Blood Angels Tactica: Angel's Fury Spearhead and Chapter Ancients

Blood Angels got a huge boost in the form of the Angel's Blade campaign supplement several months ago.  The addition of the Archangels Orbital Intervention Force, Chapter Ancients, and Golden Host have given some much needed love to the boys in red.  With the new addition of these awesome Formations, the Angel's Fury Spearhead Strike Force has become relevant finally.

Angel's Fury Spearhead has often been overlooked as not very competitive based on the significant point investment, and for the fact that the turn 1 charge was rather hard to pull off.  Now, however, with the addition of Formations such as Chapter Ancients, the tax to pull off some turn 1 devastation has gone down significantly.

GW released the FAQ for Blood Angels recently explaining how the Angel's Fury Spearhead is supposed to work.  Essentially to gain the benefit to pull off the charge on Turn 1, the tacticals need to disembark using Skies of Fury so that the sergeants are within 12" of each other.  That is very risky and not extremely reliable. But it can be mitigated. Let's take a look at a list here.

+++1850 Angel's Fury+++

+++Angel's Fury Spearhead Strike Force+++

2x Stormravens TL Lascannon/TL Multi-Melta, Hurricane Bolters

1 Stormraven TL Assault Cannon/TL Multi-Melta, Hurricane Bolters

3x 10 Tactical marines, Heavy Flamer, Melta gun, Sgt with Teleport Homers

+++Chapter Ancients+++

Furioso Dread w/ Frag Cannon/Heavy Flamer, Lucius Drop Pod

2x Librarian Dreads ML2, Lucius Drop Pod

+++Inquisitorial Detachment+++

Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor, 3x Servo Skulls

Total: 1844 Points

So how does this list work? Essentially you are null deploying as you're only deploying the inquisitor somewhere in your deployment zone out of line of sight and probably on an objective. Place the servo skulls about mid-field. The skulls serve two purposes in the list. First, they prevent your opponent from infiltrating all over the board as you null deploy. Keeping them mostly in their own deployment zone which you want. Second, they will reduce the scatter for your tacticals when they disembark using Skies of Fury. We'll get more into that momentarily. 

All of the tacticals must begin the game embarked upon the Stormravens. But nothing prevents them from combat squadding. On turn one you make your rerollable reserve roll for the formation. They all come in. When you're done moving them you want to keep them somewhat close together 

You're going to combat squad drop the tacticals within range of an objective preferably and combat squad them dropping them within 12" of a servo skull to reduce the scatter by 1d6. You can place the squad with the sergeant by simply putting down one of the marines in the squad, roll scatter die and 1d6. Place the marine then position the sergeant so he will be within range of the second unit dropping out. Repeat this for the next squad in one of the other ravens. 

Now, bring in two of your dread pods within the 12" range of both tactical sergeants. The pods won't scatter of course. You are wanting to use lucius pods here because you might face off against a hard counter to this list such as Tau riptide spam with interceptor. You don't want your dreads getting shot up before they can do anything on your turn. Lucius pods give you the option to just stay embarked should you need to do so. Otherwise get them out and you should be in range to charge some juicy targets. 

As you can see, this list hits hard and 3 stormravens flying around blasting things with their firepower can be pretty brutal as the game goes on. It helps also that all the tacticals are objective secured giving you 6 units capable of holding objectives as needed. 

The list obviously has some bad matchups such as the previously mentioned tau. Genestealers cults can be a hard matchup as well but servo skulls again help mitigate them from ambushing all over the board. Drop pod armies can be troublesome as well and you should always elect to give them the first turn if possible. 

This list, or some similar to it, has been winning tournament events so far in the 2017 season so it's worth a look. The addition of Chapter Ancients really makes this army a force to be reckoned with and I'm looking forward to seeing more of blood angels at the top tables this season.