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Been thinking about how to build 1000-1200 of BA and have come up with this combination which is very powerful, a lot of wounds, and has good survivability. After having watched quite a few Battle reps now, my feeling is that Death company are a bit of a trap in lower points games. They are very expensive, high-risk moderate-reward and I do not think they will make their points back.To get the most out of them, you also need to add Lemartes, who is also overpriced. This list will not feature them.

Anyway, here's what I have come up with so far. I think this is great value for 612 points, but it does chew up 2 HQ slots and requires 1CP for an Auxiliary penalty. This is necessary to protect Brother Corbulo and to transport him otherwise he is footslogging it, and to shield the chaplain dreadnought while it shambles into close combat.

HQ: 1

Chaplin dreadnought 139 points
11wounds
2x combat weapons, SX2 -3 3D
4 attacks ( melee)
2x Storm Bolters, Rapid fire 2 4 0 1D
+1 attack shock assault
+1 attack black rage ( Death Visions of Sanguinius 1CP)
6 attacks total ( Melee)

Special rules:

Angels of Death

Reliquarius: This model has a 5+ invulnerable save.

Unstoppable Fury: You can re-roll hit rolls of 1 for this model if it is equipped with two Dreadnought combat weapons.

Icon of Hate: All friendly models with the <CHAPTER> keyword in combat with the same unit as a model with this ability add +1 to their Strength characteristic for the duration of the Fight phase.

Unyielding Ancient: Roll a D6 each time this model loses a wound; on a 6 the damage is ignored and that wound is not lost.

Explodes: If this model is reduced to 0 wounds, roll a D6 before removing it from the battlefield; on a 6 it explodes and each unit within 6" suffers D3 mortal wounds.

Smoke Launchers: Once per game, instead of shooting any weapons in the Shooting phase, this model can use its smoke launchers. Until the controlling player’s next Shooting phase, any enemy units targeting this unit subtract 1 from all hit rolls for Shooting attacks made against this unit.

Dreadnought Character: This model may not be given any relics.


HQ2: Brother Corbulo 83 points (Relic, Rosarius 3+ invulnerable save)
5 wounds
Heaven's Teeth ( Melee) +1S -1 1D
Bolt Pistol, Pistol 1 4 0 1
4 attacks base, can move up to 7 attacks



Special rules:

Far-Seeing Eye: Once per turn you can re-roll a single dice roll made for Brother Corbulo.

The Red Grail: Friendly BLOOD ANGELS INFANTRY and BIKER units increase their Strength characteristic by 1 whilst they are within 6" of any SANGUINARY PRIESTS. In addition, each time you make a hit roll of 6+ in the Fight phase for a model in a friendly BLOOD ANGELS unit that is within 6" of Brother Corbulo, that model may immediately make another close combat attack using the same weapon. These bonus attacks cannot themselves generate any additional close combat attacks.

Narthecium: At the end of any of your Movement phases, Brother Corbulo can attempt to heal or revive a single model. Select a friendly BLOOD ANGELS INFANTRY or BIKER unit within 3" of Brother Corbulo. If that unit contains a wounded model, it immediately regains D3 lost wounds. If the chosen unit contains no wounded models but one or more of its models have been slain during the battle, roll a D6. On a 4+ a single slain model is returned to the unit with 1 wound remaining. If Brother Corbulo fails to revive a model in this manner he can do nothing else for the remainder of the turn (shoot, charge, fight etc.) as he recovers the gene-seed of the fallen warrior. A unit can only be the target of the Narthecium ability once in each turn.

So, with the chaplain dreadnought bubble of +1S and + 1S from Brother corbulo, the Sanguinary guard will be S10 with power fists. Corbulo also has the potential to heal either heal the the chaplain dreadnought or two sanguinary guard twice owing to the strategy chalice overflowing:

Use this Stratagem in your Movement phase. Select one SANGUINARY PRIEST unit from your army. Until the end of the turn, that unit can use its Narthecium ability one additional time. In addition, this unit can target a friendly unit with its Narthecium ability even if that unit has already been targeted by the Narthecium ability earlier that turn.
So Corbulo can also choose to attempt to revive any two models on a 4+ twice.



Elites: Sanguinary Guard X7 288 points
Death Masks -1 leadership penalty to all enemy units within 3 inches
Inferno Pistols Pistol 1 8 -4 D6 If the target is within half range of this weapon, roll two dice when inflicting damage with it and discard the lowest result. This shot becomes -5 in tactical doctrines.
Power fists SX2 -3 D3
2 attacks per model
14 wounds

So these guys can get ridiculous and can literally delete anything at all in a single phase. They will be S10 due to fists and HQ buffs. will be +1 attack due to shock assault, +! attack due to red rampage, and if you cast mantra of strength, +1 attack and +1S. They will also be +2 to wound rolls due to red thirst and power fists, That's 5 S10 -3 D3 attacks per model, re rolling hits, plus whatever procs are generated by Brother Corbulo on rolls of 6. They can also do this twice, bumping Damage up to 2D per wounds for 4 CP owing to honor the chapter and death on the wind:


Use this Stratagem at the end of any Fight phase. Select a BLOOD ANGELS INFANTRY or BLOOD ANGELS BIKER unit from your army – that unit can immediately fight for a second time. They can also be given a 5+ imvulnerable, and will be -1 to hit due to FLY.

