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So Blood Angels. Their players aren't very happy with their rules. The more recent bout of this is from the new marine books getting upgrades that Blood Angels didn't, and I totally get that. But the complaints about Blood Angels predate the new marine books, and I've never been clear on why. I used to proxy my marines as jump pack assault marines with sanguinary priest support back in 5th edition, and I know the new Blood Angels lost the ability to really do lists like that, but was that the real source of the complaints? Furious Charge seems like a pretty decent chapter tactic for an assaulty marine army. Death company models still smash face. Mephiston is pretty terrifying provided you get a couple of buffs up on him. Before the new marine books, furiosos were still unique in what they could do. Your warlord trait (from what I remember) was pretty solid. Dante changed slots, but he actually got a boost from the last book.

I can't run my take on BA (lots of jump packs as troops with sanguinary priest and devastator support) with the current codex, but I assume people had another way of running them than just that. I'm not trying to belittle those who complain about BA, and I totally get the more recent complaints now that they're basically vanilla marines -1. But what was the original source of the complaints regarding the latest BA book?

-No longer able to run pure jp.
-No longer avle to run pure SG.
-No longer able to have av14 wall.
-No longer able to have av13 wall.
-No longer able to have razorback spam.
Basically all the style of BA armies before.

Also Baals are now awful without scout, DC dreads are pants now talons have had major nerfage. Can't take 3 priests per slot anymore and instead use up an HQ.

Basically there were things that needed sorting like SG, DC Dante etc because they were awful. But in return they nerfed SO many other things! Things that weren't exactly amazing for their points in the first place.
I mean - who on earth thought Baals, Furiosos and DC dreads and the potential army builds as a whole needed nerfing anyway?
It then doesn't help that we were the last codex out before all the super potion stuff hit, so we will probably be the last to get updated to the new levels!

Can BA players run their armies as normal marines. SG as bikers, jump packs troops as skyhammer. Even the dreadnoughts got a buff in marine codex. BA players would also get access to centurions.

Yes, and no. You can do whatever your opponent will allow, but a lot of the stuff really doesn't transfer over.

No inferno pistols, no double CC Dreads, no Baal Preds, no Librarian Dreds, no Death Company, no Red Thirst, no Black Rage.

And your SG are more likely to be Vanguard Vets not bikers.

The only thing I don't like about BA is how bad random charge length can cripple one's turn, and for an assault army, BA don't have much access to unit-wide fleet.

Basically, the biggest issue is 40k is slanted towards shooting, and BA are the assault marine codex.

BA, on a positive note, do have a ton of formations to play around with, but I think the issue is most BA players didn't have a lot of the models the formations required (I'm still putting together and painting up the 30 tactical marines required for Angel's Fury Spearhead...haven't even purchased the 3rd Stormraven) and the rapid release of strong codecies made it hard to want to invest in new models when there are shinier options hitting the shelves.

*shrugs* I'm still building and painting mine.

 Voidwraith wrote:
The only thing I don't like about BA is how bad random charge length can cripple one's turn, and for an assault army, BA don't have much access to unit-wide fleet.

Honestly I think they should change the Jump Infantry rule to allow them to use their packs in the movement and assault phase. Its a rather silly limitation and most Jump Infantry are lackluster as is.

Our new codex is more nerfs than buffs.
-loss of ws5 on DthCo
-loss of fnp bubble on sangpriests
-loss of asm as troops. This is huge because this aloud people to play all jump troop armys. That was our thing, we were THEE jump pack army. It was the sole reason that some people played BAs at all.
-loss of dreadnaughts, in other foc slots. Large numbers of dreds was uniquely BA. Few people played a massive dred heavy list, but it was ours & a part of our armys character going back multiple editions.
-loss of any of our chaplin's ability to give DthCo re-rolls to wound
-the movement of Baal preds & the DthCo to different foc slots. This has over crowded Heavy Support & Elites making unit selection in a battleforged cad difficult.

