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Hoodwink wrote:
I don't know if this has been covered before or if I've overlooked it but since you have to take the Shard as a relic if you are running a successor chapter, can you use the Armory of Baal stratagem to get a different relic in addition?

No, you cant. Its written on p.135 on top of the page. Successor chapters cannot use the armory of baal stratagem.

Hoodwink wrote:

Also, has anyone looked at running three Vindicators for Linebreaker? They are cheaper than Predators and damage degredation doesn't affect Linebreaker until one is fully destroyed. RAW it looks like you can move them up, advance, and still get the stratagem off since you are not firing the Demolisher Cannon. This also leads me to believe you can pop smoke at the same time since you are not firing your weapon, as stated by the stratagem. So now you have three T8 tanks in the enemy grill with a -1 to hit and popping off mortal wounds.

RAW yes. But i wouldnt allow it. How are the vindicators causing those mortal wounds if they dont fire their main guns ?

How are they causing mortal wounds without firing their main guns? Don't know. The stratagem specifically says "if you do so, the Vindicators cannot fire their demolisher cannons this phase". So according to the stratagem, they aren't firing their demolisher cannons for terms of gameplay rules.

Hoodwink wrote:
How are they causing mortal wounds without firing their main guns? Don't know. The stratagem specifically says "if you do so, the Vindicators cannot fire their demolisher cannons this phase". So according to the stratagem, they aren't firing their demolisher cannons for terms of gameplay rules.

Even if RAW allows it, its cheesy and illogical. RAI, they all shoot their main guns at one spot. The restriction that they cannot fire their cannons is there to prevent you from firing their guns and use the stratagem. If they cant fire their main guns (because they advanced), they cant cause those mortal wounds.

Being able to actually fire the demolisher cannon isn't in itself a requirement to use the stratagem.

You could even advance and still use Linebreaker Bombardment if you really wanted too, since the core rulebook FAQ allowed it:

Q: Can abilities that are used ‘instead of shooting’, such as
Smoke Launchers, be used if the model using them has Fallen
Back, Advanced or has enemy models within 1" of it?
A: Yes. A model can use such an ability so long as it does
not shoot – it does not matter whether this is because the
model cannot shoot or it chooses not to.

Still as brilliant as ever geedubs.

How many death company hmm? 15, 20?

This is with a 1500pt army

Razerous wrote:
How many death company hmm? 15, 20?

This is with a 1500pt army

DC can have at most 15 members.

Yes I know but army wide?

Razerous wrote:
Yes I know but army wide?

I'm running 15 at 1000 if that helps.

Led by either a regular Chaplain or Astorath. Probably a regular Chaplain since I refuse to buy the finecast Astorath.

Razerous wrote:
Yes I know but army wide?

You can have 84 with a chaplain at 1,5k pts.

Probably one big squad of 10-15 and small ones of 5 ? So like 20-30

Number of DC depends on a lot of factors, mainly what you want to sue them for and what else you have in your army. I am currently planning 2 x 10-man squads with Jump packs. One moves up the field with Forlorn Fury, the other Deep Strikes along with Lemartes and uses Descent of Angels. That gives me pretty solid chance of getting both units into the enemy on Turn 1 and a nearly 50% chance of getting Lemartes in alongside them without costing too many points.

If the enemy has deployed screening units, the DC have the volume of attacks to shred them in one turn. If they have left any valuable targets exposed each squad has a couple of power fists and swords meaning they can destroy or heavily maul most targets.

That lot comes to about 600 points which leaves plenty for some objective-grabbers and a decent Beta-strike (probably in a Storm Raven) to take advantage of the hole the DC should punch in the enemy lines.

1250 league game against death guard.
He decided to bring a leviathan dread with grav and whatever that 8 shot -2 leadership gun is, a prince, a plaguecaster, 5 plague marines with a couple plasma, and a knight with avenger/thermal.

I brought a battalion of Mephy, Astorath, SG ancient as warlord with gift of foresight, (I'm thinking maybe I should just give him the fearless aura instead,) 10x SG with swords and 3 fists (all the fists I have or they'd have more,) 15x DC with 3 fists and 3 swords, and 3x 5 cc scouts.

So I deep strike all the jumpers and hide mephy and the scouts in my deployment zone behind a wall. He goes first, moves up, throws a couple psychic buffs and says go. I look at the terrain around him where I'd be deep striking and say "nah, turn 2."

