1500 point army with FW

[Shaezus]

Hi all. I've just joined up after a while of loitering shiftily in the shadows; the quality of the posts on here and the humour and good activity convinced me to sign up...finally, a place of fellow old-codex sufferers. Well met!

I've been playing BA for about 23 years now. If you count the 22 year gap I took not long after 3rd ed came out and not including a brief spell with IG towards the end of 5th, I've been playing BA for about a year now. So, er, I'm kinda old-school in my motives and have picked up quick where I left off I suppose.

Managed to get quite a few local tournaments in, much list-tweaking along the way (20 years is quite a while and things ain't quite what they were) and I was please with coming somewhere around 70th place out of 120 in the Caledonian Uprising tourny this year, one of, if not the, biggest in the UK. Would have been way higher if I had picked up on a big rules mistake by my oppo in the final game when we were both knackered, but hey lessons maketh progress.

So here's the list I'm taking to the finals of the Yorkshire Open this weekend. 1500 points, 3 games of standard rulebook missions I think. It's a 7-pod assault force with some Forgeworld niceties to provide barrage and anti-flier support, which is where our blessed old codex is most lacking methinks.

Librarian (FOD / Lance / sword or BRB powers depending on oppo)

Damocles Rhino

2 x Fraggy dreads, both with melta and one also with a magnagrapple. In pods

Brother Corbulo

8 x ASM + meltagun. Sgt. has thunder hammer. in pod

5 x ASM in pod

5 x ASM in pod

5 x Death Company (bolt pistols) + pod

Death Company Dreadnought + pod

Relic Whirlwind Scorpius

2 x Tarantula with Hyperios Missiles

TOTAL = 1499

Although I've been playing with pods for a while now I've only had two games with this specific list so far and won both of them. I like it because it has at least one thing to counter any one kind of unit i.e. there's something for everything in there. It's a balanced list with the emphasis on supporting a solid T1 shock assault. I know many players would not play this way but in my mind it is very much a Blood Angels way of war, if only I could stick some fast vehicles in there. I suppose it doesn't matter how we play, we can't always have everything we would like. The assault element of the list is also highly resistant to small-arms (thank you Corbulo) whilst forcing the enemy to choose who not to shoot with S8+ weaponry.

I know every battle is different but it helps to have an idea in mind, a sort of benchmark for deployment from which plans can be hatched and adapted as required:

The 3 dreads and the 8-man squad come down T1. Corbulo goes with the 8-man squad, also the Librarian unless I am playing against a foe where it would be more useful to have prescience on the barrage units from T1, or if the DZ is just too hot to risk giving away STW.

The Damocles and Scorpius sit at the back with the Death company providing a small protection force.

Basically I co-ordinate the assault so that the barrage units target one flank where vehicles and MC's are most bunched together and the T1 pods aim hit around the other flank, out of danger-close friendly fire range and aiming to deploy close together for mutual firepower and support.

I find that if things roll well on T1, the enemy has to make a rapid change of plan due to losing his most powerful units. It then becomes a case of him dancing to my tune from then on, with the endgame in mind from there. If things roll against me they still have the dilemma of choosing to focus on the strong assault squad and leave some seriously angry dreadnoughts running amok in T2, or try to take out the dreads which can be quite hard to take down so long as their rear arc isn't needlessly exposed. This leaves Corbulo to lead a T2 charge and tank hideous amounts of overwatch, with a thunder hammer in the face for any hard-knocks.

It has its weakness of course, but I love the feel of a BA drop army and when you come up against people who haven't encountered the Frag Cannon or the Blender Dread before, it can be savagely satisfying to play

Any thoughts and comments are welcome.

Cheers.

[Shaezus]

Just thought I would share some of the day's events here, as there were some really strong (and utterly filthy) lists knocking around, including:

 

Chaos daemons with lord of skulls, bloodthirster, tzeench daemon (fateweaver?) plus troops

 

Imperial knights with 3 knights plus some guard troops with that really strong imperial fortifaction..

 

Eldar allied with dark eldar - 2 wraithknights, 25 kymaera with beastmen, eldrad, farseer, swooping hawks and wave serpents and / or jetbikes

 

Tau with fire support cadre - 6 broadsides, 2 riptides, commander, 2 skyrays, 20 kroot and a unit of fire warriors

 

Most of the other armies seemed fairly balanced but the ones above were interesting..

 

Will post some pics up of my army and of the tourny tomorrow. I managed to get 30 points out of a possible 60, a draw a loss and a win so not bad considering my second game was against the tau fire cadre list that is designed to wreck armies like mine :( I was also unlucky not to win my first game against IG, I got dice disease at the most crucial stage which meant a 10-10 share of the points instead of what would have most certainly been ae 20-0 victory.

 

I won the last game vs crimson fists 20-0 thanks to a storming show from the dreadnoughts, blitzing everything in their path and holding strong in assault. Will do some battle reports along with photos if anybody is interested.

 

I still think it is very very hard for BA to make tournament winning lists, but we can be competitive and still give our chapter a good name. I would love to think that the new codex will allow us to compete with the nasty internet-spawned lists that seem to dominate tournaments here.

[Shaezus]

Just a few pics of my first game.

His army:

The pic below shows my oppo's deployment zone. It was Big Guns Never Tire, Vanguard Strike with 4 objectives one of which can be seen in his corner in between the left-most manticore and chimera. Another was off to the bottom of this pic whilst the other two were over in my deployment zone. Sadly the pic of my zone is very blurry, but I had the whirlwind scorpius sitting in some ruins and wrapped with the death company and librarian. The damocles rhino was behind a wall out of LOS and the hyperios mounts were also in cover. Given that the action occured entirely at each board end I didn't take a pic of the whole board as the terrain there didn't influence the game.

