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Hi guys,

I've just gotten back into 40k and I am starting a blood angel space marine army. I apologize in advance if this questions is really simple and dumb, but I guess you have to start somewhere.

First, I am planning on running a BA mechanized army. I want to have 5 man units loaded out into a mix of anti-infantry or anti-armor each loaded into a razorback with TL lascannons. Just purchased the new 10 model Blood Angels Tactical Squad box from GW, and it seems like there is only 1 sergeant unit designated by a spiky helmet, a back banner for the whole box.

If I want to have 2 smaller 5-man groups each with a sergeant, is there any way to do that with the existing pieces from the box, or do I have to buy another sergeant separately? For the sergeant model, is there any functional gameplay difference between the large full sized banner on his back and some of the other simpler layouts seen in the assembly instructions, or is this just aesthetics?

What are the best load outs for an anti-infantry or anti-armor role, both for the sergeants and the rank & file? And perhaps the dumbest question - correct me if I am wrong - jump packs are larger, squared off attachments that can be bought separately from the BA tactical marine pack, and the smaller rounded back attachments that came with the pack are just astheatical parts of the miniature and do not denote any extra jumping/flying?

Thanks for any help that can be offered!

Welcome to Dakka!

So long as you can tell at a glance who is the sergeant, there is no need to use any specific parts. The trend is to make him more ornate through banners, helms and unique bits of armour, but that is really not a requirement so long as it's obvious who the Sergeant is. Note that BA Sergeants also have the inner area of their shoulderpads painted black, that alone should be enough to identify him.

The best anti-infantry loadout for 5 men is a Heavy Flamer and the Sergeant with either 2 Hand Flamers or a Hand Flamer and Power Sword/Maul, depending on whether you actually want to get into combat or not. The best anti-tank would be a melta and then a Combi-Melta on the sergeant.

You're right about the Jump Packs, they are much larger than the normal SM backpacks.

Easy question first, the backpacks provided in the Tactical box are just backpacks. You're absolutely right that the Jump Packs are much larger, and some Blood Angel versions have wings. They're usually found in Assault Squad, Death Company and Sanguinary Guard boxes more than bought seperately. Also gives the Assault weapons needed since there's very few units that can have Jump Packs and Bolters.

You might want to reconsider the Razorbacks. Blood Angels have Fast type Razorbacks, meaning they can move 12" and fire two weapons. The 'Las/Plas' Razorback has a Lascannon and Twin Linked Plasma Gun, and can fire both at the same target. The las isn't twinlinked, but still useful. Since you're already charged more for the Razorback than other Marines, may as well make the most of it.

There is no benefit of a squad banner, but there are many fancy cloth banner makers on eBay to easily mark the different squads. I hate banners personally and don't include them and they are purely aesthetic. And speaking of eBay, you can get spare helmets there. Though the Tactical box should also include bare heads and bare heads often mean Sergeant too. I prefer helmets and there are so many types of helmets you can grab up for very very cheap.

Blood Angels have access to Heavy Flamers, and they work wonders against infantry. Add a Sergeant with two Hand Flamers (a model can fire two pistols in every shooting phase if it has two, and still gets +1 Attack in Assault) and there's a lot of Template hits. I personally prefer plasma because I'm old fashioned. If you go with plasma or Grav, remember that the Sergeant should have a matching Combi-whatever for a one time use extra shots of that weapon type. Anti tank is better suited to Assault Marines who can have two Special weapons (two Meltaguns) per five guys, and Devestators who can have four Heavy weapons in a squad. They're still foot soldiers, but just the other types not in a Blood Angel Tactical box.

Blood Angel sergeants are marked out by their shoulder pads being black with red trim (instead of the usual red with red or black trim). Also the Sergeant's chapter logo is in yellow instead of black.

In older sources the squads would be ten men, but could be split in 2 (4 men lead by the sergeant, the other 4 lead by the combat squad 'veteran', basically the second most experienced marine in the squad). Going by the older paint schemes both the sergeant and the veteran would have the black shoulder pads with red trim and yellow chapter insignia.

Perhaps your second, less 'blinged out' 'sergeant' could represent this combat squad leader?

I echo the sentiment regarding the Las/Plas razorback, moving 12" and shooting 2 weapons is cool, the plas being twin linked mitigates the effects of Gets Hot.

Squad composition, I would got either Heavy Flamer with a combo flamer on the sgt, or meltagun with a combo Melta on the sgt if running a 5 man squad or a plasma gun and combo plas. These guys then jump in a Razorback and go harass stuff, if planning to do this you'll want plenty of redundancy, so I'd consider multiple squads within a CAD (rather than the BSF organisation chart), as they're not exactly close combats beats and will probably benefit more from Objective Secured rather than +1I.

As a side note, Heavy Flamer Razorbacks are pretty nifty for the price point, put a Melta squad squad inside, so the your guys jump out, hopefully pop a transport and then the HF on the Rzrbk can cook them.

If you want to take 10man squads, do as above with a special and a heavy, match the combo to the special on the sgt and buy them a razorback, combat squad them leaving the heavy weapon and 4 dudes to camp a home objective and push the rzrback forward with the special weapon side of the combat squad.

Fill out the rest with Dreads, Storm Ravens or Fast Preds/Vindis. Whatever takes your fancy.

Libby dread might be a decent HQ choice if you want a mechanised force.

D

A common tactic is taking a 10-man squad. Taking a missile launcher, a special weapon, and a combi weapon on the Sgt. Four guys and the missile combat squad out and sit on a deployment zone objective and shoot the missile while the rest go into a razorback.

partninja wrote:
A common tactic is taking a 10-man squad. Taking a missile launcher, a special weapon, and a combi weapon on the Sgt. Four guys and the missile combat squad out and sit on a deployment zone objective and shoot the missile while the rest go into a razorback.

