Email in: Blood Rodeo Adapation???

"You and your blog authors are the best list builders I know. I was browsing your older Blood Angels articles the other day for ideas on how to expand my current list (jump variant with Stormravens), and had this crazy idea, but no real way to test it (no one I know has bikes to proxy). I was wondering if you do me the honor of evaluating it and seeing if it made any sense.

What if you combine your Blood Rodeo and Blood Hammer lists? Here's what I'm thinking it might look like:


Librarian on Bike, Shield and Sword powers
Sanguinary Priest x2, Jump Pack and Power Sword
Sanguinary Priest
Assault Marines x10, Power Fist and Meltaguns
Assault Marines x10, Power Fist and Meltaguns
Bike Squad x8, Meltaguns and MM Attack Bike
Bike Squad x8, Meltaguns and MM Attack Bike
Devastators, 4x Missile Launcher
Devastators, 4x Missile Launcher
Devastators, 4x Missile Launcher
Scouts

I figure you basically trade the anti-rock of the Terminators for 12 missile shots. All that S8 should be good for putting a dent in something, right? Of course, the big drawback is that its shooting instead of melee, so cover saves and line of sight, plus your own units moving forward, can blunt its effectiveness. On the other hand, it does mean you can effectively sacrifice a small combat squad to a bigger unit, and then have all the guns open up on the victors. And if your enemy doesn't really want to close with you, or you're required to hold a home objective, you have a good scoring firebase to hold ground and reach out to touch someone.

Thoughts?

And if you made the effort to read all that, may I say that I really have the utmost respect for you and your friends who put articles up and keep the blog rolling. Its a great thing to see all the opinions and discussion, and I think its really helped me learn how to build a good list and figure out what to do with it. Since I've been reading and tweaking my (still small) army, I've actually won a few games at local tournaments! So just wanted to really honestly thank you and your fellow authors for offering the insights you have for the benefit of your global Warhammer community, and keep up the great work!"

First, glad you find the blog useful. You're most welcome.

Second - what's the advantage of having the Bikes here over more ASM or something else? In the original Blood Rodeo list they are designed to bring some ranged anti-infantry pewpew (24" double tap threat range) and a wrap for the ASM to hide behind and thus get off their assaults. They are pretty durable to boot thanks to T4(5)/3+/FNP. Taking Devs, Bikes and ASM gets you a nice mix of everything but your offensive punch (the ASM) is weak considering the majority of your list really needs to get up as close as possible to work at its best (meltaguns, combat).

I really think you're better off with one or the other - Bikes or Devs. Spreading yourself across both doesn't leave you with enough ASM to a) have scoring potential and b) have damage potential where you need it. This might be more feasible at 2500 but at 2000 picking one is going to lend itself to a more balanced and usable list.