Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Totally Re-done Army List

I decided to make a total overhaul of my forces in order to make it as deadly as possible, to make it as flexible as possible, to add more scoring units, and to use my "Sledgehammer" tactics. The basic plan of this build is to break my tactical squad into combat squads. The one with the missile launcher will camp on my objective, while the other combat squad will go with my captain in the back of the razorback. The bikes and vindicator will "sledgehammer," with the vindicator providing cover for my assault company, honor guard, furioso librarian dreadnought, and regular dreadnought. Coming behind this group, at a much more leisurely pace, will be my razorback, followed by my terminator librarian and terminator company. Finally, my land speeder will simply hide on the back of the board making a nuisance of itself.

Enjoy.


HQ:
Captain w/ power sword: 115 pts
Librarian in terminator armor with storm bolter: 130 pts
Honor Guard w/ jump packs, chapter banner, hand flamer, infernus pistol, power fist: 240 pts

ELITE:
Terminator squad (x5 troops) w/ x4 chainfists: 220 pts
Furioso Librarian Dreadnought: 175 pts

TROOP:
Tactical Squad (x10 troops) w/ missile launcher, flamer: 170 pts
Assault Squad (x10 troops) w/ meltagun: 200 pts

TRANSPORT:
Razorback w/ twin-linked lascannon: 90 pts

FAST ATTACK:
Land Speeder w/ multi-melta, typhoon missiles: 100 pts
Scout Bike Squad (x6 troops) w/ x3 grenade launcher: 160 pts

HEAVY SUPPORT:
Vindicator: 145 pts
Dreadnought: 105 pts

GRAND TOTAL: 1850 pts

Monday, August 16, 2010

Sledgehammer of Sanguinius!

Whats big, armored, and shoots a strength 10 large template? You guessed it, a space marine Vindicator. But since I play Blood Angels, I get a speed bonus as well. After losing to a regular mech space marine army by four kill points, I came to the conclusion that I need something big and angry, and capable of flattening a land raider with ease.

My response, as I'm sure you already guessed, is a Vindicator. However, nobody in my club has ever played a vindicator while I was there to see it. So, naturally, I looked online and found some good tips on youtube. The general consensus was that vindicators are NOT linebreaker units like the fluff would have us believe. Most vindicator tactics involved luring enemies within range of your wicked demolisher cannon, and hiding behind rocks.

However, I would like to challenge this line of thinking. First of all, I would like to point out that a large pile of rocks confers the same cover-save on your vindicator (or any other soldier for that matter) as does a group of soldiers. The biggest pros of terrain are that you can A) hide out of sight, and B) not confer a cover save on the enemy. The biggest pro of using a "meat-shield" is, of course, movement.

Personally, I don't think a vindicator hiding on the back of the board would be all that effective against shooty armor, like preds, that aren't going to be on the forefront of the battle. My solution is to use a meat-shield. Now, the first thing I'm going to want to look at is the speed of the unit I want to choose. I want quick units because with the extra six inches of movement that my vindicator enjoys, I don't want to waste them. The second requirement is that my fast unit must take up enough space to actually confer a cover save. Finally, they must be a cheap unit that I don't much care about.

Therefore, bikers make the PERFECT vindicator meat-shield. Plus, once I get in range, I can run my bikers out of the way, giving me a clear shot on the enemy target of my choice. However, I wouldn't run these guys too far ahead of the vindicator, as scatter could end up working against you.

The way I am thinking about running this set up is to run about 6 scout bikers, and upgrade a few of them with the grenade launcher. This would be about 160 points of scout bikers, which could do some template damage of their own on the way in.

Please let me know what you think! Have you tried this before? Does this sound absolutely crazy?

Friday, August 6, 2010

Army List

To save space on my other post, I'm posting my army list here. Feel free to let me know what you think!

My forces:
Captain w/ power sword: 115 pts
Librarian in terminator armor, epistolary, w/ storm bolter: 180 pts

Honor Guard, armed with a Chapter Banner, infernus pistol, flamer, and power fist, w/ jump packs: 240 pts
Terminator Squad: 200 pts
Tactical Squad w/ flamer and missile launcher: 170 pts
Death Company w/ power sword, power fist, thunder hammer, infernus pistol, and jump packs: 260 pts
Razorback w/ twin linked lascannon and extra armor: 105 pts
Land Raider Crusader w/ extra armor: 265 pts
Land Speeder w/ multi-melta and typhoon missiles: 100 pts
TWO Dreadnoughts w/ multi-melta and blood fist (close combat arm): 105 pts each


This gives me a grand total of 1845 points, a playable tournament list.

