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Played a game yesterday using a LBSF (one big DC squad, two small, smattering of powerfists) paired with a Lucifer force (Redeemer, two Las pred, one baal pred).
Told a mate I wanted a competitive game to try out a new list so he brought a lions blade strike force with a couple of black Knight squads.
After lining up the armies we both knew how the game was going to go, the numerical suppperioriry he had was huge and after he got first turn if was all over :(
As always the land raider died to a melta gun exploding it :/ the Las preds spent two turns failing to blow up a rhino. The big DC squad wiped up his bike squad full of characters but by the time they were finished the rest of the arm was toast and I conceded.

Conclusions: even with fast and scout the vehicles are still just crap, there's no getting round the fact that the basic rules for them hamper both there damage output and survivability.
The dc aren't bad but multocharging really puts a crimp in their output and the LBSF doesnt leave many points for mission scoring.

Personally I think LBSF and a LSF are too schizo to go well together.

My lists have a LSF teamed up with a CAD so almost everything is meched up. And I've got six obj sec units. And a whirlwind squadron. All in all, it's good old fashioned AV 13 spam with a squadron of auto/las preds and a flamer Baal and a dakka Baal. The crusader (which is much harder for the DA to melta w/o a drop pod) has the techmarine, assault terminators and a vertias vitae priest fishing for the move through cover (ruins) ability. All my tanks have dozer blades so they can grab 5+++ cover as much as possible. The pred squadron is murder vs other vehicles and even WKs. The whirlwind squadron is unbelievably dangerous to a variety of targets. And cheap.

My LBSF is teamed up with a knight warden. I actually use the other auxillaries like MM attack bikes. My DC are all MSU. I don't get greedy with the bonuses. I also use Astorath and give the DC chaplain the 2+ armor so they can tank crap like scatterlasers. I use the DC dread like a mini-furioso by giving it dual heavy flamer in a pod. The Knight Warden can make two DA squads jink per turn and massacre every black knight on the table. The MM attack bikes can make another squad jink. Oh, that list has a bunch of assault scouts too to get the body count up. Assault the squads you forced to jink with the assault scouts.

In each case, I have fast shooting in the list.

So you like Angel's Blade then? How would you rate it over all?

Overall, mediocre because no obj sec and poor assault from ds formations.

Just try them out before calling them poor

I wouldn't bring a big vehicle like a Land Raider or Knight without Invisibility, everyone loves Grav/D/Melta.

It's really too bad BA didn't get a good psychic formation!

 koooaei wrote:
Just try them out before calling them poor

The Terminator one has potential but there's no denying that Sanguine Guard are duds even with that bonus.

So my shop does end of the month "anything goes" tournaments at the end of every month (lists usually contain multiple wraithknights/stormsurges/imperial knights) but it's at 1750 and not 1850. I can't find a LBSF+orbital intervention force at that point value I like, so I'm trying something crazy.

After digging through the core rulebook for some clarifications, I found that our stormraven formation can use it's "FIRE ALL ZE MISSILES" rule the turn it comes on, so I'm gonna give it a try at the next tournament.

Edit: I can definitely believe that the LBSF and lucifer formation don't mesh well. It also sounded like you had some seriously crappy rolling, lol.

The Angel's Blade book gave us a pretty solid boost into middle tier, imo. We're still not great, but we definitely aren't bottom of the barrel anymore. And any formation where power weapons can assault from deep strike is good.

 koooaei wrote:
Just try them out before calling them poor

SG are awful no matter what rules you give them. TH/SS termies are considerably better.

Sanguine Guard require too much babysitting.

That's just it. I refuse to babysit them.

The golden host has its merits though. Coming with built in deep strike accuracy and choosing what turn you come on is solid. But the orbital force is just flat out better.

Also if you're hurting for more units on the table with the LBSF, I strongly suggest the 10th company ambush force. It's cheap, has some neat special rules, and can actually hurt things with str5 init5 on the charge.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
So you like Angel's Blade then? How would you rate it over all?

There may turn out to be some hidden nuggets in there - Chapter Ancients and Orbital Inervention Force, but on the whole it's pretty poor. It doesn't fix some of the long standing issues with the BA codex

 th3maninblak wrote:
The golden host has its merits though.

The formation bonuses are just fine, I'd think the real issue is "why Sang Guard". The only advantages I can think of are Fear tests and Sweeping Advance. Maybe you could get some traction versus the right unit, or with LD warfare. I'm having a difficult time thinking of applicable situations.