Anyway he has two manticores protected by two chimerae each with a squad of veterans with autocannon, a veteran autocannon squad in the ruins and an empty chimera off to the right. In reserve he had his HQ in chimera, a banewolf and two vendettas each with a veteran squad in. One of these was plasma, the other melta.

He seized initiative, used his empty chimera to spotlight the whirlwind (night fighting was in effect) and took aim with his manticores, thankfully only rolling for 3 rockets between them but still enough to put a stunned and shaken result on it. Not that it would have made a difference as I hadn't taken any searchlights..darn, and I had a single point to spare too

In my turn 1 I dropped the fraggies and Corbulo's squad at the top and the death blender dread in the ruins to the bottom of the dismounted squad. First mistake was putting the squad on that flank - we don't get much practice with vanguard strike at my club, and I wrongly assumed his board edge was the one on the left of the pic. So with that banewolf in mind, I deployed where I did...and regretted it shortly after Second big mistake was now deciding to go for first blood with the damocles' orbital bombardment. Due to aforementioned lack of searchlight (sigh..I mean, really?) on anything, the only thing in range was the empty chimera. Which was right next to one of my drop pods. I cast prescience on the damocles, placed the template as far from my pod as possible...and scattered off to nowhere. Re-roll...and scatter on top of my pod and his chimera. I blew up my pod, and immobilised his chimera...and would have got first blood anyway because the fraggies combined to take out one of the other chimeras...so, lesson learned! I think I was too focused on getting that bombardment off before the rhino got blasted, I should have waited and fired it last. D'oh!!!

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll27/timwoowoo/2014-05-10110934.jpg

The pic below shows the state of things in his deployment zone at the end of turn 2. Looking ok, 3 dreads in his face and the assault squad ready to move into cover and hold the objective.

In turn 2 his command squad chiimera came on at the edge in my deployment zone and scurried into cover. His banewolf popped up next to Corbulo's squad with a cheery 'hello' and prepared to make some toast. The vendetta with plasma vets came on and zoomed towards the death blender. Both hyperios launchers let rip and both hit. He decided to jink. I rolled for pen and got a glance and a pen. The glance got through but he rolled a 6 to save the pen. Drat! But thankfully that vendetta then missed all his snap shots on the death blender, probably thanks to the crew being too busy wiping their seats clean. The banewolf let fly with heavy flamer, heavy bolter and chem cannon and racked up a total of only 3 kills, thanks to saves against the flamer and bolt, and 3 rolls of FNP on the 5 chem cannon wounds. Yay Sadly though his manticores finished off the scorpius, meaning it hadn't fired a shot this game. They also put a heap on the assault squad and Corbulo rolled a 1 for his first look out sir attempt then rolled a 1 for his armour save. Ouch. I'd already used his re-roll to kill one of the chimeras.

With the dreads still strong and in his face, although one of the fraggy dreads had had his frag cannon blown off, I could still see the way forward and this turn would be critical if I wanted to nail those manticores. Here's where the dice decided to laugh in my face. In the pic you can see the death blender, it had targeted the nearest manticore and had also caught 2 guardsmen with the heavy flamer, which it needed to kill in order to clear a route through for assaulting the manticore. So I rolled a 3 and a 1 to wound and missed the manticore with the melta. No problem, I'll kill that one guardsman with the storm bolter in the drop pod...roll 1 and 2 to hit. Fiddlesticks! That was a big, big blow even if the dice were not outrageously bad. It was just the timing of it, as the blender dread was then fair game for the vendetta and plasma squad which needless to say wrecked it in turn 3. In the rest of turn two I blew up his topmost chimera, killing enough of the squad inside to force them to flee off the board. I charged across the wrecked chimera with the frag-less fraggy dread and decided to shoot and assault his squad, but didn't cause enough wounds to make them break. Perhaps I should have just shot at the nearest manticore with the meltagun and magnagrapple but with my rolls to hit being what they were at this point, I decided to try and smash through the vets.

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll27/timwoowoo/2014-05-10115505.jpg

In turn 3 his other vendetta came on in my zone and again jinked a penetrating hit. His plasma vets wrecked the death blender whilst the vendetta took out the unengaged fraggy. The fraggy that was locked in combat only scored 1 wound and the squad held.

In turn 4 he started moving the manticores to safety. His HQ chimera shot up my death company and librarian. I decided to charge it and hope to blow it up and rout or slay his warlord, but he got very lucky with overwatch (2 plamsa wounds from 4 shots plus 3 heavy flamer wounds) and I failed all of the armour saves, so he got slay the warlord. I managed to finish off his veteran squad in his corner with the armless fraggy and the surviving members of corbulo's squad, who moved up to seize that objective and claim linebreaker. One of my 5-man drop squads came in and seized the other objective on his side of the board whilst the other managed to scatter the full 12" away from the only other objective that could not be contested by my opponent, then fail horribly at moving through terrain and running so they couldn't reach it.

So it ended 7-7, myself getting two objectives and linebreaker, he getting one objective, one heavy support kill plus STW, linebreaker and first blood.

Overall it was a great game and I think my assault elements did well but I was hindered by some 50-50 decisions where I could have been better off with the other choice, and by bad dice at the most inopportune moments. I would have liked to have an outside opinion though, as maybe the draw was a fair result.