Black templars or Blood Angels for assaulty allies

[carny]

Hi everybody.

I am building aprox 1500-1700 pts of Dark Angels.
As fliers are non-existent in my meta,
I would like to include some allies to bolster and diversy my assualt phase.

I am thinking about Blood Angels (sanguinary priest + assualt squad or DC) with a reclusiarch
or Black Templars with crusader squad, sword brethren terminators and some sort of HQ.
Experiences or suggestions?

[Wolfshade]

Hello and welcome aboard :)

I would suggest the BAs, though I am not entirely objective as they were my first army.

Death Company with Lemartes is a brilliant combo, as are the Death Company Dreadnoughts.

Assault Marines are Assault Marines whichever flavour of spacemarine that they come in

[Sly]

Black Templars still make a very good list, and solid allies.... as Fire Support.

Despite the fluff and apparent direction of their design, their main strengths are:
5-man squads with Las/Plas or MM/Plas. -fire support
Venerable Dread with Tank Hunter -fire support
Termies with 2 Heavy Weapons and Tank Hunter -fire support
Storm Talons -fire support
Vindicator with POTMS -fire support, and the blast works against an advancing CC element
Preds with 3 Lascannons -fire support
Typhoon/HB Speeders for 70pts -fire support

CC elements cost 16 pts per model, and don't have Frag Grenades. Yes, they can get Preferred Enemy... but at 17 pts with FG, plus the cost of the vow... they're not an efficient CC army.

So, basically... despite what the fluff tells you, Black Templars function well as a shooty army, and poorly as a CC army. If you're looking for CC support I'd go with Blood Angels.

[ElectricPaladin]

Blood Angels, for this reason:

An allied detachment must be at least one HQ and one Troops choice. Of all the HQs and Troops available as allies for Dark Angels, Blood Angels have the tastiest close combat options. If your HQ choice is a Reclusiarch (Blood Angels version of a Chaplain) and your Troops choice is Death Company (crazy close combat marines who synergize particularly well with a reclusiarch leader), well... that's a scary close combat unit. Very scary. You can give them all jump packs, too, if you'd like to air drop them.

[GrauGeist]

Of the two you listed, Blood Angels are by far the better choice, having a newer Codex and more BA-specific models.

Alternately, field some flavor of Spaze Woofz. Big doggies!

Black Templars are probably the worst army you could pick. There isn't a single bit of protectable IP in any of the "Black Templars" heraldry which isn't a direct rip from the public domain historical Knights Templar or Knights of Malta, whereas the BA and DA Chapter badging is protectably unique and distinctive. GW will almost certainly fold them back into regular Space Marines, before sunsetting the entire range when the Chapterhouse case completes.

[Power Klawz]

Reclusiarch and death company is about as fine a power armored beatstick as you can find. They can get real pricey real quick though, but toss in a few power weps and maybe a fist or hammer and leave the rest toting bolters, they're all relentless. This unit should pound pretty much anything into submission. Even just using their mitts in CQC they'll roll out 4 strength 5 attacks each on the charge, along with reclusiarch shenanigans that I can't quite recall at the moment.

If I remember correctly power weapons no longer affect feel no pain either, so even units like Howling banshees or Incubi that used to take death company to the cleaners won't have such an easy time anymore. (The nerf to furious charge did make them somewhat more vulnerable to MEQ and higher initiative armies though, watch out for slaanesh marines!)

Oh and if you strap jetpacks to these madmen they cost more than a college education, so I'd recommend dumping them on something squishy with a drop pod or just footslogging it. A rhino can work too I guess, it will get blown up but power armor will probably save your dudes from the worst of it.

EDIT: Apparently Reclusiarchs give you rerolls. Heh, man that's just mean.

[thelion]

Ok i dont know alot about your army list but in my old gaming groop no one wanted me and the BA player to partner up. So ill tell you in the minds of at least a few gamers there are few things that make people shake in there boots more than the pairing of Belial and Dante (i am a big deathwing player) i mean if you only put a copple of these units in there the pairing of the deathwing and the Sanguinary gaurd is just plain mean. And realy you cant ask for a better hand to hand beating stick than a bunch of Blood Angels. So i have to say go BA and be BA lol.

[carny]

Basically my army is an infantry-centric DA army.

Most of my marines are footslogging at the moment, but I suspec this will change as numbers grow.

The armys core is the Dark Vengeance set.

