BA Honour Guard as Deathwatch Kill Team

Just how many guns to take?

So as part of my extended Deathwatch project I want to build a BA honour guard as a Deathwatch kill team to accompany Cpt. Tycho my Master of the Watch.

They'll not be going with Jump packs, as I think I covered earlier special weapons and Jump packs are for RAS and Sanguinary Guards.

I want something that's going to model as well as it plays.....

Tactics:

Normally my kill team/ honour guard/ stern guard units are used like a punch to the face, dropped in first turn to focus the enemies attention where I want it and to stop them progressing across the board, I'd normally drop a Furioso or regular Dred in a pod too to split the enemies fire.

I don't think they'll need a power weapon, although I'm considering a Blood champion to protect Tycho from any biased challenges.

So what wargear loadout should these Ordo Xenos bad asses be packing.....

Wargear:

Storm Bolters are a nice option, they provide funky extra shots at distance making up for low squad numbers and can compliment specialist short range weapons like meltas and flamers.  They're also dirt cheap.

Flamers, now I'm all for flamers in the face on first turn, especially against hordes.  I've also found multiple flamers reliable enough to thin the ranks of TEQs too.  It's a shame there's not a heavy flamer option but these will definitely figure.  But my main reason for wanting these is for overwatch Wall of Death.....if there was a 5pt per model option that just let you auto hit assulting units with D3 Str4 Ap5 hits I'd take it, and these babies can ignore cover too.

Melta guns vs Plasma, I've always favoured the melta vs. plasma, 40k has an amazing habit of throwing up Gets Hot results right when you don't need them.  But with TEQ and the 2+ save becoming so important in 6th Ed, the extra shots are definitely useful.  However if you face off against Paladins or even BA TEQs, melta has to be the better choice to instant gib and get round feel no pain.  Meltas are cheaper too, unless one goes for the gunslinger infernus option, which does increase the number of shots, but we lose out on our defensive template weapons which I really want to keep.  If I go for plasma I always tend to pack a melta bomb or two to take on serious armour, which to be honest isn't needed if one's packing melta heat.

I'm just mulling over the two options:

1) 2x hand flamer gunslingers  & 2x infernus gunslingers = 80 pts

2) 4 Flamer & 4 Meltas = 60 pts

20 pts for an extra 4 Str4 AP- attacks seems a lot, but it is cheaper than the chapter banner by 10 points, however the weapons in option 2 are far more superior, so I'm heading that way I think.  

I'll be playing around now with some Flamer / Melta combi weapon proto-types......

Blood Angels Deathwatch Contingent

I've never seen the attraction of a Str 3 Ap6 flame weapon, 

however gimme two of them and I might change my mind..........gimme 8 and I'm sold!

OK so I've decided I'm going to reconnect with my fluff and work the Ordo Xenos Deathwatch aspect a little more.  I want an allied detachment of BA to sit as a Deathwatch strike force to partner a GK or IG army.  Now I want these guys to be stand out as Deathwatch with all their flavour and special wargear.  I intend to incorporate either Tycho in DW livery or a DW librarian, I was thinking which units could imaginatively come across as Deathwatch without excessively proxying the BA's DNA too much.  

The challenge is creating a flavour that is beyond the obvious Sternguard vets (who will definitely figure), I want some more variety in the other FOC slots.

Death Co. and Sanguinary guard have plenty of character but are so recognisable as Blood Angels its a stretch for me to proxy them as anything else........I'd considered creating some fluff to explain their special rules away, but I'd just end up telling my opponent that they were Death Company for ease of recognition during a game.

The options I'm looking at then are Honour Guard, none D.Co. Troops and Vanguard vets...... It occurred to me I could take advantage of the "Gunslingers" pistols rule to make a cool unit with enough character and special shooting to allow them to pass as Deathwatch.....

Honour Guard are clearly head and shoulders the most versatile shooting unit in the codex, the ability to take two special weapons is attractive from a conversion and a game play point of view and they're fully capable of fielding four gunslingers too.  

