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Heres the deal... So I have a dark angels army and a much smaller ork army and I am battling my brother's force of blood angels about every 3 months when he comes home for the holidays... however I have literally never won... I could field any wing of the dark angels, however I just am not quite sure how to beat him. How would one go about beating the blood angels?

thanks,
xofox

What units/tactics does he use? I imagine spamming grav bikes and RW Black Knights would put a boot to his butt.

What does he play? What do you play? These are questions that are absolutely vital.

For general tactics, if you assault them, they lose their "chapter tactic" benefit and fight like normal pansy marines.

In true ork fashion, shoot the choppy stuff, chop the shooty stuff.

He puts a bunch of devastators in back to shoot at my Titan and then drop-pods a bunch of assault Marines with astorath the grim helping them...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've once tried deep striking belial and a squad of deathwing knights into his territory in order to take out his snipers and devastators, that way he had a hard time taking care of my close range cerastus knight. however with astorath's ability that give his units +1 atk and their tactics that give them +1 atk when they charge he was just landing too many hits with his powerfists... I am quite flexible as to with what I field. Which army should I build up to beat him? And how should I build it up?

thanks again,
xofox

I would go Ravenwing Strike Force with Ravenwing Support Squadron. Put an attack bike and maybe 4 bikers in a squad with grav guns and multi meltas on the attack bikes. Provide target saturation without making the squads too small. Then I'd consider Sableclaw with the support squadron but I'm biased and like Sammy on Corvex, and make your command squad and black knights your mini death stars. Hit and run always, sacrifice some of your smaller bike squads to get in close combat to lock the units you want locked and then Multi-Melta the crap out of the armour. Also I'd have Typhoon Speeders in the Support Squadron. Just first thoughts.

Ravenwing and black knights should be more than enough to ruin his day, especially in combination with an acheron, that Flamer is filthy rape against meq. A squad of tacs all grav'ed up in a pod should take care of backfield heavy weapons squatters.

If all else fails, a Vindicator or 2 should remove annoying deep strikers before they can cause too much havoc.

Ok, so for him I should go more with ravenwing? Thats good to know... I will start expanding my ravenwing then. I imagine orks aren't as good against the BA because of the fact that BA get really nice flamers. One last question though how should I position my acheron?

TenebrisAngelus wrote:
I would go Ravenwing Strike Force with Ravenwing Support Squadron. Put an attack bike and maybe 4 bikers in a squad with grav guns and multi meltas on the attack bikes. Provide target saturation without making the squads too small. Then I'd consider Sableclaw with the support squadron but I'm biased and like Sammy on Corvex, and make your command squad and black knights your mini death stars. Hit and run always, sacrifice some of your smaller bike squads to get in close combat to lock the units you want locked and then Multi-Melta the crap out of the armour. Also I'd have Typhoon Speeders in the Support Squadron. Just first thoughts.

This. Blood Angels only really come into their bonuses if they can get their charge off. Black Knights next to a Dark Shroud can fire loads of twin linked plasma shots at them and if those Black Knights (or any DA unit) assault with a darkshroud within 6", then those Blood Angels on the receiving end won't be able to fire overwatch (or get their FC or +1 init) when the Black Knights charge into them - and then zoom off with hit and run

Another tactic could be to use the Lion's Blade formation to give all your Dark Angels overwatch at full BS. Good luck with his marines/DC having enough survivors after taking that when charging. Always remember that all Dark Angels have overwatch at BS 2 as standard (hitting on a 5 not a 6). As mentioned, increased to full BS if Lions Blade formation is used.

Thanks to GW's latest errata you can have librarians on bikes as a HQ for your Ravenwing strike force. Use interromancy to gimp his special BA characters. Speaking of which, I cannot see anywhere in my BA codex that says Astorath gives extra attacks to units he is attached to. He gives re-roll to hit like any chaplain (along with re-roll to wound if Death Company), but nowhere do I see him giving extra attacks. I do not believe that to be correct.

hmm... I will have to bring that error of rules of his up with him. Thanks, what are the minimum reqs for linons blade? I have the codex but am not in a position that I can refer to them right now... thanks for the help so far.

--xofox

I'm going to be running this same situation and am really liking the black knights + support squadron. Make the black knights have 4-5 models each, that plasma + rending will put a dent in his day. The BS2 overwatch from the support squadron and twin-linked plasma will put a huge dent in his assaulting day.

A better question is how do BA not get tabled by black knights?

Martel732 wrote:
A better question is how do BA not get tabled by black knights?

By not facing an army with black knights

Pretty much. Pretty depressing.

Martel732 wrote:
Pretty much. Pretty depressing.

Drop pod heavy flamer spam might be able to do something I guess

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Pretty much. Pretty depressing.

Drop pod heavy flamer spam might be able to do something I guess

Yeah, but if they are in reserve (like with the one formation), you can totally whiff if you get first turn. BA simply lack the tools, as DA were designed to punch with the Necrons and Tau.

 xofox wrote:
He puts a bunch of devastators in back to shoot at my Titan and then drop-pods a bunch of assault Marines with astorath the grim helping them...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've once tried deep striking belial and a squad of deathwing knights into his territory in order to take out his snipers and devastators, that way he had a hard time taking care of my close range cerastus knight. however with astorath's ability that give his units +1 atk and their tactics that give them +1 atk when they charge he was just landing too many hits with his powerfists... I am quite flexible as to with what I field. Which army should I build up to beat him? And how should I build it up?

thanks again,
xofox

I can't help but think that either you or he (or both) are unclear on what certain BA models are and are able to do. Certain things you are saying are making me think this. For instance, Asty doesn't give bonus attacks, and it's very strange that they would run him with assault marines, so it's more likely that those were death company, who have the rage ability and get two extra attacks on the charge.

Go spend an hour reading the game rules in their codex. Beating them will come naturally after that. It IS a weak book, but playing against them blind-folded is still giving yourself a large disadvantage.

Bring as many black knights as you can, plus a couple darkshrouds
effectively unkillable from his shooting and you will shred absolutely everything he has

 xofox wrote:
Ok, so for him I should go more with ravenwing? Thats good to know... I will start expanding my ravenwing then. I imagine orks aren't as good against the BA because of the fact that BA get really nice flamers. One last question though how should I position my acheron?

Ravenwing are bad ass.

 Jancoran wrote:

 xofox wrote:
Ok, so for him I should go more with ravenwing? Thats good to know... I will start expanding my ravenwing then. I imagine orks aren't as good against the BA because of the fact that BA get really nice flamers. One last question though how should I position my acheron?

Ravenwing are bad ass.

We certainly agree on that.

I can't help but think that either you or he (or both) are unclear on what certain BA models are and are able to do. Certain things you are saying are making me think this. For instance, Asty doesn't give bonus attacks, and it's very strange that they would run him with assault marines, so it's more likely that those were death company, who have the rage ability and get two extra attacks on the charge.

Go spend an hour reading the game rules in their codex. Beating them will come naturally after that. It IS a weak book, but playing against them blind-folded is still giving yourself a large disadvantage.

thanks for that tip, haha really helped. We are both new to warhammer just started a little under a year ago. thanks for the tips

The cynical answer is set up their models.

I have found that grav weapons absolutely wreck Blood Angels due to it causing Immobilize when it glances vehicles. 5 man scout squads with a power fist and krak grenade can do wonders as well.
You'll also be amazed at how long a ten man tactical squad can tie up a Death watch squad. Throw an independent character as a beat stick and you got a good chance for coming out on top.