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

Finished basing and Re-starting efforts on the Death Company

Hello readers!

Been a very busy week for me so far so sadly very little hobby progress. Though I do have the third (and fourth sort of) of my narrative games tonight between my force of Black Templars and my opponents force of Orks. After this battle my Blood Angels will become the major players allowing me to use more of my collection, but also necessitating more of it being painted!!

The battle tonight will have 2 different parts to it. The first will be played on a 4x4 board with a central comms relay that will be surrounded by my Black Templars, soundly beaten in the last game on objectives they have had to run and summon reinforcements from allies in the sector. In order to ensure their allies timely arrival they must defend the comms relay for the entire game and hold it at the end.

The pursuing Orks, raging for more fighting after their victory will be coming on from any board edge which they choose and they must hold the relay at the end to delay the arrival of the Blood Angel allies, the closest in Imperial space, in the next two games.

This is going to be a small 750 points game so it should be quite frantic and bloody! I painted up my Templar Neophytes specifically for this game to give me some cheap bodies to throw around and shield the relay with. Plus it represents the dwindling numbers of the Templars and the Neophytes now make up a third of their force as they are whittled down by the aggression and insanity of the greenskins. 

At the same time, on the other 2x4 bit of board we will have a special tunnel board set up which will represent an underground facility by the comms relay. We will be playing a pseudo kill team game here (we are ignoring specialist etc because its not something either of us have played and time is a premium so we want it simple) where 150 points of Orks will face off with 150 points of Templars and the victorious team will get the chance to set off some bombs underneath the relay which will hopefully aid their comrades above.

It promises to be a fun game! And because I now have my dedicated hobby camera I should be snapping away like a madman and have lots of pictures for battle reports  for you!

Finally, here is some WIP pictures of Death Company who have just had Khorne red added so far after a heavy drybrush of eshin grey.

And also some pictures of Raphen's Death Company and Lemartes who I have finally updated their bases with some slightly better pictures in general with my new camera!

Tune in on Sunday for hopefully the report from the tunnels game and more hobby progress too!

Peace out,

Rob

Blood Angels - Are we that bad? Part 2 Troops

Part 2

Hello and welcome back to the second part of my retrospective thoughts on the Blood Angels codex in light of the release and obvious disparities in the Vanilla marines codex. A short one today!

My aim in these article is to show that despite the doom and gloom naysayers all about, the Blood Angels still have a solid codex both fluff wise and competitively on the tablet top. 

As I've said before, these articles are not going to argue we didn't get the slightly suspect and smelly end of the stick but just to give dues to the bits of our codex that are really good and are the reasons that you play Blood Angels. As an example a friend of mine was messaging me about the injustice of the scouts stat line, which is I agree, ridiculous. However his point was that now he can't run a scout army of Blood Angels.. to which I replied that yes you should be able to run scout Blood Angels if you want and have their stats in line with Vanilla marines, but at the same time I don't understand why you are running Blood Angels for a scout army? Surely the reason you play Blood Angels is so you can access their unique and fluffy units that makes them different from red marines? 

That is just a personal bug bear of mine but I think most people will, to greater and lesser extents see my point. I'm currently swiping up cheap shield of baal death company kits so I can run a death company army. Its expensive in points and elite as hell but by god its as unique as the Sons of Sanguinius get and it'll look cool as hell. 

But I digress... on to the troops!!

Troops

So in this category I will cover the two basic troops options from the codex but also look at the unique Death company troop options that come in the shield of baal campaign set.

Tactical squad: So these guys are pretty much as standard as you can get with one exception. Flamers. Beautiful promethium fed flamers. As a 5 man squad these guys can rock a heavy flamer and 2 x gunslinging hand flamers on the sergeant. This provides a nice and cheap drop pod unit that can lay down some excellent ignores cover fire that can also really thin out horde armies.

Verdict: These guys are as good as they always have been in any space marine codex. The flamers give them a nice little unique something to flash on the table, but I do genuinely feel this belongs to the Salamanders remit and if its going to be unique to any chapter it should be unique to them. Still, I shan't complain!

Scouts: Well, yeah. These guys have nothing special going for them and they suffer an inexplicable lesser ability to shoot compared to almost all their loyalist brethren, Space Wolves excepted (I think..?). However, more inexplicably, they suffer a lesser ability to FIGHT, you know, for the blood crazed close combat chapter that specialises in fast hard hitting close combat, hand to hand, mano a mano style fighting tooth and nail stuff. Anyway, they are still useful as a tax if you want to just fill up on elites and such but this really should receive an FAQ in short order. Its an adjustment of 2 number and there is absolutely no reason for GW not to do it other than being lazy or being fearful of setting a precedent. I am inclined to believe it will be the latter that prevents them from doing it if they choose to leave them as is.

Verdict: Fine as they are but given how long in advance GW plans a codex (and I can't believe there wasnt some overlap between the vanilla being written as Blood Angels being finished) this should have been dealt with early and headed off. Le sigh.


OK and now the unique Death Company Choices:

Cassor the Damned: So Cassor is essentially a Death Company dreadnought with blood talons which are Sx2 AP2 close combat weapons, and these come with underslung melta gun and storm bolter. This build is 135 in the codex and 140 for this guy who occupies a troop slot. This is a steal and makes a full death company army viable. No dedicated transport options though!

