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Ok so I've gone for a balanced army and now I would now like to tell you my strategy.

I will use Mephiston as a Monstrous creature hunter and as a physic shield for my army. I would initially keep him behind my Baal tank and move him up using wings of Sangunious. Hopefully having him in close combat by turn 2.

My scouts would group fairly close together near Brother Corbulo giving them better survivability. They would ultimately move up and claim objectives on turn 3/4 depending on the fighting.

The death company would be flown in with the death company dreadnaught in the Storm Raven Gunship. I would drop them of as soon as I could away from Mephiston to spread the enemy force. I know Lemartes has FNP however I'm unsure if that gives it to the entire squad or just him.

The Dev squad I would position close to the scouts and Brother Corbulo where possible

HQ
- Mephiston

Troops
- Scouts x15 (sniper rifles - I think there a free upgrade)
- Death Company x5 (1x thunder hammer)
- Death Company Dread
- Lemartes

Elites
- Brother Corbulo

Fast Attack
- Baal Tank (heavy bolters)

Heavy Support - Mainly Anti tank
- Stormraven Gunship (+Hurricane bolters/Lascannons/Multimelta)
- Dev squad 5x (4 Missiles/Sgt has combi melta)

Points total - 1500

Weaknesses (That I can see) -

1. I guess I'm a bit light on scoring units. However If they can survive until the hard hitting units come then the enemy will be forced to leave them alone and focus on the others. This will then enable them to capture points.

2. A lot of points are of the table and no guarantee what round they will come on.

3. Scouts, Dev and Brother Corbulo would be open to Template attacks because they are keeping so close together.

Summary

I'm up for suggestions however please remember I'm going for a balanced and competitive list that is different! Evn if your not a SM player then it would be great to hear what gives your race the biggest headache! I look forward to hearing from you.

This list all depends on how early your reserves come on.

With only shouts, one tank and mephiston on early, you may be overrun by the time your reserves come on

1.)Death co already have fnp.
2.)Corbulo is exceptionally expensive if just used for buffing sniper scouts.
3.) Buy an agis with comms to help with reserves.
4.) I personally find ml devs totally pants.
Hope it helps!

the comms relay would make life easier, given that some HQs can lower your reroll!

ML devs can be useful, with both frag and krak missiles, but they're a bit vanilla, personally I prefer Lascannon due to the higher AP, termie killers

to save points, maybe take a regular preist for the FnP on your scouts

Some interesting comments.

Poly thanks for the info ref FNP.
Your right about BC so I'll change that.

If you had 140 points to throw at a dev squad what would you use it on, instead of ML's?

How many points does a comms relay cost Beard and how helpful is it?

Do you not think by hiding a little on turn one that the strat could work?

I've seen most chaos armies have hell turkeys in and it really doesn't matter if you have Space marines in power armour or scouts they both die just as quick. The difference in points though is huge! I just figured BC FNP gives a 4+ fnp as opposed to a SP of 5+.

I feel that BA have some heavy hitters and its a simple case of getting them in the fight to do the hard fighting?

Thoughts ?

the comms realy is iirc, 25 points on top of the defence line, i could be wrong.

it improves your roll for reserves by 1, so if it's usually a 3, you only need a 2, if your opponent has an enemy HQ qhich reduces your roll to a 4, your +1 means you'll still need a 3. It improves the odds of your reserves arriving. Which given how much you'll rely opn those reserves, especially in this list, you'll need it.

it could work, but you're not leaving much on the table. your opponent only has to reduce down what you have, 1 tank is easily popped, 2 or 3 tanks is much harder to deal with. 15 scouts is alot of scouts, but I would be tempted by camo cloaks, to improve your cover save.

yeah, corublo's FnP is better than a standard priest, but he's more points.

we do have some heavy hitters, but we also have some guff. for instance, sanguinary guard, gah, horrible!

if you're looking to take objective, troops are the only scoring unit, so bear in mind, scouts aren't exactly the most mobile, eescpecially with sniper rifels, you can't move them and shoot. so they're a bit limited

my two cents if you want to take 15 scouts take 3 squads of 5 so theres more targets the enemy has the first 2 turns.

