Chapter Master Slamguinius

This article or section covers stupidly cheesy and/or broken crunch that gives powergamers and munchkins a serious hard-on at the expense of everyone else. It is extremely likely to cause Rage in whoever goes against it. So don’t use it, you dick.

"Come on and SLAM, and welcome to the JAM!"

– The warcry of Chapter Master Slamguinius

After countless aeons of staring forlornly at our sub-tier Blood Angel lists and drooling with envy every time Chapter Master Smashfucker or his ilk would devastate our armies, we were even beaten by our own codices there for a while, from Mephiston's sword bouncing off of TEQs, to Dante's insanely high Initiative being turned into a joke with how axes worked; not only that, we were still gimped by receiving none of the new toys our cousins from codex chapters got, and our best units were perpetually gimped by the piss poor charge rules of 6th and 7th ed.

8th edition and the beauty that followed[edit]

Then a new day dawned for the much maligned Sons of Sanguinius. The 8th edition of 40k dropped and we dared to hope. Then the Codex dropped, and our hope was given form. The name of our new lord and master? Chapter Master Slamguinius. Welcome to the Jam, Brothers.

Like every good thing that comes into /tg/'s baleful notice, Slamguinius started out as just a thought experiment--starting out on the DakkaDakka forums and 4chan boards, eventually leaking into Reddit where the munchkins and powergamers did what they do best, try to squeeze every bit of cheese out of the dick of the new Blood Angels Codex. By the Blood, one of our errant brothers in an effort to maximize points while remaining as cost effective as possible built the (un)holy combo. Said brother then shared his build--wistfully naming his creation Slamguinius in the foregone hope that it would somehow stand up to the beasts that came before.

Then the Miracles occurred.

Batrep after batrep of Slamguinius single handedly punching the everloving FUCK out of a greater daemon of Khorne. Slamguinius laying low our Spiritual Liege in single fucking combat with one bumfuckingly good charge. The most fabled of foes fell at his feet, as he ass-rammed Imperial Knight titans that were unable to overwatch this amphetamine fueled bastard. And for the low, low price of 5-7 CPs (holy shit...) he can even pimp-slap Mortarion's pustuled ass back to the warp. Brother Slamguinius is the perfect spoiler against any army relying on a big nasty to ruin your day. Small enough to get in where a squad can't, hard hitting enough to thoroughly wreck whatever he's fighting in a single shot with enough CP. Like a scalpel duct-taped to a stick of dynamite. Not bad for a 129 point mook.

Hope was rekindled for the Scions of Sanguinius, as a new day dawned as the faintest embers of a thought entered our collective souls.

"Hey, hot damn, we might even be competitive again someday at this rate. At least until GW FAQ's it out."

TL;DR: Slamguinius is the ~~unholy~~TOTALLY 100% HOLY fusion of MURDERWINGS and SMASHFUCKER and this is good.

How to build Brother Slamguinius, the Slambane, 9th lord of Slamfuckery[edit]

Chapter Master Slamguinius, The Slambane, 9th Lord of Slamfuckery
Points	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	A	Ld	Sv
124	12	2+	2+	4	4	5	4(+2)	9	3+/3++/6+++

Wargear
- Relic: Angel's Wing (jump pack)
  - Re-roll failed charges and immunity to overwatch.
Storm Shield
- 3++
Thunder Hammer
- Sx2 AP-3 D3, -1 to hit.
- After all other effects: A4(6) WS3+(re-rolling 1s) S8(+1 to wound) AP-3 D4
Bolt Pistol
Frag/Krak grenades
Special Rules
- Warlord Trait: Artisan of War
  - +1D on one weapon.
- Angels of Death
  - And They Shall Know No Fear
  - Bolter Discipline
  - Combat Doctrine
  - Shock Assault
- Rites of Battle
  - Re-roll 1s to hit.
- Chapter Tactics (The Red Thirst)
  - When charging, charged, or herotically intervening, +1 to wound rolls in the Fight phase.
- The Black Rage
  - +1A when charging, 6+++ FNP
Fly
Deep Strike
+1A when charging from Shock Assault