My 1500 point list is almost exactly the same, just without one of the dreads and the land raider crusader. After playing two battles, one against BA with 1500 pts, the other against chaos with 1850 pts, I noticed something really important. My 1500 point army is horrible, but for a few reasons. I played Death Company with jump packs, and they raged after everything, and actually got in my way, which was irritating. But the biggest thing I noticed was that terminators are infinitely more effective when they aren't teleported into battle, or forced to march into the enemy onslaught.

Finally, I am considering replacing one of my dreds on the 1850 list with two assault bikes with multi-meltas for some highly mobile tank busting madness. The two of them would actually be 5 points cheaper than a dred! Any suggestions?

Blood Angels vs. Chaos Space Marines

Well, this is my very first blog post, and I would like to begin by thanking everyone here who is reading it. A little background on me, I play Warhammer 40k in my spare time and I am still a bit of a beginner. Anyway, this is my latest battle report. To see my list of forces, check out my other post.

I'm not sure what my opponent had, but he was packing a lot of firepower. He had an Obliterator squad, TWO chaos defilers, one terminator squad, three tactical squads about 10 strong in rhinos with at least two sonic blasters and a special chaos flamer in each, and finally, one huge tactical squad that I have no clue what it had. Finally, he had a really cool looking demon prince with wings. It was 1850 points.

I went first, and he failed to capture the initiative, and I busted out with a vengeance. I moved up with the land raider crusader, and opened up on his terminators with everything I had, and killed two. Half my tac squad with my captain, sarge, and flamer guy ran up and hid in some woods, and started creeping forward. My other half of the tac squad camped out on the objective, firing the missile launcher at the defiler on the left flank. I penetrated, and got a crew stunned result, but who cares, I have a razorback with a twin linked lascannon. Crew stunned again??? Seriously? Still not too worried, I open up with the land speeder, and guess what? Crew stunned. Really? Finally, I assault his terminator squad out of my land raider, and my termy libby pulls three extra attacks out of the air with might of heroes. I take one wound on my libby, and kill four of his terminators. Hah.

My opponent opens up with the lascannons from the defiler on the land speeder, and blows it up. Great. The Obliterator squad stuns one of my dreds. This happens EVERY game... But thats why I have two. His rhinos blitz, and come flying up as far as possible, two heading through terrain to hit my objective, the other one heading down the middle of the board, but staying well clear of my land raider. Then, his demon prince pops out of cover and assaults my libby and terminators, because if they kill off the remaining chaos terminator, I would flatten his obliterators and assault the tac squad on his objective. Anyway, the cool thing was, my libby stopped his warp time, conferred a +1 attack to a grunt with might of heroes, and then got flattened by the demon prince. He killed two other guys too. But I struck back, my sarge killing the remaining terminator, and my other terminators putting two wounds on the prince. We TIED COMBAT with a demon prince. Yeah!

The next few turns got kinda confusing, but I'll give ya the highlights: I continued to stun the defilers with all kinds of multi meltas, missile launchers, and lascannons. GRRR. Death Company, in the razorback, got in position to either assault the demon prince or the obliterators. My dred got stunned again. Of course. The center rhino unloaded, and fired its evil flamer into my tac squad, killing 3 guys. One other guy died from gunshot wounds, so, my cover didn't do squat. I flamed em back, killing two, and assaulted the 8 of em left with my captain and my flamer dude. I made three kills, and suffered no wounds, despite having a lower initiative. The next turn, he managed to put a wound on my captain, but I killed another guy. The other two rhinos blitzed towards my objective with two tac squads, but, only one deployed and evil flamed my honor guard, and shot it to bits. I made ZERO armor saves, rolling ones for each of the flamed guys. After failing to save my chaplain and the guy with the chapter banner too, I saved their skins with feel no pain. After rapid firing four bolters, and a krak (NOT frag, too close for scatter) missile with my tac squad, then firing off an infernus pistol and a bolt pistol with my honor guard, I assaulted the remaining marines with my two honor guards, and with a nice furious charge and feel no pain from the blood chalice, a +1 attack for assaulting, another +1 attack for chapter banner, I killed half the tac squad without suffering a wound.

And then, I ran out of time.  :-(  This game took much longer than I thought it would, but it was still by far the most fun I had playing 40k yet.

Sorry for the REALLY long post.