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Definetly overpowered.
If vanilla SM is a normal not overpowered codex, than BA is really overpowered.
Because BA can take/use everything from SM chapter (even sternguard vets) and BA has more options than vanilla SM. Forget about the crappy legion of damned.
Thunderfire cannon is not that good anyway.
Land speeder stroms etc has betters in BA codex....

Gunship, Librarian dreadnought, Sang. guard, furious dreadnought bla bla bla....

Take the sanguinory guard. It costs as much as a terminator. Now make some calculations. Their CCW is like lightning claw (cant have bonus attack but can reroll);
Now take the SM codex and make the calculation for points (below) see the result
Lightning Claw + artificier armor + storm bolter + veteran = Terminator + veteran points. So if you take a sanguinary guard, you just pay for the equipment and veteran is for freee.

Whatever, there are tons of examples like that. Take devastator weapon costs,
Furioso dreadnought has same armor with ironclad dreadnought yet it has better WS and it is a troop choice for gods sake. And it is cheaper . Lets not forget 6" scattering deepstrike and feel no pain for all

The only downside of BA is: they have so many awesome choices which will negate the ability of BA players choosing a good army list . They will have a hard time to form an army list


If SM codex is normal, BA is definitly overpowered. Now I wonder, how will the CSM codex be? I think all of CSM will have 2+ invulnerable armor saves to get on top of it.

Consider Ultramarine Devastators and Blood Angel Devastators. The Blood Angels are cheaper. Cool, right? They're cheaper because they can't use Combat Tactics to exit combat and 1/6 games they'll be Fearless with Furious Charge, which is awesome until they get charged by something like Assault Terminators.

5 Assault Terminators with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields assault the Devastators, have 15 attacks, 7.5 hits, 6.23 wounds, or 6 dead Devastators. Supposing the Devastators lose by 6, then on average 2 more Blood Angels Devastators will be lost to the Red Thirst and No Retreat! The Blood Angels will then get wiped on their own turn providing cover for the Assault Terminators.

The Ultramarine Devastators will simply use Combat Tactics to Fall Back, use And They Shall Know No Fear to automatically* Rally, and then use And They Shall Know No Fear to turn the surviving four Heavy Weapons on the Terminators.

*Beyond 6", etc

The Furioso is not a troop choice.

So far, this thread has been a cyclical iteration of:

"OMG the codex is overpowered in so many ways!"
"They haven't been that bad so far in actual games."
"But they have this and that and deep striking land raiders!"
"All that crap is either a gimmick, fairly priced, or more often than not, nothing like you say it is."
"OMG the Blood Angels are so overpowered!"

Et. al. ad nauseum.

OMG what an incredible tactic to save your devastator squad. Your devastator squad will become fearless 1/6 but will face terminators 1/60. Save your breath.

OMG furioso dreadnoughts are not troop chocies? Found a fault in my post? Good for you

Nobody here can explain how the hell BA has nearly everything SM can offer and even more. I saw 2 guys already (here in these forums) who will use BA codex for their SM army.
Forget man, it is about merchandise. They are trying to sell their new toys thats all

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.

Not a chance..all those fast moving tanks ENSURE that mech is still the dominant paradigm.

Therein lies the distinction. Marines have variants such as Vulkan and all bike, or at their most vanilla can put a LOT of very good troops on the ground (the tactical marine is EXTREMELY underestimated by the armchair general interwebz hive mind).

Blood Angels have a bunch of fancy special rules and builds, but they pay points for all of those things. Why do you try playing the book yourself, or even try to make some of these super lists you're so afraid of, before subjecting us to your histrionics?

I don't think the new Blood Angel codex is even in the top 3 armies out there. But it is still better than the average codex, of course that isn't really that much of a surprise. The codex is just "above average", nothing more or less in my opinion.

With Assault Squads getting discounts on transports, it is very easy to go mechanized with the Blood Angels if you want to. I still want to try out an all jump infantry army myself through.

