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I find it hilarious how the fluff has the gene-seed process turn them from scabby desert dwellers into Pretty Marines.

Well I thought that is how it worked, or is what they told me in school all wrong!

Yeah, the article in Index Astartes pretty much said the same thing.

ZF-

How do they explain away Deep Striking Land Raiders?

Blair wrote:How do they explain away Deep Striking Land Raiders?

Dropped from overhead Thunderhawks.

Gwar! wrote:

Blair wrote:How do they explain away Deep Striking Land Raiders?

Dropped from overhead Thunderhawks.

The more I hear about the new Codex the more I think it is a "my toys are shinier than your toys" exercise.

Thunderhawks drop them off, I prefer to think they drove them off the cruiser in orbit because they are that awesome.

For me the codex is just dumb, the fluff is making me cringe because it completely screws with pre existing material and turns it into lame comic book writing.

The rules just make me shake my head, blood talons are possibly the most broken peice of wargear Ive seen in a long time, making the Furioso Ws5 just adds to it. The easy access to feel no pain makes the army twice as durable without any point hikes, in fact they got nothing but point drops, like assault marines that are cheaper then tactical squads, which smells of sales ploy on GWs part to sell the assault marine kit, and they will. There really isnt a down side to take blood angels, they do what every other marine does but better and cheaper.

As for the storm raven Im on the fence with that one, its basically 500+ pts all in one target, but if it lives it'll be the game MVP, and even if it dies if you do it right you wont take any damage on your dread and your standard men wont be too worried because of power armour and feel no pain.

Really what burns me about the codex is they took two of the most devastating elements of war; Durability and Speed and handed it to them without any giveback. This gives any shooting army effectively 1 turn (or 2 if you went first) to do anything about it before it tears them apart. From 1/3 chance of dying to 1/6 against small arms attacks is huge, not to mention giving it to terminators or bikes, something that was thought as "too cheesy" to give to nurgle.

Bah, just backs up the notion that cheap linear no brainer tactic armies are what sells, and the 15 people starting the army in my area can atest to that.

Ravenous D wrote:

For me the codex is just dumb, the fluff is making me cringe because it completely screws with pre existing material and turns it into lame comic book writing.

Did you expect anything else from Matt Ward?

The codex is pretty stupid overall (not overpowered, just incredibly silly and comic-y), but I'm thankful just for the fact that it didn't break the whole game like Ward's DoC book did with WFB.

Terminus wrote:

Ravenous D wrote:

For me the codex is just dumb, the fluff is making me cringe because it completely screws with pre existing material and turns it into lame comic book writing.

Did you expect anything else from Matt Ward?

The codex is pretty stupid overall (not overpowered, just incredibly silly and comic-y), but I'm thankful just for the fact that it didn't break the whole game like Ward's DoC book did with WFB.

It could have been worse, Robin Cruddace could have written it. Then we would have Baals in Squadrons of 4 and Assault Marines without Frags and 3 times the points cost.

They should of just given them multilasers instead of bolters and have flying terminators.

Ravenous D wrote:They should of just given them multilasers instead of bolters and have flying terminators.

Heck, they already got flying Dreadnoughts for crying out loud . Up, up and away!

Ravenous D wrote:The rules just make me shake my head, blood talons are possibly the most broken peice of wargear Ive seen in a long time, making the Furioso Ws5 just adds to it. The easy access to feel no pain makes the army twice as durable without any point hikes, in fact they got nothing but point drops, like assault marines that are cheaper then tactical squads, which smells of sales ploy on GWs part to sell the assault marine kit, and they will. There really isnt a down side to take blood angels, they do what every other marine does but better and cheaper.

I wish people would stop saying that, as it's completely untrue. Space Marines and Blood Angels play very differently, and one is not better than the other (or at the very last such a judgement is very premature). Except for the talons, which are pretty outrageous, nothing you've said is true. FNP is readily available, but tied to 50-100 point models with basic marine stats. Assault Marines are 20 points more before weapon upgrades. The cheaper transport evens the cost out, but the BA will cost at least 10 more after special weapons. You're basically trading combat tactics for Fast on your vehicle (Red Thirst is negligible), and giving up the free special/heavy for the option to buy 2 specials.

