1500 Against Blood Angels

Greetings everyone.

I am running the following list, which needs heavy tweaking to survive against Blood Angels. I'm finding that I can't seem to get kills against Marines unless I'm throwing Lances at them.

HQ:
Lelith Hes. (She can be exchanged for something else if I need to.)
3 Haem.

Troops:
8 Wyches
Hekagonizer
Razorflails
HWG
Raider w/FF

8 Wyches
Hekagonizer
Razorflails
HWG
Raider w/FF

8 Wyches
Hekagonizer
Hydra gauntlets
HWG
Raider w/FF

5 Warriors
Blaster
Venom

Elites:
3 Trueborn
2 Dark Lances
Venom with SC

HS:
2 Ravagers
FF

(I have 11 Lances)
My opponent uses:

HQ:
Mephiston

Troops:
5 Assault Marines
Melta
Land Raider

5-7 Assault Marines
Melta
Razorback with Assault Cannon
Sang. Priest

5-7 Assault Marines
Melta
Razorback with Assault Cannon
Sang. Priest

HS:
Pred with Twinlinked Lascannons and Assault Cannons

Dread with Magna-arm and something with a Large blast template.


Basically, I was able to deal with the Land Raider thanks to HWGs,
I had my Lelith instant killed because I didn't know he could target her (I put her in base contact with Meph. I'm dumb.) And two teams of wyches only managed to put 4 wounds on him.

I'm not sure what exactly I'm doing wrong, because I don't know how to handle a 3+ armor save as WELL as FNP. What should I do besides sit back with my wyches, and wait for him to DS the Dread into me, let him get close, HWG down the transports and eat Pred fire?


I also tried this list using 7 Harlequins with a Seer and Troupe Master w/ PW and 2 Kisses and Fusion pistols, no Lelith, and -1 Wych from each troop and had a group of 7 assault marines tear the Harlequins to pieces when the Harlequins even got the charge.

So I'm guessing my Tactica is terrible, but the initial problem may be my list, hence my post.

Any guidance on what I should do? Should I find more Lances? If so, where?

Should I ditch the Haemons and go with a different HQ? (I'm highly considering an Archon right now.)

Thank you in advance.

imho, ditch the wyches, at least some. BA are vicious in close combat, you can only put one PW (unless you PW the haemys, but the shattershard/liquifiers are great anti FNP measures) in each wych troupe. We do best playing to our strengths not theirs and that 3+save then 4+FNP is just sick. If you are insisting on CC goodnes (and who isn't ) Incubi eat marines, and if you pin with Wyches then second turn charge with Incubi you basically get a free round of no retaliation against the Incubi due to multiple combat rules.

I just faced BA and went and bought myself a Razorwing just for the dissies.... Dissie cannon AP2 is invaluable shooting against BA. Talos' (Taloi?) can do some damage to but BA have sick initiative as well.

Maybe a dissie or two on the Raiders, or try some shock prows and dark ramdar his vehicles.

Darkgreen Pirate wrote:

imho, ditch the wyches, at least some. BA are vicious in close combat, you can only put one PW (unless you PW the haemys, but the shattershard/liquifiers are great anti FNP measures) in each wych troupe. We do best playing to our strengths not theirs and that 3+save then 4+FNP is just sick. If you are insisting on CC goodnes (and who isn't ) Incubi eat marines, and if you pin with Wyches then second turn charge with Incubi you basically get a free round of no retaliation against the Incubi due to multiple combat rules.

I just faced BA and went and bought myself a Razorwing just for the dissies.... Dissie cannon AP2 is invaluable shooting against BA. Talos' (Taloi?) can do some damage to but BA have sick initiative as well.

Maybe a dissie or two on the Raiders, or try some shock prows and dark ramdar his vehicles.

My Raiders don't tend to survive long enough to merit putting Dissies on them. They get right into the fray, and drop their wych payload, then blow up majority of the time.

I've contemplated using a Blaster born venom, because that would deny their FNPs and their Armor saves.

Honestly, should I even consider dumping poisoned attacks into BAs? They have a 3+ for their first save, and a 4+ for their second. They should be making some 2/3's of their armor saves, and then 1/2 of the fails are saved via FNP. (So something like, 1 in 6 wounds actually matter? And often times, I've laid in some 20+ shots into a unit and nothing so much as took a wound between my misses, and their saves.

