This is a list I've never really discussed but have replied to quite a few times in e-mails and given a vague outline on how I'd like to see it look. I thought I'd give it a post after AbusePuppy's work on some Blood Angel lists (you've seen his full foot version but he also tried a triple Raven list against me...it didn't work =P). So let's break it down! Blood Skies is a Jumper variant with added mech, specifically Storm Ravens and Land Speeders for saturation. What these do is help overcome the glaring weakness of Jumper based armies, ranged anti-infantry and anti-mech whilst also providing the FNP Marines with some relief from weapons that deny them FNP (they are now shooting at tanks...). Speeders and Ravens are both very capable of coming in from reserve as well so don't limit the deployment options of the army too much and the Ravens importantly give us the option to carry around something Jumper armies cannot normally access, combat Dreads.
So let's build the list then and analyse our choices as we go along. We'll start with our core of Assault Marines. We want to have as many of these guys as possible as there isn't going to be any supporting Marines such as Devastators, Sanguinary Guard or Vanguard Veterans. We might be able to fit in some Honor Guard but they are going to be pretty big targets as usual. For now we'll aim for four. This is a lot of scoring bodies at 2000 points and is going to be hard to remove but gives the list some flexibility in committing to assaults, durability of Troops and assault power. We'll go the standard setup of 2x meltaguns + Powerfist and any spare points we may have can get us some pistols. These are 235 points setting us back 940 points already.
10x Assault Marines w/2x meltaguns, Powerfist
10x Assault Marines w/2x meltaguns, Powerfist
10x Assault Marines w/2x meltaguns, Powerfist
10x Assault Marines w/2x meltaguns, Powerfist
With that out of the way and huge chunk of points used, we need us some Priests. The Priests are obviously an essential part of the army as they greatly increase the survivability of the ASM and raise their combat ability. S5/I5 is pretty damn important. For the moment let's go with some barebone Priests as we are going to be spending some points on Furiosos later. These add to our combat potential so we don't need our WS5 FNP machines throwing attacks around as much as we normally do. We'll take three of them with Jump Packs at 75 points a piece or 225 total. We'll then add in our Librarian with Jump Pack and give him shield + lance. Although Blood Lance has been nerfed with the new BRB FAQ now needing a to hit roll, it's still going to be a big deterrent against castling mech and shield + hood is always great utility. The Librarian sets us back a further 125 points for a total of 1290.
Librarian w/Jump Pack, Blood Lance, Shield of Sanguine
3x Sanguinary Priest w/Jump Pack
We are rapidly running out of points so before we look to the Furiosos, let's get our Mech aspect down. Ideadlly we'd like to see six Speeders and two Ravens but off the top of my head, not going to happen. Let's settle the Ravens first and see what we have left to work with. Remember the main premise of our mech is to give us ranged and mobile options to support the ASM. Our Stormravens are also dropping Furiosos in our opponent's faces (well, we plan to anyway) so we don't want them playing total keep away. With this in mind there are two real setups I think are viable. TL-PC, TL-MM + Hurricanes and TL-LC, TL-MM + Hurricanes. The first option gives more ranged anti-infantry and a reliable AP2 blast whilst the 2nd option gives us another ranged anti-tank shot. With all the melta that's flying around normally the first option is IMO better, particularly since the list struggles more with mass infantry than mass tanks at range. The Hurricanes obviously add to the anti-infantry potential and the four bloodstrikes give each Raven some long-ranged anti-tank to cover for the lost Lascannon. We're not taking Extra Armor as we don't really need it. If we have 30 spare points, let's go for it but we aren't taking hugely expensive combat units in these guys so they don't have to move every turn. Each of these costs 230 points so two sets us back 460 and takes our total to 1750.
Stormraven w/twin-linked Plasma Cannon, twin-linked Multi-Melta, Hurricane Bolters
Stormraven w/twin-linked Plasma Cannon, twin-linked Multi-Melta, Hurricane Bolters
So we now have 250 points to play with. Let's make this simple and buy our two Furiosos now. Each of these is 125 and takes us to 2000 points on the nose. We're not taking Blood Talons here because they are silly and we have a ton of anti-infantry potential in combat already. I'd much rather have an AV13 platform chucking out a bunch of S10 hits okay? Okay! So why Furiosos? It helps counter rock units in combat (something ASM have trouble with without multi-assaults), has tarpitting ability (you don't have a powerfist? suck it) and can deal with MCs and other Dreads in combat (something ASM do not want to do and meltaguns will fail at some point). AV13 on the front really helps out as well as even Powerfists become pretty unreliable (penning 1/6th of the time) and this frees up your ASM in terms of tactical flexibility. You have other units to throw into combat now, yay! With the Stormravens these guys are cheap enough to not make the Ravens a huge point sink of doom and obviously allows them to get into combat relatively quickly.
