(pic from Tim @ The Vanus Temple) So there's been a lot of interest lately in Jumper armies and their two main variations. Pure Jumpers or Jumpers w/Devs. There is a third variation which gets its own name, Bloodwing or a Dante led Sanguinary guard list. This style of list is very similar to a pure Jumpers list but replaces ASM with Sanguinary Guard. This list has a lot more combat hitting power but suffers a bit on the drop with a very minimised melta presence thanks to infernous pistols rather than meltaguns on your Troops. You're also running 15 less models and whilst 2+/FNP is better than 3+/FNP (and is worth the added combat potential), AP2/1 still ruins your day. Then Chumbalaya from Blackjack & Hookers (btw why do you have a Royal Flush in your logo?) comes along and goes, what about Bloodwing with Devastators. Well that's an idea. Suddenly you're covering the major limitation of Blood Wing in short-ranged vehicle popping with some massed missile firepower from the backfield and you're also dumping a lot more bodies on the board. Is it possible? Let's see...
First we need a new stupid name as is tradition with these builds. Blood Hammer it is (unless something better comes along & Nipple Hammer just seems... ya lol). What we are trying to do with this list is create a solid combat dropping force with Sanguinary Guard as our scoring Troops. This makes them a very large priority and normally we tie up the enemy with VV to minimise incoming firepower. Since we are going with Devastators we can't do this. We'll take a quick peek at the Jumper w/Devs list (stupid name for that list btw? I know, ASM w/Devs is Blood Hammer and SG w/Devs is Nipple Hammer :P) and see where we can go from here. Our Troop points are fine as each Sanguinary Guard unit w/PFist and 2x pistol is 15 pts less than the ASM squads. However, Dante is much more expensive than a Libby so points will have to be trimmed somewhere. Let's roll a list and see what culling we need to do.
We'll start with Dante obviously. The little blighter gives the squad he is with a perfect deep strike which is excellent for placing infernous pistols and a FNP/FC bubble after everything else has dropped. He's also a pretty decent combat beast with I6/W4/WS6/4A and can nerf one opposing IC (oh look mr. Librarian, if you perils you die). He also gives his squad Hit & Run and makes Sanguinary Guard Troops. Not bad but lacks Eternal Warrior and only a 4++. Keeping in theme with the heavy hitting combat style of Bloodwing and actually using Dante, we'll be taking 3 squads of Sanguinary Guard as our Troops. A Power Fist to help against hit T targets/Dreads + 2 infernous pistols to be able to break open armor lands in at 230 pts a Troop + Dante's 225 price tag. 915 gone and we've got our core. We're also going to want a Librarian for psychic defense as well as de-castling (Blood Lance) and on the drop defenses (Shield). 125 pts more gone and we can start working on our suppression fire. Before we do this though let's not forget our Sanguinary Priests. Two with Jump Packs should do for now setting us back 150 points leaving us 810 points to play with.
Since we're going Devastators we can't fit the points for VV as much as I'd like to (maybe a viable 2500 list?) as it just dilutes everything too much. We want to try and get 3 max squads with 4x MLs each. This allows us to combat squad and target 6 seperate units. We also want these guys to be a pain to remove so one Sang Priest on foot please. Whilst this will generally localise your ranged fire support if you want everyone to get FNP, that's a lot of FNP Marines in cover to remove. A full squad of Dev Marines will cost us 210 points. Let's take 3 to start with plus the 50 pts for a Sang Priest and we're left with 130 points to play with. Not enough for an Honor Guard squad which needs around 175-195 points and we're left with only 17 "attacking" Jumpers. Let's take a quick peek at what we have:
Dante
Libby w/Blood Lance, Shield & Jump Pack
2x Priest w/Jump Pack
Priest
3x Sanguinary Guard w/2x pistol, PFist
3x10x Devs w/4x ML
Our fire support looks solid but again we're weak up front in terms of bodies and numbers. Should we perhaps drop a squad of Sanguinary Guard for regular ASM? It dilutes the theme and makes the offensive punch less potent but provides weight of numbers in your opponent's face. Let's then drop a Sang Guard unit for 10x ASM w/2x meltagun & PFist meaning we've got 125 points left over. Let's be cheeky and add in a Honor Guard unit, too. We'll drop one of the Devs to a 5 man squad w/2x ML and add in an Honor Guard squad w/Jump Packs & 3 meltaguns leaving us with 40 points to play with. We can do a bith with these points. Add in a Chapter Banner perhaps or more infernous pistols/missile launchers as needed. I think adding a ML to the 5 man squad + 2 infernous pistols & a hand-flamer to the ASM is a good bet. So let's see what we have now:
HQ -
Dante
Librarian w/Jump Pack, Blood Lance & Shield
Honor Guard w/Jump Packs & 3x meltaguns
Elites -
Sanguinary Priest x2 w/Jump Packs
Sanguinary Priest
Troops -
10x ASM w/2x meltagun, hand flamer, PFist
5x Sanguinary Guard w/3x infernous pistol, PFist
5x Sanguinary Guard w/3x infernous pistol, PFist
Heavy Support -
5x Devastators w/3x ML
10x Devastators w/4x ML
10x Devastators w/4x ML
Totals: 2000 pts
Jumpers: 29
Infantry: 26
So those totals are very similar to the 'regular' Jumper w/Dev army but there is a lot more combat potential with 2 units of Sanguinary Guard + Dante. We've covered the frontal assault issue by adding in an ASM squad + HG squad (giving us 3 FNP/FC bubbles and more bodies) whilst keeping our fire suppression in tact with 11 missiles across 5 targets. I personally think this is better than standard Bloodwing w/VV as you're overcoming the limited range of infernous pistols with the MLs but would still lean towards VV in a regular ASM army. Blood Nipple might have some issues against hordes and really needs to target super units with mass assaults/shooting early as they don't have a unit with cc staying power with invuls (i.e. VV or HG w/SS). One could trim some points and slap them some SS onto Honor Guard but that until would also become a very large target for opponent's shooting then.
