Green Tide giving me the Red Rage!

[Malatox]

Hi all,

I posted about a week ago asking for tips and hints about my Blood Angel army, but sadly it was misinterpreted as an army-list and I got next to no comments on it.

So, this time, there shan't be any list of my models, but just a general cry out for help with my Blood Angels.

 

Today, I played 3 games. My 2nd, 3rd and 4th games playing both my Blood Angels and the new 6th Edition rules as well. It's safe to say that I had my behind handed to me by the Orks I played (I asked for a rematch against my gracious opponent, making the last two against the same army). The Xeno shooting obliterated me, with the Boom Cannon (?) and Dakka Jet just ripping my troops and tanks to shreds, sometimes before the had even added anything to the game.

 

So I beseech you, brethren, help me get a hang of playing Blood Angels in general and make it worthwhile for my opponents to even play me.

If people want to know the units I was using, just ask and I will give a brief summary of them.

 

Thanks in advance to anyone who even comments,

Malatox

[Leonaides]

describe the terrain/set-ups and missions used? If you can get the ork player to give you his list we can get a better idea of what you were facing as well.

 

Was it mainly infantry mobs with a few vehicles or all mechanised or what? if you could also stick up the list you used as I prob wont be able to find it on the other thread...

[DominicJ]

We kinda need the detail upfront.

Rather than wanting to drag it out of you.

[SnorriSnorrison]

As Leonaides said, some more information about your list/his list would be great, but as it seems that your major problems are the ork flyer and some artillery, we can as well get straight to the point:

 

Add a Stormraven, if you haven't already. It's the best flyer out there currently and will make short work of the dakka jet without problem. This unit has saved my bacon in every game, to be honest! If it arrives in time, that is... :P

 

Then, the boom cannon. Isn't that thing mounted on a battlewagon? Well, if you're playing an razorspam list, your tanks are quite vulnerable to this type of weapon, and the troops are useless without their transport, especially in small sizes such as 5-6 men per unit.

 

The battlewagon itself(given that it's the thing we're talking about) isn't too hard to take out with multi-meltas on fast vehicles, which we got loads of in our armoury.

Other than that, against Orks, DC are always a solid choice. Nothing better than to rip through some greenskins with the unleashed fury of the Primarch, isn't it? :lol:

 

 

Again, more information on your list would be very helpful for us to help you. ;)

 

 

Snorri

[Malatox]

• The terrain was mostly area terrain like Woods with a few low-level ruins thrown in.

• The deployment and mission were simply Kill-Points and standard deployment (I forget what it's called).

• His list was a Big Mek with KFF in a battle wagon with Burnas supported by two Truks with 12 boys, a Looted Tank, a Dakka Jet and bikers with Wazzdakka and a couple of War-Buggies.

• My list was a Epistolary with Sanguinary Priest in an Assault squad, supported by a Tactical Squad in Drop pod and a Blood Talon Furioso in a Drop Pod and them a singular Dakka Baal Predator.

 

Amy tips in general would be appreciated though :P.

 

Malatox

[Brom MKIV]

If you arent used to playing against green tide or horde/fodder type armies in general then I imagine this was a pretty big surprise (it was for me too). Green skins fight like rabid muts in combat and pour out some serious dakka. Respekt Dat! Also their armies are usually piloted by owners of a similar, shall we say..nature, and ones with insanely good luck at that! IDK maybe that last is off but seriously bs2 outshooting marines? Yep. Lootas, dakkguns, big shootas...fear these.

Anyway I can tell you what you dont want to do, dont engage them in combat unless your bringing a unit with serious combat potential (RAS dont usually qualify) and dont bring many guns like melta. Flamers, Hvy bolters, asscans, and bolters are where its at.

[darth_giles]

Against Tyranids and Orks, your best bet is template weapons and hitting them very hard in one area instead of trying to spread yourself thin.

 

I'd personally suggest going either full bouncy or full mech, but not trying to mix the two. Either way, you're going to have to be making active use of cover to get into combat. Now to solve your immediate problem, I'd definitely suggest getting a Stormraven. Take the Typhoon launcher upgrade; those frag missiles can put some real hurt on lightly-armored Orks once you've blown up their vehicles and dakkajet. Another thing to consider is taking a Havoc squad with missile launchers. Again, use frag missiles against lightly- armored targets and be ready to run away if they get too close.

[Brother apocalyptic]

3 baal predators, 1 with flamestorm and Heavy flamers and the other two with Ass. cannons and HB sponsons.. That will put some serious hurt in anything he tries to get your way.... Also, a single dev squad with 4 missiles will make short work with his dakkajet, or 4 plasma cannons to give the gibbering to any boys....

