Army List: Flying Fists! 1750pts

I've been using this list quite a bit this past couple of weeks, getting in 3 games with it, and every time it was a blast to play. It's hits hard and fast and plays pretty well to the strengths of the Blood Angels, i.e. closing quickly to bring some close-combat oriented MEQ to bear in devastating charges, with Feel No Pain, Furious Charge, excellent mobility and a lot of power weapons all working in concert to provide a massive Turn 2/3 punch that very few armies can withstand or recover from.


My 'Flying Fists' list:
Stormraven with TLmultimelta, TL Assault Cannon and Extra armour
Librarian with Shield and Rage
5 Assault Terminators, 1 with Shield and Hammer
Furioso Dreadnought with Frag Cannon and Heavy Flamer

Stormraven with TLmultimelta, TL Assault Cannon and Extra armour
Reclusiarch
7 Death Company, 3 with power weapons, 1 with Thunder Hammer
Death Company Dreadnought with Blood Talons and Magna Grapple

Squads Wallace and Gromit (each a 10-man Assault Squad with 2 meltaguns and a powerfist)

This is the list as it currently stands. It has seen battle 3 times, with 1 draw and 2 wins, and even then, the draw was simply a result of me throwing tactical acumen to the wind and seeking to annihilate my opponent. Given the low unit count of this list, in don't really think 3 games is any kind of indication whether this list is killier in my FLGS. I could get horribly unlucky and, say, go second, get crap reserve rolls and watch my army get taken apart piecemeal... Anyway, here's a brief description of each unit in the army...

Stormravens

A pair of these babies forms the core of this army. I remember it being mentioned by the designer (whose name I forget. Was it Jes Goodwin?) that the Stormraven bears some physical resemblance to a clenched fist, hence the name of this list.

The gear on these critters is kept to a bare minimum, coz they have the very specific mission of getting their lethal cargoes into the scrap ASAP. If I get the first turn, then they'll make a beeline into the opponent's main body of troops at full tilt, hopefully slagging something with their multimeltas on the way. If not, then they'll fly in from reserve. If they manage to survive long enough to deliver the troops and take off again, then they prove tremendously irritating for my opponent, who now has multimeltas, assault cannons and Bloodstrike missiles to worry about in addition to the close combat monsters that are in his face.

Terminators

This was inspired by the way Jawaballs runs his Terminator Deathstar. Ok, I lie, not so much inspired as copied model for model, but the thing is it makes so much sense! Most other Space Marine armies favour taking as many Storm Shields with their Terminator Assault Squads as they can, but the thing with Blood Angels is, if you're charging (and you've sensibly kept your Sanguinary Priest nearby), you're slashing away at I5 with S5 Lightning Claws. Throw in a Librarian with Unleash Rage into the mix, and with 4 Lightning Claws, you've got 16 S5 I5 attacks rerolling to hit AND wound - that can reasonably be expected to wipe out a squad of 10 MEQs without them even getting a chance to hit back. The Sanguinary Priest is, of course, best kept in the Stormraven, which will extend his area of effect far beyond what it would be if he ran around with the squad.

Death Company

This is a unit that has to be handled with care, both in composing it, and in unleashing them. When putting Death Company together, there are 3 rules I find tremendously useful:

1) Always make sure there's a Chaplain with them. Rerolling to hit and wound really makes a huge difference. In this case, a Reclusiarch, if only because all the Elites slots were taken by the Furioso, Terminators and Sanguinary Priest.
2) Have a few plain ones to soak up the damage. 35pts for a Death Company Marine with a power weapon isn't small change. These guys will attract a lot of attention because of their potential lethality. Have a few plain DC in the mix to soak up the occasional plasma or melta death that heads your way.
3) Have a PLAN for getting them where they'll hurt most. There's not much that can beat the good old Stormraven. It's a fast assault vehicle, making it perfect for making sure those DC marines charge where you need them to charge.

Furioso and Death Company Dreadnoughts

Death Company Dreadnought: Very few things quite make you fear for the continued existence of your infantry as much as a Death Company Dreadnought with Blood Talons. Like the DC marines, you've got to have a plan for getting it to charge where it's needed. Ah, you gotta love Stormravens. Even the vaunted Storm Eagle can't provide this...I included the magna grapple on him for some extra anti-vehicle punch. Besides, at S8, that's another big nasty gun that further increases my chances of popping a Rhino to charge and shred the squishy infantry within.

Furioso: I LOVE this guy! Every game I've had, he's brought me glory, and in a game against Space Wolves, he made up his points cost in one righteous blast of his Frag Cannon, wiping out a whole squad of Grey Hunters whose Rhino had just been blown up by the nearby Stormraven.

Squads Wallace and Gromit

Squad Wallace. Bad stuff invariably happens to them.

Squad Gromit. Even worse stuff will happen to them.

These guys need no introduction, having served in my DoA list quite a few times. It's ALWAYS useful to have a pair of meltaguns that can drop anywhere onto the battlefield with terrifying accuracy (at least compared to normal Deep Striking). Thus far, I've always fielded them without splitting them into combat squads. Some might say it makes better sense for taking objectives, but I just want more big, beefy units to brutalize my opponent with, which can take the abuse (diverting lots of enemy dakka) and still have a marine or two near the game's end to limp away to camp on an objective. I try to keep 'em close to the Stormraven with the Priest inside, the better to support the Terminators and benefit from the Feel No Pain.

Forseeable problems
Of course, there's no such thing as an invincible list. The key to this list is being able to focus the 2 Flying Fists to smash into an army where it hurts most. However, an army which manages to match or even exceed the Blood Angel's mobility, say, a Marine Bike list (like White Scars or Ravenwing), or Dark Eldar, or even, perhaps mechanized Blood Angels might give this list trouble, if they can down the Stormravens, then keep away from the angry close combat beasts inside. That having been said, I having encountered any such list yet, so meh.

Here's hoping I get to hurl the Fists at Imperial Guard sometime soon!

Oh, in other news, the Battle Box STILL has not arrived. It has now been 3 weeks... My Butcher is lonely :-(