Use this Stratagem in the Fight phase. Select one SANGUINARY GUARD unit from your army. Until the end of the phase, when resolving an attack made by a model in that unit, treat a damage result of 1 as 2.


So let's review:

7 S8 (minimum but almost certainly S10 -4 D6 damae shots which are-5 AP during tactical doctrine, rerolling.
35 S11 +2 to wound rolls -3 D3 damage shots with each wound counting as two, with rolls of six generating extra attacks, with the chance for another plain 1D set of attacks ipso facto.

Any rolls of 6 instantly become 6 wounds, and generate extra attacks which also have the chance of becoming 6 wounds. There's probably nothing that could possibly be encountered that will not be atomized by this, it is absolutely mental. Especially when you consider that Brother Corbulo's proc bubble applies to all models, which means the chaplain dreadnought benefits from the possibility of extra attacks also, and you can give it to the black rage for 1CP. And it can heroically intervene....

Transport:

Impulsor 102 points
Ironhail heavy stubber
2 x Storm bolters
Shield done 4+ invulnerable save
FLY, can carry 5 primaris

As yet undecided on what psychic to add, and what troops. This is only a little over 600 points, and I cannot decide whether to include a librarian dreadnought, Mephiston, or a Librarian in phobos. I'm pretty sure I'll add veteran intercessors with bolt rifles, but no idea so far about other troops.

Any and all advice appreciated.

Literally any input at all lol.

Ok. Sorry, there's a lot of rules on this page. If you want to format your stuff to make it easier to look at, use the [spoiler] tag to hide all the miscellaneous rules etc that you've got on your dudes.

So my first question upon looking at this little combo is, what are we doing with the Impulsor? As far as I know you've got nothing that goes in it, unless Brother Corbulo is a primaris marine, but I thought only Mephiston was from the BA.

I'm also looking at the dreadnought, and at corbulo, and I'm thinking your first tactical concern will be keeping them up with the comparatively speedy Sang Guard. In small points games, if you're going to hinge your strategy around those dudes, I would say your biggest benefit is the fact that you get an automatic Chapter Master reroll for any character that's your warlord. So I don't think a Sanguinary Priest is necessarily a bad idea, the +1S can be handy in certain situations but I feel like at 1k points, you're unlikely to run into a LOT that cares that much about the differential between S8 and S10.

To look at a quick alternative, let's compare just the Sanguinor to Corbyn Blue and the chaplain dreadnought. He's 130pts vs the combined total of 222, moves 12 just like the lads do, brings his own death mask so you don't need to buy one for the lads, and he gives +1A and the same reroll to hit assuming that you'd be making either corbyn or the dreadnought warlord.

Assume the worst case: The opposing player has brought a knight to your 1,000 point game. That sweet S10 gets you up to wounding on 2s, you get the exploding hits on 6s, both their auras gets you an average of 28.1 wounds on the knight. If you're in range of just the sanguinor, both his auras net you 27.4 wounds on the knight

Basically, my point here is that you're tying yourself to 2 characters who move much slower than the unit, cost a whole lot more, and provide...very little benefit. In actuality, that unit of sang guard in most 1k games will be massive overkill - they one-round an imperial knight without much trouble, they're going to demolish pretty much anything else. Honestly, the number of inferno pistols you've got is probably overkill, and you'd be better off running 3 rather than 7.

Another thing you could do is swap the chappie dread for a libby dread. 4 points more, only 8 wounds so he has character protection, and you can give him Wings of Sanguinius and Unleash Rage which is statistically a better buff than +1S.

If we subtract the impulsor, your current setup is 509pts. My setup, Sanguinor+Libby Dread+Sanguinary Guard with 3 inferno pistols instead of 7 is 502, my sang guard do more in melee and my support characters both do more damage and move 12" so they can keep up with the jumpers.

In terms of troops to add to this, I think what you want to do with this kind of list is present a high-pressure game. I would go for Incursors/Infiltrators/Scouts over Intercessors, simply because I can start them midboard presenting a clear threat to the enemy and carve away my opponent's screens. It also gives me something I can do with my libby dread turn 1 where I can pick one of my squads and drop +1A on them. I imagine a squad of blood angel scouts turning out to be A4 would be something of a shock to an opponent and they'd likely ignore them in favor of some of your other units.

the_scotsman wrote:
Ok. Sorry, there's a lot of rules on this page. If you want to format your stuff to make it easier to look at, use the [spoiler] tag to hide all the miscellaneous rules etc that you've got on your dudes.

So my first question upon looking at this little combo is, what are we doing with the Impulsor? As far as I know you've got nothing that goes in it, unless Brother Corbulo is a primaris marine, but I thought only Mephiston was from the BA.

