Detachment Review: The Lion's Blade Task Force

Hello battle brethren! Sadly, there are no Dark Angels lists that went 4-1 or better at events last weekend, but it was a slow weekend for events, and I already published two Lists of the Week articles this week anyway, so it's nice to switch things up a bit. So, I'm writing a review of our Grotmas Detachment, the Lion's Blade Task Force. I'm basing my review on both personal experience playing the thing, and from the tournament data that we've had since its release. 

I was pretty excited when I first saw the Lion's Blade detachment. Like many of you, I'd been hoping for a detachment that incentivized Ravenwing and Deathwing working together, and this detachment tries to deliver that interaction. Let's look at the Detachment rule.

In The Lion's Claws

• Enemy units (excluding Monsters/Vehicles) falling back from a Ravenwing unit have to make Desperate Escape tests, at -1 if the unit is Battle-shocked
• Deathwing units declaring a charge on enemy units engaged with Ravenwing units add +2 to their Charge rolls.

I think I can speak for virtually all of us when I state that we collectively went "Meh" at the Ravenwing part of the detachment rule, but got excited about the Deathwing part. The implication of the Deathwing part was obvious - sticking a charge out of Deep Strike entered the realm of likely.

Now let's look at the enhancements

Enhancements

• Calibanite Armaments (15 points): Adeptus Astartes model. +1 damage to bearer's melee weapons
• Lord of the Hunt (15 points): Ravenwing model. Bearer's unit can shoot and declare a charge after a Fall Back move, and can reroll Desperate Escape tests
• Stalwart Champion (25 points): Captain, Chaplain, or Lieutenant. Bearer's unit gains +1 OC while not Battle-shocked
• Fulgus Magna (20 points): Deathwing model. Once per battle at the end of opponent's turn, bearer's unit can be returned to Strategic Reserves subject to the usual terms and conditions

I don't hate any of these. I'd rate Lord of the Hunt as the weakest, because if a Ravenwing unit is engaged in combat with an enemy unit through an opponent's Fight phase, the odds of it surviving till your next Movement phase are pretty slim, unless it's big or tough enough to eat a bunch of wounds or have them bounce off. I'd argue for what we want to do with this detachment, Fulgus Magna is close to an auto-include, because it lets you pull the Deep Strike charge twice with the attached unit. That lets you land them in your backfield to deal with some clever move your opponent is trying, then pop them back up to Deep Strike them somewhere else, rather than have them stuck footslogging out of a corner for the rest of the game. I've actually done that and been really glad I had the option.

Let's move on to the Stratagems. As we're all familiar with Armour of Contempt, I'll just cover the other five.

• Overpowering Exaction (1 CP): It's a Battle-shock an opposing unit strat (boo!). It can only be used on a unit engaged with one of your units, and the test is at -1 if it's engaged with a Deathwing or Ravenwing unit. It does have the virtue of being usable in the Command phase, so it can potentially flip an objective.
• Strength in Unity (1 CP): Units in Engagement range of a selected Adeptus Astartes unit get -1 on To Hit rolls if they're engagement range of a Ravenwing unit. They get -1 on To Wound rolls if they're in engagement range of a Deathwing unit and their weapon Strength is greater than the target unit's Toughness. The effects stack. The target unit can't also be the target of Armour of Contempt. This strat is decent. If you can contrive to hit a unit engaged with both Wings, this can really debuff their attacks. There will be times when Armour of Contempt is just better though.
• Knights of Iron (1 CP): Target Ravenwing unit can move through walls. Hell yeah!
• Illuminating Fire (1 CP): A Ravenwing unit can grant all Deathwing units +1 on To Wound rolls on a unit within 12" targeted by at least one of the Ravenwing unit's shooting attacks.
• Inescapable Wrath (2 CP): This is functionally identical to Heroic Intervention for Deathwing Infantry and Walkers, except the unit targeted does not have to have declared a charge that turn. Everyone lost their minds for a minute when they saw this strat.

I've found the strats to be a mixed bag. Overpowering Exaction is a Battle-shock strat, which most of us regard as a wasted slot. Strength in Unity is clunky and getting to line up so that both effects apply is challenging. Knights of Iron is good, and this detachment needs it, but I wish it was in the Company of Hunters. 

Illuminating Fire suffers from the terms and conditions attached to it. For one, a Ravenwing unit has to both be within 12" and target an enemy unit with a shooting attack. The latter isn't so bad, but the former is challenging to put off, and obliges you to put your Ravenwing units where they're apt to get jumped by opposing units if you're not very careful. Also, the selection of good Deathwing shooting units is kind of limited. Barring units with Deathwing characters attached, arguably the best Deathwing shooting unit is the Ballistus Dreadnought, and I think the best that can be said about the Ballistus is that it's adequate for its points. 

Inescapable Wrath seems spicy, but if you're not trying to gotcha an opponent with it, it's not going to do that much for you. It may occasionally stop opponents from trying to flip an objective by moving something squishy onto an objective being held by a Deathwing unit to out-OC you, but only if you're constantly keeping 2 CP handy to make that reactive charge, or targeting it on a unit you have a Captain attached to for the discounted strat.

