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I'm afraid that I personally know of stores that meet frequently that think BA are hunky-dory.

That's the other (less sane :-p) half ;-)

The point of comparing BA, a 3+ dex from a prior edition, to DA, a 3+ dex from the current edition, is to bring to light the fact that although imperfect it is still playable. The question posed was "Is it competitive." That is vague. Competitive in a tournament scene? Competitive at a local level?

What IS competitive? Are Tau and Eldar exceptions to a norm or are they the norm? Does it matter which armies are the best if everyone must ally to get the most miles out any single codex?

If every codex is weak except for 2 or three, (Tau, Eldar, Necrons?) then I would have to say BA are "competitive." They can beat or put up a fight with a majority of the currently released codices and therefore they are competitive.

BA do not stack up well against Necrons, IG, GK, and SW in addition to Daemons, Tau, Eldar. Orks, Sisters, DA, and even Nids have an advantage over them. BA are the worst list in the game hands down.

The fact that BA might do okay locally does not change the fact that I could probably take say GK and win 80-85% of my games against BA.

what is "competative"? if by competitive, you mean a one-click solution for every tourney, no, they are not. Blood Angels, like most old books, requires effort to make usable for tournaments. effort is usually a rare commodity.

There's "effort", and then there's "so mathematically behind the 8-ball it requires miraculous die rolling". Marines in general lack throw weight in 6th. BA amplifies this flaw. When you opponent has very dangerous weapons that nullify marine defenses, you must be able to cause damage AT RANGE. That is where BA fail spectacularly.

My record against BA in both mirror matches and army swaps is not an accident. I don't lose to BA because they are a bad army that is usually played even worse, because people take assault elements. Or they take one or more of the myriad of trap units in the codex. Trap units that were bad even back in 5th.

 Deuce11 wrote:
The point of comparing BA, a 3+ dex from a prior edition, to DA, a 3+ dex from the current edition, is to bring to light the fact that although imperfect it is still playable. The question posed was "Is it competitive." That is vague. Competitive in a tournament scene? Competitive at a local level?

What IS competitive? Are Tau and Eldar exceptions to a norm or are they the norm? Does it matter which armies are the best if everyone must ally to get the most miles out any single codex?

If every codex is weak except for 2 or three, (Tau, Eldar, Necrons?) then I would have to say BA are "competitive." They can beat or put up a fight with a majority of the currently released codices and therefore they are competitive.

God Tier:
Taudar/Eldau
Tau (O'vestar, Farsight/sun Bomb)
Eldar (Seer Council, Serpent Spam)
Daemons (Flying Circus, Screamerstar)
Tyranids (Skyblight)
Dark Eldard (Beaststar)
Space Marines/Tau (Gravstar w/ Loth/Tigurius, O'vesa, Torchstar)

Tier 1:
Eldar
Daemons
Tau
Necrons (Wraithwings and/or Croissants)
Space Marines (White Scars)
Imperial Knights (Rock, paper, scissor dependent)

Tier 2:
Chaos Space Marines (Heldrakes, Oblits)
Imperial Guard (Vendetta Spam)
Dark Eldar (Venomspam / generic Beastpacks)
Inquisition

Tier 3:
Tyranids
Dark Angels (Ravenwing)
Grey Knights
Space Wolves (Longfangs)
Orks
Adepta Sororitas

Tier 4:
Blood Angels


Edit: Forgot the Wolves.

After the new codex drops, I bet BA are tier 3! Yay!

What did the OP have in mind in regards to competitive?

He was asking for opinions. Strictly speaking a large chunk of this game is not up for opinion because of mathematics. Many units are just objectively better than others.

Even still, I think many players would largely agree with the tiering posted above.

Very good tiering!

Not to nitpick but couldn't GK be possibly tier 2? They still play pretty tough against non-top lists.

Martel732 wrote:
Not to nitpick but couldn't GK be possibly tier 2? They still play pretty tough against non-top lists.

They were hard to place, while they might give all the armies in Tier 2 a hard time. They can't really hurt Tier 1 at all while all the armies in Tier 2 can.

Fair enough. They are like marines with real equipment. But still marines.

Id say inquisition might place higher if taking advantage of psybolt raider spam and rad garandes/hammerhand/assassin combos.

Martel732 wrote:

Bartali wrote:
I wouldn't worry about what is 'competitive', 40k is in a bit of a mess right now.

