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Hello fellow dakka dakians, I have a question for y'all. I used to be the only one in my gaming community that played tau, and now everybody does, so it's really lame and I don't really want to play them anymore. Unfortunately, I sold most of my Blood Angels and what I have I don't think is really competitive. Listed below is what I have remaining:
Dante
Librarian
Chaplain
3 Sanguinary Priests
1 Furioso Librarian Dread
10 Sanguinary Guard
10 Death Company
1 Death Compant Dread
1 Drop Pod
10 Assault Marines
5 Devastators
I don't really have much money to spend on this hobby anymore, as I got laid off at the beginning of the summer, about 2 weeks after I bought a car :/ However I do have a 25$ gift certificate for my local gaming store, which I'm thinking of saving until the new Space Marine veteran boxed sets come out in September(?) or maybe grabbing Mephiston. Anyways, does anybody know of a 1500 or 1850pt list that would be competitive?
Thanks guys!

A Librarian is a great HQ, just remember to roll on the Divination table.
Depending on the weapons in the DC you could field 2x10 ASM with priests (I hope the DC and priests have JP's?)
Seeing as you don't have many units I would finish that list with Dante and 2x Sanguinary Guard and a Furioso-dread in a droppod. (DC-dread probably has the same gear anyway)
That leaves you with a few points to take a Devastator-sqd with some upgrades.

When you say 'competitive', what do you mean?
This list won't win you any tournament, you really need Tau for that
But you will probably have fun playing the community and even have a chance of winning depending on the competitiveness of their lists.

I participate in a thread almost just like this about twice per month...I used to give a real answer about how I've been trying to win with Blood Angels, and I'm sure somebody will come along this thread and really break it down for you, but my answer now is going to be "Wait 3 weeks and then buy Codex: Space Marines."

Hopefully for you, you didn't make the mistake of painting those Angels red.

Kangodo wrote:
A Librarian is a great HQ, just remember to roll on the Divination table.
Depending on the weapons in the DC you could field 2x10 ASM with priests (I hope the DC and priests have JP's?)
Seeing as you don't have many units I would finish that list with Dante and 2x Sanguinary Guard and a Furioso-dread in a droppod. (DC-dread probably has the same gear anyway)
That leaves you with a few points to take a Devastator-sqd with some upgrades.

When you say 'competitive', what do you mean?
This list won't win you any tournament, you really need Tau for that
But you will probably have fun playing the community and even have a chance of winning depending on the competitiveness of their lists.

Thanks Kangodo! Yea everything I have has jump packs, was going for the whole descent of angels thing when I first started them. As far as competitive you hit the nail on the head, I just wanted something I could play casual games with and not get completely tabled. For tournaments I will definitely be resorting to my Tau I'll give that list a shot in the upcoming days and see how it works, maybe my failures were just the heavy dependence on death company. They hit like a truck when they get into CC with anything but man, they are REALLY expensive.

 tomjoad wrote:
I participate in a thread almost just like this about twice per month...I used to give a real answer about how I've been trying to win with Blood Angels, and I'm sure somebody will come along this thread and really break it down for you, but my answer now is going to be "Wait 3 weeks and then buy Codex: Space Marines."

Hopefully for you, you didn't make the mistake of painting those Angels red.

Pretty much this. BA codex alone can't generate a competitive list and if you ally in say, Tau, there are still better chapters to team up the Tau with.

Librarian:
Prescience is great for the Devastators.
Forewarning is great since it keeps them alive.
Perfect Timing is a blessing too! (See what I did there?)
Scriers Gaze can work great if you keep Dante, 2xSG and an ASM in reserve, it's almost a guaranteed T2 Deep strike.

If you encounter a lot of vehicles, you could take some Infernus Pistols on those SG.
My ASM are standard equipped with two Melta-guns, I tend to DS them with Dante so I get a perfect three melta-shots on a vehicle.
Another tactic is to DS the first two groups and then either use Dante+ASM to get close to the Banner or DS the ASM first and try to get Dante+SG(banner) close to them.

If you have three Priests with JP's you might even consider giving each DS-group their own priest.
The downside of SG is their lack of 5++, FNP almost makes up for that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Pretty much this. BA codex alone can't generate a competitive list and if you ally in say, Tau, there are still better chapters to team up the Tau with.

News and Rumors has some leaks on the Vanguard Veteran squad
If that codex has a line saying that these changes are also for Blood Angels, then we can throw our DC's out of the window till the new codex.