Overall Rating: C-

I really wanted the Lion's Blade to be a good detachment, but based on my own experience with it and the tournament results we've seen thus far, it just isn't. Conceptually it's a good idea, but the big flaw with the detachment is that rather than helping both Ravenwing and Deathwing units equally, it makes Ravenwing units effectively a tax to get more performance out of Deathwing units - specifically, to be able to stick a charge out of Deep Strike. The detachment does very little to help its Ravenwing units. 

To be honest, the Lion's Blade doesn't do that much to help its Deathwing units either. If you aren't building your list specifically to have Deathwing stick charges out of Deep Strike, then there isn't much point to playing this detachment, and even then a 7" charge isn't that hard to fail. You're obliged to either attach Terminator Captains to most of your Deep Striking Deathwing units or risk having games where you just whiff your charge rolls, leaving your Ravenwing units stuck in combat with units that are likely to kill them and your Deathwing units exposed to being shot off the board.

Another failing of the detachment is that, other than Lord of the Hunt enhancement, there is no mechanism to have anything Advance or Fall Back and do anything.  That's a pretty significant weakness for a detachment where the expectation is that its units will be engaging in close melee with opposing units. It enables opponents to turn off the detachment's offense by engaging key units with throwaway units, or units they can't possibly meaningfully affect in any way. As far as Lord of the Hunt goes, as we're trying to not spend too many points on Ravenwing units, if we're going to buy a Ravenwing character it's going to be Sammael, because he grants Advance+Charge, which the detachment really needs, and as he's a named character he can't buy enhancements.

Additionally, an opponent who understands the interaction between Ravenwing and Deathwing in your list are likely to target the Ravenwing units to eliminate the buffs they give Deathwing units. We're disincentivized from spending too many points on Ravenwing units because the detachment doesn't really do that much for them. Strength in Unity would be good if we had a reason to plop a big blob of Ravenwing Knights into the list, but as it is we're likely using little squads of Outriders or solo ATVs, which are likely to get picked up if opponents are swinging anything serious at them even with the -1 To Hit. Knights of Iron would be hella sexy in the Company of Hunters, but in this detachment it really only exists to help the Ravenwing units get stuck in so they can whistle in the Deathwing units. And, the Ravenwing part of the detachment rule might as well not exist. 

Finally, it's annoying that a detachment titled "Lion's Blade" doesn't incentivize using Lion Dad. That's just dumb.

Using the Detachment

I fully stand by everything I stated above about the problems with the detachment. Still, I've got thoughts about how to get the most out of the detachment. 

Right out of the gate, the only compelling reason to use this detachment is to try and have Deathwing units stick charges out of Deep Strike. The best Deathwing units we can put in Deep Strike Reserve are Deathwing Knights, so if I'm going to play this detachment, I'm starting off with three units of Deathwing Knights. I'm going to attach Terminator Captains to two of them so I can reroll all three Charge rolls if needs be.  I toyed with the idea of using a big squad of Deathwing-something else, Terminators or Assault Terminators, but they're so lackluster compared to Knights I just can't bring myself to do it.

For the Ravenwing component, I don't want to spend too many points on them, but I think there's a danger in spending too few as well. The detachment needs Ravenwing units to activate the Deathwing buffs, so I want to spend more than the minimum points it takes to buy 3 ATVs. Also, I think it's a good idea for some of them to have Fly, so they can be hopped over a screen to touch something more important than Guardsmen, Cultists, or Gaunts. I also think the Storm Speeder Hammerstrike is decent for the points, and stripping cover helps the Deathwing shooting we're buffing with Illuminating Fire.

For my Deathwing shooting element, I'm leaning towards Hellblasters led by Azrael and a Lieutenant. They can do a lot of damage to a wide array of targets, and with the two characters and 3 close combat weapon attacks per Hellblaster they make a credible charge threat too. Alternately, a pair of Ballistus Dreadnoughts aren't bad for the points, and with +1 on To Wound rolls and stripped cover they could probably do some work. The also have the virtue of having 12 wounds at T10 and a 2+ save. I'm a little tempted by the Brutalis too. They're primarily an assault platform, but they do have the underarm twin-linked multimelta, which with +1 to Wound could be pretty spicy, and having the Vehicle keyword will get to shoot regardless of being tagged in combat or not. 

Unfortunately, it's strictly academic, because it doesn't seem likely I'm playing this detachment again until Games Workshop significantly improves either the detachment rules or the units the list would comprise of.

Improvements I'd like to see

Right off the bat, a meaningful improvement to the detachment rule would be to have it grant Ravenwing units the ability to Shoot and Charge after they Advance, or even just Charge after they Advance. That would facilitate the Ravenwing units fulfilling their role in the detachment. 

I'd like to see Illuminating Fire lose the range requirement. Without it, it's got enough terms and conditions to be balanced. 

Overpowering Exaction (or really any Battle-shock stratagem) is terrible and a waste of a slot. I'd like to see it replaced with something genuinely useful. I could wish-list all kinds of things, but off the top of my head, I'd like to see a reactive move strat, or a Fall Back and act strat. I don't think it's a coincidence that the detachments that most of the more high-performing lists are using (the Gladius and the Stormlance) have built-in abilities to fall back and act.

That, battle brethren, is my take on the Lion's Blade Task Force. It's sad that it's such a disappointment, but at least the Company of Hunters has started looking up lately! If you enjoy my work, hunt down that Follow button like it knows something about the Fallen. Also, check out Dank List Wargaming over on YouTube. For the Lion!