Otherwise you can just hit everything with Lightning Claws and Thunder Hammers, with a 3++ on top, right?

Yoyoyo wrote:

 th3maninblak wrote:
The golden host has its merits though.

The formation bonuses are just fine, I'd think the real issue is "why Sang Guard". The only advantages I can think of are Fear tests and Sweeping Advance. Maybe you could get some traction versus the right unit, or with LD warfare. I'm having a difficult time thinking of applicable situations.

Otherwise you can just hit everything with Lightning Claws and Thunder Hammers, with a 3++ on top, right?

The bonuses, which have a hard time eclipsing the 3++, are that they're cheaper, move 12", and have master crafted weapons. You already eluded to them being fearless, but that's nice too. The 12" move may be the most important difference, but like I said, most will just take the 3++ and hope that normal 6" movement will be enough.

I also like Dante, so the Golden Host is something I be playing around with.

You can get Dante in a CAD though.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You can get Dante in a CAD though.

Sure, but only in a way that feels like a waste, cause he's a Lord of War, while everyone else gets a Super Heavy Walker as a LoW. With the Golden Host, you could actually roll with Dante and an Imperial Knight (not that my current list I'm building towards has an IK, but it should).

 Voidwraith wrote:
The bonuses, which have a hard time eclipsing the 3++, are that they're cheaper, move 12", and have master crafted weapons. You already eluded to them being fearless, but that's nice too. The 12" move may be the most important difference, but like I said, most will just take the 3++ and hope that normal 6" movement will be enough.

I think "cheap" is probably the best attribute. And I don't mean that in a bad way -- you can grab Death Masks and then unleash them on squishy shooting-oriented targets like bike units, marines, troop choices, whatever. If you're hunting MSU you don't want anything too pricey.

Aside from Dante, Sanguinor being able to jump straight into assault helps a lot. You could leverage that 12" Fearless aura like Synapse, to instantly recover units that go to ground. Then everything runs into combat with +2A and +1S, where it sticks due to Fearless.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Voidwraith wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Huh. How is the mandatory disembarkation NOT movement? I was thinking the true brutality was going to be extra assault phases.

Technically. When QW uses the phrase "instead of" it does not imply the "instead of" action be allowed in the first place. The Skathach Wraithknight shunt generator proves this. Otherwise the Skathach Wraithknight would not be able to move out of close combat because it is not able to move in the movement phase due to being in assault. Familiarize yourself with the interpretation and you will see there is no way without a FAQ that anyone can disallow this strategy.

Did you make a movement in the movement phase? - No you made a mandatory disembark at the start of your turn. Now...Roast some people with double fire dreadnoughts and make up for the BA being UP all these years. Listen to them cry about how theres not counter and stuff. Drink their blood. Sounds fun.

I don't think that comparison is apples to apples. I don't know anything about the Skathach Wraithknight, but if it can make a special move instead of moving during the movement phase, it still didn't move prior to jumping out of assault.

Wow...I said "move" too many times in that sentence.

Either way, if I have to litigate what "instead of moving" means with the intended outcome being my Dreadnought gets to actually MOVE before using the ability it gets to do if it didn't move, my friends would look at me like I was stealing from them. It is interesting that GWs blog seems to indicate it is indeed possible to arrive via Drop Pod and use the Well-Times Strike special ability right away...but GW has never been good at reading (and following) their own rules.

I sent them an email, the response to which, if they should give one, I'll use for myself and not shove down everyone's throat.

Please let us know what they say in response...I really hope they allow it this way. It would really make dreadnoughts playable.

Just wanted to jump in with my experience on this, I was at a tournament earlier this year where a guy ran the Firespear Strike Force (the one from the Start Collecting Space Marines box) in a drop pod, and it was ruled that he could have everything arrive via pods, and still do the Sustained Fire (At the start of the Movement phase, pick one unit in the Firespear Strike Force that is within in 12″ of its Captain. The unit that you picked can immediately shoot as though it where the Shooting phase, but cannot then move (or charge) for the rest of the turn. This unit can shoot again in the Shooting phase (but cannot run)) even though they had disembarked that turn.

And given the similar wording it might allow it to work, at least in my area

Martel732 wrote:
I use the DC dread like a mini-furioso by giving it dual heavy flamer in a pod.