Terminus wrote:
Why do you try playing the book yourself, or even try to make some of these super lists you're so afraid of, before subjecting us to your histrionics?

Oh man, I am not afraid of their book or stuff. Don't you get it? Everybody wants to see that their army different in some ways. If you look from some other players point of view, space puppies are stronger than SM. But from my point of view, they are different. They are different most of the time. They don't have my veterans, they don't have 13 armor dreadnought, they don't have options like me. See? They are different.
But BA is not different. They have eveything my army can offer and even more. Combat tactics is a good tactic but it is not the god of all the tactics. Imagine Crimson Fists, Imperial fists, raven guard who don't use that. I am not talking about their units being better and so on.
Imagine it like this: The first thing I wanted to see was the ability to add feel no pain to my honour guard... Whoosst! BA has it.
"hmmm it would be godly if Ironclad has better WS"... Whooossst! BA has it.
"Why can't my assault squads have melta-gun"... Tralalala! BA has it.
"God! instead of adding 3 heavy weapons to devastator squad I can buy a tac squad, these are too expensive"... BANG! BA has it cheaper.
"2d6" scatter is not reliable to deepstrike. It is too dangerous as I saw my assault squad far away from the point I wanted so many times"... BOOM! BA is d6"
"why can't my command squad, or honour guard have jump packs?" Squash! BA has it.
"woaw my sternguard vet squad is some special unit for SM" DANG! BA has it.

Imagine Raven guard... Why are they on SM codex which is not made for deepstriking or assaulting or jump infantry when you read the BA codex. BAM! If I had a raven guard army, I was already using their codex.

See?

They pay for all of those things, making for smaller, more compact armies.

They are significantly more assault oriented, relying on vehicles to do most of their shooting.

Terminus wrote:They pay for all of those things, making for smaller, more compact armies.

They are significantly more assault oriented, relying on vehicles to do most of their shooting.

What do you mean?

According to the abilities and point costs for shooty units SM vs BA:

Tac squad - SAME
Scout squad - SAME
Sternguard vets - SAME
Terminator squad - SAME
Devastator Squad - SAME (BA cheaper)
Dreadnought - SAME
Land Speeder - SAME
Bike Squad - SAME
Attack Bike - SAME
Land Raider - SAME
Predator - BA is 10 pts more but fast
Vindicator - BA is 30 pts more but fast (which is very good as being fast is godly for vindicator imho)
Whirlwind - BA is 5 pts more but fast (okay for whirlwind being fast is not important so it sucks for 5 points)
Thunderfire cannon - BA don't have it but even I don't have it in my SM army
Baal predator - SM don't have it so I can't call if it is a good or bad unit.

Take vanguard veteran
Heroic intervention : For SM it is crappy because you scatter 2d6" which make you chances to use their ability very low. For BA, it is not that crappy.
Legion of the damned: What are they?

How come they are worse in shooting? Stop them from taking assault squads and they can fire as much as a normal SM will do. Even when I am shooting I put a unit to deal with CC. BA can do it far more better.
Take the best SM army you imagine and replace the crappy CC unit with something from BA how is that?

God quit your whining. The next new bandwagon will be out soon enough, so save some ZOMG for that, will ya? Got some marine envy there?

So they have some better stuff now. I'm sure when 5th edition kicked over, a lot of folks freaked out at the new SM codex.

FoxPhoenix135 wrote:God quit your whining. The next new bandwagon will be out soon enough, so save some ZOMG for that, will ya? Got some marine envy there?

So they have some better stuff now. I'm sure when 5th edition kicked over, a lot of folks freaked out at the new SM codex.

The Sons of Baal (BA codex): 7000+ Points

That explains alot

Minci wrote:

Take the sanguinory guard. It costs as much as a terminator. Now make some calculations. Their CCW is like lightning claw (cant have bonus attack but can reroll);
Now take the SM codex and make the calculation for points (below) see the result
Lightning Claw + artificier armor + storm bolter + veteran = Terminator + veteran points. So if you take a sanguinary guard, you just pay for the equipment and veteran is for freee.

