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I'm an EXTREMELY new tabletop AND 40k player. I know SOME of the basic terms involved in the game and I have an IDEA a very very rough idea of the army I would like to run and you guys will have to forgive if it's the worst thing ever XD so I guess I'm asking for advice tips tricks whatever info you guys are willing to give on the list! Also, I'm not sure about loadouts for ANY of the units =/ so bear with me and I hope to learn in time!

1 Storm Raven gunship
2 baal predators
2 Blood angel battle forces which have 2 rhinos 2 tac squads 2 assault squads and 2 Death company squads
1 furioso/dc/librarian dreadnought
-Some form of HQ I was leaning toward Sanguinor with the sanguinary guard but I guess this is a poor choice now?
And I don't really know where to build from there I was guessing this was around 2100 points but I don't know how well this would work I don't know what I need to fill the army in and kind of...keep everything together I was looking at a sanguinary priest earlier just..I dunno lol! I guess the main theme is....HELP! XD

My opinion:

HQ = Mephiston. I consider him to be the most disgustingly overpowered model in 40k. He's expensive, but easily worth it.

And since you already are halfway there, I would mech up: Break your squads down into 5-man groups and take as many dedicated transports as you can: a good mix of Rhinos and Razorbacks will work. 1x Stormraven, 2x Rhinos, 2x Razorbacks and 2x Baal Predators can be quite nasty. Fill the Stormraven with Death Company and turn them loose along with your Furioso Dreadnought. But they aren't scoring units, so park your tactical squads in the Rhinos and your assault marines in the Razorbacks. And for the groups in the Rhinos, make sure you give them melta guns. Then just let the transports sit on objectives, while Death Company wrecks your opponent's day.

So you think I'm heading in the right direction though? Not like bad with having the death company out there? And mephiston is something I've been mulling every bat rep I watch he just goes BONKERS on the table, would you include any of the sanguinary priests or any more DC than I have or more assault or am I sitting pretty with shooting? lol thanks for the reply though man ANYTHING helps and makes me feel better about this XD


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Also, how are the DC received and I guess I need to question how worth the sanguinor and the sanguinary guard are as well because I looked long and hard into them but after reading up a bit everyone kind of feels as if they're all a little bleh and would rather have termies and a land raider =/

Well, BA make use of jump infantry, so you might want to get more assault squads or Sanguinary Guard. If you are going for the Sanguinary Guard, include Commander Dante in your force, since he can make them troops choices instead of elites, or something like that.

Death Company Squads are only average at best, so you will be better off with either ordinary Assault Marines or Sanguinary Guard. Also, you should get drop pods for your Tactical Squads. That is both fluffy and super efficient when you can deep strike in the middle of the enemy or to counter-assault with them.

Other than that, you have a great start. Even though it is fragile, the Stormraven can be devastating if equipped properly (hurricane bolters and such) Baal Preds are very good against infantry and light vehicles, so you will succeed with them for sure. Furioso Dreadnought is the best of the three, so if you haven't already done so, you should build that one.

Since they are mostly CC oriented, I would suggest getting Drop Pods instead of Razorbacks or Rhinos, unlike azazel suggested. Most armies cannot stand a huge deep strike followed by tough close-combat units. Even the pods themselves can do some harm to the enemy, when they crash land on their heads and start firing their own weapons, supporting the disembarking squads.

Let me ask this, could I make DC into assault squads or is it worth having a couple DC around and what kind of dreadnought would build like furioso or dc or librarion? and I was thinking hurricane for SURE on the storm raven so can I use mephiston and dante in the same army or can you only have 1 HQ choice? and how good are razorback are they better than a rhino like offensively?

Yeah, you're on the right track.

And Death Company is far better than average. Their only real flaw is that they're not scoring troops in objective games. But as far as assault units go, Death Company is up there at the top. Just keep in mind that they're not scoring troops, so you may not want to take too many of them.

