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Hi all,

I'm brand new to 6E and am trying to put together a pure Blood Angels army. I am having trouble getting off the ground because I can't really come up with a valuable build for the troops selections. I am looking for something that can contribute to damaging the enemy while surviving to take objectives at the end of the game. Most of the selections seem ill equipped to do so: Razorback and rhino squads are too thinly armored to be relied upon and footslogging tactical or assault squads too slow. Are Jump Assault Marines, kind of lackluster themselves, the only semi-competitive option?

Anyone with BA experience here?

Experience, yes, but most people on here that know BA will admit they don't know what to do with the troops. If someone has some kind of awesome idea, I'm all ears. But with only scouts, tac marines, and ASM to choose from, I think every permutation has been covered.

I don't have a lot of experience with BA Troops (I'm still fairly new to the army), but one thing I do like to do is run 3 Scout Squads, 2 7-man units (including Sarg) with Shotguns and a Locator Beacon on each squad and 1 with snipers that I keep back at my ADL (and usually an objective). I also make sure to take 3 units in drop pods (2 Furiouso's, Sternguards, Assault Marines, etc).

I infiltrate the Shotty scouts and just Drop Pod Assault 2 of my units in round 1, putting either a hail of gun fire (from Sterguards) or a tough unit in my opponent's face immediately.

Put some Camo Cloaks on the Scouts and keep them in cover and they can be a real headache for your opponent throughout the game.

NOTE: Shotguns are optional and Snipers work just as well.

Something to possibly consider: Dirt cheap scouts with locator beacons. If they hit the dirt at the first sign of trouble, then you can use them to Deep Strike off of (by combat squadding them you double the number of units you can keep in reserve, incidentally) and negate scatter completely. Although fragile, the scouts should be able to eliminate weak or injured targets on their own, or even keep to the shadows to claim objectives once they've done their job of lighting the way for everyone else.

Then again, there's always Sanguinary Guard as Troops when you run Dante, and Death Company as non scoring troops. Peeps will poo poo Dante's cost and Sang guard's efficiency, but they are cool BA only units, and they do pretty well on the table-top.

The best way to go is probably allying in some decent scoring units. For some reason, people always look down on BA when people say "ally in some stuff", but there are tons of great lists that use the ally system. Why should BA have to prove their mettle on their own?

If good scoring units are what you're after, the new Eldar codex is a decent ally and has one of the best cheap scoring units in the game...guardian jetbikes. Make a list with all the BA goodness that made you want to play BA to begin with and find your cheap scoring units in some other codex.

Grab a 5 man deck chair of sniper scouts and a giant brick of Death Company, then ally in a pair of Guard blobs to hold ground while your Blood Angels pressure your opponent.

'lo thar.

When playing BA it's always best to go for at least one death company with jump packs and 10 men in total. Attach lemartes to them, as he gives them some really cool bonuses to help them pack a real punch. All together it is quite pricey, however with two flame weapons available for 10 men and lemartes allowing to reroll misses on assault, they can absolutely annihilate any infantry.

ASM are the logical choice to use for BA as I find that Tactical squads often get let behind due to the blood angels's fast paced playing style. The best way to use them is to deep strike them in, taking advantage of the descent of angels rule, just behind baal predators. Baals make a great distraction, doing some damage before being taken out, allowing you to get right in their face fast.

Blood angles are good for getting right in the face of the enemy, and the troops are no exception. If you do decide to go with a tactical squad use a storm raven or drop pod to try and get them in close to support other units.

I say go DC all the way. Then maybe take a jump pack squad or two. DC in a landraider is choppy enough to kill whatever it hits. Plus you can hide the jumpers behind the landraider to dissuade melta units. Or DoA them in for melta kills.

I always take 10 DC in a landraider with 3 power axes and a chaplain, maybe corbulo if I'm feeling cheesy. It's expensive but no one can question it's effectiveness.

Of course, with BA I don't try to win objectives. I usually go for the secondary objectives and win that way.

I've recently started fielding 6 - 5 man ASM w/MG inside Razorbacks with tl pg/lc to much success. With them being fast vehicles its just fun to make everything a legitimate threat to most things in the game.

Stay away from DC, either TSM, or ASM, nothing more.

Assault marines - propably the best choice. Modify for AT/heavy infantry with meltaguns or execute hordes with flamers.

