Trueborn unit in 1500

After opinions of taking a standard Blasterborn unit @ 1500 points and wondering if anyone else uses it.

Archon with WWP and Blaster
5 Trueborn with 4 blasters
Raider with NS and DL

300 points.

Obviously more can be added to improve the unit, but I consider that setup the minimum to guarantee your massive cost unit will work.

Comments please

In my limited experience, I always take blasterborn. But that's a personal choice more than anything else.
I'm currently toying with the idea of taking the dracon with a pistol so that, if need be, i can shoot and assault (pesky rapid fire rifle).
Plus, we don't care about the splinter shot in the blasterborn unit anyway.

I've used this exact unit twice now. The first time was also the first time I'd ever used a blaster archon as well.

The first time, the unit performed amazingly, took out an overlord in barge on the turn they deep struck - he then got back up and tried to assault their raider, and their overwatch managed to kill him - he stayed dead then, securing me first blood and slay the warlord.

They then proceeded to take out some wraiths and put 2-3 hullpoints on a ghost ark.

The second game they stayed off the board until turn 4 (that was even with the Labarynthine Cunning warlord trait -_-) I rolled a 1 and a 2 for the first roll and exactly the same for the second roll. But when they did eventually come on they did ok. Took out a basilisk and then tanked a las cannon and pask' vanquisher cannon/lascannon shots. The turn after that they took 2 hps off pask - then the game ended.

So I havent had a ton of testing with them but from what it would seem, they do well when they get on the board. But i'll chalk the second game up to just really bad luck. 2 failed rerollable reserve rolls

I do like the unit though - I didn't think I would, mostly with the blaster archon, as I prefer having a combat HQ rather than a shooty one. Just my 2 cents.

I personally am moving away from Blasterborn, mainly because of the point cost of having 4 Blasters in a unit with some of the worst saves in town.

Keeping inline with your concept however, I prefer 5 Scourge, 4 Heat Lances with a Webway Archon - 4 Heat Lances can do a number on a tank and secondary to this they bypassing armour (and wound on 2+) against heavy armoured T4 troops....as does a Blaster. Deepstrike in behind a unit of Broadsides, with all those Shield drones out in front of them mwaahahah }:-[}

Although, the scourges can be shot off the board fairly easily too. A 4+ save isnt that great.

The blaster archon and trueborn combo is in a raider (which does make the unit more expensive than the scourges ofc) Also, once the archon brings in the scourges he can't keep up with them unfortunately.

The raider does afford them some extra protection at least - since you'll always be jinking when anything targets the raider giving them a 3+ cover. Obviously ignores cover is a threat to this, and flamers definitely cause problems.

Another advantage with the trueborn/archon raider unit is that you can abuse the raider's open-topped when facing imperial knights. deepstrike on a corner of two of their facings, once they declare which facing they're shielding - shoot from the raider at an angle that hits the unshielded facing.

I try to keep my heatlances on units that tend to be close up such as reavers, though I've barely used scourges, I really should try them out more.

Caldria wrote:

Another advantage with the trueborn/archon raider unit is that you can abuse the raider's open-topped when facing imperial knights. deepstrike on a corner of two of their facings, once they declare which facing they're shielding - shoot from the raider at an angle that hits the unshielded facing.

This is very powerful. Awesome suggestion

Don't you think that 18" is juuuust a little too close for comfort? j/k. I clicked on this cuz I was wondering if sinking 300+ into the Blasterborn Raider was worth it. Seems much more so than I thought.

The big time you shouldnt take the raider is if the enemy has plenty of flamer templates

I used the trueborn squad with the addition of hwg using dracon with great success in 2 games. I could not used the hwg as I was always 18" away from the target. The jinking raider protected from harm with the help of night shields and +1 cover bonus from hiding tje frontage from LOS. I was usually junking with 2+ cover save because we use high number of terrains Iin our games.

I think TB squads are subpar.

The problem is they are incredibly fragile and you are putting all the eggs in one basket


Think about this: blaster archon SF WWP, 4 TB blasters and drachon with blast pistol all in a raider. This is really a formidable unit. 7 S8 ap2 shots with the wwp wow!
Cost: 350pts 365 with NS

Then think 3x5 warrior with blaster in raiders
Thats 6 shots on 3 platforms that can fire at 6 different targets and can put out some poison if need be
Cost 345

I liked tb squads more when you could have just 3 guys with blasters, it was not the cheapest but still id hit it

I'm still working with Trueborn, but I haven't yet thrown in a WWP Archon - I think the overall investment is simply too high for the return at that point.

Basically the only thing that Blasters have over other army's equivalents (melta/fusion) is a functional range of 18".

This leaves some legitimate options when it comes to standard DS practices... you can place about 12" away from your target, and a scatter of up to 7" is (largely) acceptable. Yes, it means that trying to hit the corner of the board is incredibly risky, but the price tag doesn't have the same level of sticker-shock.

I used to use Blasterborn a lot, though I typically used 2 squads in venoms (no Archon with WWP).

I did like their damage output, but more recently I've swapped them out for warriors and other units. My reasons are as follows:

- Blasters are pretty poor anti-vehicle weapons. Sad, but true. In 5th and 6th, a squad of Blasterborn could be relied upon to destroy (or, at the very least, inflict severe damage to) just about any vehicle they got into range of. Now, with Jink and the new damage table screwing them over, they're just not reliable in the slightest. And yet, they still cost 50% more than meltaguns. That's a lot of points invested in an unreliable squad.

