Blood Angels list against Tau

[jorz192]

I created this 2000 points list for playing against my brother who plays Tau. I am curious as to what you think about the list and how well it would fare against other armies.

Mephiston 250

2x10 man Assault Squad with power weapon flamer and melta gun 440
2x Sanguinary priests with jump packs 150
2x 5 man assault squad with razorback and melta gun 260
8 man devastator squad with 4x missile launchers 173
2x 5 man vanguard veteran squads with jump packs 330
Furioso Librarian Dreadnought 175
Predator with heavy bolter sponsons 100
Librarian, will travel with one of the razorback squads 100


1983 points

The Vanguard veterans will stay in reserve and deep strike, with descent of angels
they will only scatter a d6 and hopefully be able to assault on the turn they arrive.
The Assault squads will be lead by the sanguinary priests and charge or deepstrike.
The devastators will provide some support and hopefully pick off some suits
I also included them because I am interested in adding a little balance to the list.
The razorbacks and predators will either start in reserve and arrive from my table edge
or be ready to advance on the first turn. There is four meltaguns between the
assault squads, I am not sure this would be enough for a more competative list?

Thanks for any advice, I am not sold on the librarian for the razorback squads, I was
thinking about ditching him for two sanguinary priests. There are a few extra points left that
I will scatter some equipment around with.

Thanks

[Tynskel]

win!

Tau have an extremely difficult time dealing with Blood Angels, simply because so many of their units can 1) deep strike, 2) fly, 3) kill kill kill in assault.

A lot of the advantages of the Tau are long range, instant mobility, and high strength weapons. BA with FNP counter the high strength weapons, unless they are using lots of plasma. BA can counter long range with Deep Strike, and counter instant mobility with Jump Packs.

I do like the 2 vanguard squads. Those are great for being a crumb-bumb against other armies. That'll tie up a bunch of Long Fangs!

[plawolf]

Drop Mephiston, utter overkill against the bluies. If you want a really expensive flashy HQ, Dante would be much more useful against Tau and still be good against everyone else. Put Dante with an Honor guard squad and load up on meltas and you can almost guarantee to kill a hammerhead or broadside or suit squad the turn they come down. If you have the points, throw some storm shields in as they will attract a lot of fire after they arrive.

I would also re-consider the librarian dred.

I would consider giving the vanguards some powerfists or thunderhammers so they can more effectively kill suits and/or armor.

I am also not entirely sure a predator and and two razors would be worth taking against Tau. They have the guns to kill those off pretty quickly and easily. Better to get more dudes so they are overpaying for all those one shot low AP, high S weapons.

In their place, I would consider a second dev squad or even third to better cover against mech Tau.

If you run out of HS slots, remember sternguard can also take a couple of heavy weapons (at a considerable discount as well to make up for the loss of special ammo), and I have used them as a mini-dev squad before. Although it is most points efficient to opt for lascannons if you go that route.

So, you start with a few dev squads in cover, maybe with a naked priest hanging around to keep them around longer. The rest of your army would be jump packed and start in reserve. With DoA, you should get them down fairly reliably.

If he is non-mech, he is pretty much going to auto-loose against a DoA list with vanguards. Your devs and Dante's squad should help to get his guys out of a mech Tau list so your dudes can have fun with what falls out.

The Tau book is pretty old, and unless you are playing a really good opponent, you really shouldn't need to tailor your list to have a good chance against Tau with BA.

[jorz192]

If dante was to deepstrike with the vanguard veterans they wouldn't be able to assault.
I don't think I have enough jump pack models for another jump pack squad either.

I guess my real question is, is this list competitive against armies other than Tau?

I don't have an oppurtunity to play against other armies except Tau but I would like to know how my list building is.

Mephiston is a really scary prospect for a Tau player. He has five wounds, toughness 6 and a 2+ armor save. You can't kill him with instant death and he can move as Jump infantry and has the fleet USR.

I haven't really lost to him, but we are in the process of creating some of our own units to give the Tau some boost.

[plawolf]

If dante was to deepstrike with the vanguard veterans they wouldn't be able to assault.

That's why I suggested you get an honor guard squad for him. ;)


I don't think I have enough jump pack models for another jump pack squad either.

Fair enough, maybe if you post what models you do have, we can start from there.


I guess my real question is, is this list competitive against armies other than Tau?

It's a decent enough list, but if you go against other armies, especially power armored ones, you might want to get some power swords and/or power fists for your vanguards and assault squad sergs.


I don't have an oppurtunity to play against other armies except Tau but I would like to know how my list building is.

Well depends on how competitive you are. What you have is fine for normal play, but you might consider tweaking aspects of the list to minimize the effectiveness of certain elements of an opponent's force, and/or trying to overwhelm other aspects.

But the most important part of list building is finding a build that suits your playstyle. You can copy a GT winning list off the internet, but if that doesn't suit how you like to play, it will still probably not perform that well for you, and worse of all, you won't have as much fun playing with that list.

The best thing is to try new things and decide how you like them.


Mephiston is a really scary prospect for a Tau player. He has five wounds, toughness 6 and a 2+ armor save. You can't kill him with instant death and he can move as Jump infantry and has the fleet USR.

True, but he also cannot join a squad or deep strike, and you do not have anything he can easily hide behind that won't be killed too soon (like land raiders).

Mephi lacks an Inv save, so he will die really quickly to an army that can put a lot of high strength, low AP weapons on him. Tau is one of the armies that should be able to do that fairly easily.

But the main reason I suggested you replace him is because he is insanely overkill against Tau. A far cheaper HQ will still dominate in CC so you can better spent the points saved on other things if you so wish.

[jorz192]

Thanks!

True, I am going to get all my models together with me here at school. I need to check on the amount of jump pack models I have.

I'll get a new list off the ground soon!

[Commander Vimes]

You practically have to tailor Blood Angels so they don't auto-win against Tau. Jump packs and feel no pain marines are they two things Tau struggle to deal with. Put 40 regular assault marines, a Librarian with Shield of Sanguinius and a jump pack, and three Priests with jump packs on the table and you can probably route a Tau army. If you want to give the Tau a chance, take more vehicles and fewer assault marines and priests.