And I think this is just about the worst thing you can do with tactical marines. Keep in mind that my 1850 pts list current has exactly six tac marines with boltguns in it, though. The squad you propose has at least seven.

partninja wrote:
A common tactic is taking a 10-man squad. Taking a missile launcher, a special weapon, and a combi weapon on the Sgt. Four guys and the missile combat squad out and sit on a deployment zone objective and shoot the missile while the rest go into a razorback.

That was almost worth it during the last codex when you actually had to bring ten guys to get the special weapon.

Now I really don't see why you would pay 85 points for a single Missile Launcher...

Thanks for the advice guys!

I think I will go with the Las/Plas Razorbacks as suggested. I might buy a banner online to attach to the "other" sergeant, just because I think it looks cool.

For my tactical squads I have so far:

Anti-infantry: 1 sergeant with hand flamer and power sword, 1 marine with heavy flamer, 3 marines with bolters
Anti-tank: 1 sergeant with pistol and power fist, 4 marines with bolters and krak grenades

Any suggestions there, esp. for the rank and file guys? Should some have sword or other grenades or other weapons?

For pure AT melta bomb is better than a Power Fist.
Also, you should add a Meltagun there.

 soomemafia wrote:

partninja wrote:
A common tactic is taking a 10-man squad. Taking a missile launcher, a special weapon, and a combi weapon on the Sgt. Four guys and the missile combat squad out and sit on a deployment zone objective and shoot the missile while the rest go into a razorback.

That was almost worth it during the last codex when you actually had to bring ten guys to get the special weapon.

Now I really don't see why you would pay 85 points for a single Missile Launcher...

At one point in 40k's distant past, missile launchers were actually exciting, and bolters were a decent weapon. The problem now is that neither are particularly good, because the units you care about killing just have too many ways of avoiding damage (saves) that a single ML is just not exciting any more -- at least not enough to trade that many points.

 WhoLetTheVickOut wrote:
Thanks for the advice guys!

I think I will go with the Las/Plas Razorbacks as suggested. I might buy a banner online to attach to the "other" sergeant, just because I think it looks cool.

For my tactical squads I have so far:

Anti-infantry: 1 sergeant with hand flamer and power sword, 1 marine with heavy flamer, 3 marines with bolters
Anti-tank: 1 sergeant with pistol and power fist, 4 marines with bolters and krak grenades

Any suggestions there, esp. for the rank and file guys? Should some have sword or other grenades or other weapons?

The anti-infantry are fine, for the anti-tank squad I'd give the Sarge a combi-melta and a Tactical Marine a Melta.

Sounds good. I'll add those weapons for the anti infantry.

For the knee pads and decals on the shoulders which denote which company and squad that a tactical marine are in - does it matter in a gameplay sense which I use? Obviously I'm going to try to follow the codec, but just so I know let's say I like the 1st and 2nd squad skull knee pads and want to keep going with that for a 3rd squad - is that not allowed? What if I want to use the 9th company double black tear drops for the shoulder pads, but they don't have any tactical squads ( just devastators and dreadnoughts) - is that allowed? Do sergeants absolutely have to back black shoulder pads?

Not specifically trying to deviate from the codec, just trying to understand how much artistic licence I can take without making the models invalid for playing. Thanks again guys, getting some great advice. Dakka dakka is a must for 40k newbs

Colors of anything do not matter one bit. They could be bright pink with blue polkadots and if you say they're Blood Angels then they're Blood Angels. They could even be unpainted gray models. You can be as strict or as loose with the guidelines as you want to be but that is ONLY a personal decision.

From a fluff standpoint, although nowhere near as slavish as most Smurf successors the Blood Angels do follow the Codex Astartes, and the Codex Astartes does urge commanders to alter their markings to deny intelligence to the enemy.

Don't want to use black pads for sergeants? Say your army had recently suffered from snipers picking off sergeants so removed their marking (either during the current campaign or the previous one).

Want to use incorrect company markings? Say the marines aren't really from that company, but that they adopted their marking to make the enemy think the force had been reinforced when it actually hadn't. (either to conceal heavy losses, or else to make the enemy think they are deployed here when they aren't)

Squad markings.. again, disinformation, or maybe the squads with derivative markings are ad-hoc squads comprised of reserve company marines led by a core from an existing squad, so the squads heraldry mimic the leaders original squad.

Or you could just say "what the hell, I'm doing it this way", if anyone complains point to the White Consuls 9th company Tactical squad that GW used as the chapters example for several editions, or the plethora of non-veteran 2nd company sternguard and vanguard in the previous marine codex.

A question about grenades. I see in the rule book that the tactical marines come with krak and frag grenades. I take it this means that its part of their standard equipment requiring no extra points? I'll glue a few frags on the anti-infantry and a few krak on the anti-armor?

For the anti-tank sergeant, I'm equipping with a combi melta/bolter, can/should I also give him a melta bomb? If I do, the melta bomb doesn't have any hand attachment, and its huge - do I just glue it on to his waist? I feel like that would look terrible. But I guess I have to if I'm playing what you see is what you get.

All the marines have the grenades, just like they all have a bolter (and a bolt pistol).

The entire squad can use in kraks in close combat. In shooting a single squad member may opt to throw a grenade (either a krak or frag, not both in one turn).

The melta bomb has a handle, cut out a portion of the handle then glue it on to an empty fist if you want it to look like the sergeant is holding it.