Death Company Army Builds And Tactics

Hi readers,

Today I'm going to have a quick run through the builds that I will be playing Death Company with and discuss the tactics that I would utilise with these builds along with their respective strengths and weaknesses. I'm not going to profess that I am an expert on any of this subject matter so if you disagree with something I say, please do comment below with your opinion as its always good to see how someone uses a unit differently (just try not to state your opinion as fact if you don't mind!).

Fun Army Build

So the list I am about to describe is more of a "fun" army build that utilises unique aspects of the Blood Angels with a focus on the Death company and their ability to be inherently tooled up ba***rds of destruction.

Firstly, I will be using the Baal Strike Force detachment in the Blood Angels codex. This is because marines are the most common army to encounter out there, so with all things being equal (such as weapon skill and strength without any special weapons) that additional point of initiative (providing you didn't perform a disordered charge) means you will strike first over almost all other marines and at the same time as almost all Eldar. This means that you will be facing less attacks back from marines and that you will actually get your chance to hit the wily xenos scum before dying. Obviously any I1 weapon like thunder hammers ignore this benefit.

So in this 1850 point list I will be taking the following:

HQ - Astorath the Grim 

Elite - Lemartes, Guardian of the Lost

Elite - 10 x Jump Pack Death Company (4 x Infernus Pistol, 2 x thunder hammer, 2 x power fist)

Elite - 10 x Jump Pack Death Company (4 x hand flamers, 2 x thunder hammer, 2 x power fist, 2 x power sword)

Troop - Cassor the Damned

Troop - Raphen's Death Company

Heavy Support - Baal Predator (Flamestorm cannon and 2 x heavy flamers)

Heavy Support - Storm Raven ( lascannon, typhoon launcher, hurricane bolters)

Now obviously this has 2 very expensive units that are the heart of the army and they will make or break any game you play, it also focuses on these units being led by the buffering Astorath and Lemartes, but I will discuss that later in the tactics section. 

Fun Army Build Tactics

So this army relies heavily on two things. The first of which is the two large death company squads surviving, both to get into contact with the enemy, but also that anything swinging before initiative step 1 doesn't kill of those thunder hammers and power fists first and secondly the storm raven turning up in a timely fashion of sorts.

The Death Company squads have fire power to thin out cover camping squads (albeit at strength 3 but there are 4 of them which makes up for it) and take on 2+ armour save (if within 6 inches) and obviously you need to direct these to their targets as appropriate with the infernus pistols going for either mech or terminator equivalents. The flamer squad can still deal with 2+ saves and mech thanks to the thunder hammers and power fists but softening something up with shooting is always a big bonus. Hug cover and get in the enemies face as fast as possible, these guys belong in combat not being shot at. 

Raphen's death company are designed to hide and claim objectives, they are too small to be a threat and will die very easily to sustained fire power, so keep hidden and score points is the name of the game.

Cassor the damned can run in the Storm raven, he is an absolutely superb mulcher of elite units for 2 fantastic reasons. Firstly he can put out 6 attacks on the charge (3 base + 1 for 2 x CCW and +2 for rage) and these will instant death anything that is T5 or lower because they are S10 (maxes out at 10) or S13 on the charge with furious charge EDITED following Westriders points in comments :). So multi wound models will fall beneath his wrath leaving only invulnerable saves to keep them alive. Secondly, he is a character. This allows him to challenge anything initiative 4 and strike at the same time, or anything initiative 5 on the charge because of the detachment. He is a character slayer and can bag you vital points or kills because of it.

The Baal predator is used to manoeuvre the enemy around to avoid its flamer templates and thus aid in the Death Company squads getting into combat as they are hugging cover and closing as rapidly as they can. 

Finally we can consider the benefit of Astorath and Lemartes. Both of these guys have zealot, so you will be re-rolling all failed to hit rolls in the first round of combat. This is huge with death company and will allow you to deal out a huge amount of hits immediately. Astorath also has Liturgies of Blood which allows the unit to re-roll failed to wound rolls in the first round of combat. Whichever squad you decide to place him with, they will murder everything. Astorath hits at I1 but will instant death anyone not eternal warrior on a to wound of a 6, but he only has a 4+ invulnerable so is susceptible to instant death himself. Lemartes is a great horde thinner with his +2 strength AP 4 6 attacks on the charge. 