So thoughts?
12 pinkments:
dante - 225
librarian - 125
priest - 50
honor guard - 2 flamers, 2 meltaguns, jump packs - 195
honor guard - 2 flamers, 2 meltaguns, jump packs - 195
nipple guard - powerfist, 1 meltapistol - 220
nipple guard - powerfist, 1 meltapistol - 220
nipple guard - powerfist, 1 meltapistol - 220
devastators - 4 missile launchers - 130
devastators - 10 men, 4 missile launchers - 210
devastators - 10 men, 4 missile launchers - 210
You don't really need multiple separate priests with two honor guard units.
I like Blood Nipples.
Max missiles backed by Sangy Guard with FNP is a wonderful thing. I'd like to include Dante's anvil unit (Storm Shield and melta HG) to tie up and hit & run around against tougher targets.
My only concern with nipple wing (and even more so my new scaled-down version - knowing the author FTW) is going 2nd. Yeah, you're deployed in cover, and yes you have FNP, but your opponent has 2 turns to fire absolutely everything he has at you whilst you're waiting for Dante to get his ass (marines (get-it? just me? or just bad?)) into gear and drop already. Getting 26 dudes out of LoS is not so easy. I do love the concept and the nipples even more so!
Nipple hammer sounds a bit freaky-naughty for my liking though! A little too.... kinky?
Keeping the devasators alive isn't that hard. 48 range, deployed far back, feel no pain...
You need serious firepower to destroy them, and most armies simply won't have that at ranges above 36.
Basically, they need to survive the first turn, and camp a rhino or two per squad. Turn two, it starts raining men, who wear down anything that crawled from the smoking transports with their flamers and AP4 guns - plus the occasional melta-shot against a walker or transport that got too close.
@Chumbalaya; you can work the points for adding in SS on the HG. Drop a few pistols, a ML, hand flamer etc but unlikely to max it out.
@Loring; as VT2 said 48" range 3+/4+*/FNP is hard to remove for most armies and two of the armies that can (Eldar & DE) have to move closer for it to happen. IG and Tau can put enough punch on them to wipe them out but it's still a tough ask.
@VT2; not really liking the list with only HG as FNP/FC bubbles on the Drop. They are the eaisest target to drop without SS and aren't hiding at range like the Devs so they should drop first. Then you're without FNP/FC which is a big part of SG survivability. Striking @ I5 and shrugging off light arms fire.
Zomg Kirbs, I was playing with these guys at the FLGS and they mentioned you and 3++! This guy even had a Blood Rodeo, it was great. I told him you and me were e-best friends and it was awesome.
Squee!
<3. Now I'll have to actually become a physical entity in the real world and change my name fomr Jayne...(I should really stop with terrible references to books).
I'm thinking I'll be building this list when I'm putting all my marines together after Lords of Terra. I'll have so many Marine variations lol. Fast'N'Slow, Mech SM, Thunderbubble, Blood Rodeo, Nipple/Blood Hammer, Jumpers...and that's it I think for the moment lol.
That's because Marines have all the fun toys.
This force looks really neat... but damn does it look unforgiving to mistakes. I can see trouble with the lack of melta weapons against vehicles... but with the ML slowing things down and some PF I guess that can be worked around.
And magnets rock. They're the new black.
I've had a couple questions about this over on Warseer in regards to why dante/SG when only using 2 squads.
Whilst it's not maximising the potenial of Sang Guard as troops (we'd prefer 3) and thus making Dante's points seem a little wasteful, this list plays a lot differently from Blood Hammer in that you've got scoring Troops which can do a lot of damage in combat. Most Jumper lists require mass assualts from small units to break you whilst Nipple Hammer and Bloodwing can break multiple units with single units.
Whilst we only have 2 SG units here, it's still taking advantage of that and because of their limited ability on the drop to pop tanks (lesslikely to get melta range), I think this list is better than your more 'standard' Blood Hammer because of that improved combat potential.
@Buzzer; it has roughly the same melta as a normal Jumper list, just not the range (i.e. in pistols instead of guns).
Loving the jumper lists, what changes would you make in order to make this a 1750 list list?
@Jason; I'm not a huge fan of this list at lower points (though I made one for BroLo @ 1500) but for 1750 drop the ASM squad. Or you could drop the HG and make the ASM squad 5 men.
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