You start with your basic BA captain template and make sure to make him your warlord. You trade out his Master Crafted Boltgun for a Thunder Hammer from the Melee Weapon list, then trade out his chainsword for a Storm Shield (you can go for a ranged weapon instead, but it's your call to see if a 17% drop-off in survivability is worth it; a pistol might be a good idea if you do, so you can shoot both it and your bolt pistol when you shoot), which is critical for surviving multi-damage shots after you've annihilated your initial target, or even just surviving an opponent's shooting phase. You even get to keep a pistol for shooting. The real meat comes in when you slap a Jump Pack on him so you can get a free upgrade to Angel's Wing and Artisan of War on his Thunder Hammer. Most batreps have you slap on Death Visions of Sanguinius for 1CP and honestly, it's worth its weight in CP gold. You get a 3+/3++/6+++ melee beatstick that can't be overwatched and gets a natural re-roll to charges. With 4 attacks base with +2 on the charge hitting at Sx2 AP-3 D4 for each wound that makes it through you can guarantee most things will get the fear of Sanguinius in them after the first time they underestimate your little 129 point model. Doing some quick mathhammer, with a modest CP expenditure you can use the 3d6 from Descent of Angels and the Re-rolls from Angel's Wing to guarantee a charge at 9" at about 94% to absolutely make sure this guy gets stuck in attacking whatever it is you want to make dead on the turn you decide to bring him in, presumably after you've frag missiled the enemy's screens to nothing. You can buddy him up with support, as well, such as a jump sanguinary priest (from the index) to bring his S up to 10 and heal him (although he'll have trouble keeping up with the charges), or Lemartes if you want to spam the fundamental concept here (just remember they won't be immune to Overwatch without Angel's Wing), or a Jump Lieutenant (remember, Death Visions does not happen during a phase, so you can use it multiple times). A pair of Jump Pack Librarians, one a Blood Angel with Unleash Rage and the other a generic Space Marine one with Might of Heroes (Blood Ravens have the best Psykers and White Scars are best at keeping up) can bring him up by +1S, +1T and +2 A!

He can get mighty expensive CP wise (bring a buddy along as a CP battery if you run into trouble, like a lieutenant or second captain with the Veritas Vitae - if you do so, remember to take the Vitae base and then pay the CP for the Wing, so you can try to recover the CP cost of the second relic) and really shines at games that are 1500 points and up where you have the leeway to make those kinds of expenditures. With an average roll on Red Rampage (2) you get 8 attacks re-rolling the 1s to hit and always improving your wounds due to the Red Thirst, so anything up to T7 will get wounded on a 2+. We're looking pretty good, and that's just us getting started! Honour the Chapter will let you swing again, with Red Rampage still up, for 14 swings, or you can use Only In Death if you die for the same trick for a CP less. If survivability is a major concern (especially if you took a ranged weapon over a storm shield), company veterans can tag along with jump packs for 2+ bodyguard rolls. Might of Heroes, Unleash Rage and a Sanguinary Priest and/or a Chaplain Dread will help ensure that anything he hits with go down like a sack of bricks. Veil of Time can give him an extra boost in speed, if its a concern, and helps keep him on top of any units that Fight First normally.

There's maybe one or two other ways to build this beautiful bastard.

Primarily, you want to replace

Warlord Trait: Artisan of War

with

Warlord Trait: Gift of Foresight

Slamguinius' sheer damage output drops (you'd be surprised how much that extra point of damage can pull off) But Since Gift of foresight can't stack with Standard of Sacrifice anymore after the April faq you end up with a tankier build looking like:

Captain Slamguinius, The Slambane, 9th Lord of Slamfuckery
Points	WS	BS	S	T	W	A	Ld	Sv
129	2+	2+	4	4	5	4(+2)	9	3+/3++/5+++R1

Giving up the the extra 5++++ from the fnp sources stack is a mighty kick in the teeth, but at least no one else can do it now, either. Follow the other guides, as the only major difference you have is that you've increased your fnp from 6+++ to 5+++ and given it re-rolls of 1s. Not as absurdly cheesy as it was before, but still able to weather a pretty heavy barrage of small arms fire. Now it's the difference from 2 squads of fire warriors unloading everything into Slamguinius after he's wrecked their HQ/riptide to sticking 1 or 2 wounds on him in retaliation.

