Azrael: He's good, but does he work?

[Darkangeldentist]

Not that long after the current codex dropped I used Azrael to lead my standard Dark angels to battle and paired him with Ezekiel for quite a while. The two make a great combo since Ezekiel is an excellent psyker in general lacking only one thing which Azrael gives him if they are in the same squad.

 

My favoured squad to attach these leaders of the chapter to was a humble tactical squad with powerfist vet and a meltagun. Even against 2+ save units the squad becomes quite dangerous to them thanks to the sheer number of attacks you can be throwing at them. If you manage a mind worm on an enemy character you can sometimes avoid the issues from dangerous challenges and there is always the sergeant to send in first. The key aspect though is the simple fact that you'll be getting a lot of hits and everyone in the unit will have a 4+ invulnerable whilst Azrael lives. The pair of characters having 2+ saves also makes them amazing wound sinks against plinking shots that are designed to wear the squad down.

 

I disagree about the concept that you must design a list around Azrael, my experience was that he took over a generically styled list made up of marines supported by deathwing and ravenwing very well. Fliers can be a problem but an aegis defence line with quad gun/lascannon can fix that if you are really worried about it. Devastators with missiles and lascannons supported by prescience isn't too bad in that role even if you don't get the opportunity to shoot them on their turn.

 

Azrael making Deathwing and Ravenwing troops but that shouldn't trick you into changing your thought process about list design. Two - three tactical squads, a unit of Deathwing and a squad of Ravenwing with attack bike will take up the bulk of your points but forms a very solid core to work around. With a pair of rhinos (to help control line of sight and mobility) this package will likely cost about 1200pts including Azrael and Ezekiel. What's left is enough to get a small squad of devastators and a dreadnought, possibly venerable or in a drop pod and still come in below 1500pts. Ravenwing will have melta guns in a min squad and the attack bike a multi-melta so you should be ok for tank busting but a squad of devastators should help ensure you can deal with monsters and armour. Larger points allow for more options but I've found this rough outline for the list to work very well. I particularly like black knights though when taking Ezekiel and Azrael as although joining them to the unit makes it woefully slow for a bike squad their firepower and melee punch is ludicrous! (Prescience with those corvus hammers and +1 WS on them to boot makes them utterly devastating in combat and the excess of plasma also helps deal with monsters and 2+ saves, any of the divination powers on the knights is evil.)

 

The way the list works is to have Ezekiel and Azrael join a tactical squad to make it as tough a tarpit for my opponent to remove as possible. They appear an incredibly tempting target and have a respectable threat to a wide variety of targets but the main objective for them is to draw fire from the rest of the list. You can pick which warlord trait will help you best for this task and I've been surprised how often this has been useful. Ezekiel adds the usual and wonderful level of psychic support that most of us love and divination has been my favoured discipline with him. Preconigition on a guy with his stats and save (with Azrael) makes him a terrifying tank to get through.

 

Now there are some nifty tricks you can use to get stuff around the table a bit quicker, particularly when going first and this helps improve the table presence of Azrael and his tactical squad buddies but you can join him to the Deathwing if there's a preponderence of plasma type weaponry and you want/need to keep the terminators alive. If you are going first you can deploy Ezekiel and Azrael with the Ravenwing to start with so they can all scout forwards a little, then on turn one the bikes zip off to get their alpha strike on a tank/transport whilst a rhino borne tactical squad is moved up, jumps out of their transport and the characters join up with them. This places your squad with Azrael and Ezekiel 12" up the table without running. The other neat aspect of this tactic is that Ezekiel can put misfortune on an enemy unit turn 1! Keeping the bikes in reserve to come in later to grab objectives makes for a nice late game grab and you can choose the appropriate trait to help keep them off or come onto the table as needed if this is a ploy you go with. You can play a similar game with the Deathwing to come down late and help grab objectives.

 

I am definitely of the opinion that Azrael is worth his points and good when used well. It is a pity that you can't really exploit all his rules and abilities very well but most of them can have some impact on games and his board presence is solid enough for me to overlook his failing. I can't deny my disappointment that the sword of secrets is arguably now the worst of the heavenfall blades when it ought to be the greatest. AP 2 would be awesome and is definitely my first pick for what to change but other than that I am fairly content with what we have.

 

[shabbadoo]

At 2000+ points, I can't disagree with shabbadoo...at 1750-2000, I don't think you can afford the 330 point veteran squad and the 250+ point land raider, so I'd go for drop podding, if you're drop podding in general, or the footslogging. It's true that the vets are no more protected than a tactical marine who costs half as much against lasguns and pulse rifles...but they're also not scoring, so if the enemy wants to torrent them and ignore your scoring units, he does so at his peril. Besides that, you shouldn't make every model cost 33 points, you should have at least four bullet sponges in there, so you're not losing 33 points per small arms casualty, you're losing 18, and the 4 point difference between them and tacticals is hardly worth crying over, especially given, as stated, that they're not scoring and the enemy is choosing to kill an 18 point decoy in lieu of a 14 point scorer.

 

/edit/

 

Interesting idea, Luci...I would still prefer a jump-chappy for that job, but the 4++ on assault marines sure is tempting.

Yes, they are not all 33 points; that is just a rough points average per model (i.e. the power fist guys are more, the combi-weapon guys less, etc.).  However, on a Drop Pod unit, the combi-weapon guys go out front, because once they have shot the good part of their combi-weapon they are then the most expendable squad members.  For the Land Raider set-up, everybody gets somethings, as that unit is going to pile out the Land Raider and hit hard.  In that particular unit, the more expendable squad members will usually be those with power weapons.

 

As to the Assault Squad, it could work, but I am still be leery of fielding a vulnerable footslogging unit, and would instead drop their jump packs and put them in a Drop Pod or Rhino (can't beat a free swap!).  On the upside, the weapon upgrades in an Assault Squad are not limited to one for every full 5 models in the squad, so you can always have two of them, plus something else on the Sgt.

[Vissah]

I get the impression that most people think Azrael needs to be in combat and that is, according to me, not his speciallity. He is a buff character who is also a potent fighter in CC but is that were he belongs the whole game: No he does not.

He gives more then enough buffs to the whole army that he has to work togheter with in order to make the army as a whole work the way you want them to.

Why put him in a expensive Vet squad with a Land Raider when a Tac squad is more usefull cause they are scoring.

 

Azrael belongs on the frontline with his men there is no doubt about that but if he never sees combat that is also fine with me cause he needs to hold the line and help out my army and scare of potential attackers cause like I said he knows how to fight aswell.

 

Just stick im in a Tac squad and let him move around with them either in a Land Raider, Rhino or on foot and let your whole army and Azrael work togheter in order to achieve victory. He gives a 4++ save for that Tac squad so that squad can be more aggresive and let the other squads support them.

 

Hope it makes sense.

[Snickers]

Haven't had a chance to try it, but earlier in the thread someone mention using Azrael with allied SM Centurions, I think this would be a rather potent combo as they get a 50% chance to save any AP 2&1 wounds while he's alive. Also I think GW wrote Azrael to be used with Ezekiel, give them a cheap tactical squad with a drop pod, then load up on deathwing and ravenwing, then profit.