BA Today

[durdle-durdle]

I’m not saying abandon combat, I’m saying do both. Throwing all your eggs into close combat at the expense of not having decent close range shooting is a terrible idea.

 

What makes generic marines so significantly better at shooting than us? They have 3 stratagems (chapter master, tremor shells, and a worse vengeance for sanguinius) as well as one chapter specific stratagem. The only chapter tactics that focus on shooting are imperial fists (which are reviled as awful), ultramarines (doesn’t actually boost their shooting, just lets them leave combat, which we probably do t want to do anyways), and salamanders (who do admittedly have a great tactic, but an awful stratagem, relic, and warlord trait). You can sort of say raven guard, but really they’re sort of schizo and imo lean to combat.

 

They get centurions and the stalker/hunter (which are bad) in exchange for our much better death co (mega tacticals, basically), sanguinary guard, and librarian dread.

 

Again, I’m not saying abandon combat. I’m saying bring an aggressive shooting list, and throw yourself into combat when you get there, but throwing dice into trying to get turn 1 deep strike charges wasn’t great anyways imo. Instead of using death co as a hammer, I think, use them as tactical marines that also kick ass in combat. Bring a couple units for deep strike charges, but don’t make your whole list hinge on that I think.

 

We have all the strengths of generic marines (except raven guard who are odd outliers), while being much better at combat. Use both.

 

Also tactical marines wound guardsmen on 2’s in close combat when they charge. You could also just take 3 naked bolter scout squads, and take the death co to fill the same role, better.

 

Idk, I think aggressive shooty squads also good in combat in rhinos sound good.

Edited April 24, 2018 by durdle-durdle

[The Unseen]

The fact that you think tactical marines wounding guardsmen on 2s makes them "good" in combat makes me seriously question how much of this game you understand.

 

Imperial fists shooting ignoring cover is pretty mediocre, but it's still better than the BA bonus at range, sallies have a great tactic, the fact that their other stuff is mediocre doesn't change that they make a much better firebase than BA units do, and ultras being able to fall back and still shoot is HUGE.

A mostly shooting unit vs another shooty unit double taps, charges, and either forces the enemy unit to fall back and not shoot the next turn, or stay in combat, then next turn you can fall back and keep shooting, forcing your opponent into a no-win scenario.

 

RavenGuard are better at turn 1 now than we are, and also are much survivable with their long range stuff, -1 to be shot at is amazing vs anything that doesnt hit on a 3+, and is still good then.

 

Iron Hands aren't "shooty" but I'd take a 6+++ over +1 to wound in cc for a shooty unit like devs or hellblasters all day every day.

 

White Scars are the only "vanilla" chapter that makes a worse firebase than we do, but damn are they fast.

 

Templars shouldn't even be in that dex.

They've been stuck in a mediocre shooting-focussed book as a melee faction, so it's no wonder they've been struggling since, but even if you include them, you've got 2/3 of the alternatives in just vanilla marines that help out shooty units to a greater or lesser extent.

5/7 if you include DA, and Wolves don't have a codex yet, but if I had to guess their going to be BA+1 for the 3rd or 4th edition in a row.

 

So again, if your super secret strat is "focus on shooting with a melee backup", why not just play any of the other 5 marine factions that do that way better than we do?

[Spagunk]

We are already doing both shooting and assault but the pressure is that we need to do even less assault and more shooting. As such, we essentially waste the benefit of having the +1 to wound because most of the army is shooting.

 

Don't take this the wrong way but you're just saying the same thing everyone else does which is "don't do close combat/assault". If you reduce your assaulting to, lets say, 25% of your total army build you're still wasting potential with your +1 to wound unless you charge all of your infantry into the enemy. You then have to stick a bunch of lieutenants, captains and stuff to make your shooting worthwhile. You don't have a means of reducing cover saves, you don't have bonuses to shooting attacks nor anything interesting to help move your guys forward. And as far as that 25% goes? Well you get 500 pts (2k game as reference) to put into assault and unless you stick them on the board you have two player turns of essentially being at a point disadvantage against your opponent. If you do stick them on the board, you're very likely to have them targeted first because your enemy knows they don't want them in assault. "Then they aren't shooting your shooty guys" also doesn't work because the way allocation works they can be targeted as well by dedicated anti-infantry. Furthermore, in this example you have 25% of your army with probably 12 inch range weapons (unless you had the foresight to equip them with bolters or something) and rarely do they land the shots they need to help soften their assault targets. So you sacrificing even more of your shooting just by having the assault units there for the chance to possibly do something effective. Assaulting requires a certain amount of mass to really be effective which is why so many of us load up on assaulting. it's a critical mass type thing, not a "We aren't going to change our ways, get stuffed" thing.

