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Hey guys!
First off I just wanted to say I don't currently have a codex on me, so I'm not really able to tell what army bracket I would be in (I don't know if this is even the wording for it, but I've seen people mentioning a 1500 pt army, a 1750 pt army etc) And I also apologize but I won't be able to mention how much each unit costs either (Again, lack of a codex)

However, I've always loved the Blood Angels, and with the release of Space Marine has reignited the love I used to have for painting the miniatures. Granted I only had a box of tacticals (With three missing now :/) a single Devastator that a friend gave me, and Mephiston. I don't know if I will be playing tabletop, but if I am going to paint them I would still like to prepare myself should it ever come around

So I was looking at the Blood Angels Battleforce and thought that would be a good start, but I definitely wanted to expand on that, so here's my shopping list so far

(The links I'm giving are just so you can see what each contains, I'm not actually buying them through GW)
- Blood Angels Battleforce
- Blood Angels Furioso Dreadnought
- Devastator Squad

So all up we have the following.
x17 Tactical Marines
x6 Devastator Marines
x5 Assault Marines
x5 Death Company w/ Jump Packs
x1 Rhino
x1 Furioso Dreadnought
x1 Mephiston

I was advised that what I should be doing is taking 4 of those tactical marines and making them into a second devastator squad, and also another 5 tactical marines into assault marines, taking the DC jump packs and giving the DC the rhino.
However...

That does leave me with little to no tactical marines to use, so I was thinking a good idea would be to simply add another assault marine squad instead, giving me the following

x13 Tactical Marines
x10 Devastator Marines
x10 Assault Marines
x5 Death Company w/ Jump Packs
x1 Rhino
x1 Furioso Dreadnought
x1 Mephiston

While I might not be able to use 3 of those tactical marines (I'm completely new to this, so I assume you might need 5 to a squad for Blood Angels at minimum?) this does look to be a lot more promising to me.
So what I wanted to ask was, would you recommend that I do pick up an assault squad and follow through like this? Should I stay without it? (Money isn't really an issue - I could spend another $20-$50 through ChaosOrc) Or should I be picking up another box of something else?

And also, just for curiosities sake - what army bracket would this put me in?

Thank you to anyone who has read this far, and thank you to anyone who would be able to give me a hand I appreciate it.

Also, if everything does wind up being too expensive, I assume I'd just drop the Dreadnought for the time being? In about 2-4 weeks time after my first purchase, getting all the paints/washes/brushes and of course an army I would be able to make additional purchases.

I figure that way it'd still give me plenty of minatures to paint too, while still having a (I assume) decent army to start out with.
Thanks.

The first thing you should know is that Tactical Marines really don't belong in a Blood Angels list. It may go against the fluff, but most people in my experience never take them.

So, the Battleforce might not be a good buy unless you have a plan to convert those Tactical Marines into Assault Marines by using different arms.

You might be thinking that the Tactical Marines can provide fire support to the rest of your army. This is a bad idea for many reasons, but the most important is that you can essentially buy the same or more firepower that you get from a squad of Tactical Marines more cheaply from Assault Marines, by using their ability to take dedicated transports at a discount.

In addition, Rhinos really aren't used much in BA armies. You really want Razorbacks. At any rate, you should never buy a Rhino kit, as it is barely cheaper than the Razorback kit, which is just the Rhino kit plus a whole extra sprue.

If you want I can try to help you put together a 1000 or so point list together on a budget.

Okay then, I was told that in the future I might want to get a heavy flamer razorback turret for the rhino in the future should I go ahead and get the BA Battleforce. Must just be a new player mistake, but it looked half decent just by looking at what I get compared to what I am paying.
But if you could help me out with that, that would be fantastic! I'm looking to spend about $200US to get myself started on a reasonable sized army (A little bit more shouldn't be much of an issue) But I'd probably want to keep it more unit-based since that'd give me much more to paint, rather then buying a ton of vehicles.
I'm also looking at going through either Dice Bucket or ChaosOrc for my purchases. With the Battleforce, Dreadnought, Devastator Squad and additional Assault Squad it came to about $170US + roughly $35-40 in postage/shipping.

If you like I could PM you with any additional details you may require

OK, after looking over the prices on those sites, here's what I think you can do.

First, I'm going to suggest spending most of the money on Assault Marines. It will give you a lot of models to paint. You should buy half Assault Marine boxes, the rest Death Company boxes. I didn't do this, but I've heard other here of Dakka recommend that. You'll have more variety, and the Death Company comes with arms that can be used for one handed weapons and two-handed weapons. You will not use the Death Company models as a Death Company, you simply use them as Assault Marines. I suggest you buy 6 boxes total, for about $150.