 

A nice little surprice otherwice would be 2 6 man units of sternguards with 3 combiflamers each, in 2 pods. But they will however die the next round :D

[SnorriSnorrison]

Also, a single dev squad with 4 missiles will make short work with his dakkajet

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that probably one hit per round is going to seal the deal... :D

 

 

Malatox, am I right saying that you're playing quite a low point-level? The summation of your troops looks to be around 1000 points. You could try to convince your friend to play him again at 1500(given you have the models for that) or any higher level up to 2000 points. It will even the balance a bit, because of our not quite cheap special units that we need to make an impact on the battlefield we are at a disadvantage at a lower point level.

 

Let's assume you achieve to do that...first addition should be the Stormraven. Interceptor and gunship should be it's primary roles, no need for transporting stuff around, simply shoot. Typhoon launcher is a good idea, however I'm preferring the twin-linked multi-melta. Each to his own, I guess. While shooting down the dakka jet, you can still take a pot-shot at the boom-cannon due to machine spirit. Immunity to melta-rules, 6es to hit and AV12 all around. It's a great vehicle. :)

 

 

While many users here advice to shoot down the orks from a safer distance, I'm going for the more honourable way of dealing with xenos - with chainswords and righteous fury in glorious close quarter combat! A dedicated CC unit is a good idea, we have loads of them to choose from. DC come to mind, their 5 attacks on the charge makes them basically the weapon against ork mobs. Maybe upgrade(or downgrade, dependant on the perspective) the Furioso to a Death Company Dreadnought with Talons. More attacks, fleet and quite resilient. Transporting it in the stormraven instead of the pod is an idea worth considering, but this has the risk of having a good part of your army in reserves, not on the battlefield.

 

The Tactical squad you have there is very good against hordes, keep it! Perhaps two flamers in your assault squad can work wonders on the charge. Also, if you're being charged, you'll get D3 overwatch hits from each one of them! Don't worry about your anti-tank abilities from the meltaguns, the stormraven is able to deal with everything Orks can come up with. If you're going to include one, that is. ;)

 

 

Well, some more thoughts from me. I hope you'll find them helpful! :)

 

 

 

 

Snorri

[Malatox]

Hey, guys. Thanks for the help so far, I am taking it in when I'm thinking of buying new models (primarily, I'm quite excited to buyinh a Stormraven, they soumd quite fantastic).

 

I think my real weakness was overwhelming targets and numbers. Meaning I need to fix my target priority and deployment/moving up the board with sufficient covet. I even found it hard to deal with the fully armoured aspect of the army (something I was shocked by with the Orks reputation of having vehicles that blow up at a rock).

 

On reflection, I think, that was I able to get first turn I would have been able to capatalise on weakening his Dakka and made ot safer for my Marines. Also my list was primarily boughtvand built for 1500 points, meaning I had to take out elements that severely strengthened my army when I won my first game of the day against Chaos.

 

Is there any glaring or obvious hints I should know about my army for general purpose (my meta is quite MEQ dense btw) and also for my attempt to redeem my battle honour against this particular opponent? I'm specifically talking about psychic disciplines, deployment strategies, moving up the board strategies and target prioritising.

 

Here's a run down of my 1500 point army for those that are interested;

- Epistolary Librariam with Jumppack

- Blood Talon Furioso with heavy flamer in a Droppod

- Sanguinary Priest with powerweapon and jumppack

- Cornobu

- 10 man Assault Squad with Powerfist Seargent and twim meltas

- 9 man Assault Squad with Thunderhammer Seargent and a single melta in a Droppod

- 10 man Tactical Squad with flamer and missile launcher in a Droppod

- 2 Assault Cannon, heavy bolter Baal Preds with Stormbolters

 

Thanks so much for the interest shown this far and please keep commenting :rolleyes:

 

Malatox

[the jeske]

why are you using so many drop pods in a BA army , if you want a pod list SW would be better as they have more support HQs and terminator squad leaders to tank stuff.

 

it seems like your list has not enough of shoting and too much melee in it and your not runing any SR which is huge mistake. mefiston is also a huge force multiplyer for BA lists and you dont have him either.

 

I dont understand what the drop pod tactical is suppose to do . it would be better to run in as a objective camper maybe with a razorback and combat squad it

 

all in all seems like an odd 5th ed army run in 6th ed.

[Malatox]

Hey,

You're right, it was built as an all reserve army for 5th Edition. Sadly I never finished it, then found it hard to game at all for a long time, so the models couldn't really change based on what I had already built myself.