He moves up further, knight in front with the Prince right behind, caster behind him, plague marines behind him, and the leviathan off to the side of the caster. I'm ok with the terrain this time AND he failed the miasma power so I bring on the boys. SG and ancient land in ruins to fire some angelus shots. DC and astorath land on the other side of the knight 9" away from him, the prince, and about 11 away from the caster. Declare multicharge on those 3 and burn descent of angels, and connect with the knight and prince. Mephy also jumps out to the knight, and the scouts try to but fail. I put swords really close to the caster over near the prince. Heavily wound the knight, scratch the prince. He does his attacks and KO's a couple chainsword dudes. I then blow honor the chapter and pile the swords onto the caster, killing him, and bringing the knight to 1 wound while the prince saves a bunch.

He withdraws and spends his shooting and prince smite wiping the DC. Wounded knight charges mephy, gets 1 wound through past his armor and fnp. Mephy chops him apart. My turn SG and ancient go after the prince along with mephy, while the scouts advance up and astorath wildly tries to hold the leviathan for a turn. Asto fails his saves super bad and dies on overwatch, but the prince is quickly dispatched and mephy and guard pile into the plague marines.

He withdraws the plagues and does a lot to the SG unit with the leviathan, leaving 2 dudes after morale. (fearless aura woulda been relevant here.) The SG ancient retreats back to my zone while the scouts all advance ahead. Mephy and the two SG charge into the plague marines, wiping them, and spring off of them into the leviathan to negate a turn of shooting.

He withdraws and realizes he has no hope of killing mephy, two SG, and 15 scouts to get clean shots on my warlord holding my objective, while I tell him I plan to just pile around him and throw shots but not engage in melee, so he calls it.

Afterthoughts:
So instead of going for a forlorn fury DC charge and SG descent of angels charge on the drop turn, I decided to let the SG land in cover surrounded the ancient so they are super ultra durable and the ancient will be able to keep up. I should have however landed in the ruins behind the plague marines instead of just in front and to the side of the knight that the DC were going to chop apart. That did make the prince charge a little risky, but thankfully the dice decided not to make me pay for that error.

I'm really not sure about Lemmy vs. Astorath. The fearlessness from Asty has yet to come into play, because people just obliterate that unit after it does its job, and a 74% charge success with the strat without using a CP reroll makes me clench pretty tightly. I think I will switch back to Lemmy and just accept that the DC are likely dead on the following turn regardless of morale. And hey, if they wait for the morale phase to finish them off, then they couldn't shoot at the character. Lemmy is also cheaper and actually hits a bit harder than Asty if he throws down. Only real upside is that Asty could grant rerolls to hit if he happens to join up with Meph or the guard if they get split from the ancient (or if some models are too far, since heirs of Az ability is on a per model basis,) whereas Lemmy just becomes a berserking dude keeping all his bonuses for himself after the DC die.

Next round is 1500 and I'm still undefeated this league though. Time to brainstorm!

Still haven't used dc yet.

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2017/12/02/codex-review-blood-angels-part-1-stratagems-warlord-traits-relics-psychic-powers/

I'm reading this review of the BA codex, and they say DC can pump out over 200 attacks in one fight phase. I dont see how. They have 6 attacks with chainswords, unleash rage, black rage, the sanguinor. Thats 90 attacks for 15 models, and with honour the chapter they can fight again, at the end of the fight phase, getting up to 180 attacks, if they dont lose any models, which is unlikely. How do they get 7 attacks to reach over 200 ?

They might be counting extra attacks against Heretic Astartes from that stratagem that gives you exploding 6s.

And astorath bonus to hit so your 5s count aswell.

p5freak wrote:
https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2017/12/02/codex-review-blood-angels-part-1-stratagems-warlord-traits-relics-psychic-powers/

I'm reading this review of the BA codex, and they say DC can pump out over 200 attacks in one fight phase. I dont see how. They have 6 attacks with chainswords, unleash rage, black rage, the sanguinor. Thats 90 attacks for 15 models, and with honour the chapter they can fight again, at the end of the fight phase, getting up to 180 attacks, if they dont lose any models, which is unlikely. How do they get 7 attacks to reach over 200 ?

I assume they all have 2 chainswords? That would be 2 base, +2 for 2 chainswords, +1 from Unleash Rage, +1 from Black Rage, and +1 from the Sanguinor for a total of 7 attacks each.

DC can’t take two chainswords.

Corbulo could put that 180 combo over 200.

Ok, so corbulo, astorath, sanguinor, librarian. Thats 500 pts. of buffing characters

p5freak wrote:
Ok, so corbulo, astorath, sanguinor, librarian. Thats 500 pts. of buffing characters

Okay fair.