So the Honour Guard are top of the list, not to mention they bring a much needed priest and put extra bodies into the allied detachment without filling up the FOC.  But how about making them gunslingers? Certainly not with plasma pistols, plasma guns can put out that many shots much cheaper, but for infernus you can double the number of shots available, though its not cheap......but where I really get excited is the thought of using hand flamers......8 hand flamer templates and the overwatch potential could be quite a deterrent to opposing charging units......8D3 a minimum of 8 and a max of 24 possible strength 3 auto hits, add melta bombs and you're good to take out MCs and walkers too.....perhaps exchange 1 guy for a melta gun/ flamer combo and escort Tycho into the midst of battle......If I go with a Libby option I might consider doing a prescience/plasma mix with flamers as secondary weapons, this could also be funky.

Tactical squads are out just too vanilla for me, they got a boost in 6th but are only capable of fielding plasma pistols on the sergeant and the rapid fire and one heavy dictates plasma on the special for me too.  Gunslinging plasma pistols just don't make sense when a combi-plas is available for 1/3 of the cost.

RAS: Well these guys can do ok, we can get 1x special and 1x gunslinger for a five man squad, they get a nice discount on a transport, as well as fulfilling the allied troop requirement.  The three to seven guys with chainswords isn't ideal but could work under proxy just fine.  The RAS is one of the cheapest power armoured troop choices in the game when taking into account the 35 point discount for a transport.  If there's value to be had it's here.  

Toting plasma doesn't make much sense though, not just because of the restrictive rapid fire on the special weapons but also in regard to what you get: The extra points for two extra plasma shots, coupled with the higher cost of the special weapon makes this option really expensive, 1x plasma gun and 2x plasma pistols practically adds 50% to the cost of a 5 man squad, making it cheaper to do the same job with Sternguard.  

The infernus gunslinger and melta gun is only marginally more attractive as it answers the assault concern of plasma, however a 5 man unit with three melta shots at <6" costs the same as a Sternguard squad putting out three melta shots at upto 12".  

The RAS infernus gunslinger could be useful    as a cheap alternative jump pack unit to accompany Dante in a BA loadout, but not for this Deathwatch purpose.  

As with the Honour Guard, I like the low cost big effect of taking 2 hand flamers, add a cheap Str4 flamer in the squad and I'm all over it.  Now the Sternguard can't put out 3 templates for 125 so this does bring something different to the table. Yes, the Sternguard have rapid fire dragonfire bolts however, they don't give 3D3 auto hits to overwatch......(hmmm note to self another idea...equip Sternguard with combi flamers for wall of death anti-charge deterrent?!)  

Vanguard vets on first glance look attractive to bring something different, there's potential for upto 4x gunslingers and a pistol/powerweapon combo on the vet sgt,  however Vanguard vets are really expensive!  They're the same cost as Death Company with none of the rules and more expensive than Sanguinary guard once loaded with wargear.....The only way I can ever imagine using them will be for the heroic intervention with melta bombs, now this could be a fluffy Deathwatch style demolitions mission, but I really struggle to know what they do once they've come in and done the HI thing and then get shot to bits.....

So my first attempt at a DW Allies list just for fun:

HQ: 460pts

Capt Tycho 

Honour Guard w/ 8x hand flamers and 1x melta bombs, chapter banner, 

Dedicated transport: Heavy flamer razor back

Elite: 205

5 Sternguard w/ 2 meltas and 3 combi weapons (melta or plas)

Dedicated transport: Heavy flamer razor back

Troop: 150

5 man RAS with 1x flamers, twin hand flamers and a melta bomb on the sgt 

(must check precision shot rules for templates?!)

Dedicated transport: Heavy flamer razor back

Fast: 180

Land Speeder Squadron with twin heavy bolters each (not flamers I know)

All comes in at a whopping 995points....ah well may have to drop the honour guard......they do seem excessive.....I did fancy sneaking in an extra attack for Tycho too...I could scrap 'em and run  Tycho with the RAS instead....perhaps drop Tycho in favour of a Libby for an even lower cost option......

As for the Speeders? They're BS4, can move anywhere and put out 18x Str 5 AP4 shots each turn and get a jink save what's not to love......I sometimes run a double melta version for 240 points but this is about DW and they, like me, like heavy bolters..........and gunslingers are expensive.....

