Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi guys,
I'm an avid collector/player of the blood angels and i'm going to be entering a tournament soon and i'm appalling at writing army lists, it's not that i don't know how to write them at all, its just that I don't really know how to put it all together and make a strong, unified force, i usually just chuck squads in for the heck of it when i play friendly games but i've never really written an army list with any true potential.
so in short, could you guys help me with writing a good, competitive, army list.

the models I have atm are...

Dante,
Gabriel,
Astorath,
Mephiston,
a terminator librarian with a stormbolter,
a librarian with a jp and pp,
a librarian with a jp and sb,
2x reclusiarch with combi plasma,
a captain with 2 pf and a sb,
5 honor guard (two pw, pw and bolter, chapter banner, noviate and blood champion)
10 sanguinary guardians (6 regulars,2 pf and inf, pf and pp, chapter banner)
5 assault termies (3 th, 2 lc)
15 termies (3 sarge's,1 ac, 2 cf, rest regular)
3 priests, 2 with jp, 1 with pw)
70 tactical marines (i used to collect sm)(2 lc, 2 hb, 2,pc,3 missiles, 1 mm, 2 flamers, 2 meltas, 2, plas, 6 sarge's with ccm and sb, 1 with pa and pp)
19 death company + lemartes( 2 fists, 2 th, 5 pw, 1 pa, 2 inf pistols, 2 p/pistols.)
5 scouts with snipers (1 missile)
20 assault marines, (3 inf pistols, 1 pp, 2 sarge's, th and hand flamer, pf and hand flamer)
2 rhinos/razorbacks
drop pod with missiles,
land raider
3 land speeders (2 hb and a mm)
3 dreadnoughts (mm, lc, ac)
stormraven (hurricanes)

(If you are stilll here, thanks for just reading all of that )

Come on, are there seriously no blood angels players on this website

Sounds like you suffer from the same problem I used to have. I own too many damn blood angels. Couple that with having last heavily played in 2nd, and tried but hated 4th, playing like 5 games in 5th. Needless to say it was hard for me to throw together a cohesive list. My play style is kind of opposite to BA all out assault.

Check out my army list link:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/480366.page

You can see although your collection is a little larger than mine we own a lot of the same models. I had also really gotten into Guard. I like shooting things before they even get close to me. So it was only natural for me to be able to build my "firebase": cheap 5 man dev squads(2). plasma tac squad, aegis with quad gun and an apothecary as a babysitter. Then i fleshed out my assault part of the list and an HQ to match.

The real question is how do you want to play your angels ? aggressively? half defensive and half offensive ? I think what you need to do is focus on a couple key factors:
1 - your play style
2 - Scoring units, you need them, you need to have redundancy here
3 - picking units that have synergy in enough numbers to be useful (one dread will get picked off, having 3 come in on drop pods might be overwhelming)

I have two main groups in my list, defensive block, and offensive guys that drop in, or can be placed and retain their movement.

As a BA player I shouldnt have to tell you that you SHOULD use your Assault troopers. Sanguinary priests are awesome. Our rhino chassis and varients are FAST, meaning you can move that vindicator or predator 12 and still shoot all your weapons. And my last and personal thought is this: rhinos / razorbacks die too easily and are not worth it.

Let me know if you have any more specific questions.

I normally have a tactical and/or devastator squad with a vehicle shooting them apart from a distance while i deep strike all my assault troops down to hit them in the rear.

one army list was vaguely;

reclusiarch,
3 sang priests,
20 assault marines,
10 tacs,
10 devo's
2 rhinos
and a stormraven

I like the idea of a storm raven (I own one) I just think its a points sink and your list seems to lack focus. If your shooty units are getting blasted apart you want to get an aegis line, maybe with a quad gun. How are you fitting your assault, Tac and dev guys?

Either base or plasma for the tac,
2 lascannons and two heavy bolters on the devastators
2 infernus on the assault
stormy, base with hurricanes
tac & dev sarges, chainsword and storm bolters

I have been trolling here for quite a bit, reading forums and Army Lists. There are a ton of what seem to be pretty similar lists if you scroll down a page or two. They seem to all start like this:

Librarian, Upgraded to Epistolary w/Jump Pack

A couple squads of Assault Marines, 10 man with Jump Pack, MM x2 and PF
Substitute Flamers and a Power Weapon if you are fighting hordes.

You want a sanguinary priest attached to each Squad, add a Jump Pack to give the Assault Marines Feel no Pain and Furious Charge.

That's about 7 or 800 points, with an HQ, two troops and an elite slot. It looks like a solid start to any Blood Angels force. Depending on how many points you are going to build to you have a good ammount of options..

That is what I have learned since I picked up my Blood Angels, and I hope it helps you out a bit.

Thanks for the advice, its the stuff that comes after that that i'm confused about though, like the fast attack and heavy support, the optional stuff.

The points level for the tournament?

Between 1,000 and 2,000 probably 2,000

There is a big difference between 1k and 2k, and it would be really useful for list building purposes to have a points limit to work towards.

okay, 2,000 points

OK, are you willing to proxy wargear/are you allowed? Or is there any flexibility on the war gear your units have? Then I'll have a go at writing a perfectly serviceable list. It might not be a GT winning list, as I don't play on the tournament scene, but it will be a list capable of winning.

yes, they dont mind subtle proxys, like you cant say "this rhino is a stormraven" but im sure that wargear proxys will be allowed.