Which of them, if any, are worthwhile?

Razerous wrote:

p5freak wrote:
Ok, so corbulo, astorath, sanguinor, librarian. Thats 500 pts. of buffing characters

Okay fair.

Which of them, if any, are worthwhile?

Sadly, just about all of our special characters are amazing. I would probably say Tycho in both forms is probably the weakest, and IMO, Dante is slightly over priced, but he's still a total beast in CC and of course has the full re-rolls ability for BA. The rest all have either incredible special abilities, very powerful auras, are beasts in CC or a combination of the 2. Corbulo, for me personally, I rank at the back of the pack, but that's only because I run my list as a JP heavy army and he just doesn't fit in with most of the other special characters already coming with a JP or having access to the wings psychic power.

The hardest part of making my lists has been deciding on which 3ish special characters I want to take because they are all that good.

Well, after reading the codex and this thread, I doubt that BA can compete with the armies at the top tables.
Those armies are not so much geared towards cc, but excel in shooting.
Opinions?

Well, if you manage to alpha strike turn 1 almost all of your BA army, and consolidate into other units, there wont be much shooting from the other army. DC can rush across the battlefield with forlorn fury, sang guard can deepstrike and get into CC with wings of fury, a DC dread can be dropped with the FW dread drop pod and use magna grapples to attack a vehicle. The libby dread can use wings of sanguinius and quickening to get into CC. I have no clue if thats possible or not on top tables, its what i think may work.

p5freak wrote:
Well, if you manage to alpha strike turn 1 almost all of your BA army, and consolidate into other units, there wont be much shooting from the other army. DC can rush across the battlefield with forlorn fury, sang guard can deepstrike and get into CC with wings of fury, a DC dread can be dropped with the FW dread drop pod and use magna grapples to attack a vehicle. The libby dread can use wings of sanguinius and quickening to get into CC. I have no clue if thats possible or not on top tables, its what i think may work.

All very good ideas.
But at top tables, players know how to prevent an alpha strike by infiltrators or prey units.
Ravenguard seems to be superior here.

Chapter approved and FAQ show us that “top tables” will change regularly. I’m thrilled to have a codex that is reasonably powerful, thematically cohesive and merges the fluff and crunch fairly well. Do we have dud units? Sure. Will they be fixed? Possibly/probably. We are far and away better than our index was, which was what I really wanted. After seeing how briskly the meta changed in the past 6 months I’d rather walk into traffic than be one of the fools spending tons of money on armies they barely care for to try to chase wins in a fast-moving meta. I’ll paint and play what I like and the codex makes that a fairly viable way to go about things.

bobafett012 wrote:
I would probably say Tycho in both forms is probably the weakest

Whilst he may be the weakest, I still think he is a good buy if you were planning to buy a Captain anyway for rerolls of 1s. He just costs a few points more than a normal Captain with combi-melta and for those points you get the Deadman's Hand, Blood Song (better bolter) a situationally useful special rule and (best of all) a 2+ save.

Bremon wrote:
Chapter approved and FAQ show us that “top tables” will change regularly. I’m thrilled to have a codex that is reasonably powerful, thematically cohesive and merges the fluff and crunch fairly well. Do we have dud units? Sure. Will they be fixed? Possibly/probably. We are far and away better than our index was, which was what I really wanted. After seeing how briskly the meta changed in the past 6 months I’d rather walk into traffic than be one of the fools spending tons of money on armies they barely care for to try to chase wins in a fast-moving meta. I’ll paint and play what I like and the codex makes that a fairly viable way to go about things.

Seconded.
The train of very competitive 40k lists moves really fast.
Dark Reapers are very hot today. But this could change within half a year.

 Karhedron wrote:

bobafett012 wrote:
I would probably say Tycho in both forms is probably the weakest

Whilst he may be the weakest, I still think he is a good buy if you were planning to buy a Captain anyway for rerolls of 1s. He just costs a few points more than a normal Captain with combi-melta and for those points you get the Deadman's Hand, Blood Song (better bolter) a situationally useful special rule and (best of all) a 2+ save.

I'm not saying he's bad, just that in comparison to the rest of our amazing HQs, he's at the back of the train. He actually got a buff in the codex getting dead man's hand in there, but I just feel you'd be better served with most of the other HQs with the book being geared towards CC and JPs.

Exactly how good / worthwhile is re-roll to charges, innately?

Ignoring any bonus to movement. This is making a charge from a 9" deepstrike (so needing a 9" on 2d6, as you land >9" away).