That's just flat out wrong... The Glaive Encarmine is inferior to a single lightning claw, much less a pair of them. Being able to reroll *one* to-hit roll is not as effective as being able to re-roll *all* failed to-wound rolls.

Sanquinary Guard have speed, and their funky stormbolters going for them, but Assault Terminators hit much harder in assault and are tougher. Sanguinary Guard are A2, with no ability (short of a banner) to get more attacks. Assault Terminators (which I'm assuming you're comparing the Guard with in the above) come out at A3 base. Lightning Claws, especially in a pair, are much better close combat weapons. And then there's the Termie's Inv save.

Regardless of any of the above, Sanguinary Guard are a marginal unit at best anyway. In the current era they just don't make the top tier.

Valete,

JohnS

cygnnus wrote:

Minci wrote:

Take the sanguinory guard. It costs as much as a terminator. Now make some calculations. Their CCW is like lightning claw (cant have bonus attack but can reroll);
Now take the SM codex and make the calculation for points (below) see the result
Lightning Claw + artificier armor + storm bolter + veteran = Terminator + veteran points. So if you take a sanguinary guard, you just pay for the equipment and veteran is for freee.

That's just flat out wrong... The Glaive Encarmine is inferior to a single lightning claw, much less a pair of them. Being able to reroll *one* to-hit roll is not as effective as being able to re-roll *all* failed to-wound rolls.

Sanquinary Guard have speed, and their funky stormbolters going for them, but Assault Terminators hit much harder in assault and are tougher. Sanguinary Guard are A2, with no ability (short of a banner) to get more attacks. Assault Terminators (which I'm assuming you're comparing the Guard with in the above) come out at A3 base. Lightning Claws, especially in a pair, are much better close combat weapons. And then there's the Termie's Inv save.

Regardless of any of the above, Sanguinary Guard are a marginal unit at best anyway. In the current era they just don't make the top tier.

Valete,

JohnS

I didnt compare them. I can't write the point costs openly in the forum so I wrote the similar costs for them. I didn't compare guards vs terminator or glaive vs lightning claws. I just made a math equation....

But how did you understand that much wrong? Send me the thing you are smoking

BA are tough on the charge, and have some eavy hitters. Lure them in with a unit then waste them wit fire or counter charge. Not any thougher to be than SW.

Minci wrote:

cygnnus wrote:

Minci wrote:

Take the sanguinory guard. It costs as much as a terminator. Now make some calculations. Their CCW is like lightning claw (cant have bonus attack but can reroll);
Now take the SM codex and make the calculation for points (below) see the result
Lightning Claw + artificier armor + storm bolter + veteran = Terminator + veteran points. So if you take a sanguinary guard, you just pay for the equipment and veteran is for freee.

That's just flat out wrong... The Glaive Encarmine is inferior to a single lightning claw, much less a pair of them. Being able to reroll *one* to-hit roll is not as effective as being able to re-roll *all* failed to-wound rolls.

Sanquinary Guard have speed, and their funky stormbolters going for them, but Assault Terminators hit much harder in assault and are tougher. Sanguinary Guard are A2, with no ability (short of a banner) to get more attacks. Assault Terminators (which I'm assuming you're comparing the Guard with in the above) come out at A3 base. Lightning Claws, especially in a pair, are much better close combat weapons. And then there's the Termie's Inv save.

Regardless of any of the above, Sanguinary Guard are a marginal unit at best anyway. In the current era they just don't make the top tier.

Valete,

JohnS

I didnt compare them. I can't write the point costs openly in the forum so I wrote the similar costs for them. I didn't compare guards vs terminator or glaive vs lightning claws. I just made a math equation....

But how did you understand that much wrong? Send me the thing you are smoking

You didn't? And I quote:

"Their CCW is like lightning claw (cant have bonus attack but can reroll);"

QED.

