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BA can still buy 4 melta shots in a pod for 135p. BA can still put 4 flamers in a tacsquad. There are great Warlord Traits in the Flesh Tearers detachment. Frag Cannons are awesome. Death Company is brutal. My assault Terminators still cost the same as in the new dex but mine have a FnP dispenser attached.

There is still a lot of cool stuff that is unique to BA.

 TheNewBlood wrote:
Blood Angels do have some builds that can stand alone. Vanilla CSM have nothing of the sort and are designed for two editions previous. The only way to currently play CSM effectively is with Daemon allies or as Daemonkin.

Orks can at least use the Green Tide or Trukk mobs.

Dark Eldar and Sisters are mid-tier armies. Not as powerful as the Tetrarchy of Cheese (Eldar, Tau, Necrons, Daemons), but still capable on the tabletop. It's where I would rank Blood Angels and Space Wolves as well.

It probably doesn't help that you apparently play in the most competitive meta in North America, Martel732.

I'm sure there are worse. People just build lists that work and are smart and give no quarter. That seems only about 2/3 as competitive as it could be. There's not much rules lawyering and not much squabbling over ranges and such. Just a lot of netlisting and practicing with said net lists and not taking the pedal off "death mode" in games. Tabling is the goal in order to ensure victory, because wacky things happen with objective points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

bearseamen wrote:
BA can still buy 4 melta shots in a pod for 135p. BA can still put 4 flamers in a tacsquad. There are great Warlord Traits in the Flesh Tearers detachment. Frag Cannons are awesome. Death Company is brutal. My assault Terminators still cost the same as in the new dex but mine have a FnP dispenser attached.

There is still a lot of cool stuff that is unique to BA.

Infernus pistols are awful, imo and 3 melta shots only toast a Rhino about 50% of the time. Again, the hand flamer is also pretty poor, so BA only get three real flamers in ten men. Death Company are only brutal when they get to charge, which can be prevented or just kill them at range. Assault terminators are also quite poor because they just get dakkaed down by mass shots if they have SS. If you aren't making 60+ saves a turn, you aren't playing in an environment that truly shows how lacking BA are.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Except we lost FA baals, scout for said Baals and ASMs as troops. Yes we gained a lot.
Then Necrons came out. And then eldar. And the Skittari. And then SMs.
Its not because we DON'T GET what SMs get, its because they DO. And in doing so Necron, Eldar and SM players have a major advantage over us before even picking a list because they own a far better dex.
I literally cannot think of a way to keep my mono BA DC/SG list alive against scat bikes or skyhammer (that doesn't utterly gimp me). How is that a fair battle?
Also - our formations carried with them distinct advantages that were not made up for with the advantages.
And yes - I do use BA scouts.

That's a problem with the new releases, not with Blood Angels. If anything, the newer books need to be toned down.

I'm not saying that BA are fine as is. They clearly aren't in comparison with the new Marines. Again, house rules/fan FAQ can at least bring Blood Angels in line with what's in the new Space Marine codex. I wouldn't count on anything more from GW though. BA already got the Shield of Baal campaign, and GW is probably going to focus on Fantasy a lot more once 9th edition drops.

Oh I completely agree. When the BA dex dropped I was a little miffed at losing scout and FA on Baals but it was more than compensated for with all the points decreases. It put us level or at least almost level with the other 7th ed dexes upto that point. Then we got shafted by every new release. BA are one of the worst effected by eldar due to the fact they are better than us at our main strength - speed, and that we really struggle to get into combat with them. Necrons are not only more durable, but their assault options trounce us hands down (Im also a necron player btw). And when it comes to the new SMs almost every army aside from ours has decent counters or cheap bubble wrap against grav. So BA are one of the worst effected by the new releases. Also since we were the last to drop before Obilix fell in the magic potion, we will be one of the last, if not the last, to be updated.

I think the part that really irks me and makes me dream of faq's or new formation releases is that the formations the Blood Angels did get are the same as the new ones, but without any benefit to taking them. The Blooded Demi Company, for example, has all the same restrictions of a vanilla/DA demi company, but the only granted rule is that your Warlord gets to re roll on the warlord trait table... really lame :(