The Assault Marine Part 2!

Hey guys!

So there was a pretty good discussion the other day about Blood Angels assault marines as allies and I wanted to do a continuation of that thread for review.

First of all, I am sure there are better points use for allies but here is what I came up with:

This is a copy/paste from my comment section. I am replying to a question about bikers to begin.

The important part here is where I break down points costs and why BA RAS are a great troops choice in 6th Ed, especially as allies.

I did a lot of play testing a bike squad with priest. The result was underwhelming all the time. The squad is hugely expensive, and once combat is in place, it is still only one attack per model. If they could all take plasma guns, then yah bikes, but you only get two per squad plus SGT upgrades. In the end it is a very expensive pair of plasma guns that at best will tie up an enemy assault squad for a bit, provided that the enemy unit is not a dedicated assault unit. 



Here is a little comparison to show the strength of BA assault squads. I have created two units as identical as possible including 10 men and an attached IC.

Vanilla:
x10 marines
plasma pistol
flamer
power fist
chaplain with JP
Fearless
reroll hits on charge
non scoring
355 points

Blood Angels:
x10 marines
MELTA GUN (not an option for vanilla)
flamer
fist
Sanguinary Priest with JP and Power Maul(to keep it even)
FEEL NO PAIN
Furious Charge
possibly fearless
reroll ALL hits with librarian buff
scoring
320

35 less points and way more effective!

:)


Some one had commented comparing vanilla assault marines with BA.  So I created two units on army builder creating the same unit as close as possible, with an attached IC.  I used a chaplain and a priest since they were probably the closest in nature. You can immediately see the goodness of the BA assault marine!  

Some of the things that jump out at me are the fact that a BA RAS can have two specials, with the options being Melta, Flamer or Plasma guns while the Vanilla only gets one, and a plasma pistol (I think it was on the sgt?), and no Melta or Plasma gun option. 

So the point here is that you take this blood angels squad I have above, add another, and a Librarian with JP and you have a brutal group of nasties for 765 points.  This is the perfect allied compliment to a Space Marine army who has cheap fire power like Thunder Fires and interesting options like useful Captains or named characters and different Libby powers.  (The Blood Angels captain is a joke).  You can also throw in a Storm Raven which is one of the best flyers still.  

In summary, if you are playing Marines, and want some assault goodness, don't bother with the Marine codex, play Blood Angels.  1200 points of the best that the Marine codex has to offer supported by 800 points of the best the Bloods have to offer enhances both. And THAT is the point of allies folks!

Jawaballs