I only have 2 squads atm is that a decent amount? Seeing what I have here what would you guys use as a weapon loudout like power weapons or launchers or what would benefit most assault troops?

I've been running a list like this lately:

Jump Librarian
Furioso
Priest

3x 10 man assault squads

2 Baals
2 Vindicators
Stormraven


Its a fun list. I wouldn't want to run any less than 30 jump marines though. It feels like the bare minimum required. They are QUITE effective though.. kitted with 2 meltas each, and either a thunderhammer, power sword, or power fist. 1 priest seems to be enough to cover 30 marines (mostly) for when it really matters.

The dread rides by himself in the stormraven. Its cheap, and rather effective at hand to hand.

Placed 2nd in a tournament today with it

I'm going to be pretty limited on my assault marines I'm afraid I may get another 10 man squad and I'll have 20 plus 10 DC what kinda kit do you run on your furioso? And do you have like an average per squad for a weapons loadout?

I run my furioso with blood talons. His main function is to tackle things my regular marines can't deal with in hand to hand, and I either can't shoot to death with my baals, or are too durable to be shot down by baals.

For example, he would go after a squad of Ork Boyz, or a squad of death cult assassins (if my baals for some reason can't draw line of sight or are dead), or space wolf squads, or assault terminator squads (ones that have a few lightning claw guys mixed in anyway).

Death company are sadly useless IMO, unless you pack em into a stormraven or land raider. If you wanna use em, take 10 in your stormraven with like 2 thunderhammers, and point em towards the enemy.

I saw with their rage ability they have to assault the nearest unit on the table what if they're across the entire board from something like that? And also could I paint my DC to be normal assault units, is there a way to paint them assault color I suppose without the wounds of sanguinius being in the way? And just normal furioso then with the red color pattern?

Death Company's position on the battlefield doesn't matter; they have to assault the nearest enemy that they can see from wherever they are. So you always want them to be in a transport, because that way you can control where you drop them off, before they become mindless killing machines.

See, here is your crossroads: you can either mech up and break up your marines into smaller 5-man squads and put each squad inside a transport, or else you can use them all as jump infantry. The above list looks a lot like a jump infantry list, whereas the suggestions I have made have all been towards mech.

I would suggest that you take a loot in the Army Lists section of Dakka, and maybe even the Battle Reports as well. That'll give you a good sense of what and how other people use Blood Angels. I would recommend finding a list that includes all or most of what you've already got, just so that you can keep your price down for any additional models that you need to pick up.

However, the one thing I'm sure I can offer you is this: Mephiston. Unless you do decide to go the Sanguinary Guard route, take Mephiston. (And even if you do take the Sanguinary Guard, if you can afford the points cost of both HQs, take Mephiston) He really is a beast. Every single turn you can use 3 psychic powers: one that lets him fly, one that increases his strength to 10, and one that let's him re-roll misses in close combat. He's got 5 wounds, a 2+ armour save, gets 4 attacks normally and strikes at Initiative 7. I forget his toughness, but I think it's a 6 or 7. SO long story short: he's nearly impossible to bring down without a lot of anti-tank guns targeting only him. And he's the size of a space marine, so it's very easy to get cover saves. He really is the most over-powered model in 40k.

Do not use tactical marines. Blood Angels cannot use them effectivly. Why use them when you have assault marines.

Well, here's my thing how can I get my tac marines to BE assault marines I mean the things I bought come with tac marines can I buy just the bitz or something somewhere that isn't going to cost me an arm and a leg?


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I'm trying to figure out a way to change out these guys lol and how does sanguinor do for these guys? Does he give them extra attacks if I read that right still trying to decide if I wanna go the dante with sanguinary squad route or just termies =/ sooo lost on all this and what would you guys add in some razorbacks and what is the difference in a rhino and a razor back just weaponry?