Lib - Epistolary JP and PP 190

2 x Sanguinary Priests 2 x Jp with PW's 180
5 man Sternguard - combi plasmas (proxy from tact squads) - 150 Drop pod 35 points.

10 x Assault marines Melta x 2 PF Sgt 235
10 x Assault marines Melta x 2 PW Sgt 225
5 scouts camo cloaks missile launcher 100


3 land speeders (2 hb and a mm) 160

Stormraven - TlLc. TlMM 200


1475

Thats an almost finished list, what I would do to finish it would either add in some Tact marines with the Rhino's/ Razorbacks, or Use them to make up some Devastator squads. For Dev squads I like to run them in squads of 5 with 4 missile launchers, however with the new allocation and overwatch adding 5 bolters into the squads can be useful, plus it gives you the option to combat squad.

What do you think of this?

Lib - Epistolary JP and PP 190
reclusiarch 130p

2 x Sanguinary Priests 2 x Jp 180
10 man Sternguard - combi plasmas (proxy from tact squads) - 300 Drop pod 35 points.

10 x Assault marines Melta x 2 PF Sgt 235
10 x Assault marines Melta x 2 PW Sgt 225
5 scouts camo cloaks missile launcher 100

9 death company 5 ps 1pa 2 pf rhino 245

3 land speeders (2 hb and a mm) 160

Stormraven - tl pc. tl mm hurricane bolters 230

exactly 2,000 points

how i would use the list
Flat out the land speeders and the rhino with the death company and reclusiarch
put the dp on the board within rapid fire range
scouts camp on an objective and snipe anything that comes near.
deep strike the assault marines (hopefully on the same turn as the raven)
assault everything but the sterns and the scouts.

Hmm a 300 point Sternguard seems like a bit of a heavy point sink, especially for what is a shock troop. I would personally run them as a 5 man, and with so many missions being objective based now, you are probably going to need more than just the scouts as backfield contesters/holders. Which is where the Tact/Devs come in, but it's still a workable list like that. I personally run my Death Company, as a 8 man squad, with 2 swords and 1 fist. The rest have 5 boltguns. It works really well as a combination.

Ok, ill give them a test run and come back with the results, thanks for the help!

That's the other important thing with tournament play, you need to keep playing the list give it a few games, see what's working what's not. Then make adjustments then play test that. As many times as you can until your tournie

Hi guys, after 5 games, I have found very few things worth tweaking, but it is all in all a great template for an army list;

Eldercaveman wrote:
Lib - Epistolary JP and PP 190

2 x Sanguinary Priests 2 x Jp with PW's 180
5 man Sternguard - combi plasmas (proxy from tact squads) - 150 Drop pod 35 points.

10 x Assault marines Melta x 2 PF Sgt 235
10 x Assault marines Melta x 2 PW Sgt 225
5 scouts camo cloaks missile launcher 100


3 land speeders (2 hb and a mm) 160

Stormraven - TlLc. TlMM 200




1475

Thats an almost finished list, what I would do to finish it would either add in some Tact marines with the Rhino's/ Razorbacks, or Use them to make up some Devastator squads. For Dev squads I like to run them in squads of 5 with 4 missile launchers, however with the new allocation and overwatch adding 5 bolters into the squads can be useful, plus it gives you the option to combat squad.

I've noticed that my variation works well against well against power-armored armies (csm/gk/sm)
whereas if I switch out the combi-plasmas and 5 marines from the sternguard squad, it makes room for two 5 man tac squads (as objective campers) and 5 points left over. The firepower of the extra squad really helps the army work well against weaker/ numerous armies (nids/orks)

So all in all, this is actually a great, competitive army list,(I advise you don't use it i a friendly match though) so thanks to Eldercaveman for the great list!

Ah its definitly a serviceable list I wouldn't say its massivly competitive in the highest tournament settings. But thanks for the appreciation.

Hey, I've found dakka doesn't really have an active BA community. I post at Bolter and chainswords Ba forum and always get good feedback. Plues there's a tone of tactical advice there. http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showforum=8

I wouldn't take a reclusiarch. Librarians can take divination powers from the BRB and prescience is a better version of the Rec's buff. I don't think you need to 2 SP. If you move your squads together one will suffice. As long as the other squad has one model within 6 inches of the priest he can share his buffs with that squad as well.

Now BA's biggest weakness in a jump based army is ranged fire support. Baal preds, landspeeders and storm ravens can make up for this. If taking Landspeeders I'd take 3 with 2 heavy bolters each. Thats 18 ranged shots you can use to soften up your enemy before you assault them. As for the stormravens loadout I'd go with the assault cannon, Multimelta, and hurricane bolters. The lascannon isn't that great IMO. The multimelta and Bloodstrikes should be more than enough to deal with your opponents armor. With this loadout once you deal with enemy flyers/armor you can use your mass firepower to mow down infantry.

My last point is Mephiston owns. I advise you give him a go.

Thanks, and ill give that link a look in a sec...