Plugging a Gap - Adding Blood Angels to my Dark Angels Force

Plugging a Gap: Adding Blood Angels to my Dark Angels Force

This is just a little hobby and tactics article, covering the recent addition of some Blood Angels to my Dark Angels force.

First, some pics of the models, amongst some of the new Sector Imperialis terrain:

These were pretty simple to paint and were finished in a single day (a day in which I painted non-stop and didn't eat properly, but a day nonetheless!)

The Librarian Dreadnought is as he comes in the box, base and everything. The Smash Captains are a little more bespoke. They are taken from the Sanguinary Guard kit, with shield and hammer added, and both mounted on some chopped up bits of church from this kit:

This is a great kit from Pegasus Hobbies. I delve into it to base my larger or showier models, such as these two for my burgeoning Slaves to Darkness army for AoS:

I concede that this one may be a tad ridiculous.

I decided to paint both of the Smash Captains and the Libby black. This wasn't for fluffy reasons. The models aren't necessarily members of the Death Company, though they can be if you want them to be. It's more so I can take them in a detachment with my primaris - which are painted either grey or black - without it jarring, and without getting kicked out of tournaments for not having a unified colour scheme throughout the detachment.

I'll be a happy man when the rules for these guys are as awesome as the models.

For painting the Blood Angels I used a method which I now use whenever I paint black. This is a black basecoat, a drybrush of Vallejo Black Grey, followed by edge highlights of a medium grey, a light grey and a white.

The drybrush of Black Grey is absolutely key here. The issue I originally had with painting black was a displeasingly stark contrast between the light colours of the edge highlights and the black of the armour. I've since found that Black Grey really helps in the transition from black to those lighter colours. I'd encourage anyone who has been having trouble painting black to give it a go.

Drybrushing also came to the rescue for the wings on the Smash Captains. These were achieved by painting a medium grey basecoat and then drybrushing white all over. I then hit it all with a black wash, before drybrushing white again and picking out white with a detail brush at the end of each feather.

In gaming terms, the Blood Angels have been brought in to plug a few gaps in my existing army.

With Dark Angels, I think that their real strength at the moment lies in their anti-infantry firepower. Between Sammael, Talonmasters, Dark Talons and Bike Squads, the Ravenwing can kick out a frightening volume of effective shooting.

This can deal with hordes with ease and it is against horde armies with which I've had most success.

However, a problem I've found in playing pure Dark Angels is having the tools to deal with heavier targets.

Granted, in this department we do have Devastators, Hellblasters, Black Knights and Plasma Inceptors. However, I've found that these units, as effective as they can be, suffer from many issues: firstly, these are most prey to minuses to hit, which are anathema to plasma particularly. Secondly, they represent obvious, easy to kill targets, which leave a big expensive hole in your army when they die. Thirdly, their killing potential comes through shooting, which is most prey to coming up against invulnerable saves (as well as the aforementioned minuses to hit). And lastly, with the exception of Inceptors (who get to deep strike), they are all units which can be wiped out by your opponent before they get a chance to do anything. 8th Edition is chess-like in that your hard-hitting units can be deleted with ease, no matter what they are. But, like chess, you should never put yourself in a position to give up your queen cheaply!

It is here that the Blood Angels come in. To my mind, these guys get round a number of the issues I've just mentioned, as well as offering the tank killing my Dark Angels crave.

First, we have the Smash Captain with Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield.

I will be taking this guy in the tried and true configuration. This utilises the Angel's Wing relic jump pack, which allows him to both ignore overwatch and reroll charges, as well as the Artisan of War warlord trait to bump his Thunder Hammer up to damage 4.

As if that wasn't enough, we then make use of multiple stratagems to turn him into the bain of Castellans and Aeldari flyers everywhere. First, before the game starts, we use the 1CP Death Visions of Sanguinius, giving him the DEATH COMPANY keyword. This gives him +1 attack on the charge, as well as a 6+ Feel No Pain. Then, when he charges, we use the 2CP Descent of Angels, allowing him to charge on 3D6. With the reroll charges ability from his jump pack, this should make getting into combat a near-certainty. When he's in combat, we can then use the 1CP Red Rampage strat, to give him an extra d3 attacks. Finally, if he's not finished the job first time around, or fancies consolidating into and having a go at another target, we can fight again with the 3CP Honour the Chapter strat. If he's been killed (by a stomping Gallant, say), we can get our own back with the 2CP Only in Death Does Duty End, allowing him to fight once more before dying.

The libby dreadnought is probably a bit of a hipster choice, but I reckon he can be very effective if played right. First off, he gets many of the strats which the Smash Captain has access to: Red Rampage, Only in Death…, and Honour the Chapter. This really boosts his meagre 3 attacks to something far greater. His weapon of choice is his Furioso Force Halberd, a +4/-4/3 melee weapon. With the Red Thirst chapter trait, allowing Blood Angels to add +1 to wound rolls in a turn in which they charged or were charged, this has him wounding anything in the game on 2s! And, as the Halberd doesn't suffer from any minuses to hit, he'll be hitting on 2s as well.

