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Hello,

I have a special detachment tourney coming up - general rules for army selection are as follows:
1 HQ, 1-2 Troop, 0-1 Elite, 0-1 Fast Attack, 0-1 Heavy Support. May only contain up to one flyer, one FMC, and one vehicle with AV13 or higher.

I'm going Blood Angels, and want to have fun but still be reasonably competitive. I've been out of the scene for a while, so I just want to make sure I'm not going to be completely outdone. My current thinking is as follows:

Sanguinary Priest -
Bike, AP2 sword, melta bombs, bolt pistol
Rides with other bikes

10 x Tac Marines
Drop pod, melta, heavy flamer, 2 inferno pistols and melta bombs on the serg

5 x Tac marines
Heavy bolter, Las/plas Razorback

10 x Death Company
Jumppacks, 1 Pwr Fist, 1 Pwr Sword

3 x Marine Bikes
2 Grav guns, 1 combi grav

1 x Predator
2 Lascannons, Auto cannon, Overcharged Engines

I feel like I'm covering all my bases here - but would appreciate feedback on any obvious holes I've missed, or things you would do differently.

Tourney itself uses a sum of Maelstrom points, Kill points and secondary objectives (Slay warlord, Line breaker and First blood) to determine the winner.

Thanks in advance!

I presume the priest is going with the bikes? He's equipped for CC with valour's edge, and the unit benefits in CC from his +1 WS, but that's a shooty squad who really don't want to be in CC. Either, drop the sword or find a different squad for him. With BA Tac Squads, I always run 5 men with Heavy Flamer, or 10 men with Heavy Flamer and Flamer; and always in a pod. I wouldn't bother with upgrades on the serg, apart from maybe melta-bombs and a combi-weapon. The inferno pistols are expensive and short ranged, I wouldn't bother with them on a Tac Squad. maybe on a unit of Vanguard Vets or on Sanguinary Guard, but not on the Tac Sergeant. I probably wouldn't bother with the Heavy Bolter either. A heavy flamer will generally do better against infantry, and a meltagun/gravgun/plasmagun will do better against 2+ saves and vehicles. The DC are pretty much what you wan't, except I'd swap the Sword for another Fist.

Thanks for the reply snykyninja.

The Priest will run with the bikers. I thought the sword might come in handy to stop the unit getting charged, but I suppose the death company will probably keep people out of assault range most of the game. What do you think about giving him a combi grav instead? Or do you think the Priest isn't really worth the points just to give the bikes FnP and I should look at bringing a JP librarian or Chaplain to go with the death company?

With the Tac marines in drop pod: I could swap the serg's pistols for a combi-melta - this would save 20 points (which when combined with the 10 saved on the priest could buy me another fist or a thunder hammer for the death company) and give me a squad that I can split up into 5 man with heavy flamer and 5 man with melta, combi melta and melta bombs. I would prefer to keep the melta as I always seem to struggle with armour more than troops, but perhaps I'm just playing it wrong?

With the Tac squad in the Razorback, I agree the Heavy bolter is probably not the best option there. I don't think they'll get in too close (I want them to take mid field objectives), so maybe plasma is the way to go there...

So in summary:
Swap Sword for combi-grav on priest
Swap pistols for combi melta on drop pod serg
Swap heavy bolter for plasma gun on razor back marines
add powerfist to deathcompany

What do you think of these proposed changes?

With little less tweaking, how about:

Sanguinary priest + Valour's edge + bike
3man bike squad + 2x grav gun + combi-grav

10man tactical squad + heavy flamer + melta gun + combi-melta + melta bombs
drop pod

5man tactical squad + heavy flamer
Razorback + las/plas

10man death company + jump packs + power fist + power sword

Predator + TL-lascannon + lascannon sponsons + overcharged engines

Valour's edge is ok weapon if you run into a challenge or close combat with your bikers. Dunno if you have that sword/combi-grav arm of the priest magnetized.. then it's a case of taste. I'd combat squad like your propose the 10man unit after drop. heavy flamer on one and two melta's in other. Try to pop some transport with melta's and maybe supporting trilas pred/razorback and barbecue the insides with the other combat squad. Give cover to your advancing dc blob (270p unit will draw a lot of enemy fire) with your razorback up till middlefield and let the heavy flamer 5man squad sit on an objective. Can you use baal strike force if the list composition is inside the tourney restrictions or is the red thirst unavailable here? BA usually requires the red thirst to reach mid tier, imho. If you want to save those points, give a plain chainsword to priest and predator doesn't really need the overcharged engines with las range. Veritas vitae is a neat and cheap upgrade for the warlord.

Snykyninja's suggestions are also good, but if you don't have the models or magnets This could be just a minor tweak.

I agree with Xirax about the predator, get rid of the autocannon as its out of place. Switch it for the twin linked lascannon. Otherwise, it looks like a pretty solid list to me.