Most of the characters suck, DC are very questionable, and their Tacticals and Devastators are pretty lame without combat tactics. As for the Raven, it has the firepower of a Land Raider, but a cost to match and is only AV12. They pay a fair premium for all their gimmicks and toys.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gwar! wrote:]It could have been worse, Robin Cruddace could have written it. Then we would have Baals in Squadrons of 4 and Assault Marines without Frags and 3 times the points cost.

I disagree, Ward produces way more lemons and cringe-worthy fluff pieces. The IG codex has some really slowed design decisions (mainly cost of Nork and some units, and platoon options), but you still have many effective builds and a lot of variety in every FOC slot.

FNP keeps you from vaping before hitting close combat. With a PF in each squad you don't really need to actually upgrade the guy. He's just a 50pt bubble of awesome.

Not getting heavy weapons will NEVER balance out getting fast vehicles. Ever. Fast predators, your one and only heavy support choice.

The way your crafting the 'totally not OP and codex creep' argument you make standard marines sound like a shooty army... which is true if you work really hard at it. Blood angels can just BE shooty. 4 5 man assault squads in super cheap fast razorbacks, 3 ac/lc fast preds, 2 hb fast baals, and a drop podding furioso with frag cannon (BROH-KEN by the way), in addition to... some cheap libby.

BAM. They assault well, shoot better than Tau, and move better than everyone save Eldar. The hell this isn't Codex Creep.

I hate some parts of the fluff in it(I don't hate Sanguinor as I consider him to be a sort of a Emperor's daemon).BL writers should write the fluff.

Slackermagee wrote: Blood angels can just BE shooty. 4 5 man assault squads in super cheap fast razorbacks, 3 ac/lc fast preds, 2 hb fast baals, and a drop podding furioso with frag cannon (BROH-KEN by the way), in addition to... some cheap libby.

People keep throwing up this bogus netlist. I've played against 6 or 7 iterations of that list already on Vassal, and it performs no better than the similar razor-spam Space Wolves list. Half of it goes poof after one shooting phase.

Ah the obligatory "THE SKY IS FALLING" that accompanies a new 'dex. Remember when the space wolves were released, the nerd rage was almost palpable. I'm picking up the codex on friday but from what i've seen and heard about the 'dex its not nearly as bad as what people are making it out to be. My worst complaint about the codex is the thunder thighs on the sanguinary priest on the cover.

Not to be obtuse, but what IS the generic shooty C:SM list that is better than what BA can do? I'm genuinely curious.

Why is it that useless writers like Ward keep writing new codices? I would've fired Ward right after he screwed up Fantasy with the Demon army book.

Gornall:

Consider two Tactical Squads. One is Ultramarines, and the other is Blood Angels. The Blood Angels Squad suffers from the Red Thirst.

So Tactical Squad A has And They Shall Know No Fear and Combat Tacts, while Tactical Squad B has Fearless and Furious Charge. B is better on the charge, A is better if charged. Remember the Furious Charge has no effect unless the unit with it charges, and Fearless means that the unit automatically suffers No Retreat when it loses combat, rather than if it loses combat, does not pass its morale check, and gets caught by a Sweeping Advance.

Moreover a unit with Combat Tactics, in addition to And They Shall Know No Fear, can avoid charges, escape pinning, and retreat in the face of heavy fire.

Likewise a unit with Fearless will never Fall Back, cannot be escorted off the table, and will never be pinned.

It seems to me that a Codex: Space Marine list is better at absorbing counter-attacks by the enemy, while a Codex: Blood Angels list is better at attacking the enemy.

Combat Tactics is nice and all but a lot can go wrong if you aren't careful. There is a reason there are so many people that are more than willing to trade in combat tactics for some other ability. Automatically failing a morale test is also no help at all when you are trying to hold an objective. A fearless unit sitting on an objective means you have to kill all of them or contest it, you can't just make them fall back.

Also, using a blood angel tactical squad makes sense in the example for a direct comparison, however most Blood Angel players I think will opt for Assault Squads over tactical squads. A tactical squad with fearless and furious charge is bit scary, an assault squad with the same can be outright deadly.