As you'd expect, his psychic powers boost him further. I'll be taking Quickening and Wings of Sanguinius. Quickening is Warp Charge 7. It allows him to add 3 to advance and charge rolls, as well as make an additional d3 attacks until his following psychic phase. Wings of Sanguinius is WC 5. This gives him a movement of 12”, the FLY keyword until his next psychic phase, and also allows him to immediately move and reroll failed charges.

I believe that in most cases this latter power will be essential to get off. The former power, on the other hand, will be a very good bonus which will mean not relying on stratagems as much.

Happily, the essential power is only WC 5! Getting it off will practically give him a move of 18” (6” base and 12” from the power) as well as allowing him to jump over screens (not in the charge phase, alas) and reroll charges.

After casting this, getting off Wings of Sanguinius will be an added bonus. The d3 extra attacks may mean I won't have to turn to the Red Rampage strat, or to fight again. It will also increase the reach of the Libby.

But enough of the sensible! Getting all powers off, feeding him all the strats, getting maximum rolls on the extra attacks putting him at 9 attacks and successfully making all hit and wound rolls causes 54 wounds. And that's two dead Knights. Easy!

(Perhaps more realistically, our guy gets six attacks, wounds with four, and fights again to bring the Knight's 24 wounds down to 0).

Last and by no means least, the Libby Dreadnought has the CHARACTER keyword. This gives him good evasion, ensuring that, in the right list, he should be able to get in and do his job without being shot off the board.

This is what I hope will be that right list, one that I took to a game recently:

Battalion - Ravenwing Attack Squadron

Sammael in Sableclaw

Talonmaster with Heavenfall Blade

Talonmaster

5 man Scout Squad with boltguns

5 man Scout Squad with boltguns

5 man Scout Squad with boltguns

Dark Talon

Dark Talon

Rhino with extra storm bolter

Rhino with extra storm bolter

Rhino with extra storm bolter

Blood Angels Battalion

Captain with thunder hammer, storm shield and jump pack (Angel's Wing relic); (WARLORD: Artisan of War)

Librarian Dreadnought

5 man Intercessor Squad with power sword

5 man Intercessor Squad with power sword

5 man Intercessor Squad with power sword

Total points: 1912

Reinforcement points: 88

The basic idea with this list is to have the Ravenwing put out hundreds of shots, removing screens, before the Blood Angels can come in and destroy their heavier targets. Simple.

The Rhinos are there to screen for everything, block units and generally be annoying. No one wants to shoot a Rhino, and this is their strength!

I've also enjoyed going back and mucking mine up of late:

As for the rest of the list, I've wanted to try out Blood Angels Intercessors for a while. I've got a suspicion that Blood Angels are the strongest chapter for Primaris. Their Intercessors look particularly good to me. Wounding Guardsman profile units on 2s and Marine toughness units on 3s  in combat is not to be sniffed at.

The reinforcement points were to pay for the Officio Assassinorum strat Operative Requisition Sanctioned, allowing me to add an assassin of my choice to my army during deployment.

In the game I played, against Genestealer Cults, I took a Culexus assassin. This was after my opponent, Chris, informed me of some horrendous combo he had using the psychic power Mental Onslaught and leadership buffs/debuffs, which was apparently more than capable of one-shotting any of my units.

Here are some pics from the game:

Deployment.

Horde Number 1, deployed. Horde Number 2, of similar size, waits in deep strike.

My RW characters and Librarian Dreadnought cower at the back, out of Mental Onslaught range. Culexus is hidden just behind a Rhino. If he wants to cast it on my juicier targets, he'll have to move right into Culexus range. (Like a fool, I also put my own psyker in the Culexus’s range. D’oh.)

Brain fart. Despite Chris telling me at the start that he can deep strike 3” away with a unit, I completely forget and move forward in my first turn to allow it. This meant a dead Talonmaster to demo charges and an almost dead second one to hand flamers. If you're coming up against GSC, beware of this strat!

Chris's brain fart. He left his Patriarch to be sniped by my Dark Talon. Alas, he didn't manage it.

Think this was around Turn 3. I moved into the centre of the board and tried to repel the horde on all sides.

In the event, the game ended with a win for me by a couple of points. This only happened because we reached Turn 7, however, and would have been a win for Chris if he'd rolled less than a 4 to see if the game continued!

I believe I tabled his army by turn 6, which is testament to what Ravenwing can do to 250 Guardsmen! Chris was consistently ahead on the scoreboard throughout the game, as is to be expected with the table coverage he had. However, as the horde thinned, my scoring went up. I believe if I play another uber horde like this I'll challenge myself to be strong on at least half of the objectives at all costs and not be so expansive. This will hopefully ensure that I'm in the game from the start. I can then begin to move out, T'au style, once everything's been wiped out.

Given that there was very little in the way of heavy support for them to go at, this wasn't much of a game for the Blood Angels characters. The Dread did chop up a Patriarch (after himself being chopped up) and my Smash Captain got involved in a long, drawn out fight in which Chris kept porting wounds from his other Patriarch onto his Guardsmen (note to self: shoot down nearby Guardsmen before getting into melee with a GSC character), before eventually succumbing.

I'll go again with the same list next time, hopefully getting a better idea of what the Blood Angels  can do, and let you know how it goes!

Thanks for reading!