Sons of Wrath - Army Performance Review vs Winters Seo

With wrath we come, for we are it sons, and by our hand you shall burn,

Hello and welcome to another day in the mess of my mind. In today's episode of mediocrity we are going to delve into the game I played vs Winters Seo's Admech. If you haven't watched the battle report then you catch it through this link here. Be warned, if you proceed too far down this post you will be subjected to spoilers. 

To give people some space in case of accidental spoilers on long monitors I'm just going to recap the list that I played with. This list is just north of 1750 points as its all I had at a standard I was happy to put on the table to play with. 

SINGLE BATTALION

HQ

Ansgar Hutto - Captain (regular marine) - jump pack, relic blade, combi-plasma, armour indomitus

                         Warlord Trait - Storm of Fire (additional -1 AP on 6's to wound)

Lieutenant Friedrich - Lieutenant (regular marine) - jump pack, power fist, power sword

TROOPS

Squad 1 - 5 x Intercessors - bolt rifles

Squad 2 - 5 x Intercessors - bolt rifles

Squad 3 - 5 x Intercessors - bolt rifles

ELITES

Axion - Redemptor dreadnought - plasma macro cannon, storm bolters, underslung gatling cannon, icarus array

Uther - Redemptor dreadnought - plasma macro cannon, storm bolters, underslung gatling cannon, Icarus array

FAST ATTACK

Alpha Squad - 6 x Inceptors - assault bolters

Delta Squad - 6 x Inceptors - assault bolters

HEAVY SUPPORT

Squad Imperator - 5 x hellblasters - plasma incinerators

Squad Deus - 5 x hellblasters - plasma incinerators

The Hammer - Inceptor Bomb

So, overall a relatively low body count and, overall, a relative lack of mobility. This army hinges on a critical alpha strike. The ability of both HQ's and the 12 Inceptors to sit off the board is crucial in directing a precision strike that wipes out key targets. 

Obviously the Captain and Lieutenant provide their re-roll of 1s for wounding and hitting, vastly increasing the efficiency of damage output for the 72 shots that both squads of Inceptors can put out. This coupled with the additional -1AP on wound rolls of a 6 makes them incredibly efficient at rinsing squads at T5 or lower. The S5 of the assault bolters puts you in a middle spot where you will very rarely wound on 6s but equally very rarely will you wound on 2s.

We saw this go off perfectly in the game vs Winters' Admech wiping units out left right and centre. Additionally the mobility of Inceptors give you real flexibility in terms of object scoring, which did come into effect through the game. Finally, they also have the fly keyword, meaning they can effectively tie up weak combat units, like the dune crawlers, yet retain their shooting efficiency afterwards. 

The Anvil - Redemptor and Hellblasters

With the Inceptors off the board, the fury of the opponents army will come down on the remaining elements turn 1, should I go second. This is the biggest weakness of the army, however this is somewhat mitigated by cover for all infantry units, coupled with the generally longer range weaponry of Primaris Marines. 30 inches allows you to sit 36 inches back, move up 6 inches and still touch the enemy units. Line of sight block terrain will aid in defence at this point. 

The Redemptor dreadnoughts, if caught first turn by a well built army, will go boom and bye-bye. I would argue they are by far the weakest link in this army, suffering incredible vulnerability to dedicated anti-tank fire. Line of sight will mitigate this somewhat, but any -4AP weapons will burn straight through their armour, where infantry in cover would still retain a 6+ armour save. 

That said, going first vs Winters allowed them to bring their prodigious firepower to bear. I personally think the heavy onslaught gatling cannon is a better choice for the main gun arm. However, in this particular army, the higher strength and AP of the plasma cannon makes up for the general lack of anti-tank weaponry on show. The Inceptors already excel at massed mid strength fire so it's pointless to double down with the Redemptors on that role. 

The Fury of the Ancients Stratagem was one I employed every turn the Redemptors were alive to benefit from it, and that makes overcharging the plasma that much safer and more reliable. However D6 shots in 8th, for me, does not cut it in a competitive environment, and set shot numbers are much much better for planning strategy around. 

The Game Overall

Winters and I actually discussed our lists beforehand, as we always do, in case balancing is required to make the game more fun. We actually discussed changing Winters' list to make it a little softer, as he was convinced that given first turn he would blow me off the board, and given 2nd turn I would't do enough damage. 

Whilst confident in my army list, this was my first game proper with them and I wasn't sure how well they would perform. Obviously, they performed well, VERY well!! The constant in your face threat of the Inceptors performed as hoped, both in damage output as well distraction carnifex qualities. Allowing the rest of my force to slowly move up and lay down fire as it did so. 

If I had wanted to crank out more pain, I should have used Bolter Drill on a squad of Inceptors too, but by the time I thought of that I had already done such a crippling blow I thought it would be a dick move...

