How to: Blood Angel Predators

I've had a lot of requests for 6 pred lists and have alluded to it in a few other lists but here's a template for you laddies. I'm getting tired of BA stuff btw so requests for pi would be nice =D! Anyways, 6 Preds can be done in a lot of ways but let's look at what 6 Preds gives us. Remember they are all fast and this makes us want to zoom them up and left and right and loopy de loop for side shots and sheebangs. Problem with this is we open up our own side armor. When you can move laterally for side shots without exposing your side armor, cha-ching but otherwise we don't want to be advancing these expensive AV13 babies and exposing their weaker armor with protecting their sides. So these guys basically become gunboats who prefer to sit (wow I misspelled that with an h before) at range and poke away at you.

So these preds are essentially gunboats. AC/LC preds are pretty good at transport popping but otherwise firesuppression whilst baals are pretty decent anti-tank for AV10 and suppression for Av11-12 whilst being quite good at anti-infantry. So that seems like a fair firebase so to speak. Whilst there is some discussion about sponsons atm for Baals, in this context where they are used as gunboats from the backfield, they work. This is also where I think hybrid lists come unstuck, AV13 walls are great if they are AV13 all around. When you move 18" forward you're opening up your side armor (besides being in melta range :P) and sacrificing shooting. With a pure mech force your melta-advancement is AV11 anyways and now you've got suppression fire from backfield.

Now what to add? We know we have decent anti-tank and anti-infantry at our backline but we also know this simply isn't going to cut it for anti-tank so we obviously want some meltas and blood lances and we've got a few options here. We can go for lots of little ASM in RBacks, Libby Dreads, Libbies, Honor Guard in Rhinos/RBacks, Sang Priests, Sternguard, etc. So let's start breaking down what I'd like (emphasis here, as long as you keep in mind what the Preds are doing you have quite a few options for personalisation, i.e. I know someone likes Libby Dreads [who doesn't] so combining this post with my Vanilla goes Red mech list would get you a 6 pred list w/libby dreads).

So first off, 6x Preds. We'll go with AC/LC and Baals w/HB sponsons x3 each. That's 840 pts. Now we've got some options to go with from here. We're running a mech list here so 2x Libbies would be good w/Blood Lance and Shield. 200 pts and we've got just under 1k left to use. Now what I want to do here is get a lot of Rhinos/Rbacks to make mini-sister style Rhino triangles. I want about 6 to do this. So an HG squad w/2x meltagun in a Rhino (we want these in Rhinos for the firepoint) is 185 x2 and we've got 1410 points with:

2x Libby w/Blood Lance, Shield

2x HG w/2x meltagun, Rhino

3x Baal Pred

3x AC/LC Pred

Let's look at some ASM now as we need some Troops. It's 250 points for a full-sized ASM squad in a Rhino w/PFist and 2x meltaguns so if we want 2 of those we're going to have to start chopping away at things. Let's stick with the 5 man theme of the HG remember this is not a combat list. 5x ASM w/meltagun and infernous pistol and do we want them in a RBack or Rhino? It's 5 pts extra for the TL-Heavy Flamer so let's go with an RBack. That's 145 points and we want 6 Rhino chasis. That's 580 there which puts us right on the money at 1990 w/2 FNP/FC bubbles from the HG and here's what we have:

HQ -
Librarian w/Blood Lance, Shield

Librarian w/Blood Lance, Shield

Honor Guard w/2x meltagun, Rhino

Honor Guard w/2x meltagun, Rhino

Troops -
ASM x5 w/meltagun, infernous pistol, RBack w/TL-Heavy Flamer

ASM x5 w/meltagun, infernous pistol, RBack w/TL-Heavy Flamer

ASM x5 w/meltagun, infernous pistol, RBack w/TL-Heavy Flamer

ASM x5 w/meltagun, infernous pistol, RBack w/TL-Heavy Flamer

Fast Attack -
Baal Predator w/HB sponsons

Baal Predator w/HB sponsons

Baal Predator w/HB sponsons

Heavy Support -
Predator w/LC sponsons

Predator w/LC sponsons

Predator w/LC sponsons

Total: 1990 pts
Infantry: 32
Tanks: 12

Looks pretty good. You can drop out those HG for Libby Dreads if you wish but I think this is more balanced particularly when you consider how the list runs. Stelek wrote a nice little piece of army list building around BA which is a good read. So this list is not built around combat but due to the joy of HG you still have 2 FNP/FC bubbles. This gives you an advantage over SM and SoB mech where your little 5 men squads can throw out 15 S5 I5 attacks which isn't too shabby. As stated before your Predators more often than not are going to sit back and shoot away using their AV 13 and each other as protection. Their speed pressures the opponent's side armor and allows them to push midfield if need be but you don't want to move them so much that their side armor is vulnerable, too. This gives you the ability against lists with little or minimal shooting ability to hold your Rhino/Rback core back and shoot as the opponent comes to you. Your speed is an advantage over other mech lists except Eldar/DE.

Your core then revolves around 6 Rhino chassis of meltagun units which is 2x3 for tri-rhino funsies. Make sure you use the top hatch from the HG Rhino + unload a ASM squad and keep yourself protected by the tanks and still have the TL-HFs on the RBacks. This takes from Immo spam but BA's it up. You still have Blood Lance and Shield and the FNP/FC bubbles which lets you get away with the 30 infantry (20 scoring).

So there you have it, a 6 Pred template. There are changes you can make around the core/HQs/Elites and even change up the Preds to AC/HB and Baal w/o sponsons and then spam more meltas but that is a different army dynamic (you care less about moving 12" with the Baals, etc.). I'd love to see some other lists built around this and see if anyone can make a list which is still good in combat and shooting (to do this I think you're going to have to go with AC/HB and Baals w/o sponsons and then your shooting isn't fantastic) but in essence I think it's going to be one or the other for BA.