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I think Dante is pretty well costed now, perhaps not quite as aggressively as shrike but certainly usable. If he gains the new chapter master wording then he becomes that much better than a captain. Just wish he did something unique.

Heard rumors that the new sanguinary priest datasheet gives him back access to a jumppack, anyone else heard this?

 Galas wrote:


Azrael aura is only for infantry and WHOLLY WHITIN.

So nah, Azrael is pretty weak as a character.

It isnt wholly within, its within, and its for bikers and infantry. Read the rules first, before trying to lecture others. He also brings 1CP when he is the warlord, how many CPs does Dante bring ? 0. His sword makes MW in addition, dantes axe doesnt. His gun is 24" range, Dantes gun range is 6". After comparing Dante should be more like 120.

I think Dante is slightly weaker than Shrike and 125-130pts is where he should be. Could even make a case for 120pts since his CM reroll aura isnt as good in BA as it is in any other chapter.

BA have 0 range buffs and a ton of melee buffs so you wouldnt want a chapter master buffing underperforming ranged units. Buffing your weak points is worse than buffing your strong points if the buff is equal in % aftet all. And for melee units we have 2 amazing chaplains which can give rerolls to hit.

Especially Lemartes who didnt loose his reroll hits aura for DC when he got litanies in addition to what he already have. He is 50pts cheaper than Dante and have reroll charges for DC and litanies outside of rerolls to hit. He is also a beast in CC if he gets his own litany buff off. In T3 he will have 9 ws2+ attacks with rerolls to hit. Str 7 with +1 to wound. ap - 3 and d3+1 damage. Having +1 to charge with built in rerolls as well. I would take him in any list even without a unit of DC. Just keep him back in worst case and in T3 cast Upon Wings/Deepstrike and murder something. For only 100 pts!!! and that is without a single outside buff from other characters or stratagems. He is insanely costed compared to any other character we have access to.

And for Sanguinary Guard we can just have any warlord close by to give them rerolls. Even a model in the unit can be the warlors. So our melee units already have rerolls and our ranged units isnt good enough to give rerolls so for Dante you are mostly paying for his stats. Which isnt worth 50pts over Lemartes. If he had a warlord trait that gave 2-3cp and cp regen on the other hand it would be different. He is after all the oldest, most experienced and most respected commander in the whole Imperium after the Primarchs. Hr should have something to reflect that.

 p5freak wrote:

 Galas wrote:


Azrael aura is only for infantry and WHOLLY WHITIN.

So nah, Azrael is pretty weak as a character.

It isnt wholly within, its within, and its for bikers and infantry. Read the rules first, before trying to lecture others. He also brings 1CP when he is the warlord, how many CPs does Dante bring ? 0. His sword makes MW in addition, dantes axe doesnt. His gun is 24" range, Dantes gun range is 6". After comparing Dante should be more like 120.

My fault. It is within but only for models, so no, you can't give a 4++ to all of your army. And yeah it works for bikers but that isn't gonna happen because our bikers have a 4++ when they advance. Dante is much better as a beastick character than Azrael. Azrael works better as a shooting support but even then, he isn't that great. Hes superior to dante just by virtue of shooting being better than meele. Azrael sword is irrelevant 95% of the time, he'll never reach meele.

I think we should consider a new thead with all the new stuff about to drop. Anyone else agree/disagree?

Nevermind.

I've had a read through a really good breakdown of all the stuff for BA in PA3, Goonhammer if you want to take a look yourselves.

Really pleased with it all, we've been given the full space marine treatment
- chapter tactic now adds +1 to advance and charge in addition.
- chapter tactics on vehicles now, not that that's much use.
- loads of new relics, some really good.
- 23 strats! Adding in most of the new space marine ones plus various unique one. Especially like the ones that improve death company and sang guard durability.
- Docterines are great for us, with a powerful super doctrine.
- our named chaplains are both really powerful.
- junppacks for sang priest!
- no new BA warlord traits or psy powers :(

Alongside the chapter approved points drops I think an infantry based BA assault army is looking pretty viable

 WisdomLS wrote:
I've had a read through a really good breakdown of all the stuff for BA in PA3, Goonhammer if you want to take a look yourselves.

Really pleased with it all, we've been given the full space marine treatment
- chapter tactic now adds +1 to advance and charge in addition.
- chapter tactics on vehicles now, not that that's much use.
- loads of new relics, some really good.
- 23 strats! Adding in most of the new space marine ones plus various unique one. Especially like the ones that improve death company and sang guard durability.
- Docterines are great for us, with a powerful super doctrine.
- our named chaplains are both really powerful.
- junppacks for sang priest!
- no new BA warlord traits or psy powers :(

Alongside the chapter approved points drops I think an infantry based BA assault army is looking pretty viable

This looks promising.
The super doctrine is what?

 wuestenfux wrote:

 WisdomLS wrote:
I've had a read through a really good breakdown of all the stuff for BA in PA3, Goonhammer if you want to take a look yourselves.