If you have 140pts to spend on devs... well I wouldnt spend it on devs. I would strip the hurricanes off the raven (definitely dont sync well with las and mm even with potms), drop the baals heavy bolters and run it as a flamestorm (it wants to get near the opponent if shielding mephiston anyway) and get a stern squad with 2 meltas and 3 combi meltas in a pod... will do a better job than devs and will give corbulo somewhere to go, also ensuring they aren't neccessarily a suicide unit. Plus the 2 meltas mean they can still tank hunt after the drop.


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OR find 10 pts and go lascannons with corbulo tanking small arms.

Without repeating some of the other good stuff already posted, the assault cannon is a better option over the lascannon on the Storm Raven. It is overall better in almost every aspect.

^agreed!

^agreed with above. TL assault cannons on flyers, brilliant for most things, tank hunting, anti flyer, infantry killer

Corbie's 2+ FNP is for himself only, not his squad.

Death Company of only 5 guys is never going to make it anywhere. Even with SR it's kind of gamble since they are going to make their first charge and be shot after that. Eight guys with TH or two will stand a chance.

And you should take 2 or 3 small squads of scouts rather than that large group of "deathforHQ's".

Wow thank you so much for the comments guys, I've now revised my list for your comments and I'd like to know what you think now.

HQ
- Mephiston

Troops
- Scouts x15 - 3 groups of 5 (sniper rifles)
- Death Company x8 (1x power weapon, 1x thunder hammer)
- Death Company Dread
- Lemartes

Elites
- Sanguinary preist

Fast Attack
- Baal Tank (Flame storm turret only)

Heavy Support - Mainly Anti tank
- Stormraven Gunship (+ Hurricane Bolters/Assault cannons/Multimelta)
- Dev squad 5x (2 Plasma 1 Missiles)

Comms relay

Points total - 1500

Not sure how much ageis defence line is with comms relay (25 points)

I used to have my DC in a stormraven, but read the faq. They will not be able to assault, because it is "considered deep striking" from the raven. So be careful were you place them. All guns will be pointed at them once lemartes and DC come in. It is a big point sync if they do not come out the second turn. Though your raven set up is the same as I have mine which is nice. l have lemates and mephiston both have good and bad qualities. For higher point games both might be fine. Maybe sacrifice one for more troop choices. Even reclusiarch instead of lemartes. And your right it is different.

Good luck

Hi Cannoncoker,

I've read the codex and it says that they can assault. (if not from deep strike)

Is it possible to just have my entire army on the field from turn 1 and not deep strike anything ?

Personally I think if you don't field Death company then your missing the point of the blood angles... I'm glad to see you agree.

Lemartes has such power especially when he's wounded. I think the trade of is definitely worth it for the points.

Death co can assault from a raven if it hovers as they count as disembarking NOT deepstriking.


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Which is the entire point of it being labeled an assault vehicle.

I play BA and rarely use Death Co, as soon as you add jump packs, they become over costed for what they are, they're easily killed.

There are other points to BA, such as jump pack troops, fast vehicles, we had the raven until it was opened up to all SM chapters.

The whole idea behind BA used to be, up and in your face in assault ASAP, hence why we still have an apocalypse formation, wings of sanguinius, where you field all Jump pack models

Beard,

Firstly thank you for your comment. I agree with your statement about DC being expensive. But if you remove the jump packs and only upgrade a few hard hitters then surly there worth the points. They get so many attacks on the charge and when adequately supported (chaplain) they get re-roll to hit and wound.

I'd really like to hear other players views on DC weather there wasted points on actually worth it?

I've already made clear that I think they are what BA are about. A hard hitting relentless force that an enemy cannot ignore!

I'm not a BA player but I would say it looks pretty good. I ran a list that had a pretty high point sink in a storm raven (assault cannon and hurricane bolters can lay some pretty good pain into a squad, have a MM for cracking armour on it too) I kept my Chapter master and honour guard in there (they now ride in a crusader) as if it gets popped then its sad times for you. One of your primary objectives will be to knock out any anti air, before your storm raven comes out, hit it hard!!

Death Company:
I have compared these guys to Eldar Harlequins and do you see any Harlequins around? Most likely you don't and that's because unlike BA, Eldar has choice.

