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Hey there. I have a fluff question about something I am pondering. I had originally wanted to start a Deathwing force, just not as Dark Angels- I was going to do a counts-as force painted as the Ultramarines 1st company in their Tactical Dreadnought armor.

But then I remembered I have 12 nice Terminators already, just sitting in my copy of Space Hulk 3e. The problem is, they are chock full of Blood Angels symbolism- far too much to easily remove enough to pass as Ultramarines, and I think it would be a shame to make them plain Terminators anyway, because all that detail is beautiful, too.

So here's my question: As about half of what will be my maximum force already has Blood Angels iconography all over it, why not make those Terminators the Command Squad of an all-Terminator Blood Angels force (or quite possibly a successor of my own creation), with Sergeant Lorenzo from the game as my counts-as Belial? As I don't know much that's current with the Blood Angels other than their obvious mainstream fluff (never played them), would a terminator force of those numbers belonging to the Blood Angels grate too much against existing fluff?

I'm kind of on the fence about it, personally, and would like some opinions.

Blood Angels operate Terminators just like any other Chapter. They operate out of the 1st Company. A large force of terminators is fluffy, even if it's 30+ guys.

The only limitation to keep in mind is that (though I would have to check the source) Blood Angels are said to have ~40 suits of terminator armour for the whole chapter (which, considering how rare the stuff is, is pretty good). So if you stay below that amount then it should all be good from a hardcore-fluff standpoint (for extra fun have one in there painted in Ultramarine colours; that is another oddity of the BA terminator armour stocks). I think the force would look bloody amazing either way. Next to the Deathwing, the Blood Angel terminators always evoke fond memories of the 1st Edition of Space Hulk (not to mention the current version).

When I get a chance I really need to paint my Space Hulk stuff. Some great minis in there.

My army will probably end up being around 25 Terminators with a Land Raider and an old metal TL-lascannon Dreadnought for fire support. As much as it would be unlikely for a Blood Angels Successor Chapter to be able to field Terminators in force, when the Blood Angels themselves can only mobilize under half a company, I may end up doing that because then I can add my own fluff to them.

From what I read the Blood Drinkers (2nd founding off from the Blood Angels) fielded about a full 1st company in terminator armor for the joint operation with the Novamarines aboard the Genestealer infested space hulk Death of Integrity where they achieved a 53-1 kill ratio.

Ah, screw it, I'm going full Blood Angels after remembering the Ultramarines suit! It will just resemble them from a period where they had a larger number of suits, maybe sometime during the Age of Apostasy or just thereafter, as I also have Sisters of Battle in my collection.

Does anybody remember where the bit of fluff is about the errant set of Ultramarine Terminator Armor in the Blood Angels armory? Once it was mentioned by Ronin, I vaguely remember reading about that bit and loving how it was reasoned out, but can't remember where it was from. Space Hulk 3e, maybe?

The best part is that I will have all the Blood Angels from Spulk for a "command squad", as well as the DW command squad and the one from Dark Vengeance, along with a single terminator from the WD promo for Black Reach. So that one terminator suit that will stand out as "vanilla" will be perfect for painting as the Ultramarine suit.

I have that reference here before me as it happens. It was in a white dwarf article and then reprinted in the White Dwarf W40k Compendium. Page 16 of the compendium. Brother Levi is wearing it.

"Levi." The bolter's magazine was tiny in comparison to Levi's power glove. but he had no trouble in sliding it home. There was a click and the bolter's catch held the magazine. Levi shook his head, working the helmet seals carefully into place. His suit was battered and scarred and badly in need of repainting. It wasn't even in the proper chapter colours, having come from the Ultramarines armory a generation before. Bare metal showed in several places. Levi, like many of the suits previous users, had refused to let the Techmarines repaint it. Every time it's Ultramarines colours had been hidden, the suits wearer had been killed. Levi maintained that the suit knew it was only borrowed, and even the techs had come to believe the same. They had given up trying to persuade him to have it repainted in the proper colours.

Whoa, that is an old fluff reference - so old it predates second edition 40K, and any Blood Angels codex!

Thanks for the help! Strangely I actually have the 40K compendium, it's part of my collection that I am slowly trying to grow after lucking into a copy of Rogue Trader in a free box of White Dwarf editions(!). "Someday" I plan on playing some Rogue Trader-era games.

Especially in an army made of completely modern figures, having something with so old a reference will be a great ode to the early days when I first started.

Would be very cool to see a full BA force of Termies, just might be a bit difficult rules wise as you would have to use BA codex and BA class them as Elites.

'd still love to see it though!