I'm also looking at the dreadnought, and at corbulo, and I'm thinking your first tactical concern will be keeping them up with the comparatively speedy Sang Guard. In small points games, if you're going to hinge your strategy around those dudes, I would say your biggest benefit is the fact that you get an automatic Chapter Master reroll for any character that's your warlord. So I don't think a Sanguinary Priest is necessarily a bad idea, the +1S can be handy in certain situations but I feel like at 1k points, you're unlikely to run into a LOT that cares that much about the differential between S8 and S10.

To look at a quick alternative, let's compare just the Sanguinor to Corbyn Blue and the chaplain dreadnought. He's 130pts vs the combined total of 222, moves 12 just like the lads do, brings his own death mask so you don't need to buy one for the lads, and he gives +1A and the same reroll to hit assuming that you'd be making either corbyn or the dreadnought warlord.

Assume the worst case: The opposing player has brought a knight to your 1,000 point game. That sweet S10 gets you up to wounding on 2s, you get the exploding hits on 6s, both their auras gets you an average of 28.1 wounds on the knight. If you're in range of just the sanguinor, both his auras net you 27.4 wounds on the knight

Basically, my point here is that you're tying yourself to 2 characters who move much slower than the unit, cost a whole lot more, and provide...very little benefit. In actuality, that unit of sang guard in most 1k games will be massive overkill - they one-round an imperial knight without much trouble, they're going to demolish pretty much anything else. Honestly, the number of inferno pistols you've got is probably overkill, and you'd be better off running 3 rather than 7.

Another thing you could do is swap the chappie dread for a libby dread. 4 points more, only 8 wounds so he has character protection, and you can give him Wings of Sanguinius and Unleash Rage which is statistically a better buff than +1S.

If we subtract the impulsor, your current setup is 509pts. My setup, Sanguinor+Libby Dread+Sanguinary Guard with 3 inferno pistols instead of 7 is 502, my sang guard do more in melee and my support characters both do more damage and move 12" so they can keep up with the jumpers.

In terms of troops to add to this, I think what you want to do with this kind of list is present a high-pressure game. I would go for Incursors/Infiltrators/Scouts over Intercessors, simply because I can start them midboard presenting a clear threat to the enemy and carve away my opponent's screens. It also gives me something I can do with my libby dread turn 1 where I can pick one of my squads and drop +1A on them. I imagine a squad of blood angel scouts turning out to be A4 would be something of a shock to an opponent and they'd likely ignore them in favor of some of your other units.

Thankyou Scotsman! This is a long reply, but I did really want to explain the logic in behind what I'm trying to achieve. If you do TLR please read the last part concerning the Chaplain Dreadnought as I am unsure if the loophole I discuss is legal.

OK, so I should explain the reasoning for not includinging the Librarian dreadnought: Basically, it comes down to the fact that in the Dozens of games I have watched, it almost never make its points back and gets tabled before it does anything.

IMO this because of a few reasons. Firstly, the Librarian dreadnought is an infamous unit. Everyone knows its horrifically dangerous in melee, and everyone knows how it is going to be used; it's going to have wings of sanguinius cast on it, and the red thirst, and probably a CP spent on it to give it the black rage ability. The conventional practice is also to spend more CP on it (honor the chapter) if it fails to dole out a decent amount of wounds, which is something it often fails to do because of the way invulnerable saves work in this game. More attacks is better than less attacks, and more wounds is better than less wounds.

So basically what you get with the Librarian dreadnought is a unit that, if everything goes to plan, can put out a lot of wounds--but to get it to do that, you need to burn CP and psychic, which the Blood Angels can ill afford to spare. If it fails to deliver, you're boned.

It has a 3+ save, and no invulnerable--unless you pop more CP or psychic to give it something that makes it more survivable, which again is no guarantee of anything because again, people want to clear it, and it will almost certainly be the recipient of concentrated fire. Yes, it is a character which means it cannot be targeted--unless you're facing RG in which case it will be hosed off the board effortlessly by Eliminators, but I suppose that's not a problem unique to itself.

Regardless, what you've got with the Librarian dreadnought is something that's a massive CP and psychic sink, can deal out a large amount of wounds against high toughness targets, but very often won't. And if it doesn't, whatever it is trying to kill is definitely going to kill it in the fight-back phase or the next turn because it is a glass cannon.

Let's compare that to the Chaplain dreadnought, which has a +1S aura to everything within 6 inches, a 5+ invulnerable save, and a 6+ FNP. It also has three more wounds, can cast litanies, and can reroll hits. It is the superior model in every way apart from mobility and the ability to cast psychic--which I grant you is a big deal....but not an insurmountable problem, if played correctly.

The issue I see with how blood angels are played the vast majority of the time is that it's based around the idea of Kamikaze; get all the glass cannon units (which is everything) into charge range, attack, and hope that by the next turn you killed enough to mitigate the fact that half your army is going to get tabled in the next. Sometimes this does work, but it's very, very high stakes stuff that fails as often as not. The mistake I see people making with blood angels lists is that they focus far, far too much on damage-dealing and not at all on survivability. It doesn't matter how much damage you can do if half your units are dead.

