2000pt Horde Angels

This is the 2000pt list I'll be play testing for the July 15th Tournament @ Metagames (Springfield, MO)

HQ: 475
Commander Dante
Mephiston, Lord of Death

Elite: 155
Sanguinary Priest - Jump pack, Power Weapon, Infernus Pistol
Sanguinary Priest (stock)

Troop: 970
Sanguinary Guard - 5x Infernus Pistols, Chapter Banner
Assault Squad (10) Power Fist, Melta Gun, Flamer
Assault Squad (10) Power Fist, Melta Gun, Flamer
Assault Squad (10) Power Fist, Melta Gun, Flamer

Heavy Support: 400
Devastators (10) - 4x Lascannons
Devastators (5) 4x Missile Launchers

Devastators are always a threat. The single group of 10 gives me the ability to combat squad into 4 lascannons and 5 Tactical marines or 2 lascannons in 2 groups for more diverse firing. Mephiston is great deterrent for so many forces and the ground Priest gives the back line a bubble to FnP.

Meanwhile Dante delivers the Infernus Pistol destruction to the most critical threat... then that threat goes away. The 30 other DoA marines drop in where required to threaten units or to push or hold things for Mephiston or Dante.


As always, thoughts are welcome.

Ryan

Hey Errutu,

I see you really balanced your assault squads with one flamer and one meltagun. How has that play-tested for you so far? I know your smaller point list purposely makes each of your 10 man assault marines setup for a certain job (one is flamers, one plasma, and the other melta).
I am a fan of devastator squads, but I am more of a fan of missile launchers because of cost and a different option to shoot. I know, it's not ap 2 and str 9, but what is the savings in the Blood Angel codex vs missile launchers?
Dante and the Lord of Death?? Wow, that is a nasty group. So, are you still dropping Dante with the S. Guard and the priest for max destruction?
Look forward to see your battle reports on this list. if you happen to play it Friday, let me know how the fight goes.

Hugs and Hand Grenades,

Feastmaster

As a long time Angel player myself I love the theme of your list. Sadly as a long time Angel player I also know the trouble your going to have with this list. Horde Orks, Nids, most variants of GK, footdar, IG, DE, and Necrons will give this list a fit. Orks, Nids and footdar to some extent will be trouble because they can overwhelm you with bodies. IG, DE, and Necrons will just out shoot you. Finally, GK in the hands of a player with a little experience is sadly still a better army than the angels (stupid power weapons everywhere).

Having not played in the Springfield meta yet I don't really know what your seeing on a regular basis. Locally (NW Ark) we typically see more tournament builds than theme builds. That said here are the changes I'd do for our meta.

Mephy is too expensive and largely just a bullet magnet. Don't get me wrong I love him and he is the best painted model in my 7000+ points of blood angels. Thing is with him he needs to be hidden in a ride or behind cover turn 1 & 2 to be effective. Not having IC and an invuln makes him a target for low AP and torrent of fire. With a average threat range of 21 inches (12+3+6), you wont see the Turn 1 assault very often with him, so your going to have to hide him behind a wall for a turn while they move in closer. The thing is an opponent who knows Mephiston however will know his TR and will feed him a unit that will die / flee the turn he assaults leaving him open to fire.

Dante is a single trick pony really that everyone knows. He'll drop in with ether Sang Guard or Hon Guard and melta the biggest threat in an army. Most of the time it's a Land Raider or Back line firepower. It can be effective, but most players will plan for it if they see that he's in a list. Being a that they can only fire the turn they come in or run to get un-clumped (which honestly if they have a single Plamsa Canon you'd need to do to not lose 700 points in 1 shot,) they really shouldn't be used as the anti-mech that their built for in your list. Break the ride of a DE, GK, or even an Ork player expect to lose 2-3 of them in the next assault phase.

Sadly the Named HQ choices are way over priced in the book. If you want to run a named, I'd honestly run only one (and that'd be Dante.) You can create a close combat libby that has an invuln for less points and would be just as effective as mephy. Oh and you can hide him in a squad.

I'm still not sold on the value of Sang Guard over Honor with dante. Built right a HG squad is be as good as the SG. Sadly I'd still rather take a 10 man AS over both.

In DoA you need a sang priest for every squad that is DoA. This means to join every jumper squad you need 4 75 point priest before any upgrades beyond the jump pack. I normally just run them as an extra wound allocation in CC and try my best to never allocate to them in shooting. If you have a squad on the board not getting FnP then there is a squad that isn't going to fair well in the shooting phase after they arrive.

Lastly if your taking devs then you need them to be missiles over las. Missiles give you a boost in your anti-horde capabilities. I'd also look at adding a rifleman dred or a 3rd mis-dev squad to add in a little more pre-drop armor cracking.

As I said these are the changes I would make for my meta if I stayed DoA. I finally had to give up and go Mech Angels because DoA was very weak against the local meta. Which if you have played Mech Angels, you know it's a very boring build. After 6th drops I'll be re-evaluating DoA myself since it's a funner army build.

@Feastmaster:
You're right about the purpose of the Angel squads. The ability to combat squad on deep strike allows me to allocate the appropriate pieces of a 10 man to the right location. Hopefully opening a hole in the most critical areas for the rest of my forces to punch through. The idea behind the Dante Bomb is fear. Everyone either leaves me the target I want or tightens up so the 6" range isn't an option. It drastically changes peoples play style early in the game allowing me to take early advantage. However on the flip side as Haren said, they are very expensive and are easily wiped off the board if I don't run them immediately after the Surgical Strike. 1 Plasma cannon template, Fire prism shot or Vindicator round and they are well behind the point curve. This unit will be hard to field in anything short of 2,000.
@Haren:
The lists I've had trouble with in each respective game have been Wave Serpent Heavy Eldar, Doom Nids (really just the Doom insta squishing 15 destroys my back line), IG Blob... and... yeah most of the rest of it. Necrons are possibly the worst beating I've taken in a very long time. The solar pulse negates over 1/2 my army and allows them to cherry pick the threats that can still see.

The idea behind the list wasn't quite thorough enough. While I can deny small arms fire with mechanized armor, I can't negate anti Tank and elite infantry killing weapons simply because I don't field them. So my foot army is getting decimated without the resilience of mechanized armor.

From my experience, Mephiston is usable in 2 ways:
•One, he is the end all Lord of Death. Short of a Bloodthirster, the Swarmlord and some Mindshackle Scarabs, he is without a doubt one of the most unstoppable killing forces in the Game. He's not a one man army, so just like any unit, if he is unsupported or caught alone in the world... he will get saturated with all manners of fire power.
•Two, he is an unavoidable killing machine! Your opponent must kill him or suffer his wrath. Therefore, he is a bullet magnet. At toughness 6, 5 wounds and a 2+ armor save, small arms fire will get through on very rare occasion. Just don't point him at Plasma Vets and you should withstand most of the shooting. The upside to this strategy is, if Mephiston is distracting your opponent, everything else in your army isn't getting shot...

As far as devastators go, I go back and forth with them. The static heavy weapon squad always get targeted by anything that will tie them down for most of the game. Normally free gaunts or large ork boy units. This army isn't built to protect them.

So, all in all... I'm going back to Mechanized, with a splash of DOA. If i keep one of the named HQ's... for now (while 5th is the current Ruleset) I'll stick with Mephiston.