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I think those are rather extreme positions to take at this stage of newness.

Every army does some builds types better then other armies, that is rather the point.

Yes there are near identical lists that are out and out better in the Blood Angels book, or Space Wolves, and some that are better done in Codex Space Marines. That how it works, you pick the army that makes the list you want to work, end of story.

Picking Blood Angels for fast tanks and Scoring assault marines is just as valid as picking orks for massive, relatively tough infantry hordes.

Blood Angels does not look to massively alter the landscape of what army is best, therefore clearly any power change is relatively small.

Jack

Slackermagee wrote:

DaveL wrote:
AV13 is tough for the usual 2 power fist attacks these squads will have. Every shot aimed at the Furioso that can seriously threaten AV13/12 is one less shot aimed at your Stormravens/transports/Sanguinary Guard/whatever.

This is an argument against AV13 dreads, not against blood talons. Do you think ironclads (for almost exactly the same price) are OP? I'll admit I'm not terribly fond of ironclads myself; they're part of an unfortunate arms race, and I might've been happier if they didn't exist. But if the discussion is about blood talons... I really think the extra randomness is a drawback, not an asset, to a BA player.

Its not randomness at all though. You get to wound standard infantry on a 2+, just like bloodfists. You get to reroll wounds (which makes them less random against almost all targets) AND keep attacking for each successful wound. It just kills more, period.

DaveL wrote:It kills more, yes. In a way that is completely unpredictable and can come back to bite you in the rear. If you want me to go into detail about the statistics, I'll be happy to do so, but for now I'll assume you'd rather talk about why it's bad. I'll make an analogy.

Let's pretend you have a 30-point option for an ironclad that, if you roll a 6 at the beginning of your CC phase, causes an armor-save-ignoring wound on every model in base contact with the dread at initiative 10 instead of attacking normally. Ridiculous, overpowered, I hear you saying. Think about it a little more.

You're familiar with the concept of wanting to stay in CC during your opponent's turn, correct? That way your dread doesn't get a meltagun to the face. If you do get to use this overpowered ability, you kill the squad. Congratulations. You were going to do that anyway with an ironclad vs. standard infantry; it just might've taken a little longer without the ability, like for instance until after your opponent shoots.

You also can't really rely on it working, even when you want it to. Not enough to charge a Nob squad with some PKs, or termies with powerfists or thunderhammers.

In other words, it allows you to do something you could already do perfectly fine, but have a chance of doing it faster - when you'd probably rather do it slower - and doesn't let you do anything you couldn't already do.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner! Dead on.

Speaking of a Melta Gun to the face, has anyone else noticed that while Furioso Dreadnoughts may get WS6, they still have BS4 and don't get the re-roll that Venerable Dreadnoughts get?

The meltagun is just a perk. Dreads should have had WS6 a long time ago.

G

BS 4 is more a matter of game balance than relative skill with a weapon.. BS5 has a much higher impact than WS 5-9

This is what it boils down to IMO

BA can do Maximum overdrive better and cheaper than space wolves (go ahead and calculate the points)
MO is considered by many to be the "powerhouse cheese" space wolf list. and GW just bent over and handed it over to BA in a better form ala fast vehicles and lower point cost.

BA have Sangy Priests which turn everything within 6" into badasses, they can hide in a unit of assault marines and laugh when you try to stack a ton of wounds on them with shooting, because they will just allocate the easy-to-save wounds on the priest and 3+4+ it. cant really take them down in the assault, because BA will most likely be assaulting you out of their fast vehicles, or accurately deepstriking jump packers and assaulting you next turn, most units will most likely die without the chance to put a dent in them, I5 counts for a LOT.

Descent of Angels allowing reserve rerolling AND accurate deepstriking is a bit over the top IMO, especially when you consider that nids lost their reserve rerolling lictors to gain the terrible +1 to the table when they are already on the table, but not on the turn they arrive, so it only "helps" in turn 3+ because they have to start in reserve anyways. BA dont even have to pay anything extra for this, forget trading combat tactics for the 1/6th chance to gain FC/Fearless, they get workable deepstrikes.

