First, I got an email from a blog reader who liked my Mephiston conversion so much he wanted to try his own!
I think this conversion is again WAY better than the existing Mephiston model. And the vampire wings were a nice touch.
In other news, a new commission site called Worthy Painting is having a promotional giveaway in conjunction with my friends from the great white north Mini Wargaming whom I had the pleasure to meet at Gamesday. These guys are giving away a thousand POUNDS worth of loot (I think thats about 1600 bucks) and all you have to do to qualify for the give away is to subscribe to the site and email them.I think I'm going to enter myself, and if I win, give the loot to one of you! :) Here is some video from Worthy Painting:
Emails:
I get lots and lots of emails asking for advice on list building. There are two kinds of requests. The first is from beginners asking me to tell them what to play. They have no idea what lists work and are looking for a starting point. For these guys I can't really do much list analysis and I hate to pigeon hole beginners into a specific list. So I usually tell them to go with their hearts, and use one of the lists over on the right as a starting point. Most of these guys, by the time they figure things out, would probably not be playing the list I gave them any way. So if you fall into that category, Go with your heart! I started with Whirlwinds and scouts and hell, I almost won Ren Man at Nova this year with two squads of scouts in my army, including Close Combat scouts!
Now the other type of requests I get are from guys who have obviously done their leg work. And these I love to answer. Usually they are guys prepping for a tournament and need some final advice on tweaking their list. Recently I responded to one, and got this reply:
Hello Mr. Jawaballs First of i want to say that I'm not a celebrity whore and I'm not trying to make you my best friend, but after the last mail about my jump pack list I started Thinking. After the thinking was done I sad down and wrote my army list over again. When that army list was complete i saw one of your old live shows and you said that Dante was bad... Correction, horrible. So afterwords i sad down again and rewrote the list so there was no Dante, But that meant no Sanguinary Guard as troops, and since i had used all of the elites i had to think again. The point being, I can't use the army list before you approve it as playable. Or maybe there's something that needs to be changed. So here you go Mr. Jawaballs, The best army list in the world! Ps. did you get some inspiration from the last list??? And BTW i'm from Denmark so my spelling may not be that good Blood Rain HQ Reclusiarch Tenebrae Reclusiarch With Jump Pack 155 Librarian Cronus Librarian With Jump Pack, Shield Of Sanguinius 125 And The Sanguine Sword Honour Of Blood Honour Guard With Bolt Pistols, Jump Packs, 270 Blood Champion, Chapter Banner, Power Fist And 2 Power Weapons. Joined By Reclusiarch And Librarian Elites Priest Purpureus Sanguinary Priest With Jump Pack And 100 Power Fist Priest Albulus Sanguinary Priest With Jump Pack And 100 Power Fist Priest Pulliaceus Sanguinary Priest With Jump Pack Power Fist 115 And Infernus Pistol Troops White Wing Strike 5 Man Assault Squad With Power weapon 130 And Infernus Pistol. Joined By Priest Purpureus Blood Drop Support 5 Man Assault Squad With 2 Hand Flamers. 120 Joined By Priest Albulus Heavy Red 5 Man Assault Squad With Infernus Pistol. 145 And Thunder Hammer Joined By Priest Pulliaceus Fast Attack Red Lightning Vanguard Veteran Squad With Jump Packs, 240 2 Power Weapons, Power Fist And Storm Shield Total 1500
Looks like I need to be careful what I say! First of all, don't worry, I understand. But lets talk about Dante for a second. He is not horrible. He gives a nice debuff to your opponent, and allows you to put something deadly right where you want it. But in comparison to Dante of old, (PDF Dante) he is not as good, not even close. I don't recall but I believe he is more points now. Feel free to look em up. But there are two translation omissions from PDF to Codex that really hurt. First of all, the Perdition pistol used to act as a regular melta gun with a 12" range. Now it is just a melta pistol with 6" range, 3" melta range. This means you will never be able to attach him to a squad of more than 5 guys and use it upon landing. You have to be WITHIN 3" of a vehicle to use it. You don't scatter, but you have to ring the squad around Dante. So placing him WITHIN 3" of a vehicle means that it is impossible to get more than one ring around him upon deepstrike, which means that he will not be able to have more than 6 or 7 models land with him. Small point, probably circumventable, and probably a non issue.
But the glaring omission is his preferred enemy bubble. The PDF Blood Angels were amazing with their Ven Diagram of Death. Corbulo and Dante had bubbles of Furious Charge and Preferred Enemy. This was awesome. The perferred enemy was removed from Dante. This is bad.
In return for the loss, he got a death mask which helps a bit in close combat, a -1 stats debuff to enemy IC, and the ability to turn San Guard into troops. Well, the debuff is pretty much a free ticket to bad sportsmanville. (Guys hate that, and most cannot separate themselves from dinging your sportsman score for "cheating".) And San Guard as troops is nice, but when you think about the fact that they are probably not going to survive, ever, not so good. These guys are going to be in the hottest zone on the table. They are going to be facing the worst the enemy has to offer, suffering terrible psychic powers and hordes of power weapons. Having them as scoring matters not when they are all dead. See the point? Besides, I am not sold on the value of the San Guard any way. 3 attacks on the charge, no invul, very expensive. One squad as a fire magnet may be a good idea, but lots of them is a point sink that is one Plasma Vet Squad away from dead.
So where does that leave me with this list?
