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Hi, so recently I convinced my friend to jump into warhammer after a long few years of showing him how awesome it is and he has decided to do Blood angles. I am a long time veteran player of warhammer but I am also fairly new to blood angels and assault squads in general. We looked around and since I play a space marine tank army he wants to do a Blood angles assault squad army or a Descent of angels army as they are apparently called here. I had a few things assembled and painted that I was going to sell on ebay but I am selling to him instead so what I wanted to know at this point is what else to buy for him. He has allot of money to spend, about $400, to get his army up to where it needs to be. Here is what we have so far.

Dante
10 death company with jump packs, 2 hand flamers, 2 power fist guys - assembled
5 Tactical marines, 1 power weapon - assembled
5 sanguinary guard, chapter banner, 1 infernus pistol - assembled

- Then we have a battle force box that has 5 assault marines, 5 death company, 10 man tac squad and a rhino.
I was thinking about making a 10 man assault squad with jump packs from them and I have enough extra bits that I can do a 10 man assault out of the tactical squad, I would just have to get the jump packs online or something.

So I was wondering what I can do with this, maybe suggestions on how I should equip them and what else I should have him buy. He is thinking about getting a baal pred or two and maybe a death company dead. I am thinking that in a 1500 point army, which is what we usually play around here, he should have 2-3 10 man assault squads and like 2-3 prists with jump packs and maybe a baal or two for fire support, a librarian and maybe change things around on occasion with the death company or sang guard.

Here is the list I was thinking about with just what he currently has. Its not the best but its what he has and the tactical squad is not assembled as of yet so I could do another jump pack squad with them instead.

-Dante - 225

- 5 man San. Guard, Banner, infernus - 240
- 10 man Assault squad, 2x melta guns, power fist & storm shield - 255
- 10 Man death company, Jump packs, 2X Power fists, 2X hand flamers - 420
- 5 man tactical squad, power weapon, melta bomb - 110

- 10 man tac, missle, melta gun, P. fist, rhino - 250
The other thing I could do with them if I get ahold of the jump packs is Drop the metla bomb from the 5 man tac squad and do this with the 10 man:
- 10 man Assault squad, 2x melta guns, power fist & storm shield - 255

So that is how I was thinking of assembling what he has right now so I would love some critiques and ideas for what to get for a good DoA army. Also it would be nice for him to have enough extra stuff that he can make a few different army lists sort of deal but still focused around jump infantry.

Death company are not brilliant - they are expensive and have an extra attack but can be led by the nose due to rage.

If you're using Dante you could look for a 'nipple hammer' list (nipples due to the sanguinary guard's armor) which has sanguinary guard DoAing and then some ranged backup.

You may want to consider a furisio dread. One of my favourite dreads, they are UNIQUE amongst dreadnoughts, and add some stopping power to any BA force. Also, you may want to consider Matt Ward's infamous flaying librarian dreadnought. They kick ass.

Kit bash tack marines with dc and make assault marines with pf and melta guns.

Hand flamers and inf pistols are too expensive and not effective enough.

I suggest a librarian as an hq they are amazing the only upgrade they need is a jp.
Powers that are good are shield and unleash rage might not seem like much but are really effective.

Definitely use priests they dont need any upgrades other than jp they are meant to buff not get themselves into cc.

Baal preds with assault cannons and hb sponsons are effective adn vindicator with siege shield is pretty good too.

Dc and sanguinary guard are hard to play so hold off on them until you know how the flow of the battle works with assault marines and such.

If he wants to do pure DOA then no vehicles and ONLY jump infantry to take advantage of DOA. My suggestion is do not put together the tactical marines and get some JP's and CCW's to convert them. The death company with JP's are just WAY too many points. Just use them as assault marines. As for sanguinary guard, I quite like them, but they require lots of practice. I would run at least 2 squads of them to make it worth taking Dante. Vanguard are also really nice to have for hitting stuff off the deep strike. Just keep them fairly cheap and they will be ok.

Just my 2 cents.

If your friend wants to play DOA he needs to stick to all assault marines. You want somewhere between 30 to 40 Assault Space Marines. Death Company really aren't so great and if anything I'd kitbash them into Vanguard Vets since Vanguard get the DoA special rule with jetpacks and the Vanguard Vet box is actually quite useless model wise. With Dante you'd need to take some Sanguinary guard if you like, but personally I don't like SG all that much. I'd take Honor Guard instead to go along with Dante.

SG nuff said.

To summarize:

The core of the sort of army your friend wants needs to be Assault Marines. The only reason to ever include Tactical Marines in a Blood Angels army is if you have a burning need to do something sub-optimal or if the fluff compels you. An Assault Squad should either be 10 men with Jump Packs or 5 men in a Razorback, you'll be going with the former. In either case, take the maximum number of special weapons possible, and mostly take Meltaguns.

You will want to increase the durability of these Assault Marines by taking Sanguinary Priests and a Librarian HQ, both with Jump Packs, obviously. You want the Librarian to have the Shield power and something else, usually Unleash Rage or maybe Blood Lance.

Finally, you will want some support units. Anything with an Armor Value should not be considered in a Jump Infantry based army. Once your friend becomes more experienced, he can decide if he wants to play around with hybrid builds but I strongly believe a beginner should stick to one style. Vanguard Veterans are a standard support unit, as they can assault the turn they deepstrike to tie up nasty stuff or try to punch out a vehicle. They need a Power Fist for the latter, but be very careful to not give them too much wargear, as they can't rely on benefitting from Priests and die quite easily to small arms fire. Seriously, 10 Guardsmen with Lasguns can kill almost 2 Vanguard Vets if they use the FRFSNF order.

Other good support units are Honor Guards and Devastators. Honor Guards are useful mainly as a way to jam more special weapons into the army, but they also act like a Priest. Make sure they take 4 special weapons, 3 if points are really tight. I wouldn't give them close combat weapons. Devastators work best if you plan to start on the table a lot of the time. By far the best loadout is 4 Missile Launchers, anything else is either too situational (Heavy Bolter, Plasma Cannon), really stupid (Multi-melta), or too expensive (Lascannon). You will want to stick a Priest near them to help them stay alive.

That's pretty much it. Sanguinary Guard really aren't worth it in my opinion, especially since Dante is so expensive. Death Company really need to be in a transport to work, so they don't fit the DoA army. You can find lots of examples of decent DoA type lists on here. Dakkaite Mercer has written a good number of battle reports playing a variety of DoA type armies, I'd check them out.

One last thing: If your friend simply wants to be as competitive as possible, Mech BA is the consensus way to go. DoA can work and is fun, but there's more luck involved and you'll have trouble against the nastiest armies.

Economics explained it very well. I played DoA at several occasions and they only struggle against the nastiest armies out there, well said.
MCs can be a problem or large blasts of S8.