I'd suggest toning down the attitude a bit. For a new poster here, you're not really doing yourself many favors, nor working very well on your credibility.

You don't like C:BA. I think we all got it. Now we can move on...

Valete,

JohnS

Terminus wrote:The Furioso is not a troop choice.

So far, this thread has been a cyclical iteration of:

"OMG the codex is overpowered in so many ways!"
"They haven't been that bad so far in actual games."
"But they have this and that and deep striking land raiders!"
"All that crap is either a gimmick, fairly priced, or more often than not, nothing like you say it is."
"OMG the Blood Angels are so overpowered!"

Et. al. ad nauseum.

You just said everything I wanted to say.

In my test games it hasn't been over the top.

they don't seem overpowered to me, they seem about average.

How does everyone like the Honour Guard?

And how to tool them up the most efficient way? Jump packs, chapter banner, blood champion, which weapons, which stuff should they not get, etc?

Minci wrote:

Terminus wrote:
Why do you try playing the book yourself, or even try to make some of these super lists you're so afraid of, before subjecting us to your histrionics?

Oh man, I am not afraid of their book or stuff. Don't you get it? Everybody wants to see that their army different in some ways. If you look from some other players point of view, space puppies are stronger than SM. But from my point of view, they are different. They are different most of the time. They don't have my veterans, they don't have 13 armor dreadnought, they don't have options like me. See? They are different.
But BA is not different. They have eveything my army can offer and even more. Combat tactics is a good tactic but it is not the god of all the tactics. Imagine Crimson Fists, Imperial fists, raven guard who don't use that. I am not talking about their units being better and so on.
Imagine it like this: The first thing I wanted to see was the ability to add feel no pain to my honour guard... Whoosst! BA has it.
"hmmm it would be godly if Ironclad has better WS"... Whooossst! BA has it.
"Why can't my assault squads have melta-gun"... Tralalala! BA has it.
"God! instead of adding 3 heavy weapons to devastator squad I can buy a tac squad, these are too expensive"... BANG! BA has it cheaper.
"2d6" scatter is not reliable to deepstrike. It is too dangerous as I saw my assault squad far away from the point I wanted so many times"... BOOM! BA is d6"
"why can't my command squad, or honour guard have jump packs?" Squash! BA has it.
"woaw my sternguard vet squad is some special unit for SM" DANG! BA has it.

Imagine Raven guard... Why are they on SM codex which is not made for deepstriking or assaulting or jump infantry when you read the BA codex. BAM! If I had a raven guard army, I was already using their codex.

See?

A few points.

Blood Angels were the frist Chapter to have Dreads with two DCCW's, then the Almighty Ultras got it but better with AV13.
Blood Angels Honor Guard has always had Jump Packs (That's there bag man)
Don't blame the Blood Angels because GW over priced Dev heavy Weapons and then realized it.
Ultra's can use Heroic Intervention easily. It's called a Locator Beacon on a Drop pod. You know the thing than comes in on turn one and does not scatter that bad allowing the Vanguard to come in where you want them.

Combat tactis can be good, but what makes C:SM so good is the Special characters that swap Combat tactics for something better (Vulkan anyone?) Also you have the ability to change up your FOC a little. You can have bike squads as both Troops and Fast Attack. We only have Assualt squads as troops, and a pred in the fast attack slot.
As for the Feel no Pain, yo pay for those, and to give it to the other units you give up an Elite slot which is full of good choices, and give up 1-3 kill points. Yeah that sounds about fair. Also one thing C:SM has over C:BA is you know exactly what your units have when you build your list. We can only hope that our units gets to take advantage of our Red Thrist, which unless you take an expensive HQ you almost get nothing for it. We are basicly 4th Ed Ultras in that regard.

C:SM is not that bad.

What the complaining about seems to be that blood angels have better assault squads and dreadnoughts then regular marines, big fething surprise. Its always been that way. You can tell how short some of these people have been playing by their reaction to blood angel assault being strong.