Furioso Dreadnought
Furioso Dreadnought
So 2000 points with no Speeders. Is this viable? Yes and no. The army as it stands is going to work fine in reserve as it is and the two Ravens are quite happy to zoom 24" and be in your face whilst the ASM advance behind them/deepstrike in (whether you got first turn or you are reserving). The problem becomes every single anti-tank shot is going into those Ravens and AV12 is only so durable when you've only got two of them at 2000 points. We therefore would really like some other tanks to distract our opponents. They aren't going to make the Ravens any more survivable of course but rather if our enemy choose to ignore them in lieu of the Ravens exclusively, the Speeders will have free reign.
With that in mind we need to free up some points (or if you want to take this to 2500, buy another Raven + Speeders). This means an ASM squad which I'm happy to do. We lose some flexibility in ability to commit (though the Furiosos helps with that) but still have 30 FNP scoring bodies which can combat squad. Sounds good. With that we have 235 points, well shy of the 280 you need for 2x2 MM/HF and simply adding two Typhoons (180) isn't really raising our saturation level. We're in a bind... We could run the Librarian or one of the Priests without a Jump Pack in one of the Ravens but that instantly becomes a much bigger target with the extra cargo. We could trade a meltagun from one of the ASM squads to a flamer and then run 2x2 MM Speeders which if we want to keep three Priests is our best bet.
Which brings us to...do we really need three Priests with only 30 ASM? Probably not. It certainly gives us a lot of reliability as each full squad has it's own personal bubble but it's verging on the point of inefficiency. With that in mind we'll drop the 3rd Priest and take 2x2 MM/HF Speeders. As I said before this gives us some mech saturation (8 vehicles total), units which work from reserve and some ranged/mobile anti-tank + the joyous wonders of heavy flamers. Each squad is 140 so the two of them takes us to 1970 points.
2x Land Speeder w/Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer
2x Land Speeder w/Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer
Now we have points spare! Awesome. There are many things we can do here. Each Priest can take a Lightning Claw, each ASM Sergeant can have a hand-flamer or each Storm Raven can have Extra Armor. There are merits to each (and other options) but I'm going to go with the Extra Armor. The Dreads are already bringing the extra combat hurt so the WS5 Lightning Claw is less necessary (though still nice) and being able to keep those Ravens moving whilst not necessary, is a nice luxury and is going to help get those Dreads into combat. This isn't set in stone however, so you can fill your boots with those extra points really.
This is the final list.
HQ -
Librarian w/Jump Pack, Blood Lance, Shield of Sanguine
Elites -
2x Sanguinary Priest w/Jump Pack
Furioso Dreadnought
Furioso Dreadnought
Troops -
10x Assault Marines w/2x meltaguns, Powerfist
10x Assault Marines w/2x meltaguns, Powerfist
10x Assault Marines w/2x meltaguns, Powerfist
Fast Attack -
2x Land Speeder w/Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer
2x Land Speeder w/Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer
Heavy Support -
Stormraven w/twin-linked Plasma Cannon, twin-linked Multi-Melta, Hurricane Bolters, Extra Armor
Stormraven w/twin-linked Plasma Cannon, twin-linked Multi-Melta, Hurricane Bolters, Extra Armor
Totals: 2000 points
33 infantry
8 vehicles
The end numbers don't look huge but with FNP and deployment options, everything is decently durable. The list can of course deploy on table or in reserve effectively with Descent of Angels helping the army maximise good rolls on the Stormravens/Land Speeders. Deploying on the table should generally be done when going first. This allows the Speeders/Ravens to speed off and the ASM to move + run behind them and get right up in your opponent's face. If you're going second against an army with a lot of shooting, reserving is going to deny them two turns of shooting and with 24" turbo-boosts + Descent of Angels, still allow you to get aggressively into your opponent's face. These two basic deployments can be swapped around depending upon the army you are facing (i.e. against GK with Strike Squads, don't reserve...).
As usual with Jumper variants we've looked to overcome some of the major weaknesses of a pure list. We have increased our ranged anti-infantry and anti-tank potential beyond pistols/combat and meltaguns significantly whilst not affecting our combat potential too much thanks to the Furiosos. The only infantry are the scoring ASM which is a bit of a bother (i.e. all anti-infantry is going into your scoring bodies which have no mech protection) but you can always put reduced squads into the Stormravens late game for objective holding purposes. The Stormravens come out pretty expensive but we are getting use both out of their gunboat role and assault vehicle capacity without breaking the bank or putting our eggs into a couple baskets.
Now you can finally use those Stormraven models you bought...