Those are new minis; no word on new rules. I'm sure they'll get a modest price drop, plus the grab pistol, but it would be nearly unprecedented for that to cross over to BAs prior to our next codex being released.

If you're only using them for local friendly games then we don't have to worry about being *TOO* competitive. With that in mind, certain things you will always want/need to take, then on top there are a couple of decent combinations in here.

Your core should be the Librarian, Priest, Assault Marines and Devastators. This is to get bodies on the board as Blood Angels' biggest problem at the moment is that we always get outnumbered thanks to high points costs on our specialists. As mentioned, you want to take Divination on the Librarian to get Prescience, and keep him with the Devastators (this also gives them a little durability in close combat should they get caught on their own). The Priest should go with the Assault Marines instead. I would only really get a Priest for the Devastators too if you really don't have enough points for anything else.

For the extras, you can do worse than Dante with all 10 Sanguinary Guard - this gives you more scoring troops, half of which have a 2+ save. Make no mistake that they are still fragile against massed fire, so try to keep them out of line of sight until you're ready to charge with them.

The other route would be to go with 5+ Death Company (I prefer anywhere between 7-10, but their expense with jump packs has been long debated here) so you can get the Death Company and Furioso dreads. Despite what people will tell you about hull points I find quite a few opponents can struggle taking down both AV13 *and* AV12 that ignores shaken/stunned before one of them reaches their lines. If you go this route, most of the time you won't want to take the pod as this splits the threat and can actually make it easier to take the Dreads down.

I think its a waste to have a 100 pt libby babysitting a devastator squad with only 4 heavy weapons. Especially because the bump from BS4 to BS4 TL is not amazing. I feel like the BA need all models fully participating to maximize their chances. I find that having my libby move out with my mobile elements has all kinds of benefits. Besides, I think presciencing MM attack bikes is more valuable than devastators anyway.

 tomjoad wrote:


Hopefully for you, you didn't make the mistake of painting those Angels red.

Thankfully, GW has a chapter known as "Blood Ravens" that follow the codex astartes (albeit with more than usual librarians). That's how i will use my red marines as 'codex marines' when this book comes out in September.

Thanks for all the input guys! I'm going to be trying a BA list Saturday night against a friend who plays DA at 1850pts, and I think I'll field the whole libby, devastators, assault marines, dante, furioso and 2x 5 sanguinary guard (with 3 sang priests obviously). I do like tetrisphreak's point about Blood Raven's, and I think that may be a viable option in the future, especially seeing as Blood Angels aren't likely to get a supplement codex when the new Space Marine Codex comes out. I think I will field the libby with the devastators, simply beause the last game I fielded the Blood Angels with devastators they actuallly did absolutley nothing, hitting almost never and doing next to nothing when they did actually hit, so I think prescience would REALLY help me there. At 1850pts I think I could also have a little "Dante Bomb" and field 5 Sanguinary guard each with a melta pistol, having 6 (including Dante) melta shots hitting a tank hard, and then having the meltas from the assault squad hitting another tank. Then if I have the points I'll give the other Sanguinary Guard squad some melta pistols, just for the hell of it. Then I'll have the Furioso have Sanguinary Shield and Blood Lance so it can at least have some form of save and a way of taking out armor as well. As said though, I'm gonna try them out tomorrow night and I'll report back with my findings. Again, thanks a lot guys, I really appreciate the support!

I you have the devs armed with MLs, the libby won't help that much.

Here's math from another thread:

Without prescience support, you are looking at

2.666 hits (weighted Gaussian average) * .667 (chance to pen or glance) = 1.78 hull points.

Granted, you'll get 1.33 pens, but this has a lousy 0.22 chance to explode the Rhino. (AP 3 sucks)

It only gets worse when going against the fronts of Chimeras. I don't see how this can be seen as "taking care" of transports.

It's not random negativity. It's because the weapon doesn't kill anything fast enough in practice to warrant a heavy slot. Trust me, I wish what people said about the ML were true. I'd use it.

With a second look at prescience support:

0.89 (weighted to hit with prescience) * .667 to glance/pen * 4 shots = 2.37

From this, you'll get 1.78 pens with a 0.30 chance to explode the Rhino.

So by adding a 100 pt babysitter, the Gaussian average is still pretty far from killing a *Rhino* in one volley. So who here wants to dedicate a heavy slot and an HQ to failing to kill a Rhino?



