Assault Armies in 6th: Part 2

As I sit here at work, my mind drifting off thinking of my next 40k project, I keep wanting to do a pure assault army. 6th edition has really changed how assault armies play and the game has shifted towards a more shoot first play style. I do believe there is hope and in fact I believe there is a dominate assault list out there vs the current meta.




6th edition did not kill assault armies, it just made it really, really hard to get there. The hull point rules changes and no longer being able to assault out of stationary vehicles, has made the delivery tougher. Random charge lengths and the way it works with difficult terrain has also made assaults less dependable. Dangerous terrain changes now mean you may loose your power weapon or fists. Over watch and armies shifting to shooting means it is simply harder to hit with enough of your army to win combats. Armies of fliers is also a problem for pure assault armies as they can only be shot.

So my desire to play a pure assault army has some challenges. Survivability and speed seem to be the keys. With this in mind, I have been looking at doing a Blood Angels army. At first it was to be an allied force for my SOB army, but has been fleshed out to full army status.

Speed.... With all this shooting going on and so many fliers, it is imperative to get into assaults as soon as possible. The faster you tie him up, the less he can shoot at you  and the less he has to shoot. I think you have to be able to be in assaults by your turn 2 to see good results.

To do this I'm looking at a drop pod heavy force. Drop pods are nice now that you can deploy 6 inches out of them. This means you can put yourself in good shooting positions and take advantage of cover. Also half of your pods will come in turn one. This is also good as you can choose what you want in that first wave. Drop pods also allow you to be any where on the board turn one. Alot of 6th is position and objective based now.

Survivability.... Blood Angels were chosen due to my Lysander in a command squad list. Feel no pain adds so much to a unit when you already have a 2+ save and a 3++. This gives just enough durability to units t last that one turn. One turn is all they need since you will be asaulting turn two. The other key to helping your units survive that one turn is target saturation. If you have too many units to kill, then you will get into assault. It is also good to have different types of targets. This puts pressure on your opponent to have the right "tool" in position to shoot your units.

So the list I'm looking at is a 10 man unit of assault terminators with 2 sanguinary priests. This will allow me to combat squad or to leave them big to control an area of the board. This unit's job is to pressure up the front and control the middle. I want to push my opponent back.

Next up is my first wave of drop pods. I'm planning on running a 10 man death company and 2 death company dreadnoughts. I have had good luck with dreadnoughts in drop pod. People are gearing up for infantry armies and a couple of dreads with blood talons is very scary to some units. Again one turn to kill them before they are in assault....

My final wave is a command squad with 4 plasma rifles and a libby, an assault squad to grab objectives and a scout squad with sniper rifles. I'm also going to run Corbulo. His 2+ feel no pain will allow him to "tank" for unit I put him in. This should negate weight of fire units shooting at me.

I'm hoping to proxies this list soon, and when I do pictures and a report will be written. All thoughts and comments are welcome. I'm curious if this list will hold out vs the new Tau also.