"Competitive" Army Build

So this list has an actual "competitive" focus about it, though I frame the word in quotation marks as the events I attend are, in general, fairly heavily comped and so not really a measure of true competitive meta as they actively encourage a more friendly environment that doesn't ban Win At All Cost (WAAC) lists but certainly limits and frowns upon them.

That being said this 1850 force can deliver a lot of nastiness itself if played well. It also relies on the Baal Strike Force Detachment though this takes advantage not only of the extra point of initiative but also the extra elite slot that it grants allowing you to really max out on the Death Company goods.

HQ - Captain (Artificer amour, storm shield, Valours edge, Veritas Vitae, Jump pack and melta bomb)

Elite - 10 x Jump Pack Death Company (1 x thunder hammer, 1 x power fist, 1 power sword, 1 x hand flamer, 1 x infernus pistol)

Elite - 10 x Jump Pack Death Company (1 x thunder hammer, 1 x power fist, 1 power sword, 1 x hand flamer, 1 x infernus pistol)

Elite - 10 x Jump Pack Death Company (1 x thunder hammer, 1 x power fist, 1 power sword, 1 x hand flamer, 1 x infernus pistol)

Elite - 10 x Jump Pack Death Company (1 x thunder hammer, 1 x power fist, 1 power sword, 1 x hand flamer)

Troop - Cassor the Damned

Troop - Raphen's Death Company

Fast Attack - Drop pod (storm bolter)

So as you can see, a much more balanced build that repeats the same squad build 4 times (with the exception of one infernus pistol) incorporating both duality and redundancy across the army. The one big glaring omission in this list is any ground to air or air to air attacking capability, but this is a deliberate choice and has thus been equipped appropriately as I will discuss below.

Competitive Army Build Tactics

This army does away with any mechanised vehicles beyond the drop pod and relies entirely on multiple threats with jump packs moving up the board as fast as possible to engage the enemy.

The captain is quite expensive but comes with a few handy trinkets. The most important of these is the Veritas Vitae that allows you generate an additional warlord trait from the strategic table. So you can have two from that table if you wish or chance your luck on two different tables. A good roll can be a game winner. He also has Valour's Edge, an at strength and at initiative AP2 power sword, however this is strength 5 and initiative 6 on the charge in this detachment so it can be very good. The shield is for survival and the melta bomb allows him to tackle armour as well. 

The Death Company Squads are tool kits. Ignores cover templates? Check. Melta gun? Check. AP2 weaponry at x2 strength for 2+ saves and armour? Check. Power sword for at initiative AP3? Check. 7 other guys pumping out 35 attacks on the charge at strength 5 PLUS the possibility of hammer of wrath attacks? Mother flipping check all over that.

Four of these squads ensures that either you will lose a few from all or maybe one whole squad. Remember these guys have Feel No Pain so they can shrug off a lot of Strength 7 or lower shots a third of the time enhancing their survivability. Utilise the cover and punch everything to death.

Raphen's Death Company have exactly the same role as described above.

Cassor the Damned now comes in a drop pod on the first turn, he is designed to be an angry distraction in the backfield, maybe score an objective first turn BUT also don't forget he has a meltagun (12 inch range so 6 inch for melta) and so can help take out some armour in the enemies back line as well. 

As mentioned in the build section, this army lacks any anti-flier capability unless they are in hover mode. But the point of this army is to be engaged in combat thus preventing them being shot at. These guys have a 12 inch move and up to a 6 inch run on the first turn and if the enemy has moved towards you or has been forced to as they need to claim maelstrom objectives then a turn 2 charge (or if you're lucky a turn one charge if you went second) is very much achievable. 

Null deployed armies like a Nemesis Strike force will hurt this army but then you should be facing off against an equally elite army so it balances itself somewhat as long as you take down the Dreadknights early on.