You should arm these squads with 2 Meltaguns and a Powerfist. Three such squads will be 705 points in total. As an option, you could give one squad dual Flamers instead of dual Meltaguns, and you may want to give that Sergeant a Power Weapon instead of a Fist. This would cost you 690.

With the remaining money, you'll need a HQ, which should absolutely be a Librarian, and probably 2 Sanguinary Priests. All of these will need Jump Packs too, and don't come with them. I didn't see any Librarian models or Sanguinary Priest models on either site. You can make due with the AoBR Captain for the Librarian, which was only $4 on ChaosOrc. You can get Jump Packs and Meltaguns from GW, at 5 per $8 for both. Unfortunately, they don't sell Flamers. You can ask around to see if anyone you know has extras, or go with some third party seller, which is what I did.

The Librarian with JP and 2 Sanguinary Priests with JPs cost 275 in total, bringing you up to 965-980. You can throw some Infernus Pistols around with the rest, which you will already have. Going off GWs prices, you'd be spending $45 on the three models, plus an additional $16 on the Meltaguns and Jump Packs. So I have your 1000 point army coming in at about $215.

I realize that you might prefer more variety, but I recommend this approach for two reasons. First, it is the way to get the most models on the table for cheap. I have a mechanized army, and all those vehicles get really expensive. I've spent over $175 just on the Razorbacks, and about $250 more on 3 Baal Predators and 3 regular Predators.

Second, it's important to get a good number of bodies on the field, and at 1000 points you really have to economize in points to do it. You really want that core of at least 30 Assault Marines in this style of list, and it doesn't leave room for much else.

A bonus reason is that this core of units can fit in pretty much any Blood Angels army, so you'll always have a use for them. To really make this true, you will need to magnetize the Jump Packs and the arms of any Marine who doesn't have the standard Bolt Pistol and Chainsword. So, I guess I should add some magnets to the budget, but they're cheap. I believe I bought 1/8" diameter, 1/32" deep magnets from K&G Magnetics. I got like 250 for not much, maybe $10 in total with shipping. Magnetizing is really the best advice I can give you. It's easy, it's cheap, and it allows you to get the most out of those expensive models.

Hello!
First of all I just wanted to say thank you very much for all the effort you put in I really appreciate all the help. I think there was a slight misunderstanding though, and this was a fault on my part. My budget for $200US (Approximately) was to include any shipping costs I had (Which would be roughly $35-40) This is mostly because I still need to go out and buy paints, washes as well as brushes. While I know this will not be able to give me the 1000 point army like this set does, but in order to drop down in price do you have any other recommendations?

And I also assume that due to almost all of the BA army having jump packs this will make the current miniatures I have unusable? I have x7 tactical marines, a single devastator and Mephiston. I don't know if Mephiston can be given a jump pack at all though.
I'll also look into getting magnets though, and I'll probably come back with some questions about that too - probably just about sizes and what magnet is for what piece (Such as which for arms, which for backpacks/jump packs etc)

Again, thank you very much for all the effort... But it's just unfortunate that I might have to cut it down a bit. I'll do some looking around myself, as I was given a few other sites (Australian ones too) which sell miniatures a bit cheaper as well. So I'll look into the jump packs and Meltas. I'll have a look around for a Librarian miniature too just incase - I'm not sure if doing this would make it 'better' or if I'll just be spending more money, but regardless I'll come back with my findings

EDIT: In another thread I have here, I got linked to another Australian site. I searched through it and they have a lot of bitz packs here and here I'll have a look through and see what I can find.
EDIT 2: The bitz prices on this site aren't very cheap at all :/ They want almost $7 for a single freakin' meltagun.
EDIT 3: Looks like the GW UK site is pretty cheap, just have no idea how expensive their shipping is. However, from your previous list this is what I've been able to manage. Please let me know if I missed anything as well (I probably did)

ChaosOrc
x3 Assault Marine Squad - $26.40 US x3
x3 Death Company (Turn Assault Marine) - $26.40 US x3
x1 Space Marine Commander from AOBR (Turn Librarian) - $4 US

TOTAL: $162.40US

GW UK (Converted from Pounds to USD)
x2 Blood Angels Sanguinary Priest $12.70US x2
x5 Jump Packs - $7.90 US
x5 Meltaguns - 10.33 US (I think you mentioned 6 though)

TOTAL: $43.63US

Just by looking at those prices though, I should easily be able to afford all the stuff from ChaosOrc, and maybe in 2-4 weeks expand on that? All I'd be missing would be a single jump pack.

