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I'm starting to look into running a Blood Angels codex, and I'm wondering what I should and shouldn't use. Anything I should start with?

I'll probably be going with a mostly generic list, some tacticals, some Assault squads, a few scouts, and a few tanks, but I want to be somewhat competitive.

Sorry, you said Competitive, and followed that with scouts. (I jest...)

If your doing tanks, then Assault squads should be your bread and butter. You get razorbacks with your choice of weapon for a HUGE discount. For tanks, you should go for Baals and Vindicators, although I have heard good things about both the Gunship and the Predator. (Planning to pick up the Stormraven because of the shock value it can bring).

Tac squads are not very good, as BA are a fast, assault based army. I like running them, but you will want more assault squads then tac squads.

Oddly, the BA battleforce is good if you have some marine bits around, as you could make a razorback out of the rhino, get 2 assault squads with or without Jump Packs and a Tac squad loaded out to whatever you need.

Well, if you're going with a generic list, definitely make sure to take advantage of BA's fast vehicles.

If you want to spice the list up a bit, I really like the Furioso Dreadnought with blood talons . Get him into close combat and he'll rip through almost anything.

Troops:
Buy some boxes of assault marines and Death company and some magnets and meltas. Then make pretty assault marines with removable jump packs. 5DC+5AM=10 pretty AM.

You then have 5 in razorback maybe with some weapons.
Or 10 with jump packs and say 2 meltas and a powerfist.

You can use tactical squads and scouts but you will be looked down upon.
melta, combimelta, meltabombs, ML with a rhino fits well with razorbacks.
One squad with flamer+ML fits well with jump packs if you use dev. squads as well.

Later try using the death company.

HQ:
You want Librarian for a HQ with or without jump packs
Buy the special characters a bit later most are awesome.

You'll want Honour guard with 4 plasmas or 4 meltas and 4 flamers with jump packs.

That will give you a start to play your first few battles. In general you have jump pack list or a mech list, it is hard to mix the two. If you use magnets you can change between the two easily.

I already have a full 2500 points of Vanilla Marines, just switching codices because it fits my chapter's fluff better.

Can you post which models you have?

Seriously people say you can not use tactical squads with BA. You can it is just a little different with expensive rhinos. Scouts are the same apart from the wonderful Telion is absent.

List the heavy weapons, as well the special weapons as these can be made into parts of assault squads and new dev. squads.

If you want to be competitive, the number one thing you need to do is pick a coherent theme and make sure every last model in the army supports it. Basically you should do the exact opposite of what GW does in their sample lists, which is taking a little bit of everything.

So, one critical thing to know is that the optimal number of vehicles in a list is either 0 or "as many as you can jam into it". You should plan to either abuse the hell out of our ability to take cheap Razorbacks (in which case you should plan to acquire a bunch of Plasmaguns, as Las/Plas is the best Razorback variant) or to take an army with no vehicles and where everything has a Jump Pack.

If you plan to convert the Marines you already have, start acquiring Chainsword and Bolt Pistol arms. Leave the guys with Meltaguns and Flamers alone, though. It's always better to take two-handed special weapons when you can instead of special Pistols. Giving Assault Squads Infernus or Plasma Pistols instead of Meltaguns or Flamers is a common rookie mistake.

For starters you want to start like I just did,

1 HQ of your choice

2 tactical squads

Then its up to you

Radar159 wrote:For starters you want to start like I just did,

1 HQ of your choice

2 tactical squads

Then its up to you

Yes, it is also a good idea to follow the force org. chart.

Basically, what I've learned from this thread, is that if you want to be competitive with BA, you need to follow the rules.

KilroyKiljoy wrote:Basically, what I've learned from this thread, is that if you want to be competitive with BA, you need to follow the rules.

And not take Scouts!

Models at my disposal

Captain with Power Sword/Combi Flamer
Chaplain with Jump Pack, Crozius, Bolt Pistol
Chaplain with Terminator Armor and Storm Bolter
Librarian with Force Weapon(missing his left arm)

Techmarine with Bolt Pistol, Power Sword, and Servo Arm(He's my good luck charm)
9 Tactical Terminators, 2 with Chainfists. No heavy weapons.
3 Assault Terminators with Lightning Claws
1 Dreadnought with Assault Cannon and Power Fist/Heavy Flamer
1 Dreadnought with Multi Melta and Missile Launcher

Sixteen Tactical Marines with Bolters
Two with Flamers
Two with Missile Launchers
One with Plasma
Two Sergeants with Plasma Pistols

Seven Assault Marines with Bolt Pistol and Chainsword
Two with Plasma Pistols
One with Plasma Pistol/Power Sword(Sarge)

Ten Scouts, all with Combat Blades and Bolt Pistols

One Predator with either Autocannon or TL Las, HB or Las(Magnets, how do they work?)
One Razorback with either HB or Las
One Rhino
One Whirlwind

One Apothecary
One Standard Bearer with Plasma Pistol
One Company Champion with Combat Shield and Power Sword
One Veteran with Power Fist and Meltabombs

Competetive? Where do you want to head? 8 Lascannon/twin linked plasmagun Razorbacks, 60 Assault marines? 6 predators? Or something else?