Really pleased with it all, we've been given the full space marine treatment
- chapter tactic now adds +1 to advance and charge in addition.
- chapter tactics on vehicles now, not that that's much use.
- loads of new relics, some really good.
- 23 strats! Adding in most of the new space marine ones plus various unique one. Especially like the ones that improve death company and sang guard durability.
- Docterines are great for us, with a powerful super doctrine.
- our named chaplains are both really powerful.
- junppacks for sang priest!
- no new BA warlord traits or psy powers :(

Alongside the chapter approved points drops I think an infantry based BA assault army is looking pretty viable

This looks promising.
The super doctrine is what?

I believe we get an additional attack on the charge/when we’re charged/perform heroic intervention in the Assault Doctrine.

We get veteran intercessors.. ok they cost CP, but compared to DC intercessors.. troop/elite slot. 3base attacks/3rd on 1st round of combat. Ld 8/7. And only a single power weapon on both units. So the biggest difference is 6+ fnp and no need to pay CP. For me it's hard to justify crowding the elite slots when you want to optimize troop slot usage.

We now can get 2 4dmg thunder hammers. Give artisan of war to smash cpt as an additional warlord trait. No more free slay the warlord for our opponents. Mephy is smashy for sure, a bit psychic power succesful dependant. Librarian dread has a strat to take half damage in a single phase. Astorath has now it's usage again, real beast and knows total of 5 litanies and can recite two which is great. Start on board, get +2 to charges. UWoF next to deepstruck DC to give them 7" charges. Sang. Guard are really potent too, 2dmg minimum / attack strat. -1 to hit strat etc.

I'm liking this so far. We get the +1 to wound and 1" advance and charge even if we soup up with other Astartes. Biggest concern is can we manage until T2/3 to get our party going. Too often game outcome can be predicted after first two turns.

Looks like Oakley list is even more viable right now.
15 DC
10 Sanguinary
Scouts
A bunch of caracthers backing up the units

I'm still not convinced DC are worthwhile.

I'm overall happy with the update to BA. As for where I feel BA players should lean when building their lists, stick with what makes us unique, sanguinary guard or death company, the upon wings of fire strat, and the relic FnP banner.

Martel732 wrote:
I'm still not convinced DC are worthwhile.

What more do you want from them?

18 points for a fast unit with fly that puts out a metric boat load of attacks and can threaten more or less any target. A full squad isnt super expensive and with the various strats that can effect them they can be very durable if needed. Any cheaper and they would be an auto take which isnt good for any unit.

18 pts is a lot for a naked unit with no gear except a jump pack. Once you start giving them gear it gets outrageous quickly. A more fair base price would be 14 with jump pack the way 8th ed plays. Getting close is basically suicide in 8th ed, and this cripples power armor melee.

For 14pts I would start each list with 3 DC squads and lemartes at any point level. Even if I only have points for 1 10 man and 2 5 man squads. For 70pts you get 10 bolter shots and 30 ap 1 melee attacks with an 8" charge. I would keep 2 small squads for turn 3 in every single game. Maybe add in a TH in each if not enough in the rest of the list.

18pts, +1 charge and doctrines make them more versatile than before and the new strats make even large squads quite survivable. Pure bolter/swords murder chaff and 15 man squads with strats can tank. In turn 3 even just 3 Thunderhammers make any target sweat a lot.

Turn 1 and you go first or use upon wings they can surprise or at least put a lot of pressure. Turn 2 their bolters get ap 1 and can shred their screens. The surviving models in turn 3 each hit like a melee character on their own with either 6 ap 1 +1 to wound attacks or 5 Thunderhammer attacks. Thats the same as a damn smash captain.

There wont be any dc left turn 3. Id have to think even at 14 pts because thats still fragile with gear.

BA cant put pressure through screens of cheap stuff. None of these updates changes that.

If even 14pt DC wouldnt be good enough for you then I dont think its Blood Angels that are the problem but you. I usually hate the "l2p" argument but it sounds like it would be applicable here.

If I were to play a ork or guard army tailored to defeat my blood angels then im quite sure I wouldnt have much of a chance to win. But most lists I play against are made for tournaments so dont have 50% of their points in screens since they want other units to win against non BA lists. So stop playing people who tailor lists against you on low terrain tables or l2p. BA isnt that bad.

Putting pressure helps you control the board and score objectives so even if you cant kill them you at least push them back. With cheaper units and the new doctrines it should help us keep them back long enough to score the win if not just push through and kill them.

It has nothing to do with my skill or your skill. T4 1w doesnt get far in 8th. 18 pts for t4 w1 no ap and melee focus is still not very good.

