This evening in the 3++ Chat Bawks I had an interesting conversation with a regular to the blog and bawks - VIC5. He was reviewing a number of older articles of mine and drawing some inspiration on outside the box thinking and how he could apply that to his own Blood Angels at 1500pts. We got to talking and took it off the blog to refine things and then well, I fiddled. The net result is explored below. I also just received this message from him via email:
Hey Taak, thanks very much for the list. I really appreciate your help and very much look forward to further unconventional army thoughts in the future. Perhaps something with foot Wolves? -- VIC5
I might do something with foot wolves, depends, but that's off topic, Blood Angels! First we'll look at VIC5's list and some strengths/weaknesses and options we could explore. VIC5 started out with this:
vic5 (8:12:22 PM): 125 - Librarian w jump pack
205 - Honor Guard w sanguinary novitiate, 1 flamer, 2 meltas, 1 flamer n melta, all jump packs
75 - Sanguinary Priest w jump pack --
50 - Sanguinary Priest w feet
230 - 5 Terminators w cyclone missile /OR/ 5 Assault Terminators w 5 hammers n shields
235 - 10 ASMs w 2 meltas, power fist
235 - 10 ASMs w 2 meltas, power fist
85 - 5 Scouts w missile, 4 sniper rifles
130 - 5 Devastators w 4 missiles 130 - 5 Devastators w 4 missiles
vic5 (8:12:26 PM): = 1500
Straight away, the Terminators look out of place and the Honour Guard are actually niftily armed. One of the larger US Tournies in the past year or so had one of the top armies running 2 units of 5 Honour Guard in a rhino w/2 Flamers and 2 Meltas so the adaptation of that element to the above unit but also working in the triple melta for that much more reliable vehicle kill (it's commonly accepted triple BS 4 melta shots at short range is enough to deal with a vehicle most of the time, hence suicide melta units being 3 melta's strong and not more - efficiency)jumps out at me. I can see what it's doing but at 1500pts I tend to work to the adage of 'can this list deal with 6-7 vehicles in it's first two turns? If yes, what if you go second? If not, you need to fix this' and the above list can't. So this is what I'll focus on.
At 1500pts Kill Points can be an issue but as this is primarily a jumper list with static support elements we don't quite have that issue, so working in Multi-Melta Attack Bikes is a good option. Land Speeders don't really do it for me due to a general lack of armour in the list itself so they are gonna get smacked up very nicely very fast, so the Attack Bikes are far more appealing. Two options here, pair them up, or run them separately for better target saturation and thus better survivability. The first is more if we've points to get 4 or more into the list but at this stage I don't see it. I also don't see the foot Sanguinary Priest as necessary. He's 50pts to give the Devs and Scouts Feel no Pain, it's nice and all but that's 50pts that could also be another support element and at 1500pts, squeezing as many elements into a list is especially useful in my experience. 10 Devs which, lets be honest, if they get shot are going to die anyways (it's like units of 5 Long Fangs), even in cover if people want them dead they'll get killed as they are too small to survive concentrated firepower/attacks. Feel No Pain is great and all but that just means whatever unit the Sanguinary Priest hides in he gets targeted first and dies whilst not adding anything else. So we'll ditch him and gain more points.
The Scouts, whilst home scoring have no camo cloaks. this is an issue as they'll die easily otherwise so we either find points for Camo Cloaks (a BS 3 Missile Launcher is crap, so ditching that need 5 points and that's the cloaks), but are they contributing much to the army as a whole? They are fairly frail and whilst they can help in objective missions, in non-objective missions they aren't very survivable and don't give us much support for their points...so maybe a unit of 5 ASM instead. To round it all out, I've been as standard, working in 3 Drop Pods to my armies of marines recently, allowing for 2 drops where close ranged or long ranged high strength firepower is better applied on the first turn, and with Blood Angels, this actually could work quite well in the list above. So personalising it a bit more towards my own outside the box approach I'll throw in a Rifleman Dreadnought in Drop Pod. Trimming points here and there gets some more refined elements resulting in the list below:
1500pts Blood Angels (By Taak) - Lets call this the 'Magical Bloodied Flying Unicorn Army'!
1 Librarian w/Jump Pack = 125
5 Honour Guard in Drop Pod (3 w/MG, 1 w/Flamer, 1 Sang. Nov.) = 185
1 sanguinary Priest w/Jump Pack = 75
5 Assault Marines without Jump Packs in Drop Pod = 100
10 Assault Marines w/Jump Packs (2 w/MG, 1 Sgt w/BP+PFist) = 235
10 Assault Marines w/Jump Packs (2 w/MG, 1 Sgt w/BP+PFist) = 235
1 Attack Bike w/Multi-Melta = 50
1 Attack Bike w/Multi-Melta = 50
1 Attack Bike w/Multi-Melta = 50
5 devastators w/3Missile Launchers = 120 5 devastators w/3Missile Launchers = 120
1 Rifleman Dreadnought 120 w/Drop Pod 35 = 155
Total = 1500pts
The list retains the forward mobile elements but works a much more flexible and saturated anti-tank group of elements in the Multi-Melta Attack Bike's, Rifleman Dreadnought, and first turn melta drop with the Honour Guard in Drop Pod. Drop Pods also are great for movement blocking and closing down enemy fire lanes so can be used to set up a more secure drop zone for the ASM if they Deep Strike. It's still a very mobile army with support elements across the force organisation chart rather then concentrated to just the two devastator units. The Librarian has been deliberately left open on Power choice for personal preference, to be honest any of the usual suspects will be nice with him and this army though Blood Lance could be very useful as a personal preference of mine in this list build. Finally, the devastators only have 3 ML's not 4, I needed points to fit in the Sanguinary Priest w/Jump Pack, that meant scrounging points (also meant dropping the 2nd flamer on the honour guard - I want a triple melta unit for efficient suicide melta if needed, but suicide melta that will very quickly be backed up by the rest of the army so in that way survivable). 3 ML's is still as reliable to hit at range as 3 Meltagun shots and doesn't adversely effect the units' efficiency too greatly, so that's why there are three not four missile launchers. And there you have it, something a little outside the box but still very playable for Blood Angels at 1500pts.
Have a great day everyone, Luke.