 

The Tactical Squad is in a Droppod to insure the others arrival on turn 1, they can even objective camp and havevthe Droppod pod in.itself.

 

In an add on to my list would probably be a shooty Termy Squad with Assault Cannon and an upgraded Epistolary in TDA in a Stormraven. Probably with the Furioso riding in the back.

 

Malatox

[Leonaides]

Small ork mobs really dislike fear of the darkness, and there's a psy power that allows a unit to ignore all cover saves when shooting- I'm sure you can imagine how that goes down.

 

Dismount his mobs to allow you to control the engagement, then kill a couple to force morale tests, with small mobs again he'll be testing on basic ld fairly soon.

[the jeske]

I dont know , if your planing to use drop dreads then take 3 , maybe 4 with ally . rest of units should form the fire base or be flyers.

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Do you really ever find the Epistolary upgrade particularly useful? I never did so I stopped taking it. In my opinion there are better uses for those points.

 

The glaring weakness to me is that you still don't have any defence against Flyers. If you can't find the points for a 'Raven, take a Defence Line and Quad Gun.

[Brom MKIV]

mefiston is also a huge force multiplyer for BA lists and you dont have him either.

Thats ok because he has..."-Cornobu"! Only joking.

 

Is there any glaring or obvious hints I should know about my army for general purpose (my meta is quite MEQ dense btw) and also for my attempt to redeem my battle honour against this particular opponent? I'm specifically talking about psychic disciplines, deployment strategies, moving up the board strategies and target prioritising.

These guys here are shooting you straight especially regarding the raven and mephiston and epistolary upgrade. BAs powers already act as a free upgrade anyway.

Now, if we evaluate your list, especially the drop pod units, we see a bunch of fighty stuff: talon dread, assault squad..and a tac squad. These types of units are less than ideal for drop podding. The dread and infantry are gonna land and get shot and if they survive assaulted right off the board. This is true against pretty much any army. I feel these 3 units weakens your list because they dont apply any pressure upon arrival, or even the turn after except the dread so they just give up easy kill pts. You need more firepower.

 

My advice, if you want to keep the drop pods, would be to keep the furioso but give him frag cannon and magna grapple, the standard loadout. Then take 2 of these dudes. Talon dreads are scary..if they are assaulting from a raven. If not they can be pretty...meh. One could argue they work great against mobs, if they get there, but mephiston probably does this better. The "fragioso" otoh is nasty. It has a high damage output on arrival for its cost, threatens anything in the game, and protects itself when assaulted with 2 snapfire s8 and 2d3 rending overwatches. Its the definition of 'must be dealt with'. Ive seen these things kill terminator lone wolves with storm shield..just from overwatch. Anyway for your 3rd DP unit look to something more killy like sternguard with dual heavy flamers and combi weapons. Great all round unit, add a priest or corbulo if you like. And again a storm raven and mephiston.

 

For strategy and target priority, as mentioned dismount stuff like burna boyz and target the dangerous stuff like burnas, lootas, bikers. DONT get blinded into shooting at boyz and similar throw away units unless you have to or youve already dealt with the higher priority stuff. These units are kustom made to eat bolterfire and besides thats what mephiston is for, and to a lesser extent your jumps.

Really like the fear the darkness idea btw, never seen it done tbh but sounds nasty.

[Leonaides]

It's great fun doing it to a mob of megaarmoured nobs...

[the jeske]

Thats ok because he has..."-Cornobu"! Only joking.

no idea what your talking about.

[Brom MKIV]

no idea what your talking about.

It was a typo from the OP's army list, struck me as funny at the time..

[Demoulius]

Ive fought against plenty of Ork lists over the last few years and theres no greater way then charging them with furious charge and rerolls from a liby B)

 

The best result ive had is slaying them to a man....in a single charge ;) If you have 2 squads like that charging large mobs together is even more devasting (obviously) but it doesent even need to be an assault squad. Anything will do really, Orks really lose their punch if theyre not charging... S3 isent that scary :D Now with challenges and character sniping Nobs are also a far smaller threat then they used to be ;)

 

It sounds like your problem lies more heavily with their mechanised parties then anything else really... Ive ussually solved them with multi-melta attack bikers or speeders. Failling that the meltaguns on my assault marines are good as a last resort. The list you specified doesent look so scary in my eyes :) the onyl thing you shouldnt want to charge are the burnas. Pop their transport (troublesome with a battlewagon with cover save, but hardly impossible...) and then rapid fire them to death. You wouldnt want to charge them as their burnas act like power weapons in close combat or give you a ton of automatic hits when you charge (allthough hes somewhat kickin himself in the chins if he does that over the power weapon option...) everything else... Well...

