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Hi folks, so I'm a returning player starting a blood angel based force and beginning to play 40k for the first time since 2nd edition. I haven't played any games of 6th yet, I'm currently at the list building stage. After reading the forums here, I've started with a fairly common DoA looking force. My 1250pt base list consists of 3 10 man assault squads, 2 jump pack priests, a jump pack librarian and 3 land speeders (I know many prefer attack bikes, but I like speeders and I have a couple of the cool old metal ones). And I'm currently in the process of building/painting them (check the blog if anyone's interested, shameless, I know).

My question is where to go next? I was thinking that for 500pts I can get a terminator squad with heavy weapon, another priest and and a multimelta dread and an assault cannon dread all to footslogger together which takes me nicely up to 1750pts. Is this a viable way to go? I do like the models, and that's important to me, but I don't want to see them shot to pieces before they can do anything. I just read Martel describe footslogging termies as "plasma bolt victims". I hope you're reading Martel, you seem like a bit of an authority on BA having seen a lot of your recent posts and I'd appreciate your input here (also think I agree with you on the DC issue).

I don't really want to run tanks or ravens, so my only other options I think are to keep building assault squads, or maybe think about a tactical/devastation gun line. Maybe tacticals in pods?

So in short, I'm not looking for anyone to build me a list or anything, I'm just looking for advice on the viability of footslogging termies and dreads and also suggestions on how to expand a standard DoA list (more of the same, or more guns). I'm not super competitive or anything, i want to have fun but without getting humped at the same time. All opinions would be most welcome.

Thanks for reading

Alan

Have you thought about Sternguard in drop pods, with the in your face nature of your list they might work well.

Eldarain, I've had a look but I've heard they can get pretty expensive for what might turn out to be a sacrificial unit. At least that's the impression I get from reading some of the threads. And I'd wonder if another deep striking assault squad with meltas might do something similar for cheaper?


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And can score also...

Well, I hate to break this to you but you missed all of our good editions. Granted, the BA are WAYYYY better than in 2nd edition, but that's not saying much.

I have played the BA in every edition, and we are now more schizo than ever. Love jumper lists? Well, MCs and armies with fightier troops will eat you. Love mech? Well, that's nerfed because its physcially impossible to assault from non-assault vehicles. Run a combo like I do? It's more complex, but there are bad matchups for that too. Really bad.

Since the BA fall from 5th edition grace, there has been a lot of squabbling about where to go.

There are multiple angles to what you are speaking of.

Footslogging: this has a lot of problems. The nice thing about metal bawkses is that your guys move faster and many weapons just bounce off. Footslogging marines and terminators get eaten up by the now-popular plasma weaponry. Plasma can crack tanks, too, but it buys valuable time and makes them roll more gets hot!

Terminator metal bawkses are very expensive. However, for the dread TH/SS terminators they are often the way to go. For shooty kinds, thought, beaming in off a homer can be the way to go since they can shoot when they deep strike. IE, they still contribute the turn they show up unlike assault terminators.

Bad news for you about the tanks: fast vehicles are the one place BA still have it over other marines. Did that opponent move out of LOS? No problem for mr fast auto/las predator! He can move 12" and still fire an autocannon and lascannon at full BS! Try that with your devastator squad!

Las/plas razor backs give us three AP 2 shots moving 12"! It's great But we used to be able to assault out fo them if it hadn't moved :(

6th edition is the edition of dakka. Rapid fire is improved, power weapons have gotten worse. Trying to walk across the board is suicide against many lists. The jump pack scheme is one possible solution until you run into guys that can just straight up beat you. That list is now pretty long since we lost access to init 5. I think the reality of tthis problem is still sinking in for many people.

It's hard to tell what the threshold of your local meta is. If lots of people are using armies from the starter box, footslog away. But if you've got people like me who have models from the 1990s, you'll probably see some nasty lists that just eat up foot sloggers. I won't even mention the unspeakable horror of the chaos demons at this moment. That's advanced tactica


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Also, there is an art to using Sternguard without sacrificing them. It usually, but not always, involves shooting the crap out units nearby their drop zone. This is critical, because they can't get any benediction love the turn they come down.

Yeh, I've heard about daemons. From what i can gather, the majority of players at the local club don't seem to run super competitive lists, but they have mostly been playing for a long time and are pretty savvy. I really think that my predicted beatings will come down to tactical inexperience and lack of knowledge of opposing units rather than dreadfully mismatched lists.

Teleporting the terminators in seems like an idea, though that might mean losing the dreads, as I wouldn't want them walking anywhere alone I think and I don't know if its worth paying the points for pods for them? Do you rate gun lines and tactical squads? Suppose it depends on the opponent. I have a bit of a fear of hordes I think.


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Used to take horrible beatings from my cousins tyranids.

Hordes can be bad, but getting your power units dusted by plasma is much much worse. Hordes sometimes have trouble bringing all their attacks to bear as they only get 3" pile ins on their init. They are a threat, but remember that even a couple flamer templates can turn the tide quickly on a flank. Also, wound allocation can make their lives miserable, as all losses come from the front. The more you shoot them, you are basically moving them backwards.