DC - good, but keep them cheap. I have triedmusing a 6-man squad with 5 bolters and TH. Put in Razorback and kill.

Scouts - underrestimated. Still a T4 unit with decent 4+ armour and Inflintrating, that is possible to kit for different roles. Snipers with Quad-gun, bolter/HB squad to keep objectives or 10 guy shotgun/CC-combo to harass weak enemy infantry.

Assault Squad(no jump packs) with flamer and sergeant
Razorback with TL Assault cannon or Las/plas.
160 points each

this is imo the best way to field BA troops in 6th. I know a lot of people will say vehicles suck in 6th but it still works. Friend of mine plays 4 of the units above, 2 vindicators, 2 daaka baal preds, and a LRR with 5 th/ss termies at 2000 and it is insane the amount of firepower it has.

just2fierce wrote:
Assault Squad(no jump packs) with flamer and sergeant
Razorback with TL Assault cannon or Las/plas.
160 points each

this is imo the best way to field BA troops in 6th. I know a lot of people will say vehicles suck in 6th but it still works. Friend of mine plays 4 of the units above, 2 vindicators, 2 daaka baal preds, and a LRR with 5 th/ss termies at 2000 and it is insane the amount of firepower it has.

Minus the Terms in the Land Raider. Way over priced for a unit in BA. A different argument though.

I feel the same way, in our meta, where everyone is using hordes. Heavy Bolters lay supreme,but they aren't so great against Razorback spam. I mean you still have to surround them with other threats like vindicators and/or ball preds. But target overload is very doable in BA, you just have 30 dudes to do it with...

I had a quite successful game running drop pods and vanguard vets. yes. VANGUARD vets.

my troops where

2 Tac squads in pods
2 scout squads - one with bolters, one with snipers, both with cloaks
9man DC with bolters, 2 IP, 1PS and 1PA in pod with Tycho
and a DC dread in a pod with magna grapple and Fists

i also had a 9man Stern squad with corbulo in a pod, aswell as 2 5 man vanguard veteran units.
4 of the pods had locator beacons.

mind you that this list was around 2000 points.... but it put on the hurt early in the game and the vanguard units are great when used properly and if you cant use a locator beacon for whatever reason you do have DOA for them.

but the point is the drop pods and DS are still great for BA to utilise...

Vanguard are good at what they do, but you sacrifice so many points for that one trick. More bodies have always been at the foremost of my list building, especially in BA.

Ive seen alot of success with massed armor for BA. A friend of mine who plays BA always knocks it, but his best games was when he ran 3+ razorbacks with las/plas three baal preds and 3 predators. The pure saturation of armor makes it so that with the exception of Necrons, most armies cannot deal enough anti tank to cope with it.

 generalchaos34 wrote:
Ive seen alot of success with massed armor for BA. A friend of mine who plays BA always knocks it, but his best games was when he ran 3+ razorbacks with las/plas three baal preds and 3 predators. The pure saturation of armor makes it so that with the exception of Necrons, most armies cannot deal enough anti tank to cope with it.

right. and those aren't even all of the options. We still have access to a pretty decent flyer, a furioso librarian, some of the best under-estimated bikes w/ preist and libby attached.

I have some success running combat squaded ASM units, the key is to run them near each other so that you can have around 15 ASM benefiting from one priest. You've got to give a bit of thought before T1 about whether it's worth it (look and the set up of the table and consider your opponents list), but I find the benefit comes from always being able ro get the charge with some aspect of the squad even if 1combat squad gets counter-charged you've still got the others that'll benefit from FC unless your opponent oes a multi assault, which reduces his combat effectivness by taking away the extra attacks for charging.

D

6th kind of wrecked BA troop choices. AM lost a lot of their punch with the change to FC (which is half-heartedly mitigated with HoW), and tactical squads are more expensive than they should be.

Right now I'm still running the 10x AM with 2x Melta while giving the sarge a PF, and giving them a SP. It's still somewhat effective, but as it stands Blood Angels are paying too much for troops.

Auswin wrote:
Right now I'm still running the 10x AM with 2x Melta while giving the sarge a PF, and giving them a SP. It's still somewhat effective, but as it stands Blood Angels are paying too much for troops.

I've seen this build a lot looking at lists on various boards. It seems the most common selection, but how is it used? DS or jumping up the board? Also, what is its primary target? Anti-armor or anti-infantry?

bellator wrote:

Auswin wrote:
Right now I'm still running the 10x AM with 2x Melta while giving the sarge a PF, and giving them a SP. It's still somewhat effective, but as it stands Blood Angels are paying too much for troops.