My assumption, would be that using Lelith is a terrible idea. I only take my Haemons to give my wyches FNP, is there a better combo that I can take that I'm not quite seeing here? Are incubi my real answer?

I would much prefer to ditch my four troop of Warriors for another set of wyches honestly. I don't care for Warriors on the whole.

lonephoenix wrote:

... They have a 3+ for their first save, and a 4+ for their second. They should be making some 2/3's of their armor saves, and then 1/2 of the fails are saved via FNP. (So something like, 1 in 6 wounds actually matter? And often times, I've laid in some 20+ shots into a unit and nothing so much as took a wound between my misses, and their saves.

My assumption, would be that using Lelith is a terrible idea. I only take my Haemons to give my wyches FNP, is there a better combo that I can take that I'm not quite seeing here? Are incubi my real answer? ....

I think you have answered your own question. The only work arounds for FNP are AP2 or better, power weapons, and certain remove from play gear. Lelith is cool, but S3 PW fail vs T4, Incubi , though less attacks, hurt more often. Just make sure they don't charge into cover . One of the instances that a Klaivex with Demiklaives can be vicious AND worth the points. If you are keen on CC, maybe (and i say maybe) Drazhar is your man? Eternal warrior is nice against crazy PW shenanigans.

Poison shooting can work, it just depends on where those *&?% sanguinary priests are, in my recent league game I saw 2 Devastator squads off the board after one round of shooting into each with a Duke/poisonborn unit.

lonephoenix wrote:

My Raiders don't tend to survive long enough to merit putting Dissies on them. They get right into the fray, and drop their wych payload, then blow up majority of the time.

Then why not put disses on them? They are free, and does one, maybe two glancing hits from your raiders equate to 2 (on average) dead marines? If the fear is put into your opponent because of your raider weapons, it leaves your ravagers alone for a while.....

I for one would never really run lelith. I would drop her fast. The heamies should have 2x liqui and 1x shatter.

The DL in the venom are not really doing you to much justice. That means you can't effectively use the movement of the venom which is one thing you truely need. I would drop the 2 DL and pick up 3x Blasters.

More venoms would be nice as always where ever you can get them.

At this point level do the wyches really need HWG? They are not bad and I normally take them but if you can fit another warrior blaster squad in a venom I think it would be more helpful. You may want to try cutting the wych squads to 7 if you are really looking for points. I just took place in a 1750 tourny and 7 man squads worked fine for me.

Also, I really never run without Aethersails on my wych raiders.

Harliquins are bad don't take them.


Your opponent is playing a lot of units with high points cost. Meph does not have an involn so bait him in, hit him with your lance///blasters and he should fall fairly quickly. The landraider is a big target and you should not have to much difficulty popping it. Already that takes out 1/3 of his points. The rest is just playing smart and knowing when to press. Also, with BA his sanguiry preists are IC's so try to get into base to base with them with your ag. Cause a wound on the IC and he dies. No more FNP for him. Start there and let me know if I was able to help

EDIT: Keep DL on the raiders.

Perhaps get S+I on the wyches to reduce the amount of incoming attacks.

For your Tactica: slash the shooty, shoot the slashy (spelling correct? Can't remember where I found that phrase). Last time I faced Mephiston I splintered him to death (ok, he was on his own and I managed to get enough poisoned shots on him from my Talos + 2 Venoms. Even on a 2+-Save he is likely to roll some 1).

Just as a note, Mephiston should always be on his own. He does not have the IC stat line. Make sure your friend is playing him correctly.

Phrack wrote:

The DL in the venom are not really doing you to much justice. ....

Ironically, I ended up with more kills from my Lanceborn than I did with my pair of Ravagers. The Ravagers have now twice (Of two games I've played with them) hardly made their points in kills. He also completely ignored them almost the entire game. The Ravagers however, were being picked off by the Pred most of the game.

Phrack wrote:

More venoms would be nice as always where ever you can get them.