 

I think in this list your droppods are actually harming you more then they are helping you as your low numbers stand a good chance of beeing spread out... You also cant afford to lose to many men which your quite likely to do when dropping head first into 12 burnas <_< I doubt you can take down his battlewagon in time. First turn theres (as I read it) also no enemy model outside of a transport meaning your furioso wont have anything to charge (well he cant charge 1st turn anyway...I know that but still) until you pop transports...

 

Some suggestions:

Unless you really want to keep the Epistolary upgrade, drop it. To expensive for what it can do...

Take off the storm bolters on the Baal's. Doubt they will be adding much in this case.

 

With the 70 pts spared take a MM attack bike and give the tactical squad sargeant and assault squad sargeants combi-weapons. My suggestion would be combi-meltas (for most likely obvious reasons...) and switch the free missle launcher over for a free MM. Since your drop podding him the smaller range isent so much of a drawback :( to be honest though if you know what your opponent is bringing its easy to counter... I always (try to) bring as much balanced lists as possible and hardly (if ever) change anything. Sometimes its a hinderance but with the right list ive found I can tackle most foes. Sticking with the same lists also makes one more familiar with it, which is a very nice thing to have. You know what unit can (most likely) do what and you know when you need to throw in more units to handle a particular job.

 

Best of luck! :lol:

[Gideon999]

As a regular foe to me, the Orks have always been an issue to tackle. You can bet, at any points level, that they will have twice the bodies on the table as you, twice the armour, and (due to volume of fire and such) they will actually shoot just as well as you do.

 

So how do you beat them? A couple of things that have helped :

 

- Mobility - if your force is locked in one place, you need to ensure that you either have a way to hold him up long enough for you to shoot enough orks to manage them once they reach you.

 

- Terrain - use terrain to your advantage as often as possible. 30 boy mobs may not be quite as nasty in 6th as they were in 5th, but they are still a horribly effective troops option for the points. They can tarpit 2 of your squads easily if allowed to for multiple turns, at which point they have held YOU in place long enough for him to get the rest of his army to your lines and then its curtains. If you can file them between terrain or, even better, force them to clamour over each other to reach you you can really make things easier.

 

- Redundancy - your units will do well if they have more than one in the army capable of each task. IE - dont take one squad of devastators, take 2 or 3. Don't take 1 vindicator, take 2. Etc.

 

- Cost effectiveness - make your models DIRT CHEAP. I would say straight off (and this is purely my opinion so please no offense intended to other posters) that putting hurricane bolters and a typhoon launcher on a stormrave against orks is a waste of 50 points. One good round of shooting from a small group of lootah's and your raven is a smoking wreck. I have seen it happen more times than it doesnt, so I find that using the most cost effective choice and taking more of them tends to do better.

 

- Identify his plan early - usually this is as simple as "WAAAHGH! Charge!" but some ork players are very crafty. 2 squads of 7-8 lootahs is cheap and if deployed in the right way he can cover the whole board with them and make them virtually impossible to reach barring pods, etc. He might actually just be trying to hold you occupied long enough to claim objectives and win that way.

 

Hope that helps!

[Kickrock]

Three times I have tried to post to you. Three times the network has forced me to log back in, but from our domain… forcing me to lose everything I typed. Wanna talk about the Red Rage!

 

So, are you from Dayton Ohio? If so I know exactly who you are playing. List sounds exactly like a guy I know, which means that everything I’m about to tell you will work, but may cause some waves. If you are hit me up in a PM and I’ll give you the skinny.

 

So, let’s talk about what I personally would change about your list first. Some people (those bashing pods) will disagree with me. I don’t care, it’s my play style (and looks similar to yours) and works out for me.

 

* That 9 man Assault Squad w/ Thunder Hammer Sgt and Drop Pod comes out to 212. You can get a 8 man Death Company squad with a Drop Pod and Bolters (Will still do more damage than the Assault Squad) for 195 or a 7 man Death Company squad with a Drop Pod and a single Thunder Hammer for 205. Either way, it is causing more damage than the Assault Squad (just as many attacks, more on the charge, has ranged capabilities through Bolters). It just cannot score.

* If you take my advice on the Death Company you can swap that Furioso for a Death Company Dread. I say this because you are going for Talons. That extra attack can make a world of difference. He will lose that extra armor, which can hurt. But, you shouldn’t have to worry since only Nobz with Klaws and Rokkits (Assault 1 BS2) can hurt it. We’ll talk about how to use him in a second.

* If you take the Death Company you can drop “Cornobu” and put his points towards two MM Attack Bikes.