The Jamguinius a.k.a. Slamguinius and the Bloody Bastards of Butchery a.k.a. The good shit[edit]

But what kind of gamebreaking section would this be if we left it at that?

Properly played, Slamguinius is the surgical counterstroke right into the vulnerable spots your enemy has left open. Well, as surgical as a freight train full of butcher knives and c4 can truly get. I digress though, reserved properly you can drop ol' Slammy down next you what you want to make dead along with his posse aim it at that direction and wave goodbye to that section of the horizon as some of the combos you can get are biblical in their exchanges of output.

Drop Slamguinius down (hopefully into cover!) with a bodyguard of Sanguinary Guard, some Inceptors to your taste, a jump librarian, a Sanguinary Ancient with the Standard of Sacrifice and have your gunline guarded with a Company Ancient with a regular banner. The increase to Morale doesn't stack across both banners, which is a shame, but the effect of the Company Banner applies to all units with the Blood Angel, and Ancient key words, not just the unit bearing it (The standard of sacrifice however remains solely around the unit carrying it, so don't insist that THAT transfers or else you're just being that guy) so your Deep Striking units can get a last hurrah off on a 4+. Heirs of Azkaellon for the SG plus Rites Battle for the Inceptors to clear a bloody path to the biggest, nastiest gribbly your enemy can field. Pop Red Rampage, have the librarian cast Unleash Rage on Slamguinius so you have a range of at worst 7 attacks to at best 9--unless you wanted to be a real bastard about it and found a way to include The Sanguinor somehow. THEN you'd be at 8 attacks minimum and 10 attacks tops. Also, Slamguinius gains an extra attack on the charge from Shock Assault, as of the latest update at writing, meaning he gains a full 11 attacks max with the Sanguinor around. The Standard of Sacrifice unfortunately won't work on Slamguinius but the Chapter Banner will, so at least you'll have a re-roll of 1's to wound which is a stellar bonus to put with his re-rolls of 1's to hit. With each wound punching through with a solid 4 damage each time and a 16%(ish) chance of getting exploding dice if your target is a Heretic Astartes you can reliably punch the everloving fuck out of even the most prevalent 16+ wound models in the game. Against something like a Knight or other super-heavy, you just picked it up in one-fell-swoop. Land Raider? Also dead. Greater Daemon? Yep, dead too. Granted, against a harder target like Mortarion, the numbers drop off, and you'll likely only put 8 to 12 wounds on target (before disgustingly resilient kicks in) if you're lucky. Still, doing 10+ wounds to Mortarion in a single round is something to make your opponent sit up and set their target priority to HOLY SHIT, mode. Not to mention if you brought The Sanguinor along for the ride.

And that's not even the best part!

The best part is that you've got a nice friend in Honour the Chapter if you feel a bit skittish about not making your damage quota, you can pull that one out to fight again to make for damn sure that you kill whatever big nasty it is on the first try. Even if you fail at taking out whatever gribbly you're fighting survives your onslaught and kills you in return you have the banner around you for a 4+ roll to see if you can attack one more time. If you fail that, THEN you spend 2CP for Only in Death Does Duty End (the two don't stack together unfortunately, and while it'd be neat to get off two fight phases once slain it'd be horribly horribly broken--you can however spend points for the latter if the former fails) the cherry on top is that the extra fight phase you get after getting slain keeps all the bonuses you used for his previous fight phase. So if whatever you're fighting survived Slamguinius the first time, it certainly isn't again.

