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Hello everyone,

Just wanted to ask quickly how the current blood angels codex is doing in the competitive environment?, and if they are doing well what sort of builds or units are shining.

Cheers

They sound very competitive from the podcasts I listen to - namely stratagems based around large Death Company units or the Sanguinary Guard (?) w/ jump packs ---- and strong characters.

Really decent close-combat stuff.

The are moderately competitive, but easily countered in the deployment phase.

Very competitive. One of the best beat stick HQ's in game and can have a melee unit do 120 attacks if you are able to multi charge.

Blood Angels actually add something to Imperial Guard, so they're near the top of the heap right now if you count "Imperium" as "Blood Angels."

Here's the thing.

Most factions have a "trick" they can perform, which doesn't scale in a standalone army, because it's based on a power you can use once per phase, or a stratagem (which is restricted to once per phase), etc.

Blood Angels have a really nasty couple tricks they can do. But you can't do it with an entire army, so they're best when they're brought with something that can stand on its own. Enter, Imperial Guard.

These two factions excel at wholly different things and are a pretty good pairing.

So the short answer is yes competitive, but in the context of an Imperium list, not a BA list.

 Marmatag wrote:

So the short answer is yes competitive, but in the context of an Imperium list, not a BA list.

Just want to be clear, is a list that top 8s the LVO not a competitive list?

 Marmatag wrote:
Blood Angels actually add something to Imperial Guard, so they're near the top of the heap right now if you count "Imperium" as "Blood Angels."

Here's the thing.

Most factions have a "trick" they can perform, which doesn't scale in a standalone army, because it's based on a power you can use once per phase, or a stratagem (which is restricted to once per phase), etc.

Blood Angels have a really nasty couple tricks they can do. But you can't do it with an entire army, so they're best when they're brought with something that can stand on its own. Enter, Imperial Guard.

These two factions excel at wholly different things and are a pretty good pairing.

So the short answer is yes competitive, but in the context of an Imperium list, not a BA list.

This is something I can agree heavily with. We need less 1/army abilities out there.

meleti wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

So the short answer is yes competitive, but in the context of an Imperium list, not a BA list.

Just want to be clear, is a list that top 8s the LVO not a competitive list?

This list made it to the top 8 because he was misusing the descent of angels stratagem. The second he was discovered to be misusing it, he lost.

Also, he got incredibly favorable pairings, on top of effectively cheating.

So no, it wasn't a competitive list.

meleti wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

So the short answer is yes competitive, but in the context of an Imperium list, not a BA list.

Just want to be clear, is a list that top 8s the LVO not a competitive list?

He cheated to get there.

Even if that player did misuse the stratagem on multiple other occasions than the one we know about, I don't see how using that specific stratagem more than you should is enough to top 8 the LVO without having a competitive army in the first place.

Could he pick up a win or two? Sure. Could he pick up 4-5 wins that he wouldn't have gotten otherwise? I really doubt it.

The only way I see defining BA as "noncompetitive" is being some troll who thinks only Dark Reapers can be called competitive.

meleti wrote:
Even if that player did misuse the stratagem on multiple other occasions than the one we know about, I don't see how using that specific stratagem more than you should is enough to top 8 the LVO without having a competitive army in the first place.

Could he pick up a win or two? Sure. Could he pick up 4-5 wins that he wouldn't have gotten otherwise? I really doubt it.

The only way I see defining BA as "noncompetitive" is being some troll who thinks only Dark Reapers can be called competitive.

Well you're raising a hypothetical situation. The simple fact is that he cheated. This should disqualify him, just like you'd disqualify an illegal list. Do you disagree?

"We don't know how much he cheated therefore his list is competitive." Is this what you're saying?

 Marmatag wrote:
We don't know how much he cheated therefore his list is competitive." Is this what you're saying?

Nope.

I would non-sarcastically agree that they are as competitive as Craftworld Eldar.

Namely, they have high tournament showings and a singular extremely strong unit that becomes even more powerful when souped (such as Imperium/Ynnari). Do be careful in that a few users on here seem highly protective of anything SM, so they might downplay how powerful they are.

For the average FLGS, they're certainly all you'll need for a competitive game.

How powerful can an army be when it can be defeated during deployment?

Hang on, which BA list cheated? The soup list or the pure BA list? There were two BA lists in the top 8 of LVO; one looked really solid since it was pure BA, with 3x Intercessors and like basically a relatively fluffy looking list. And how did it cheat?

Pure ba popped doa against a chaos player without deep striking.

Martel732 wrote:
Pure ba popped doa against a chaos player without deep striking.

But presumably he did not cheat against the others and still won those?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Pure ba popped doa against a chaos player without deep striking.

But presumably he did not cheat against the others and still won those?

We don't know, because the Chaos game was the only one he played on stream.

He specifically asked if he could use the stratagem on the stream and was told by the judge that he could. I think that's sufficient to say he didn't use it prior since it'd be a little counter-intuitive to ask every game to use something you were already told you could.

