Finally tried the Lion's Blade. Very Brief Batrep

[dalleron]

And It's definitely an interesting idea. I'm used to bikes and termies as that's what I've predominantly played my DA as. I played a Nid army today, and figured it would be a good test, as assaults should have happened more than it did. His army was a little heavy on the shooty big bugs i felt. 2 'Fexes and a tyrant plus a bigger bug. he got burned by rolls for outflanking genestealers for a couple turns.

I fielded, ( is that a word) min squads with plasma cannons, dev with 2 HB and a dual flamer assault squad, a RWAS and a DWRF. of 2 squads and belial with TH/SS. Had the assault squad hang bang to deal with the outflanking genestealers so they did next to nothing. It was basically the termies come down, kill some zoanthropes, then mop up a 6 wound thing which i forget the name of, and a tyrant. Belial helped with his TH on that one. I got like 3 points for killing the tyrant due to a witch hunter card, slay the warlord card and actual slay the warlord. I ended up winning 13-5 on cards. Good ones for me i feel, and ended at end of 5.

Had more bugs been on the board at once, I felt it would have been a better test of the formation and the full BS overwatch. He did have paroxysm up for a turn or two before my termies blew the 'thropes away, which would have hindered me more if it went on.

I do feel it suits greenwing more to a degree, but I'm not used to min maxing as a playstyle. With more greenwing i think it might be more fun, but then why are you playing Dark Angels I definitely want/need more of tac marines. But I think it will be fun to play around with going forward.

So those are my thoughts on the Lion's Blade.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Greenwing are 80% of our army, never feel bad about bringing them.

 

Well done on the victory, For The Lion!

[twopounder]

And It's definitely an interesting idea. I'm used to bikes and termies as that's what I've predominantly played my DA as. I played a Nid army today, and figured it would be a good test, as assaults should have happened more than it did. His army was a little heavy on the shooty big bugs i felt. 2 'Fexes and a tyrant plus a bigger bug. he got burned by rolls for outflanking genestealers for a couple turns.

I fielded, ( is that a word) min squads with plasma cannons, dev with 2 HB and a dual flamer assault squad, a RWAS and a DWRF. of 2 squads and belial with TH/SS. Had the assault squad hang bang to deal with the outflanking genestealers so they did next to nothing. It was basically the termies come down, kill some zoanthropes, then mop up a 6 wound thing which i forget the name of, and a tyrant. Belial helped with his TH on that one. I got like 3 points for killing the tyrant due to a witch hunter card, slay the warlord card and actual slay the warlord. I ended up winning 13-5 on cards. Good ones for me i feel, and ended at end of 5.

Had more bugs been on the board at once, I felt it would have been a better test of the formation and the full BS overwatch. He did have paroxysm up for a turn or two before my termies blew the 'thropes away, which would have hindered me more if it went on.

I do feel it suits greenwing more to a degree, but I'm not used to min maxing as a playstyle. With more greenwing i think it might be more fun, but then why are you playing Dark Angels I definitely want/need more of tac marines. But I think it will be fun to play around with going forward.

So those are my thoughts on the Lion's Blade.

If you're going to play for supreme fire discipline, you have to go all in. You can't overwatch with plasma cannons and flamers don't get a bonus. Against nids, Missile launchers and heavy bolters are a good choice. Lascannons tend to be overkill and you can save the points for other things.

Still, it's hard to find a good army to field against. In this edition, seems most people have tried to go firepower heavy. My first game with the lion's blade was against grey knights. The army was almost all guns. Melee was an afterthought. that was a tough game and my ravenwing support saved my bacon on that.

Though after his first assault attempt, he didn't risk another.

[SnakeChisler]

I've gone from Pure Ravenwing to mixed Demi + Raven and find it a lot better for club games

 

The Obj-Sec gives a lot of board control and I've put all my squads in transports, in terms of weapons I don't tend to tailor much and run with 2 Grav /Rhino on the Dev, 1 * 2 Las Rhino on Tacs & 1 grav Gun Rhino, 2 * Flamer on Assault Drop Pod.