EDIT 4: A kind user H.B.M.C. actually linked me to an excellent bitz website here They're out of Melta's bit have a ton of jump packs.

Yeah, you should have no problem getting started with the first batch of stuff. Unless you have lots of free time, it will probably take you a week to put together and paint the first batch anyway.
Any reasonable person would also be more than happy to let you play with what you have. All you'd need to do is borrow two minatures to stand in as the Priests.

By the way, if you have some Tactical Marines, you can get away with only 5 boxes of Assault & DC Marines total. Just cut the Bolters off them, and glue on the Meltaguns. So that ends up being great for you. You wouldn't be able to magnetize their arms, but it's a safe bet that you'll want 6 dudes with Meltaguns for the for the forseeable future. Flamers too really. I would say the most important thing to magnetize is the backpacks, so you can run them with and without Jump Packs.

Also, since you have Mephiston, you can easily play at 1250, since he costs 250 and is basically a plug-and-play monster. He can't have a JP, but he has a psyker power that lets him move as if he had one. It would still be a good idea to field a regular Librarian too, as he has a psyker power (Sanguine Shield) that's so good it would suck to be without it.

All in all, since you have some Tactical Marines to use as special weapon dudes, the only planning ahead you really need to do is to not glue on backpacks until you have magnets for them. Otherwise, buy what you can when you can and don't sweat it.

Ah, never really thought of it like that! Some of the tactical marine I have are already painted, and some have recently been stripped of paint. I have to remove a few arms and backpacks though. I know this isn't the appropriate forum for this question, but how would I go about removing them? They were super glued together about 7-10 years ago is all. I'm just afraid that if I just cut them off with a stanley knife it'd damage the plastic.

I'll probably repost with a new budget of sorts (Just to make sure I don't miss anything) The bitz part that site I linked would probably be my best option for getting the additional jump packs and possibly meltas (They're sold out at the moment) but they do have flamers that are dirt cheap. I'm gathering Meltas are superior to flamers, but how big is the gap? And what role do each weapon play that the other doesn't?

Sorry for the silly questions, and again... Thank you for everything.

EDIT: And also, if I'm only getting 5 packs of Assault/DC would it be 3 DC and 2 Assault or 2 DC and 3 Assault? You did mention this though

the Death Company comes with arms that can be used for one handed weapons and two-handed weapons.

So I'm guessing it'd be for former.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EDIT 2: Was just told as well that I could just as easily turn a Command Squad into a Priest by using some DC shoulderpads, and this will save me a fair bit of cash. Not sure if I could make one of them a Librarian though. Question though, with that Command Squad, would I only be able to make a single Priest, could I make another? Or would I need something like this? Referring to the arm piece, and ignoring the fact that it's currently sold out...
While I don't know if the Narthecium arm is required, I've heard people saying that they use the little chalice that comes on the DC backpacks and using it on their priests - saying it's enough to signify his status within an army. I don't know how 'official' that is though.
EDIT 3: Just asked about it, and that would be fine. But now, what do I do with the remaining 3 in the Command Squad? Can I turn them into something else? Or can they play a good role in the army as is?
Anyway, I'd have to go through Dice Bucket though (Very similar prices to ChaosOrc anyway) and if I can't turn one of them into a librarian the bitz website has a AOBR commander there as well.

Sooo... This definitely changes things.

(New!) Shopping list
Dice Bucket

x2 Assault Marine Squad - $52.80 US
x3 Death Company (Turn into Assault Marines) - $79.20 US
x1 Command Squad (Use DC Shoulders for x2 Priests/Possible Librarian?) - $28.00 US

TOTAL: $160
+ Shipping: $35
= $195 US
= $202.69 AU

Bitsandkits.co.uk
x8-10 Jump Packs - 12-15 pounds
x1 Black Reach Commander - 3.5 pounds
1.8 pounds maximum postage

With all: $32.69 AU
8 Jump Packs + Commander: $27.87 AU
10 Jump Packs: $24.17 AU
8 Jump Packs: $22.22 AU


