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Hi all! I recently started to wonder what are the similarities and strengths of the two codex's. like what are the independent character's strength, what builds are viable, so on and so forth.


Thanks!

Both armies cost about the same, but one army gets feel no pain on everything and all their vehicles upgraded to fast, meaning they can move and still shoot all their guns.

Not really seeing what there is to compare and contrast...Smurfs get a couple nice special characters that add some flavor, but BA get characters that actually kill stuff.

A few things that differentiate vanilla from blood:

Free TH/SS Terminators
Thunderfire Cannon
Shrike and Fleet
Vulkan and TL/MC
Pedro and scoring Sternguard

Did I miss anything?

Blood Angels, on the other hand, have:
Mephiston, a psyker that can also kill anything weaker than Draigo or an Avatar of Khaine in CC.
The Stormraven, a flyer that can transport dreadnoughts and troops at the same time.
Assault squads as troops, who have access to meltaguns in abundance.
Dreadnoughts that absolutely wreck hordes, and have potentially unlimited attacks if you're luck with the dice.
Preds in FA that can take Assault Cannons.
Fast Tanks for all but LR variants.
Land Raiders as dedicated transports for everything.


However, C:SM does have some nice ICs and good benefits, and can be used well, as acekevin8412 has already pointed out. These characters can really dictate your army and how it plays.

It all comes down to play style;

Smurfs can be almost anything -- mechanized, infantry heavy, shooty, semi-assaulty, but are slightly lacking in assault capability when compared to some other armies.

The BA translate best to assaulty jump pack armies, or mechanized infantry riding in razorbacks with predator support.

There are also other codices that you can use for marines, such as Black Templars, Dark Angels, and Space Wolves, who have their own special benefits and tactics, and can be played in various other ways. You should check them out too, if you already haven't.

So blood angels have some really neat toys, most with "blood" in it's name. I need to ask, are sternguard in storm ravens viable? or just a sternguard list?

And what are the strengths in black templars and Dark angels?

I don't see why'd you want to put Sternguard in a raven. The main thing about the raven, in my opinion, is that it's a fast skimmer assault vehicle. So stick a Terminator Assault Squad in or something.

If you're using Sternguard, I'd use a Crimson Fists list and put them in drop pods with combi-weapons.

Tiger9gamer wrote:So blood angels have some really neat toys, most with "blood" in it's name. I need to ask, are sternguard in storm ravens viable? or just a sternguard list?

And what are the strengths in black templars and Dark angels?

Don't put sternguard in a Storm Raven. They're basically weak Land Raiders, and Sternguard are a shooting unit. Pod them or deploy them.
Also Blood Angels have universal FNP and FC, for all infantry, including ICs, termies, veterans, etc.

Also Blood Angels have universal FNP and FC, for all infantry, including ICs, termies, veterans, etc.

No they don't.

They can purchase Sanguinary Priests, which provide a 6' bubble for FNP and FC. It's not "Universal" at all.

Space Marines are good.

Blood Angels are great.

That is pretty much all you gotta know if you are assessing the power of the books; most C:SM armies would work better with minor tweaks and played in C:BA. Hell, even C:BA Devastators are better than C:SM. With that said, C:SM is like Coca-Cola Classic: newer and flashier versions frequently surface but there is nothing quite like the classic.

SonicPara wrote:Space Marines are good.

Blood Angels are great.

That is pretty much all you gotta know if you are assessing the power of the books; most C:SM armies would work better with minor tweaks and played in C:BA. Hell, even C:BA Devastators are better than C:SM. With that said, C:SM is like Coca-Cola Classic: newer and flashier versions frequently surface but there is nothing quite like the classic.

Well said.

I still think that C:SM got gyped on pricing for everything except Assault Terminators.

Blood Angels are the top tier version of the Codex Marines list.

Basically if you like marines and you want the top tables, you take Blood Angels.

That said they even do a pretty acceptable codex list, especially if you throw in Tycho. (note, a fun list, not a highly competitive list)

acekevin8412 wrote:A few things that differentiate vanilla from blood:

Free TH/SS Terminators
Thunderfire Cannon
Shrike and Fleet
Vulkan and TL/MC
Pedro and scoring Sternguard

Did I miss anything?

* Land Speeder Storms
* Ironclad dreads
* Bike armies

BA also have a number of advantages that C:SM do not have.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

acekevin8412 wrote:I don't see why'd you want to put Sternguard in a raven. The main thing about the raven, in my opinion, is that it's a fast skimmer assault vehicle. So stick a Terminator Assault Squad in or something.

