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DA Demi-Company (not the Battle Company)


Frater Cornelius

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Well, I never thought that day would come, but here I am eyeing the Demi Company. Not the full Battle Company, which gives you free vehicles, but the regular Demi one.

 

How come? Well, it is the auxiliary choices. If you would have given me the choice between full BC with 1 minimal auxiliary, then I would take the SM one almost every time. If you ask me about the SM Demi, however, I would politely ask you to stop. Their auxiliary choices are simply not worth it.

 

Not so with DA. RWSS synergizes great with mech, since it deters alpha strikes by providing cover and interceptor. The RWAS offers some solid shooting and the DWRF is great for building pressure. I know I could take them all by themselves with a CAD, but giving the entire army Overwatch at full BS seems to be a solid option and it will count as one detachment as opposed to multiple ones, which is great when there are limits on how many you can take.

 

What this army would have over the other SM-related armies is durability. You have improved cover saves, Interceptor and great Overwatch, which is bound to ruin someone's day, seeing as there are many armies that run melee elements or use preemptive charges to tie up something or get around cover saves.

 

Having said all that, I am still extremely skeptical about this. But I feel like some solid synergy can be found here that can challenge some of the higher end lists.

 

Let me know what you think. I am trying to build this for high end play that does not include Escalation, FW, WD and Web-exclusive Formations, but allows everything else there is, with 3 Detachments and 2 Factions (the complete Lion's Blade counts as 1 Detachment).

 

Cheers

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Unfortunately you have to take the full battle company in order to get the full BS overwatch.

 

Just a single demi-company only gets you BS3 overwatch.

This is not correct. The demi-company formation grants you overwatch at bs3, if you take it in a lion's blade detachment though, (consisting of at least one core choice and at least one auxilary choice), you get overwatch at full BS. All you need is a demi-company + aux choice.

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Oh?
Damn, that's great then - I just read through to check on that and yeah - I'm glad I was wrong.

This would be my preferred way to run it too (I'm not bothered by the free vehicles too much). The Ravenwing Support Squadron is my favourite space marine formation so far.

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I suppose, the main question would be whether the ASM and HQ tax (I do not see Devs so much as tax, but still a bit skeptical) and the lack of the RWCS is worth having full BS Overwatch. The alternative would be a CAD. But in a CAD I always need to ask myself why play DA Tacs. What do DA Tacs do what UM can not. Hence my trouble fitting together the bits and pieces here and make a coherent list.

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That is fair. However, how do you use them? Meched up? Pods? Once you have equipped everything accordingly, there is hardly any points left for any meaningful additions. The RWSS would be the very least I would want to add, but there are a few more things. RWAS come to mind, as does a Knight.

 

Let's talk a bit about Tacs and their job in a Lion's Blade. I seem to have faced to many WS Battle Companies, I forgot my Tac-fu from other PA variants :D

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I think that would definitely depend on what the rest of your army is doing. Something that is more prevalent with Dark Angels, since our auxiliaries are so much more specialized than the SM ones.

I personally love podding Devs now that we have grav cannons. (Never fielded dev units more than 5 man before now, but I regularly field 8-10)

The assault marine unit I would definitely use as a mop up/mobile OS unit - jump packs, flamers etc (can put the mandatory chaplain in here if you aren't taking the company master)
Have them jump around the board scoring your maelstrom points, stealing enemy's maelstrom objectives, killing hidden scouts/cultists etc)

Generally they won't be focused on, since they arent super scary on their own. Your auxiliaries will take most of the attention.

Regarding the tacs - I really think they should fill in the blanks in the list in terms of loadout. I generally don't play drop pod heavy armies, and as such prefer rhino/razor tacs. But recently been playing around with the 5 man + grav cannon in a rhino shooting out the top hatch, It's pretty fun and can sure pack a wallop for just being your "core" 
10 man with grav cannon and grav gun could work really well too, though I haven't tried it yet. 

Grav (and plasma) also synergises well with our full BS overwatch with the larger pool of shots - even grav cannons wounding on 5+ can still really hurt on overwatch with the grav amp rerolls.


One thing I'd like to say (though I'm not sure if I'm the only one who thinks this or not) but, between our battle company and the SM battle company. I feel like the two are focusing on two different parts of the lion's blade/gladius detachments. For SM the gladius is the "core/main" force - I mean they get everything in there that they were already generally bringing, including bikes and centurions - a pure gladius from the SM codex isnt hugely different from how SM lists used to be run anyway.

The SM book brings a demi-company and gets most of what it needs from it, then adds in some storm talon auxiliaries or the hunter one for some anti-air support.

Whereas we will get most of what we need from our Auxiliaries (our bikes/speeders etc) and then use our demi-company to bring the support/fill the gaps. Basically just the reverse of the SM codex.

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Hm, I have not considered 10 Grav Devs in Pod combat squadding. However, then I would need a few more pods. The problem is that without ASM, there are 4 units to pod. That is a bad numbers, so I would go with the Grav + Rhino approach, but that one is hurt a bit by the lack of a scout move, thus a wasted turn if you go first.

I agree on the ASM, they are solid objective hunters.

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What do Tac's do best in Lions Blade?

For me it's defending their transports.

 

More often then not I was losing my rhinos in combat. A few krak grenades or a MC will kill rhino without problems, Shooting not so much (bar eldar and their S6 galore) because of cover and immunity to a lot of weapons thanks to with AV11.

 

Now in a Lions Blade detachment I keep my 5 men tacts with a grav cannon inside, and it proved to be suprisingly effective against anyone trying to assault a rhino with them.

 

That alone keeps me mobile for much longer and alows me to gather more maelstorm points.

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So basically, 4 Rhinos with varying amount of Grav Cannons, the ASM unit with Flamers. The HQ will either go with ASM, but I would also stick them with the Devs, just to have that Ld10, since every pen and wreck will cause a check. I can not afford them getting pinned or force to snap-shoot.

 

In addition, there is the RWSS, which gives me a bit of long-ranged pressure and improves cover for the Rhinos, especially if they pop smoke T1.

 

Now, what else? I am eyeing that Rifleman Dread, RWAS, more RWSS or a Knight. Maybe even the Conclave for summoning. Was the DA conclave updated by the way?

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It hasn't been updated yet unfortunately. Nothing stopping you from running it though ofc.

Rifleman Dread could be great (a unit of them would be best) as your primary anti-air. Since you'll struggle with that - although with enough grav shots being poured into the aircraft in addition to the RWSS's intercept you'll be able to actually give flyers a scare. An Immobilize result is pretty potent on aircraft after all.

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I want to avoid involving SM. All I want is to make a DA list, that is unique to DA and not mimic some of my SM lists. Green + Black seems to be a good way to go, but I always fail at the Green part of the list.

 

And yeah, Immobilized either means crash, but the vector lock is much more fun. You know where and how it will move and you can put a unit there and cause it to crash :D

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I would consider some of the requirements within the individual elements of a lion's blade a tax.  The Land raider within the Hammer is a tax if you're fielding three whirlwinds.  The two nephelim are a tax in the silence squadron.  I'd be okay with one of each bird plus a third one of your choosing (2/1 or 1/2, as you like it), and the sheer expense of 500 points to field three birds when all you really wanted was the stained glass cannon and maybe a stasis bomb...feels very tax-like.  There are plenty of things in the list of Lions Blade options where I say "great, but will it fit inside 1850?"  That smells taxing...

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