OK so been off for a while pressures of coaching, family and stealing a living.......finally back at the painting table to get some of those troops painted up!

Furioso's, Psychic Shriek & Math Hammer......

OK so I've had an idea of sticking a furioso Librarian dreadnought in a drop pod and was wondering which of the new psychic powers would best suit the old fella......

Well lets face it the Librarian is that great at shooting......outside of his psychic powers he has a single storm bolter.....wooooooooo......

So how best to augment his first turn arrival than with a meaty hard hitting psychic power...

Looking at all the possible shooting powers both from the codex and the 6th BRB.....

I'm not going to list them out.....basically I make 11 shooty type powers available to a psychic mastery 1 Librarian....

If you want to cause a single wound then Blood Boil is the favourite....it auto hits and auto wounds and is the equivalent to AP2...

If you want to strike a vehicle (or several) then the Strength 8 AP1 Blood Lance is the only real option....

However if you want to single out a unit and cause as many wounds as possible then you're choosing between Shockwave and Psychic Shriek.......lets look at these:

Shockwave would be awesome if coming down in a drop pod amongst several foot squads of IG or  nid's however its far too unlikely to be rolled for, and you'd be much better off being armed with a frag cannon in such circumstances.....

Psychic Shriek has the potential for scoring a templates worth of wounds to even the most Ld sound forces in the galaxy...

Now providing the psychic test and rolls to hit work out all right then on the 3D6 there's a....

90% chance of scoring 7 or more......... look out Ogryns and Gargoyles

83% of scoring an 8 or more..... Orks and Guard, this could be painful

74% of scoring a 9 or more....... Grey Hunters? Trygons? Tau? are you listening?

62% of scoring 10 or more........ This is now getting better with a 62% chance of killing at least one Space Marine or killing 4 Gargoyles, 3 Orks or 2 regular Space Wolves.....

50% chance of scoring 11 or more......that's a 50% chance of forcing at least one Chaos Terminator to take an invulnerable save....not to bad....

38% of scoring 12 or more.....rks

25% of scoring 13......

16% of scoring 14......

Then after that you'll be very lucky so make the most of it.....

But would you take a 25% chance of scoring 3x AP2 equivalent wounds to a Chaos terminator squad, 4x marines, 5x Trygon wounds, 6x dead Orks or 7 Gargoyles or 10 Grotesques.....

Interesting, however I can't help but feel one is better off using buffing powers for a Furioso, 

Enfeeble would be quite good but the rest of the biomancy line are pretty much redundant on a Furioso, +D3 Attacks would we good, but just take might of heroes instead......

Divination would be cool it could be worth the risk to get a 4+ invulnerable save, that's pretty good with AV13 front armour.......if you don't get it then take the rerolls to hit from Prescience...

I love the idea of trying to roll puppet master with the primaris as a back up......all in all I think one might be better off just taking Shield of Sanguinius and Might of heroes, I also like the idea of Fear the Darkness to run a squad off the board turn 1 but I'll have to try that......

For me though if you're expecting infantry then you should definitely take the Frag Cannon/ heavy flamer combo.....this can score some horrendous wound volume on even the toughest of infantry....

Killing T9 MC with Psychic Powers...

Doesn't it just seem that every army that one faces nowadays is really tough to wound?  Nob Bikers continue to be ridiculous, Nurgle's guys take time to chew through.....but even worse than that are Tyranids with Iron Arm....oh my, do they take a some licks.......I know its not guaranteed, but you can guarantee that's the first power that MC rolls on the Biomancy table is a big fat 1....and to make matters worse you can guarantee that D3 is coming up as a solid +3 T......geeez it just gets your goat.......But help is at hand, all is not lost........we got something that's going to hurt none the less....

At the moment most of the web commentary on 6^th Ed Psychic Powers has been extolling the virtues of Biomancy and Divination, e.g. Tyranids rolling Iron Arm or of Paladins benefitting from Prescience...

Yet I'm amazed that no one is really talking about Telepathy, it's my personal favourite......both for fun and effectiveness....