If you DO make it on the first try, you can still use Honour the chapter after consolidating 3" do activate Slamguinius another 3" to get him 1" away from another squad so he can tuck in and fight again--preventing overwatch for his entourage and protecting him from the wave of retaliatory fire that's most definitely going to come his way after your opponent just watched his army's centerpiece just suffer terminal existence failure.

Before one of those guys claims this Slamguinius is OP. Remember to point out the many weaknesses that he shares with MURDERWINGS. Since he has a jetpack he automatically gains the FLY keyword. Which is a mixed blessing. It Makes him rather vulnerable to units that get bonuses against flyers, such as anti air vehicles and interceptors--fortunately any advantage your opponent has over you with the FLY keyword, you have with them. Slamguinius in both his forms can soar over enter squads to get into a better position for a charge--preventing Overwatch and exposing the juicy flank for his fellows, and while it's a dumb idea to chase flyers once you've touched down, you can get respectable results by using a well timed Descent of Angels to utterly wreck your opponents floating gun platform. Jetbikers especially can fuck him over, but he can fuck them over as well if you get the drop on them (Noticing a pattern here?). Because of the Angel's Wing he can't be Overwatched at all by anyone, full stop, but don't start getting ideas. If enough small arms fire can kill the Custodes it can kill ol' slammy...granted slammy is partially meant to die gloriously after making up his points 3-fold, his funeral pyre lit after an opponent underestimates him. If you had the 'Noble self sacrifice' Tactical Objective watch the bitter salt as your opponent realizes that devoting half their army's firepower in petty revenge only helps you get closer to victory

The sheer number of models in most hordes will defeat even his volume of attacks, So watch out for that. Though Captain Slammy can reliably weather most of their storms of fire with a 5+++ re-rolling 1's, his chapter master version might struggle. Of course you should also already have counters in your army for this i.e. a solid backline to punish your opponent for forgetting them or just preventing that kind of retaliation in the first place.

Friendly advice. Don't bother expecting Slamguinius to shoot something to death...it's not worth it. There are better builds for that. His pistol might get lucky and kill a MEQ and he's got grenades, but if you're not in melee with him all the time you've done something horribly wrong. If you end up ever even consider using orbital bombardment rather than reserving the trickle of CP you have left for your army, well, you didn't deserve to win anyways.

How to counter[edit]

For non-Blood Angels players it's worth discussing how to counter Old Slammy. The only way to effectively counter him is to run away or surrender, thus saving yourself the beating you deserve for facing the Sons of the IX Legion, you stinking heretic! In all seriousness his weakness is the same as nearly every killy character in 8th. Hordes. Even with the maximum attacks that's still only 9 guys you're exploding, tops. But even then, he has Fly. He only fights hordes if he WANTS to. If you're worried about the slammy boi killing your knights, land raiders characters ect, splash in some wolves with a rune priest and some heavy weapons. Give the rune priest the armor of russ and let him babysit your big toys and keep some heavies or a shooty tank nearby. When the slammer comes down from deepstrike use the runepriest to intercept him and keen senses to git rid of all minuses for intercepting and toting those big guns around. Blast him on his own turn at full BS with 5 laz cannons, heavy bolters or plasma cannons even after advancing those bastards. If that sounds too pricey the librarian himself is usually enough. Hang out near your priority target, armor of russ in hand then heroically intervene 6" when he charges. Then watch his jaw hit the floor when you tell him your armor makes him fight last (unless ol' Slammy has Speed of Sanguinius, then it's a slapfest to see who charges first) in the phase. He'll still get a swing in when he dies, but 1 swing is better than 2. Be forewarned, anyone smart enough to use their eyes will know what's going on and adjust. And may square up ignore the Rune Priest, as nothing prohibits him from making a charge into the knight you're guard-dogging. Using terrain will make the ploy easier as long as you can keep his movement limited.

Edit- alternately, post FAQ just spend a few points on your faction's trash screen unit. He can't <Fly> over it now. You'll still need to worry for the late game, but until then just keep up the dakka.

Edit2- post the newest FAQ, Slamguinius (and all other flyers) are charging over screens again, just not terrain. This jam has no brakes!