Some Overused Pun About Baals: Blood Angels List Testing

Time for a brief interlude of rational discussion and fun before I whine about the possibility of percentages making it back into Warhammer Fantasy.

I think I'll talk about the Blood Angels list I proffered a few days ago. Now that I've successfully gotten the four people's opinion's that I value the most in this regard, it's time to do some reflection and thinking.

First up, I have actually managed to get a vassal game in with the proposed list.* Dethtron was nice enough to write up a battle report of one of the most frustrating games I've ever played.
Despite my craptacular luck, the list was an absolute blast to play with. Even if the list isn't the best thing in the world, there's something to be said for cramming in 8 heavy support choices into one list. That thing would be that its fun.

Now that I've had a chance to step back and analyze the game a bit, some things that Chumby and Kirby (after the fact) said have come into focus. That being that most of my anti-tank rests on the backs of my three regular predators. Going in, I had high hopes for the melta guns on the assault marines and the LRCs to get in and do some of the heavy lifting as well and deal with the stuff the lascannons couldn't get.



This first game was a very important learning experience. The regular Predators we're a big let down until about turn 5 and singleton melta guns, while extremely threatening, are not reliable. Chalk one up for inexperience. But I get a bonus point for learning and another for the process of becoming a better player. A net gain of 1!

As far as the assault phase went, the assault marines were pretty solid against the average puny guardsman... and Devil Dogs, crazily enough. Despite the small size, they were pretty hard to shift out of Dethtron's lines and ended up drawing a ton of firepower. But, there was no saturation with the foot marines and 5 guys, no matter how amazing they may be, will die if enough stuff shoots at them.

Speaking of anti-infantry, the Baals were pretty golden with being able to shoot 10 times each with some high strength weaponry. Plus, they snaked some clutch kill points when they went bananas with rending shots on vehicles. The Crusaders... not so much. Didn't get too much of a chance to shoot the assault cannons. Never shot the hurricane bolters. The meltas didn't do much either. Kind of a let down.

In light of the types of armies I face regularly, I feel like switching to regular Land Raiders with multi-meltas is something to try out. Mostly, I want the extra 4 lascannon shots with the possibility of them being at four different targets if need be (best case scenario, I know). I also feel like this gives my opponents a harder time with threat priority. Plus, the heavy bolters may actually be in range to shoot at well... ANYTHING (making them infinitely more useful than the assault cannons ended up being). All in all, I think the regular Raiders my fit into the rolling gun line strategy I like to rock. Defintely something to play with. Though I have fears that this may shift me too far into anti-tank firepower or simply dilute things to the point of not being good at anything except having high AV.

It goes without saying that I need to do a lot more testing.

I think this list is a good place to start - its fun and it has a ton of models in it that I really like. While it's very likely not super competitive, the 6 Predator base is a solid foundation to work from in the future. So while I may not be decided on the two Land Raiders yet, the other stuff in the list are things I can build while I try and figure out what to do in the long term.

In future games I need to see how this thing handles in objective missions and how it fairs against some other armies. One game does not a trend set.

-----[Foot Notes]--------------------------
* Consequently, all the vassal games I've been playing have been really good for helping me learn the game to a much better point. Definitely feeling more confident these days.