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HI, very interested to hear people's views on this.

I'm facing a very aggressive, DC orientated Blood Angel army next week, and I want to know what heavy support to take. Currently I've penciled in two Doomsday Arks and a Triach Stalker for targeting, the idea being to one-hit deep-striking squads of assault marines and death company (S9, Ap1 instant death... goodnight FNP and Power Armour). Plus 2x5 flayer arrays for dealing with deepstriking land raiders. However, this is obviously a fairly high points cost (around 350 for arks alone) and I could replace an ark with two barges.

Tesla Destructor, even with arc and a gauss canon, to me, seems like a complete waste of time vs FNP Marines in Power Armour. Range 24 and no Ap. But four-five hits a turn.

Thoughts, ideas, please.

Many thanks,

Ffyllotek

Personally, I'd drop the Stalker and run 1 Ark and 2 Barges. Use the points you save on whatever makes you feel warm and fuzzy...

Basically, both heavy support options are great, but if you BA opponent has mobile melta, the Doomsday Ark will be gone extremely early in the game (or nullified as you move to defend against said melta). The barges are amazing because their easily the most efficient option in our codex. They may not be the best option against FnP power armor, but I'm sure there's something in your opponent's list they will be good at greasing. The reason I'd drop the Stalker is...I'm just not a big fan of 150+ pts to twin link against one unit a turn. Maybe if I saw the rest of your list I'd reconsider...

The Stalker also comes with a 2 shot multimelta. I would say that's pretty handy for 150pts.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The Stalker also comes with a 2 shot multimelta. I would say that's pretty handy for 150pts.

I have run dual Stalker to much success and to great failure. When the stalkers work they work beautifully, but they can also be popped pretty easily. As for the Doomsday Ark vs Ann. Barge--I am a fan of both. I originally used to run three and the sheer amount of tesla they put out is staggering. Not many units can stand up to the amount of hits you can generate with them. On the other hand, the Doomsday Ark has the potential to wipe a unit off the board per turn. I have heard a lot of people dogging the Doomsday Ark, but recently I have been a big proponent of them. I run two, deploying them at the back of the board with good firing lanes and just go to work against everything.

The power in Ann. Barges is the amount of hits you are going to generate.
With three of them you will be blasting squads away as if they are nothing.

Taking a small amount of vehicles is dangerous.
My Blood Angels always tend to Deep Strike next to one and Melta it away within a turn.

I had a similar situation and here is what I'd suggest...

Drop the Stalker/Doomsday Ark - his troops will have blown up both rather quickly. At the 90 points per the A. Barges are a steal. Sure they will get a ton of 3+ armor saves - but that is how the Barges work. You force a ton of dice to be rolled and they have to fail a few. It can be a bit boring rather than taking the fancier units with the cool rules but points-wise I think that the barges will do more and allow you more points for things like scarabs to tarpit the enemy, Wraiths to hold up in CC and provide your own mobile threat, or simply more Warriors. It all depends on the units you own. I never much liked the Doomsday Ark unfortunately. I really wanted to - I played it a few games and aside from the model itself being a pain in the arse to move about the table it never really did all that much for me for the points cost. I'd much rather have something cheaper with more guarantee that it will provide for my Necrons.

I think one D. Ark could work, but I wouldn't invest in two. You are pretty much spending 175pts to have a picture perfect T2 shot on deathcompany. There are a bunch of factors that can screw this up. DC in landraider, DC in stormraven, deepstriking into ruins, deepstriking behind LOS, large blast shot scattering, T1 drop with metla shot to your (stationary+opentopped) ark, etc. I think the risk to reward ratio is just too high.

Instead I would consider running 1 monolith and 2 barges if you don't want to go triple barge. The monolith blast is just as effective against DC, although if he brings termies then you have some trouble. The two barges can then deal with any lightish vehicles (rhino's, pods, stormravens) while the rest of the army can focus on the scary stuff. You may even want to consider units of 3 Spyders, since they work pretty well against marines.

Again, if you can post a rough estimate of the rest of your army that would be helpful.

Hi,

thank you all so much for your comments. I did post my army list in the relevant forum but like a billy no mates no one wanted to play. So here's my army list (3k, double FoC)

Overlord, mss, ps, sw, we, res orb
court: 5x lord, ws, sw, mss
3 x haywire tens, 1x trans tel with crucible, 1 x despair with cloak

Zandtehk
court: 3x lanceteks
4x lords, res orbs

1 destroyer lord, mss, sw, ws

1 x stalker
5 x deathmarks
10 immortals
10 immortals
10 immortals
10 immortals
6 x wraiths, 3x coils
2 x doomsday ark

Effectively I planned to castle up and let the Blood Angels come to me. Let them deep strike land raiders etc, I'll hit them with haywire tek and then mass shoot survivors. And with Zandhrek's ability to give furious charge to a unit of 5 Lords with MSS, SW, WS and a tooled up Overlord, I plan on charging any stupid DC or ASM or Dante who fancies himself.

Would look like:

5 death marks, despair tek
10 immortals, res lord, haywire
10 immortals, res lord, haywire
10 immortals, res lord, haywire
10 immortals, Zandhrek, tremor tek
dlord / 6 wraiths
olord / 5 lords, all with WS, SW, MSS
3 lance teks in a court
triarch stalker
2 arks


Thanks for comments, really am grateful.

Ffyllotek