The 2000 Points

Below is how the army will look next time I face Winters (coming soon) against The End of All Things - his Deathguard Army I have been painting. 

HQ

Ansgar Hutto - Captain (regular marine) - jump pack, relic blade, combi-plasma, armour indomitus

                         Warlord Trait - Storm of Fire (additional -1 AP on 6's to wound)

Lieutenant Friedrich - Lieutenant (regular marine) - jump pack, power fist, power sword

TROOPS

Squad 1 - 5 x Intercessors - bolt rifles

Squad 2 - 5 x Intercessors - bolt rifles

Squad 3 - 5 x Intercessors - bolt rifles

ELITES

Axion - Redemptor dreadnought - plasma macro cannon, storm bolters, underslung gatling cannon, icarus array

Uther - Redemptor dreadnought - plasma macro cannon, storm bolters, underslung gatling cannon, Icarus array

Primaris Ancient

FAST ATTACK

Alpha Squad - 6 x Inceptors - assault bolters

Delta Squad - 6 x Inceptors - assault bolters

Omega Squad - 3 x Inceptors - Plasma Exterminators

HEAVY SUPPORT

Squad Imperator - 5 x hellblasters - plasma incinerators

Squad Deus - 5 x hellblasters - plasma incinerators

The squad of Plasma Exterminator Inceptors adds additional weight to the alpha strike, allowing me to pump 6D3 plasma shots into higher toughness or save units, overcharging with the re-roll 1s to hit coming from the Captain. The Primaris Ancient is more a function of points than strategy, but he will sit by the Hellblasters, allowing them to fire again on a 4+ when they perish. 

I would describe this army as mid-tier competitive, by which I mean I think in a tournament setting it will win between 40-50% of its games. Closer to 40% though. Below are some thoughts on improving the army in a purely competitive sense, whilst still retaining a degree of the character of it. 

TROOPS

Despite this being a predominantly Primaris army, to up the competitiveness of it, I would drop all the Intercessors and put in 5 units of 5 scouts. These would put out more fire at 24 inch range AND have 10 more bodies on the table. Primarily though, they are there for deployment shenanigans to prevent enemy deepstriking, bubble wrapping and screening the Redemptors and Hellblasters. This should also help claiming objectives in the early game. 

ELITES and HQ

I would drop the Ancient completely and take a regular marine Lieutenant barebones. This would allow me to take the Inceptors in an Outrider detachment, netting me an additional command point, AND provide the hellblasters with re-roll 1s to wound, which is more valuable than being able to fire 50% of the time when the hellblasters die. 

I would probably drop the Redemptors if I wanted to go super super more competitive, but then that dilute the army to much from its original form and I like the miniatures too much! Not sure what I spend that 400+ points on though.... Perhaps a knight errant if I could squeeze some point out somewhere else...

CHAPTER

So, I will ALWAYS run these as Imperial Fists, because that is my fluff and I won't compromise on that for competitive sake. However, if I were to build this list anew, purely with competitiveness in mind, then I would definitely take Ravenguard. It would allow that much more survivability for the units that start on the board, due to the -1 to hit.


And that is that for today!

Peace out,

Rob

Primaris Marines - Easy to Play?

Hey guys,

Today I thought I'd write out some points from a discussion I had with one of my regular gaming pals Dan. We had a 2000pt game of space wolves, versus Deathwing and Primaris Marines. The Primaris components of the list were:

Captain in Gravis Armour

1 x squad of Hellblasters

2 x squads of Intercessors

2 x squads of Inceptors

These are all I have partially built and based for the moment, and whilst I normally don't play with unfinished models, I was itching to see how they would play out. The game turned out to be a win for the Primaris/Deathwing combo, though with savage brutality and casualties on both sides. Dan was running Space Wolves as it happened, and I'll have a little note on them at the end. 

After the game finished, Dan made a point about the Primaris being 'easy to play'. And after some back and forth with myself playing Devils Advocate, I have mulled this idea over and I have come to agree with it. I'm going to breakdown my thoughts per unit below:

Captain in Gravis Armour + Hellblasters

The Captain in Gravis armour didn't manage to get into combat, so his utility beyond re-rolls of 1 wasn't really realised in this game. However, that ability to re-roll 1's with the Hellblaster squad was invaluable! The hellblasters have a 6 inch move and 3 inch range, effectively putting 5 shots out at 36 inches, or 10 shots out at 21 inches (6 inch move and 15 inch rapid fire/double tap range). 

Being able to overcharge to S8 and 2 damage means that these guys posed a threat to anything on the board, including a leviathan dreadnought. The captain in Gravis armour meant that overcharging was somewhat mitigated as you could re-roll those 1's and potentially avoid losing a model. 