They don't need 50% screens. Usually the whole problem is that a handful of points is preventing assault from very expensive ba units.

invictors are intriguing to me for BA. flamers and stubbers help clear out screens and they can punch pretty well.

So here’s what I’m going to be testing out first:
Supreme command: Mephy, Sangy, Lemmy
Brigade:
-Libby dread, relic blade jump captain, jump priest
-6x cc scouts
-3x whirlwind castellan,
-3x twin HB tarantula
-SG ancient (sword/bolter)
-10 SG (6 sword/4 fist)
-13 jump DC (10 chainsword/3 fist)

1994 and 16 CP, SGA warlord with fearless aura and fnp banner, then throwing 3 at captain sword for artisan/rage/wing
(May throw a power sword into DC or change a fist to a hammer or something to finish points.)

Game approach: prolong game until savage echoes and abuse it for the endgame.

Deploy scouts, whirlwinds, and tarantulas in hiding as much as possible. Mephy, Libby dread, and captain deploy to deal with threats that try to approach, hopefully also abusing hidden forward scouts to hide via character rule. If needed, Libby dread will jump out first and use duty eternal to stand up to a counterattack. Probable red rampage here also.

-turn 2: SG, SGA, priest, and Sangy land in a bubble, in terrain if possible, and shoot with tactical doctrine buffed angelus. May use angelus gun strat depending on target. (IE if killing it will leave things unscreened for the DC next turn.) SG will likely use transhuman strat to help them live through enemy turn. At this point, I’m likely to have 9 or 10 CP left.

Turn 3: SG star and remaining deployed characters (as well as any scouts that lived and aren’t holding an objective,) move into the red zone to assault. DC land with Lemmy and use descent to charge. With savage echoes/shock assault/assault doctrine, this should be immense pain. Likely to burn CP this turn with red rampage, the SG melee damage one, fight while dying, and honor the chapter among others as needed. Probably at 3 or less CP after turn.

Turn 4+: late game chaos. Hopefully enough characters or remnants of the two major workhorse squads are around to mop up and claim points.

Similar to a 4-1 pure BA GT list I ran from like 2 years ago, and ran something similar recently to go 5-0 in an itc league.

Counterplay: will have a tough time against a player that aggressively tries (and succeeds) to overwhelm my deployed units early, or if terrain is too light and they can’t hide. If it looks too one-sided, may go for broke and try to get first turn and forlorn fury/wings of fire in DC/Lemmy.

Concerns: Very tempted to pay for the charge reroll relic. Also tempted to master artisan the Libby dread instead of relic blade captain. DC are still made of glass for their points, but not as bad as before. Also Lemmy got strictly better, and can bring a random extra buff to the table if he lives past t3, so I’m willing to give them a few tries.

Martel732 wrote:
It has nothing to do with my skill or your skill. T4 1w doesnt get far in 8th. 18 pts for t4 w1 no ap and melee focus is still not very good.

They don't need 50% screens. Usually the whole problem is that a handful of points is preventing assault from very expensive ba units.

I think DC are best used as an early CC threat with Forlorn Fury to get them up the board if you go first. Throw them into your opponent's gunline turn 1 and make them deal with them. They'll die, but shouldn't do so until your opponent's turn, reducing the firepower coming back at the rest of your army. If you go second, hide them or Deep Strike them. 18 points for a 4 attack guy with +1 to wound and a Jump Pack isn't bad at all. I still think they're maybe 1-2 points overcosted because they're still a bit too easy to kill, but DC are best used as a throwaway unit who can cause a lot of destruction and disruption in the enemy lines. They're not a premier assault unit by any means and won't be single-handedly winning the game by smashing everything in the enemy army but they definitely have their place.

More generally, I think the BA super doctrine is pretty sub-par and a trap and you shouldn't build around using it. It's nice, but more as a bonus when it works rather than as the focus of the army. The problem is that Assault Doctrine takes 3 turns to turn on and by that time you may have already given up too much of the initiative if you're keeping all your assault units back to benefit from Savage Echoes. 40k games are often decided on turn 3, if not earlier, so you need to be able to make an impact earlier than that. I think it provides a decent boost for Sanguinary Guard as they need to be able to put out more attacks to be effective, but for units like DC that already get loads of attacks I don't think it's as important.

I'm still gathering the pieces. Think I have all the points gather and made some drafts for list ideas. One thing I haven't yet found is furioso fist and blood talons points or either force halberd's points.

Fists should have gone down 10p if they match the DCCW for vanilla's. Halberd didn't have a cost before so if fist goes down 10p, we will have 132p librarian dreadnoughts.. and that is. worth fielding along with Mephy me thinks. What do you think?

Xirax wrote:
I'm still gathering the pieces. Think I have all the points gather and made some drafts for list ideas. One thing I haven't yet found is furioso fist and blood talons points or either force halberd's points.