The only difference is that an assault squad will all have a CC weapon and a pistol, usually. That way they get the extra attack from the second weapon. If you haven't built your troops yet, then yes, eBay will have bits for very cheap. This is quite possible the least expensive 40k endeavour you can take.

So do assault marine bits? I mean I'll have right at 40 assault troops that way and the sanguinor doesn't do mouch then?


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I guess to further that what would I need to make them assault just the jump pack? Lol sorry for all the noob questions guys but I'm getting my refined idea now. It's just an HQ choice a paint scheme and figuring out the transport and cheaper way to get the assault marines XD

Alot of people will say to, but dont use Mephiston. He is not as disgustingly OP as people seem to think. 1 devastator squad is all it takes to drop him like a fly.

I was gonna do sanguinor sanguinary guard because they LOOK like they're supposed to go together but I keep seeing that they don't and sanguinor's awful yada yada but then I heard dante with sanguinary guard and then sanguinor this and that but I have no idea man lol I'm sooo lost on the HQ choice

Here's Mephiston in a nutshell: if you keep him in cover, and then assault, he is every bit as good as he could be. If you let him wander out alone into the middle of an open field, then you deserve to lose your epic HQ.

Does sanguinor even compare to mephiston? I saw something that like sanguinor lets certain units he's with attack again or douylbe their attacks? and I'm going dante with sanguinary guard I think.

You might find the guide in my signature helpful.

As others have mentioned, Tactical Marines are bad choices in a BA army. You can use the models you have though, in several ways.

But first, if you haven't assembled them yet, leave them alone; don't assemble them. It will be much easier to convert them if you haven't glued them together.

Now, the goal is to turn those Tactical Marines into Assault Marines. If you are planning on running a mechanized army, the only thing you're missing is Bolt Pistol and Chainsword arms. If you want a Jump army, you'll need Jump Packs too, but you can buy them from GW online or from third party companies. You'll probably be placing an order at some point no matter what you do, because you'll probably need extra Meltaguns, and the cheapest way to get them is ordering them from GW.

Sadly, GW does not sell Bolt Pistol nor Chainsword arms. So, you'll have to either trade for them, buy them off players who have spares, or go with third parties. Luckily, it looks like the standard Space Wolf Grey Hunters box comes with both Bolter arms and BP+CS arms, so Space Wolf players might have plenty of spares. I also looked bitz up, and not to shill for any particular company, but you can get 5 BP and 5 CS arms from The War Store for about $9.

If you don't want to go this route, you can still make use of some of the Tac models. You will get 1 set of BP and CS arms, intended for use on the Sergeant, so that's 2 useful figures. In addition, you'll want to give 1 out of 5 Marines a two-handed special weapon, (usually a Meltagun), so you can use Tactical Marines for that. You might be able to use close to half of your Tactical Marines just in these two ways.

So the normal tac marines don't come with bolt pistol and chainsword? amg this is turning into an even more lengthy adventure I was trying to avoid the 33$ a pack for them >.> will my death company guys come with any extras? and I actually have a grey hunters box sitting around I've been playing with but I need TWENTY of them =/ but at this stage I need 20 chest 1$ a piece 20 jump packs 8 $ a piece and then the BP and chainswords =/


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I haven't put anything together yet so I have the ideas but I just wanna know I'm going to have the 30 marines before I move forward. I dunno if you've read the whole post to this post yet bt I have 2 battleforces coming 10 tac marines 5 assault sqaud and 5 DC a piece. I might make the death company int oassault marines? But I like the idea of using them for the homing beacon...

The DC box has 5 BP & CS arm pairs and 5 two-handed weapon arm pairs, so it doesn't have an extras unless you want to run the models as DC and give them Bolters, neither of which I'd recommend. What you get in the box is great for making Assault Marines, it adds variety to the models. I made the mistake of only buying Assault Marine boxes, I wish I'd bought a mix of DC and ASM boxes.