The potency of this combination, in addition to the enhanced ranged of the guns over traditional plasma really does make this pairing relatively easy to use. Double wounds on the Primaris marines also gives the squad good survivability, especially in cover, from any deep striking nonesense that tries to take them out. 

Intercessors

The intercessors main bonus, other than the 2 wounds, is that extra 6 inches of range. It seems relatively trivial, but particularly when paired against an opposing astartes force using regular bolters, that 6 inches allows you to stay out of effective range of small arms fire and still go for juicy targets like tactical squads with gay abandon. 

This in turn means that alternative resources must then be diverted to take the Intercessors out, this can result in overkill of the unit, even with its 2 wounds apiece, but crucially they are taking fire from bigger targets OR they are simply ignored for those targets. Ignoring them is probably the best decision a lot of the time I'd wager, but they are a potent thorn in your opponents side because of the range and the enhanced AP of -1 over a regular bolter.

Inceptors

The real stars of the show. And how! Not only do the Inceptors have enhanced toughness (5) and a 10 inch move, they also put out a staggering 6 shots each at 18 inch range! These shots are at S5 and Ap-1, so mini assault heavy bolters. Being assault means they can also advance for extra range and still fire those weapons, albeit at a -1 to hit. A squad of 3 puts out a frankly incredible 18 shots, that will wound anything shy of toughness 10 on 5s. AND as they have the fly key word, they can also fall back out of combat and still shoot. 

Coupled with the ability to deepstrike, these chaps can virtually guarantee being in range of the targets they want to obliterate, and short of storm shields, they can put serious hurt on any 2+ armour save as well by reducing it to a 3+. 

Now these guys come in at over 200 points a squad, and I'm not saying they are invincible by any means. But they have a lot going for them that make them incredibly versatile.

Easy to Play?

I think that Primaris marines are easy to play. Note however that I do not think that this equals over powered. The relative costs of each of these units is I think fair, particularly in the case of the Inceptors. When I describe them as easy to play, I mean that there are obvious uses for each of the component units that we currently have on release. 

Why is this? Well simply put, if you want to attract people to a game, you don't want an overtly complicated faction as your main draw, and I think the Primaris marines fill this ideal admirably. 

I have no doubt, that you can beat Primaris marines with all manner of lists and armies, however, the relative tactical acumen and knowledge of your units abilities is higher for those armies when compared to the 'entry level' Primaris marines. 

They are not an auto win army, but they lack a lot of the more convoluted nuances that say T'au or Tyranids have, who have to take great account of markerlights and synpase respectively. 

Do you agree? Disagree? Either way, polite and pleasant in the comments if you please :)

Peace out,

Rob

Demi-Company and Librarius Conclave - Rough Tactical Ideas

Hi Readers,

Tactics day! As I've previously said I'm not master stratego but I like to at least think out my tactics and its good to get feedback from these as I often have to theory these a lot more than practice them due to generally not getting that many games in, but also an extreme reluctance to play with unpainted miniatures. Though with the Dark Angels being given more thought to being an army for tournaments I may be relaxing that rule but we shall see. Today I will chat about how I plan to combine the Battle Demi-Company and the Dark Angel's Librarius Conclave.

Battle Demi-Company

So the Demi-Company is fairly restrictive in what you can take, but fortunately there are no bad choices here. The required squads are 3 tactical squads, a devastator squad, an assault squad and a Company Master or a Chaplain. These should really be designed as shooty for the most part, with the grim resolve special rule being boosted to BS3 for overwatch in this formation, so overwatch will be hitting on a 4+ putting any charge as a real question to your opponent. In games where objectives need to be claimed and given that Dark Angels are stubborn and objective secured (all units in this formation) will make them tough to shift.

Because I am not taking any flyers in this army I want it to be mobile where possible to let me out manoeuvre flying arcs where I can or spread my threats around the table so that they have to really pick their target priority. 

Below are the unit set up I've settled on, with wiggle room for a few alterations as discussed below.

Company Master - artificer armour, storm shield, relic blade, Lion's Roar (Review)

Company Veterans - Apothecary, 4 x meltaguns, Drop pod 

Assault Squad -10 Assault Marines, Sergeant with Power Maul, 2 x flamers, Jump Packs

Devastator Squad - 5 Devastators, Veteran Sergeant, 4 x Grav guns with Grav Amps, Drop Pod

Tactical Squad - 10 Marines with Sergeant, 1 x plasma cannon, 1 x plasma gun

Tactical Squad - 5 Marines with Sergeant with plasma pistol, 1 x plasma gun, drop pod

Tactical Squad - 5 Marines with Sergeant, plasma cannon

Now when I originally designed this force I had veteran sergeants in  all the squads when only the devastators really needed it, as they won't be accompanied by an independent character as I will discuss below. This has freed up a few points to spend on something so I need to have a bit of think on that.