Furious charge is awful as a chapter tactic. All other chapters get 2 buffs as chapter tactics. We needed something else like a re-roll of charge range. DOA was originally our proto chapter tactic, wich worked really well with a jump focused army. Now its Dantes warlord trait. Lame. So add that to the BAs debuffs list too.

 Red Marine wrote:
Our new codex is more nerfs than buffs.
-loss of ws5 on DthCo
-loss of fnp bubble on sangpriests
-loss of asm as troops. This is huge because this aloud people to play all jump troop armys. That was our thing, we were THEE jump pack army. It was the sole reason that some people played BAs at all.
-loss of dreadnaughts, in other foc slots. Large numbers of dreds was uniquely BA. Few people played a massive dred heavy list, but it was ours & a part of our armys character going back multiple editions.
-loss of any of our chaplin's ability to give DthCo re-rolls to wound
-the movement of Baal preds & the DthCo to different foc slots. This has over crowded Heavy Support & Elites making unit selection in a battleforged cad difficult.

Furious charge is awful as a chapter tactic. All other chapters get 2 buffs as chapter tactics. We needed something else like a re-roll of charge range. DOA was originally our proto chapter tactic, wich worked really well with a jump focused army. Now its Dantes warlord trait. Lame. So add that to the BAs debuffs list too.

So many things here that i'd forgotten we'd lost. It makes it even more annoying. Well put though.

I've always loved my ba and always will but like most player I feel like the second son to codex marines. We are meant to be infamous with combat prowess, deadly assault troops and dreads.
I love the bsf detachment but given the strength of other chapter tactics (hi smurfs) I would have loved ba to get old style furious charge as stock rather than as a detachment bonus.

If we get +2 attacks on dreads, ws bs 4 scouts I'd be happier. Ideal world I'd love to see sang priest be 1-3 again per slot again. It would go a long way to help us for now.

Other sour points

Tech marines as hq slot
Seth having a 3+
No jp troops
No good meph/lib beat stick formation
No unique flyer
Conjested hq and elite slots
blood talon changes
Baal pred moving to heavy

That said I will continue to play my ba and will enjoy every victory against superior forces . I certainly won't be buying any more units though, soz gw

It's just an awful codex for the reasons above. Arguably the worst at this point.

Martel732 wrote:
It's just an awful codex for the reasons above. Arguably the worst at this point.

Guard say hi

(Not dat da ladz have much to be larffing about...)

The Guard are far more dangerous than BA at this point.

I can't begin to tell you how happy I was to get the new codex when it released. Then I sat down and read it and then got frustrated at how many debuffs they got. I pondered why they did what they did. I still don't have an answer. It's funny how they needed love and care in 6th edition and now BA are in the same exact spot. I was also pretty salty that now every SM chapter (including space wolves) is way more powerful than the BA.

Martel732 wrote:
It's just an awful codex for the reasons above. Arguably the worst at this point.

I think CSM is lower.

BA is best for jump packs, better than raven guard.

BA codex is not top tier and vanilla's power level is bigger. Jump pack units are not top tier even with BA.

It's official: the Blood Angels have won the coveted "6th Edition Dark Angels" Award for Most Underpowered Space Marine Codex (TM).

I may not play Dark Angels, but the owner of my main FLGS quit personally playing 40k around the end of 6th edition due to being "the worst army in the game". Blood Angels may be suffering a lot at the moment due to getting shafted by the release schedule, but they have several advantages remaining that 6th edition Dark Angels didn't.

-Named/Special characters that don't totally suck.
-Useless (well, by Tac Marine standards) chapter tactics & only reason to take troops revolved around one relic
-Only gimmicks/reasons for playing done better by regular book (White Scars/Terminators suck in general)

The most immediate fix for Blood Angels would be to FAQ the major changes from the new Space Marine codex in:
-Scouts to WS/BS 4
-All Dreadnoughts to 4 attacks base
-Access to Gladius/Demi-Company formations and detachments.