I saw this and really like the idea but I thought you could only replace the storm bolter or the meltagun and not both for heavy flamers (as it does say choose one of the following if I remember right)?
Unless you meant something other than having a heavy flamer per arm?

Fauxhound wrote:
arrive via pods, and still do the Sustained Fire

That's horribly wrong.

I'm finding OIF (also GH) needing to taken with LBSF or Angel's blade detachment. Otherwise you lose the initiative bonus wich can really make the difference. Am I the only one struggling with this matter?

Agree on the LSF and LBSF combination at 1850p range, not enough scoring units. Is there really a aux formation that you can use with the CAD that isn't better with obj sec from CAD itself. LBSF is the only one, but it's quite assault oriented so you need to grab AV/AA from elsewhere.

MadMunky wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I use the DC dread like a mini-furioso by giving it dual heavy flamer in a pod.

I saw this and really like the idea but I thought you could only replace the storm bolter or the meltagun and not both for heavy flamers (as it does say choose one of the following if I remember right)?
Unless you meant something other than having a heavy flamer per arm?

I'll look again, but I'm pretty sure you can.

You can't run the dual heavy flamers on the Death Company Dread sadly.

It says: "May choose one of the following:
-Replace storm bolter with a heavy flamer...XX pts
-Replace meltagun with a heavy flamer... XX pts"

So you can run the 'stock' configuration of Storm Bolter and Meltagun, or replace one or the other with a Heavy Flamer for XX points.

Would be nice if they could run paired heavy flamers. Sadly it doesn't appear to be allowed.

My preferred load out is almost always the Meltagun and Heavy Flamer on a dual CCW dread (Death Company or otherwise) though obviously if I'm running a Furioso Dread it's the Frag Cannon and Heavy Flamer for maximum template fun.

I personally prefer running a DC dread as Cassor the Damned myself, though it does limit the options to the Blood Talons + default arm weapon load out (Storm Bolter + Meltagun) & Magna Grapple, burning up a troops slot for the dread instead of one of the hotly contested elite slots is worth it.

I'm going to be experimenting with a few of the formations and data sheets from Angel's Blade at some point soon. Still have a lot of painting left to do however.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

Funny. My elite slots are never contested.

And yes that sucks for the dc dread because a lone meltagun sucks.

Martel732 wrote:
Funny. My elite slots are never contested.

And yes that sucks for the dc dread because a lone meltagun sucks.

Just because you don't use multiple elites, doesn't mean others don't. I run honor guard, death company (multiple squads), Furioso Dreads, and Lemartes on occasion.

You're atypical, and that's just the truth of it. In a vacuum one lone meltagun does suck, but it's an extra high strength shot that comes standard and I'd personally much rather have the meltagun over a storm bolter for general use. Your mileage may vary.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

I'd rather have a dead cow over a storm bolter.

I just happen to think that BA elites are not actually that much of a strength. I'm constantly running out of FA, though. Most BA elites are a fast way to lose a lot of points.

It's not going to come up that much anymore I think, because a lot of lists will be CAD + formation or all formations.

At any rate, I don't like the price tag on Cassor and I wouldn't recommend anyone actually use Cassor. I'd rather have a tac squad. There I said it.

You're entitled to your opinion of course.

I like Cassor. He's just 140 points and with the recent boost to dreads due to the FAQ + Erratas he's a good extra troops choice in my opinion.

A 5 man Tactical Squad with a heavy flamer, and a combi weapon on the sergeant coupled with a rhino is 135 points. Drop pod instead of a rhino is 125 points instead. A 5 to 15 point difference does not a large difference make. If you don't like him, that's fine, but he's got uses.

Each has their own uses and they don't preclude one another. I've had good success using death company dreads (and Cassor) in the past. As I said, your mileage may vary.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

I'm a fan of blood talons, more because I tend to roll an insane amount of 1s than anything else. And I seem to come up short 10 points in a lot of lists.

The Stormraven formation keeps getting better and better the more I read into it. Coming in on a 2+ in most cases (not many people run flyers anymore that aren't FMCs), being able to fire all your missiles at a target as long as it's within LoS (not firing arc), and the attack wings are all great. 2 ravens coming in on the basic attack wing gives you 4 of your 8 missiles at bs5, and your lead aircraft gets a +1 to jink. Seems pretty ok.

Fragioso are elites. They're awesome. For dread standards.