Conclusions

Anyway, well done if you have made it through the wall of text to get to this point! I do appreciate anyone reading all the way through my drivel on tactics in a game that I play narratively more often than not but I do attend tournaments on an at least once yearly schedule and don't do to badly at them (that's a lie!).

I would love to hear anyone else's experience of using Death Company heavy lists or just shared tactics for relatively small elite armies as well, I love to swap and debate ideas, just be friendly about it (partly because I can be very slow sometimes...).

Let me know if you enjoyed this article and if there are any other tactics either as part of my armies (past and present or even future) or just general theory hammer tactics that you would like to see.

Thanks as always and

Peace out,

Rob

Baal Predator ahoy! And Astorath the Grim finally based.

Hi readers,

So I have the penultimate game in my running narrative campaign today and this one isn't going to be a custom mission but rolled up from the maelstrom missions instead. Its going to run at 2000 points and I am now using my Blood Angels after all of my Templars were slaughtered to a man! Well to two men, but close enough!

Unfortunately I didn't have quite enough points painted up when I counted them up last night and even then I will have a very low model count with expensive models being used and lots of characters as well.. so I don't fancy my chances!


Baal Predator (mmm toasty)

In order to make up the points without resorting to resurrecting some Black Templar marines from the warp beyond I got down to the grind stone and smashed out my Baal Predator tank. Painted much in the same way as my Storm raven to be a dirty vehicle used frequently in battle, I think I overdid the initial dry brush a little bit but its worked out OK I think. I also attempted a bit of battle damage weathering which is a bit meh, but something I very much want to work on and can awlays paint over black if needed. Not too shabby for an evenings work anyway!

The model was an ebay rescue, which whilst mostly put together well, does have the bizarre back to front rear hatch which I could not fathom how that came about...

As with most of my Death Company I still really need to give it all one extra highlight of administratum grey, but it looks good enough in its current form to hopefully toast some Orks with them there flamers today! The winner of this maelstrom battle will be allowed to choose their deployment area, night fighting and to go first or not with no opportunity to seize in the final battle of this campaign. Tasty!

As usual please keep an eye out for the battle report next week after I've sorted through the pictures and gotten it written up in a narrative. And in a fortnight there will be the big showdown, which will be 2500 points of Blood Angels versus Orks entrenched in an Ork town barricade ready to fend off my attack!


Astorath and Base Adaptors

Finally I actually received my base adaptors for 25mm to 32mm size and applied them to Astorath the Grim, Redeemer of the Lost. Pictures!!

Overall, supremely underwhelmed with them, I had expected them to be a much better fit overall and they were all too large to glue on snugly so I had to cut small bits of each end to get them to fit around it giving a nice contact on the 25mm base. You can see from the pictures below how they leave a gap if you fit them too a 25mm base without cutting them.

He looks good overall in the end and fits in nicely now with his increased base size, but if I had a lot to do I would just tear them off the old bases and stick them on actual 32mm bases. But for the odd character they are OK I suppose. 6/10 overall.

Anyway, I have next week off to expect a lot more death company WIP shots and also some musings on how I plan to field them and tactics for getting the most out of them!

Peace out,

Rob

Blood Angels - are we that bad? Part 1 of a retrospective musing - HQ.

Hello readers,

So today I'd like to do Part 1 of a look at the Blood Angels Codex going over the HQ choice. Obviously there are plenty of reviews out there, but in the context of the new Space marines codex and the impending Dark Angels codex many people have been up in arms about both Space Wolves and Blood Angels. The obvious points of contention here are the disparity in points costs for common units (e.g. vanguard veteran power weapons) and even base stat lines (e.g. scouts WS and BS). These are all valid concerns and too a certain extent I'm not going to argue that we received a bit of a crapping on...

HOWEVER

Aside from these disparities I'm going to go over the codex and hopefully show that these disparities alone do not mean we have a bad codex. I actually think it is a very well written codex and remains a mid level of competitiveness if that is your thing. I'm not going to pretend that it competes with eldar and decurions shenanigans but I think it holds it own just fine and combined with the Shield of Baal supplements (which was a whole lot of love more than many other codices got and essentially fills our formation quota lacking in the codex.) it has great flavour and battlefield punch. 

