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Very new to the game. This list is intended for an 1000 pt team game. I have not had much play time but this is my 1st attempt at the beginning of an 1850pt baal strike force as well. Any feedback or suggestion would be great. Thanks.

HQ :
Termie librarian lvl 2 psyker

Elites :
Lemartes

death company x5
4x bolt pistols
1x inferno pistol
5x chainswords
With jump packs

Troops :
Scout squad x4 w/
Sergeant with sniper
3x snipers
1x launcher with flakk
With camo cloaks

Scout squad x4 w/
Sergeant with bolt pistol and chainsword
3x bolter
1x launcher with flakk
With camo cloaks

Tactical squad x9 w/
Vet Seargeant with bolt pistol and chainsword
7x bolter
1x flamer
1x launcher with flakk

Tactical squad x5 w/
Vet Sergeant with bolt pistol and power sword
4x bolter
1x flamer

Fast attack:
Attack bike x1
With multi-melta

Heavy support :
Whirlwind x1
With Overcharged engines

I have no idea how many of these models you already have so I'm just going to look at this from a pure list perspective. Firstof all: Too many Troops! The reason Blood Angels are so cool isn't because they're just more Space Marines but in red (though the red is pretty dashing).

-ML2 Librarian is always a solid buy, but why the Terminator Armour? If he had a unit of Assault Terminator to join he could put that to much better effect. Another good setup is to give a Jump Pack (Or the Angel's Wing) and put him with Death Company (Sweet tears will be shed if you roll Shield of Sanguinius).
-My personal taste in Troops are Tactical Squads with Flamers and a Power Weapon wielding Veteran Sergeant (Or a regular sergeant with a Hand Flamer or Combi-Flamer if I'm going cheap) in a transport - I generally use Rhinos so I can have a full squad. Drop the Flakk Missiles too, generally you won't see Flyers (Or if you do it'll only be one) at 1000pts and it reduces your squad's mobility.
-Sniper Scouts are good for Objective Camping, here the Flakk makes a little more sense as it'll be sat in the back field but I'd still leave it to keep the squad cheap.
-Multi-Melta Attack bike is a decent anti-tank unit and an even more decent distraction unit.
-Overcharged Whirlwind would be cool because you could move out of cover to fire and more back into cover again? Not too sure, I don't use the Whirlwind that much (And when I do it's not Blood Angels).
-Death Company with Jump Packs. Finally something properly choppy! I would drop the Inferno Pistol for a Power fist though, you'll likely only get to fire the pistol once (at it's incredibly short range) before getting in CC and then you may as well have a Bolt Pistol, the Power Fist will do more for it's cost.
-I don't use Lemartes too much because he isn't very points efficient. He is fun though.

In honesty I'd drop a good deal of this list to get some Sanguinary Guard or a Furioso Dreadnought in a Drop Pod (If you're playing Blood Angels the Elites slot is where the party's happening so seriously buy into those units).

Again I have no idea if you already have models so half of this could be saying to cut models you can't replace, and I know it sounds kind of like I'm completely slating your list but it's genuinely not that bad -I just think it's missing out on so much Blood Angels goodness.

Thanks for your feedback. Yeah it is what ive finished painting so far and pretty much the extent of what i currently own as a army (not including the odds and ends of nids and dark angels ive painted). If i can pose a question for you. If you to start on the next bigest part to fix what would be the best unit(s) to get. I got a lotta way to go with this army.

At 1k points i'd use a priest not a psker. Psykers are best when you bring 3-4.

I'd get another DC box, and magnetize so you can either go flat like you have it or add in special weapons.

I'd also get a storm raven.

From there, it really depends on where you want to take your list.

Do you want an assault army? Buy a third box of DC(and maybe a fourth if you want 2 ten man squads), 4ish boxes of assault marines, and a couple boxes of sanguinary guard.

Like mechanized forces? Perhaps a couple Baal Predators, and/or 2-3 furiosos with drop pods(frag cannon/heavy flamers are quite fun).

We can always give advice for going other directions too.

I'm not a fan of the stormraven at all. Seems like a 200 pt liability in most cases. DC are flashy, but fragile and often hard to use. I'd get bikers and tac squads w/ heavy flamers.

 troa wrote:
I'd get another DC box, and magnetize so you can either go flat like you have it or add in special weapons.

I'd also get a storm raven.

From there, it really depends on where you want to take your list.