But where do they fit in a wych heavy army? I'm generally running 7-8 wyches in Raiders. Also, I've definitely failed to see how poison is awesome, especially against SMs with FNP. Anything in power armor shrugs off 2/3's of ALL wounds we put into them. We're htting on 3's and wounding on 4's, meaning that we only see something like 2/3's hits, and of the 1/3 that do hit, 1/2 land. So we're at something like a 1 in 6 shots for a wound that is ignored by armor 2/3s of the time, and then with this particular army, we also lose 1/2 of THOSE would-be wounds to FNP.

(Just to mathammer a bit: If we shot 24 times across 2 Venoms, we're going to see: 16 hits, 8 wounds, 2.8 wounds are not saved by armor, and 1.4 are not saved by FNP.... For 24 shots. I have a tough time justifying them in my head, especially after seeing them in action.) Do poison ranged weapons get a re-roll on failed wounds? If so, where can I find this information in my Codex?

Phrack wrote:

At this point level do the wyches really need HWG? They are not bad and I normally take them but if you can fit another warrior blaster squad in a venom I think it would be more helpful..

Also, I really never run without Aethersails on my wych raiders..

Aethersails kill the ability for you to disembark units, and enable them to assault that turn, correct?

HWGs across all my wyches tend to do better than Lances, considering my Poison shots might as well be a joke

Phrack wrote:

Harliquins are bad don't take them..

Honestly, I think they would have done a great job at escorting my HQs compared to Raiders when they have to spot my Harelquins to really hurt them. They just can't survive the BA assault without love. I'm contemplating adding an Archon to help this out.

Phrack wrote:

...Already that takes out 1/3 of his points. The rest is just playing smart and knowing when to press. Also, with BA his sanguiry preists are IC's so try to get into base to base with them with your ag. Cause a wound on the IC and he dies. No more FNP for him. ..
.

They don't get Perma-FNP? I thought all their units had FNP for free? How does this work? He took FNP all day on everything, even when the Sang was dead. Is he doing this wrong?

Regarding playing Meph right:
He didn't let him join any units, He just ran him on his lonesome.

lonephoenix wrote:

They don't get Perma-FNP? I thought all their units had FNP for free? How does this work? He took FNP all day on everything, even when the Sang was dead. Is he doing this wrong?

Death Company have FNP for free, Sanguinary priests give FNP and Furious charge to all units within 6 inches of them, but not when they are dead.

lonephoenix wrote:

Do poison ranged weapons get a re-roll on failed wounds? If so, where can I find this information in my Codex?

Don't have my rulebook in front of me however, Poison weapons get to reroll wounds IF the wielder's strength is equal to or greater than the target's toughness. As poison shooting weapons do not have a STR characteristic, they would not get a reroll following the above logic.

Wychs are meant as a tarpit or used for doubling out a squad on the charge. Hence most people take SI on them if they take a special weapon at all.

I am not saying run a full venomspam list, but another blasterborn if you can find the points would be nice.

Id have to say you have had some bad luck with your ravagers if they are not paying their points. Considering they are only 115, if one pops that pred its done its job.

Are you guys just playing Ani games? Or do you play objectives/quarters as well. The local shop around here hosts tournys based off NOVA-open and invite play, we don't just play kill-all lists.

lonephoenix wrote:

Do poison ranged weapons get a re-roll on failed wounds? If so, where can I find this information in my Codex?

just CC-weapons get a reroll from poison/strength

lonephoenix wrote:

Aethersails kill the ability for you to disembark units, and enable them to assault that turn, correct?

right - but you assault next turn - during his turn, you get a 4+ coversave against shooting and he needs to roll a 6 to hit the raider in CC. Your Raider should survive.

Darkgreen Pirate wrote:

lonephoenix wrote:

They don't get Perma-FNP? I thought all their units had FNP for free? How does this work? He took FNP all day on everything, even when the Sang was dead. Is he doing this wrong?

Death Company have FNP for free, Sanguinary priests give FNP and Furious charge to all units within 6 inches of them, but not when they are dead.

lonephoenix wrote:

Do poison ranged weapons get a re-roll on failed wounds? If so, where can I find this information in my Codex?

Don't have my rulebook in front of me however, Poison weapons get to reroll wounds IF the wielder's strength is equal to or greater than the target's toughness. As poison shooting weapons do not have a STR characteristic, they would not get a reroll following the above logic.