 

HQ wise you can switch your guy to suit with Bikes & Speeders as support I can field a Chaplain on a Bike or Company Master to hang with a Tac or Dev Squad

 

Supreme Fire Discipline has so far taken care of assassins, DreadKnight, loads of Terminators, Rust-stalkers & Infiltrators, Assault Marines etc.. etc

 

I put Combi-weapon's on the Sgts

 

You get a free shot when they Charge the Rhino then a Free shot when they Charge the troops afterwards, you can also be more aggressive in your movement

 

The Support Squad with full over-watch is the icing on the Cake  

[march10k]

Hmmmm...I look at what you fielded, and it doesn't say "Lion's Blade" to me.  It says "the usual deathraven fare with a min/maxed demi company (25 power armored marines, woohoo!) glommed on just for the hell of it, and 20 of the 25 just there to hold heavy weapons.  I would call that "deathraven with devastator support."  I'm not saying you need 100 power armored marines to be a lion's blade, but this really was just doing the bare minimum to qualify.  I would certainly hope to see at least 40 power-armored marines, perhaps some scouts, some vehicles, you know...something a little less...deathraven-y. 

[dalleron]

Yes my DA collection is light on the green guys. I've only just started to get into those guys. I would like to have more of them but the bikes and termies are the defining DA characteristic and what I've built my collection on, a combined arms army.

[twopounder]

Yes my DA collection is light on the green guys. I've only just started to get into those guys. I would like to have more of them but the bikes and termies are the defining DA characteristic and what I've built my collection on, a combined arms army.

 

Pick up betrayal at calth and a few Dark Vengeance tac squads on ebay. You can generally get a pretty good discount on them. That will greatly bolster your greenwing. You get 3x missile launchers and 3x heavy bolters from BAC (along with plasma guns and melta-guns that can double as grav guns). The DV tac squads double up the plasma and add plasma cannons.

 

This forms a strong foundation for a lion's blade demi-company and can be expanded into a full battle company.

 

Plus with a sprinkling of extra bits, the older mark power armor gives that "troves of pre-heresy tech" feel.

 

The big bonus is fielding older mark deathwing ;)

[march10k]

The big bonus is fielding older mark deathwing

~gasp~ MUST...BUY...ANOTHER...B@C...BOX!!!!

[dalleron]

I would love to pick up the B@C box. I know how I'd use it for the most part. I want to bring back the heavy bolter. I feel it's criminally under used by everyone. I have 2 DA halves in my army as it stands now. I've got 20 tac marines and a 5 man dev squad and 5 man assault squad. Alas I'm only working part time theses days cuz life is like that. And I have this tattoo problem where I need more of them. I still have to repurpose the rhinos from my SoB army since they're notmgoing to be used for who knows how long, immolaters too.

 

also, cataphracti armour DW Knights? Yes please

[Elios Harg]

The heavy bolter is under used because it is poor. 3 S5 AP4 shots is just not very good. If it were 3/5 salvo, it would be worthwhile.

[CaptainKael]

You should play 30k Dark Angels. One of our pieces of wargear is molecular acid shells for heavy bolters.

 

A melta bomb increase on each gun to add special ammo with poison (2+), AP D6, heavy 3, 36".

 

I want to built a Heavy Support Squad (30k Devastators) of 10 heavy bolters. Those will do work.

[CaptainKael]

My 30k Dark Angels from B@C will be appearing in 40k as "allied" Consecrators.

[Kasper_Hawser]

As a Space Wolves player, I must say I'm rather vexed as to how to counter your nearly full BS overwatch. With that kind of firepower, I would be very reluctant to charge you especially if you spam plasma in your squads. I guess I would just have to eat the overwatch with my Grey Hunters or Blood Claws, and pray enough are left for the Thunderwolves and Wulfen to charge in. Or let the Thunderwolves and Wulfen eat the overwatch before my other troops come in.

[march10k]

As a Space Wolves player, I must say I'm rather vexed as to how to counter your nearly full BS overwatch. With that kind of firepower, I would be very reluctant to charge you especially if you spam plasma in your squads. I guess I would just have to eat the overwatch with my Grey Hunters or Blood Claws, and pray enough are left for the Thunderwolves and Wulfen to charge in. Or let the Thunderwolves and Wulfen eat the overwatch before my other troops come in.

 

Nearly full?  In a lion's blade, it is full BS.  DA natively overwatch on 5s, a demi company gets 4s, and anything in a lion's blade (which must include a demi company) gets natural BS.  Now...the "tax" to elevate a demi company to lion's blade status is five scouts, so you should never see DA overwatching on BS3, so it's really just BS2 or natural BS.