Added to this we are not Dark Eldar (no lord of war and utterly, literally utterly useless units), Tyranids and Orks (difficult armies at the best of times with limited competitive builds and units requiring excellent generalship), Chaos Space marines (well,,, lots and lots and lots - caveat still to be updated), Sisters of battle (.......). And if you look historically at codices that have been left behind such as the previous Dark Angels Codex I laugh at anyone that wants to argue that the gap in power to the Blood Angels Codex from the current crop is similar. It isn't, it just isn't. 

The Blood Angels have their pride bruised and their feathers ruffled but they are still alive and kicking and I hope to go over the Codex sections 1 at a time to illustrate some of these elements. But I am still hoping for a FAQ-up to fix some bits :P

HQ

So what do we have in the HQ department then:

First off lets count this shall we... 6 unique character HQ's (7 including Shield of Baal) plus the 2 x generic unique characters sanguinary priest and Librarian Dreadnought HQ, that alone is nice to have compared to say Salamanders/Ravenguard/Imperial Fists with... 3 between them (maybe 4 I can't remember off the top of my head.) The point is we are individual beyond just red marines still. Now to actually look at some competitive options.

Astorath the Grim, Redeemer of the Lost: Essentially a 3 wound beast of a chaplain with a 2+/4++ that synergises so damn well with Death Company (who are still the boss) granting re-rolls to hit and to wound in the fight sub-phase, every fight sub-phase, not the charge, EVERY fight sub-phase. Yes his axe is unwieldy compared to say the Emperor's champion's sword. But honestly how many axes don't have unwieldy? I'm not an expert but the only one that springs to mind is in OUR codex on OUR LoW Dante! (Who is also boss). Also has adamantium will (Warlord Trait) for protecting your Death company from Pyschic attacks.

Verdict: Stick him in a jump pack unit of Death Company as the striking blow of your force and he will wreck face. He's not a point and click Lysander but he costs 165 points versus 230 points. He's 15 points cheaper than High Marshall helbrecht who only has an AP3 power sword versus Astorath's 2+. I know who I'd bet on.

Mephiston Lord of Death: Adamantium will (Warlord Trait), psyhic hood and mastery level 3? Psychic beast that can make himself strength 10 so is capable of ripping through tanks and insta gibbing many things even without force activated on his sword (wording just says his force sword is strength 10 no mention of force being activated. Also has toughness 5 and a 2+ save for 175 points. Only let down is lack of an invulnerable save or eternal warrior. His transfixing gaze (roll 2D6 and higher than opponent leadership hits on 2+) is a nice bonus to his already good stats and price. 

Verdict: Tigurius is 10 points less. has 1S and 1T less. Has a lower save (3+). Doesn't have adamantium will. Doesn't have furious charge. Doesn't have transfixing gaze. Doesn't have warp charge 1 - I am strength 10 - I will rip your landraider to pieces power. An excellent choice for the psychically engendered.

The Sanguinor The Golden Angel: He doesn't have independent character and he costs 200 points. BUT he is a 2+/4++ eternal warrior WS8, S5, I6, W3, furious charging, fear inducing, jump packing, AP3 master crafted sword wielding beast. Who also grants a 12" bubble of fearless to ANY friendly imperium army units around him (Warlord Trait) and any models within 6" add + 1 to their attacks. And he re-rolls tro hit and to wound in a challenge. He's not perfect but for the price he comes with a whole lot of awesome baggage.

Verdict: Mid level useful in a competitive list but with correct usage can murder many things particularly of the 3+ save variety. AP2 weapons will hurt but he has eternal warrior and a 4++ to shake the odd wound. Avoid AP2 fire and you are good to go. 