He gave Meph FNP when there wasn't any S.Priests around to donate it, so that got messed up.

Even worse, My Lelith mistake, Wasn't really much of a mistake. We did Multi-assault completely wrong. He targetted her immediately when she came in to assault in a multi-assault, which he normally can't do, he would have been forced to attack my wyches that had him tar-pitted the turn before. That and Lelith ignores all armor saves, so all she needed to do was hit him 5 times, with 18 attacks before he would have died. (She's I9 I know, and I believe Meph is I 7. So Meph would have targetted my Tar-pit, while Lelith got her free round of assault, then she would have gone first again, to hit him more. Granted, He was Str10....

We play based on rolls from the standard rulebook. We did a Seize and Control, and I should have tied him, but ruined my last turn. I was relatively disheartened by that point and really didn't care.

My ravagers are doing good if they stun anything. My wyches are significantly more reliable at putting down any given transport. I'm almost to the point where I'm tempted to take a pair of scourge squads with Haywire Blasters to try and control the battle more, while my wyches keep doing the dirty work. Scourges cannot deepstrike, correct?

He definitely gave everything FNP all the time, which isn't really how it works. I'll be sure to let him know this next time. Meph having FNP when there wasn't a unit near him for many many turns was annoying as sin, and would have probably saved the two wych squads I threw at him to deal with it


Does the Aethersail Cover save also allow me to take Flicker Saves? Or is it a "One or the other" type save like Cover + Armor?

EDIT: I should have thanked everyone for the input, I REALLY appreciate it. We're about to begin a league and I'll be facing off with him in a Planet strike (1500 points) where I'm forced to be the attacker. And then start an army from 500 points then leveling it up to ultimately an Apoc game at 2k points. So I'm struggling to deal with him and his Angels.

lonephoenix wrote:

Does the Aethersail Cover save also allow me to take Flicker Saves? Or is it a "One or the other" type save like Cover + Armor?

Like all Cover/Inv-Saves, it is just one or the other

Quote :

Don't have my rulebook in front of me however, Poison weapons get to reroll wounds IF the wielder's strength is equal to or greater than the target's toughness. As poison shooting weapons do not have a STR characteristic, they would not get a reroll following the above logic.

Correct...


BA are one of the tougher armies that DE can go up against, especially if they are pulling from Imperial Armour (lucius pattern drop pods will make you cry). The VERY first time I played DE was against BA (also played 'nids and sisters against them... I was trying to find an army), and everything got tore up. I got beat so bad, that I nearly decided to sell off all my DE models that I recently bought (combined with my friends saying that there was no winning list in the entire book (one of which was a long standing DE player), it was terrible, etc, yadda yadda...)

Try putting dissies on your ravs and raiders (if you can manage to get behind him, dissies can still manage to pop everything but the raider too), and using blasterborn and scourges (with blasters/heat lances) for your anti-armour, , just make sure to keep them away from cc, go light on troops and concentrate more on tabling him, since his army is much, much smaller that yours should be (two wych squads and maybe a wrack squad for home obj sitting). If sanguinary priests are IC's (not sure about that), take a squad of hellions and yank them away, then murder them asap (this and SW Runepriests are the only places where I would suggest this).

Also, any Jump unit can deepstrike

If you're looking just for an army to pound your friends army into the ground, you can tailor it toward that. Don't expect that to work against everyone though...

Ruke wrote:

If sanguinary priests are IC's (not sure about that), take a squad of hellions and yank them away, then murder them asap (this and SW Runepriests are the only places where I would suggest this).

Yes, Sang priests are IC's. (Furious charging Incubi into Dante's death squad after gakking the Sang priest the turn before PLUS a really poor Dante Hit and Run is awesome).

Thankfully Ruke, there are no Lucius pods available to BA anymore!

As for Lilith vs mephiston, your going to loose... You only get a couple of bonus attacks, hit on 3, wound on 6 and he has 5 wounds... He hits back with 5 attacks (from memory) hitting on 4 with rerolls, wounding on 2, you saving on 3 but the first fail is instant death.

Better to poison him to death!

Thanks again for the input everyone.

