Email in: 1500 and Speedy + 1500 Jumper BA

Here are two emails from Archnomand...two! What a needy bugger. 

"Hey Kirbs,

As I'm sure you know from Chatterbox I'm after an army that's power armoured but not just a build I can do (better) with my Space Wolves. So I'm looking at Biker Marines and your Blood Rodeo. Which would you recommend for 1500, and could you give me a sample army? Thanks man!  

Scratch my previous army. I've decided to do a "generic" marine army a la goatboy. So the first dex I'm gonna use the Angels Oblivion with is Blood Angels. I'm pretty new to BA and I haven't played against many of their competitive lists, but I'm gonna give it a shot. Here's what I cooked up; 

HQ
Librarian

Jump Pack

Shield of Sanguinius

The Blood Lance

Honour Guard

Jump Packs

2 Melta Guns

Lightning Claw 

Elites

Sanguinary Priest

Sanguinary Priest

Jump Pack 

Troops

 10 Assault Marines

2 Melta Guns

Hand Flamer

10 Assault Marines

2 Melta Guns

5 Assault Marines

1 Melta Gun

5 Scouts

Sniper Rifles

Camo Cloaks 

Heavy Support

10 Devastators

4 Missile Launchers

5 Devastators

2 Missile Launchers

5 Devastators

2 Missile Launchers

1500

So there we have it. Based pretty much on your hammer principle. Devastators dismount stuff so that my Assault Marines can tear it up. And I'm also dropping 7 meltas into your face. The scouts are in there because it makes my firebase scoring, and a 2+ gone to ground cover save with FnP is damn resilient.

I was thinking it might be worth dropping the 5 man ASM unit or the scouts though (leaning more on the ASMs) to get some real combat oomph in the army, most likely in the form of lightning claws/power somethings.

Anyway, I'll leave this to you. You know a lot more about Blood Angels than I do.

All the best,

Archnomad

P.s. Could you do a little bit about deploying the army? In regards to going first/second against shooty/combat armies and suchlike."

As we can see, he's moved away from a Biker/Blood Rodeo list at 1500 towards a Jumper styled list and this is a better choice IMO. Biker based lists aren't so hot at anything under 1750 simply because of the expense you have to pay out for being on a Bike; your Troops end up costing ~300 points and they add up quickly. As displayed in this post here, taking a Jumper army and building up to a Blood Rodeo is certainly viable. So let's take a look at the list put together by Archnomad...

A 'classic' Hammer list but lacks combat punch but I do like the addition of the Scouts as a scorer. For 1500 I'd drop the extra bodies on the Dev squads and make them all 5 man w/4x Missile Launchers. Less target and fire saturation but dropping 15 + 5 scouts w/FNP is difficult for most armies at 1500 points. This allows you to drop more points elsewhere and I'd be putting those points into PFists for the ASM squads. Dropping the hand-flamer off the one ASM squad also gives you the points to put a ML into the Scout squad which means they can crack armor at range, too.

Not sure on the single Priest + HG as FNP/FC bubbles for your jumper portion of the army though and I feel this is where it may come un-stuck. The HG provide more combat punch and meltaguns but cannot attach to a squad so you have the possibility of them scattering away or not arriving when the rest of your army does (slim due to DoA but still there). 3 FNP/FC bubbles at 1500 though is excessive (not including the Dev babysitter) so you'll need to be careful with deployment to ensure those 2 FNP/FC bubbles cover as much of your Jumper army as possible.

In regards to deployment, the Scouts + Devs can always start on the table at 1500, unless you feel the opponent can shoot you off the board and you are going 2nd. Reserving them may then be the better option but you lose a lot of firepower so hiding them for T1 might be better or simply putting them in cover and grabbing a 3+ GtG save T1. Up to you how you deploy your Marines, they are more flexible. Against deep-striking combat armies or assault based armies like Daemons/Orks I'd deploy them on the table as they are unlikely to get shot up (though generally use the 5 man squad as a deep-striker no matter what for disruption). Otherwise combat squad and DoA your ASM squads for maximum melta coverage and S5/I5 assault squads.