Email in: Ard'boyz Blood Rodeo

Hi Kirby big fan of your blog. In your entry comparing jumpers to bikers you said you like the blood rodeo better at 2500 when you could fit vanguard vets in there. I was just curious what kind of blood rodeo list you would make at 2500? thanks in advance for a reply.

First off sorry it took me a couple days to get to this, just been wrapping up assignment work. Secondly, glad you enjoy the blog Zach. As to 2500 Blood Rodeo...well let's see. I think my initial assessment for some VV is spot on but a quick check never hurt :). We've maxed out our important slots of HG & Libbys with 2 each, can't take anything more there. 30 scoring marines at 2500 might be a bit thin so maybe some more needed there and I'd like another FNP/FC bubble for the extra guys and durability. Problem now with VV is we've only got one slot for them so we can't take anymore bikes and will only have one squad (I'd like at least 2).

At 2000 we have

2x Full biker squads w/PFist
3x ASM double melta, hand flamer, PFist
2x HG w/quad melta & 2x Libbys on Bikes
2x Sang Priests on Bikes

A bare bones VV squad is going to gost us 165. We don't really want this unit as a super-unit buffer (i.e. with lots of SS) because we've got the mobility and weight of melta/PFists elsewhere, we really want to use it to increase our biker survivability and add in an appropriate dimension to our first wave of DS. We therefore want this squad simple. We'll give the sarge a Glaive, 2x infernous pistols, 2x meltabombs and a PFist for insurance. This is 230 pts so a bit on the expensive side when we consider another ASM squad is 235 pts (leaving us with 35 pts to play with).

A 3rd Sang Priest would do this list some good and at 75 points we need to free some up. And look at me I'm so silly, we haven't maxed out our HG squads, we've only got one. We therefore want another one of these over a Sang Priest. Our new ASM squad is going to have to be chopped up then and we need to force the opponent to shoot at other targets (bikes, VV and HG) which they generally should be doing anyways. Dropping the ASM to a 5 man squad with melta, PFist and infernous is 140 pts giving us 130 to play with. Not enough. Our HG squad w/2 meltas is 185 pts minimum so we need to free up some points. Let's drop the infernous from the small ASM squad and the 3 hand flamers from our ASM squads, still need 10 more pts. A meltagun from our original HG drops them to 3 meltaguns and we have enough points for an HG w/2x melta & JP + VV + 5 man ASM.

Let's look at what we have:

2x Libby w/Bike
2x Sang Priest w/Bike
2x HG w/3 & 2x meltagun/Jump Packs
3x 10x ASM w/2x melta, PFist
1x 5x ASM w/melta, PFist
2x 8xBikes w/2xmelta, PFist/AB w/MM
1x 5x VV w/glaive, PFist, 2 infernous pistols, 2 mbombs

Let's drop the mbombs from the VV and add in another meltagun to the HG. We still have 5 unique models in our VV and we lose a bit of insurance against tanks in cc but gain a melta. The other option outside of VV is adding another small bike squad. For 210 pts you could get 5x Bikes w/2x melta + MM AB or you could take 3x MM ABs and get a 4th full squad of ASM or start adding in some Sanguinary Guard. Personally I would go with the VV as it offers a bit more flexibility to the list. Whilst your scoring suffers because you've only added in 5 men for scoring purposes, you've added a new dimension into your list and significantly upped your melta count + added another FNP/FC bubble. In that regard as well, it might be nice to drop a Libby (or both) to Jump Packs to help with debunking the castling of mech armies. It would also make your Libbies more reliable in coming on thanks to DoA (every game I've played one of my bike squads w/Libby has come in very, very late).

I think at 2500 it is important to keep in mind what thepoint of the Blood Rodeo is. Far too many people see 2500 as 500 pts tacked onto a 2000 pt list. Here we've exemplified the Jumper aspect of the list by adding in more Jumpers and thus taken away from the FNP Bikers. We still want the opponent focused on them over our Jumpers as they are not as good in assault but more mobile, tougher and have more melta packed into them so the end result might be better to take the extra biker squad over VV but I think that will become very situational. You get a lot more options when you hit 2500 with this list (i.e. VV or more bikes, how big of a 4th ASM squad, Libbies on bikes or JP?, etc.) so there are a lot of variations you could concieve but the following list would be a good guideline.

HQ -
Libby w/Jump Pack, Blood Lance, Shield

Libby w/Jump Pack, Blood Lance, Shield
Honor Guard w/Jump Packs, 3x meltagun
Honor Guard w/Jump Packs, 3x meltagun

Elites -
Sanguinary Priest w/Space Marine Bike

Sanguinary Priest w/Space Marine Bike
Troops -
10x ASM w/2x meltagun, PFist


10x ASM w/2x meltagun, PFist, hand flamer


10x ASM w/2x meltagun, PFist, hand flamer


5x ASM w/meltagun, PFist
 
Fast Attack -
5x VV w/glaive, 2x infernous pistols, PFist
 
8x Bikers w/2x meltagun, PFist + MM AB


8x Bikers w/2x meltagun, PFist + MM AB


Totals: 2000 pts
Jumpers: 52
Bikes: 20
 
Any other questions Zach just fire away. Are you planning on taking this to 'Ard Boyz? Would be nice to see how it does if you!