Email in: Blood Legion: count-as BA

"Back in 4th ed, when I finally got my Chaos army painted, I ran Khorne-themed Black Legion, calling them the 8th company. Compared to 5th edition codices, it feels like my Chaos army just doesn't have much of a chance, despite buying new units to try to "get with the times."

With the BA codex, I feel like I have a good opportunity to represent a Khorne-flavored army again. Astorath represents the head of the 8th company, and chooses Chaos Space Marines who have particular fervor and martial pride to undergo psycho-lobotomy and become Berzerkers, who are represented by Death Company. Assault marines represent Chaos Space Marines with jump packs. Sanguinary Priests are represented by khornate icon-bearers.

I felt like this could have been e-mailed to Fester as well, but I feel that you give better tactical and list-building advice, and what I want is a sounding-board.

Here's the list:


220 Astorath the Grim

Sanguinary Priest w/ jump pack.

185 8x Death Company w/ 1 powerfist.
50 Rhino

185 8x Death Company w/ 1 powerfist.
50 Rhino

145 Honor Guard w/ 2x melta and 2x flamer (got this idea from your blog!)
50 Rhino

210 10x Assault Marines w/ 2x melta

210 10x Assault Marines w/ 2x melta

125 DC dread

125 DC dread

50 MM attack bike

50 MM attack bike

135 AC/LC predator

135 AC/LC predator

So far, I've tried this list once, against all-infantry SW, to moderate success. Since this is an all-comers list, it didn't quite have the tools to deal with the army I faced, and Astorath got Jawsed (I now know that jump infantry can't be killed by Jaws...), but I tank-shocked a couple of units off the table, and it was one of those if-the-game-had-ended-on-turn-5 things.

I felt like I needed more power weapons, but I'm not sure where I'd get the points for them, other than dropping bodies from the DC, but having a healthy chunk of DC to assault with Astorath is one of the core concepts of the list.

Anyways, any feedback would be appreciated."

Poor fester :P. This is perhaps one of the better uses of DC I've seen but still has some serious issues. You're a bit low on scoring which you're going to get for any list with a significant DC presence but the DC Dreads really stick out as slow and dragging the army back. We all know I'm not a huge fan of Hybrid armies for BA but I like it here in where the ASM can pin or distract units and allow for easier assault setups with your DC Rhinos. Not as good obviously as assault ramps or open-topped but workable. So we need to see if we can streamline the list to see if we can't hammer out some of the quirks.

I really think we need to drop the DC Dreads. Although they are scary and will munch anything they hit, you've identified your lack of power weapons. The Dreads bring this but they are quite slow compared to the army. If we drop them we get a nice 250 points to play with. I'd add a Power Fist to each of the ASM squads and 1 or 2 power weapons to the DC as well. With any extra points I'd expand your ABs to include more models so your anti-tank is a bit more potent or upgrade them all to Land Speeders to improve your saturation and not put so much pressure on the Rhinos as screeners. By dropping the DC Dreads and the AB w/MM you should be able to get the DC a power weapon each, the ASM a PFist and 2x2 MM/HF Speeders.

From there I might drop each of the DC squads down to 7 and add a Lightning Claw to the Sang Priest and a power weapon to each of the DC (taking both squads to 2+pfist). This keeps your combat prowess roughly level with what you had with the Dreads but makes it more mobile and likely to get into combat whilst also increasing your armor saturation and ability to shoot down tanks and infantry alike with the Speeders. Issue here I guess would end up being how are the Land Speeders represented in terms of fluff? If you have issues there I'd replace them with the Attack Bikes and see if you can tweak the points for three squads of two.