Why? Well of the 4 Warp Charge 1 powers available, yes two suck, another is very conditional (anti-fearless) and the good one has only a 25% chance of being rolled with psychic mastery level 1.

The good one Puppet Master, is amazing, every turn having an opportunity to riddle your opponents troops with bullets all fired by one of his own units....imagine...

"Hey Mr Leman Russ battle tank turn your ass around and shoot that blob squad".....

"Hey Loota's why don't you shoot the heck out of the rear armour of that wagon"......

"Hey Mr Vindicare Assassin.....why don't you shoot Mr Draigo with shield breaker".....

Just for the meta gaming potential this has I think its amazing......but heck its only a 25% chance.....

Now if you're a mastery level 2 Psyker well you now have a 50% chance of getting something good.....Invisible death company? Invisible Furioso librarian anyone? or perhaps you've always been jealous of the inquisitions grenades, ever want the equivalent of Psychotroke Grenades? Who wouldn't......

However unfortunately whilst really fun, these are not reliable enough for tournaments......having a 50% chance of making a HQ psyker unit a lot less effective is a considerable risk.....

So how about the Primaris power? What does Telepathy give you?

Psychic Shriek......if successful your opponent tests against their Ld on 3d6, if they roll over their Ld value then they take the difference in wounds.......WITH NO ARMOUR SAVES ALLOWED.....

This bad boy is effectively AP2.......why would anyone take a power like Smite? Smite 4x Str 4 AP2, with separate rolls to hit and to wound this is going to struggle vs. high toughness opponents....

Roll to hit as normal <12" then Psychic Shriek just skips rolling wound.......its auto-stripping wounds off your unit......

OK so attacking a Ld8 Infantry squad might sound tempting, but this power, this power is really going to excel at stripping those T9 Monstrous creatures.....Ld 7 Carnifex take d6 wounds on average, Ld 8 Trygon, you too.....this spell is ideal for anti xenos.......yes F'n'P can still nerf you, yes invulnerable saves are still allowed.....but still.....soften it up with a psychic shriek and then melta bomb its carapace down to primordial soup...

And for all those horrid 2+ save units out there.......ok 5 man Ld9 Terminator squads you feeling confident? How many times have you rolled a 9 on just 2d6.......go ahead take your invulnerables.....Sanguinary guards with no invulnerable save........eeeek......you guys need to be running with a priest as standard ....always!4

Regular Marines or Bike Squads.......you better just stay well out of the 12" range because you'll take a couple of wounds from this unless you pass your 6+ deny the witch....good luck with that.....

So how about 2x Blood Angels Librarians, both with Psychic Shriek, perhaps one with Prescience put him with some hitty, perhaps throw melta bombs on him too....then throw him out of a strom raven anywhere within range of the enemy's toughest units.........nice.....could stop and do the math hammer but for sure this is going to give people some serious headaches.....and people complain about the doom of malantai.......

1500pt LGS Results and Performance

First let me say I had a fantastic day on Sunday, lots of cool people and very cool games....

6th Edition is beginning to bed itself in......

Made a few changes to the list prior to registration, I dropped out the two flamers in favour of an autocannon in the IG mini-blob squad......the effect of this I'll cover later.

Also at the end of my review of the Tournament I'll post some info on how the list performed ....(something you don't often see often enough imo)....

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the day but if I come across any I'll post them up....

First congratulations to Mike who won the Tournament with his Mephiston pure BA list; Mephiston single handed, slayed an Ork special character to score huge boost to his tournament points in Game 1, then success in Games 2&3 saw Mike the days champion overall, so well done.

As for my own personal review:

Game 1. Daemons (no allies).....Dave (Mike's Bro)

Oh boy and using fresh White Dwarf rules for flamers too.....I have a real mixed record against daemons and generally I've found it can be as simple as which half of their army comes down first turn........in this case Dave got his chosen half so it didn't look promising, Dave won the deployment roll and elected me to go first.....

Mission: Capture 2 randomly determined objectives............from 5 objectives were set up on the board by the Guardians of Tyr (GoT) tournament organisers.

I felt reasonably confident with this mission, with most of my army beginning the game in reserve I wouldn't be vulnerable to awful Breath of Chaos templates........(a nice nerf for zooming flyers to be able to permanently avoid it too!)