That said, I don't think it's that bleak. You'll have 20 Tactical Marines. You'll get 2 BP & CS arm pairs, and you can easily use 8 more of the models as your Meltagunners/Flamer carriers. You'll have 40 total Marines, and you always want to max out the special weapons, so that means you need 8 guys carrying two-handed weapons. For the remaining 10 Tacs, you can buy 10 BP&CS arm pairs for about $20 including shipping. If you want them to have Jump Packs, you'll need to shell out for 20 JPs too, which would run $32 from GW. So, you can convert 20 Tacs into Assault Marines for $52 if you want them with JPs, which is a lot better than $140 for 4 ASM boxes.

So, that pretty much makes everything in the Battleforce useful. The one exception is the Rhinos, which would be vastly better as Razorbacks. You can get the Razorback turret sprue from The Warstore for about $18, which is a total bummer as a Razorback kit normally costs only $2 more than a Rhino kit.

I know it's a lot to ask of you man because all of you have been a GIANT help but you would just get anough to make 10 assault maines with the chests and arms? cause the chest and jump packs are WAY cheaper than 9$ a piece but I see you have certain loudouts would you use DC? And like meltas with what kind of loadouts? for dc and the assaults I kinda understood that but then got confused >< sorry! but I'm starting to get it


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I guess what I mean to ask is, are you still using the tac marines? Or are you using the assault squad guys as melta and flamers?

If you're going BA and likely to try both jetpack and mech based lists, then get some small magnets. You can then magnetize the backpack and jetpack and can then switch between the two while you experiment. Buy the jetpack models as they have a more "dynamic" legpose for BA and then just pick up magnets and normal backpacks on ebay.

I suggest you use the DC as Assault Marines, so they would need BP and CS arms.

As for Tactical Marines, I'm suggesting you use 8 of them to carry special weapons , that is, Meltaguns and Flamers, in your Assault Squads. The others would need BP and CS arms. You get 1 pair per box, so you'd need to buy 10 pairs, which would cost about $20. You would then give all your Assault Marines BP and CS arms, except you should turn 4 models into Sergeants, who should have magnetized arms so you can take the various possible combinations of Chainswords, Bolt Pistols, Infernus Pistols, Power Fists and Power Weapons.

I'd also magnetize the special weapon guys. You should also magnetize backpacks so you can swap between JPs and regular backpacks.

as an addendum, magnetizing the weapons is all well and good, but consider that you only really need to magnetize maybe 4 special weapons guys, at most. I cannot think of a SINGLE situation where I'd want any more than 4 marines with flamers as opposed to melta guns, and I can imagine no situation where I'd want plasma guns.

Horst wrote:as an addendum, magnetizing the weapons is all well and good, but consider that you only really need to magnetize maybe 4 special weapons guys, at most. I cannot think of a SINGLE situation where I'd want any more than 4 marines with flamers as opposed to melta guns, and I can imagine no situation where I'd want plasma guns.

A decent point, but I would still advocate magnetizing all of them, simply because who the hell knows what 6th edition will bring? It's possible the default weapon will become Plasma, or even some other new crazy thing when a new BA codex eventually comes out. There's very little downside to magnetizing a model.

At this stage I'm looing at just bucking up and making the DC into assault marines and going with that and buying 10 more assault marines which would put me at thirty and then rounding out my list with a baal pred furioso and maybe a land raider? I would have to do the math money wise. =) I only have an allotted amount at this stage (full time student and all) and I just wanted to get the most competitiive army I could get for the money I had ya know? I have a bunch of forum posts up and I hate feeling like I'm being redundant =/ but I think I can just make most of my guys into assault marines and get away with it XD and then have the sanguinor and dante as HQ choices maybe mephiston instead of sanuinor? and then have 30 assault marines a furioso 2 baal preds a raven 2-3 rhinos and a tac squad or two? and then see how that goes? Maybe a land raider if money permits wouldn't mind a librarin a chaplain and a termie squad but that's all going to be in the future =D sorry my grammar btw, not much on punctuation =[