I'm looking to Scourges for carrying my Haywire Blasters around. I'm just as content to lock down a transport, and force the squishy bits out into the open as I am to just blow it up. Frankly, with my luck on lances, and the range on Lascannons, I'm hard pressed to do much else. I honestly think they Scourges can offer a healthy amount of control on some of the BA's units (as well as anyone [well, everyone except the tyranids] who is spamming mechs) that are being a hassle. If I can force the Land Raider or Pred to do nothing for a few critical turns, and give my wyches time to advance, or force him to not shoot at my Ravagers/Raiders while they are in play, they have done their job in being a suicidal, mech-annoying unit. That said, if I'm able to get them out alive, they don't make for terrible anti-infantry (Just not exceptional.)

At this point, I'm ready to consider sticking Aethersails on my wych raiders, solely so I can get them to the other side of the board as absolute fast as possible. However, as I discovered this afternoon, that has very bad consequences, especially when I get shot mid-flight. (Completely killed my WWP carrier in a 500 point match thanks to infiltrating Genestealers almost killing a venom in turn 1.) Should I expect to lose my Raiders when I do this and accept the risks, or am I likely better off leaving the sails off, and just 12 inching my way there?

Also, this came up in the gaming session today:

If I have Dark Lances in a Venom, and the venom moves 12". can the occupants shoot? When can occupants of an open topped, fast, skimmer fire? (We have always played if it doesn't move more than 12", but the BA player mentioned today that there's nothing saying that is the right way to do it. I'm inclined to concur, despite how much that would totally wreck me [But if we were playing it wrong all along... Derp on me for not playing right in the first place.] )

lonephoenix wrote:

Thanks again for the input everyone.

I'm looking to Scourges for carrying my Haywire Blasters around. I'm just as content to lock down a transport, and force the squishy bits out into the open as I am to just blow it up. Frankly, with my luck on lances, and the range on Lascannons, I'm hard pressed to do much else. I honestly think they Scourges can offer a healthy amount of control on some of the BA's units (as well as anyone [well, everyone except the tyranids] who is spamming mechs) that are being a hassle. If I can force the Land Raider or Pred to do nothing for a few critical turns, and give my wyches time to advance, or force him to not shoot at my Ravagers/Raiders while they are in play, they have done their job in being a suicidal, mech-annoying unit. That said, if I'm able to get them out alive, they don't make for terrible anti-infantry (Just not exceptional.)

At this point, I'm ready to consider sticking Aethersails on my wych raiders, solely so I can get them to the other side of the board as absolute fast as possible. However, as I discovered this afternoon, that has very bad consequences, especially when I get shot mid-flight. (Completely killed my WWP carrier in a 500 point match thanks to infiltrating Genestealers almost killing a venom in turn 1.) Should I expect to lose my Raiders when I do this and accept the risks, or am I likely better off leaving the sails off, and just 12 inching my way there?

Also, this came up in the gaming session today:

If I have Dark Lances in a Venom, and the venom moves 12". can the occupants shoot? When can occupants of an open topped, fast, skimmer fire? (We have always played if it doesn't move more than 12", but the BA player mentioned today that there's nothing saying that is the right way to do it. I'm inclined to concur, despite how much that would totally wreck me [But if we were playing it wrong all along... Derp on me for not playing right in the first place.] )

In order:

1. Scourges are great for locking down LRs from a healthy distance, good idea.

2. Aethersails are hardly worth it. If you're gonna upgrade your Raiders with anything besides FFs, make it Shock Prows. The range on Sang FnP is a mere 6"; Tank Shocking throws a huge monkey wrench in Blood Angels' plans.

That Raider blowing up would have happened with or without the Sails; it's a consequence of your Raider moving Flat-Out (which is required to make use of the Sails), which would normally be 'just' 24". 12"ing, as you call it, is a safer idea.

3. No, infantry can't fire Heavy weapons like Dark Lances if they've moved. If they're in a Transport that moved they count as having moved themselves. You can instead field those Trueborn with Blasters, like the rest of the world, or if you keep the Lance squad drop them somewhere safe asap.

Raneth wrote:

In order:
2. Aethersails are hardly worth it. If you're gonna upgrade your Raiders with anything besides FFs, make it Shock Prows. The range on Sang FnP is a mere 6"; Tank Shocking throws a huge monkey wrench in Blood Angels' plans.

