Weekend just past got the chance to play a slight variant of my proposed ultimates list against a solid vulkan list, which i think is one of its less favoured matchups and is, conveniently, the one I play the most against since multiple friends use it. Terminators with thunder hammers (and rerolls) don’t care much about FNP, and they shut down libbys and preists pretty quick.
This time round I included the Sanguinor in place of a libby and chaplain. I wanted to try a couple of options, the first was the sanguinor. I suspected he wouldn’t be even close to worth it, on paper and in my head he didn’t cut it, but I wanted to try him on the tabletop and see how it went.
On the plus side he’s another ‘bubble’ of power, which sort of works synergistically with the existing bubbles as force multipliers. I guess the maths theory would be two things that increase effectiveness by 20% together increase by more than 40% (approximately 44% but thats not as dramatic as I’d like so lets call it 200%!!!) The downside is losing the chappy who is in himself quite the force multiplier and losing the second libby who was handy for his cc but also handy for the backup shield which you sometimes need to get through psychic defence or if you are prone to failing LD tests.
In return though the sanguinor gives you:
-One nerfed opposition character (hello vulkan)
-One talented mofo in close combat
-One souped up sarge
-A bubble of extra attacks
To fit him in I also had to cut out power fists. As it turned out, they would have been handy, though probably not very handy. The melta bombs i considered WOULD have been handy. Several times I ended up in base contact with an immobile land-raider and simply had nothing that could hurt it.
So, first, the two games I ended up playing:
His list was:
Vulkan
10 assault termies split in two
Two raider redeemers
3 tac squads in rhinos
1 land speeder
Mine was
Sanguinor
Libby
5 x 10 assault marines with 2 melta and a power weapon
3 priests with power weapons
First game was objectives. I got to within 22” or so, he came forward, dumped termies and wiped a squad or two, I dropped everything into the termies and wiped them in return, Sanguinor took down vulkan after I got a bit lucky on the two raiders and then multi-charged his marines to win the game narrowly.
The second game was kill points, he put one raider forward and the other back which i thought was a mistake at the time, it looked like the game was mine at the start of his fifth...until his two remaining rhinos landed two shocks each and ran both my full remaining squads (With all three priests attached) off the board essentially (with some shepherding from his land speeder). The sanguinor did his thing through the first four turns and was still upright on a couple of wounds with two full squads and three priests (the libby died to vulkan) going into my fifth, against a land speeder (that had played hidey all game) and two tac squads with two rhinos. Looked rosey for me, my turn was going to wipe the board....until he launched tank shocks through both units with both rhinos. I failed, both ran, his speeder parked near them....five kill points going bye bye. Meanwhile his two tac squads and the storm bolters on the rhinos were enough to finish off the sanguinor. GG
So, what did I learn:
1. Again learnt (though I obviously didn’t learn it last time) that librarians die easy. Need to be more careful with them. May even have to give up on sword of sang and start using lance, simply because putting the bastard into close combat seems to result in his death every single freaking time.
2. The biggest lesson was one I’d suspected from my Eldar play, but had never had a real chance to test: Tank shock is the key to beating Blood Angel jumper armies easily. No good way to mitigate it either. The chaplain can give fearless and the Sanguinor ‘super-sarge’ gives you one Ld10 squad, but I failed the first on an 11 (which was the super sarge with two priests) and the second on a 10. Not much to do about that. Will have to try to position squads such that they cant easily be shocked. I need to be a LOT more careful about my melta placement, but even then, you cant shoot unless you pass the leadership test...
3. The sanguinor was definitely worth his points in the first game, probably made his value in the second. He gives the army something rock hard in CC (something with an invul....) and he boosts the effectiveness of everyone around him more than you’d think. The ‘super-sarge’ he gives the army is also more useful than expected. Extra initiative is gold, extra WS is gold and extra attack is obviously gold. He is also plain nastier in CC than I expected him to be. On the other side, this opponent didn’t have much by way of long range firepower. My belief is that he’s much more likely to die early in a game vs ranged enemy (obviously)
4. The lack of powerfist/melta bomb meant my guys were definitely at a loss once in CC with a tank. They can deal with rhinos while FC is up, but raiders are an issue. Dread’s are an even bigger issue.
4. I didn’t miss the chaplain much, though without him the librarian effectiveness does drop dramatically and it looks like the blood lance might be a better option, or possibly unleash rage.
5. Librarians are squishy. Really, seriously squishy. Its very annoying.
6. I want psychic defence, I also need something that can threaten vehicles in CC and if possible draw fire from other targets.
7. I’d like to keep shield of sang in the army, though I’m not certain I use it as much as you’d think
8. I have not yet deployed off table and I’m not sure there are any circumstances where I would
So from these, I’m thinking my next iteration is to try Mephiston in place of libby+chappy. That means i’d have him and another librarian in the army, not sure if I need a normal librarian, but I’m not willing to give up shield yet.
The other option is changing out a priest into honour guard and running two libbys still
Libby x 2
Honour guard
5 x ASM
2 x priest
Vs
Meph
Libby
5 x asm
3 x preist
An advantage to Meph is that I have the model already, whereas I’d have to buy the sanguinor and/or a second libby.
He also is dead hard in CC and I suspect (haven’t tried it to be certain in a game) that he can be easily hidden completely from LOS using normal assault marines.
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