Okay, seriously now. Some pros and cons for DC:

PROS
- Powerful charge (Chaplain or not, these guys will wreck face)
- Bunch of useful special rules
- Without JP's, they are reasonable priced
- Troops choice
- Unlimited PW's/PF's

CONS
- They don't have good mobility/survability to get to the enemy. LR's cost much and with JP's the price for single marine is simply too much.
- Overkilling on charge
It's ridiculous how we have a unit that is considered too bad and one of it's biggest problems is being too good... But if you destroy the enemy on a charge, you will get shot to pieces. Simple as that.
- Not scoring

Overall they are a good assault unit, but the problem is that they will rarely make it to the CC. You would need a DC-blob of a kind I guess, and that's gonna cost some dineros.

This from BA FAQ codex has changed. I just learnrd this myself.

Page 38/94 – Stormraven Gunships, Skies of Blood. Replace this rule with the following:

Skies of Fury: If the Stormraven has moved more than 6", passengers can still disembark, but they must do so as follows: Nominate any point over which the Stormraven moved that turn and deploy the squad as if it were deep striking onto that point. If the unit scatters, every disembarking model must immediately take a Dangerous Terrain test. If any of the models cannot be deployed, the entire unit is destroyed, as per a Terrible Accident result on the Deep Strike Mishap table. Models that disembark using the Skies of Fury special rule cannot charge in the turn that they do soA Faq changed codex

It can move 6" and the models inside can disembark and charge. Because why should the BA have anything good?

Im aware of that rule, however - you can move up to 6" in hover and then assault straight from the raven, this is because in hover it counts as a skimmer not a flyer. This should not be a problem usually as the previous turn you will have plonked the raven next to the target you want to assault, and unless they move 12" + 2 or 3 d6 away (depending on jps), you will be assaulting them!

Except you don't want to hover a Raven because at that point it's just a 200 pt, AV12, sitting duck. The SR is a gunship. Use it as such. For it's guns.

If you want to get into assault, bring a Land Raider. Pack it full of Death Company (with a Libby, not a chaplain because it's the same number of points to have Unleash Rage which you can use every combat phase, over the first turn charge rerolls bonus) and roll up 18" first turn, 6" the next, disembark 6" and then assault 2d6" that's easily a turn two charge against someone who isn't castling in the back field. And much safer. And you now have an AV14 all around monstrosity toting some of our best guns (TLAC+Hurribolters is awesome and it can take a multi melta, effectively making it a Stormraventank) in their face for turn 3 onward)

Don't get me wrong, I love the Raven. But lets be clear that these two vehicles have completely different objectives. The Raven is hard to hit and hits hard (remember to shoot those missiles) while the Raider takes a beating and delivers your face mashers exactly where they need to be with little to no risk.

Good point, Bocatt.

Hovering the raven can often be a good strategic move. Not only does it let you assault, but it can prevent the raven from flying off the board, makes it ludicrously easy to get rear armour shots, and by turn 3, when it is hovering, the opponent may very well not have the guns to spare due to the fact that at this point the rest of the BA army will be in their face. Also if you are hovering the raven to assault, your assault force may actually be assaulting the units most dangerous to the raven. Look at the bigger picture, don't just assume that hovering is a bad idea because it becomes easier to hit.
I often use raiders, but always find them overcosted for what they are. The raven delivers to ANYWHERE on the table. Its firepower is greater. Its faster. And it can take a dread too. The downside is it has to start in reserve.

The only way I've ever had any success with DC is run 8-11 of them in a Land Raider Redeemer with a Chaplain or Reclusiarch in power armor. Outfit them with one or two fists/hammers and keep them toward the rear and the rest with plain old bolters. You lose an extra attack but gain 12 inches on shooting or an extra shot if inside 12 and since they are relentless you can shoot and charge. When you charge and everything is rerolled what's the difference between 32 and 40 attacks? When you reroll everything you will wind up with 25+ wounds and no unit is winning that battle unless you charged Termies or something....BTW don't charge large groups of Termies lol. One thing you must remember is Feel No Pain is great but anything double your toughness(melta, las, fists, MCs) and you won't get FNP. I personally love DC. Very durable and one of the most feared units we can put on the board. They will draw a lot of fire once they leave that LR so keep them in combat or the shadows. It's no secret what a large DC can do if let go too long.