I've seen this build a lot looking at lists on various boards. It seems the most common selection, but how is it used? DS or jumping up the board? Also, what is its primary target? Anti-armor or anti-infantry?

I usually start my troops out on the board, and try to move tactically, using LOS blocking terrain and using mobility to pick my targets for assaults. The unit is effective because it can shoot and assault most things in the game to a moderate degree of success.

Vehicle? melta guns, then PF and Krak grenades if needed.
Shooty Infantry? Don't shoot, assault, kill them in the second round of assault
Melee Infantry? Shoot then assault, denies them the charge and every shooting casualty helps you in the assault.

Thats the very basic rundown of how to run jumpers. You're fast so you can pick and choose your engagements well.

MSU + RB works well enough for me. Cheap, viable transports are always a good thing.

Lucarikx

 Lucarikx wrote:
MSU + RB works well enough for me. Cheap, viable transports are always a good thing. Lucarikx

I've been trying to figure out the best loadout for this type of unit as well, basically looking at what it does best and can be supported by the rest of the list. Imho the flamer version (flamer in the squad, hand flamer on the sarge, heavy flamer on the RB) seems like the best option to me just because it can put so much of the same kind of firepower out and can be dedicated and perform well for that goal.

Other builds like a meltagun in the squad then TLAC on top seem too split to me to get my money's worth out of the unit.

Any thoughts?

I've also gotten on board with the whole assault squads in razorbacks. Playing BA is like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone. We NEED that points discount on the RB that is provided by the assault marines. Tac squads and scout squads just lack in killing power to be worth taking these days. Plus my BA are more delegated as allies for IG. Mobile RB assault squads give me much needed mobility and a couple units that CAN assault if need be. I use them as bully units.

MSU ASMs in LRs. Thats what I've been running. Bring 4 with flamers in the marines and a combination of LRC and LRs. Backedvup with Baals and Preds/ SRs.

Now that I think about this more, its a four word answer: make them grey hunters.

Martel732 wrote:
Now that I think about this more, its a four word answer: make them grey hunters.

Or.... Proxy as DA. :(

The way I run my mech ASM is this:

ASM (Meltagun, Meltabombs, HB RB) - 135

Cheap and gets the job done most of the time. If I find the points, I always upgrade RB to be Las/Plas.

Lucarikx

Don't over look TL HF. The HF is a far more dangerous weapon than a TL HB. Yeah, your RB might die, but its 20 pts and that 's a squad not charging your troops.

Martel732 wrote:
Don't over look TL HF. The HF is a far more dangerous weapon than a TL HB. Yeah, your RB might die, but its 20 pts and that 's a squad not charging your troops.

How do you get it in range? AV13 wall?

 Lucarikx wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Now that I think about this more, its a four word answer: make them grey hunters.

Or.... Proxy as DA. :(

The way I run my mech ASM is this:

ASM (Meltagun, Meltabombs, HB RB) - 135

Cheap and gets the job done most of the time. If I find the points, I always upgrade RB to be Las/Plas.

Lucarikx

In another month we will all be playing red space marines using the Codex Astartes

bellator wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Don't over look TL HF. The HF is a far more dangerous weapon than a TL HB. Yeah, your RB might die, but its 20 pts and that 's a squad not charging your troops.

How do you get it in range? AV13 wall?

Depends on the list. I have them in my AV 13 list and my hybrid mech list My hybrid mech list has all kinds of shooty stuff, so I can keep it in the back field and hope it gets ignored or shoot it out 24" and use it to draw fire. Are they perfect? Hell no. But the payoff from TL HF can be huge. Zoom it up next to some Eldar rangers and it's just one more headache. BA NEED cheap headaches. And unlike DC or something, the shuriken fire doesn't bother the RB that much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:

 Lucarikx wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Now that I think about this more, its a four word answer: make them grey hunters.

Or.... Proxy as DA. :(

The way I run my mech ASM is this:

ASM (Meltagun, Meltabombs, HB RB) - 135

Cheap and gets the job done most of the time. If I find the points, I always upgrade RB to be Las/Plas.

Lucarikx

In another month we will all be playing red space marines using the Codex Astartes

I don't own thunderfire cannons :(