If you're going to a tournament, you'll get tabled by Tau, Eldar, Daemons, Mebbe Knights - but then so will DA, CSM, Tyranids, Sisters, GK etc

You can do fine outside of that, but you have to be ruthless with your choice of units. The mistake most people make is to build a TAC list, and these will get tabled 9 times out of 10.

Even if you specialize a BA list, unless you are going triple Raven, the overcostedness of the codex makes it so you can't even focus well.

The problem with 50% of BA lists that I see is that they're horribly unfocused - a bit of shooting, a bit of assault, some vehicles, some infantry. As most people should have found out by now, these lists don't do very well in 6th edition.
40% are DC point sink lists
10% of the lists I see look interesting. Kenny Boucher at Nova, and the BA player (sorry, can't rememeber his name) at LVO show that when you take a good list, you're getting into the top third - which isn't bad for an old codex.

I like Blood Angels, always have, they sound cool on paper...

Combined with everything mentioned above in all the other posts, and the fact that I build units from my collection to play a game depending on what I like at the moment not what's practical... really makes for a very bad Blood Angel army. An example is, when the Razorbacks came out in plastics, they totally blew away the old kits. So what do I do you ask? I bought 6 of them, and fielded them with 6 man squads… I had small units spread too thin on the board, just like someone else mentioned, IG wiped me from the map with ease. Plus my choice of special weapons… Plasma!! Yes, I’ve lost 4 at one time, same turn, all failed their saves. Not only do my dice hate me but I have a problem with cool models, I like it, I build it, paint it, and field it. I just like playing, winning is cool but I want to have a good time, and I do want to be a challenging player but really Blood Angels may not win you many games.

If you play me, and you have a well-made army, you can also distract me by saying, hey Kelly check out this one I just painted. As I lose my mind drooling over the work you’ve done you can do all sorts of things during this time… It was a standing joke in Nashville that you could tell me a new rule had just come out and I’d just say, oh man that’s cool! Then play on… So a big dummy and an army that sounds bad a$$ when you read about but sucks in reality makes for a no win situation for me the Blood Angel player. Yes, I have loads more Blood Angel projects I’m working on so I’ll never learn.

There are a number of Space Marine models not included in the Blood Angel Codex too, I’m already painting them up as Blood Angel units. I’m not sure what I’ll do with them, maybe I’ll play them locally in friendly games, I’m sure I’ll have to provide some explanation as to why I have a Stormtalon. I thought about fielding them as generic but without the specialized units for fairness…

Are they going to make a new Codex for my boys? I sure hope so, and I think they should be able to get all the generic kit too. I think of them as the tip of the spear in gaining ground because of their close combat capabilities mentioned in their rules. They drop in planet side creating a beach head for the remainder of the assaulting units. But not anymore, 6th is a shooting game.

Just me ranting, giving excuses for sticking to what I like. So if they seem cool to you, and a challenge to play then go for it, you may find a winning combination somewhere somehow.

Boohoo your army is no longer top tier, welcome to the bottom of the pack where orks have been forever and you need skill and an absurd amount of luck to win (neither of which I have).

BAN wrote:
Boohoo your army is no longer top tier, welcome to the bottom of the pack where orks have been forever and you need skill and an absurd amount of luck to win (neither of which I have).

Yeah that's nice and all, but Orks are cool, you have to admit that! I love them! Nothing like fielding loads upon loads of boyz! building them is great, painting them is loads of fun too! Looking forward to the new Codex! Oh, and the flyers, the battle wagons! I don't care if they aren't the best.

They are alot of fun, I can't remember the last time I won a game of 40k but I don't care. Last edition I got flattened everytime I played my mates blood angels so I have very very little sympathy now.

 Zande4 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Not to nitpick but couldn't GK be possibly tier 2? They still play pretty tough against non-top lists.

They were hard to place, while they might give all the armies in Tier 2 a hard time. They can't really hurt Tier 1 at all while all the armies in Tier 2 can.

Daemons are top tier. Daemons hate GK.

It doesn't feel like it was long ago at all the Blood Angels just got their new codex and didn't have much trouble at all cleaning up enemy armies.

So strange to see it turned on its head.

Makes me feel old. Or at least older.

I think until recently (the knight release) BA had the ability to be a little bit of a meta foil with it's ability to load up on AV14. Of course, now people are bringing ways to deal with higher AV so that is out the window. That's all just theory hammer though.

Are people too fixated on old BA builds? How do BA do if not building an assault list? If we step back and scrub the board of old autoincludes and autoexcludes can we build something new (if not 'competative' then at least perhaps better adapted to the current environment)?

nareik wrote:
I think until recently (the knight release) BA had the ability to be a little bit of a meta foil with it's ability to load up on AV14. Of course, now people are bringing ways to deal with higher AV so that is out the window. That's all just theory hammer though.