Gwar! wrote:

Blair wrote:How do they explain away Deep Striking Land Raiders?

Dropped from overhead Thunderhawks.

What people really mean to complain about is "Then why doesn't everybody throw their land raiders out of the plane/Thunderhawk?"

solkan wrote:

Gwar! wrote:

Blair wrote:How do they explain away Deep Striking Land Raiders?

Dropped from overhead Thunderhawks.

What people really mean to complain about is "Then why doesn't everybody throw their land raiders out of the plane/Thunderhawk?"

Because they don't need to keep up with Souped up Rhinos.

Speaking of the deep striking land raider...
I do love the fact that if a Land Raider that was dropped from a thunderhawk lands on a Gretchin, the land raider is the one that might end up destroyed

SirRouga:

Combat Tactics does demand that the player knows what they're doing, whereas Fearless is pretty much an auto-pilot rule like Rage. Fearless units aren't actually that hard to shift from objectives because of No Retreat. In particular they're vulnerable to assault units like Assault Terminators whose inability to engage in a Sweeping Advance is irrelevant against troops that won't Fall Back.

On a side note, with my Tyranid army I'm increasingly trying to start the turn with my units within Synapse and then moving them out of synapse so that they don't suffer from No Retreat if/when charged, and they can Fall Back into Syanpse and rally automatically.

Certainly an Assault Squad with two special weapons, Furious Charge, and Fearless is great for capturing objectives. Holding them is a problem though, because people can just shoot you off them if you can't shoot back effectively, and can capture them back if you don't have the stand-off firepower to stop their counter-assault.

Let's suppose that Assault Squad was charged by a Space Marine Dreadnought. Maybe they have a Power Fist to let them hurt it, maybe they don't. But their special weapons have been rendered ineffective, and they'll take No Retreat wounds to compound the one or two that the Dreadnought manages to inflict by itself. A Tactical Squad with Combat Tactics will at least have a chance to disengage from the Dreadnought to use its special and Heavy Weapon.

Nurglitch:

Yes combat tactics requires the player to know what they are doing but it comes with some extreme risk. Sure you can fall back from dreads and stuff but a bad roll for fallback distance may keep that dread too close for the squad to regroup and then they run the risk of being walked off the table or other setups. Plus what is an assault squad doing engaging with a dread in the first place, jump packs alone should prevent that one. Not saying that doesn't happen through but still.

Yeah assault squads aren't the greatest at holding objective, that why they should be assaulting until the last turn or two then move it towards the objections. And even if that assault squad sits to hold the objective, sure your army can fire on them but what do you think the rest of the Blood Angels are doing?

I'm not saying combat tactics is useless, it has it moments. But overall there are better options unless you end up using combat tactics multiple times in every game, I mean if you only use it once or twice in a game then it may not be worth it. But regardless, that is something more up to the player than anything I guess.

The Unending wrote:Ah the obligatory "THE SKY IS FALLING" that accompanies a new 'dex. Remember when the space wolves were released, the nerd rage was almost palpable. I'm picking up the codex on friday but from what i've seen and heard about the 'dex its not nearly as bad as what people are making it out to be. My worst complaint about the codex is the thunder thighs on the sanguinary priest on the cover.

This is truth... Seems like Dakka (and probably the rest of the gaming interwebs for that matter) goes through this with every new codex. All the folks complaining about how much "creep" there is in the Codex really ought to sit down and actually try to build lists with it. Yes, there are definitely some powerful combinations in there. But that's not true of any of the recent codecies? When you actually start playing around with lists, you rapidly find that there are some pretty tough decisions to make and all the cool toys that people are complaining about don't really all fit into a list very well. The points just run out too fast...

There look, to me at least, to be about two possible competative lists with C:BA, and neither of them *really* look like they'll threaten the Leaf Blower or other top lists. They either rely too much on W1 IC's or else lack the range and durability to take on serious gun lines. Maybe someone will be able to prove that wrong, but I just don't see anything in the 'Dex that really threatens to overturn the current order.

Sure there's some monumentally stupid stuff in the 'Dex, but what are you gonna do? It's GW...