 

Whereas if you go 100% shooting, you accomplish the goal of eliminating the pain of assaults but at that point it's more worthwhile to pick a marine army with strats and army bonuses which help that shooting.

 

It's fine, we get it. You guys are tired of us complaining. But consider that anything that affects assaulting and close combat really hits us since a huge portion of our codex is assault oriented. Our strats, our army bonus and even your tactical objectives are very assault based. The same goes for Nids and other assault codexes. We aren't playing tau, we aren't playing guard or ultramarines. We are playing blood angels and for better or worse assaulting is our thing.

Edited April 24, 2018 by Spagunk

[Panzer]

The fact that you think tactical marines wounding guardsmen on 2s makes them "good" in combat makes me seriously question how much of this game you understand.

 

 

Maybe try expaining why it's not good instead of saying the equivalent of "you know nothing, be quiet".

 

Apart from that I agree with you. Vanilla Codex ARE better at shooting. However compared to the real shooty armies they still suck so there's really not that much of a difference between using a little bit more shooty Blood Angels armies and shooty vanilla armies when compared to the armies we seek to beat. If anything our unique units and chapter tactic give us the edge over shooty vanilla lists here.

 

That being said, I do think you two are actually saying the same thing, just not agree on the details, anyway. ^^

 

 

 

Also tactical marines wound guardsmen on 2’s in close combat when they charge. You could also just take 3 naked bolter scout squads, and take the death co to fill the same role, better.

 

Idk, I think aggressive shooty squads also good in combat in rhinos sound good.

 

Wounding guardsmen on 2s is good. However not much better than wounding them on 3s. What's bad here is the low amount of attacks with AP0 so no matter how good you hit and wound there still won't be much damage done after the guardsmen saves. Add to that the fact that Tacticals need a points drop anyway (they literally cost more than three times as many points but aren't even three times as durable and also don't have anywhere near the damage output to justify it) and it should be clear that this is not going to be a viable tactic.

If you want something like that you're better off with Intercessors who have literally twice the amount of attacks and better Bolter and twice as durable (against D1 attacks) for only ~40% more points. However even Intercessors aren't a super great melee unit. They can hold their ground and are a great center you can just throw into the mix but don't expect them to kill stuff left and right. Not even Guardsmen.

[Indefragable]

<snip>

 

I think the grass is always greener on the other side.

 

Here is an older thread I had commented on comparing Black Templar (our current closest comparison) and Blood Angels:

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/344613-old-fart-versus-new-world-an-ongoing-saga/?p=5042117

 

The simple fact of the matter is that Codex Space Marines will always be better at shooting than us. That's by design. Either ignore that design or embrace it. The struggle for Baal has always been knowing when to play like Red Marines and when to play like Blood for the Emperor/Skulls for the Imperial Throne! Yes, shooting is important, but it needs to support and complement the melee efforts rather than take the place of them. If you're up against a Dark Angels battleline packing Hellblasters...that is a losing proposition 9/10 times unless the BA player can find a way to get those Hellblasters locked-up*. The DA player should be focusing his efforts on how to position his Hellblasters in a way that they get maxium LOS/range on targets without having to move. Likewise, the BA player should be focusing on getting out of LOS of said Hellblasters and sweeping in to punch them. There are a 1,000,000 nuances to every game and setup, but that's the general idea, on a typical** basis.

 

 

Shooting is an integral part of 8th edition. So we definitely should not ignore it. But to be at their best BA need some form of kitted-up melee unit(s). Otherwise, we will always get outgunned**. Plain and simple.

 

 

*there's always a time and place for shooting vs punching in a given situation. This is for illustrative purposes only.

**assuming relatively comparable army setups. Obviously an Imperial Fists army with nothing but Vanguard Veterans w/ pistol+chainsword will probably be outgunned by a BA force...

[Karhedron]

Shoot the choppy and chop the shooty has been standard advice as long as I have been playing 40K.

 

Blood Angels are just slightly choppier than codex marines (and have some excellent cool units and HQs to boot).

[Chaplain Gunzhard]

Shoot the choppy and chop the shooty has been standard advice as long as I have been playing 40K.

 

Blood Angels are just slightly choppier than codex marines (and have some excellent cool units and HQs to boot).

