Goatboy’s 40K Meta Hotness: Space Marine Firestorm Assault Force Detachment
Goatboy here. The new Space Marine Codex does a lot for all the other Marine armies. Today’s Meta Hotness is the firestorm Assault Force Detachment. Here’s why.
The ability for all your favorite Space Puppies, Dire Angels, and Angry Space Vampires to take new rules is a huge benefit to those armies. Heck, they now all have access to 8 total sets of new rules to play with and while we know their original ones are kinda meh the new ones seem to sing pretty well.
Say Hello to the Firestorm Assault Force
Which then leads me to think – who got the most out of these new detachments? I mean, I can think of so many armies that would love a lot of this – especially ones that try to get close and personal with the “White Scars” detachment. We’ll be talking about that one in a bit, but there is a Salamanders-style Detachment called the Firestorm Assault Force detachment. I like to call it BURN YOUR ENEMIES FACES Detachment. It seems well set up for a truly horrific burn-heavy Blood Angels list.
Blood Angels Burninating the Countryside!
Their rule is to give all your weapons the Assault rule on all your models. Then on top of having Assault they also get a +1 to Strength if hitting/burning something within 12”. What does the Blood Angel army have that others do not? The big ole Baal Predator with a ton of flamer options. This fast little tank can Haul 12”+d6, throw out D6+3 D2 flamers, 2d6 Hvy Flamers, and some Hunter Killer action all in a turn. You can do all of this for 125 points of Toughness 10 annoyance that is going to be burning things the entire game.
On top of all of this you can throw in a ton of Death Company with a plethora of Hand Flamers too that are jumping around burning stuff. Throw in some Infernus Marines, a Redeemer, and you got a force that the theme is – BURN YOUR FRACKING FACE OFF. It does help there is even a stratagem to turn your units flame weapons into Devastating wounds for even more nonsense.
Did you know the Redeemer moves 12”? It also has two of the sweet D2 Flamer Weapons too? It can also house some of those pesky Aggressor types who also happen to have flamers as well? Did you remember how I said Aggressors are the next sweet thing for Marines? Well, if you got some of those Snapfit Flamer ones be ready to go burning the countryside.
This is just looking at the Blood Angel’s side but you could look at a bunch of the other Marine-based armies – that love to take a ton of Flamers. Anything that lets you torrent your way to victory is key here – or anything that would love a lot of guns in Assault mode. I could see whole armies just going hog wild with advancing things that just always work as they get close and ready to interact.
Heck my Dreadnought army I posted last week could go amazingly well with all of this. Swap out a ton of their bolters/Gatling guns and go to town with heavy flamers. Just being able to play a bit of keep away and still punish your opponent with bullets/flames/energy weapons seems like a powerful option for any army.
I think this one is one of the simpler little tweaks that really can change how your army plays. Movement is always key and being able always to shoot while moving fast is a huge boon for players. You can do a lot with things and just keep the game at a safe distance as you get around the table, hold down objectives, and pelt the enemy in murderous damage from a safe distance.
Go forth and burninate!