Do you want an assault army? Buy a third box of DC(and maybe a fourth if you want 2 ten man squads), 4ish boxes of assault marines, and a couple boxes of sanguinary guard.

Like mechanized forces? Perhaps a couple Baal Predators, and/or 2-3 furiosos with drop pods(frag cannon/heavy flamers are quite fun).

We can always give advice for going other directions too.

Id like to try and be as aggressive as i can with BA. Thank you for the feedback!

There's smart ways to be aggressive and less smart. DC need some other distraction in the list. Like an IK.

Another couple of directions, and very "in your face" options:

*The termi formation from the latest book(that can assault out of deep strike)(playtest this extensively first! do not buy those termies without finding out you LOVE this build! I find it fun but not perhaps as good as it could be)

*Drop pod assault: Tac squads with heavy flamer, flamer, and on the sergeant 2 hand flamers in drop pods. Furiosos with frag cannons and heavy flamers in drop pods. If you're feeling it, assault squads (no jump packs) with 2 melta guns in drop pods. Going this route the goal is to do as many pods as possible.

Martel, you at least used to hate BA and I don't know that I've seen a particular love for them from you since, but please do put together an example of a good aggressive list for the new player.

At 1K points, I'd try something like

Baal Strike Force

Sanguinary Priest w/Jump pack, veritas vitae, lightning claw

Tac squad (5) w/drop pod and heavy flamer

Tac squad (5) w/drop pod and heavy flamer

Furioso w/frag cannon, heavy flamer, drop pod

Assault squad (7) w/jump packs, 2 X melta, vet sarge w/power sword (priest goes here)

Death company (5) w/jump pack, powerfist

Death company (5) w/jump pack, powerfist

MM attack bike

Just as a question since im still pretty noobish. Whats the pro/ to the drop pod over the vehicles dedicated transport for BA if there is? Also thanks for throwing an demo list togeather for me Martel732!

The drop pod gets your unit to its destination immediately, at the cost of being on foot in subsequent turns. For a dreadnought, there is no downside. Additionally, if your Rhino gets wrecked on your side of the board, it's really bad.

Of course, we can think about an opponent who reserves a lot and then ends up going second. Your drop pods won't have good targets and then your units end up stranded.

So with drop pods you get the Drop Pod Assault rule, which allows you to drop half (rounded up) of your drop pods first turn. This means in a 3 pod list, at least 2 threats in their face immediately on turn one. Usually you pick a couple units you want to do damage to and drop them near those, being careful with how you position the dreadnought's rear armor if it's a dread in a pod. After that, your remaining pods are in reserve to come down later.

If marines are in a rhino, they take much longer to get where they want to go, and you'll not pop up in the backfield. I'd suggest playtesting both (using proxies) before committing, so you can get a feel for them.

However, you don't always want to pop up in their backfield. Rhinos give you options. Drop pods commit you, even when you don't want to be committed.

Very true. You can always drop into your own backfield, or on the front line to just add bodies to the line, but it can be an awkward moment since your pod is then stuck.

It's also worth pointing that very frequently, Rhinos counter drop lists. Their alpha strike kills... some Rhinos.

To be honest, I frequently use a mix. Units like Mephiston and dreadnoughts ride pods because of their limited mobility options. I usually roll tacs in Rhinos so they can redeploy quickly. The exception is melta tacs who get pods.

Thank you very much for anwsering that for me. Getting to get feedback from everyone is very helpful being new to the game. My other question is other then rhinos you can uave razorbacks whats the significance of taking a rhino over a razorback other then taking 6 troops to the full unit of 10? It doesnt seem like there is much talk about razorbacks that ive read for BA. So just curious about the cons of it over a rhino?

Here's the thing. Most BA lists use 5 man squads to start with. So the capacity is moot. The real difference is cost and the fact that the Rhino has two firing ports. I frequently just shoot heavy flamers out of my Rhinos so I don't bother with razorbacks.

razorbacks do the same job as a rhino for more points. The fact that they have a decent gun usually just gets them killed even faster, so it's not really used much. I rarely see them outside of a gladius strike force.

As for collecting BA from a "I want stuff that's good on the board" standpoint, I'd start grabbing up some knife/pistol scouts, a healthy amount of chainsword/bp death company with a few fists, a set of sanguinary guard with a mix of the melee weapons (but not a mix of the guns, I literally never use my inferno/plasma pistol SG models,) and frag cannon furioso dreads along with drop pods.