Brother Corbulo Keeper of the Red Grail: 120 points with a 3+/5+ FNP. Has +1 initiative if Warlord. Also has 3 wounds for that price furious charge, a +1 strength rending chainsword, an ability to allow the re-roll of a single seize roll, scatter roll, reserve roll, to hit roll, to wound roll or to save roll per game. Only once but maximum tactical utility. That vindicator needs to hit that blob of centurions? You got it. Bam. Also grants +1 WS and +1 I to units within 6". 

Verdict: A very solid support HQ, particularly if you are running a beat stick like Dante for example. Excellent force multiplier if positioned correctly and might just make that crucial difference with a re-roll.  Strongly recommended for a support roll.

Captain Karlaen: Shield of Baal Special Character. 2+/4+ 3W dude with a mastercrafted thunder hammer, counter-attack as well as furious charge and also grants reserve re-rolls for 160 points.

Verdict: For 15 points more than a similarly kitted out Captain you get a mastercrafted hammer, counter attack and reserve roll manipulations. If there was a relic which granted that for 15 points? EVERYONE would take. A solid quite nice and fluffy character.

Now the Generic Unique Characters:

Sanguinary Priest: Yes they are a single HQ choice now. And that is how it should be, it makes sense, I'm also not comparing this to the old codex but to the field it sits in right now. This fella brings FNP and + 1 to WS to the party all for 60 points with 2 wounds. You can also give him a jump pack if you want to give that WS buff to Death company making them even more potent.

Verdict: One of the best value utility cheap HQ's in any marine codex. There I said it. Perfect for low points value games as a single HQ or as a support HQ. 

Dreadnought Librarian: 3HP drop podding armour 13/12/10 Mastery Level 2, furious charge, force halbard wielding dreadnought arriving turn one for 210 points? Beautiful. Also is a character so can have the Blood Angel primaris power cast on him. +D3 attacks and initiative? On a force halberd dreadnought? Cheeky.

Verdict: Popular and rightly so. Personally I'd take Mephiston but his ability to drop pod turn one is a lovely tactical buff to him.

In the balance of fairness I'll go over the others very quickly. 

Tycho of either variety: Nope. Nope. A big tall glass of nope. Not even from a fluff stand point his he ever worth taking as this badass sucks so hard compared to his fluff.

Librarian: Fine, as good as the vanilla equivalent. But take Mephiston. (Ironically I have 2 of these models as presents so they will be in my list). Not bad at all, pretty good but nothing WOW here.

Chaplain: Pretty much as above with the librarian but I would rather take a Sanguinary priest for 30 points less. Not bad but much like the vanilla version, there are just better options out there.

Techmarine: Does anyone take these beyond fluff and style and thunderfire cannons? I would genuinely like to know.

Captain: Again, bog standard. Some of the relics can make him pretty tasty but I think there is always a character I would take over him any day of the week personally. They all bring a lot of special rules that really enhance the army as a whole.

Well there we are! A quick retrospective of Blood Angel HQ's. There are so doozys aren't there? At least I think so and I hope I have convinced you guys that it is a packed slot with fluff, flavour and plenty of fight all combined. I think the comparison to Tigurius is one of the best I could come up with for me. The only real loser is Tycho, man they screwed him up so bloody much.

I will go over the Elites section when I have time to sit down and write, will be honest this post has taken a lot out of me! I'm just not a born writer...

Any comments questions or constructive criticisms (I will have only polite people on here please). Please leave a comment, I'd love to know if you agree or disagree. 

As I said we have been crapped on with recent vanilla changes but we are definitely still a good codex with lots to offer.

Till next time

Peace out

Rob

Astorath the Grim and Archangels List finalised

Hi there everyone!

First thing is first,,, 1000 views!! A pitiful amount compared to many blogs I follow (such as Alex @ From the Fang whom I received a FAT mat from after winning his 1 million views competition), but I hope to get more followers and views as I put more work out there. Incidentally I can't seem to add the followers widget to my blog, just the google plus widget, if anyone else has had this problem do leave me a comment or send me an email on how to sort the damn thing!!

Anyway...

