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So some time has passed now following the release.
Everyone was previous saying they were SM-1, whilst I was and still am, convinced that Blood Angels are at least on par with SM (possibly even better).

So my question is what are the thoughts on them now?

I am missing Assault Marines as troops, but fairly happy overall.

I started Blood Angels when they were released and i like them, they have a lot of neat tricks like fast tanks and +1 strength and initiative on the charge is great, heavy flamers in tac squads is awesome as well!

I love Death Company but with the new Necron release the don't look that tough anymore

I think the only reason people aren't saying that they're SM-1 is because of some of their ridiculous formations in Shield of Baal. As someone who dislikes formations, they don't seem nearly as threatening as SM or my SWs. Still a pretty solid army though overall.

Some highlights for me:

Death company with JP are an option now and a good threat unit.
Librarian with SS and ap2 relic sword + quickening is surprisingly good in a SS TH squad.
Dante

there are a few bad points but after seeing the GK codex get gutted and IG getting a reprint I'm fairly happy. Was gutted not to see a unique flyer or something to really set BA apart from the rest though.

overall I'd place it mid tier which is where i like to play, feels better beating the top dogs then!

I think they're a solid army. I think in a standard game they're easily on par with SM, but in tournaments I think SM have just a couple better toys like Centurions that make them the better SM choice

They're about what was expected, fairly balanced against all the 7th edition codices sans Newcrons while still getting mollywhopped by Eldar.

Vanilla marines they are not though. Nothing in the core BA book can contend with centurion-star and White Scars. Don't know much about their supplement formations.

BA have a formation that gives 3-4 squads free power weapons, and the one from White Dwarf lets you charge from deep strike.

sand.zzz wrote:
BA have a formation that gives 3-4 squads free power weapons, and the one from White Dwarf lets you charge from deep strike.

What White Dwarf would that be that lets you do that?

WD47, Angel's Fury Spearhead formation. The units in the formation itself don't get to charge from deepstrike, but any units that arrive near them do.

Without the supp+WD, yeah they're still pretty meh. Jp death company are like auto-takes, and pod fragiosos are still hot. Priests are a great hq. If you told a BA player to run without any of those, they'd probably just lose. Even with them, it's still 40k hard mode.

The formation junk turns it around to super cheese in some cases, though.