Now, all I need to make this a Lion's Blade Formation is to add a squad of scouts. I haven't designed the base army to be like that, as I know that some tournaments I attend have restricted the use of "formation of formation" like the Decurion for example. They will still allow three separate formations together, but not when that grants them even more benefits for being together. Whether that's right or wrong is up to you to decide but it means I do have to factor that in to my army design.

If I do take the Lions Blade I will probably make up the points by using the veteran sergeant points that will probably be spent on upgrades plus dropping marines from the 10 man tactical squad to pay for the scouts. The scouts will be given sniper rifles and camo cloaks to camp in cover or on an objective (hopefully both) and ping at things from long range. 

Librarius Conclave

These guys are going to play a key part in how this armies gels on the tabletop and I have yet to completely decide on the optimal table to roll for my powers on so input in to that would be very useful.

Ezekiel - Review

Librarian - Level 2, bike, conversion field, Shroud of Heroes force sword

Librarian - Level 2, jump pack, conversion field, force stave

Librarian - Level 2, conversion field, force stave

Librarian Level 2, conversion field, force sword

So here we have two mobile librarians, these can get up field and make best use if their offensive powers and all of these guys will be tough to shift because of their 4++ from the conversion fields, plus the librarian on a bike is toughness 5. Ezekiel brings mega mastery levels and +1 attacks to anyone within 6 inches of him (models not units) which is great if the enemy does assault you and survives your epic overwatch, but not something you want to rely on. His warlord trait is pretty useless granting fearless to units within 12 inches. Not something stubborn space marines desperately need. The company master is going to be the Warlord most likely, with ablative wounds from the company command squad and a 2+/3++ behind it making him much more survivable.

Running the Company and Conclave together

So the key here is the buffing powers of the Librarians and the mobility of the force. Working these together should make this a fairly formidable if fairly elite force to be reckoned with. 

The mobility aspect comes in with assault marines and the drop pods. 2 pods will be coming down turn 1 and these will be the devastator unit and the company command squad. The company command squads melta guns should be able to deal with any armour that they come across, the Company Master will come with them to tank wounds and provide melee support as well as fire off his assault plasma cannon if needed. Matching him with AP1 high strength weaponry means his cannon will be able to hurt what they should be shooting at. 

The devastators with their grav amps will  be targeting whatever gribbly high save unit the enemy has out, or it also has the option of glancing some vehicles to death on 6's. These guys will be targeted early and need to make themselves count when they arrive. If I take the scouts in the Lion's Blade formation I may give them a locator beacon to make landing easier for the devs or vets. Because of my foray into magnets I am also keeping it open that the command squad can have grav guns and have a  sacred standard instead, this would give them relentless and allow them to fire their grav guns at full effect the turn they arrive. This would require points saved elsewhere however to pay for the additional 5 points a weapon. 

The drop pods for these guys are objective secured remember, so something your opponent must deal with if you can land them on objectives!

The Librarian on bike has the shroud of heroes which gives him a 2+ cover save when jinking as well as having T5 and a 4++ invulnerable, making him a tough customer. His mobility should let him be in prim position to fire off other librarians powers or his own. This guy runs solo as the shrouding doesn't work if he is in a unit.

The jump pack librarian will run with the assault marines giving them support with his leadership and using them as a shield while keeping pace with the bike librarian to swap powers as needs be. Again a 4++ makes him that bit harder to shift. The assault marines will score so that makes them a threat to be dealt with in an objectives game.

The other 2 librarians will run with each of the tactical squads, Ezekiel will camp with the 10 man squad and the librarians will sit themselves with the other 2 squads. One squad will come drop podding in from turn 2+ giving some tactical flexibility depending on how the games evolves. But dropping in to enemy lines will also make it easier for the jump pack and bike librarians to get within 12 and share powers. 

Power choices

I'm definitely going to give the bike librarian interromancy so that he can get good angles to fire the now 24 inch range power Mind Worm at the opponents armies nastiest model. This is the primaris so he is guaranteed to get it. 

I'm thinking I will roll on Telepathy with Ezekiel and the librarian that sits in the stationary 5 man squad. Hopefully this should give me shrouding and/or invisibility that can be cast on the units to maximise their survival chances and have psychic shriek as an offensive back up from primaris. 

That leaves the jump pack and drop podding librarians to roll. I am thinking on rolling on divination and pyromancy for each of them. Thus giving me up in your face offensive and defensive powers that can be dished out by either of them if within 12 inches of other librarians. I would really appreciate anyone's thoughts on that.

Well there are my thoughts and tactics so far on this particular force. Please do comment, I always get back to people!

Peace out,

Rob

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