The characters are significantly worse then C:SM ones, which are the strongest marine characters. Vulkan or Lysander can match any of the BA characters in assault, point for point. Mephiston is cool, but if someone has eldrad on the field he wont get much done. Sanguinor is decent, but way way overpriced. And 3 wounds isnt particularly tough.

Its a solid codex, but nothing in it is overpowering. Space wolves are significantly better. The people who should complain are the xenos players, not the marine players, who with every other book being a new marine codex have nothing to complain about. BAAAW the new marine book looks overpowered compared to the old one, I still havent found a way to win with C:SM. The new nid book was hideously underwhelming. Dark eldar and necrons need new books. Dark eldar are reduced to spamming lances and tanks as their only competitive army build, and necrons just suck. Tau and eldar are pretty poop, both have to buy what are now overpriced transports to keep troops alive. Troops that are so weak they have nothing to do but take objectives last turn.
Look at this.
10 grey hunters, 2 melta guns, mark of the wulfen in a rhino-195
10 BA assault marines, 2 melta guns, power fist, in a rhino-240
10 tac marines, plasma cannon, melta gun, fist/combi melta sergeant in a rhino-255
the first unit is a solid do anything choice. The second is a very good up close unit, and the third is a versatile shoot/objective taker. All these units can hurt people, and take objectives. Now look at this.

10 guardians with shuriken cannon in wave serpent with lances- 230
The serpent might blow up a tank, but it has less chance then any of the above units. It is more survivable, but costs 4 times what a rhino does. And the guardians inside? Well if I cast doom they might kill a squad of trukk boyz or a small gaunt unit.

I grappled the shoggoth wrote:

What the complaining about seems to be that blood angels have better assault squads and dreadnoughts then regular marines, big surprise. Its always been that way. You can tell how short some of these people have been playing by their reaction to blood angel assault being strong.

Exactly. People like Minci react to their ignorance with fear... a very typical human reaction. When the next codex comes out, he'll be running around as if there is a fire all over again.

I think I agree with the sentiment that it's not the Imperial codices being overpowered- as they're fairly balanced against each other... it's that some of the new xenos and of course all of the old xenos codices are terribly underpowered.

Mech style lists are so popular because infantry are very squishy... if you're not MEq or better, get your arse inside the tank!
This could've been easily countered by giving the armies with squishy troops some kind of shielding/power to give cover.
They did it for Tyranids in the Venomthrope, but then Space Wolves and Blood Angels got it too when they truly did not need it as bad.

Minci wrote:

Terminus wrote:They pay for all of those things, making for smaller, more compact armies.

BA don't have:
- Legion of the Damned
- Ironclad Dread
- Bikes as Troops
- Thunderfire cannon

SM don't have:
- Death Company
- Furioso Dread
- JPs as Troops
- Baal predator
- Stormraven

BA pay more for Fast:
- Predator +10 pts
- Vindicator +30 pts
- Whirlwind+5 pts

Vanguard Veteran: For SM it is crappy

Take the best SM army you imagine and replace the crappy CC unit with something from BA how is that?

Fixed the list.

For SM, it is crappy because SM are supposed to be crappy at Assault. It's also why SM Assaults are Fast, not Troops. SM's designed-in weakness is HtH.

The best SM army I can imagine doesn't take any CC units precisely because they are deliberately overpriced (e.g. Vanguard), or non-Scoring (Assault Marines). It's not how the SM army is designed, and as a result, GW penalizes players for taking CC units. The SM army is designed around Bolter Marines in Transports, and the uber version of SM takes Sternguard as Troops in undercosted Rhinos or Pods.

Yes, you could field similar armies using SM and BA Codices. BT, CSM, DA & SW, too. You'd end up with a number of 2Eish bland, underperforming armies that don't leverage the advantages of their armies, and are often hindered by Special Rules that would be at cross-purposes from the way the army was designed. It's not 2nd Edition anymore. Armies differ by more than their paint job, and thankfully so.