Verdict: This chap is an absolute must if you want a full death company army taking up that valuable troop slot that he does for only 5 points more over the unnamed build. His biggest weakness is the lack of a transport option but I am getting round this by sticking him in the back of a storm raven. You could of course also buy a fast attack slot drop pod but I'm inclined to take the storm raven as air support also.


And finally,

Raphen's Death Company: This is a funny one. 5 man Death Company squad with fixed options and no way to increase the squad size. The fixed options are a thunder hammer, a power fist, a power sword and an inferno pistol, with 1 squad member just vanilla with chainsword and bolt pistol. This comes in at 210 points, They also come equipped with jump packs I should note. This would cost 10 points less as a normal build squad so again you are paying a tiny tax to get that all important troop choice selection. The problem here comes in the weapon choice and squad size, they aren't really designed particularly well for any one role. However these guys and Cassor the Damned allow you to have a a full death company army, particularly if you take the baal strike force detachment (which I will cover later on) as this allows you to take 4 elites.

Verdict: This squad is limited and does lack a clear competitive focus, BUT you aren't taking it for that you are taking it so you are entirely black and red army of frothing maniacs. Personally I will hide them away and use them to either grab objectives (being a T4, 3+/5+ FNP objective secured unit) or I will use them to bust tanks with the power fist, thunder hammer and inferno pistol all contributing good damage to that end.



Overall, the troop selection is small but we have a nice addition to your choices with the Shield of Baal campaign which although not optimised builds they can still be effective and grant you a great deal of fluff based variety.

The real winner in the selection is the drop podding wall of flaming death with the trip flamer tactical marines which I think will and are a popular build for alpha strike blood angel armies. However the obvious losers are the scouts with their bizarrely diminished stats line that we can only hope is rectified with haste.

As I said above though, scouts are not why you take Blood Angels and my main grip with this category is that they allowed force org shenanigans around bikes becoming troops to stand in the vanilla codex. By that logic surely a unique Blood Angel trait would be a relic jump pack that unlocks assault marines as troop by paying a premium for the jump pack. I think that would have been fair and Blood Angel players all over would have been happy as Larry.

But that isn't the way the cookie has crumbled and ultimately, the troops aren't what make this codex great (and it is great) so next time we will go through the Elites which will be a big old post I think. Following that will be Part 4 with heavy and fast attack and finally I will do part 5 which will look at relics and detachments both in the code and in shield of baal Leviathan which really should have been in the codex.

In between that I hope to post some finished assault terminators and a WIP librarian as well!

Peace out

Rob 

Raphen's Death Company finished

Good evening returning readers.

A short gap between posts this week as I am off to Nottingham Friday evening to visit my partners sister and watch some tennis apparently. I had forgotten that I had agreed to this so it cam as something of a shock! This makes it unlikely I will have much time to post on Sunday so in case I fail to make any progress on other models and get a post up I thought I'd let you see the "finished" Death Company as they are.

I say "finished" as the bases are currently done only up to the first thin layer of snow effect, I will add bits and bobs of character to the bases before lumps of super glue and snow effect are piled on which gives an icy snow drift kind of effect, its not the best snow effect but its far from the worst and looks nice when totally finished I'd say, such as can be seen on Captain Karlaen. 

I've had a blast painting these and they have come together really quickly compared to the terminators and that isn't because they are short on detailing as the kit itself is fantastic with lots of different death company marking all about the model. I have determined to buy another dreadnought so I can use it as Cassor the damned from the Shield of Baal series and I may have accidentally slipped and pressed buy on eBay and purchased Astorath the Grim (in metal no less), so I have the beginnings of a small death company force.

Anyway here's lots of pictures with lots of angles as I am very very happy with how these have turned out, tempted to say best looking squad I have painted ever. Opinions on the standard of these models and how you would rate them would be really really appreciated, I'd just like to get some scope for where I am at :)

For the rest of the month I am going to focus on a few things. Firstly it is to lay down the major blocking colours on the terminators and maybe get to the wash stage, I'd be very happy with that. 

Secondly I need to put time aside to tidy up the drop pods for the blood angels, they were second hand and I had to hack of some dark angel icons and the pods in general have lots of flash and sprue that need filing off. If I can get hold of them I will buy some new icons to glue to the doors as they do add a nice little break in the flatness. 

Finally if they are built I will wait for a nice day and undercoat the inside in black for drybrushing and then close the doors and undercoat the outside in mephiston red as well as undercoat my blood angel librarian in maccrage blue and give it a purple wash. 

The plan through July would then be too finish the terminators, paint up the pods and librarian and purchase some 32mm bases so I can build myself a couple of squads of sternguard with grav and melta loadouts. Except I've just remembered I'm moving house and that includes having to stay at a friends for 2 weeks because my tenancy ends on the 19th of July and my new house starts on the 1st of August... scrap that plan then! I'll see what I can smash out at the beginning of July before they are packed...

If I can get all that done by August I will be a very happy bunny and the blood angels will be well on their way and then I can switch back to my templars to get them ship shape for Fluffageddon in September! Which I also need to buy a ticket for :/

Hobby like you mean it!

Peace out

Rob