 Ronin_eX wrote:
The only limitation to keep in mind is that (though I would have to check the source) Blood Angels are said to have ~40 suits of terminator armour for the whole chapter (which, considering how rare the stuff is, is pretty good).

What's your source for that? Space Hulk 3rd edition had them with 80 suits.

Would be very cool to see a full BA force of Termies, just might be a bit difficult rules wise as you would have to use BA codex and BA class them as Elites.

'd still love to see it though!

Not a big deal, actually - they are being used with the Dark Angels Deathwing rules, as a purely counts-as army. I'm "old-school" that way (lol) and the Veterans of the Blood Angels are noted for being paragons who are the most resistant to the Black Rage.

What's your source for that? Space Hulk 3rd edition had them with 80 suits.

That's what I see, too, which relieves me from some of the "un-fluffiness" of a force like I am doing.

The missions book mentions that that the Chapter had "80 warriors" taking place in the boarding action. While it never literally says that all those troops are in Terminator armor, I assume that's what it means as the game focuses on Terminators.

You could always make it a coalition army drawing Terminators from a variety of Blood Angels successors, there's some precedent for coalition armies of normal Space Marines drawing a squad or two from a number of Chapters, so...

I run a Salamanders 1st Coy Army that i use as count as Deathwing. Baring in mind i built my Army before the present Codex so il need to figure something out to repesent the deathknights.

I have around 50 terminators in my force and it looks a sweet sight on the battle feild.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
While it never literally says that all those troops are in Terminator armor,

It does actually - nearly 100 Space Marines of which 80 were Terminators of the 1st Company (page 42), if they weren't in Terminator armour they would be called Veterans.

Another question for you guys, because I've never owned any of the Blood Angels codexes:

What color do the Veterans of the Blood Angels 1st Company paint their helmets? I think it's gold, right???

My other conundrum is whether to make a conversion to represent Captain Rafael for my counts-as Belial, or just Sergeant Lorenzo. Theorizing that it's just representing a strike force of about 25 Terminators at most, rather than most of the Company which would see Rafael in command.

BA codex says the colours are:

Red = "normal" Marine
Yellow = Assault Marine (I assume this would apply to assault termies as well)
Blue = Devestators
Gold = Veterans

All the terminiators as painted for the 3rd edition Space Hulk box have red helmets, both for tactical and assault terminator squads.

Graphite wrote:
All the terminiators as painted for the 3rd edition Space Hulk box have red helmets, both for tactical and assault terminator squads.

And these are the ones shown in the current Blood Angels codex.

Prior to the current codex power armoured assault veterans wore yellow helmets (and back in RT when the BA 1st company had tacticals they wore tactical red), this was retconned into gold with the current codex (previously that specifically denoted Honour Guard).

Terminators have always had red helmets all round, and knowing GW always will due to the fact they always have (I'm a big fan of Assault Terminators having yellow, but it has no canon precident)

All the terminiators as painted for the 3rd edition Space Hulk box have red helmets, both for tactical and assault terminator squads.

That's exactly why I raised the question, as I always thought that all Blood Angel Veterans had gold helmets, and that would carry through to when they are in Terminator armor. Much like Codex Chapter Terminators (or at the very least Ultramarines) all have the white Veteran helms and the Sergeants have the codex "red helm with white stripe".

For the helmet colours - as far back as I can tell (certainly from 2nd ed Codex Angels of Death), Assault Veterans have had gold helmets. This initially carried over to Honour Guard when they turned up in 3rd as well. For a while they didn't have tactical veterans or Sternguard *at all*.
Meanwhile, Terminator helmets have always been red, even with the distinction between standard and assault.



However - for what it's worth - my Assault Terminators have gold helmets.

Fluff-wise... a lot will go into your selections of course, but the idea of my BA Termies losing Red Thirst in favour of extreme grumpiness and Fearless just doesn't sit right with me. I could see their hatred towards Chaos Marines what with the animosity towards the Black Legion, however.

Fluff-wise... a lot will go into your selections of course, but the idea of my BA Termies losing Red Thirst in favour of extreme grumpiness and Fearless just doesn't sit right with me. I could see their hatred towards Chaos Marines what with the animosity towards the Black Legion, however.

Other than the obvious reasons that I want to use such cool figures without modification, I wanted to paint something different than my usual dark colors, as well as for a change it would entail collecting a force that's different from all my other "power armor" armies, I decided to use this passage from the Space Hulk 3ed missions book to justify my force:

"...For the Blood Angels, the 1st Company has the added importance of showing that it is possible to avoid the grip of the Black Rage, to rise above one's inherent weaknesses to become a pinnacle of excellence. The 1st Company is therefore a sign of hope for the Blood Angels in a time where the temptations of succumbing to the flaws of the gene-seed are strong".