OP bits of the codex
-dirt cheap fast razorbacks in extremely points efficient assault squads
-Sangy Priests
-Descent of Angels

Baals, Stormravens, deep striking landraiders, flying dreadnoughts, cheaper devs, all these things add versitility without adding (much) cost, and I dont think they alone imbalance the codex, but paired with the OP bits above it makes for a "ZOMG THE SKY IS FALLING" from more than the normal number of internet tough guys.


Everyone giving up anecdotal evidence to them not being OP are probly playing against lists that have lots of the new toys, which are ironically NOT the strength of the codex. We wont know much more about this codex untill a few months have passed and everyone realizes that maximum overdrive blood angels will be at least as powerful if not more so than the leafblower.

Wait untill you fight against 6 assault marine squads with razorbacks, 3 sangy priests divided amongst them to make them survivable and deadly in the assault, along with 3 dakka preds and 3 baals. Its a stupid amount of firepower that can still F you sideways in the assault and outrun your fastest units... not to mention 6 scoring units.

Assault Marines with Feel No Pain and Furious Charge.
Charge them first, charge them with the usual stuff that's effective against Space Marines (i.e. ignores armour and thus ignores Feel No Pain).

Fast Vehicles.
Have you no Melta? Does Fast improve a vehicle's armour ratings or cause a re-roll on the damage tables?

Accurate Deep Strikes.
Have you heard of Locator Beacons? Teleport Homers?

Reliable Reserves via Deep Strike.
Because no one has Mystics and the Master of the Fleet, and so on. If you used Drop Pods you'd get half on the first turn, guaranteed.

Sanguinary Priests?
W1 Independent Characters. How is that a problem?

Baal Predators?
Basically expensive and slow Land Speeders.

Deep Striking Land Raiders.
So? Seriously?

Flying Dreadnoughts.
Actually really expensive Librarian Dreadnoughts using a psychic power. Why don't you own a Psychic Hood or Runic Weapons or what have you?

Storm Ravens.
All the problems with a Valkyrie (no cover, expensive, lousy armour), yadda yadda.

Maximum Overdrive.
Maxing out on AV11 units is throwing victory points away, particularly when you can give every unit a Land Raider.

Just for the record... being a Fast Vehicle does help against meltas and other anti-tank weaponry. You can outrange/outmanuever those weapons, or find cover with that extra movement.

Just for the record teleport homers cost extra points, BA get something similar for free.

Mystics and Masters of the fleet cost extra points, BA get it for free

You cant effectively Kill an IC attatch to a unit with shooting untill you have destroyed the entire squad, you cant effectivly kill him in assaults because the blood angels either have fast vehicles to ensure they have the charge lined up, or are in jump packs and by nature of being more mobile are more likely to get the assault.

Land Speeders are AV10. What AV is in the front of Baal Predators? Target saturation with high AV vehicles.

Deep strike is an option that CAN be taken if the situation calls for it, BA dont pay any extra points to gain an extra deployment method

Psychic hoods and runic weapons do not guarentee that the dreadnoughts wont fly. This is still just one more good unit option they have.

Storm Ravens have all the problems and benefits of Valkyries and they get better units to drop out of them, and they arn't even half as risky to drop out because of their special rules.

Max Overdrive doesnt care how many KPs it can give up, it works like leafblower in that it either wipes the enemy off the table or cripples it so bad in the first turn that the opponent cant possible recover to win.

and you pointed out ANOTHER bonus they get, as many Land Raiders as they want.

troll more

Demogerg:

I wouldn't call it trolling so much as pouring scorn on your weak game.

Of course Teleport Homers cost extra points: there is no danger of scattering. If Blood Angels want that pin-point accuracy then they have to pay for Locator Beacons and Teleport Homers of their own, or pay for Commander Dante.

Likewise of course Mystics and Masters of the Fleet cost points: because they thoroughly feth with any attempt to Deep Strike onto the board. And Blood Angels do pay for the Descent of Angels: it's what they get instead of Combat Tactics.

If you can't effectively combat a single wound Independent Character because Blood Angels have Fast vehicles and Jump Packs...what's wrong with you? Haven't you played any variety of Eldar? Orks? Don't you know how to screen units?

Likewise, of course anti-psychic wargear isn't guaranteed to prevent the Librarian Dreadnought from flinging itself into range of your Melta Guns, but what is guaranteed in Warhammer? You learn how to game the rules and your opponent to set up situations that favour you: this is called tactics. Learn tactics.