Are people too fixated on old BA builds? How do BA do if not building an assault list? If we step back and scrub the board of old autoincludes and autoexcludes can we build something new (if not 'competative' then at least perhaps better adapted to the current environment)?

Well said.

nareik wrote:

Are people too fixated on old BA builds?

Yes. Stuff that's worth investigation :-

1. MSU Jumpers. 60 minimum combat squadded.
2. Fear. 2x Librarians, 3x Furioso Librarians. Pods
3. Corbulo+ Terminators
4. Stormravens

Some combo'ing possible. Kenny Boucher ran 3+4 at Nova. LVO Guy ran 2+4. I run 2+3

Poly Ranger wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
The fact that this thread has a 23% "yes" response shows how GW gets away with its stuff.

I reckon half of that is people either having a laugh or being Ironic... or people who rarely play.

Amen, BA have a hard enough time in casual play.

 Deuce11 wrote:
The point of comparing BA, a 3+ dex from a prior edition, to DA, a 3+ dex from the current edition, is to bring to light the fact that although imperfect it is still playable.

When 6th dropped, Greenwing was actually half-decent because it was still cheaper than C:SM. Now DA are an awful way to run a Marine army, unless you absolutely have to have scoring Terminators (a bad idea) or are running Ravenwing (good, although I think White Scars are better). C:SM was a much better Codex and just blew DA out of the water. BA are currently beyond even that lowly standard, and the worst part is that you can't proxy them in C:SM very well (no scoring jumpers).

 Goddard wrote:
It doesn't feel like it was long ago at all the Blood Angels just got their new codex and didn't have much trouble at all cleaning up enemy armies.

So strange to see it turned on its head.

Makes me feel old. Or at least older.

Blame Ward. He tailored his Codices towards gimmick units, but when the edition changeover happened it screwed over 99% of those gimmicks.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
The fact that this thread has a 23% "yes" response shows how GW gets away with its stuff.

I reckon half of that is people either having a laugh or being Ironic... or people who rarely play.

Amen, BA have a hard enough time in casual play.

 Deuce11 wrote:
The point of comparing BA, a 3+ dex from a prior edition, to DA, a 3+ dex from the current edition, is to bring to light the fact that although imperfect it is still playable.

When 6th dropped, Greenwing was actually half-decent because it was still cheaper than C:SM. Now DA are an awful way to run a Marine army, unless you absolutely have to have scoring Terminators (a bad idea) or are running Ravenwing (good, although I think White Scars are better). C:SM was a much better Codex and just blew DA out of the water. BA are currently beyond even that lowly standard, and the worst part is that you can't proxy them in C:SM very well (no scoring jumpers).

 Goddard wrote:
It doesn't feel like it was long ago at all the Blood Angels just got their new codex and didn't have much trouble at all cleaning up enemy armies.

So strange to see it turned on its head.

Makes me feel old. Or at least older.

Blame Ward. He tailored his Codices towards gimmick units, but when the edition changeover happened it screwed over 99% of those gimmicks.

It's funny that Necrons came out so much stronger after 6th but BA and GK both came out so much weaker yet all are written by ward chaos rot his soul.

GK is the definition of gimmicky codex. I'd like to call BA a focused codex. Focused on CC, which is precisely what 6th Ed. ignores.

 Deuce11 wrote:
GK is the definition of gimmicky codex. I'd like to call BA a focused codex. Focused on CC, which is precisely what 6th Ed. ignores.

Total lack of first turn assaults coupled with no assaulting out of transports delivered a double whammy no doubt.

Hmm I think if you focus on the only positives of the dex it can be a nice ally
example with spacewolves:

4x rune priests (different runic weapons)
lone wolf terminator armor, storm shield, power ax
grey hunters flamer
grey hunters flamer
landraider crusader
landraider crusader

mephiston
assalut squad with landraider
assalut squad with landraider

2k

Thats 4 rune priests with jaws in scoring landraiders with mephiston support. I think thats not bad as it deals with psyker armies okay (runic weapons). Though it would crumble hard against knights (so do more than half the codexes) its defiantly got a chance vs a few of those t1 armies. (granted a bunch of codexes could have given it that last landraider but I think mephiston and the lone wolf hiding behind landraiders could do pretty well).

(i did vote for not competitive though because if the only use I can think of for them is cheapish landraiders and mephiston it really shows where the codex is in terms of balance)