First Turn...
I began the game by positioning my Land Raider on my left flank and with my 21 man mini blob squad spread out to the max in a three deep matrix trying hard to protect the Commissar as best as possible, with nothing to shoot at it was an easy turn, one of my objectives was in my deployment the other in my opponents..........the Daemons came down in the safe open ground right in the middle of the board......Lord of Change deep strike mishapped onto my Land Raider and got placed in the furthest corner away to my right.
The Flamers and Horrors opened up on the face of the blob squad reducing the squad by 12, the Lord Commissar and the remains of the squad remained resolute and stood firm...

Objectives held 1 - 1

Turn two....
Storm Raven flies in carrying the GK being sure to zoom and get all 4 weapons to open up on the Flamers.......the flamers were reduced to a single daemon with one wound remaining.......which was quickly removed by a guardsman's vengeful lasgun round.
The Land Raider delivers a lucky Las-cannon shot to the face of Soul Grinder spraying its tainted mass across the battle field, sweet..........
The first out flanking Vendetta flies over the battlefield strafing plague bearers on route to deliver the PCS to the enemy objective........
In Dave's Daemon's turn a load more deamons arrived from the immaterium with little effect

Objectives held 2 – 1

Turns Three & Four
GK disembark and start chewing through the plague bearers and horrors in a disordered assault.....some really poor knowledge of my army let me down here.......forgetting Preferred Enemy (Daemons) in both shooting and assault, forgetting hammer hand, forgetting to apply rad grenades.....not to mention forgetting psy-cannons are only  Assault 2 on powered armoured guys....ooops.....but the sons of the Malleus butchered nurgle and tzeentch alike.....however it might have been quick enough to save the Lord Commissar and remnants of my carpathian guard from being assaulted and eaten by a Slaaneshi fiend......something that could well have been stopped had I remembered that one needs line of sight to charge a unit.....or in fact that they can overwatch the attacking fiend....or that a Lord Commissar gets an invulnerable save....6th Ed is taking its time to sink in.....

Game finished 1 - 2 on objectives, one more turn......if only I could have got through the assault in turn 3 a little quicker........I'm going to have to write up some flash cards with special rules on....

Game 2 Capture all 5 Objectives vs Mr Towers and his Nob Bikers/ Dakka Jets.......

Huh....turn 1 to 5 the entire army shoots the Nob bikers, the Nob bikers eventually die other weak orks on bikes seize 2 objectives, game ends in a draw 2 - 2 great game but seriously frustrating......

2 Vendettas, an assault cannon Storm Raven with psy-cannon bolts and hurricane bolters, 10 GKs and a blob squad shooting the crap out of a bunch of smoke clouded 2 wound feel no pain suck ass characters......geez it was a real slog T5, Armour, Cover and then feel no pain after that....again didn't make good use of Hammer Hand or rad Grenades, lost the Justicar to Overwatch in sloppy attempt to single out the pain boy....and they're characters....so it didn't make a difference....

Game 3 Good Ol' fashioned annihilation vs a 4 M/C with Doom of Malan'tai.....
This final game was close to a breeze, 3 Untouchable flyers zoomed around the board shooting the crap out of the MC's.....the annihilation rules held back my opponents urge to run his tervigon spawn spam which allowed me to concentrate fire onto the big guys..... won 6  - 3 in turn 4 due to reaching the time limit.....I put the slow game down to my opponents excessively heavy monstous creatures....it certainly took a long time to move them once they stared dying.........

In terms of unit performance lets review my list:

Lord Commissar ......although it was never the intention Mr Commissar found his way into fisty cuffs alot.....one thing I'd not accounted for is that he can no longer be singled out (by a non-character anyway) so in future a powerfist wouldn't go a miss, this is a massive change from 5th Ed...a Lord Commissar is now the cheapest HQ in the IG codex well if one was taking a Commissar anyway.....and he can get a str 6 ap 2 unwieldy weapon for 15 points...not bad, with WS5 and Ld 10 aura of discipline he's a nice option.

