least until the character leaves the unit.

 Corvus_corax wrote:

 th3maninblak wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
Ha the 1CTF idea is not mine! I'd give credit to th3maninblack on Martel's "BA in the Field" thread.

You really ought to check out that thread, it's been enlightening

Yay!! I'm influential on Dakka!!

But for real, why not play both? Oddly enough raven guard go really well with BA. A captain or chapter master with the Armor of Shadows attached to a death co squad gives you stealth and another combat character, not to mention the 1st turn shrouding bonuses from chapter tactics.

No, if you mingle chapters you get no chapter tactics. They are nullified. Void. They do not stack. So if you put a Raven Guard character in a BA unit not only do you not get Shrouded but you lose your BA chapter tactics as well, at least until the character leaves the unit.

BA don't have chapter tactics so they get both their special rules.

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:

 Corvus_corax wrote:

 th3maninblak wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
Ha the 1CTF idea is not mine! I'd give credit to th3maninblack on Martel's "BA in the Field" thread.

You really ought to check out that thread, it's been enlightening

Yay!! I'm influential on Dakka!!

But for real, why not play both? Oddly enough raven guard go really well with BA. A captain or chapter master with the Armor of Shadows attached to a death co squad gives you stealth and another combat character, not to mention the 1st turn shrouding bonuses from chapter tactics.

No, if you mingle chapters you get no chapter tactics. They are nullified. Void. They do not stack. So if you put a Raven Guard character in a BA unit not only do you not get Shrouded but you lose your BA chapter tactics as well, at least until the character leaves the unit.

BA don't have chapter tactics so they get both their special rules.

100% Fact SW, BA, and I believe DA aswell dont have the specific rule "chapter tactics" so they bypass that rule.

 Corvus_corax wrote:

 th3maninblak wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
Ha the 1CTF idea is not mine! I'd give credit to th3maninblack on Martel's "BA in the Field" thread.

You really ought to check out that thread, it's been enlightening

Yay!! I'm influential on Dakka!!

But for real, why not play both? Oddly enough raven guard go really well with BA. A captain or chapter master with the Armor of Shadows attached to a death co squad gives you stealth and another combat character, not to mention the 1st turn shrouding bonuses from chapter tactics.

No, if you mingle chapters you get no chapter tactics. They are nullified. Void. They do not stack. So if you put a Raven Guard character in a BA unit not only do you not get Shrouded but you lose your BA chapter tactics as well, at least until the character leaves the unit.

Incorrect. BA don't have the Chapter Tactics rule, so they don't invalidate chapter tactics the way another chapter with Chapter Tactics would.

Boom. Rules stuff.

And the shadow armor gives shrouded instead of stealth if the wearer didn't move, run, charge or shoot the previous turn. It gives stealth all the time.

So with a big unit of death co or sang guard, you're rocking a 4+ cover in the open with your pants down, or a 2+ anywhere else.

Yeah, see that's not too bad of an idea. I could see splashing in an allied detachment of blood angels in a large battle or for fun, but I can't see using them as my primary detachment any more. There's just noooooo reason, they're tooooo bad.
Like, gawd, even the death company, they cost as much as vanguards but, holy moly, rage + FNP isn't worth losing deep strike on turn 1, deep strike then assault, re-roll charge ranges, re-roll hammer of wrath, always have hammer of wrath, and cheap weapons, like, god damn, raven vanguards outclass them sooooo hard.

Thanks for all the advice guys!

Now let's post some raven guard lists!

Also, Green is Best, I have no idea where this shadow talon is, I'm just basing my stuff off of the pinion company.

Eh, you're missing some of the rules. Feel no pain, rage, furious charge, relentless (meh) and fearless. Also no characters to challenge out so you can hide fists.

I think people will find that even with vanguard vets assaulting out of deep strike, they still wont make much of an impact. Just like the assault squads in the Skyhammer Annihilation force. A MEQ statline without the special rules of death co or the innate wargear of sanguinary guard, it wont be as good as everyone expects.

 th3maninblak wrote:
Boom. Rules stuff.

