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Wednesday, April 7, 2010

BA "Fast'N'Slow" @ 2k (aka the Blood Rodeo)


Okay from my Armies in 5th article yesterday I concluded BA hybrid wasn’t the best option and that Fast’N’Slow could be good for BA by replacing the bikers w/Jumpers. Problem is, that change makes the list not work. Whether it’s a Fast’N’Slow list with Dreads/Preds/Speeders backing up bikers or Bikers backing up Termies, the points don’t work for BA and the lack of Turbo-boost on the jumpers makes the list a lot more fragile. So a conversation with Curly ensued and the BLOOD RODEO (Curly’s name) was born.

The idea behind the list was trying to utilise Fast’N’Slow mechanics in the BA list but because of the premium BA pay for vehicles and no bikes as troops, it wasn’t working nearly as well as Vanilla can do. What about Bikers & Jumpers though? Eh ya maybe. Okay, what about FC/FNP Bikers & Jumpers? Oooo, shiny. So let’s see if we can make this idea work.

We need our solid core of Bikers and ASM w/FNP & FC bubbles and that will most likely take up our most of our points so let’s see what we can do. Remember, BA don’t have access to Combat Tactics but can still Combat Squad. We’ll start with 2 full bike squads and then some ASM since the bikes can‘t score.

Bikes x8, AB w/MM, 2x meltagun, PFist = 310 and we should take 2 so that’s 620.

ASM x10, 2x meltagun, Pfist = 235 and let’s take…3 for a solid core. That’s 705 for 1325 total.

The bike buggers turbo-boost first turn which the ASM can’t do. Taking out 20 T4(5) Marines isn’t easy when they have a 3+ cover save. The ASM can advance behind these guys or DS in and with combat squads you’re providing a lot of targets that can damage tanks and infantry to your opponent. However, what really makes this tick over Vanilla variants is FNP/FC bubbles so we need some Sang Priests.

Sang Priest w/Infernous Pistol, Bike = 100 and we will need 3 to cover everyone but I think we can fit a HG squad in later, so we’ll stick with 2. That’s 1525 points used so far.

These guys make the whole army laugh in the face of small arms fire and although Bikes still don’t get FNP from S8+, it makes up for the lack of combat tactics. The bikes can survive longer in combat (ala: command squads) and with multi-charges from bikes and/or ASM, this army can move things in assault where normal bikers require command squads for that (hence the PFists on everything inc. bikes).

I said before we should be able to squeeze in a HG squad which means we need an HQ (shocking). Libby’s are great so let’s see take two.

2x Libby w/Blood Lance, Unleash Rage, Bike = 270 for a total of 1695. I’ve taken Rage here to make the Bikes not as vulnerable to cc whilst they wait for ASM to come save them but Shield or Sword is also a very viable option (I’m not a sword fan on base libbies because of W2, I4 and no invul).

I also said we wanted an HG squad so now we’ve got our HQ we’ll take our HG w/Jump Packs which gets us our 3rd FNP bubble which cannot be targeted in combat which is important. We’ll give them some meltaguns to max out our points.

HG x5 w/Jump Packs, 4x meltaguns = 205

This gives us a DS unit with another FNP/FC bubble and a big melta punch, though we do have 2 bike squads. Now I’d like to take the pistols from the Priests and put them in the ASM squads so we don’t have our meltas loaded into one squad type (the bikers). Can’t get the 3rd squad a pistol though without dropping two mguns from the HG which is just inefficient. So, let’s look at what we’ve got.

HQ -
Librarian w/Space Marine Bike, Blood Lance, Unleash Rage (or Shield of Sanguine)

Librarian w/Space Marine Bike, Blood Lance, Unleash Rage (or Shield of Sanguine)

Honor Guard w/Jump Packs, 4x meltaguns

Elites -
2x Sanguinary Priest w/Space Marine Bike

Troops -
10x ASM w/2x meltaguns, infernous pistol, Power Fist

10x ASM w/2x meltaguns, infernous pistol, Power Fist

10x ASM w/2x meltaguns, Power Fist

Fast Attack -
8x Space Marine Bikes w/2x meltaguns, Power Fist
Attack Bike w/MM

8x Space Marine Bikes w/2x meltaguns, Power Fist
Attack Bike w/MM

Totals: 2000 pts
22 bikes
35 jumpers
18 melta weapons across 6-11 squads

That looks pretty solid, the Blood Rodeo is in town!