The Impulsor is just an amazing unit, criminally underrated for the points. 102 points for two bolters, FLY, and a baked-in 4+ invulnerable save. From watching games, it stays around on the board far longer than it has any business doing. It won't kill anything but chaff, but it's amazing as a tanky, screening board control unit and it has a shot at taking a few points off higher toughness models. It's very unfortunate that corbulo can't embark in it, which would be amazing. As it stands though, he can use it as a screen as he marches up the board--or for 65 points, he could be put in a rhino but this would cost CP for an auxillary support detachment, unless I'm not understanding how that works.

However, what it can take is a Phobos Librarian, which is a HQ I'm considering.

Brother Colburo is expensive...but he's amazing. He can heal anything for D3 twice. And he has a baked-in re-roll for any dice he rolls once per turn if it fails. No need for command re-rolls to pull that off. He can literally revive two sanguinary guard for 1CP as a tactic thanks to chalice overflowing.

The sanguinor is an incredible model, I agree with you 100% and I am also reconsidering him. But this is because of brother colburo only. The problem with the Sanguinor is that he's only 5 wounds. He does have a 4+ invuln but will be a priority target. However, he could be given the relic rosarius (which would still free up veritas Vitae which is mandatory for BA IMO) granting him a 3+ invulnerable save, and Brother Colburo would also grant him a 6+ FNP. He gets a lot more tankier considering that. It's an amazing Combo, especially considering Colburo has the chance to heal him twice. The sanguinor's special rule of granting an extra attack is ridonkulous, as is auto morale passes. Heavily, heavily considering it. I could take him as he that would cap me out with three HQ for the battalion.

However, there's nothing I can find in the FAQ or the rules to prevent the following from happening:

So The Chaplain dreadnought has a built-in 6+ FNP:
Unyielding Ancient: Roll a D6 each time this model loses a wound; on a 6 the damage is ignored and that wound is not lost.


Brother Colburo also grants a 6+ FNP as a special rule WARLORD trait with this wording:

Gift of Foresight: Roll a D6 each time your Warlord loses a wound, re-rolling rolls of 1; on a 6, that wound is ignored and has no effect. If your Warlord also has the Black Rage ability, they instead ignore wounds on rolls of 5 or 6, but the similar ability to ignore wounds from the Black Rage has no effect.


Now, you cannot re-roll more than dice. But this isn't a re-roll issue, because they are special rules. Since the Chaplain dreadnought wouldn't be given the black rage effect, there's no reason he can't be given that 6+ FNP. The Dreadnought's rules also do not specify that unyielding ancient is cancelled out by a similar effect, or that it is not cumulative.

So what you have is an 11 wound model with a 5+ Invulnerable save with two 6+ FNP's. I don't know if this is legal or not, and I probably wouldn't do it if it were, but it's...interesting.

Anyhow, Having the Chaplain dreadnought dreadnought no chewing up the CP perk granting it the Black Rage Keyword frees it up to be put on the sanguinary guard. 6 wounds is six wounds. It doesn't matter if that gets put onto mortarion or a squad of Necrons warriors. Exploding sixes are amazing on anything--especially Demon armies and in particular Nurgle stuff benefiting from 5+ Invulnerable bubbles.

This was changed back in 2018 iirc. You used to be able to stack Ignore Wounds effects (and it was in fact explicitly marketed on the Warhammer Community page as a thing you could do with Iron Hands Venerable Dreadnoughts). But people started abusing it with Hive Tyrants and the like so they removed it.

WARHAMMER 40,000 RULEBOOK Official Update Version 1.6, Page 1 wrote:Page 181 – Ignoring Wounds
Add the following as a boxout on this page:
‘Ignoring Wounds
Some units have abilities that allow them to ignore the damage suffered each time it loses a wound (e.g. Disgustingly Resilient, The Flesh is Weak and Tenacious Survivor). If a model has more than one such ability, you can only use one of those abilities each time the model loses a wound.’

Granted, you still get to use the invulnerable save, but you'll only be able to use one 6+ ignore wounds.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
This was changed back in 2018 iirc. You used to be able to stack Ignore Wounds effects (and it was in fact explicitly marketed on the Warhammer Community page as a thing you could do with Iron Hands Venerable Dreadnoughts). But people started abusing it with Hive Tyrants and the like so they removed it.

WARHAMMER 40,000 RULEBOOK Official Update Version 1.6, Page 1 wrote:Page 181 – Ignoring Wounds
Add the following as a boxout on this page:
‘Ignoring Wounds
Some units have abilities that allow them to ignore the damage suffered each time it loses a wound (e.g. Disgustingly Resilient, The Flesh is Weak and Tenacious Survivor). If a model has more than one such ability, you can only use one of those abilities each time the model loses a wound.’

Granted, you still get to use the invulnerable save, but you'll only be able to use one 6+ ignore wounds.

Thanks Bacon! On-Point as usual. Appreciate the clarification mate.

Roberts84 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Ok. Sorry, there's a lot of rules on this page. If you want to format your stuff to make it easier to look at, use the [spoiler] tag to hide all the miscellaneous rules etc that you've got on your dudes.