This does kind of bring up another point, though. If a judge tells you that you can do something but later it ends up being illegal, is that really a DQ-worthy action? Yeah he should know better about his stratagems and whatnot and there are people that vouched for him, saying he was a good guy. But in the end, the judge made the call. I personally think it's more on the judge than the player at that point.

Hoodwink wrote:
He specifically asked if he could use the stratagem on the stream and was told by the judge that he could. I think that's sufficient to say he didn't use it prior since it'd be a little counter-intuitive to ask every game to use something you were already told you could.

This does kind of bring up another point, though. If a judge tells you that you can do something but later it ends up being illegal, is that really a DQ-worthy action? Yeah he should know better about his stratagems and whatnot and there are people that vouched for him, saying he was a good guy. But in the end, the judge made the call. I personally think it's more on the judge than the player at that point.

I would agree. Even if the judge is wrong, the judge's decision is final for that game. Same like the old "roll a d6 if you can't agree" rule. So he did not "cheat" in that regard.

Hoodwink wrote:
He specifically asked if he could use the stratagem on the stream and was told by the judge that he could. I think that's sufficient to say he didn't use it prior since it'd be a little counter-intuitive to ask every game to use something you were already told you could.

This does kind of bring up another point, though. If a judge tells you that you can do something but later it ends up being illegal, is that really a DQ-worthy action? Yeah he should know better about his stratagems and whatnot and there are people that vouched for him, saying he was a good guy. But in the end, the judge made the call. I personally think it's more on the judge than the player at that point.

It's the rules for his own army and it's very clear, so I'm not even sure why he bothered asking rather than just reading it. I'm equally shocked that a judge would make that ruling without reading the rule in question. If it was just this incident then it's probably a bit harsh to say he should be kicked out of the tournament. Then again, this is supposed to be the pinnacle of competitive 40k and the resulting charge did a stupid amount of damage. I think if we're going to start taking competitive 40k seriously - and the thousands of dollars in prize money suggests at least some people are - we need equally serious standards to uphold both from judges and players. In any competition I can think of, ignorance is no excuse for breaking the rules.

As far as the OP goes, I think BA are pretty strong but will ultimately be hamstrung by the weakness of assault in this edition. I think if there were tweaks to the assault phase and Falling Back, similar to what we've seen with the character and Smite rules, BA could become a genuinely top-tier army. They do assault very, very well but that's not really enough to win games at the moment IMO.

While I agree he should know his own army rules, the Judge endorsed it, removing the blame from this guy.

Weak play, but he is technically right, and as you know that is the best kind of right.

Question- Was he DQ'd by the TO or did he voluntarily DQ himself?

If it was the former then the LVO was wrong to do so. A judge (who represents the LVO) told him it was OK to do what the did. Therefore it was proper for that game. He then should have been told that the judges ruling was incorrect and that he shouldn't do that in the future. But he should have been able to play on in the tournament.

If he DQ'd himself then that is a fine example of being a good sport and recognizing that the game should not have gone the way it did. Since a gross error benefited him, he did not want to take advantage of that error. If this is the case then I say "Bravo" to the player.

He just got smushed in the top 8. He was never DQed by anyone.

Ah, I thought that I read that he was Dq'd. Thanks for clearing that up.

Not to my knowledge.

Lol. How and when an army can be defeated has no bearing on whether or not it's powerful. What percentage of games the army wins under normal circumstances dictates the power level of the army. Nearly any army can be defeated in deployment (or even earlier and more universally, defeated in the list building stage by tailoring against it).

it's always hilarious the level of apologism that immediately comes out of the folks who most universally and vocally attack any other powerful faction when something from the Marines shows up in the competitive meta. It's always either trimmed out as "the only thing" that makes marines competitive and everything else is super UP honest you guys, or it's "just an outlier" that won through lucky matchups/rolls.

It's impossible to beat Eldar or IG in deployment because they choose their targets via shooting. It's not that hard to understand.

The only hilarious part is going to be the mental gymnastics on here after GW publishes three Xenos books in a row that crush marines like children. But somehow it's gonna be marine players' fault for that, too.

Martel732 wrote:
It's impossible to beat Eldar or IG in deployment because they choose their targets via shooting. It's not that hard to understand.

The only hilarious part is going to be the mental gymnastics on here after GW publishes three Xenos books in a row that crush marines like children. But somehow it's gonna be marine players' fault for that, too.

unless you're playing against IG, and you deploy the bulk of your army in reserve so that you get to make the first attack regardless of whether you go first or second...you know, why this Blood Angels list archetype did so well against a hugely IG gunline focused meta.

It's almost like a heavy melee deep strike alpha is perfectly capable of carving up and tying up a standard IG gunline and crippling it, leading it to be a very successful countermeta list element that we're seeing pop up across half a dozen factions that can now do it. Imagine that.

Except it isn't in practice. You are forced to carve up 4 ppm models that the opponent doesn't care about. Then you die. It's almost like the fall back mechanic is broken or something. I can't help it if these guys at the LVO failed screening 101. My opponents sure as hell don't. BA are just about the most useless army in the game vs IG.