I got back nice and early today from watching tennis in Nottingham which was good fun, if very delayed because of Britain's beautiful weather... I really wanted to make some significant progress today so instead of starting on a squad I decided to paint an independent character because I can finish those in a few hours if I really set myself too it. To that end I decided to paint the metal Astorath the Grim model that arrived on thursday and I had stripped down. I forgot to take pictures of it its stripped stated but here's a picture of him basecoated:

(Though I did give the striated parts an experimental wash and drybrush in this picture - but found it too bright)

And washed x 1:

And washed x 2:

And highlighted and done!

I've not finished his base because he is on a 25mm base and I want my Blood Angels to be fully on the 32mm bases. I have no intention to convert my Black Templars though they will just stay with the 25mm they are all already based on. To do the conversion I have ordered some secret weapon converters and am looking forward to receiving them and doing a little review of how they go together and how effective they are. I know many people are intending to re-base their models and this may prove an easier way than ripping them all off their 25mm bases and sticking on a fresh one, just add an outer layer and base it appropriately. 

Archangels

So I've finally settled on the list I'm going to take with my Archangels Strike Force. Obviously if you hadn't already noticed I'm not a super competitive player, a lot of my choices are based one what I think looks an plays cool with a lot of leaning towards fluff over competitiveness. I don't ignore that aspect but its occurrence is as much happy coincidence as it is design half the time!

Anyway here is the list and I'll put a little summary afterwards.

HQ

Captain Karlaen

Terminator Librarian with ML2 and combi-melta

Elites

Furioso Dreadnought with Frag Cannon, heavy flamer

+ Drop pod with deathwind missile launcher and locator beacon

5 x Assault Terminators - all with lightning claws

5 x Assault Terminaotrs - all with Thunder Hammer + Storm Shield

5 x sternguard with 2 x grav gun, 2 x combi-grav, sergeant has grav pistol + power fist

+ Drop pod with deathwind missile launcher

5 x sternguard with 2 x melta gun, 2 x combi melta, sergeant has combi melta, chainsword

+ Drop pod with storm bolter

5 x vanguard veterans with jump packs, melta bombs, all with storm shields and thunder hammers apart from sergeant who has relic blade, hand flamer 

5 x vanguard veterans with jump packs, 5 x bolt pistol, 1 x power fist, 3 x hand flamers, sergeant has melta bombs and relic blade.

So obviously not that competitive but has some tasty elements too it. Depending on the army I'm facing I can drop 2 of the 3 drop pods which deal with either 2 + saves (grav sternguard), tanks (melta sternguard) or cover hugging infantry/small hordes (3 x flamer dreadnought).

Additionally all scatter in this formation is 6 inches for units arriving from deep strike (which I think includes drop pods?) and I can re-roll my reserves as either a formation benefit or a Captain Karlaen benefit. Though I assume these don't stack, i.e. I can't re-roll the same reserve roll twice if it fails the second time? Feel free to correct me if I can!!

This means I have fair chance of my reserves coming in hot and fast, the terminators are self explanatory, the hammer vets are back up against 2+ and tanks and the flamer vets have some punch in close combat but can gunsling bolt pistols and templates against troops.

The librarian is token psychic defence as well as taking the blood angels powers which means he will get the primaris the quickening. This is intended to be cast on none hammer vets and the dreadnought as well as the hammer vets in a pinch as this will give the sergeant an edge in any challenge hopefully! It will also help if any hammer unit attacks a high AV target, maximising the odds of the hammers rolling 6's with a potential 3 extra attacks each!

I'm not going to change the list, but any suggestions on how best you would run it beyond what I have said would be interesting to hear :)

And I think it is also fair to say that I have resigned myself to also making a Death Company themed army. It already has its HQ and a troop choice in Raphen's Death Company and I purchased 5 none jump pack Death Company off ebay to ride in a storm raven in the final list. So it's happening.

Incidentally if anyone is interested in buying my converted Militarum Tempestus models I have resigned myself to selling them and the Baneblade off together. Please email me any sensible offers that include postage costs :)

Till next time (which could be literally whenever at the moment) my readers and here's to the next 1000 views!

Peace out

Rob