Topic: why is this a bad list (how about now?)

[spiny echidna]

*I want you to tear this apart*

1850 "competitive"

Astorath
Priest
Vangaurd x8 3xPW, PF
Furioso BT, HF
SRaven LC, MM

2x Assault x10 PF, 2xMG
2x Redeemer MM
2x Priest

I honestly thought this was a formidable list, BUT everyone who plays has said it is weak.  I have learned a bit from thier reasonings (but thank god 40KO is back)

Tell me why this suck so I can learn....

I think it is good (to be honest) because it is simple and hard. 2 LR Redeemers with priest assault squads is kill kill kll with survivability. Astorath for more red thirst. the SRaven would be held in reserve to deliver payload when it was possible. THEN raiders would deploy troops for (kill kill kill) attack and mahem ensues. The large # of meltas is my only anti tank, but that is ok with me.  I know I only have two scoring units, but this is a hammer list and I like a challenging tactical game where I need to keep the opponent away from objectives....  Enough.  Why does it suck?

[Shadows Revenge]

So Im not a BA player, but I can disect your list for you and show you where your lacking.

First off, you have a low unit count. Now while that is normally good (hurts your opponents in KPs) you have a ton of ICs, and 3 that are squishy priests. So you have 11 KPs with 7 units (including transports) Remember in close combat you can direct attacks against an IC... those Priests are going to be squashed quickly.

You lack AT. Like you have stated your only AT is your two multi-meltas on tanks, your 4 meltas in your squads, and the 3 powerfists (and Astorath if I remember right... but no one I know uses him)  In most meta's, there are a tanks galore, so just keep that in mind.

Pretty I find that the two coolest things about BA is their fast vehicles, and Decent of Angels. Other than that its just a marine book to me (Im biased against marines btw) So since I see neither of those two things in your army, I find it not using the book to its full potential. As for it being a weak list, I would tell you yes it is, and it can easily be picked apart by most armies.

[Partninja]

Shadow made several great points. I also want to add that your list is all bundled up into 3 big easy targets. With all the las/missile and melta spam armies out there you can quickly fold from one round of shooting.

[Guildmage Aech]

Why does it suck?

Perhaps a better question is "does it suck?" You say you've played with this list, how does it do? Yes, its about as subtle as a brick in a sock but thats not automatically a bad thing. If it wins about half its games and you enjoy playing with it then it doesn't suck, its fine.

If it was up to me I'd probably have other kinds of land raider instead of redeemers, while redeemers are good on paper they tend to struggle in practice. This discussion thread might be useful to you (don't post in it obviously because its long since dead).

Just because the list doesn't follow common patterns doesn't mean its bad. Preists for example are quite good, its quite easy to avoid them getting into base contact with anything too dangerous, either by having them disembark at the back of the unit when setting up for a charge and being unable to get into base to base or using models from the unit to engage a powerfist model in base to base and preventing it from piling attacks onto a nearby IC.

[Spectral Arbor]

If you find you're light in the AT department, I'd suggest an outflanking Baal Pred [or two!] with Assault Cannons and HB sponsons. As a guard player, it's probably the tank I fear the most.

By outflanking, you get into the softer AV's on the side and rear. Volume of fire from the AC and HB's results in plenty of hits, and you're likely to roll a couple of 6's for penetration, usually resulting in a couple of "Penetrating" damage results... pretty good for the points invested, especially against aggressively moving transports. Volume of fire even helps to offset the save of fast moving skimmers.

On top of that, you can usually pick a decent deployment spot, limiting your opponent's ability to return fire, and once you've opened the can, you've got excellent weapons to take on the occupants. I wish I had access to such a tank!

Otherwise, I'd suggest you try crunching the numbers to see if two Land Raiders with a squad inside is better than, say, 4 squads of boys in Rhinos. As a Guard player, I know what I'd go for... and it would also increase your scoring units.

[spiny echidna]

Thank you.
And Smurfette I have not played this. This list was some mathhammer fantasy I came up with because my bud hates Land Raiders.  When I said "people who play" I meant people who play 40k often, not people who have played this list.
I have a small codex marines army, that I am converting to a BA army ( I love assault marines).  But my housemate lets me proxy all I want while I decide what to buy (you should have seen the tecate can land speeders).

I suppose I am having trouble finding a direction to take my army in.  I know I want 2-3 Assault squads as a base, I love Furiosos, and I prefer an "F'it," melta heavy army to lots of AT weapons.

I thought this was an interesting list to get feedback on because I have never used a Land Raider or SRaven (too hard to proxie with what Ive got in my house - By the way, what size shoe box is a LRaider?) and I think they are killer units.

I wonder why does no one use Astorath (or do they)? Sure you could get Mephiston for a few points more, but each of your squads and dreads has a 50% chance of feerless and furious charge. Win!
Any thoughts on that aspect?
I think Astorath is a very strong bonus....