So my first question upon looking at this little combo is, what are we doing with the Impulsor? As far as I know you've got nothing that goes in it, unless Brother Corbulo is a primaris marine, but I thought only Mephiston was from the BA.

I'm also looking at the dreadnought, and at corbulo, and I'm thinking your first tactical concern will be keeping them up with the comparatively speedy Sang Guard. In small points games, if you're going to hinge your strategy around those dudes, I would say your biggest benefit is the fact that you get an automatic Chapter Master reroll for any character that's your warlord. So I don't think a Sanguinary Priest is necessarily a bad idea, the +1S can be handy in certain situations but I feel like at 1k points, you're unlikely to run into a LOT that cares that much about the differential between S8 and S10.

To look at a quick alternative, let's compare just the Sanguinor to Corbyn Blue and the chaplain dreadnought. He's 130pts vs the combined total of 222, moves 12 just like the lads do, brings his own death mask so you don't need to buy one for the lads, and he gives +1A and the same reroll to hit assuming that you'd be making either corbyn or the dreadnought warlord.

Assume the worst case: The opposing player has brought a knight to your 1,000 point game. That sweet S10 gets you up to wounding on 2s, you get the exploding hits on 6s, both their auras gets you an average of 28.1 wounds on the knight. If you're in range of just the sanguinor, both his auras net you 27.4 wounds on the knight

Basically, my point here is that you're tying yourself to 2 characters who move much slower than the unit, cost a whole lot more, and provide...very little benefit. In actuality, that unit of sang guard in most 1k games will be massive overkill - they one-round an imperial knight without much trouble, they're going to demolish pretty much anything else. Honestly, the number of inferno pistols you've got is probably overkill, and you'd be better off running 3 rather than 7.

Another thing you could do is swap the chappie dread for a libby dread. 4 points more, only 8 wounds so he has character protection, and you can give him Wings of Sanguinius and Unleash Rage which is statistically a better buff than +1S.

If we subtract the impulsor, your current setup is 509pts. My setup, Sanguinor+Libby Dread+Sanguinary Guard with 3 inferno pistols instead of 7 is 502, my sang guard do more in melee and my support characters both do more damage and move 12" so they can keep up with the jumpers.

In terms of troops to add to this, I think what you want to do with this kind of list is present a high-pressure game. I would go for Incursors/Infiltrators/Scouts over Intercessors, simply because I can start them midboard presenting a clear threat to the enemy and carve away my opponent's screens. It also gives me something I can do with my libby dread turn 1 where I can pick one of my squads and drop +1A on them. I imagine a squad of blood angel scouts turning out to be A4 would be something of a shock to an opponent and they'd likely ignore them in favor of some of your other units.

Thankyou Scotsman! This is a long reply, but I did really want to explain the logic in behind what I'm trying to achieve. If you do TLR please read the last part concerning the Chaplain Dreadnought as I am unsure if the loophole I discuss is legal.

OK, so I should explain the reasoning for not includinging the Librarian dreadnought: Basically, it comes down to the fact that in the Dozens of games I have watched, it almost never make its points back and gets tabled before it does anything.

IMO this because of a few reasons. Firstly, the Librarian dreadnought is an infamous unit. Everyone knows its horrifically dangerous in melee, and everyone knows how it is going to be used; it's going to have wings of sanguinius cast on it, and the red thirst, and probably a CP spent on it to give it the black rage ability. The conventional practice is also to spend more CP on it (honor the chapter) if it fails to dole out a decent amount of wounds, which is something it often fails to do because of the way invulnerable saves work in this game. More attacks is better than less attacks, and more wounds is better than less wounds.

So basically what you get with the Librarian dreadnought is a unit that, if everything goes to plan, can put out a lot of wounds--but to get it to do that, you need to burn CP and psychic, which the Blood Angels can ill afford to spare. If it fails to deliver, you're boned.

It has a 3+ save, and no invulnerable--unless you pop more CP or psychic to give it something that makes it more survivable, which again is no guarantee of anything because again, people want to clear it, and it will almost certainly be the recipient of concentrated fire. Yes, it is a character which means it cannot be targeted--unless you're facing RG in which case it will be hosed off the board effortlessly by Eliminators, but I suppose that's not a problem unique to itself.

Regardless, what you've got with the Librarian dreadnought is something that's a massive CP and psychic sink, can deal out a large amount of wounds against high toughness targets, but very often won't. And if it doesn't, whatever it is trying to kill is definitely going to kill it in the fight-back phase or the next turn because it is a glass cannon.

Let's compare that to the Chaplain dreadnought, which has a +1S aura to everything within 6 inches, a 5+ invulnerable save, and a 6+ FNP. It also has three more wounds, can cast litanies, and can reroll hits. It is the superior model in every way apart from mobility and the ability to cast psychic--which I grant you is a big deal....but not an insurmountable problem, if played correctly.