Speaking of tactics, were you aware that the rear armour of a Baal Predator is the exact same as that of a Land Speeder? For a tank that's supposed to be AV13, it's certainly well-designed to exposed its AV10 rear. If only there was some sort of land vehicle that could carry a Multi-Melta speedily enough to shoot such a tank in the rear. Or, let's face it, simply shoot it in the front armour because those extra 3 points are going to make dick-all difference to a Melta weapon.

But first, learn strategy. Part of strategy is resource management: if you spend more points on Unit A than Unit B to perform an action, you'd better get commensurately better results. But you know what? Neither the Furioso Librarian or the Storm Raven have any additional stamina compared to a regular Dreadnought or a Valkyrie - the Storm Raven does ignore the Melta rule, but with AV12, who's going to be shooting Melta Guns at it? It's Lascannon bait.

Speaking of cost effective, where you aware that any Space Marine list below 2000pts can get all the Land Raiders that they want?

You know what really bugs me about all the Chicken Little's that run around like idiots lamenting how over-powered the latest Codex release is? Warhammer 40k is a game, and games are about problem-solving. How about instead of giving up like a loser would, you sit down and figure out how to beat the Blood Angels?

Nurglitch wrote:
You know what really bugs me about all the Chicken Little's that run around like idiots lamenting how over-powered the latest Codex release is? Warhammer 40k is a game, and games are about problem-solving. How about instead of giving up like a loser would, you sit down and figure out how to beat the Blood Angels?

This man has the right idea. Go forth chickens and find ways to beat a codex that LOOKS tough but ,in fact, is very beatable.

Happygrunt wrote:
This man has the right idea. Go forth chickens and find ways to beat a codex that IS tough but ,in fact, is very beatable.

Fixed that for you.

The codex just doesnt look or feel as blood angels as the wolf book felt wolfy. Its strange, I cant really describe it. As the germans say, es ist geistlos

Not enough characters or wargear with "blood" in it? Nah, it has plenty of that.

But I know what you mean, it feels more like a Chaos book than a Loyalist one.

I wouldnt say that. It feels like going from the 3.5 chaos codex to the current one. Its space marines, with spikes, and some demons and evil god worship, but its not chaos. Thats what I get out of this. Its codex chaos marines+choppy and speed, minus really good characters. Maybe im still a 3rd edition player at heart, but I find i remember the days where if you played a specialist army it did one thing. World eaters armies ran across the table and chopped you up, and did it exceedingly well. But your ranged firepower was small and unreliable. If you ran an ulthwe eldar army you had lots of good guardians, and good farseers, but little else. Now theres kind of a have your cake and eat it too idea.

Fluff wise blood angels are a confused blend of pre heresy emperors children and world eaters, minus the total awesome inherent in both of those legions. And with this book they are just poop. Not that I expected much from them.

Except it's not "have your cake and eat it too", because you are still constrained by points. If you want an effective assault army that steamrolls anyone in close combat, you have to dedicate enough points to it that your shooting will be "small and unreliable". I don't mind books allowing you to design whatever kind of army you want.

I think the "poop" aspect comes from the fact that they're a bunch of emo, Dr Jeckel/Mr Hyde, Space Vampire, Christian-allegory douche-nozzles.

I agree with alot of the comments here. The current book is beatable but also has serious balance/design issues. The book does not seem to focus on a particular aspect that one would want in a specialised non codex SM Book (close combat, shooting etc) but rather cover multiple aspects.

At the moment we have this weird combination of psychic shooty blood angels that are as blood thirsty as bezerkers in CC. From a rules perspective, the book seems to better represent an assault/spearhead based Chaos Marine army than a tactical non codex BA strikeforce (which is probably what GW orginally wanted).

It would be interesting to hear how everyone thinks the BA book should have been designed (what rules/units should/should not be present?)

I grappled the shoggoth wrote:The codex just doesnt look or feel as blood angels as the wolf book felt wolfy. Its strange, I cant really describe it. As the germans say, es ist geistlos

More like "neue geist".