Looking at this, it doesn't seem worth a 100 pt babysitter for BA devastators armed with MLs. I'm not sure its even worth it for any BA devastators. I'd rather let me ASM reroll shooting AND hand to hand.

Yeah, you are right about that.
I was mainly thinking about the "ignore cover" that sounds useful.

But all of his Blessings are on units within 12", I would prefer to make use of that.

A librarians only get two powers, and so their chance of getting "ignore cover" any given game is not very good. Plus, the librarian is another guy swinging a power axe. Sadly, this means that we are mostly helpless against serpent spam. Of course, even Tau are having problems with serpent spam.

People saying that you can't play blood angels as vanilla are just being lame. I used to play my DA as vanilla before 6th came out and everyone I played was fine with it. Just as long as you don't start using BA rules and such nobody will care. Play them as whatever chapter you want as long as your opponent agrees with it.

Oh, that's never been the issue. But how many BA players own thunderfires or Stormtalons?

AV14 is the hard counter to serpent spam and you can do that we'll

Are you going to use AV 14 as your TAC list though? All opponents are not Eldar.

Martel732 wrote:
Are you going to use AV 14 as your TAC list though? All opponents are not Eldar.

Eldar mainly field S6 or S7 weapons (scatterlasers, shuricannons, serpent shield). Thus a AV13 wall would be an option when you face Eldar.

I would like to preface this by saying I read no comments besides the OP's

Play tau

If you cant buy any models dont bother using what you have competitively because it is the farthest thing from it, you need a LOT of units to round that army out, then there is the fact that unless you are a VERY good general, blood angels are not going to do well regardless, especially vs tau.

Admiral General Aladeen wrote:
I would like to preface this by saying I read no comments besides the OP's

Play tau

If you cant buy any models dont bother using what you have competitively because it is the farthest thing from it, you need a LOT of units to round that army out, then there is the fact that unless you are a VERY good general, blood angels are not going to do well regardless, especially vs tau.

If all you did was read the OP, then you would have noticed the part where I said I don't really want to play Tau so much anymore. It's not fun. I like the Blood Angels fluff quite a bit and really like their models. If winning with them is a challenge then so be it, isn't that kind of what the game is about? Anyone I play against in my community that plays Tau upon seeing me field BA would either want to try a different Tau list than usual (which may help) or, as some people have more than 1 army, chose to play me with a different army. I'm mostly doing this because my friend hates playing against Tau (understandably so) and playing against my Blood Angels would be more fun. So the challenge is to make a list that is somewhat competitive with what I have or with some slight additions. While I realize it won't play well against other armies, my friend plays DA with lots of infantry, and almost no tanks, which would make the game hella interesting. I still have yet to play against him, but when I do I will post the results along with some pictures from the battle.

Thanks again for all the support and comments in the thread, I'm glad to see I got your minds buzzing

Actually this thread has got me thinking quite a bit about my black templar army i am trying to build up. Looking at these lists and suggestions it got me looking at the sanguinary guard and Dante

As far as competitive units go, wouldnt this be a fairly strong allied attachment? Dante and 5 SG with some melta pistols?

The other thing I was thinking about was that I could even run this group as a vanilla marine set if the BT do get rolled in to the SM codex. Call them the Black Angels. Even if I got some stuff from the DV set, I think the wings logo would fit with a chapter known as the Black Angels.

 Icculus wrote:
Actually this thread has got me thinking quite a bit about my black templar army i am trying to build up. Looking at these lists and suggestions it got me looking at the sanguinary guard and Dante

As far as competitive units go, wouldnt this be a fairly strong allied attachment? Dante and 5 SG with some melta pistols?

The other thing I was thinking about was that I could even run this group as a vanilla marine set if the BT do get rolled in to the SM codex. Call them the Black Angels. Even if I got some stuff from the DV set, I think the wings logo would fit with a chapter known as the Black Angels.

BT with BA allies? Depends on your BT army. An ally detachment should cover some weaknesses. Dante leading an SG squad can provide an alpha strike. But this makes only sense if you are able to support this unit. I could imagine that Mordrak and Dante would work together very well.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Icculus wrote:
Actually this thread has got me thinking quite a bit about my black templar army i am trying to build up. Looking at these lists and suggestions it got me looking at the sanguinary guard and Dante

As far as competitive units go, wouldnt this be a fairly strong allied attachment? Dante and 5 SG with some melta pistols?

The other thing I was thinking about was that I could even run this group as a vanilla marine set if the BT do get rolled in to the SM codex. Call them the Black Angels. Even if I got some stuff from the DV set, I think the wings logo would fit with a chapter known as the Black Angels.