And the shadow armor gives shrouded instead of stealth if the wearer didn't move, run, charge or shoot the previous turn. It gives stealth all the time.

So with a big unit of death co or sang guard, you're rocking a 4+ cover in the open with your pants down, or a 2+ anywhere else.

OOOOOHHHHH

I like.

Plus its artificer armor right so 2+ armor save?

 th3maninblak wrote:
Eh, you're missing some of the rules. Feel no pain, rage, furious charge, relentless (meh) and fearless. Also no characters to challenge out so you can hide fists.

I think people will find that even with vanguard vets assaulting out of deep strike, they still wont make much of an impact. Just like the assault squads in the Skyhammer Annihilation force. A MEQ statline without the special rules of death co or the innate wargear of sanguinary guard, it wont be as good as everyone expects.

if only vanguard vets had some sort of super cheap weapon upgrades...

Yeah, 5 point special weapons and 10 point storm-shields means they could do some decent damage against a variety of targets.

Notably, you could probably shut down a penta-tyrant list fairly well, as they rarely have enough chaff units around to block assaults.

A vanguard vet is really only more efficient than a death co marine on the charge against other MEQs (not factoring in Baal Strike Force). Not saying they're a bad unit by any means, but I feel they're only truly worth it in either the BA free wargear formation or the RG assault from deep strike formation.

I'm not convinced that RG are going to be a flat out better jump pack army than BA. The assault from deep strike is enviable, as is the double use of jump packs and cover bonuses, but a bunch of str4 attacks never really scared anyone. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the new raven guard rules and am tempted to pick up an army myself, but I see them more as sneaky marines with lots of cover shenanigans and surprise assaults than an actual charge-oriented or assault specialized MEQ force.

And yes, the armor of shadows IS artificer armor. I smell a death star forming, hehehe.

No, vanguard vets get untargetable 20 pt thunder hammers, which is wayyyy better than the death company's untargetable 25 point power fists. Then untargetable 5 pt power axes, and the 10pt storm shields as someone mentioned.

Fearless I don't care about, when you're Ld 9 with ATSKNF and you'll be winning most assaults, I don't expect to run too much.

I did neglect furious charge, and yeah, being S5 on the assault with 5 attacks is nice against monstrous / gargantuan greatures, BUT considering the vanguards can deep strike / assault them T1, I'm willing to jump ship. Like how hard is it going to be for your death company to actually assault heavy targets like that and how many casualties are they going to take in the process? Are the extra S5 attacks they're going to bring to the table only on the first round of combat that will probably only wound on a 5+ or 6+ and then allow enemy saves going to be worth the casualties you're going to soak making that charge? And then having that charge happen on T2 or T3? Or not at all? What if they get charged?
And high T targets are a WORST case scenario. Consider how much better deep striking and charging T1 vanguards with one or two thunder hammers are against EVERYTHING else. Shooty MEQs, TEQs, snipers, artillery, tanks, etc.

Nope, sorry, bye death company, I'm 100% jumping ship here, so let's talk vanguard squad loadouts.

2 vanguard squads, I'm thinking 7-8-ish models, two thunder hammers, two storm shields (on chainsword guys).
Mayyyybe one power maul and one power axe.

Any thoughts? Should I bother with special pistols? This is for a T1 deep strike / assault army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And also I really fail to see how having that shadow guy back up a death company squad makes them any better. Having him up front to tank low AP3 or worse shots doesn't make much sense as he has barely a better chance of blocking a wound with his 2+ save vs a death company with their 3+ and 5+++ save, the 35 points you're spending on that armor just to give your death company an extra 16% chance of making a cover save against high AP hits means you need to save more than one of them to justify the whopping 35 pts you're spending on that armor, and the model who is wearing it is going to cost over 100 pts. You'd just be better off with an extra five death company with one power fist in almost any scenario that doesn't involve you taking a barrage of exactly AP3 firepower, which is kind of rare.