Fists should have gone down 10p if they match the DCCW for vanilla's. Halberd didn't have a cost before so if fist goes down 10p, we will have 132p librarian dreadnoughts.. and that is. worth fielding along with Mephy me thinks. What do you think?

The problem with that is you run out of useful powers very quickly in the Sanguinary Discipline. Both the Dread and Mephiston want Wings, ideally, but only one of them gets to use it per turn. Then you can share out the other buffing powers between them but I'm not sure that's the most efficient way to build an army.

The doctrine isnt anything to build around but it helps keep up pressure after losing models. Also make it feel less painful for you and more painful for the opponent when a unit is kept until turn 3. Now there is an upside and a smaller DC/AM squad can do quite the damage for few points.

But I wouldnt build around having 1000pts in reserve for turn 3 since that is a sure fire way to loose the game. But keeping 2-300pts until turn 3 rather than get them on the board ASAP is a choice.

A 5 man VV squad with all SS and a relic blade on the sergeant is a rather cheap unit that is quite survivable and with 5/6 attacks each even quite lethal and perfect to remove objective campers. Even if those holding the objectives are intercessors.

I look at them from a target saturation point and consecutive turn perspective. For sure quickening and wings of sanguinius are the go to powers for both of them, although 3rd for Mephy most likely be Shield of Sanguinius. Wonder if the relic sarcophacus whatever has it's place. Which powers benefit the most from increased range..hmm.

Also I'm looking my comparison between vanvets with 2p stormshields compared to DC with jump pack. Attacks wise, both get enough imho with all the shock assault etc. 3++ vs. 6+++. I will atleast test out a smallish squad of van vets maybe dropping mid/late game. First turn charge with forlon fury and uwof named chaplain with +2 to charge should have a nice chance to get there. 7" is very much doable. If your opponent has even little screening abilities then it's a waste unless you manage to bubble wrap your target and somehow manage to not kill it. Otherwise it's just 200p unit destroying half of it's points and get shot to pieces on the return fire.

For me deathcompany are a no-brainer.

We play on nice terrain heavy boards so that might be colouring my opinion but they always do work. Forlorn fury turn one, either puts you up in their face for a first turn charge or places them in cover mid table to make the opponent deal with them. With the cover bonus and now Transhuman Phys and Refusal to die a big blob of them is hard to shift, nothing does it super efficiently. Even a few left alive usually means alot of chainsword attacks for chaff clearing and the single thunderhammer can put a dent into whatever you want.

If you're worried about screens bring more stuff to clear them, our units have fly making them alot harder to screen against, whirlwinds aren't bad and basic bolters can get the job done as needed. You don't need to clear everything, just target a specific unit that is occupying where you want to go then head in and try to trap something. Punish them for giving you units to hug.

I was thinking a terminator unit with Lightning Claws coming in T3 would be ideal , usually by that time is mostly lighter stuff left on the board or character with high Invu that don't care about high AP or multi dmg
They are 175 points and unbuffed Turn3 is 21A 2+ 5++, with sanguinor and Libby behind they can dish out what, 30 something Attacks -2 D1?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also about DC and Sanguinary guard survivability, shrouding from Phobos Libby can be incredibly useful to footslog stuff for a Turn, a well hidden unit of scout can make that unit untargetable. Terrain is a key feature any tournament worth of his name should have enough LoS block to make this viable.
The biggest problem are the pod from Knights and thunderfire cannons

 Emicrania wrote:

Also about DC and Sanguinary guard survivability, shrouding from Phobos Libby can be incredibly useful to footslog stuff for a Turn, a well hidden unit of scout can make that unit untargetable. Terrain is a key feature any tournament worth of his name should have enough LoS block to make this viable.

I believe that only works on Phobos keyworded units now that BA have the updated Obscuration discipline.

WisdomLS wrote:For me deathcompany are a no-brainer.

We play on nice terrain heavy boards so that might be colouring my opinion but they always do work. Forlorn fury turn one, either puts you up in their face for a first turn charge or places them in cover mid table to make the opponent deal with them. With the cover bonus and now Transhuman Phys and Refusal to die a big blob of them is hard to shift, nothing does it super efficiently. Even a few left alive usually means alot of chainsword attacks for chaff clearing and the single thunderhammer can put a dent into whatever you want.

What ?? You want to waste 5 CP on DC on T1 ?

Emicrania wrote:
Also about DC and Sanguinary guard survivability, shrouding from Phobos Libby can be incredibly useful to footslog stuff for a Turn, a well hidden unit of scout can make that unit untargetable. Terrain is a key feature any tournament worth of his name should have enough LoS block to make this viable.
The biggest problem are the pod from Knights and thunderfire cannons

You cant do that. Shrouding only works on PHOBOS units.