[Partninja]

Thank you.
And Smurfette I have not played this. This list was some mathhammer fantasy I came up with because my bud hates Land Raiders.  When I said "people who play" I meant people who play 40k often, not people who have played this list.
I have a small codex marines army, that I am converting to a BA army ( I love assault marines).  But my housemate lets me proxy all I want while I decide what to buy (you should have seen the tecate can land speeders).

I suppose I am having trouble finding a direction to take my army in.  I know I want 2-3 Assault squads as a base, I love Furiosos, and I prefer an "F'it," melta heavy army to lots of AT weapons.

I thought this was an interesting list to get feedback on because I have never used a Land Raider or SRaven (too hard to proxie with what Ive got in my house - By the way, what size shoe box is a LRaider?) and I think they are killer units.

I wonder why does no one use Astorath (or do they)? Sure you could get Mephiston for a few points more, but each of your squads and dreads has a 50% chance of feerless and furious charge. Win!
Any thoughts on that aspect?
I think Astorath is a very strong bonus....

I often use a list using a Storm Raven with Libby, priest, assault squad, and Furioso along side a vindi/baal or two with 2x melta/fist assault squads supported by priests moving up behind them. Use your Raven+2 other tanks has a spearhead wall.

[slinky1984]

Well a lot of people will advise against the redeemer and also against the Baal's with flamestorm cannon's but I have used both with my BA to good results.  For your list I might pair down the two redeemers to baal's w/ flamestorm cannons. You get a scout move and can outflank if you want too, plus it's fast.

Also if you really want to make your storm raven mean take  5 termies with a couple of thunder hammers in there, replace astorath with a terminator librarian w/ storm shield. Then put your terminators and a furioso w/ blood talons in your storm raven, give your storm raven the plasma cannon upgrade (free) and the multi melta upgrade (free). I don't care what anyone says about that combo, it's mean and it wrecks face quite often. I've used it a lot in tournaments and tournament practice. I got the idea from the Apoc formations in one of the white dwarfs. It is such a tarpit that most people don't recover well from.

So in short my revision would look something like this

Librarian w/ storm shield
5 assault termies w/ 2 TH/SS
Furioso w/ blood talons
Storm Raven w/ mm and plasma cannon

10 x Assault squad w/ melta gun, power weapon
Priest
Redeemer w/ mm

Baal Pred w/ Flamestorm

Build off of that with whatever you want

[enlg]

I would maybe suggest 2 stormravens, just because from a single experience (my only experience facing blood angels with the new codex), having to kill two of them is very difficult and frustrating because they are able to constantly shoot, are immune to (and more resilient against) meltaguns (in comparison to land raiders), and have plasma cannons+multi-meltas.

At 1850pts, I faced two groups of 5 assault terminators in stormravens, with furioso dreads on each stormraven (one librarian with shield+lance).

What he did is flat out, destroy vehicles with assault cannon/multi-melta (one gun from each), and in the subsequent turn he moved, disembarked, and then use the librarian dreadnought's shield to maintain cover on the stormravens (5+, but still useful), allowing him to shoot all guns on the ravens to pop more transports/kill more infantry. Then he assaulted

Also it had somewhat few kill points, as there was only 1 transport per terminator+dread combo, and no his only independent character was a terminator reclusiarch. I lost this game 7-11 kill points, which was annoying since I had killed a decent chunk of his army, but had played with rhino transports, and had some small infantry units that were easy kill points for his terminators (plague marines don't live when hammmers are around).

[spiny echidna]

Ok Thanks.
ReWrite:

SRaven (Melta/Plasma)
Libby Term/SS (Shield,Rage)
Assault Terms 2xHammer
Furioso HF,Talons
2x Vindi
2x Priest JPacks
3x Assault 2xMelta,PF

Libby uses shield when in Raven and advances with vindis giving them cover save.  Assault squads use vindis as cover, priests roll with them. Hammer with the terms...

[slinky1984]

If the librarian is going with the storm raven, good choice mind you, I don't know that I would take shield. I know you want to protect everything else as you move up but  you don't want your vindi's to close to assault range and if they are within 6" of your SR as your moving up your going to put them there. Also I would describe your SR as a fiberglass hammer, strong, fast  and hard hitting. If it gets damaged it splinters badly in a couple of ways. For one, if it gets immobilized it now creates a giant choke point  because of it's large footprint. Also your units inside are now stuck walking into the rest of battle. That's really bad if their main purpose is to assault. My suggestion would be to zoom your SR into your enemies midst and create as much havoc with that part of your army knowing full well they will probably die but not without taking large chunks of the enemy with them. Think of it as a mortar launcher, destroyed on impact but severely wounding the enemy if it makes it into the right area.