You’ve got quite a few options with this army in terms of deployment. You can deploy on table, off table or DS the Jumpers in and turbo the bikes depending on opposing army and whether you’re going first or not. Combat squadding is your friend and gives you more melta squads. The ASM w/o pistol can split into melta/melta or double melta/PFist squads whilst the ASM w/pistol should split into 2xmelta/pistol squads. The Libbys can sit with the AB combat squads of Bikes and chuck out an early game Lance + MM behind the boosted screen of 2xmelta/PFist bikes, etc. Options are available and like the Jumper list is putting a lot of bodies into your opponent’s face though this is using the advantages bikes give you over Jumpers whilst being different from Vanilla bikers and still being a workable list with BA flavor.

Kudos to ProfessorCurly for the idea on this list and doing most of the math work but idk about the name you thought of lol.

Thoughts everyone else?

Updated Blood Rodeo list here.

11 pinkments:

Chumbalaya said...

That looks pretty damn cool.

Unknown said...

Watched Curly play a game with this today against Tau, easy win for him but poor deployment from MoM leaving gaps for his ASM to DS into. However, I really think the list is relying on going first or having DoW to minimise shooting at Bikes to one Turn whilst ASM come in.

TheKing Elessar said...

You could Reserve the Bikes?

Mark said...

Sorry for the late comment. I just found it, and I likes what I sees.

I wonder if there's some way to work in my new favorite toy, the Jumping Lib Dread....

MasterSlowPoke said...

This looks really fun. Any ideas on how to trim it down to 1850? I'd like to pitch it to a friend who is just getting into 40k but here in Florida 2000 points is nearly unheard of.

Unknown said...

as I said in warseer. I think you would be better served with 3x3 MM attack bikes this will increase your long range fire power by afactor of 3 and save you about 150pts for more jump marines.

TheKing Elessar said...

As regards Attack Bikes, a quote, from me:
"For me, the main problems with Attack Bikes vs Speeders are this:
1) Inability to leap terrain
2) Easier to ID, even though AV10 is hardly durable.
3) No Heavy Flamer option. 30 point Heavy Flamer bikes (since they're slightly too expensive as is) would be kick ass.
4) Easily torrented down by Bolter fire, as opposed to 'potentially' so.
5) Deff Rollas kick the crap out of them, whereas Speeders get a dodge save."

Unknown said...

@ MasterSlowPoke; Replace HG w/Sang Priest w/JP. 1850 on the money

@ grant; I've discussed this with GWvsJohn and Curly and feel the ABs don't really fit. Whilst they give you more firepower you're not taking advantage of FNP on anything bubbles which bike squads do. Asking an opponent to down 20+ bikes w/FNP in a turn is a big ask. When you start chopping at the bikes as well I believe you might as well run a Jumper army.

Unknown said...

Played this on vassal against Mech eldar. My rolls were really bad until a massive combat at the end (mass charging ftw; he had Eld/Yriel/Scorps and otherwise a standard mech Eldar). Flamingo (the Eldar player) really used his speed well and although I was able to stop the Prisms from shooting most of the game, I just couldn't touch his armor (end game = 1 dead tank out of 8). He did however drag me into midfield where the 3 obbies were. Mismove on my behalf however moved me off an uncontested objective (to be fair I thought it was contested but it was 1/4" out and thereby uncontested and mine if I had stayed put) and my consol move was 1/2" short. Game ended on T5.

The list worked well besides my poor armor pens. Again, Flamingo did an excellent job of keeping me at arms length so I couldn't bring all my melta to bear and tied up a Priest in a Bike squad for ages (stupid me putting the Priest in a non-fist squad). It shows the list can keep up with 24" mech which is good and if the game continued after T5 I had board control for the most part (only lost 2 half ASM squads + HG) since I had been dragged into midfield but overall Flamingo's gambit paid off.

I'd like to try and versus a dual LR list or any other list with some good combat inside armor to see how it can handle that but any trial games would be nice on Vassal or if you live in Sydney!

P.S. I dropped the 2 infernous pistols from the ASM for 3x Hand Flamers.

Anonymous said...

[quote]1525 points used so far.
...
2x Libby w/Blood Lance, Unleash Rage, Bike = 270 for a total of 1695.[/quote]

Is 1525+270 not 1795, rather than 1695? So the list comes to 2100?

Jazz

Unknown said...

It should say 1795 woops. When you add in the HG squad it's 2000 total. I always make mistakes like that in these posts...sigh.

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