BT with BA allies? Depends on your BT army. An ally detachment should cover some weaknesses. Dante leading an SG squad can provide an alpha strike. But this makes only sense if you are able to support this unit. I could imagine that Mordrak and Dante would work together very well.

Right now my BT army consists of a drop pod with either a chaplain or marshall and bp/ccw initiates. this will come in on turn one and lay down a beacon for my TH/SS Termies.

The problem is that the rest of my army is going to be in the back. I will have a few 5man squads with lascannons and a termie squad with 2 CMLs.

So another DS hard hitting unit would help me out here.

 Icculus wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Icculus wrote:
Actually this thread has got me thinking quite a bit about my black templar army i am trying to build up. Looking at these lists and suggestions it got me looking at the sanguinary guard and Dante

As far as competitive units go, wouldnt this be a fairly strong allied attachment? Dante and 5 SG with some melta pistols?

The other thing I was thinking about was that I could even run this group as a vanilla marine set if the BT do get rolled in to the SM codex. Call them the Black Angels. Even if I got some stuff from the DV set, I think the wings logo would fit with a chapter known as the Black Angels.

BT with BA allies? Depends on your BT army. An ally detachment should cover some weaknesses. Dante leading an SG squad can provide an alpha strike. But this makes only sense if you are able to support this unit. I could imagine that Mordrak and Dante would work together very well.

Right now my BT army consists of a drop pod with either a chaplain or marshall and bp/ccw initiates. this will come in on turn one and lay down a beacon for my TH/SS Termies.

The problem is that the rest of my army is going to be in the back. I will have a few 5man squads with lascannons and a termie squad with 2 CMLs.

So another DS hard hitting unit would help me out here.

Well, you could also consider Mordrak and his Ghosts. They are a bit more durable than Dante and his SG.

Dante and SG are unfieldable for TAC atm because Eldar own their face so hard.

Martel732 wrote:
Dante and SG are unfieldable for TAC atm because Eldar own their face so hard.

Would that mean that terminators are unfieldable as well? Also the cool thing about these guys is that they are scoring.

I mean this unit seems fairly strong. being able to DS without fail scattering means i can come in behind cover. Then with a jump infantry I can get to my target to assault. 2+ armor saves, with dante near the front to add 2+/4++ with 4 wounds. I mean these guys will tear some stuff up. Also the huge nerf to the enemy HQ seems like a big bonus. Normally your allied attachments dont affect your main force, but since this is an effect on the enemy, it DOES affect my main attachment. Bring in a banner with these guys and thats +1 attack. If I bring 5 SG and Dante, il probably lose at least 2 SG before I can charge. But thats 12 attacks with a master crafted power sword from the SG and 7 attacks from Dante with his MC power axe. also the enemy must pass leadership or be at WS1

Seems pretty awesome to me

Dante is not worth his points, not by a long shot. He got nerfed so hard in the BA FAQ it's almost sicking. The only named HQs the BA have worth feilding is Mephiston and Tycho, neither of which are all the great as allies because Meph costs as much as a LR and Tychos awesome ability only affects BA. If you must regail BA to an ally, take a Reclusiarch with DC or assault marines and a bloodpriest.

Why can't people explain their answers? You guys just say he is not worth his points and he is not a viable option. Why not? What makes him so bad?

I think the reason Dante is not really a viable choice is that due to the 6th ed power weapon changes and the FAQ, he is armed with a power axe, which makes his high initiative useless. This combined with lack of Eternal Warrior means he will either get killed by weight of attacks or (admittedly rare) at-initiative AP2 weapons, or strike at the same time as things like TH or PF and be killed if he fails even 1 4++ save. The ability to bring SG as troops is also less useful now due to eldar having AP2 on everything and the preference for plasma for armies like IG and tau. So in essence, he fulfils neither his role as a combat character nor as a FOC manipulator.

SG can be effective, but are stuck at 5-man squads, have to wait at least a turn before being able to assault, and th fact they are scoring is not really useful due to the small squad size. Most armies can easily kill 5 T4 2+ sv models if they need to. The Death Masks are nice, but most armies are pretty resistant to Ld-indiced effects, as the armies with typically low Ld values often have ways of becoming fearless, such as Mob Rule for orks or Synapse for nids.

Dante's effect on the enemy HQ is useful, but not enough to mitigate his failings, as T4 and no EW is just a recepie for disaster against most CC HQ choices.