GW AUS
x1 Meltagun(5) - $17 AU
Pick up from GW

So basically I don't know if I should be getting extra jump packs for the additional 2-3 units in the Command Squad, or just leaving them as is/leaving them out. And as said earlier I don't know if I can make one of them into a Librarian, if I can I won't need the AOBR Commander and that saves me a little bit of cash. So in total - I know I can't afford all of this (It came to just over $250 AU)
Honestly though, it's the price of those Meltaguns which is making it a deal breaker for the entire set :/ they're just so expensive and nowhere else seems to have them.
However, if I were to remove an Assault Squad or a Death Company I could though (Probably an Assault squad?) I would personally like to be able to keep the Command Squad, as it gives me something different to paint and something new to look at. Whether this would be viable though would be a different matter though.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Here was my (old) shopping list. (Leaving this here for reference should it be needed at any time)

ChaosOrc

x2 Assault Marine Squad - $52.80 US x2
x3 Death Company (Turn Assault Marine) - $79.20 US x3
x1 Space Marine Commander from AOBR (Turn Librarian) - $4 US

TOTAL: $136 US
+ roughly $40 postage
= $176 US
= $182.69 AU

GW AU

x2 Blood Angels Sanguinary Priest $44 AU
x5 Meltagun - $17 (Can't find Meltaguns anywhere else *sigh*)

TOTAL: $61AU
Free postage

Bitsandkits.co.uk
x8 Jump Pack - 1.50 pounds each, 12 pounds total.
x1 Black Templar Flamer - 0.50 pounds (No Meltaguns on here, and I thought this could just be a 'filler')

TOTAL: $20AU
Maximum 1.80 pounds shipping ($3AU)
= $23AU

Which comes to a grand total of $266.69. That is a little out of my price range at the moment, due to the paints/washes/brushes/magnets I'll be needing.
So I have a few options here.

- Drop a Death Company squad or Assault Marine squad - Let's say this drops $5 US in shipping my total would be $228 AU (I could afford this)
- Drop the Sanguinary Priests (And 2 jump packs), losing the free postage but I could post this to my local Games Workshop and it wouldn't cost in shipping. Bringing the total up to $217.90 AU.

I'm personally thinking that the first option would be my best bet, but I'm probably wrong about that. Plus I think it'd be nice to see a few different models around the tabletop, or workbench.
What do you think though?

Simple Green has always dissolved glue for me. I know there are a few threads on paint stripping around here. Maybe even an article. Usually things that strip paint, strip glue.

Oh alright then, I actually just used brake fluid to drop the paint off of my models but it didn't seem to do a thing to the glue which surprised me.
I'll have a look around for those articles tomorrow morning though thank you!

You know what, I think I might just completely forget about the meltaguns for the time being. I really doubt that within the next two weeks to a month I'll be playing against anyone, and if it is going to be 5 tiny bits of plastic stopping me from getting a whole box worth of Assault Marines I'm not going to worry, I'm sure soon down the track I'll be able to get them, but on the marines who will be using the meltas I'll just leave their hands free.

My only questions now would be how to arm everybody, as well as how many 'points' my army/battleforce will be worth. I know you mentioned 2 meltaguns and a powerfist per squad (A squad of 10 I guess? I think I remember someone mentioning that Blood Angels can have squads of 5) and I assume everyone except Mephiston will be armed with a jump pack, but what else for the Sanguinary Priests? I guess one will have the Narthecium arm and a chainsword, would the other just have chainsword/bolt pistol? And as I asked earlier, how would I arm the remainder of the Command Squad? What role would they play for me?
And who exactly should I be throwing the Infernus Pistols on?

Thanks very much to everyone who helped out, I'll probably order this either late tonight or sometime tomorrow!

The cheapest place to get regular jump packs is games. It's 8 for 5 packs. I just bought about 6 packs to out fit the tactical squad in the two battle forces I had.

Also for priests I used the dark angels upgrade sprue. It's the best thing to make them really stand out.

Okay, where to start. It looks like you have a pretty good plan so far. To be honest though, I couldn't recommend getting the actual codex more. It'll answer a lot of these questions for you.

You'd asked about what meltas and flamers are good for: Meltas are single shot weapons that will easily blow up tanks, damage monstrous creatures, and can instakill most infantry and heavy infantry out there. Flamers are lower strength template weapons that can help clear out large groups of weaker infantry. Having a mix in your army is good, but it tends to work out better if you outfit squads with 2 of the same weapon so they're good at one thing rather than okay at 2.