If you're using Sternguard, I'd use a Crimson Fists list and put them in drop pods with combi-weapons.

Ravens also can pack quite a punch as well. Their bloodstrike missiles are extremely powerful, and a STR 8 AP1 weapon is better than a LC vs armor 12 and below (due to the +1 on the damage chart)

Combined with PotMS and the ability to transport units, I find the BA stormraven to be one of the better units in the game.

BA are much scarier.

Allright thanks for all the posts! I was tempted to make a sternguard list but thunder hammer terminators with a sanguinary priest just seems mean

Tiger9gamer wrote:And what are the strengths in Black Templars and Dark angels?

Dark Angels - Termies as Troops, and Mixed Termies (Heavy Weapons + SS/LC). Supposedly good Fast Attack, but IDK about that part of their codex.

Black Templars - EC can base to base IC in melee, Vows that effect the whole army (best one giving preferred enemy), dual heavy weapons on Termies, Cheap Typhoon Speeders.

Both are old, and fairly outdated as far as true competitiveness goes.

Farseer Mael Dannan wrote:

Tiger9gamer wrote:And what are the strengths in Black Templars and Dark angels?

Dark Angels - Termies as Troops, and Mixed Termies (Heavy Weapons + SS/LC). Supposedly good Fast Attack, but IDK about that part of their codex.

Black Templars - EC can base to base IC in melee, Vows that effect the whole army (best one giving preferred enemy), dual heavy weapons on Termies, Cheap Typhoon Speeders.

Both are old, and fairly outdated as far as true competitiveness goes.

Dark Angels get cheaper Typhoons and Dakka Preds I think. Their bikes can get double special weapons pretty easily and are fearless, you can make them troops as well. The main thing is that their Tacticals and other basic units are more expensive/have less options which tend to mean that people only use the DA codex to run Terminator or possible Bike lists.

Templars have a bunch of weird upgrades that other armies can't get. They can buy PoTMS for any of their vehicles, including Vindicators. They can also make vehicles (in practice just Land Raiders) ignore the Lance and Melta rules, similar to the way the old Monolith used to work, which makes them a real pain to kill unless you have Railguns.

Powerguy wrote:
Templars have a bunch of weird upgrades that other armies can't get. They can buy PoTMS for any of their vehicles, including Vindicators. They can also make vehicles (in practice just Land Raiders) ignore the Lance and Melta rules, similar to the way the old Monolith used to work, which makes them a real pain to kill unless you have Railguns.

Blessed Hull may only be taken by LRCs and only ignores Lance, not melta. Melta-immunity would be sick.

acekevin8412 wrote:I don't see why'd you want to put Sternguard in a raven. The main thing about the raven, in my opinion, is that it's a fast skimmer assault vehicle. So stick a Terminator Assault Squad in or something.

If I don't tool our my Honour Guard with melta and give them power weapons/fists and SS I like to put them with my Epistolary and just send them 24" across the board, flat out. With any luck the thing doesn't get shot down, the squad disembarks and they have a big bad stormraven providing fire support while they wreck face. Too much fun but I try to make sure there's another stormraven to ensure that with another powerful squad in tow, then there is more than one target at least

Point is, Sternguard are best used as an orbital melta-bombing - put 'em in a drop pod and unleash ~5 combi-melta shots on a single target. Why spend an additional 200pts to give them a moving transport that gets them to their destination slower? You could make the same argument about Honour Guard tooled with melta weapons.

Sasori wrote:

Also Blood Angels have universal FNP and FC, for all infantry, including ICs, termies, veterans, etc.

No they don't.

They can purchase Sanguinary Priests, which provide a 6' bubble for FNP and FC. It's not "Universal" at all.

Yeah the same way blobs don't have universal stubborn.

Joey wrote:

Sasori wrote:

Also Blood Angels have universal FNP and FC, for all infantry, including ICs, termies, veterans, etc.

No they don't.

They can purchase Sanguinary Priests, which provide a 6' bubble for FNP and FC. It's not "Universal" at all.

Yeah the same way blobs don't have universal stubborn.

That's not quite fair. Its easier to get at the sanguinary priest, he can be singled out in combat, and weight of fire can put wounds on him (whereas you need CRAZY weight of fire to put wounds on the commies in a blob).