Really, I think you're the kind of guy that complains that hammers suck as screwdrivers (because it's technically possible to hammer a screw into board), and that chisels are overpowered compared to screwdrivers (because they're sharper and more precise at cutting wood).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Valhallan42nd wrote:In my test games it hasn't been over the top.

children of filth wrote:they don't seem overpowered to me, they seem about average.

I grappled the shoggoth wrote:Its a solid codex, but nothing in it is overpowering.

It almost suggests that GW did some playtesting?

JohnHwangDD wrote:It almost suggests that GW did some playtesting?

Lies and heresy!

*cough*

olympia wrote:

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.

Not a chance..all those fast moving tanks ENSURE that mech is still the dominant paradigm.

I don't know. I'm looking through the blood angels codex and a jump pack army(not necessarily a pure one) is lookin' preettty viable. Mech is still dominant but there are some cracks starting in the ivory tower.

Gornall wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:It almost suggests that GW did some playtesting?

Lies and heresy!

embrace change

My feeling is that this will turn out like seer councils versus seer councils on bikes. Darn good when you take a transport, but the jump pack army has irremovable mobility, that will make it a better choice, in relation to the jetbikes.

Definetly good, but not OTT. The best thing about the entire codex is the Sang. priests. They will change the metagame by reducing the value of weight of attacks to kill things, and will ensure that you need a CC unit to be competetive, in order to assasinate said FNP/FC bubble of doom.

Just my views, they are probably wrong.

Also, Memphy is not all that good. if my 1000pt Ork list cantains enough firepower to kill him in one turn, he is not so fantastic.

Take him at 500pts to make your opponent cry

It has got interesting options in the New Blood-Angels codex, is it over-powered? No because we always find faults in the codex and ways to beat the new guys. I really like the baal predator and the flame-storm cannon, although the cannon is too short and flames your own tank and apparently your not allowed to do that. But in the end the codex is awsome and all you blood angel players should be proud.

The BA codex is not being accepted well in my area.

A) no one plays them
B) everyone looks at their rules and is like 'wtf'


The thing about them is that they have so much of everything, that really the weaknesses (I am admitting they have them) are not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

Terrible characters mean little to some people that barely take advantage of the HQ section at all. And, it's not like their HQ slot is lacking, great Librarians that dwarf their C:SM brothers is still something to look at.

Point costs for their vehicles are negligible at best. Considering, 90% of C:SM, CSM, SW, BT, DA etc. players would gladly pay the points to have their Rhino chassis be fast. Point costs of troops aren't a huge deal either, considering you get the discount on transports with the removal of jump packs on Assault Marines, it all balances out.

I think "overpowered" is a bit drastic when describing this codex. 'Poorly designed', and 'stretched imagination' is perhaps a better tag to give it. The ONLY thing I will say about this book being remotely OP is the FNP bubbles that these incredibly cheap Priests give. I don't think him chillin' with ASMs or Tactical Marines is a big deal, it's when he starts going around Mephiston, or Terminators, that it becomes a bit ridiculous. But, you get what you pay for I guess, and power weapons will still kill everyone. So, keep your Null Zone around.

And, MY first impressions of this book is 'try hard'. They tried so hard to have this book be 'different' and while succeeding (I suppose) they have made some pretty silly rules, along with some pretty good ones (that should belong to all SM chapters). Bad rule example: Deep striking LRs. Good rule example: remove jump packs for cheap transports.

Finally, while I am not defending any whining going on here, you have to sympathize with some of these people here. Yeah they are going to complain about BA having everything (that really counts) that C:SM have but more, and why shouldn't they? They do. But I just don't think it's as big of a deal as everyone is making it out to be. But just remember, some people want to play their armies and not be losing games simply because they don't want to pick up the newest Marine codex, but blaming a codex for a loss (unless your 'Crons or DH) is silly.

Anyway, peace.