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So for my Blood Angels I love the fluff of the Day of Revelation RoW, which requires mandatory troops to be Assault Squads. Now, usually my troops 10 man Tactical Squads running around trying to eliminate enemy troops before going for objectives, they're usually in Rhinos to help them stay mobile and give them some protection.

However this obviously won't work for Assault Squads, so I've been thinking about how I'm going to use them. They're mobile, and they're deadly (thanks to BA LA rules and RoW buffs) but in my simulations with a friend they don't last long, they get blasted to negligible size and then are a bit useless. So that gives options as to how more effectively use them:

Take Shields - it's only a 6+ invulnerable, but it's still invulnerable.
20 men - more wounds, takes longer to get the numbers down.
Attach Chaplain - Zealot Woo! They won't run away and BA characters are pretty good in challenges.

So now obviously doing all of them would get too expensive even for a large troops choice, so which one(s) do you think would make an Assault Squad most effective?

Personally what i would run, 15 + Apothecary for FNP

If you are looking for survivability more than anything else, an apothecary indeed is a fantastic choice.

Nice, I had quite forgotten about them, I feel a bit stupid now...

I assume you mean the elites choice groups of apothecaries, is the Consul upgrade apothecary any good?

The HQ choice basically just allows you to be an apothecary to terminator squads, since the standard apothecaries can only join guys in power armor. I personally like the idea of sticking a PM with my Deathshroud... But not necessary in your case here.

Stick an Apothecary in the unit and grab those shields. 6+ Invun is better than nothing.

+1 to the apothecary idea, though aren't shields uber expensive?

 Brennonjw wrote:
+1 to the apothecary idea, though aren't shields uber expensive?

3ppm from memory but that may be wrong

A thing I've been testing out is artificer armor on the sarge to tank.

The 2+ armor save out in the front helps with basic fire for only 10 points.

 snykyninja wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:
+1 to the apothecary idea, though aren't shields uber expensive?

3ppm from memory but that may be wrong

I've been wanting to try them. I don't think they're worth it against shooting, but if you end up facing off against a unit with a lot of power weapons (Suzerains or such), a 5++/5+++ is no joke.

You can add a chaplain to the squad to allow for rerolls to misses in the first round and provide for another high initiative leader.

I play 30k blood Angels too and my assault squads we're working well for me even before the point cost drop. 20 man, 5 power weapons (3 axe 2 sword) one melta bomb, art armor on the serg.
I Run one with shields, one without.
Run em with something that will buff them. Chaplain, primus medicae/apothecary, librarian.
Buffs are GREAT when they're applied to 21-23 marines.
Run the librarian with divination for reroll hits and a chance for a 4+ invul, or biomancy for a chance for 4+ fnp.

One game I was fighting reavers and crushing them, and mind you, pre point cost drop, reavers were cheaper at maxed squad size and had +1 attack and all can take crazy weapons. I had shields and 4+ fnp thanks to a biomancer. So every time I'm hitting him with a chain sword, I'm wounding on 3+ and he's saving on 3+. Every time he hit me with a power sword he's wounding on a 4+ and I'm saving on 5+ followed up by 4+. My chain swords were deadlier than his power swords. That's how you win with assault Marines.

Buff them, hug terrain, screen them with rhinos (scouting recon rhinos with assault cannons are nice). Get them into hth, then crush.

how are you getting scouting rhino? Also, i was thinking of running a Moritat with twin infernus pistols. What do you think of that?

Recon marines have scout and can take a rhino as a dedicated transport, hence, a scouting rhino.

Let's compare a 10 man power armored recon squad vs a 10 man tactical squad.

You're paying 50 extra points for a 10 man recon squad vs a 10 man tactical squad, so 5 points per marine. For that you're getting scout, shroud bombs, and the option to take shotguns, but you lose the option to pay points for being armed with a bolt pistol, ccw, and bolter.

Scout is kind of key because it allows your assault cannon armed rhino to shoot at a target more than 30" away on the first turn (normal rhino could move 6" and shoot 24", the scouting rhino gets the free 12" move, the 6" move and the 24" shot). Also the scout move is invaluable if you're deploying your assault squad normally. You're obviously going to deploy them as far forward as possible, and scout lets you position your rhino in front of them for some screening. With a normal rhino you'd lose about 3" keeping them behind it.

Anyway, I run my squad with a serg with a power fist, shotgun, and artificier armor, 7 guys with shotguns, and 2 with bolt pistols / ccws. In an ideal scenario they can hop out of the rhino, double tap some squad, then the following turn get hit with a gimped charge due to the shroud bombs or not get charged at all, then the following turn, double tap with the shotguns again and charge into melee.
Shotgun powerfist is a great weapon combo, because in addition to looking awesome, you're not 'losing' the extra attack a pistol would give you, and power armor marines look awesome armed with shotguns.

Anyway, this is a fun squad that combos well with assault marines and assault cannon rhinos, and makes the extra points you pay for recon marines worth it.

Cool,, great advice. I can lose the Damocles and use those points to equip the recon squad with a nuncio vox, which prevents scatter as well.

Yeah! Just strap an assault cannon onto your damocles and you're good to go!

Another good way to keep your assault marines alive is a knight errant. Have him lead the squad, they won't scatter when they deep strike, all shots against them the turn they hit the deck have to be snap shots, so that means NO template attacks, and any charges made against them are disorganized.

I built a knight errant who is a librarian with a force axe, has a jump pack, AND a narthecium, so he gives the squad fnp as well. Doubling up on a librarian / apothecary for one hq slot is insane / awesome, and when he leads an assault squad, he's all but guaranteeing they'll get to make a charge without taking casualties beforehand.