Dreads that aren't riflemen dreads really need to be in drop pods. Walking around is asking to be vaporized by a psyriflemen or auto/las or railgun.

Tyranids, CSM, and Eldar were the there horribly broken armies in 2nd. Nothing is nearly that broken anymore, but you might vomit a bit when you compare grey hunters to our tactical marines, or even assault marines.

I think you need more options than just pure gunline. My 1500 point list has a ton of shooting, but it also has a mobile contingent of 10 ASM, the libby, and the sanguinary priest. They are followed around by the MM attack bikes. All this stuff can get FNP from the priest and all can assault if need be with furious charge.

I find its been much easier having superior ranged firepower that's mobile and making my enemy come to me. Then I charge when its convenient for me as they are desperately trying bring their units to bear. This obviously doesn't work vs lists that outgun me, so I end up having to attack those. Good thing those troop transports can move 24"!

Suppose I could try teleporting the terminators and perhaps use pods to drop tactical Marines or dreads kinda near them. I like the idea of pods. We didn't have them in second obviously, id imagine it's quite unnerving for the opponent. Maybe not against hordes. Suppose it lets them get to within 24" without getting shot up too much. If they all start in reserve though, wont that kinda put the assault squads at risk? Was planning on deep striking as many of them as I could to save them from getting shot. Although I expect they can cover the ground between deployment zones fairly quickly.

When using Drop Pods you get to deploy half of your pods (rounded up) first turn.

Useful. What if you're only using one?

Deep striking assault squads has its own problems. You can try dropping pods on one flank and advance your jumpers on that flank. Makes the rest of his army shoot across most of the map.

Drop pods have the drop pod assault rule. One half rounded up always come in turn 1. So if you have three, you get two and only one unit is reserved. That's a good job for a tactical squad to grab an objective.

I think I'll get myself a couple of drop pods. Seems like they just give you options. I'll put a couple of tactical squads together as well. I've got Space Hulk and wasn't sure whether to keep the terminators for that or make them up for use in my army. I also just about have all the bits to build 2 dreads. So with that, and with the drop pods that seems like that may be a way to go? It'll give me options to play with at least.

I was feeling that three assault squads should be enough, I was quite worried about a lack of fire power. But if I start adding tacticals and give them pods you think they can work quite well? and more so if I can teleport in some terminators to support them? I can make final decisions over what to take when I know what army I'll be facing on any particular day obviously, but do you think this is a decent direction to go in?

As i said, I haven't actually played a game of 6th yet, and although I've got it all bought, I'm kinda finding it hard to find the time to get even my first 1000pts painted up, so it's probably a while before I'll even be ready to think about 2000pt games. Just wanted an idea of what to think about buying and modelling next. Always room for tactical squads? and pods help?

The problem with deep striking is that your army comes in piece mail. You may not get some of your units in until the 3rd or 4th turn. This is the reason I quit playing deepstrike armies. It can be brutal watching your army get picked off unit by unit because their support remains in reserves.

I strongly suggest vehicles, and loads of them. Baals, Preds, Vinds. We can gun line.

Blood angels can re roll their reserve roll for jump pack units. For everything else use a comms relay

MarkyMark wrote:
Blood angels can re roll their reserve roll for jump pack units. For everything else use a comms relay

Yeh, just had a look at commas relays, look kinda useful but I wasn't really planning on using fortifications. Though I know ADL's are well regarded and pretty handy, especially if I'm thinking about gun lines and such, I kinda had an image in my head of a deep striking crack assault force. Not an army who sets up defences and builds fortifications. I know going with fluffy armies isn't conducive to building competitive lists, but I do want to try to stick to something of a theme of fast moving precision striking infantry force. Maybe this is silly, I know.

This brings me on to goatsticks' point. Thanks for the advice man, I understand that the best way for BAs to be competitive in this edition is to go mech, it's mentioned often and you're almost certainly correct, but as I said above, it's just not really a way I want to go with it. Personally speaking, I just don't like tanks very much. I don't like the rhino model and I don't particularly fancy painting them, maybe a bit silly but important to me. I appreciate your input though. Have you ever run infantry lists? And did you find them totally useless or just kinda hit and miss with reserves not showing up, mishaps, etc?

Thanks again. I'm enjoying picking your brains.

Some people are swearing by jumper lists, but I just don't see it. The worm has turned on BA HTH capability. I just don't see running through the firepower only to get into combats we can't win. People claim they can win them, but I'm unconvinced. Too many Tyranid, space wolf, CSM, and chaos demon armies certainly at my store to even enterain the idea.

I don't need to run an infantry list. I play against them and butcher them. And the BA aren't even that good. Try foot slogging vs IG. I've IG lists at my store for 2K that had five battle cannons. Maybe the IG are extreme, but they are still out there

Get some Sanguinary priests. You need the furious charge and feel no pain.
Get a squad of Sanguinary Guard. Jump packs with 2+ armor and power fists is nothing to sneeze at.

