Hybrids armies are hard to do but not impossible.
HQ: Librarian with a jump pack 125 pts. He is cheap, gives psychic defense and has some nice abiltiies pending on what psychic abilities you choose.
Sanguinor is great but again he is a HUGE point sink and really shouldn't be used in games less then 1500. Also he should be used only in very very heavy assault style armies.
Elites: Sanguinary Guard are nice but they are never worth the points for the Death Masks. The Banner is good but if you dont have a lot of threats to shoot at, they will be focused fired. I like them in 1500+ games at least before I field them.
Death Company: So expensive and never really worth it with jump packs. Yet solid at 20 points each. In a pack of 9 (
PF, Thunder Hammer,
PW,
PW )with a Chaplain, they will tear peoples faces off but they will need a
LR to ride in. Downside is expensive in low point games and you really need to learn the rules for rage. Rage makes you always go after the nearest enemy over every thing else ( unless mounted in a vehicle ).
Tactical Squad: Since you got the
AoBR run these for now. Melta Gun or Flamer and a Missile Launcher is the ideal set up. Pending on the style of army later you will find these inferior to assault squads.
Assault Squads: This is a bread and butter unit for
BA armies. 10 man with x2 Melta ( or flamer + melta ) with Srg Power Fist + Inferno Pistol with jump packs. Learn when to break them into combat squads and when not to. This is your best scoring unit.
Dreadnought: Again this comes with
AoBR and no reason not to run it till you fill out your army with more models. Once you have more access to more models, unless you go with a heavy dreadnought theme then this will find no place in your army.
Scout Squad: These can be pretty nice for only 100 pts and thats with Camo. Snipers and a Missile Launcher. Melta bomb is a waste as they will die quickly in melee and you want to keep them cheap.
Things you will want in your army.
Tons of ways to deal with armor. Luckily
BA armies can field a gross amount of melta or have solid range to deal with them but you will quickly find out that melta guns are the answer to mech lists. Assault Cannon is also one of the best weapons to deal with high armor vechicles and doubles up very well vs troops. Baal Predators and Predators are solid choices as well. In assualt squads I will be hard pressed not to run a Power Fist and the
PF can be a threat to pretty much everything in the game.
Area Effect ( aka AE ) weapons. You will need few of these as well to deal with horde style armies. Flamers do quite nicely ( hand flamer is not worth the points ever ) and Vindicators can tear it up by dropping
Str 10 Lrg Blast markers and move 12" as they fire.
Scoring Troops: 20-30 scoring troops in a game 2000 or less, 15-20 in 1k games or less.
Pschic Defense. Librarian is the only answer here or Mephiston.
Apothicarians: These guys give you the Furious Charge and Feel No Pain. They are a must in assault armies. Careful tho, they are expensive and fragile. Personally I like them best in Honor Guard units because they no longer become a
IC thus no longer can be singled out and they dont take up an Elite Slot. Also Honor Guard can be equipped for basically any situation you may come across.
Are there specific army brackets?
1500 and 2k are usually the most popular.
Is this competitive enough?
Short answer is no. There are many articles on these boards that will talk about Blood Angel army lists. I STRONGLY recommend you to proxy models till you play enough games to learn which units work for you and which don't before you go on a buying spree. The box set you have gives you some models to help get things going.