The heightened competitive BA list archetype at events is pod spam. That's about as good as pure BA can do. And sadly we aren't the best at it. Good, but not best.

I am experimenting with a lost brotherhood + lucifer formation for a couple redeemers full of DC that get right up in there before the opponent can blink, but it's REALLY hard to fit under 2k. I did a 2k game with it the other day that had me completely steamroll a tau list with riptide wing, granted I got lucky that I got just a bunch of glances and no cracked land raiders from their one round of hailfire before the DC got out and erased them. Also first turn is super ultra important. And terrain checks on the LR's... There's a bunch of things that can go wrong, let's just say that.

(If you aren't aware, we have formations available in the Angel's Blade supplement. They aren't great until you get to bigger games, though.)

I still can't imagine BA pods as the top list. There's just so many ways that goes wrong. I find it more likely that there is no top list for BA, and that this is some kind of meta choice.

pod spam is probably the only thing I can write from pure BA that I can (and have) beaten a war convocation with at a GT. It also gives Eldar fits. They have to put out enough chew toys for you so that they don't get tabled, but not lose so much that they can't still kill you. I have never lost to 7e Eldar with pod spam, event or not. The weaker armies die to it fairly easily. Flyrants and flying Daemons get annoyed at the MSU nature of the list, so you just pod and stand on objectives and flip them off all game, and hope the game doesn't go to t7, because you'll probably win otherwise. The alpha strike can do enough initial damage and concentrate the battlefield enough that it actually becomes a game against lion's blade/gladius.

Tau hurt. If you get lucky on their intercept "phase" you can still win, but if they roll hot on that you're done.

And necrons are like smacking into a brick wall with a styrofoam car.

Imperial deathstars you might as well just pod on objectives really far apart from each other (and them) and run away from your pod so they can't get you in multiassault. Like the flyers, if it goes to t6/t7, you're probably dead regardless of what you do.

Overall pod spam does pretty well against a decent selection of the top lists, most notably Eldar, which is a popular upper tables list. You can usually count on facing at least one if you're on a win streak.

Against BA, one would think that a single WK is plenty because we can't skyhammer.

Important note is that pod spam is NOT auto pilot. You need to understand what you're shooting at, why, and if you're using the right weapons, or even have the right weapons at all. Every target priority on the player's part is instrumental, and every failed one is another reason they most likely lost.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Eldar players tend to be scaredy-cats with their WK's. Almost like they lose them to grav a lot or something. They almost never deploy just the WK, even though they should against us.

I would as an Eldar player.

Yeah because we both know how to disassemble our own army. A lot of Eldar players i see at events are like "Blood Angels? So like...red marines?"

Then again, it's not eldar specific. I've found plenty of people who have literally never played against BA and are surprised the first time you lay down a frag cannon template or charge with a little flank unit of DC. Or Dante for that matter. Non-BA players tend to have no clue that he can toe-to-toe with big names nowadays.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Yeah because we both know how to disassemble our own army. A lot of Eldar players i see at events are like "Blood Angels? So like...red marines?"

Then again, it's not eldar specific. I've found plenty of people who have literally never played against BA and are surprised the first time you lay down a frag cannon template or charge with a little flank unit of DC. Or Dante for that matter. Non-BA players tend to have no clue that he can toe-to-toe with big names nowadays.

Interesting. Maybe a bigger meta would actually help me because most of my regular foes know every BA codex since the WD one. And some know them all the way back to Angels of Death. And yes, Dante is legit until he runs into WK or something like that. But CSM players are always like "he does what?".

First of all, I suggest you to start with the baal strike detachment and only subsequently to look into the new possible formation angel's blade has to offer.

As a BA player I always try to play very aggressive and to get into combat as soon as possible:

When I play a 1000 points list according to the baal strike force detachment I usually field in 2x 5 men cc scout squads, 2-3 units of 5x DC with PF, a pair of land speeders, grav bikes, 3 pods (furioso, 2x 5 man assault squad with 2 meltas) and a pair of triple las cannon predators

Thanks you all for the helpful advice. On to my next noobish question. Whats the best HQ for the points for a lower point game vs the larger format? Everything ive read was that librarians are very useful for BA which led me to modeling and painting a termie librarian.

Libbies are better in large games, imo, where you can take multiples. For small games, priests are really efficient.

Now next question about sanguinary priests in that case. Do they give off the blood chalice bubble regardless if the model has it or is that just model specific? Ive seen tons of models both ways with or w/o but wasnt sure if it worded either way?