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I was wanting to start the game soon and was looking at a couple of Armies. I have done some research and read a lot of fluff. I am really liking the BA army. I want to start off somewhat simple. Also, I am a college student so my budget is really small... I was looking at something around 200 dollars. My friends have templates, a codex, and some paint they will let me use to help ease the burden on the wallet. I was definitely going to get a Blood Angels Battleforce. "This set contains a Tactical Squad, an Assault Squad, a Death Company Squad and a Rhino dedicated transport vehicle." http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440165a&prodId=prod900148a&rootCatGameStyle=

I was thinking of Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard also.

(I haven't read up on all the points so any and all help would be appreciated...)


Edit: My group of friends told me that they play w/ armys under 1500.

1,500 points is a good round number to play at, but below that the game is just not the same. 1,000 points is a good starting point, but I think if you intend to go to any events you should design for 1,500.

Sanguinary Guard would be challenging to do at such low points. Dante is expensive, and at 200 points base for 5 models without Invulnerable Saves, it's quite risky to field that style. You could do a DOA list with 20-30 Assault Marines, and a Librarian with an Honor Guard. You might even have points for some Vanguard Vets, all of which would give you a more reliable composition than tiny, highly expensive units of Sanguinary Guard that die to Plasma fire.

Thanks for the input. I will look into the multiple assault marines instead of the saguinary guard. Thanks again and looking forward to more input and insight into building and army.



Edit: What I meant to say in the edit on the first post, they all play armies 1500 and less. I don't plan on playing this game outside of my somewhat small group of friends.

Best value for your buck are 3 Death Company sets and using them as assault marines (because they look cool and they cost the same as assault marines). thats about 99.00 based off GW but I bet you could get it cheaper from a local retailer or online (80-90 usd).

Then I would get a librarian problem is you will probably want a jump pack on it (what I did was buy the assault on black reach model from ebay and one jump pack as well netted me about 15.00 total with shipping).

So that's 115-ish bucks and about 600 points kitted out fully.

After that It is a debate over what kind of Heavy Support and fast attack you want .I recommend lascannon predators and assault cannon baal predators (49.50 each at GW but you could get at least 5 off if you go to a local store or ebay). I have 3 of each to run with and it is deadly fun to have a tank line and DoA all my troops.

Hope this was helpful.

I would suggest you focus on acquiring Assault Marines and a Librarian first, along with Meltaguns, which don't come in the standard Assault Marine box.

You could easily have a playable 1500 army made up of a Librarian, 2-3 Sanguinary Priests and a bunch of Assault Marines, all with Jump Packs. Getting it to 1500 would require 8 boxes or so of Assault Marines, but 1000 would be a reasonable goal.

If you're on a budget, vehicles are probably not a good idea. You need to take lots of them, at least 8 or so at 1500 for it to work well, and that's about $500 in vehicles alone.

Quickly, here are a few things you can buy, for less than 200$ :

- BA Battleforce
- Another box of Death Company
- Baal Predator

List could be close to :

HQ : Librarian, infernus pistol (built with Death Company bitz) - rides in the Death Company Rhino - 115pts

Troops : Death Company, 6 extra marines, 2x Thunder Hammer, infernus pistol, Rhino - 305pts
Troops : Assault Squad, 5 extra marines, flamer, meltagun, hand flamer (for the Sergeant), power fist (for the Sergeant) - 240pts
Troops : Assault squad, meltagun, infernus pistol (for the Sergeant) - 125pts

Fast Attack : Baal Predator, Assault Cannons, Heavy Flamers sponsons - 145pts

Total : 930pts (done the math quickly, so there may be a few mistakes)

Alternatives :
- If you can find some Apothecary bitz (bitz site or friend), or buy an apothecary model, it would be better to drop one Death Company guy (-20pts), and replace it with :
Elite : Sanguinary Priest, Jump Pack, infernus pistol - 90pts that brings you to 1000pts, and add a lot of punch to your assault squads (Feel No Pain & Furious Charge rules)

- Put the 10-strong assault squad in the Rhino, give their jump packs to the Death Company - that might be more expensive in terms of points though.