The BA are being redone as *more* BA than BA ever were. In many ways, I think that the writers overreached, intentionally, in order to future-proof the latest BA Codex. After all, as a second / third tier Codex, it will have to last for about a decade before the next writing.

And this is why all the too many SM / Chicken Little stuff is total nonsense. Sure, BA are good right now. They'll probably be good in 6E and 7E too. And with each metagame change, expect to see a shift in models / tactics / strategy.

The only thing I don't like about the codex is sang. preists, for the change in the metagame that they cause. The further invalidate volume of fire/weight of attacks, which is not the direction we want to go in. They are not unbeatable, but rather nasty. e.g.

30 Ork Boyz, nob w/ powerklaw, get charged by 10 assault marines, sang. preist.
Boyz take 9 wounds from AM, perhaps 1 more from Sang. preist. Boyz then swing, kill one, and the nob drops the sang. preist. Boyz then lose 7 more from combat resolution.

I am aware that the BA are more points, and that the squad is now crippled without the sanguinary preist. What I can see very clearly however, is how little the weight of attacks mattered. The 3+ armour and FNP rendered the 50+ attacks the Orks swung at them relatively useless, and I think that this is a very negative change to the metagame, further buffing top tier armies (SW, Guard) and further invalidating Nids and orks in the competetive circuit.

See also; Bubble of doom is ridiculuous for 50pts. Whichever way you cut it.

While I think assault squads are much better now in reality they are by no means close combat monsters. I used them with the PDF codex... They had preferred enemy & furious charge if you kept them in range of Dante's & Corbulo's aura bubbles. Even with these two big buffs I found they were meh versus units such as Plague Marines & Bloodletters. They are not going to cut through tough armies like SW or CSM. They will do just fine versus orks but you will need to stack your assaults versus Tyranid hordes to soak them extra wounds from No Retreat. Assault squads are very popular so they will be hte staple choice for troops; therefore, you will have to be careful with them. They are definitely very good at close ranged shooting and I think this where they'll excel. They will need some form of support to help protect them versus strong enemy assault units... Dreadnaughts fit hte bill.

I am not a fan of the MO razor spam lists. I know a lot of people are experiencing some great success with this style of play and yes the benefit of having fast vehicles is a great boon. The thing is armor 11 is not all that and five squads are very easy to roll once you pop their transports. I can definitely see a jump heavy BA list crushing face on MO razor spammed lists. You can't hide from the deep striking melta love and if you play the reserve game jumpers have the upper hand plus you have weakened your army bringing it in piecemeal. There are only so many priests to go around unless you want to get crazy spending lots of points to buff 5 man squads.

Stormravens are the look of things to come and this is one option no one else has even close. Sure there are the nice IG gunships but they can't carry the same payload.

G

JohnHwangDD wrote:

I grappled the shoggoth wrote:The codex just doesnt look or feel as blood angels as the wolf book felt wolfy. Its strange, I cant really describe it. As the germans say, es ist geistlos

More like "neue geist".

I dont know about that. The sanguinary guard are pretty kickass. Nothing else is new. Theyve lost that blood crazed feel they used to have. Thats what it is. They are too reserved now.

I think it's a good thing. They aren't MoK

I thought it was funny. You know, "reserved"...

Seriously, look at what a unit of ten Berzerkers can do to a unit of Orks before worrying about what a unit of Blood Angels under the influence of a Sanguinary Priest can do.

Nevermind, I stand corrected.

The example of the 230 point (minimum) BA unit charging a cheaper ork unit and losing (with both units mostly dead) somehow does not strike me as a good example of how they are 'overpowered'.

It does demonstrate how much effort Blood Angels player's will have to put into maneuvering their Sanguinary Priests to keep them alive long enough to keep their assault units workable though, especially against the incredibly well hidden and ubiquitous nob w/powerklaw.

Jack

Ok, to clarify; I DO NOT feel that they are overpowered.
I DO feel that they negatively influence the metagame, by decreasing the value of weight of attacks.

That simple, sorry if I caused confusion.

I have played a few games now, and I can't see what the deep striking is good for. It's too risky, and I can't imagine seeing alot of deep striking jump packs in tournaments, even with Descent of Angels.

Rerolls for reserve & 1d6 are fairly huge advantages for heavy jump armies.

G