Only downside is you really need to keep track of those 'oaths of the moment' or you'll auto-lose the game. A canny opponent will do everything he can to squash your knight-errant!

Only downside is you really need to keep track of those 'oaths of the moment' or you'll auto-lose the game. A canny opponent will do everything he can to squash your knight-errant!

Which can, in turn, be a useful mind trick itself - because not all of the oaths require the Knight Errant to survive.

Protector, in fact, doesn't require him to be anywhere near the character he's 'protecting' - he's obviously doing an alpha-legion esque 'distraction' - but your opponent doesn't know that and can't afford to let him get at your backfield objectives...


But I definitely agree that "unit buff" characters are the way to win with assault marines. Just like combat-blade armed tactical marines, it's the fact that you're applying that bonus to twice or more your opponent's numbers that matters. I'm half considering a word bearers force with a full 120 tactical marines for similar reasons.

 Walnuts wrote:
Another good way to keep your assault marines alive is a knight errant.

Is it bad that the first image that came to my mind was 19 Assault Marines lead by a small titan? But I like the Errant idea, I'll have to find their rules and poke about at them.

My first thought as well. I don't have my book in front of me, can the ROW with loyal traitor legions use a knight errant as an additional HQ?

Not a rite of war, errants can be taken as non compulsary hq

But only by Loyalists, so anything which is 'traitor only' (like the Word Bearers Consul Diabolist) disallows them.

Outcast Sons (I think?) is a rite of war for Loyalists from nominally Traitor legions, and should allow a knight errant unless it says any restriction about "agents of the Emperor".

That's the one I was talking about. I was thinking of pushing my AL towards a more loyal aspect, either as blackshields or just by not using traitor only units. I have a large Assault squad which is my character dump since everyone else rides. One of these small knights with a jump pack would be pretty cool. Not sure how effective the RoW itself would be but 30k isn't about power gaming anyway.

Yeah, knights errant are loyalist only, but since OP is a fellow blood angel, assumed that wouldn't be an issue :p


Automatically Appended Next Post:

locarno24 wrote:

Only downside is you really need to keep track of those 'oaths of the moment' or you'll auto-lose the game. A canny opponent will do everything he can to squash your knight-errant!

Which can, in turn, be a useful mind trick itself - because not all of the oaths require the Knight Errant to survive.

Protector, in fact, doesn't require him to be anywhere near the character he's 'protecting' - he's obviously doing an alpha-legion esque 'distraction' - but your opponent doesn't know that and can't afford to let him get at your backfield objectives...


But I definitely agree that "unit buff" characters are the way to win with assault marines. Just like combat-blade armed tactical marines, it's the fact that you're applying that bonus to twice or more your opponent's numbers that matters. I'm half considering a word bearers force with a full 120 tactical marines for similar reasons.

I love the protector oath, but oh man, is it a gamble! Blood Angel HQs are a bit squishy compared to other legions

Any HQ is squishy if you're opponent is deliberately trying to kill it. But you have the advantage that you don't have to throw the guy at your opponent's face; a master of signal, for example, can be tucked away somewhere safe(ish).

If you really want to be a tool, you can play it the other way; dig a master of signal in the middle of a fortification network with quadguns, tank traps, and a phosphex-armed partridge in a pair tree in the vicinity, and you can kind of force your opponent to come after him, whatever defences you put in their way.

Huh. Not a bad idea. If I'm feelin' trolly I might legit run a master of signal in my 55pt bunker with 8 missile launcher guys or volkite caliver guys


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheManWithNoPlan wrote:

 Walnuts wrote:
Another good way to keep your assault marines alive is a knight errant.

Is it bad that the first image that came to my mind was 19 Assault Marines lead by a small titan? But I like the Errant idea, I'll have to find their rules and poke about at them.

Oh dude, I joke about that all the time. I guess GW finally has so many units and armies and characters they're running out of words for them :p but omg, they can literally make up words! Do there need to be two knight errants? Do there need to be sicarans and sicarians? Do plasma obliterators need to be a type of building while obliterators are an extremely common chaos unit that wields plasma weaponry. Come on!

That stated, I frequently field some knights with my blood angels and I love the visual of a knight lancer charging into battle flanked by blood Angel assault Marines and dreadnoughts

locarno24 wrote:
But only by Loyalists, so anything which is 'traitor only' (like the Word Bearers Consul Diabolist) disallows them.

Outcast Sons (I think?) is a rite of war for Loyalists from nominally Traitor legions, and should allow a knight errant unless it says any restriction about "agents of the Emperor".

It should be said though that you don't need to take that Rite to be considered Loyalist, you just need to say you are and not take any Traitor-only options.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

locarno24 wrote:
But only by Loyalists, so anything which is 'traitor only' (like the Word Bearers Consul Diabolist) disallows them.

Outcast Sons (I think?) is a rite of war for Loyalists from nominally Traitor legions, and should allow a knight errant unless it says any restriction about "agents of the Emperor".

It should be said though that you don't need to take that Rite to be considered Loyalist, you just need to say you are and not take any Traitor-only options.

Outcast sons is for traitor elements of a loyalist legion. The name of the Rite for loyalist elements of a traitor legion is Orphans of Betrayal - and as far as I know you can run Knights Errant in an Orphans list.

Maybe a little threadomancy.. but just checking can apothecaries be upgraded to take Jump packs in BA lists? I don't see the option?

 Luvvo wrote:
Maybe a little threadomancy.. but just checking can apothecaries be upgraded to take Jump packs in BA lists? I don't see the option?

Then you need to get the Age of Darkness Legions book, where Apothecaries can take Jump Packs as a standard option.