- Replace the 10-strong assault squad with a tactical squad, with plasma gun & missile launcher - this will camp your backyard & hold your objective, at the cost of mobility.

- If you can afford a Razorback box (35$?), you could drop the jump packs on the small assault squad and get a razorback with Lascannons / assault cannons for cheap !

Modelling-wise, you'd have :
- 15 jump packs from your Assault squad and 2 Death Company boxes ;
- Enough chainswords & bolt pistols to get everyone equipped with them (due to a large number of special weapons)
- from the DC boxes : 4 infernus pistols (all used), 2 thunder hammers (all used), 2 power fists (1 used), 4 hand flamers(1 used), 2 power swords (one will be used for the Librarian as a Force Weapon)
- 25 Marines, 2 vehicles
- A lot of spare bitz (bolters, some heavy, special and assault weapons)
- The main aspect would be to spread out the Blood Angels-specific body parts and weapons, from the Death Company boxes, to the whole force, with a focus on the Death Company (of course)

Game-wise, you'd have :
- A mobile, elite force, bent on assaulting the enemy. This is somewhat fluffy, within the spirit of the army, if a bit risky.
- Quite fragile as you don't have much transports, but you can try and put the Rhino up front, while the jump-pack squads follow behind, in partial cover.
- Having a Sanguinary priest will somewhat offset the "fragile" side of the army with his 6" power-up radius. Feel No Pain will not save you from a Demolisher round, but it helps in a lot of situation. This is a must have.
- The multiple melta weapons (infernus pistols, meltagun) will help you deal with the enemy vehicles, but they have to get close enough.
- A few flamers will help thin hordes (tyranids, IG, orks).

These are only orientations, and if not the most competitive, should be fun to play.

Hope this helps !

Yggdrasil.

[edit : fixed the structure, also hadn't seen other people had answered, so their answer might be better (I'm reading them as it comes). Also, I am not that aware of the price in $, but if you buy from discount sites/ebay, that should be quite near]

If you want a Jump-pack oriented BA army (it's fun and only the cheapest option):

Don't get the Battleforce. You don't need the rhino nor the tactical marines.

1 Librarian 15$
5 pack of jump packs (1 for the libby, 4 spare) = 8$
5x 5 Marines with Jump packs = 5x33$ = 165$
(Mix of assault marine boxes and death company boxes, you could also use Space Wolf packs and buy jump packs for them if you like that style for your army)
Vanguard Veterans = 45

Total: 233$ (but you should get that way cheaper on the internetz)

You could run a 1000 point list with 1 Librarian, 2x10 Assault marines, 5 Honour Guard and 5 Vanguard Veterans. Classic Blood Angels DoA list.

Ninja edit: Disclamer: this is more or less what I'm currently doing...

Yggdrasil wrote:
[edit : fixed the structure, also hadn't seen other people had answered, so their answer might be better (I'm reading them as it comes). Also, I am not that aware of the price in $, but if you buy from discout sites/ebay, that should be quite near]

I'd like to build and paint from scratch to really make it my own... Thanks for the list. Of all of these so far, I like your suggestion the best.

Would this be a good start? I think if I ordered from ebay I'd save around $50 and would come in around $200...

Yes, it would be great, you'd only have to get :
1. Some apothecary bitz (torso + left arm at least, backpack maybe), should be around 10$ (or if you can afford a Command Squad box, all the better)
2. 5 jump packs (for the Vanguard Vets), again from bitz sites... Maybe 10$ for them, too...

And you could then add a Vanguard Vets squad with jump packs (you don't want them footslogging for the games!), for around 200-250pts depending on their gear.

Good luck !

If I were you I'd get the stuff off of Miniature Market. That's usually the cheapest anything will go except for maybe someone trying to get rid of stuff on ebay. The only problem is that you won't get free shipping unless its 100 dollars or more. Also I forgot to mention Miniature Market is 25% off GW prices. That's paying 75 percent of the MSRP!

