What to buy next?

[dlmos]

So after playing a few games with my friends I love the BA (just picked up 40k this christmas). I've been playing with the battleforce box plus a DC Dread and libby but have discovered a love for the jump packs. So now I am building my first DoA army. I've picked up more assault marines as the core but am having trouble deciding what to pick up next. The lists I'll be playing against are my cousin's Necron/CSM (more fluffy player than competitive) and my brothers IG/GK (competitive/gimic player). I'm happy if I only win half the time as long as its a fun game, and prefer a more fluffy/fun to look at army.

 

So this is what I have so far for DoA:

 

Assault Marines Squad (10) - PF/Shield (just for looks), 2 x Meltas

Assault Marines Squad (10) - PF/Shield (again for looks), 2 x Meltas

Death Company (5) - PF

Lemartes (coolest model ever)

Sanguinary Gaurd (5) - Banner

Dante and Astorath

 

Non-DoA stuff I have:

Tactical Marines (10) - Missle launcher, Flamer

- Rhino

DC Dread (really love this guy but don't see how I could use him in a DoA list)

 

I've been thinking about getting either a VV or HG unit as they are popular choices, but would love to find a way to use some Assault Terminators cause they just look great. Sang Priests with JPs are another thing I've been looking at, maybe some cheap HQ's. We play anything from 750 up to 1500.

[lordvogalus]

So after playing a few games with my friends I love the BA (just picked up 40k this christmas). I've been playing with the battleforce box plus a DC Dread and libby but have discovered a love for the jump packs. So now I am building my first DoA army. I've picked up more assault marines as the core but am having trouble deciding what to pick up next. The lists I'll be playing against are my cousin's Necron/CSM (more fluffy player than competitive) and my brothers IG/GK (competitive/gimic player). I'm happy if I only win half the time as long as its a fun game, and prefer a more fluffy/fun to look at army.

 

So this is what I have so far for DoA:

 

Assault Marines Squad (10) - PF/Shield (just for looks), 2 x Meltas

Assault Marines Squad (10) - PF/Shield (again for looks), 2 x Meltas

Death Company (5) - PF

Lemartes (coolest model ever)

Sanguinary Gaurd (5) - Banner

Dante and Astorath

 

Non-DoA stuff I have:

Tactical Marines (10) - Missle launcher, Flamer

- Rhino

DC Dread (really love this guy but don't see how I could use him in a DoA list)

 

I've been thinking about getting either a VV or HG unit as they are popular choices, but would love to find a way to use some Assault Terminators cause they just look great. Sang Priests with JPs are another thing I've been looking at, maybe some cheap HQ's. We play anything from 750 up to 1500.

 

VVs are great (especially with hammers), and Priests are essential in my book. You can run the DCDred in a drop pod w/ locator beacon, drop it on turn one to scare your opponent and provide a 6 inch no scatter zone, into which you can drop a land raider redeemer filled with assault termies. :) A unit of HG with 4x plasma/melta/flamer/two-of-the-above-on-each-model with Dante is also very good, he works best with short ranged shooty squads. If your opponent is not picky you can try fielding the assault squad seargent as PF/SS, that is better than PF/CS.

[Dunnaeph34rn473]

VV and honor guard are both great for DoA. VV obviously because they can instantly assault a unit that needs to be killed or at the very list tied up for a turn or two. Honor guard can be run a few different ways. I run mine as mech breakers, equipped with 4 melta-guns. They are basically a guaranteed dead tank/walker upon arrival, and another one a turn for as long as they're at full strength. Some people like to run them with a 4 plasma gun load-out and use them as light AV/Heavy Infantry destroyers. They work well either way. I would recommend if you are going to equip them for melee though, to just go ahead and run Sanguinary Guard instead. By the time you kit out honor guard to be as effective in melee as the SG they'll actually cost more than a 5 man squad of SG would. SG will also have a better armor save and better shooting than a melee equipped HG, and still be better in melee as well.

 

I run a 2000 point DoA list that I'm constantly modifying. Recently I wanted to integrate some terminators into it instead of my Sanguinary Guard because the SG can be rather to squishy for my tastes when facing anything with power weapons or armor ignoring guns. I play my friends Daemon list quite a bit, and that's basically all he runs. A keeper and Skarbrand, 3 squads of blood letters, 3 soul-grinders, and a squad of crushers. All those ignore armor saves, the only thing in his list that doesn't ignore armor is his 2 squads of fiends, but even then they get 36 rending attacks on the charge, so they even usually put 4-5 armor ignoring wounds on squads. So I replaced Dante, and my SG with a librarian with a SS and TDA to run with 6 assault terminators. 3 with SS+TH and 3 with LC. The squad actually worked quite well, it took out a squad of fiends, and a squad of crushers before it died to the keeper of secrets. I was very impressed with it, and thought it was much more effective than the SG in that situation.

 

However the problem with terminators in a DoA list is that they don't have decent of angels. Which means you can either deploy them on the table and let them try to footslog somewhere, which doesn't work very well because they only move 6" while the rest of your force moves 12". They usually just get left behind or kited around. You can deploy them in reserve, which I did, and deep-strike them where they need to be, but there are also problems with that. Since they don't have DoA they run the risk of not joining the battle when you need them. I got lucky in the game I tried them. I rolled a 4 for them on turn two, so they came out immediately. But with a bit of sub-par rolling you could be playing the majority of the game without your rock unit, which puts you at a serious disadvantage. DoA is great because it lets you reroll failed deployment rolls. Also, terminators scatter the full 2d6 instead of 1d6 thanks to DoA. So they also have more of a chance to land far off target, or even worse, mishap and basically take themselves out of the game before they've even contributed. You could try to work around this if you happen to get a Storm Raven. Deploy the Terminators in the raven, on the board since it can keep up with the jumpers and deliver them that way.

 

It's really personal preference, play what you find enjoyable. I'd defintely start with the VV and Honor Guard. If you want to try to mix in some terminators, they definitely can work, however they're not as reliable in a DoA list as other units might be. When they do work, they work to great effect, and they are better suited to play against some lists than others. However you do run that risk of them failing miserably and just costing you points for no output.

[DarthOvious]

Sang Priests with JPs are another thing I've been looking at, maybe some cheap HQ's. We play anything from 750 up to 1500.

 

With Sanguinary Priests I've been using the Command Box for space marines and mixing it with a Death Company Box. You only get one Narthecium in the box but you do get a plastic Sanguinary Priest that you can tool up like you want it. The rest of the models can be used to make up some Assault guys or footsloggers that look like Blood Angels. So with a Jump Pack you could make them either Honour Guard or Vanguard Veterans, without a Jump Pack you could make some Death Company without Jump Packs or get some pre-heresy bolters from Forge World and make Sternguard.

 

For one in Terminator armour I may have to look into the Grey Knights box since I've learned they have a Narthecium in their box. I just need to think about how to make him look like a Blood Angel.