Blood Angels Renaissance: Razorspam

Hello and welcome to part one of my Blood Angels Renaissance, today we’ll be looking at one of the most common Blood Angels builds; Razorspam

So we’re all on the same page a typical razorspam will look a little like this:

Librarian: Shield of Sanguinius, Unleash Rage
Honour Guard: Meltagun
Razorback: Lascannon, Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
5 Assault Marines: Meltagun
Razorback: Lascannon, Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
5 Assault Marines: Flamer
Razorback: Lascannon, Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
5 Assault Marines: Flamer
Razorback: Lascannon, Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
5 Assault Marines: Flamer
Razorback: Lascannon, Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
5 Assault Marines: Flamer
Razorback: Lascannon, Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
2 Land Speeders: Multi-meltas
2 Land Speeders: Multi-meltas
2 Land Speeders: Multi-meltas
Predator: Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons
Predator: Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons





As we can see this list has a lot of tools to deal with the different things you find across your average 40k battlefield. We’ve got lots of armour, lots of melta, some high strength, low ap shots, a few flamers for anti horde and a bit of psy-defence.

I’ll now break the list down, throw in my two cents and eventually we’ll arrive at my own take on razorspam.

Core:

The core of any razorspam list is scoring units in razorbacks. For Blood Angels this means Assault Marines. They have plenty of advantages over tacticals. Assault Marines can take a special weapon per 5 guys and if you really want more melta you can give the sergeant an infurnus pistol for 2 melta shots from 5 guys. Considering your codex marine counterpart is denied even one melta shot, this is pretty awesome. Removing their jump packs also gains you a 35pt discount on their transport. For our razorbacks this basically means a free weapon upgrade. Not too shabby!

For that free upgrade there are two standout choices for me: Lasplas (Lascannon and twin linked Plasma Guns) or twin linked Assault Cannons. Lasplas gets you some high strength, low ap shooting and because Blood Angels have fast Razorbacks you can move 6” and still shoot to your full potential. Twin linked Assault Cannons gives you more shots and rending for anti tank and you can move 12” and still bring the pain. This means you can get around the board faster and the razorback is harder to hit in combat. It is slightly more vulnerable than the Lasplas variant due to only having one weapon system though.

Head Quarters:

There’s only one real choice here; the Librarian. A Libby while not being a beast on his own brings tons of utility to your army. Shield of Sanguinius gives every unit within 6” a 5+ cover save, this applies to vehicles too (thanks faq!) and the distance will be measured from the hull of the vehicle he’s in resulting in quite a large bubble. A 5+ save might not seem like much but it does make a difference. Just ask any Dark Eldar player if they could live without flicker fields! Shield is also cast in your opponents shooting phase so you still get to cast two psychic powers per game turn.

For the second power I tend to choose Unleash Rage. This can be cast in any assault phase and gives the Libby and his unit preferred enemy.

Other standouts are might of heroes (more attacks for the Libby) and fear of the darkness for helping to scare units of objectives late game. The Libby also brings a psychic hood to the table and with a fast Razorback to drive around in you should be able to get the hood just where you need it most.

I’ll briefly cover some of the other HQs for completeness: The captain adds nothing to this type of list and shouldn’t be considered. A reclusiarch is a bit more of a combat beat stick and makes his unit fearless which has its uses. Most of the special characters are either too inefficient or don’t fit into this type of list too well. The only one who I would think about throwing into the mix is Mephiston. He can keep up with the army with wings, and hide behind a wall of Razorbacks before jumping forward and being all badass.

Toys and Shiny Things:

Now the core is sorted we can look at how to support it.

The choices here are quite varied. Land Speeders in Multi-melta, Multi-melta/Heavy Flamer, and Typhoon form are all good depending on your particular tastes. Attack bikes can also work though you might have line of sight issues.

Predators (standard variety) deserve a special mention. Like all Blood Angels Rhino Chassis vehicles they are fast. For a predator this is huge. You can move 6” to seek targets and still fire at full effectiveness. Load out wise I prefer Auto Las. All lascannons is too pricey for that extra lascannon shot and personally I don’t think dakka preads bring that much to the table in this vehicle heavy meta.

Vindicators (never just take one) can be hit and miss and are of course vulnerable to a weapon destroyed result. Due to the design of the tank your vindis will always need to be up front or on the flanks for clear line of sight so factor this in when deploying or planning your movement phase.

Riflemen dreads can add some reliable light armour shots but I’d shy away from devastators. Exposed infantry will get shredded if the rest of your army’s all embarked/a vehicle.

A Sanguinary Priest can spread a bit of feel no pain about but honour guard might be the better choice. Their priest is embedded and they can bring more special weapons or more combat potential. They can also buy themselves a razorback to ride around in, increasing your armour saturation.

Drawbacks:

For most of this article I’ve been telling you about how awesome everything is so in the interests of balance I’ll present a few drawbacks.

Line of sight is always going to be an issue. Your razorbacks may be able to shoot over each other but will block line of sight to predator sponsons or demolisher cannons. This is also the reason why I prefer land speeders to attack bikes. Attack bikes can sometimes find themselves trapped behind a wall of red tanks where speeders can always fly over anything in their way to find new targets.

This leads onto my most important point about playing Razorspam. Plan your movement phase! This is where the game is won and lost and razorspam is like playing tetris. If you put one Razorback out of position it will mess up you game plan. Now I’m not in any way advocating slow play but make sure you’ve double checked the order you need to move things around before you start. It will pay dividends by the time you come to shoot.

Another problem I’ve encountered is reach. That is your ability to put pressure on your opponent and harm things in his back field. A few bad stunned/immobilised results can bring your grand plan to a standstill and the majority of your weaponry will be either short ranged or a low number of shots, limiting your options. This also means you’ll struggle against hordes. A swarm of nids or orks in the right hands can cause you nightmares.

My List:

So after listening to my ramblings I imagine you want to know how I put things together. Well here it is:

Librarian: Shield of Sanguinius, Unleash Rage
Sanguinary Priest
5 Assault Marines
Razorback: Twin-Linked Assault Cannon
5 Assault Marines
Razorback: Twin-Linked Assault Cannon
5 Assault Marines
Razorback: Twin-Linked Assault Cannon
5 Assault Marines
Razorback: Twin-Linked Assault Cannon
5 Assault Marines
Razorback: Twin-Linked Assault Cannon
5 Vanguard Vets: Glaive Encarmine, Thunder Hammer, Meltabomb
5 Vanguard Vets: Glaive Encarmine, Thunder Hammer, Meltabomb
Vindicator
Vindicator
Predator: Autocannon, Lascannon sponsons

As you can see it’s not your average Razorspam. I’ve swapped out a lot of shooting for the two units of Vanguard Vets but they really do work. The ability to deep strike accurately and assault on the drop is not to be underestimated. They are the guys I turn to when I need to dig out long fangs, manticores, psyflemen etc. Yes they have their disadvantages but I like their ability to strike pretty much where I want.

The same goes for the vindis. I have found them to be unreliable and I’ve considered swapping them out for more autolas predators but with all the paladins and thunder wolf cavalry running around I’ve felt the need to keep them in. The psychological impact of a vindicator or two also shouldn’t be underestimated.

I’m still undecided on Assault Cannons vs. LasPlas, they both have their pros and cons and until I get some more play testing done.

I would like to have some special weapons on the assault marines but that would mean dropping the priest and I’ve always found him useful for keeping the marines alive (25 scoring marines isn’t that much really) and helping with a few assaults as necessary late game.

That’s Razorspam finished with. As always comments are welcome.

Sir#67