As for the command squad: There are two ways you can do this. I'll start out by saying that the really nice thing about marines is that all the pieces are interchangeable. You can easily make a priest out of that kit with the narthecium/etc, and I'm sure you'll have enough bits between the command squad and the Death Co. boxes to create a good librarian. He'll need a force weapon (taking a power weapon and painting it with a different color energy is a good way to do this). The other tricky thing for a librarian would be making a psychic hood, but there are some good tutorials out there on how to do this. One of the more popular ones I've seen is cutting up a spare shoulderpad. I'd recommend googling that for research. As for the rest of the squad, if you buy another spare apothecary set you can turn one into your other priest. For the other models, you could use the other ornamental bits from the kit to make your assault squad sergeants a bit fancier.

In the future you could look at taking the command squad set and making an actual command squad out of them. The codex will tell you more about it, but they're basically meant to be a bodyguard unit for your HQs, although few people actually run them that way. The squad comes with a sanguinary priest included, and the rest can be outfitted with a bewildering array of close combat and/or special weapons. They're very customizable, so you mind find it worth it to save the models you're not sure what to do with until you've got a bit of experience playing and have a better idea of how you'd like to build the rest of the army.

rogueeyes wrote:The cheapest place to get regular jump packs is games. It's 8 for 5 packs. I just bought about 6 packs to out fit the tactical squad in the two battle forces I had.

I'd be hit with excessive postage costs though to get it to Australia, which in the end would cost more then just buying it from GW AUS. It sucks how we pay so much more then the rest of the world :(

Zefig wrote:Okay, where to start. It looks like you have a pretty good plan so far. To be honest though, I couldn't recommend getting the actual codex more. It'll answer a lot of these questions for you.

You'd asked about what meltas and flamers are good for: Meltas are single shot weapons that will easily blow up tanks, damage monstrous creatures, and can instakill most infantry and heavy infantry out there. Flamers are lower strength template weapons that can help clear out large groups of weaker infantry. Having a mix in your army is good, but it tends to work out better if you outfit squads with 2 of the same weapon so they're good at one thing rather than okay at 2.

As for the command squad: There are two ways you can do this. I'll start out by saying that the really nice thing about marines is that all the pieces are interchangeable. You can easily make a priest out of that kit with the narthecium/etc, and I'm sure you'll have enough bits between the command squad and the Death Co. boxes to create a good librarian. He'll need a force weapon (taking a power weapon and painting it with a different color energy is a good way to do this). The other tricky thing for a librarian would be making a psychic hood, but there are some good tutorials out there on how to do this. One of the more popular ones I've seen is cutting up a spare shoulderpad. I'd recommend googling that for research. As for the rest of the squad, if you buy another spare apothecary set you can turn one into your other priest. For the other models, you could use the other ornamental bits from the kit to make your assault squad sergeants a bit fancier.

In the future you could look at taking the command squad set and making an actual command squad out of them. The codex will tell you more about it, but they're basically meant to be a bodyguard unit for your HQs, although few people actually run them that way. The squad comes with a sanguinary priest included, and the rest can be outfitted with a bewildering array of close combat and/or special weapons. They're very customizable, so you mind find it worth it to save the models you're not sure what to do with until you've got a bit of experience playing and have a better idea of how you'd like to build the rest of the army.

I was actually looking at 'acquiring' a codex soon so I could flick through it rather then trying to google/ask every enquiry I have
And thanks for the information on the Meltas and Flamers. If I'm running squads of 5 I'd only be able to have one per squad for the time being... So hopefully that will still work out alright, otherwise if I'm taking 3 squads of 10 then that's no problem. In regards to the Command Squad though, I'll definitely be making at least two priests out of it, but I've already ordered in the Assault on Black Reach Commander to make into my Librarian :( I was under the impression that I wouldn't really be able to make any of them into one... But oh well, he was reasonably cheap anyway

Also, I gather my Assault Squad Sergeants will be the ones outfitted with Power Fists? And do I need to paint them differently to make them stand out from the others, or do they come with slightly different pieces? ...Or will it just not really matter at all? (Yeah, I definitely COULD use a codex...)

Thank you for all of the information

No problem, and carry on sir.

The AoBR captain will certainly work as a librarian too, and he's already considerably blinged out so you'll have more bits to fancy up the rest of your guys.

Whether it's one special weapon per squad of 5 or 2 per squad of 10, it works out the same. The only change there is how much you're spending on the sergeants, as 6 powerfists are going to be a lot more points than 3. You don't HAVE to give them powerfists, but it's one of the better options.

I think in the codex the sergeants have different colored helmets. Or something, I haven't checked that part in a while. A lot of people tend to add extra bits/iconography/etc to them as well to denote their veteran status. It's all really up to you though. As long as they're somehow distinguishable from the rest of the troops and they have their correct weapons, pretty much anything's fair game.