- 18" range forces them to get far too close to their target (which might be more bearable if their weapons were more reliable...). In any case, this leads us to...

- Fragility. Blasterborn are 120pts (not including their transport) for 5 models that die just as easily as our 8pt warriors. That's a lot of points invested in such a fragile squad.

- No Escape! With Dreadknights and drop-podding flamers, Trueborn aren't even safe inside their transports. It'e entirely possible for them to be burned alive inside their transport on the first turn.


Part of my thinking is that I dislike my army to have obvious targets - especially when they're so fragile. When trueborn die, it's a massive blow to my firepower. So instead, I prefer spreading out that firepower over multiple, cheaper squads - with no obvious target or fire-base.

The Shredder wrote:

I used to use Blasterborn a lot, though I typically used 2 squads in venoms (no Archon with WWP).

I did like their damage output, but more recently I've swapped them out for warriors and other units. My reasons are as follows:

- Blasters are pretty poor anti-vehicle weapons. Sad, but true. In 5th and 6th, a squad of Blasterborn could be relied upon to destroy (or, at the very least, inflict severe damage to) just about any vehicle they got into range of. Now, with Jink and the new damage table screwing them over, they're just not reliable in the slightest. And yet, they still cost 50% more than meltaguns. That's a lot of points invested in an unreliable squad.

- 18" range forces them to get far too close to their target (which might be more bearable if their weapons were more reliable...). In any case, this leads us to...

- Fragility. Blasterborn are 120pts (not including their transport) for 5 models that die just as easily as our 8pt warriors. That's a lot of points invested in such a fragile squad.

- No Escape! With Dreadknights and drop-podding flamers, Trueborn aren't even safe inside their transports. It'e entirely possible for them to be burned alive inside their transport on the first turn.


Part of my thinking is that I dislike my army to have obvious targets - especially when they're so fragile. When trueborn die, it's a massive blow to my firepower. So instead, I prefer spreading out that firepower over multiple, cheaper squads - with no obvious target or fire-base.

Yep. I agree completely. In 6th Ed., I'd run them in three man units as throwaway MSU units that could do a little damage. If my opponent focused on them, oh well, no big loss because they weren't that expensive. Now, they are five minimum and it's become almost mandatory to take an IC with WWP plus transport for them. I can get two Ravagers for the same price (or less). Or two HWB Scourge squads. I just don't think they're worth it anymore.

The Shredder wrote:

I used to use Blasterborn a lot, though I typically used 2 squads in venoms (no Archon with WWP).

I did like their damage output, but more recently I've swapped them out for warriors and other units. My reasons are as follows:

- Blasters are pretty poor anti-vehicle weapons. Sad, but true. In 5th and 6th, a squad of Blasterborn could be relied upon to destroy (or, at the very least, inflict severe damage to) just about any vehicle they got into range of. Now, with Jink and the new damage table screwing them over, they're just not reliable in the slightest. And yet, they still cost 50% more than meltaguns. That's a lot of points invested in an unreliable squad.

- 18" range forces them to get far too close to their target (which might be more bearable if their weapons were more reliable...). In any case, this leads us to...

- Fragility. Blasterborn are 120pts (not including their transport) for 5 models that die just as easily as our 8pt warriors. That's a lot of points invested in such a fragile squad.

- No Escape! With Dreadknights and drop-podding flamers, Trueborn aren't even safe inside their transports. It'e entirely possible for them to be burned alive inside their transport on the first turn.


Part of my thinking is that I dislike my army to have obvious targets - especially when they're so fragile. When trueborn die, it's a massive blow to my firepower. So instead, I prefer spreading out that firepower over multiple, cheaper squads - with no obvious target or fire-base.

Love this. Spot on.

I used 2 squads of trueborn resently.
Both used Venom as DT

First squad with 2 splinter cannons, second one is blasterborn. Both was perfect.

I completely agree with the claims that Blaster Trueborn are simply not reliable enough for their cost.

Buuuut... given that we *have* to take an HQ (and for me, that means an Archon: a Succubus is no good in my shooty list and I'm just not sold on the Haemonculus - an Archon is just more fluffy) it's a nice way to pay the HQ tax. A unit that can perform a no-scatter deep strike and let off at least 6 lance shots is pretty neat. I'm already paying for the Archon, so these guys are a great compliment to his Webway Portal BS7 Blaster. Perhaps I'm getting a little off-topic here, but for me it's either these guys or 4 Medusae with my Archon.

WrackYourBrains wrote:

I completely agree with the claims that Blaster Trueborn are simply not reliable enough for their cost.

Buuuut... given that we *have* to take an HQ (and for me, that means an Archon: a Succubus is no good in my shooty list and I'm just not sold on the Haemonculus - an Archon is just more fluffy) it's a nice way to pay the HQ tax. A unit that can perform a no-scatter deep strike and let off at least 6 lance shots is pretty neat. I'm already paying for the Archon, so these guys are a great compliment to his Webway Portal BS7 Blaster. Perhaps I'm getting a little off-topic here, but for me it's either these guys or 4 Medusae with my Archon.

Lhamaean.

That is all

Hellstrom wrote:

Lhamaean.
That is all

Lhamaeans are great shout too. I tend to look for a court that's more pew pew pew than stab stab stab, but these girls have some great close combat output for their points.