The issue I see with how blood angels are played the vast majority of the time is that it's based around the idea of Kamikaze; get all the glass cannon units (which is everything) into charge range, attack, and hope that by the next turn you killed enough to mitigate the fact that half your army is going to get tabled in the next. Sometimes this does work, but it's very, very high stakes stuff that fails as often as not. The mistake I see people making with blood angels lists is that they focus far, far too much on damage-dealing and not at all on survivability. It doesn't matter how much damage you can do if half your units are dead.

The Impulsor is just an amazing unit, criminally underrated for the points. 102 points for two bolters, FLY, and a baked-in 4+ invulnerable save. From watching games, it stays around on the board far longer than it has any business doing. It won't kill anything but chaff, but it's amazing as a tanky, screening board control unit and it has a shot at taking a few points off higher toughness models. It's very unfortunate that corbulo can't embark in it, which would be amazing. As it stands though, he can use it as a screen as he marches up the board--or for 65 points, he could be put in a rhino but this would cost CP for an auxillary support detachment, unless I'm not understanding how that works.

However, what it can take is a Phobos Librarian, which is a HQ I'm considering.

Brother Colburo is expensive...but he's amazing. He can heal anything for D3 twice. And he has a baked-in re-roll for any dice he rolls once per turn if it fails. No need for command re-rolls to pull that off. He can literally revive two sanguinary guard for 1CP as a tactic thanks to chalice overflowing.

The sanguinor is an incredible model, I agree with you 100% and I am also reconsidering him. But this is because of brother colburo only. The problem with the Sanguinor is that he's only 5 wounds. He does have a 4+ invuln but will be a priority target. However, he could be given the relic rosarius (which would still free up veritas Vitae which is mandatory for BA IMO) granting him a 3+ invulnerable save, and Brother Colburo would also grant him a 6+ FNP. He gets a lot more tankier considering that. It's an amazing Combo, especially considering Colburo has the chance to heal him twice. The sanguinor's special rule of granting an extra attack is ridonkulous, as is auto morale passes. Heavily, heavily considering it. I could take him as he that would cap me out with three HQ for the battalion.

However, there's nothing I can find in the FAQ or the rules to prevent the following from happening:

So The Chaplain dreadnought has a built-in 6+ FNP:
Unyielding Ancient: Roll a D6 each time this model loses a wound; on a 6 the damage is ignored and that wound is not lost.


Brother Colburo also grants a 6+ FNP as a special rule WARLORD trait with this wording:

Gift of Foresight: Roll a D6 each time your Warlord loses a wound, re-rolling rolls of 1; on a 6, that wound is ignored and has no effect. If your Warlord also has the Black Rage ability, they instead ignore wounds on rolls of 5 or 6, but the similar ability to ignore wounds from the Black Rage has no effect.


Now, you cannot re-roll more than dice. But this isn't a re-roll issue, because they are special rules. Since the Chaplain dreadnought wouldn't be given the black rage effect, there's no reason he can't be given that 6+ FNP. The Dreadnought's rules also do not specify that unyielding ancient is cancelled out by a similar effect, or that it is not cumulative.

So what you have is an 11 wound model with a 5+ Invulnerable save with two 6+ FNP's. I don't know if this is legal or not, and I probably wouldn't do it if it were, but it's...interesting.

Anyhow, Having the Chaplain dreadnought dreadnought no chewing up the CP perk granting it the Black Rage Keyword frees it up to be put on the sanguinary guard. 6 wounds is six wounds. It doesn't matter if that gets put onto mortarion or a squad of Necrons warriors. Exploding sixes are amazing on anything--especially Demon armies and in particular Nurgle stuff benefiting from 5+ Invulnerable bubbles.

I'll be honest: I disagree with a lot of your reasoning. The reason the Chaplain dreadnought is such a hot commodity in competitive play is not its melee loadout, but its twin lascannon profile, where it's a very accurate lascannon platform with a low cost and high survivability for the points. If you need to actually get it up into melee range, or if you want it to follow along with a melee range unit, the librarian dreadnought with its faster movement with Red Bull of Sanguinius and its character keyword protection are superior.

If your opponent is able to attack your librarian dreadnought as easily as your chaplain dreadnought, you have made a mistake positioning your librarian dreadnought, because it has Character protection and the Chapdread does not. A 5++ and 6+++ and 4 extra wounds is nice, not getting shot at at all is much nicer. And you need to consider when you'd be able to use the abilities that the chapdread has that are so nice - if you're planning to use Exhortation of Rage, you still need to manage to get that chaplain dreadnought within 6" of the target friendly unit at the BEGINNING OF THE TURN.

Consider Exhortation vs Unleash Rage from the Chaplain Dread to the Librarian Dread:

Exhortation - must be cast at the beginning of the turn. so, cannot be used the turn the target unit deep strikes if you want to use it then. 33% chance to fail. 6" range. Must be cast from a model with no character protection and 6" move. Adds 11.3% damage to the unit.

Unleash Rage - Cast in the psychic phase, so can be used the turn the unit deep strikes. 28% chance to fail. 12" range. Cast from a model that can have 12" move+fly and has character protection. Adds 25% damage to the unit.