I'm pretty sure that most gaming groups would accept these as reasonable house rules, at least for non-tournament play. It could be worse. Chaos have to deal with a CSM codex that was obsolete almost as soon as it was released.

 TheNewBlood wrote:
It's official: the Blood Angels have won the coveted "6th Edition Dark Angels" Award for Most Underpowered Space Marine Codex (TM).

I may not play Dark Angels, but the owner of my main FLGS quit personally playing 40k around the end of 6th edition due to being "the worst army in the game". Blood Angels may be suffering a lot at the moment due to getting shafted by the release schedule, but they have several advantages remaining that 6th edition Dark Angels didn't.

-Named/Special characters that don't totally suck.
-Useless (well, by Tac Marine standards) chapter tactics & only reason to take troops revolved around one relic
-Only gimmicks/reasons for playing done better by regular book (White Scars/Terminators suck in general)

The most immediate fix for Blood Angels would be to FAQ the major changes from the new Space Marine codex in:
-Scouts to WS/BS 4
-All Dreadnoughts to 4 attacks base
-Access to Gladius/Demi-Company formations and detachments.

I'm pretty sure that most gaming groups would accept these as reasonable house rules, at least for non-tournament play. It could be worse. Chaos have to deal with a CSM codex that was obsolete almost as soon as it was released.

Funny since a few grav bike/ black knight squads around a dark shroud is looking pretty in 7th

Mephiston is okay for an un optimal point sink, and Dante is really cool for not being worth his points? Is that what you mean by not totally sucking? Blood Angels got shafted hard.

Space wolves did too don't be fooled. They have a couple neat tricks that Ravenwing just made pretty irrelevant. Without allies only Vanilla and Ravenwing are competitive


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
It's just an awful codex for the reasons above. Arguably the worst at this point.

There are a few there with it

 TheNewBlood wrote:
It's official: the Blood Angels have won the coveted "6th Edition Dark Angels" Award for Most Underpowered Space Marine Codex (TM).

I may not play Dark Angels, but the owner of my main FLGS quit personally playing 40k around the end of 6th edition due to being "the worst army in the game". Blood Angels may be suffering a lot at the moment due to getting shafted by the release schedule, but they have several advantages remaining that 6th edition Dark Angels didn't.

-Named/Special characters that don't totally suck.
-Useless (well, by Tac Marine standards) chapter tactics & only reason to take troops revolved around one relic
-Only gimmicks/reasons for playing done better by regular book (White Scars/Terminators suck in general)

The most immediate fix for Blood Angels would be to FAQ the major changes from the new Space Marine codex in:
-Scouts to WS/BS 4
-All Dreadnoughts to 4 attacks base
-Access to Gladius/Demi-Company formations and detachments.

I'm pretty sure that most gaming groups would accept these as reasonable house rules, at least for non-tournament play. It could be worse. Chaos have to deal with a CSM codex that was obsolete almost as soon as it was released.

We were pretty much obsolete as soon as we were released. Before the new dex, back in 6th, it was commonly accepted that only Orks and DA were the same level as us, then Orks got a new dex, which was a pretty sideways move.
So, one of the worst 3 armies in the game. No worries we thought, there is a new codex about to come out. And we waited and waited. Everybody agreed they needed to do BA next because BA badly needed an update as we were even paying more for worse Tac marines at that point. Then dex after dex came out. Everytime we thought 'surely BA must be next', we were dissapointed with each new release. Eventually they got round to us... AND THEY NERFED US. Let that sink in. We were one of the worst dexes in the game and they nerfed us.
Compare that to Eldar. The best dex in the game and they went and buffed EVERY SINGLE UNIT.
The gap between us and the top was huge before. Now it is astronomical.

Yeah BA in a really competitive setting are pretty unworkable as a main force. They only show up on big tourney tables to be a taxi service mainly, or get an IC apothecary joined to a battle bro squad. Mephy sometimes.