I run pure jump BA with 3 squads of Sanguinary Guard (thanks Dante), 3 normal assault squads, 2 priests and a librarian.
I don't ever deep strike. Makes it too hard to keep everyone who needs to be near a priest near a priest.

15 guys with 2+ armor, 5+ cover (from librarian or assault marines) and 5+ feel no pain are a bitch to deal with.
It really plays like fast moving tactical terminators.

In bigger games, I pod dreads (1 death, 1 elite) on turn 1 for a "You Must Deal With This" problem for my opponents.

-Matt

Yes, the BA w/JP infantry are so mobile you shouldn't have to deep strike. Moving 12" over anything in your way is nice. If your going pure infantry: 10 ASM w/2 MG and PF or PW. Combat squad those guys.

Priest are a must also take. Giving your sheeple FnP making them 3+5+ is about as good as it gets for us. Take those priest, If JP are your thing, use them. Just keep them out of sight as much as you can. The JP are expensive though, I suggest the bike for 10 extra points. +1T, Jink save, more movement. Its worth it.

I can not stress how awesome brother Corbulo is, 3+2+. No JP though. Put him with Sternguard. Trust me, its where he belongs. He's just good, just not customizable.

I also suggest Dante (but he's expensive), he will make Sang Guard troop picks, and they really help with a 2+ armor save. This is a real boost as he can land ANYWHERE with no scatter and pretty blast anything on rear armor with plasma pistols.

The most efficient HQ is probably the Libby with your choice of powers; I prefer Blood Lance and Shield of Sang. Throw this guy on a bike and you have an awesomely mobile HQ that gives cover and has a high powered mobile weapon.

Well I'm already slightly committed to jump assault squads. Ive got 2 squads of 10 already built and almost painted. One squad has meltas, the other has infernus pistols. I've also got another 10man jump assault squad waiting to be built. Ive also got one jp priest built and painted. And ive got the fw apothecary pair. One was gonna get a jp as well and the other wasn't. He was gonna hang with my prospective tacticals or terminators. Was gonna build him with the intention of using him as a normal priest or as a "counts as" corbulo when possible.

So ive got priests covered (though I hadn't really thought about a bike) and got assault squads mostly covered I think (unless I was to go with a full on dante/sang guard list). Just want to find a good way to get a few more troops down and get more fire power down (preferably without tanks). I should also say, ive got 3 landspeeders with multimeltas ready to go (one typhoon with mm?) So that's where most of my fast attack slots are going. Ideally, they wouldn't be squadroned. I know most people prefer attack bikes, but I love those old metal speeders.


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Also my hq was to be a libby with jp. He's mocked up at the moment but not glued.

Attack bikes with FNP are stupid good compared to speeders. Plus, if they charge, they effectively get 4 attacks each. Not bad in a pinch.

Also consider divination for the libby because divination has some seriously nasty stuff.

Martel732 wrote:
Attack bikes with FNP are stupid good compared to speeders. Plus, if they charge, they effectively get 4 attacks each. Not bad in a pinch.

Also consider divination for the libby because divination has some seriously nasty stuff.

On the Libby, both of the powers have to come from the same book correct? Both from the codex or both from the CRB.

As I understand it, yeh.

Our Codex powers are good, and there are times you'll want to use those, but Prescience, in my experience, is pretty much always what your Librarians want. Prescience Libby with a unit of Death Company is full blown murder, man.

Prescience is good, but forewarning and foreboding are both nuts, imo.

Misfortune doesn't look too bad either.

Misfortune can certainly be just that; unfortunate

Ha. For them or for us? In bigger lists i could probably take 2 librarians, I have the models. Suppose one could get divination and one could get the codex powers.

I'll just say this: Any Divination Libby I've ever used has taken Prescience and has cast it on any turn on which I thought it might be relevant. My Libby escorting the DC will cast Prescience over pretty much anything else. I use a second Librarian too, and I'm still experimenting with what powers he takes, though.

Martel, do you run your attack bikes in a squadron of 3 usually, with a priest on a bike in tow? Was just looking at the chapter house attack jet bike and think they look pretty cool. Pricey though.

Yeah, I only own four attack bikes at the moment. I run three togther to maximize prescience and a fourth gets attached to the regular bike squad.

And I made a sanguinary priest biker just for this edition. They are pretty cool.

Hi guys, a wee update. So, modelling-wise I'm just working on getting my third assault squad done. But with a view to future expansion I've just bought 3 drop pods for £40 from eBay. I've also bought a box of tactical Marines and a box of devastators. These, coupled all the bits i have lying around, should be enough to build 2 tactical squads with a choice of weapon options that i can switch in and out depending on what i think I'll be facing. I've also bought 2 frag cannon arms from a bitz store. Planning on magnetising my dreadnought arms anyways.

So what do you think? Think it's a decent couple of additions with a good few options to play with?

As far as attack bikes go Martel, they probably are good but for now, those chapter house ones are just too expensive. I'll definitely look at them again though.

Also looking at converting up some sniper scouts for home objective camping and because I like the idea of pinning and rending. But this is a whole other conversion, maybe for another day.

Thank you all for your suggestions. And keep them coming.

Cheers Alan