Eh, we have the only choppy chapter tactic, all of our characters are choppy, most of our unique units are choppy and even the Baal predator is an up close and personal tank. I'd say we're quite a bit choppier than any codex SM chapter. Wolves do also have a lot of choppy though too.

[Panzer]

Yeah we're definitely quite a bit more choppy. The only other two choppy chapter tactics are more like utility tactics to get into melee but there they are as choppy as ultramarines (BT characters not included). ^^

 

Wolves we'll have to see what they're getting. Their Wulfen and TWC are really choppy as well but their basic units are less choppy than our basic units due our chapter tactic being really good and they not having one. 

[Charlo]

We are choppier and a lot more mobile than our contemporaries.

 

The problem is that this doesn't help against a static gun line with no terrain...

 

The real winner with our assault is that once we get there, it is reliable. The +1 to wound is huge against anything T4 or more and a great bonus to clearing chaff for things like DC.

 

No, we can't just bum-rush an opponent anymore and expect it to work but when has that ever outside of janky turn one-no reaction charges. Admittedly the BETA changes have removed one of our biggest advantages, turn one Pressure, something that Captain Slamguinius, DC & Wings'd Psykers provided in spades... However we adapt and now need to adjust accordingly.

 

As others have said before, scouts are not nearly as necessary to stop enemy drops as our speed means we can cover the board easily and secure a drop site for turn 2. Wings of fire still works T1* as does Forlorn Fury.

 

There is always the argument that leaning more shooty/ midfield aggression and less raw combat in our builds is "I'm not playing BA anymore" but thems the breaks I suppose.

[Xerxus]

There is always the argument that leaning more shooty/ midfield aggression and less raw combat in our builds is "I'm not playing BA anymore" but thems the breaks I suppose.

 

I don't think it means that you aren't playing BA. The problem is that going for more shooting means trying to compete in aspects of the game where BA is considerably less effective than other armies. We share our shooty units with codex marines, even though they have access to Guilliman or -1 to be hit they can't compete with Aeldari armies. 

[Indefragable]

 

 they can't compete with Aeldari armies. 

 

 

The Epitaph of Warhammer 40,000.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

I think it's all predicated on what your build is. The idea of a three tiered army still holds true.

 

It's something I've discussed on here for a couple years. I still have a couple lists build for it.

 

However, something I've been tinkering with lately is an Imperial Knight allied detachment. Though 500ish points is a bit much.

[Karhedron]

However, something I've been tinkering with lately is an Imperial Knight allied detachment. Though 500ish points is a bit much.

Points and capabilities could all change when the new codex drops. The Knight is generally regarded as over-priced so I can see GW dropping the points, particularly if they want to sell the shiny new kits that are in the pipeline.

 

With the ability to improve their Ion shield save to 4++ for a turn for just 1CP, a big knight has a reasonable chance of withstanding a opening salvo if you do not get Turn 1. It would take IG (probably worst case opponent) 41 Lascannon shots to drop a Knight in a single volly (although 20 would be enough on average to start degrading its profile). Deploy it on a flank to make it harder for your opponent to concentrate his firepower and it stands a chance of doing a decent amount of damage before it goes down.

[Xenith]

 

 

 they can't compete with Aeldari armies. 

 

The Epitaph of Warhammer 40,000.

 

Welcome to 2nd 3rd 4th 6th 7th 8th ed 

Edited April 25, 2018 by Xenith

[Charlo]

 

However, something I've been tinkering with lately is an Imperial Knight allied detachment. Though 500ish points is a bit much.

Points and capabilities could all change when the new codex drops. The Knight is generally regarded as over-priced so I can see GW dropping the points, particularly if they want to sell the shiny new kits that are in the pipeline.

 

With the ability to improve their Ion shield save to 4++ for a turn for just 1CP, a big knight has a reasonable chance of withstanding a opening salvo if you do not get Turn 1. It would take IG (probably worst case opponent) 41 Lascannon shots to drop a Knight in a single volly (although 20 would be enough on average to start degrading its profile). Deploy it on a flank to make it harder for your opponent to concentrate his firepower and it stands a chance of doing a decent amount of damage before it goes down.

 

A few of the FW Knights (Atropos, Magaera, Styrix) have a 4++ baseline, so can be increased to a solid 3++ with the stratagem. Makes them very durable when need be. When you can do it every turn for 1CP it's a no brainer.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

 

However, something I've been tinkering with lately is an Imperial Knight allied detachment. Though 500ish points is a bit much.