I actually hated the Mephy change. I enjoyed him before because he was like a monstrous creature unit. 250 and you had a unit that was pretty good on its own, and fairly speedy.
Now you need 175 + a transport + the cost of the squad he's riding with, he probably won't have the wings power, and his higher toughness is sort of wasted considering he's in a squad of t4 guys. I mean he's still ok, not Sanguinor-bad or anything like that. I just would've preferred him to be left as-was.

 Red Marine wrote:

Large numbers of dreds was uniquely BA.

define "large numbers" because space marines in 5th and 6th edition could have up to 6 dreads if they wanted to too. they just needed a MoF.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Red Marine wrote:

Large numbers of dreds was uniquely BA.

define "large numbers" because space marines in 5th and 6th edition could have up to 6 dreads if they wanted to too. they just needed a MoF.

BA could field 11. It wasn't a very efficient list but the point is that we had dreadnought options for Elite, Troop, and Heavy Support slots.

I feel we're missing the real issue...BA didn't get Grav Centurion Devastators. If they'd have gotten that unit along with the cheaper Death Company and the Dante we've always wanted (Eternal warrior and striking at initiative with his axe), I feel we could overlook a lot of the other issues being outlined in this thread.

 Voidwraith wrote:
I feel we're missing the real issue...BA didn't get Grav Centurion Devastators. If they'd have gotten that unit along with the cheaper Death Company and the Dante we've always wanted (Eternal warrior and striking at initiative with his axe), I feel we could overlook a lot of the other issues being outlined in this thread.

No, that wouldn't have made me any happier. I don't want to play my Blood Angels as red Space Marines, I want to play them as Blood Angels. Its also just a matter of the codex being unbalanced, with an Elites section that is absolutely stuffed full of options and a Troops section that has only 2 squads (not counting named characters).

Welcome to what Dark Angel's players have had to deal with for years.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Welcome to what Dark Angel's players have had to deal with for years.

There are armies that have had it worse for way longer than either the Blood Angels or the Dark Angels, lets not turn this thread into a "we've had it worse than you" argument.

Poly Ranger wrote:

 TheNewBlood wrote:
It's official: the Blood Angels have won the coveted "6th Edition Dark Angels" Award for Most Underpowered Space Marine Codex (TM).

I may not play Dark Angels, but the owner of my main FLGS quit personally playing 40k around the end of 6th edition due to being "the worst army in the game". Blood Angels may be suffering a lot at the moment due to getting shafted by the release schedule, but they have several advantages remaining that 6th edition Dark Angels didn't.

-Named/Special characters that don't totally suck.
-Useless (well, by Tac Marine standards) chapter tactics & only reason to take troops revolved around one relic
-Only gimmicks/reasons for playing done better by regular book (White Scars/Terminators suck in general)

The most immediate fix for Blood Angels would be to FAQ the major changes from the new Space Marine codex in:
-Scouts to WS/BS 4
-All Dreadnoughts to 4 attacks base
-Access to Gladius/Demi-Company formations and detachments.

I'm pretty sure that most gaming groups would accept these as reasonable house rules, at least for non-tournament play. It could be worse. Chaos have to deal with a CSM codex that was obsolete almost as soon as it was released.

We were pretty much obsolete as soon as we were released. Before the new dex, back in 6th, it was commonly accepted that only Orks and DA were the same level as us, then Orks got a new dex, which was a pretty sideways move.
So, one of the worst 3 armies in the game. No worries we thought, there is a new codex about to come out. And we waited and waited. Everybody agreed they needed to do BA next because BA badly needed an update as we were even paying more for worse Tac marines at that point. Then dex after dex came out. Everytime we thought 'surely BA must be next', we were dissapointed with each new release. Eventually they got round to us... AND THEY NERFED US. Let that sink in. We were one of the worst dexes in the game and they nerfed us.
Compare that to Eldar. The best dex in the game and they went and buffed EVERY SINGLE UNIT.
The gap between us and the top was huge before. Now it is astronomical.

