Considering Blood Angels - Few Questions

[Shenra]

A friend of mine runs a dread heavy force with 5-6 dreads...which is plenty imo...he runs a stormraven and yes he does put his dreads in drop pods...one squad of DC and a couple of squads of assault marines.

[Phil D]

This is, IMO, non-competetive and will lose 90% of the games you play with it (simple estimate based on nothing tangible).
That said, it's almost guaranteed to have your opponent sh*tting bricks and will be LOADS of fun to play.

Capt. in Pwr Armor with P-Fist & Storm Shield
15 Death Company (1x P-Wpn, 1x hand Flamer, 1x Infernus Pistol) [had points to spend)
3x Death Co Dreads with Blood Talons & Lucius Pattern Dreadnought Drop Pod (Drop Pod for dreads - Assault Vehicle)
3x Furioso Dreads with Blood Talons & Lucius Pattern DDP
3x Standard Dreadnoughts (DCCW & Multi Melta) & Lucius Pattern DDP

That comes to exactly 2000 points.

Eric

That...is...AWESOME. (As he looks around at the 9 dreads in various states of assembly on the workbench). And I have 15 DC from my last edition BA army when they were free.

I sometimes play against a drop Nid list, and this would be a fun counter-game.

While this list would have a rough time in objective missions, as discussed earlier, I think it'd be pretty effective since it'd be unusual, so people might not know how to react to it, and once you're stuck in, you're chewing through infantry like no one's business, and hiding behind vehicle wreckage for cover. That extra 220 you scrounged up could be 2 small units of scouts to strictly hold objectives (not exactly following the theme, but it'd work, and who is going to pay attention to scouts with DC and dreads all over the place). The only tough opponent would be high W MCs (mostly Nids) who have a higher I than the dreads and can drop them in one hit.

I'd be curious to hear how this works for you.

[MagickalMemories]

Well, I didn't 40K last weekend. That was D&D Saturday. : )
Two weeks ago I wanted to play this army, but nobody felt like playing against BA's (I didn't tell them WHAT the list was lol).
I'll be pushing to play it this Saturday, though.


Eric

[MagickalMemories]

Capt. in Pwr Armor with P-Fist & Storm Shield
15 Death Company (1x P-Wpn, 1x hand Flamer, 1x Infernus Pistol) [had points to spend)
3x Death Co Dreads with Blood Talons & Lucius Pattern Dreadnought Drop Pod (Drop Pod for dreads - Assault Vehicle)
3x Furioso Dreads with Blood Talons & Lucius Pattern DDP
3x Standard Dreadnoughts (DCCW & Multi Melta) & Lucius Pattern DDP

Played the above army this weekend.
Told my buddy that I wanted to play an unusual army that, while it'll rip apart most armies, will most often find itself fighting for the draw. Told him I knew it was a losing army but seemed fun.

Without knowing what I was making (he knew Blood Angels), he built an Ork army.
Keep in mind that our group uses FW models without "permission" needed.

He played:
Mega Dred
Dred w/3 CCW & flamer (poss. Hvy Flamer?)
2 Bike Bosses
2 Nob biker units (6 each w/ painboy, IIRC). Properly outfitted for wound allocation shenanigans.
3 Kans in a squad
5 FW Grot Tanks

He had a total of 8 KP and 26 models! It was the smallest damned ork army I've ever seen. LOL He had LESS MODELS THAN THE BLOOD ANGELS!
He found out what our (2 people on my side) list was and won the die roll. Made us go first.
Grr..
Turn 1, the footsloggers started as far forward as possible & 5 DDP's dropped in.

Oh, yeah... It was kill points Dawn or War.

He brought his whole army in on turn 1. No reserves.
He managed to kill 3 Dreads & 2 Pods on his assault (we were WAY close to his table edge after scattering).
Turn 2 saw a lot of swing back in our direction. He lost both Warbosses & Nob units. His heaviest hitters. They lost combat due to wounds and failed their Ld checks (and rerolls after Boss Poles). In both instances, the Dreads caught the units on the Init roll off & ate them.

In the end, the BA's lost. We lost 7 KP, and the Orks lost 6. Tabling him was the only way I could do it. He had 1 Grot tank limping away out of my range and one weaponless Kan. That was on turn 6. If we'd gone to turn 7, I MIGHT have been able to get them.

That Kan unit held off for 4 turns against 1 Blood talon Furioso. the last 2 turns, it held up (barely) to 2 Furioso's and a Death Co Dread. My rolling was craptacular, but still...

What I learned:

-Too many Blood Talons, not enought DCW. If I ever play it again, one Furioso and one Death Co dread will have DCW's. Blood Talons don't get to reroll AP (only wounds) and have a hard time with even AV 10 (they're S6). They're death to infantry, though! Four BT's & 5 DCW's is far better.
-Put the PFist on the Death Co so that it can hide in the unit. I couldn't assault anything meaty that could assault back because it would just pinch the Cpt's head off before he got his attacks in. I think the 3+ St Shield is good for the Cpt, and that's it. All other points should go to the D. Co.
-Don't bother with the hand Flamer. It's only S3 (I'd forgotten this), so it relatively useless in many/most instances. Use the points elsewhere.
-Death Co are GROSS in large #'s. Fifteen of these bad boys with FNP are just nasty. Your opponent does not like dishing out 20 wounds to you only to see you save most, make your FNP rolls and end up losing 1 or 2 models. LOL

Also, if your opponent chooses to make you go first in a Dawn of war mission... start farther from his table edge is he's playing an assault heavy army - especially one with a lot of walking armor & power fists. LOL

Eric