3. No, infantry can't fire Heavy weapons like Dark Lances if they've moved. If they're in a Transport that moved they count as having moved themselves. You can instead field those Trueborn with Blasters, like the rest of the world, or if you keep the Lance squad drop them somewhere safe asap.

In regards to 2: How does the shock plow add to the tank shock? Or is that solely for the ramming that I'm sure I'll be doing over and over. Is there a way for me to split the IC away from the rest of the squad? I need to be able to cite it from the manual if so, because I've been reading over tank shocking, and I'm not sure how I could do that. I would love to break his unit coherency with that priest if I can.

3. I joined the bandwagon and switched to Blasters as of today. I'll get my membership card at the door tonight...

You can not tank shock without the shock prow as you are not a tank!!!

DISCLAIMER: I do not support list tailoring to beat specific armies, and I think it's very bad form that you want to tailor a list to beat Angels. However, I'm for helping new players so:

Lilith is a fairly poor HQ choice, she has lots of attacks but they're all at strenth 3, for her points I would pick up an archon with an agoniser and and trimmings.

Hyrda gauntlets are too unreliable to be useful against Marines, they help against hordes but those 3 extra attacks on average aren't worth the cost of an extra wych.

Dark Lance trueborn in venoms are a bad choice, as they cannot move and shoot, replace them with Blasters or drop the venom and make them a static fire base.

Marines hate Disintergrators.

A casket of flensing might be worth it on a Haemunulus to have a chance of killing Mephiston early one.

Torpedo Vegas wrote:

DISCLAIMER: I do not support list tailoring to beat specific armies, and I think it's very bad form that you want to tailor a list to beat Angels. However, I'm for helping new players so:

Lilith is a fairly poor HQ choice, she has lots of attacks but they're all at strenth 3, for her points I would pick up an archon with an agoniser and and trimmings.

Hyrda gauntlets are too unreliable to be useful against Marines, they help against hordes but those 3 extra attacks on average aren't worth the cost of an extra wych.

Dark Lance trueborn in venoms are a bad choice, as they cannot move and shoot, replace them with Blasters or drop the venom and make them a static fire base.

Marines hate Disintergrators.

A casket of flensing might be worth it on a Haemunulus to have a chance of killing Mephiston early one.

Your disclaimer does hit a very important point.

I am mostly looking for guidance in how to handle it, and knew in advance that my issues were going to be due to my list. That's a majority of the reason why I posted this in the first place. I'm going to be evolving this into an all-comers list, but I haven't found the list I like for that yet. Since I'll be playing 5 matches at minimum against this army, I thought it would be good to tailor it to dealing with marines (At least power armored opponents) on the whole.

Considering my utter failure on my own, I came to the more experienced Archons.

I've switched to going full-fledged Blasters after my 500 point experience this afternoon, thus my DLs will solely be carried by Ravagers, and Raiders. Any other Dark light items are going to be assault weapons.

I'm highly considering either an Archon or the Duke. However, I've not found a good list that can avoid taking the Haemons which involve heavy wyches. I worry that I'm going to be struggling without FNP. I like the idea of running around with an Archon with a Huskblade to deal with ICs, but I don't know if this is viable for dealing with major characters until it's been whittled down a bit by lances

The Duke is an okay choice for wych heavy lists like yours. The extra drug roll can is really useful depending on what army you face and if you grab a squad of trueborn with splinter canons his 3+ poison makes a very nasty firebase. The low orbit raid less so as you want to be assaulting as soon as possible, but as you said, you are leaning towards all comers so that may nor be an issue if you drop wyches.

The wych-heavy side is due to the fact that I loathe wracks on the whole, and warriors are too focused on shooting for me to enjoy them.

I am definitely aware of how wyches are an incredibly effective tarpit, so my pent-ultimate goal is to build an all-comer list with heavy wyches and some other assault unit to clean up the mess the wyches are in.

I will only be taking shard nets hence forth to reinforce this point.

Should I be looking to getting Incubi?

I like the Duke/Dakkaborn combo as much as the next guy, but if one is tailoring vs Muhreens there's nothing quite like PGL Archon with Incubi.

Also what's that about avoiding Haemys?