* Epistolary is nice if you’re running, let’s say “Fear of the Dark / something else.” I ran it a lot in 5th edition. But in 6th Prescience is more desired. I would drop that for a 3rd bike for the squad, or a 3rd Baal Predator.

* On those Baals, Assault Cannons / Bolters are nice. That’s what I generally run, but Flamestorm Cannons will eat through those mobs (Specially the Nob Bikers). I’ll talk about that in a second.

 

So, Bikers are the biggest threat. I would say put power weapons on him. 10 man DC w/ Chaplain or Assault Terminators w/ Claws and a Librarian would do the trick. Unfortunately, you don’t have those. You can’t shoot them (4+ cover all the time). Next best thing is Flamestorm Cannons. Ignore saves, wounds on 3’s. Roll up two and they’ll almost be forced to fall back. Roll up 3 and you can almost wipe them out.

 

The Wagon is going to be tricky. You’ve got two options; Furioso/DC Dread on it with melta, or put the Assault Squad on it with Melta. The Dread is ideal since the contents can’t hurt him. But you may have to divert him.

 

The buggies can be mean but we’ll talk those in strategy. Trukks less mean, but again… Strat

The Looted Wagon can be dealt with by deep striking that assault squad.

 

Now, you know how I would deal with each threat. Now is for execution. You have three drop pods. Two come in turn 1. If you took my advice you’ll have Two Baals, Death Company, Tactical Squad and three MM Attack bikes on the board (Or Three Baals). Drop Pod the Death Company and the Tactical Squad mid field. No so much mid that they’ll get slaughtered by bikers turn one or two but close enough so that the Dakka Jet has only one round of shooting at them before it flies over. Deploy behind the pods, but close enough to get some shooting out. You want them to come from around the pods while you still get cover. The Baals will move up on the same flank as the Bikers and the MM Bikes will follow suit. Your infantry will play this “Alamo” style. HOLD THE DREAD IN RESERVE

 

This gets risky (The way I like to play). If the dreadnought does not come in on turn 2 you are in trouble. If he does, it’s all good. The Baal Predators will light up the Bikers, hopefully forcing them back but if not you will lose a Baal. This is OK, don’t expect to win without any casualties If you were not able to do enough damage to the Bikers, you may consider putting the Dreadnought on them. With the talons there is a chance he can force a retreat on them. Otherwise, you’re slowing them down. If this is not the case then put the Dreadnought on the wagon. From here you will melta the Wagon with the Dreadnought or with the Attack Bikes. If you go with the second the dread can start working on the Burna Boyz, otherwise the Bikes can start popping Buggies and Trukks. Deep Strike your Assault Squad onto the Looted Wagon.

 

From this point, it is playing defensive mid field. The Attack Bikes (Or surviving Baals) will work on running down Trukks and spilling the contents. Clean up the contents with Death Company and your Tactical Squads. Once the Assault Squad has taken care of the Looted Wagon I would use them as a counter assault unit for your Tactical Squad, otherwise pop transports and clean the contents up. Around turn 4-5 you will start to move to the objectives depending on how close / far they are from you.

 

If this plays out correctly and you get normal, statistical dice rolls then you should be good. They will more than likely try to overwhelm you mid field, but the Death Company can tie them up and wipe them out. As soon as that Biker Squad falls back or gets destroyed you’ll be in the clear. Now, if you miss your reserve roll on the Dreadnought to tie up those Burna Boyz, or you have bad dice rolls and the Bikers kill both Baals in the same turn you’re probably going lose. Specially against those bikers. I hate to say it but there is not a lot you can do to recover from that.

 

On another note, don’t listen to the hate on the Drop Pods. Just because a different codex can do it better doesn’t me we should stop. Grey Knights can do the Razorback Spam cheaper than us, but we still do it. They can also out shoot us mid field and out assault us. But.. we continue to play our own book with little complaints.

 

Good luck to you!!

[John Rainbow]

Whilst this is all good advice it also sounds like you're a fairly new player, or are at least pretty new to 5th/6th ed. If so, I would encourage you to just play. No one likes getting their butt kicked but it might continue to happen for a while as you adjust to the game. You should also try and ask your opponents for advice after the game.

 

I spent the best part of a year getting it handed to me pretty regularly by my opponents but definitely improved massively over that time period. I also found that asking for advice after games and such was a really good way to improve.

[SevenExxes]

Ahem ...

 

DEATH COMPANY!!

[SnorriSnorrison]

Ahem ...

 

DEATH COMPANY!!

 

'Nuff said, really.

 

 

Snorri