Like others have stated I'd get the Death Company box and scratch off the X's to make the marines look like normal Assault Marines. You could also buy a few boxes of normal Assault Marines along with a Librarian. Apothecaries of the Sanguinary Priest model are needed. At least 2 to 3 of those. Personally I'd look into Vanguard Veterans since you can use anything as a Veteran model. You don't necessarily have to use the Finecast Veterans especially when you have to switch out most of their weapons for a 1500 point game.

Yggdrasil wrote:Yes, it would be great, you'd only have to get :
...
2. 5 jump packs (for the Vanguard Vets), again from bitz sites... Maybe 10$ for them, too...

Vanguards Veterans have Jump Packs straight out of the box.

Kosta wrote:

Yggdrasil wrote:Yes, it would be great, you'd only have to get :
...
2. 5 jump packs (for the Vanguard Vets), again from bitz sites... Maybe 10$ for them, too...

Vanguards Veterans have Jump Packs straight out of the box.

For vv buy ordinary assault marines and model/paint them differently. The metal/finecasts are not equiped very efficiently: 2 plasmas & 2power swords and a relic blade. You'll want to take power fist and/or lightning claws.

Kosta wrote:

Yggdrasil wrote:Yes, it would be great, you'd only have to get :
...
2. 5 jump packs (for the Vanguard Vets), again from bitz sites... Maybe 10$ for them, too...

Vanguards Veterans have Jump Packs straight out of the box.

Whoops, I must've been thinking of the old veterans, that came in blisters, who were equipped with ccw but had no jump packs...

All the better, then !

I ordered the Battle force today. That way I can start putting them together.

I was reading some fluff and found the picture of the Angels Encarmine and fell in love w/ the white armor. I am leaning towards trying to do an Encarmine force but don't know.

White Armour is only for the Death Company in the Angels Encarmine, IIRC... Or is it for the Sanguinary Guard ?

Also bear in mind that white is a really hard colour to paint, hard to darken, hard to highlight...

The battle force is pretty good for a beginner like myself, I am also starting the BA. Keep us up to date in what list you choose.

I have had alot of poeple telling me that alot of tanks is alway good with BA.

Yggdrasil wrote:White Armour is only for the Death Company in the Angels Encarmine, IIRC... Or is it for the Sanguinary Guard ?

Also bear in mind that white is a relly hard colour to paint, hard to darken, hard to highlight...

Death Company and Sanguinary Guard from what I've seen. I'll just have to see how things go when I start painting...

What paints are you using? Blood red?

I don't know what paints I will be using. I will let you know when I figure it out.

Ok cool well also let me know when you have painted them and post some pictures so I can see because I am going to soon start Blood Angels.

Jedend1 wrote:Ok cool well also let me know when you have painted them and post some pictures so I can see because I am going to soon start Blood Angels.

This is my mentor in the game and my teacher as far as modeling and painting. You can see some of his work on his profile.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/user/profile/36667.page

Oh cool, my mentor for the game is RaptorsTallon, he has a space Marine army and has started Imperial Guards. He is very experienced so I think he will be better for me as I am a begginer.

So I have the battle force and I think I am picking up a Librarian w/ Termi armor from a friend. I played my first game of kill team but lost against Orks. It was fun and I can't wait to play more.


Edit: I am thinking of doing a DOA list but need help from my buddies for equipping weapons. I don't know what weapons to run w/...

funkyh wrote:So I have the battle force and I think I am picking up a Librarian w/ Termi armor from a friend. I played my first game of kill team but lost against Orks. It was fun and I can't wait to play more.


Edit: I am thinking of doing a DOA list but need help from my buddies for equipping weapons. I don't know what weapons to run w/...

Awsome! Orks can be hard at times to play against but i'm sure the more games you play the better you will get, therefore beating them bloody orks!