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Hi all,

I'm returning to the hobby from a long sabattical and looking to start up a brand new Blood Angels DoA army.
I've picked up a ton of miniatures and am now looking to mold them into a coherent army list.
I figured I'd start at 1500 points, since this is what most local tournaments and my casual games are at.

BLOOD ANGELS 1500 DOA ARMY

HQ
140 pts LIBRARIAN Jump Pack, Infernus Pistol
205 pts HONOUR GUARD Jump Packs , Meltaguns X 4

ELITE
090 pts SANGUINARY PRIEST Jump Pack, Infernus Pistol

TROOPS
235 pts ASSAULT MARINE SQUAD (10man) Meltaguns X2, Sgt with Powerfist
235 pts ASSAULT MARINE SQUAD (10man) Meltaguns X2, Sgt with Powerfist
230 pts ASSAULT MARINE SQUAD (10man) Flamers X2, Sgt with Lightning Claw, Handflamer, Meltabombs

FAST ATTACK
185 pts VANGUARD VETERANS (5man) Jump Packs, Sgt with Lightning Claws, Meltabombs
180 pts VANGUARD VETERANS (5man) Jump Packs, Sgt with Thunder Hammer

Thats almost my exact list I'm building for my DoA blood angels.... never tested it (still building) but I really like it. My list has beefier vanguard, a second priest, and sanguinary Gaurd added, but is for 1850.

One thing. You cannot post prices of individual upgrades. Just give a total cost, not a total and a breakdown of upgrades.

So my biggest concern is in regards to wargear.
Are infernus pistols on the Librarian & Priest worthwhile?
Am I underequipping the Vanguard Veterans?
Would I be better off cutting wone of the RSMs down to a 5 man and lavishing everyone with more gear?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Horst wrote:One thing. You cannot post prices of individual upgrades. Just give a total cost, not a total and a breakdown of upgrades.

Thanks mate, missed that rule. Editted for compliance.

I like what you're doing here. I would suggest you not make any changes that take models off the table, so don't drop Assault Marines to take more bling.

The only stuff I might quibble over is some of the wargear. I personally don't see the Infernus Pistols as mandatory, and I would cut them if doing so would let you get more squads on the table. However, you wouldn't be able to do that, so the only thing that might be an improvement on them would be more weapons in the VV squads. I would probably prefer the wargear on the VVs over the pistols. I would cut the Hand Flamer first, though. I would certainly not give a VV sergeant dual Claws. For the same price, you could split the Claws up in the squad, which would give you 4 LC attacks base instead of 3, and 6 vs. 4 on the charge. You'd lose 1 measly unupgraded CC attack, totally worth it in my opinion.

It would be nice to have a Power Fist in each VV squad, so you can deal with CC against a Walker. Meltabombs won't cut it there.

Whatever you do, magnetize your models so you can play around with options. Doing the backpacks is a great idea too, so you can take the JPs off models and stick them in Razorbacks in a future list. It's really easy to do.

Thanks for the advice Mr.E,

I am definately not attached to the handflamer or the Infernus pistols, so those points could be spent elsewhere. As you point out, it isn't enough to get me another squad though.

I had originally thought about putting a storm shield into each VV squad. However I decided against it (as well as overly tooling these guys up) because I see these guys as sort of a "one shot weapon". Either they land well and can charge the first turn and hopefully keep a shooty unit tied up until my next round (so I don't want to wipe the enemy). Or they don't make it into hand to hand and will suck up inordinate amounts of enemy fire, in which case one 3+ invulnerable is not going to make much of a difference. In the end I had decided to keep them cheap and vanilla with only the Sgts adding any flavour.

Flavour is why I went with the Dual LC and the TH Sgts. I think they'll definately be some cool looking models with some good utility as well. Unless I misread / miscalculated, you can't have two single claws in the squad for the same price. The Sgt gets one claw "free" (replaces his PW). However, for the price of a dropped Infernus Pistol the squad could have two LCs on troopers as well as the Sgt's. The issue then becomes, do I worry that they'll wipe squads in one round of combat and then be sitting ducks? Finally, I thought about PFs but said no for three reasons. The coolness factor already mentioned, the fact that I don't like I1 weapons in such a small squad, and the fact that I think I have enough anti-tank without them. If a walker wants to countercharge them, that means it isn't countercharging any of my other units. However, I'm willing to listen to counter-arguements.

I'm definately going to be looking into magnetizing as I like keeping my future options open as well as the ability to tailor for different opponents in non-tournament settings.

If you go with dual claws for looks, I get it. Otherwise, you pay 15 points for the second Claw on the Sergeant. You could pay 15 points for a Claw on someone else, so I stand by my point from an effectiveness standpoint.

As for including Power Fists, they have value beyond defense against Walkers. First, they broaden your threat range, especially against some of your tougher opponents, like mech IG. It's much better to have multiple S8 swings against rear AV10 than 1 S8 + 2D6 swing. In addition, against T6, the fist wounds 5 times in 6, while a Claw wounds 11 in 36, plus it can ID T4 or less. Having to go at I1 does suck, but I think having one seems like a good idea on balance.

Hails, Tac-One. Just got your msg via your Intro thread. Sad to hear the RT models are gone, but you are back and that's really all that matters.

Normally my only interest in Blood Angels is to kill them, but I'm going to follow this thread with interest because we Graybeards should stick together. Subbed and looking forward to seeing you post up some work.