Thoughts on BA

I have a game coming up with Blood Angles. I have never played them and am looking for any advice on what to expect. I know he uses mepheston and has a jump heavy list with some devestators.

My initial thought is to mass splinter fire and pick apart the units one at at time and use my ravagers' DLs for any high value targets with their AP 2. Not sure if a razorwing is a good fit against BA or if three ravagers would be better.

Any experience is greatly appreciated.

I have honestly only played BA once since 6th, since Rhino's are just above useless now, and he had used a jump pack heavy army with outflanking Baal Predators, those can be scary against our raiders/venoms.

we do take away the advantage from the AV13 Dreads though with lances/haywire. But i would still want to stay away from one with Blood Talons.

but what you are planning sounds good, if he is taking loads of infantry, then load up on Splinter weapons and shoot.


Edit: Can't believe i forgot about this...Stormravens can be a royal pain as well, depending on what, if anything they bring in it.

Mech up. BA are my main army and my biggest issue when playing against DE is not being able to catch them. If he plays jump heavy then he'll likely be c-c oriented so pick him apart at range. Drop the devastators ASAP as they'll be death to you if he's running the standard 4 ML set up. Mephy is a beatstick but he's only got a 2+ save and no invulnerable. Couple of ravagers and enough splinter fire should ruin his day. Take a razorwing/void raven as it'll help to combat a storm raven to no end, and if he doesn't have one then you'll rule the sky pretty easily; dropping the devastators will make you practically untouchable. Watch for outflanking Baals, they'll do a number on your transports or infantry.

Mephiston as a non-IC is easy pickings for Dark Lances/Blasters if you can position yourself for shots on him without cover. Splinter fire for the assautl troops, avoid any Baals and Dreads and just take them out with darklight. Should be a pretty easy match to be honest, and that's coming from someone who has about 10k of Blood Angels!

Right now I am thinking

Duke

9 wyches, hekatrix and haeme on a raider
10 Warriors, SC, raider with splinter racks (duke starts with them)
5 wyches, venom SC X2
5 Wracks, venom SC X2

4 Incubi, venom SC X2

3 Reavers, blaster
3 Reavers, blaster

Ravager
Ravager
Razorwing

Or I could drop the incubi and venom and up the two reave squads to 6 with two blasters.

I would recommend going dissy on the razor wing or go with a third ravager
Your odds of beating a storm raven with one of our flyers is not good and even if you did if would most likely be after its unloaded all its blood strike missiles which are the Bain of mech DE (don't forget about power of the machine spirit letting them shoot a third missile at another ship or you will pay dearly for it)

Night shields are good this edition and even better against BA as many of their troops have 12 inch shooting range.

Ah, yes. Perhaps loose the jet and pick up a ravager and some NS. The ravagers have NS, I forgot to put that on there.

One sided tailoring is not nice, but here are some tips how to beat BA:

Same things work as against any other Meq army. Lances and splinter but this time I would leave dissies home since they don't deny FNP.

If he is jumper heavy then night shield are golden.

And your last list don't have room for the duke. And I wouldn't bother with 5 wyches since they get rolled by the asm. At least the kabalites shoot more and have access to blasters.

I would stick with the lances, like Vasara said they ignore FNP. Assault marines are not cheap so it's not like there will be as many as say space wolves grey hunter hordes. The other lances are great against is Mephiston. He's T6 so wounding him on 2s with lances is a big deal considering he only has a 2+ save.

I forgot to mention that this is part of an ongoing campaign and I missed the beginning week so am behind in tiles, so he got 50 extra points at the beginning, and has had a week to figure out how he wants to play against my army. Oh, we shared lists and explained all our special abilities, weapons etc ahead of time. He kept my list as a reference throughout the game. Marines are easy...4s across the board with the occasional 5, so I didn't bother referring to his list. It was a very friendly game.

I ended up using the list I almost always do except decided to go with an archon since i have only used it once before. I don't usually tailor my lists, but like to know the tactics he may use. The list above is basically the 1500 point list I always use. What I was asking for is "based on this list and whay you guys know about BA, any advice on my tactics, not the list itself...unless you see something completely stupid. The problem with tailoring lists is you can end up with units you are not familiar with and end up hurting yourself more than helping. I do like to try one or two new things though to get a feel for them. I really want to use my beasts more.

As for the list, it does have room for the duke...just not the hekatrix, I forgot that I pulled her out, I don't use them much anymore

I also used HL instead of blasters, which is what I normally do. I was going to try them based on recommendations in other threads, but just didn't have the room.

Oh....you mean putting him on the raider. What I often do is start the warriors and the duke out of the transport, then the duke leaves to go with whoever.

I disagree with the 5 wych venoms, I have found them very good and they can still tarpit like crazy, especially if the have FNP. I ended up leaving the DC on my fighter, which is how it was kitted out for my last game. The reason I use that is because I use it as AI not AT. It could bite me in the rear if a bunch of fliers show up, so may go back to DLs on it. I have tried if to three games and it has been okay. I don't think I would take them on a ravager though. I really like my DLs:)

I will post the batrep tonight.

If not now, then at some point you will face Commander Dante. He will lower the stats on your chief model without ever being on the battlefield, because he apparently wears a scary mask. He also tends to hang out with Sanguinary Guard in artificer armour, so use an Archon w/ huskblade and 5+ Incubi to wipe he and his entourage off the map.

Use the 5 wych venoms to mass splinter kill everything else.

Run as many triple-lance ravagers as you can to deal with deep striking Land Raiders andother shenanigans.

Wait, something with a scary mask, scares Dark Eldar? There should be a "hey, we make grotesques" clause in there.

Nappen wrote:

Wait, something with a scary mask, scares Dark Eldar? There should be a "hey, we make grotesques" clause in there.

To be fair, it's about the only use Dante has these days since he's still T4 with no Eternal Warrior (despite being the oldest living Space Marine) and his I6 is now completely useless since they gave him a frikkin power axe.