First off you will have to pick a theme/army type.

Descent of Angel; Aka jetpack assault marine spam, usually has Dante and some Sang guard, some sang priests and maybe a drop-podding dread or missile devastators. Your models cannot support this list.
Mech Spam; Razorbacks, predators, dreads, vindicators...etc. Couple of sang priests in the razors with assault marines w/o jetpacks, led by a librarian. Basically a heavy shooting army with some combat teeth. You cannot support this army, not enough vehicles.
AV13 Wall; Baal and normal preds as far as the eye can see. You cannot support this list.

All that leaves you is the not very impressive "mis-mash" list. I'm in a similar boat. I have a 3000ish point vanilla marine army I'm converting over to a BA force, but contrary to what you might think, there is not a ton of over-lap between Vanilla and BA effective units.

Was this a fourth edition marine army? Cause plasma sucks now, FAR too overpriced. Feels very battle-force-ish.

Your Friend Doctor Robert wrote:Models at my disposal

Captain with Power Sword/Combi Flamer
Chaplain with Jump Pack, Crozius, Bolt Pistol
Chaplain with Terminator Armor and Storm Bolter
Librarian with Force Weapon(missing his left arm)

Captain is junk, doubly so for BA
Chaplains; are second rate to...
Librarians; rock, and this will have to be your commander. Jetpack if you decide on DoA. In a razor if you go mech or AV13 spam.

Techmarine with Bolt Pistol, Power Sword, and Servo Arm(He's my good luck charm)
9 Tactical Terminators, 2 with Chainfists. No heavy weapons.
3 Assault Terminators with Lightning Claws

Can't fill out an assault squad, and no LR or SR to deploy them make them unimpressive. Tactical termies suck even in this book especially w/o cyclone to give them some teeth.
Techmarines ALWAYS suck.

1 Dreadnought with Assault Cannon and Power Fist/Heavy Flamer
1 Dreadnought with Multi Melta and Missile Launcher

Dreads are heavy support for BA, so remember that. Ass cannon and hvy flamer isn't too bad, but I question the MM/ML dread.

Sixteen Tactical Marines with Bolters
Two with Flamers
Two with Missile Launchers
One with Plasma
Two Sergeants with Plasma Pistols

BA really should not be using Tactical marines....ever. Some of these models are at least usable at least.

Seven Assault Marines with Bolt Pistol and Chainsword
Two with Plasma Pistols
One with Plasma Pistol/Power Sword(Sarge)

Meh. Plasma pistols need to be swapped for melta-guns or inferno pistols. Serg needs to lose his power sword for a fist probably.

Ten Scouts, all with Combat Blades and Bolt Pistols

No point to these really, too slow on foot.

One Predator with either Autocannon or TL Las, HB or Las(Magnets, how do they work?)
One Razorback with either HB or Las
One Rhino
One Whirlwind

Whirlwinds stink, but at least we have some armor here.

One Apothecary
One Standard Bearer with Plasma Pistol
One Company Champion with Combat Shield and Power Sword
One Veteran with Power Fist and Meltabombs

Interesting. Apothecary will be used for sure, the rest is mostly junk, but I'll see what I can do.

Now for a mish-mash list with what you have available.

~100 Librarian, no toys, 2 powers of your choice. I'd suggest Shield and Rage, or Shield and Lance
~250 Honor Guard, jam as many melta or flamers as you have in this squad, your apothecary and throw them in your TL-LC razor back.
~250 10 Assualt marines, 2 inferno pistols, sergeant with inferno pistol and powersword. Inferno pistols are over priced and should be melta-guns really.
~240 10 Tactical marines, plasma-gun, missile launcher, combi-weapon on the sergeant (easy to convert one), rhino. Crap choice for BA and should be replaced with more ASM ASAP.
~135 AC/LC Predator
~110 MM/ML Dread
~125 Asscan/Hvy flamer dread

That's...as far as i can go without getting into third rate choices. You could round out a 1500 point list with 6 shooty terminators with a cyclone missile launcher and a few other toys here and there I suppose, but this will not be a first rate army by any stretch. I'd give it like a 4 outa 10 in terms of competitiveness. Better then a crap battleforce list, but not by much.