I like your non character approach. Mephiston, for all of his awesome, is expensive. I have not decided if he is better than a chaplain/lib combo instead.
I like your honor guard choice. The wargear is appropriate.
I dislike your priest choices. Take the fists off. They are independent characters, and as such, will be targeted hard. If they are waiting until last in combat to take their swipes, they probably won't get them. Smart players target them and simply take em out with a power weapon. Give them Power Weapons instead, and take a couple infernus pistols with the savings.
In your troops drop your infernus pistols and hand flamers and go with Melta Guns. The loss of a single chainsword attack is minimal compared to the range of the Melta Gun. The hammer is nice though, but in a 5 man squad you run the danger of losing them before ever using it.
Vanguard Vets? I love em.
Sadly though, DoA Blood Angels are a 50/50 army. You will win big or lose big. You will never be able to win those drawn out slug fests, or have the versatility to win the wonky missions. You have one tactic choice, full attack. When that fails, and it will half the time, you will lose. But you will have fun doing it.
Hope that helps!
Thats all I have time for today! Nova Review next.
Jawaballs
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9 comments:
This means you will never be able to attach him to a squad of more than 5 guys and use it upon landing. You have to be WITHIN 3" of a vehicle to use it. You don't scatter, but you have to ring the squad around Dante. So placing him WITHIN 3" of a vehicle means that it is impossible to get more than one ring around him upon deepstrike, which means that he will not be able to have more than 6 or 7 models land with him.
This isn't correct:
BRB, p95: First place one model from the the unit anywhere on the table, in the position you would like the unit to arrive, and roll the scatter dice.
C:BA, p52: Commander Dante (and his unit, if he has joined one and they have jump packs) does not scatter when it deploys by Deep Strike.
There's nothing that states that an Dante needs to be the one you place before ringing the rest of them, so you're free to place any one of the unit down, and then put Dante on the ring closest to the tank you want to microwave.
And even if it was, you can fit five or six models around him (assuming you're not prevented by poses and spiky bitz all over the place). After that, you can wrap at least seven to nine more without making a complete ring, giving you 12-15 models beyond the one you place. That's enough for Dante and double his points in Death Company.
Where does it say that for deepstriking Dante's Squad he needs to be in the middle? Why not choose another model for the first model and put Dante in the outside most ring.
You are of course right. Getting out the calipers you could fit a full squad in proper deep strike formation legally. You are also probably right about not having to place specific models first. But I have always just played it that the sergeant goes first, then the rest of the guys come down. I guess sometimes I like to do things that just make sense. Dante would never let his privates go first. It also makes sense that Dante needs to be the one to go first in order to use his power.
But there are some issues. This is going to come down to a matter of millimeters. Further, you are not allowed to pre-measure range. At least not supposed to. So, you place your first model, at what appears to be 3" away from your target then ring the models. You should not be measuring your distance to your target at this point. Nor should you be measuring melta range. Then you ring your models. If your estimate is off, you could be in trouble. Most likely you are safe, even if placing 10 assault marines, dante and a priest. I lost a full 10 man squad with priest at Nova because they scattered just a tad too close and no matter how I tried, I could not avoid the 1" barrier with one of my models. Granted they did not have Dante's precision, but even with that precision, you could still end up in a situation where you are danger close and unable to place all models, thus mishap.
The whole point of this is not really the difficulty of placing a deepstrike squad safely in a position to fire Melta, but that Dante's melta pistol as opposed to his PDF Melta Gun leaves you in a position where it is at least more difficult to use it properly. In my opinion losing his melta gun in favor of non scatter was not a fair trade.
I agree with the old melta gun being better, but on the deepstrike without scatter it is pretty easy (with a 10 man squad) to ensure that Dante is within 3". You eyball the placement of your Sargent(or whatever model you decide to place as your sagent could also have an inferno pistol if you so choose) to be about 3-4 inches away from your targe, you then build your first ring of guys (usually normal guys), then place Dante and the melta weapons in the outer ring on the side the target is on. This gives you about another 2" of distance with the width of the bases. That said there are plenty of other squads that can reliably deepstrike close to the enemy and not have to pay the price for dante. He would be worth more if Descent of Angels did not exists, or if he could join vanguard vets for a heroic intervention.
I hear ya about placing Dante where you want. I wrote this from the point of view that I actually place Dante first. To me it does not make sence to place all the expendable grunts first, then place their commander. Even though the rules allow. Placing Dante first, then ringing him with a 10 man squad, would make it difficult to get his melta range safely.
If he could join VVs and assault when he lands, that would make him worth his points. As he is now, even if you did line up that perfect melta shot with a squad attached, you are in a great little clump in the midst of the enemy guns. Against IG the squad is as good as dead.
Pretty much, and against many marine armies what are you killing with that melta shot, A land raider if your lucky, maybe a dread, most of the time a Rhino or Razorback, not really all that worth while.
Thank you so much for answering my mail. i am in the middle of writing the list over with the tips that you have given me. i have chosen a sniper scout for some power shots and using a power weapon, melta bomb and meltagun combo for the assault squads. as for the priests, they now have power weapons over the power fist. actually right after the mail was sent to you i changed the priest weapons to PW. The new list wil be done soon and i hope you want to see what has come out of your advising.
Lefibankmand at gmailicus dot comicus
hey jawa are you going to show us pictures of your army and display board i would really really love to see them! Thanks,
Yah I have video and pics, just need to find my camera! I moved and every thing is buried. Sigh.
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