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Hey everyone, I'm sorry if I'm not doing this correctly but I'm a new player and was wondering as to how Blood Angels work. I was deciding on either going all aasault marines with jump packs and Mephiston as the HQ or 2 troops of assault marines in razorbacks with a librarian as a HQ. I've been told to not go the mech route because it undsrperforms at the 500 point level (which is what my first tournament will be). So if I decided to go my infantry list would I use Descent of Angels? And could someone explain why that is so good and how it exactly works? Thanks in advance!

Descent of Angels is good but I'm not sure a list that small would survive the shooting afterwards, perhaps especially Mephiston if the other player is smart about his shooting. That being said, if you are playing 500 pts, lol, Mephiston could potentially do all the work for you.

It'd probably be safest to go with cheap mechs, smoke rounds for the cover save and go 18 inches, and drop them to assault the next turn for a charge

In small pt games, you need numbers. I'd consider Assault Marines. The standard loadout is as follows: 10 AM w/ pf, 2x melta.

doa means that you start your jump pack infantry in reserve, and only might arrive turn 2; statistically the chance of arrival is 75% (4+ with reoll).

there is two problem presented to your low pt games.

firstly meph is not jump infantry therefore he have to walk, either start on the board at set up (which will be shot at) or come in from reserve starting from turn 2 (since he is starting from the board there is no reroll, i.e. meph only have 50% chance coming in).

secondly if any of the jump infantry unit missed to come in you are decenting in piece meal. your opponent will have enough time to shoot at your unit.

higher point games tend to help somewhat because the chances even out and your proportion of unit coming down will round up to the probability that implied, i.e. more likely to converge to 75%.

I think the likelihood is that meph will be walking / flying most of the turn trying to get to your opponent, and if you opponent runs gun line then it will be trouble for you.

Mephy at 500 points is ditry!! There isn't much that can stand against him at that level.

It is hard to do a good Mech at 500.

You can use decent of angels if you want, but that means Mephiston will be all alone till your 2nd turn. How it works is you get to re-roll for reserves and you only have to roll 1 dice for scatter

At 500pts Mephiston can be by himself for 7 turns and be ok. What can others take at that level to kill him in 1-2 turns? Grey Knights maybe.

It'd be irresponsible to take Mephiston by himself though, even with his 6 wounds. He's not a scoring unit, first and foremost, so that's half your points wasted if it's Capture + Control or Seize Ground

Thanks everyone for the input! I think that I'm going to do the jump pack list. Also what does everyone think about Asorath the Grim instead of Mephiston? And how good it rolling into ted Red Thirst? Sorry if these are "noobish" questions. I just started learning two weeks ago.

try the following:

BA 500 pt

libby epistoary jp (rage, sword) 175
assault 5 men, power sword, melta 125
assault 5 men, power sword, melta 125
priest jp 75

total : 500 pt

or you can do this for close combat:

libby epistoary jp (rage, sword) 175
assault 5 men, power sword, storm shield 135
assault 5 men, power sword, 115
priest jp 75

total : 500 pt

I'd use either of those, leaning more towards the topmost one.

Epistolary is never good enough. For libby Rage and shiled works good. Sheld in the enemy turn and Rage or FW on your own turn.

Vasara wrote:Epistolary is never good enough. For libby Rage and shiled works good. Sheld in the enemy turn and Rage or FW on your own turn.

QFT

At 500 that Epostolary is 10% of your total points cost, something which IMO can be better spent, like PF in the assault squads

Definitely downgrade the librarian, and swap the power weapons for fists. Then spend the last 20 points on a power weapon and meltabombs for the priest.

That should be plenty of killing and durability for 500.

DaddyWarcrimes wrote:Definitely downgrade the librarian, and swap the power weapons for fists. Then spend the last 20 points on a power weapon and meltabombs for the priest.

That should be plenty of killing and durability for 500.

QFT

With regards to the question of whether Astorath is better than Mephiston, Mephiston is superior to Astorath. Either may be too much of a points sink at 500 points. In an objective game, you would either have to sell out to tabling your opponent or send Mephiston in for the attack and keep your assault marines for objectives.

Above all, I would say you must make the decision. If you want to run Mephiston, DO IT!

Without any personal experience, I suspect Mephiston is great at 500 points. You will still have 2 Troops choices (5 man Assault Squads) to claim objectives, and Mephiston has a good chance to simply kill everything.

The usual concerns where he gets shot up if he's unsupported don't seem valid to me at 500. He moves 15.5" a turn normally, and has a charge threat range from 19" to 24". Very few 500 point armies can shoot him enough with AP1-2 weapons in the few turns available to kill him. It may not be nice to take him, but it should be effective.