|
Well the Spring FAQ is here and with that I need a new Faction because Chaos seems pretty well crushed. Since I don't want to buy/paint a brand new army I'm going to be doing a conversion project and moving over to Imperial Soup. This is what I have so far, I got a test game in with a rough version of the list but I'm still very much in the testing phase.
Supreme Command Detachment - Blood Angels
Captain on Bike w/ Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield
Captain on Bike w/ Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield
Captain w/ Jump Pack, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield
Captain w/ Jump Pack, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield
Captain w/ Jump Pack, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield
9 Death Company w/ Jump Packs, Power Fists, Bolters
Battalion Detachment - Catachans
Primaris Psyker
Company Commander w/ Shotgun
Infantry Squad w/ Heavy Bolter
Infantry Squad w/ Heavy Bolter
Infantry Squad w/ Heavy Bolter
Infantry Squad w/ Heavy Bolter
Brigade Detachment - Catachans
Colonel "Iron Hand" Straken
Company Commander w/ Shotgun
Company Commander w/ Shotgun
Astropath w/ Laspistol
Sergeant Harker
Ministorum Priest w/ Condemnor Boltgun
Infantry Squad w/ Mortar
Infantry Squad w/ Mortar
Infantry Squad w/ Mortar
Infantry Squad w/ Heavy Bolter
Infantry Squad w/ Heavy Bolter
Infantry Squad w/ Heavy Bolter
Scout Sentinel w/ Heavy Flamer
Scout Sentinel w/ Heavy Flamer
Scout Sentinel w/ Heavy Flamer
Heavy Weapon Squad w/ 3 Mortars
Heavy Weapon Squad w/ 3 Mortars
Heavy Weapon Squad w/ 3 Mortars
2000/2000 Points | 21 Command Points
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This list isn't particularly ground-breaking as Blood Angels and Imperial Guard have been a known combination for awhile. In light of the FAQ I think the list is better than ever, despite it taking some hits via the new Reserves Rules. Fortuantely we can build around that!
Overview
The main point of the army is to leverage the Command Points that IG provide to turn Blood Angels units up to 11. Re-rolls on Storm Shield Saves, +d3 Attacks, 3d6 Charges, re-deploying, and fighting again are all on the short list of things this list will do most turns. With the change to Reserves I think Characters are more attractive than Units because you can either Deep Strike them or start them on the board whereas units really have to Deep Strike. With that in mind, as well as the new Rule of Three, I opted for two Bike Captains. These can cover ground quickly just like the Jump Pack Captains which continues to give me solid Charge threats against anything but the most dedicated gunlines. Overall the job of all the Blood Angel stuff is to smash Vehicles/Monsters while being the Command Point sink for the list. Fortunately there's still a lot of flexibility in how they go about that, I don't think waiting until Turn 2 for aggressive placement is a big deal.
The IG portions of the army are all about Infantry killing and Command Points. I've decided to fully exploit the possibly short-sighted nature of the new Battalion/Brigade change, while a normal IG list would struggle to spend that many Command Points meaningfully Space Marines are happy to gobble them up. I went with Catachans because they seem to be the best by a wide margin, especially after the nerfs to Cadians, and it gives my army a sizeable melee presence. S4 Guardsmen with Straken and a Priest can take the fight to a lot of armies and I have the Orders to get upfield against shooting lists that I don't think I can Lasgun down. Most of the units have Heavy Bolters because I had points laying around and for +3pts it's a much better gun than a Mortar in most situations.
Rounding out the Brigade I have Sentinels, which I love for Deep Strike defense or the ability to go tie things up via Strategems. Heavy Flamers seemed good with the Catachan Regiment and they'll actually do some work unlike the other gun options. Mortar Teams are the easy go to for Heavy Support, they give me a back-line presence and some Objective holding if I have to move up. Everything else is fairly obvious support. Harker gives re-rolls, the Priest helps with melee, the Astropath/Primaris are pretty much just there for Deny the Witch as I don't make good use of the IG Powers in this list.
Most games one of the Company Commanders will be the Warlord and get Grand Strategist, because it's completely broken, and the Relic is likely Kurov's Aquila. Deathmask of Dallanius gets some consideration against armies with a lot of Snipers. Pretty much every game I'll buy The Angel's Wings as well for one of the Captains.
Weaknesses
One if the bigger weaknesses for the list is just playing in ITC Missions. IG give up a lot of kills per turn so I'll usually be on the back foot as far as "Kill More" goes, I tried to build the army to have a very good Objective game to balance that out. I'll also give up a good amount of Secondaries as Headhunter is nearly a freebie, Old School is very viable, and intelligent players will probably recognize Death By A Thousand Cuts is very possible. This is worrisome against armies like Eldar and Space Marines which frequently don't surrender full points for anything.
In terms of actual play extreme Vehicle skews seem to be the worst matchup. Some of these armies went away with the FAQ but some are still out there and lists like triple Tesseract Vault are picking up steam. That kind of list is where I would really feel the change to Reserves but I don't know how popular that kind of build will be.Completely Infantry armies are another possible issue as they'll likely be able to remove my Guardsmen quickly while my Blood Angels are kitted out to find bigger targets. Again I don't really know how viable those kind of lists will be outside of Orks which I think I handle fine.-1 to Hit gunlines are another problem but with the nerfs Eldar took I don't know how powerful those are anymore. Raven Guard would be an uphill battle depending on composition and who knows where Tyranids are going. Fortunately against -1 t Hit resilient shooting armies I can just rush them and try to win through weight of attacks.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Out of the lists I've seen I think this can handle anything in terms of offense. Originally I did not run the Death Company but after playing a test game against an all Dreadnought list I wanted more oomph. I think the extra punch helps against armies like Tau with Suits and other more mid-range units like that (Termiantors). I wish I had better anti-Psyker but Imperium struggles there with Inquisitors/Assassins being hard to fit into a list now. The last good Psyker army is probably Ynaari/Eldar and it remains to be seen how popular they are after the nerfs.
Another consideration for the list is obviously time played but I have a lot of games with larger armies than this under my belt, which were also more movement oriented, so I think with proper short-cuts and movement trays everything will be fine. That being said I am looking for any/all feedback, we're in a brand new meta so there's a lot of things to feel out that I'm sure are not on my radar.
|