Next thing: Brother Corbulo. His abilities, again, are nice. If you could slap a pack on Corbulo I'd say he'd be an auto-include. Honestly, you may want to consider a regular sang priest with jump pack instead, if you really want to try and make use of the healing abilities: They're just as good at it as corbulo, and again, sang guard are almost NEVER going to need help killing stuff in 1000 point games.

And that warlord trait only applies to the warlord, it isn't an aura ability you can grant to other models.

And now, the impulsor: Here's the problem with it, in your own words. "102 points for 2 bolters". Does that seem like a decent amount of damage to you? Because that's very much not a lot of damage.You would much, MUCH rather have a squad of incursors for those points: You don't need mobility when you can just show the heck up wherever you want, you don't need transport capacity when you aren't planning to transport anyone, and you really REALLY want to be bringing models who can at least make some use out of the blood angels' amazing assault rules if you're playing them..might as well be Incursors.

You say Kamikaze, I say high-pressure. A list with Incursors, Scouts, character-protected units and sanguinary guard is not a glass cannon kamikaze list, it's reasonably obnoxious to remove. That's how blood angels want to be playing. Blood angels want to be laying down anti-chaff firepower turn 1, carve away any kind of screen the enemy has with infiltrating units that immediately give the enemy a lot to deal with, and then they want to drop a nasty deep strike or character bomb turn 2 buffed to hell to obliterate any concentrated threat. If you want to run space marines with a 3-turn tempo to outlast opponents, you're far better off with almost any other chapter.

Here's how I'd make up a Blood Angels list at 1k:

Battalion

HQ: The Sanguinor
HQ: Sanguinary Priest with Jump Pack
HQ: Librarian Dread, Unleash Rage+Wings of Sanguinius

Troops: 5x Incursors with haywire mine
Troops: 5x Incursors
Troops: 10x Scouts with Knives+Pistols

Elites: 7x Sanguinary Guard, all Fist+Boltgun

Heavy: 3x Eliminators
Heavy: 3x Eliminators

I start in control of every objective on the board in the midfield and my own side of the field. Dread's on the board, sanguinor+priest+guard are in DS (you can keep the sanguinor on the board if you're very confident your opponent has no way to get past your troops and target him, it makes him far better at getting into combat turn 2 but makes him more vulnerable). The job of the eliminators is to take down any supporting character that is providing an obnoxious buff and also to hold 2 backfield objectives, the job of the troops is to carve up screens (though the scouts can do an extremely surprising amount of damage with a turn 1 Unleash Rage cast) and the job of the sanguine deathball is to drop in, 3d6 charge and eliminate any hard target like a main damage tank or elite infantry unit. I have no heavy targets available for my opponent so I can safely ignore dedicated anti-tank units like a neutron laser onager or lascannon devastators, since the dreadnought is character protected and my troops are going to be starting way up midboard.

Err... Chaplain Dreads do have CHARACTER protection. That is why they are so good.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Err... Chaplain Dreads do have CHARACTER protection. That is why they are so good.

The statline he listed he said they had 11 wounds?

I've never actually faced one on the table, since they're basically Legends at this point and nobody where I play uses them. Did he just get the statline wrong or do they have some special protection?

the_scotsman wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Err... Chaplain Dreads do have CHARACTER protection. That is why they are so good.

The statline he listed he said they had 11 wounds?

I've never actually faced one on the table, since they're basically Legends at this point and nobody where I play uses them. Did he just get the statline wrong or do they have some special protection?

Imperial Armour - Index: Forces of the Adeptus Astartes, Page 27. It has 9 wounds.

I got that stat from wahapedia RE the Chaplain dread. I should really stop using it as a reference lol.


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Thankyou for the detailed reply scotsman. I actually do agree with you on a lot of points, notably the incursors and eliminators and you make a good argument for dropping the impulsor. As well as some of the inferno pistols. What's the point of putting wings of sanguinius on the Librarian dreadnought if you don't intend to get it into close combat with the halberd? If it's not getting into intimate range, it might as well just be a psyker. The impulsor isn't about damage, it's simply a suerb bullet sponge/screen. Invulnerable saves in this game mean everything,

Is Corbulo worth the points? In my estimations, yes--even sans jump pack. He's only 13 points more expensive for a rer-roll of one dice per round, and an extra attack in the fight phase, as well as one more wound than the priest. I'm committed to him at this point. I'll just have to play him, and work out how to make everything that needs to happen converge...which is kind of what BA is about, ultimately. As bacon says the chappy dread does have the character keyword and 5+ invulnerable and 6+ FNP. It's a very survivable, very points efficient model...and I hope it doesn't legended after what I paid for it! They aren't made anymore, hence they sell for stupid money used.

You know, I'm actually really strongly considering reivers. With death masks on the guard, and their special rules, it's pretty much a given that you can get them where they need to be and force pretty epic morale fails, and they're pretty cheap considering they're two wound models. It's really the lack of AP on the combat knives holding them back. However, they are an excellent CC unit with shock grenades. Set them up on the outskirts of the board, cc overwatching blobs, drop in guard, and go to town being -1 to hit with zero overwatch. after the dust settles whatever is left will owe you morale with -4 to leadership. Pretty awesome.