Valete,

JohnS

@cygnnus: I get your point but I think blood angels are finally breaking out of that "go mech or go home" trend that is everywhere in 40k, but time will tell won't it.

Terminus wrote:I find it hilarious how the fluff has the gene-seed process turn them from scabby desert dwellers into Pretty Marines.

As others have pointed out, that fluff is pretty much copy pasted from the 2nd edition codex. I didn't even bother to read it.

Ravenous D wrote:Thunderhawks drop them off, I prefer to think they drove them off the cruiser in orbit because they are that awesome.

For me the codex is just dumb, the fluff is making me cringe because it completely screws with pre existing material and turns it into lame comic book writing.

The rules just make me shake my head, blood talons are possibly the most broken peice of wargear Ive seen in a long time, making the Furioso Ws5 just adds to it. The easy access to feel no pain makes the army twice as durable without any point hikes, in fact they got nothing but point drops, like assault marines that are cheaper then tactical squads, which smells of sales ploy on GWs part to sell the assault marine kit, and they will. There really isnt a down side to take blood angels, they do what every other marine does but better and cheaper.

As for the storm raven Im on the fence with that one, its basically 500+ pts all in one target, but if it lives it'll be the game MVP, and even if it dies if you do it right you wont take any damage on your dread and your standard men wont be too worried because of power armour and feel no pain.

Really what burns me about the codex is they took two of the most devastating elements of war; Durability and Speed and handed it to them without any giveback. This gives any shooting army effectively 1 turn (or 2 if you went first) to do anything about it before it tears them apart. From 1/3 chance of dying to 1/6 against small arms attacks is huge, not to mention giving it to terminators or bikes, something that was thought as "too cheesy" to give to nurgle.

Bah, just backs up the notion that cheap linear no brainer tactic armies are what sells, and the 15 people starting the army in my area can atest to that.

I think the adding of the toys is balanced, and there is giveback. You're going to have to sacrifice a meltagun in at least one of your assault squads to fit the S Priest in the rhino, and you're adding a single wound IC to the squad to get your 6" bubble. So, instead of the rhino and squad being two KP's, it's three. That self same bubble forces you to advance as a group to maximize the Priest's benefits. So, you've decreased fire power, limited your tactics and also paid more points to maximize your cool benefits. (Because you need to pay at least 50 for that 1 wound priest who can be picked out in CC). Maybe it's time to start taking a vindicare assassin again?

If you can't find a way to stall a rhino convoy, perhaps its time to re-think your army list? Mech seems to be the dominant list type right now.

SirRouga wrote:Combat Tactics is nice and all but a lot can go wrong if you aren't careful. There is a reason there are so many people that are more than willing to trade in combat tactics for some other ability. Automatically failing a morale test is also no help at all when you are trying to hold an objective. A fearless unit sitting on an objective means you have to kill all of them or contest it, you can't just make them fall back.

Also, using a blood angel tactical squad makes sense in the example for a direct comparison, however most Blood Angel players I think will opt for Assault Squads over tactical squads. A tactical squad with fearless and furious charge is bit scary, an assault squad with the same can be outright deadly.

Combat tactics is underrated, and it's loss is a huge blow.

The Unending wrote:@cygnnus: I get your point but I think blood angels are finally breaking out of that "go mech or go home" trend that is everywhere in 40k, but time will tell won't it.

Isn't that a good thing? I personally am quite tired of all the Mech lists... Seemed like half of my games at Adepticon were variations on the theme of "how do I get all those enemy models out of their transports...". Not to say, of course, that I was completely innocent of it myself (with a 3 Rhino list in the team tourney).

But watching army after army (IG, Marine, Tau) stay holed up in their transports just gets old after a while. If C:BA makes a jump pack list viable, then I'm a seriously happy person indeed!

C:SW spawned not a few Thunder Wolf Cavalry lists. I certainly hope C:BA can create some other viable options!

Valete,

JohnS

I just hope that the next new marine list comes out soon, so all the green, blue, and black painted marines can jump onto that bandwagon.

We saw the exact same thing with the space wolf codex, and I ridiculed it then as well.