Points and capabilities could all change when the new codex drops. The Knight is generally regarded as over-priced so I can see GW dropping the points, particularly if they want to sell the shiny new kits that are in the pipeline.

 

With the ability to improve their Ion shield save to 4++ for a turn for just 1CP, a big knight has a reasonable chance of withstanding a opening salvo if you do not get Turn 1. It would take IG (probably worst case opponent) 41 Lascannon shots to drop a Knight in a single volly (although 20 would be enough on average to start degrading its profile). Deploy it on a flank to make it harder for your opponent to concentrate his firepower and it stands a chance of doing a decent amount of damage before it goes down.

That's really what I'm expecting. Either a points decrease hopefully around 75 points base, or they beef them up enough to not die turn 1.

 

Smite spam was a big problem, and luckily the new Errata has helped with that. so we shall see.

 

Not being gimped by turn 1 TH/SH is also a plus.

[Karhedron]

I think a Knight would work really well in an army with plenty of elite units like Sanguinary Guard. These guys are normally a prime target for lascannons and plasma but if you present your opponent with something dangerously shooty like a Knight, he will struggle to deal with both of them before they start tearing big holes in his lines.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

I think a Knight would work really well in an army with plenty of elite units like Sanguinary Guard. These guys are normally a prime target for lascannons and plasma but if you present your opponent with something dangerously shooty like a Knight, he will struggle to deal with both of them before they start tearing big holes in his lines.

That's what I think as well. It also gives those precious PL to be able to put that big unit of SG or DC in reserves to come down later.

[Panzer]

Maybe if the Knights get a point decrease. They are a bit too expensive currently and putting them into an expensive elite army makes it only worse imo.

[Karhedron]

Maybe if the Knights get a point decrease. They are a bit too expensive currently and putting them into an expensive elite army makes it only worse imo.

Not entirely. A very elite army has the advantage of denying an enemy easy kills from his small arms fire whilst attempting to overwhelm his anti-tank capability. Most small arms only wounds a Knight on a 6 and SG get a 2+ save against it as well as having 2 wounds. Take Intercessors as your Troops and put them in cover where possible. By the time the enemy can rack up enough kills to threaten a unit, the rest of your army should be tearing into his lines. Put a Standard of Sacrifice in there somewhere to make the pain even worse.

 

I agree Knights could do with a points drop though. When you consider that a Leman Russ now gets the same firepower as a RFBC provided it does not move too fast, the neeed for some help becomes clear.

[Panzer]

 

Maybe if the Knights get a point decrease. They are a bit too expensive currently and putting them into an expensive elite army makes it only worse imo.

Not entirely. A very elite army has the advantage of denying an enemy easy kills from his small arms fire whilst attempting to overwhelm his anti-tank capability. Most small arms only wounds a Knight on a 6 and SG get a 2+ save against it as well as having 2 wounds. Take Intercessors as your Troops and put them in cover where possible. By the time the enemy can rack up enough kills to threaten a unit, the rest of your army should be tearing into his lines. Put a Standard of Sacrifice in there somewhere to make the pain even worse.

 

 

Weight of fire still trumps durale elite armies tho. Sure they don't do much damage but they also don't have to do as much damage as they would have to do against cheap hordes because there are much less wounds on the board. That's basically the problem Custodes are facing currently and why they aren't a top tier army despite their awesome profiles. ^^

[Karhedron]

That's basically the problem Custodes are facing currently and why they aren't a top tier army despite their awesome profiles. ^^

Custodes also suffer from mobility issues as their only Transport (the Land Raider) is probably even more over-priced than a Knight. If you look at the Custodes unit with mobilty (their Jetbikes) they are a really great unit. That is why SC detachments of 3 biker Captains have been cropping up in soup lists.

 

Knights and SG both have the mobility to bring a lot of force to bear on one part of the enemy army quite quickly whereas most of a Custodes army spends a couple of turns slogging towards the enemy under fire. I am still convinced there is mileage in the concept so I shall have finish painting my 10 SG and put my money where my mouth is.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Karhedronuk

[Indefragable]

Changing subjects a bit, but has anyone been able to access his/her gallery on here?

 

I can't upload anything at all right now.

[Arkaniss]

Seems to be working fine for me right now Indefragable, maybe contact the Admins about it? Could be a site bork they don't know about.

[H311fi5h]

If you want a big distraction, why don't you bring a Shadowsword? That's going to get your opponent's attention for sure. And depending on loadout it can be relatively cheap too.

The value for Knights just isn't there right now.