Meaning that I am usually having a librarian for an HQ
the Dv Dw-terminator-squad and a Rw-attack squadron-
I havede 2x tactical squad, a predator (autocannon/hb variant) and a devestator squd (the latter armed with 2x missile/2x las) I feel I need assualt.

[Mr Mystery]

Not sure you really need allies then....

Take some Deathwing Knights. Scary hard, and damned difficult to shift. Your opponent will need to slot every last one of them to get out of that combat....

[thelion]

Yea i have to agree with mr mystery some deathwing knights seem to be just what you need i have not yet had a chance to feild them yet but i do know just how hard it is to kill deathwing termanators. And lets just say it is enuff to make alot of players do evey thig thy can to try to kill them first wich can give you the room to do what needs to be done with the rest of your army since you are playing with the dark vengence set an extra squad of theis guys can and will give you some much needed punch and force your enemy to eather split there fire or decide who to try to kill first the deathwing knights or your regular deathwing guys. Also if you are a big "by the fluff" player like me then one thing to think about if you are going to use an ally is that bu there fluff the black templars wont work with a psyker other than the grey knights.

[sangrail777]

I agree with mr mystery and thelion, you've got one of the best codex in the game right now, with great options for every role. Don't look to others to fill the notch you can field just as well if not better.

[thelion]

Interrogator-chaplin/ w term armor 140pts

5 man squad of deathwing knights/ w perfidious relic of the unforgiven 245pts

Put that on the table as one unit and for 385pts you have one bad re-rolling, fearless, deapstriking, toughness 5 (as long as you keep them all with in 2in of eachouther) hand to hand beat stick that has the fear rule (just to make things a little more fun) most armys will have a very hard time killing that (and that is how i plan to put them in the fight) just an idea to help you out let me know how it goes. Good hunting my friend

[carny]

Interrogator-chaplin/ w term armor 140pts

5 man squad of deathwing knights/ w perfidious relic of the unforgiven 245pts

Put that on the table as one unit and for 385pts you have one bad re-rolling, fearless, deapstriking, toughness 5 (as long as you keep them all with in 2in of eachouther) hand to hand beat stick that has the fear rule (just to make things a little more fun) most armys will have a very hard time killing that (and that is how i plan to put them in the fight) just an idea to help you out let me know how it goes. Good hunting my friend

Thank you for the suggestions.

What about the relatively bad Ap on the Knights weapons (ap4) Wont I get into problems against TEQS ?

[Power Klawz]

You don't go terminator hunting with terminators unless you absolutely have to. The way you kill terminators is massed anti-infantry fire and ap2 (either in pie plate form, or plasma spam.)

Knights are there to make SOMETHING disappear. The funny thing is that something can be anything. They will handle that uber squad of terminators, or the beefed up HQ unit, or that greater demon...

Their smite ability basically makes them harder than just about anything for one turn. One turn is all you need to murder the unrighteous. The rest of the time they'll still be a dangerous unit due to high strength and high rate of attack, not to mention they're rocking 2+/3++ and the champion is ap3 (ap2 against chaos marines, which is situational but not to be discounted.)

If you just absolutely need ap3/2 all the time you can take normal deathwing termies with lightning claws, maybe a few hammers and shields to soak high ap wounds and whatnot.

[ClownBabyROK]

If you are going the BA route, nothing beats a Reclusiarch with Death Company in a Drop Pod. Keep the bolters since they are Relentless and throw in a couple of power axes and call it a day.

[Power Klawz]

Yeah forgot about the buff/nerf(?) to power axes. A lot cheaper than a fist or hammer and you can still keep your gat. Combined with your furious charge that's a strength 6 ap2 attack, which kills just as many single wound terminators as a fist or hammer. (still wounding on 2+) and you get a bonus attack while you're at it. Obviously the superior choice unless you're facing nobs/paladins or are trying to kill toughness 4 characters (Or land raiders, you silly goose.).

[Timothy Eatherly]

i love the combo but it's alot of points.

[Martel732]

i love the combo but it's alot of points.

Blood Angel specialty troops all have critical flaws. BA ASM likely lack the crunch you are looking for. I don't know the specifics of the BT off the top of my head, but they may be better for a TAC list. You might be better off with Deathwing, because frankly nothing in the BA codex is substantially more efficient if more efficient at all.

As for the drop pod DC thing, I can't tell you how many DCs I have massacred via shooting and then spoiling assaulting the turn after they dropped. I love drop pod DC; its like my opponent is throwing away points.