Move the Vindi's into a good holding position and take what objectives you can with your troops while maintaining a basis of protecting your vindi's and I think you'll be in good shape  I did run your list through army builder and by it's calculations it appears your 45 points shy of the 1850 so happy hunting. Might I suggest some EA for your SR and V's lol. 

[spiny echidna]

yeah i didnt put down all the points spent. I had some extra arm or dozers in there some where.
I was thinking that the SR is a troop/dread delivery system first, and a gun only if it survives.
The Libby is with the terms using rage, only using shield for the SR while embarked.

Alternatively:
Libby - Term,SS
Assault terms - 2xhammer
Redeemer - MM
3x Priests JPacks
2x Assault 2xmelta,PF
Assault 2xFlamer,PF
Vindi
Pred - TL LC, LC sponsons

Pred gives some better AT than only Vindi.  LR is a harder target than SRaven, so troops less likely to be foot slogging.  Lost the dread though...

[Guildmage Aech]

I would maybe suggest 2 stormravens, just because from a single experience (my only experience facing blood angels with the new codex), having to kill two of them is very difficult and frustrating because they are able to constantly shoot, are immune to (and more resilient against) meltaguns (in comparison to land raiders), and have plasma cannons+multi-meltas.

I'd also expect one of them backed up by two land raiders to be pretty annoying too. Land Raiders are not easy to kill either... at least not until they get close and by then its probably too late to stop being punched by whatever jumps out.
Remember this list gets a discount on the land raiders by taking them as transport for the assault marines...

But two stormraven lists are perfectly viable, Grey Knight armies with two of them and that many units of paladins with the chapter master Dragio are quite popular in the tournament scene and pretty powerful.

yeah i didnt put down all the points spent. I had some extra arm or dozers in there some where.
I was thinking that the SR is a troop/dread delivery system first, and a gun only if it survives.
The Libby is with the terms using rage, only using shield for the SR while embarked.

The SR is probably best used to deliver troops, its very good at it. Particularly as it can still fire a weapon while flying at full speed its the best of both worlds to be attacking the enemy and getting your moving fast cover save.

I would be wary of having a mix of tanks and jump pack troops, the advantage you had with the first list is that presented a wall of very tough targets, so much so that many weapons in your opponent's army would not have an effective target to shoot at. You can get around this, using tanks to protect the jump infantry. You have fast tanks which does help them to keep up and keep being dangerous.

Predators and Vindicators trade off for the same job. A predator will be in range at the start of the game, but will never have a chance of a massive kill shot blowing up loads of the enemy's stuff that a vindicator can. Also vindicators scare people, they will get targetted which is quite valuble in itself as it means people aren't shooting at other scary stuff like stormravens and jump pack guys both of which you probably find more important than the vindicators.

Advice with vindicators, take two, one will probably die so this way you have a spare one to shoot with. They're pretty cheap and pretty mean.

[slinky1984]

The Libby is with the terms using rage, only using shield for the SR while embarked.

If you move 24" you have a better cover save than the libby can provide. Generally speaking that first 24" will get you into your opponents camp. You don't want to move little bits at a time and be reliant on a cover save until you've delivered your package and I also don't recommend dropping the furioso. That thing is death incarnate for anything that doesn't have a nice invulnerable save or is a monstrous creature. Believe me... knowing the furioso and the SR is in your list has already got your opponent sweating bullets before the game starts. The faster it's in their midst the more panic induced decisions they are going to make. 

[spiny echidna]

I ran the base of my alternative army at 1250p twice against 2 variants of my buds orks. 2 wins, both close.

Epistolary Term Rage, Sword
Assault Terms 1xTH/SS
Redeemer MM

2x Priest JP
2x Assault squad 2xMelta,PF

This was solid.  Epistolary paid off in both games. Once using second Psych to force weapon kill a warboss, second time using S10 to destroy a battle wagon.
Assault squads held up ok, though in the first battle orks were running 20 shootas in eack BWagon and the wiped one squad with some good rolls.
Terms were the game changer both times.  They were within 6" of priests during the decisive melees, lined up well to get charges and wiped the floor with the boys (16 LC attacks did half the work and no retreat did the rest)

Now I just need to figure out what to add for 600p to bring it up to 1850p.  I want 1 more scoring unit, 235p for my standard Assault squad set up, so 365p to spend. ..
Ideas?


Here is what I came up with for 1850, based on the strengths of the 1250 I played.

Epistolary Librarian in Term Armor - Rage, Sword
Assault Term Squad (5) - Lightning Claws
Priest Term
Land Raider Crusader - MMelta

Chaplain
Priest
Assault squad (10) - 2x Flamer, PW, Melta Bombs
Land Raider Redeemer - MMelta

Priest - Jump Pack
Assault Squad (10) - 2x Melta, PF

Assault Squad (10) - 2x Melta, PF

3 Scoring units
11 kill points