Shooty 2k BA List - Part 2 - An Explanation

I posted the list earlier today. This list was an exercise in building a different type of army for Blood Angels. I happened to run across the piece of artwork I posted in the first article and it got me to thinking about how I would go about designing a list for my favorite army that is counter to the more popular builds we tend to most often see - those primarily being DoA and razorspam. The list I came up with has a fair number of razorbacks but overall I don't think it's that similar to the typical razorspam lists that are prevalent now.

The core of the list is the three squads of Devastators. They are cheap for what you get and form the main firebase for the army. The sergeants can use their signums for the lascannons. Their razorbacks provide additional long ranged AT and can move if necessary to contest objectives.

I went with scouts over tactical Marines primarily for two reasons. First I don't like the new tactical squads as they are expensive point wise for what you get plus I don't see them as a jack of all trades anymore. On the other hand the scouts are definitely cheap and have access to some decent shooting. Sniper rifles work well with the heavy bolter since they have the same range and are both intended for anti infantry. You can take a lot of scout squads and they are intended to hold objectives. It's easy enough to kill five scouts without breaking too much of a sweat but with five squads on the table and using tactics to draw the opponent's attention away from them they might be a viable choice in the role of a place holder. Their main weakness is WS3 but with enough units they should be able to provide a decent amount of anti infantry dakka.

I chose Tycho and the Sternguard since they can work well together. The Librarian was chosen mainly for psychic defense. Fear of the Darkness is also a solid choice to boo enemy units off the table. I like to have at least one BAMF character in all my lists, which was another reason for taking Tycho. He is kind of pricey but Rites of Battle can be helpful for an army with lots of Space Marine squads. The role of the Sternguard is to decimate hard enemy units plus they are good versus hordes with the two heavy flamers.

The Honor Guard provide a Sanguinary Priest and they are packing some decent midranged firepower with the plasmaguns. They are also another deterrent to hard enemy units.