Blob squad.....was a massive fire magnet, I really underestimated how much people are drawn to its squishiness.....I play my unit quite aggressively and tend to ignore cover for favour of pushing the squad forwards.....perhaps making them up to 30 men would be an idea....however the idea of downsizing to another vets squad and releasing some points to upgrade the Land Raider to another Storm Raven well I think I can do better....for me in 6th Ed the blob has a job as a fire magnet but it will die in droves.....taking special weapons is difficult flamers are going to be lost in your first round taking wounds if they're nearer the edges of your unit....plasma guns are the way forwards....desperately trying to find a way to get a blob squad preferred enemy....

Vets and Vendettas......like in 5th but invulnerable to all but the luckiest of opponents...take as many as you can afford.....take heavy bolters, one needs another weapon to shoot at 18+ inches, at less than 12 they provide an anti-troop option......don't be shy take the upgrade

Inquisitor very cool, I'm always surprised to see just how many attacks this guy can get......gunslingers is fun with 2x ap2 weapons.........however there seems to be so much stuff that gets an invulnerable save, an incumbent cover save or feel no pain that even ap2 is not what it once was.....sticking with one of then isn't a bad idea.....but with the abundance of T5+ things out there the scythian venom talon is equally appealing with 5 attacks on the charge wounding on 2+ is quite attractive....a force weapon could be a reasonable buy too with rad grenades and hammerhand giving the +2 strength effect....gunslingers is just for fun and not for tourneys.

GK with psy-cannon bolts are amazing (even when one forgets to reroll 1's vs daemons....)

Land Raider....is nice but the Storm Raven is sooo much better now......the Raven's superior in every aspect....and then some....yes they can get taken down by Vendettas...but coming on from reserve blasting away with 4 weapons at one target and a twin linked multi melta at another target is quite amazing.....Sorry old faithful there's a new kid on the block and he's coming all guns blazing

Storm Raven.....as mentioned he's amazing.......with psycannon bolts and hurricane bolters this bad boy has the equivalent of 4 T/L heavy bolters at inside 12".....add the rending Str7 assault cannon....the Blood Angels version doesn't suit the same anti-troop role I see it as dedicated anti-armour with a T/L las, plus gets to fire off 2x str 8 ap1 rockets and a twin linked multi melta on the first two turns from when it arrives......the beauty of coming on from reserve with so much fire power is that one can take out most of the serious opposition before it gets to shoot back.......

My full reserve list will be coming back....with a whoooooooossshhhhhh neeeeeaaaaawwwooooww dakka dakka dakka :0)

A long report thanks for reading this far.......

IG with GK Allies 1500 @ LGS Tournament

Today we have the Guardians of Tyr WH40K Tournament at the local games store (Wargames Workshop, Northampton, UK).....

It's a 1500 point tournament as part of the Guardians of Tyr's WH40K series; where gamers can accrue points throughout the year in a kind of open league system....more information can be found on the Guardians of Tyr's website, see my external links section...

Today (after much deliberation) I decided to play as my avatar (not the eldar kind) with Imperial Guard and the primary detachment and my Xenos Inquisitor allied in....

So my list for today will be...

Total Points 1500

Primary Detachment: Imperial Guard (610pts)

HQ 

Lord Commissar - no upgrades

Troops

Vets Squad - Demolitions, 2 Flamers & a Melta gun

Platoon Command Squad - 2 Flamers & a Melta gun

2x Platoon Infantry Squad - Flamer each

Fast

Vendetta

Vendetta

Allied Detachment

HQ

Xenos Inquisitor  - 2x Needle Pistols & Rad Grenades

Troops

10 Grey Knights - 2x Psycannons, 7x Halberds, 1xFalcions, Psycannon Bolts

Fast

Storm Raven - Hurricane Bolters, Extra Armour, Psycannon Bolts

Heavy

Land Raider - Multi Melta

My plan will be to start with a combined squad and the Land Raider on the table, out flank with the   Vendettas and normal reserve for the Storm Raven....

The list is a little weak on Melta I Hope the LR, SR and Vs can manage any anti-tank duties...the missions favour infantry heavy lists so I hope to counter this potential with serious dakka from the SR and GK squad, then torch the rest with the IG.....hopefully anyway....