Roberts84 wrote:
I got that stat from wahapedia RE the Chaplain dread. I should really stop using it as a reference lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thankyou for the detailed reply scotsman. I actually do agree with you on a lot of points, notably the incursors and eliminators and you make a good argument for dropping the impulsor. As well as some of the inferno pistols. What's the point of putting wings of sanguinius on the Librarian dreadnought if you don't intend to get it into close combat with the halberd? If it's not getting into intimate range, it might as well just be a psyker. The impulsor isn't about damage, it's simply a suerb bullet sponge/screen. Invulnerable saves in this game mean everything,

Is Corbulo worth the points? In my estimations, yes--even sans jump pack. He's only 13 points more expensive for a rer-roll of one dice per round, and an extra attack in the fight phase, as well as one more wound than the priest. I'm committed to him at this point. I'll just have to play him, and work out how to make everything that needs to happen converge...which is kind of what BA is about, ultimately. As bacon says the chappy dread does have the character keyword and 5+ invulnerable and 6+ FNP. It's a very survivable, very points efficient model...and I hope it doesn't legended after what I paid for it! They aren't made anymore, hence they sell for stupid money used.

You know, I'm actually really strongly considering reivers. With death masks on the guard, and their special rules, it's pretty much a given that you can get them where they need to be and force pretty epic morale fails, and they're pretty cheap considering they're two wound models. It's really the lack of AP on the combat knives holding them back. However, they are an excellent CC unit with shock grenades. Set them up on the outskirts of the board, cc overwatching blobs, drop in guard, and go to town being -1 to hit with zero overwatch. after the dust settles whatever is left will owe you morale with -4 to leadership. Pretty awesome.

Nah, screw reivers. incursors are 100% better than them in every regard. A reiver gets 0.5 more attacks than an Incursor because of the Incursors' 6+ exploding hits, loses the uber-super-deepstrike infiltrate thingy that incursors get, trades the ignore-cover boltgun for an AP-1 bolt pistol, loses Troops which is incredibly important, and all they get for those trade-offs is a morale thingy and an overwatch ignoring rule that suffers from the exact same problem that the inferno pistols on the Sang Guard do: you cannot use the shock grenades the turn when it's most vital, when you deep strike in.

Incursors and scouts are in action exactly when you need them to be: Turn 1, the turn before you need all the screening units to be gone so the sanguinary guard can drop in and murderize some big tank or other hard target turn 2.

As to the dreads, we'd be using the chappie dread and libby dread in exactly the same way: Turn 1, it'd advance up the board, staying behind our scout/incursor screen so it can't get shot at by lascannons and the like. Turn 2, it'd hopefully be in combat. The reason I like libby over chappy is because you're more likely to be able to use its respective buff turn 1 (you'd be unlikely to have your chap dread 6" away from any of your frontline troops at the beginning of the turn to use a Litany, but you're much more likely to have the libby dread within 12" of one of them in the psychic phase after he moves) and you'd be much more likely to get him into CC turn 2 with Wings vs no wings.

The way I see it, neither the chaplain dreadnought or corbulo is necessarily bad for what you want to do tactically. You can take both of them, deploy them right on the edge of the DZ, and advance them turn 1, and turn 2, hopefully get them into position to be within 6" of your sanguinary guard when you deop them in turn 2. The reason I don't like them as much is they represent a tactical trap and a tell to your opponent, as well as an opportunity to feth with you where Jump Pack HQs and the libby dread give you a little bit less in that regard.

You'll need to basically put corbulo and the chaplain across the board from what you want the sanguinary guard to attack, and you're basically declaring to your opponent "AAAAAAAAH IM RUNNING THESE BUFFERS UP THE BOARD PLEASE DONT SNIPE ME BRO". By contrast, a single librarian dread hanging out in the middle of the board can jump either left or right and still be reliably in melee, or he can jump somewhere completely different, buff himself with unleash rage and the sanginary guard will be perfectly fine killing almost any target with the sanguinor+priest as buffers.

Basically, it just gives your opponent warning and the opportunity to deny you buffs by doing something like, say, warptiming a winged daemon prince at corbulo turn 1 and ripping him in half. now your sanguinary guard are going to have to roll without his buffs. or maybe popping him with a vindicare sniper. there's just more counterplay available to him than there is to the deep striking priest.

If you do use him, just make sure you don't give in to temptation to make your tactics worse in order to gain access to his buffs. Lets say you roll poorly on his two advances and he's slightly farther back. You'd be screwing yourself over in a big way if you left your deep strike until turn 3, or strung 3/8 of your sanguinaries back in order to get within 6" of him. remember that just 2 sanguinary guard equal your whole points investment into corbulo: don't disrupt your strategy with your key unit just to try and use the buffer you brought with a fancy boy name and special rules.

and end of the day if they do legend out the chaplain dreadnought, you can always use him as something else. there are innumerable uses for a fancy dreadnought. Keep your options open.