The reason Blood Angels are obsolete is the same reason all pre-Necron codexes are obsolete: GW changed their design philosophy behind codexes and army building as a new year's resolution.

Not all Eldar units got buffed; the Wave Serpent was nerfed and is still the most expensive dedicated transport in the game. Previously, from a purely competitive standpoint, there was little reason to take units other than Wave Serpents. GW being GW, they buffed certain units to the point of being broken, so now there's little reason to take units other than Scatbikers, Wraithknights, and anything with a D-Weapon. Fortunately the tournament organizers stepped in to prevent them from breaking all of 7th edition.

As I said earlier, the most immediate need for Blood Angels is to be FAQed so that they have the same starlings and formations as the vanilla book. Now if only GW still published those...

 Red Marine wrote:
Our new codex is more nerfs than buffs.
-loss of ws5 on DthCo
-loss of fnp bubble on sangpriests
-loss of asm as troops. This is huge because this aloud people to play all jump troop armys. That was our thing, we were THEE jump pack army. It was the sole reason that some people played BAs at all.
-loss of dreadnaughts, in other foc slots. Large numbers of dreds was uniquely BA. Few people played a massive dred heavy list, but it was ours & a part of our armys character going back multiple editions.
-loss of any of our chaplin's ability to give DthCo re-rolls to wound
-the movement of Baal preds & the DthCo to different foc slots. This has over crowded Heavy Support & Elites making unit selection in a battleforged cad difficult.

Furious charge is awful as a chapter tactic. All other chapters get 2 buffs as chapter tactics. We needed something else like a re-roll of charge range. DOA was originally our proto chapter tactic, wich worked really well with a jump focused army. Now its Dantes warlord trait. Lame. So add that to the BAs debuffs list too.

"More nerfs and buffs" might just be true, but it's a very narrow way of seeing this. You're entirely discarding the armywide point reductions and the fact that Dante turned from "I'll use him on fluffy games" to "I'll use him in any game I wish to win".
Death Company was the worst unit in the dex, now it's arguably the best. I'll take FC over the old Red Thirst any day. The same with +1 I on charges over ObSec.

People that complain about this codex seem to forget how awful the previous one was.

Poly Ranger wrote:
-No longer avle to run pure SG.

It's not like anyone ever used it tough... And even if they did, they didn't expect to win anything with it.


The truth is that compared to the old one, this codex is golden. We're medicore at best, but it's nice to have a reasonable chance against the tougher armies.
I'm really happy with this one. If it weren't for the ridiculous buffs that C:AA got and we didn't, I wouldn't complain at all. Now I find it kind of annoying.

 soomemafia wrote:
People that complain about this codex seem to forget how awful the previous one was.

The previous one was great in it's own edition though, this one isn't.

 Orblivion wrote:

 soomemafia wrote:
People that complain about this codex seem to forget how awful the previous one was.

The previous one was great in it's own edition though, this one isn't.

This. The previous one wasn't bad, it just grew old and couldn't keep up with the new kids. It had a ton of build options. My 5e BA army builder file is packed with tons of lists, and many of them were boat rockers in 5e.

The new dex (with supplement) gives the IoM a 6 drop pod detachment and that's pretty much it.

Wow, you lost some stupidly good units and are now no longer using a Wardex. Welcome to the world of tactics kiddies. Us Guard players have been here for years, if you want a buff get in the queue.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Wow, you lost some stupidly good units and are now no longer using a Wardex. Welcome to the world of tactics kiddies. Us Guard players have been here for years, if you want a buff get in the queue.

There are no tactics that can save the current BA codex. And the Wardex required a ton of tactics, or you would be tabled easily by IG leafblower. There was actually nothing "stupid good" in the Warddex, just a lot of solid things. And even then, GK immediately one-upped the BA.