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I'm somewhat new to 40k, but have an general understanding of the rules/detachments. I'm currently building a 2k point Blood Angels army and have about 1.5k or so points already. I want to add either an Imperial Knight or one of the Baneblade variants if possible. Is this at all possible/viable?

Yes, you can always take a single lord of war from any imperium faction in a superheavy auxiliary detachment as long as you have spare points and detachments. This detachment doesn't add or subtract any command points and allows your main detachments to remain pure.

Go with the Knight, it fits the Blood Angel style of play given how fast it moves and its ability to dominate melee.

SJ

Go with the shadowsword. Volcano cannon = the win and melee is basically crap in 8th.

"Blood angel style" involves losing 80% of your games. Just shoot like everyone else.

Martel732 wrote:
Go with the shadowsword. Volcano cannon = the win and melee is basically crap in 8th.

"Blood angel style" involves losing 80% of your games. Just shoot like everyone else.

I would argue this point as from the matches I've played/watched so far, it seems that as long as you throw enough dice on the board, enough of them will be what you need or more to cause damage. So as long as you have a high volume of attacks, the strength of them doesn't matter as much. This seems to be the idea for both melee and ranged.


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 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Go with the Knight, it fits the Blood Angel style of play given how fast it moves and its ability to dominate melee.

SJ

I wouldn't be taking a melee Knight because the army itself is mostly melee. I would need ranged attacks to back them up, making a Crusader Knight for example a good choice. That is why I also considered one of the Baneblade variants.

Melee lists like BA aren't getting enough bodies to survive to roll enough dice. Orks, maybe. But not power armor lists.

Martel732 wrote:
Melee lists like BA aren't getting enough bodies to survive to roll enough dice. Orks, maybe. But not power armor lists.

Maybe not to the same amount as Orks can, but a single squad of 10 Death Co that had Unleash Rage cast on them can pump out 50 attacks with chainswords. If you make an army that uses this as the main form of assault, You could easily toss out enough dice. You would lose other units to compensate the cost, but they amount of attacks could easily make up for it.

GH45T1Y wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Melee lists like BA aren't getting enough bodies to survive to roll enough dice. Orks, maybe. But not power armor lists.

Maybe not to the same amount as Orks can, but a single squad of 10 Death Co that had Unleash Rage cast on them can pump out 50 attacks with chainswords. If you make an army that uses this as the main form of assault, You could easily toss out enough dice. You would lose other units to compensate the cost, but they amount of attacks could easily make up for it.

That's about 300 pts of stuff that needs to get into melee to deliver the attacks. 300 pts of AM mortars puts out an avg of 94 S4 attacks with BS4+ at 48'' without line of sight.

Casting spells on dc is too many moving parts, imo. If your opponent really cares, you won't have 10 dc for long anyway.

sossen wrote:

GH45T1Y wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Melee lists like BA aren't getting enough bodies to survive to roll enough dice. Orks, maybe. But not power armor lists.

Maybe not to the same amount as Orks can, but a single squad of 10 Death Co that had Unleash Rage cast on them can pump out 50 attacks with chainswords. If you make an army that uses this as the main form of assault, You could easily toss out enough dice. You would lose other units to compensate the cost, but they amount of attacks could easily make up for it.

That's about 300 pts of stuff that needs to get into melee to deliver the attacks. 300 pts of AM mortars puts out an avg of 94 S4 attacks with BS4+ at 48'' without line of sight.

This is what I mean, though. It's essentially not about stronger hits, but enough of them and it will put anything down.


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Martel732 wrote:
Casting spells on dc is too many moving parts, imo. If your opponent really cares, you won't have 10 dc for long anyway.

This isn't an actual strategy, more of an example. But yeah, Any anti-infantry will shred DeathCo quickly.

Martel is a super bitter BA player. He hasn't been happy in years.

Melee works fine in 8th.

I would consider a Crusading Knight that has joined up with some BA more interesting then a lone IG tank.

For 20 ppm, they should be harder to shred than they are.

 Lance845 wrote:
Martel is a super bitter BA player. He hasn't been happy in years.

Melee works fine in 8th.

I would consider a Crusading Knight that has joined up with some BA more interesting then a lone IG tank.

This is what I have been planning on, but the lone IG tank can be pretty spooky if you use the Shadowsword's Volcano Cannon to shred a Land Raider for example.

 Lance845 wrote:
Martel is a super bitter BA player. He hasn't been happy in years.

Melee works fine in 8th.

I would consider a Crusading Knight that has joined up with some BA more interesting then a lone IG tank.

If by fine, you mean not all for power armor lists, then i agree.

I fully agree with Martel. The only way to play BA is to basically play as a ultramarine: sit in the back and shoot. Our assault troops are garbage and too expensive at the moment.
Melee DOES NOT work in 8th. 8th edition is all about shooting.

I might be bitter, but I'm also right. At least about this. I've been trying to punch people with power armor since 1994, and this situation is as bad as I've seen it.

Fundamentally, your opponent chooses what you assault and YOU choose what to shoot, within range constraints. That difference alone should make melee units much cheaper than shooting, but they aren't. Melee = fail in 8th.

Don't take a knight. Take bodies. Take meat shields hell even ally with imperial guard for the numbers.

Take the Stormlord. I have a Knight Crusader and it's too big of a target and impossible to hide. I'm actually considering getting a Stormlord just to try using it instead.

If you have a spare 40 $ lying around and don't mind buying a codex for a single unit: Get the AM codex, field a Baneblade of any variant and go ham.


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 Lance845 wrote:
Martel is a super bitter BA player. He hasn't been happy in years.

Melee works fine in 8th.

I would consider a Crusading Knight that has joined up with some BA more interesting then a lone IG tank.

Well, fluffwise you might as well say that it's a BA tank. If IG have access to Baneblades I don't see why a Space Marine chapter wouldn't get one should they ask for it, especially variants like the Shadowsword because they fill a niche that no other Space Marine vehicle does outside very rare relic tanks like the Falchion and Cerberus.

dadx6 wrote:
Take the Stormlord. I have a Knight Crusader and it's too big of a target and impossible to hide. I'm actually considering getting a Stormlord just to try using it instead.

Well the point of the Knight would be to not only dish out high-powered damage, but to also take focus off of the rest of the army. So having a large unit like a Knight is part of the plan, I just also consider a Baneblade variant such as the Shadowsword because of its damage output.

Another detail is that the Stormlord is better for a pure IG army because it can transport 40 IG infantry units.

Knight Errant is a good fit for Bangels, given the increased damage output of the Thermal Cannon and the fact that stomps remove hordes. Best build is to take the Gauntlet, which allows the Errant to deal with bigger targets easier while still having stomps to clear hordes. The goal is to attract the right amount of attention, so your actual army can do their job.

SJ

While I cannot speak with much experience doing melee with marines (Yet. Building some storm wardens as counts as Black Templars). My nids melee works great and arguably as good if not better than shooting depending on the list.

Melee is not bad in 8th. I am inclined to believe that BA are as an index army.

Marines are bad in general outside of Rowboat lists. A big reason for this is that melee sucks rocks.