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Man they got hit by the nerf bat HARD. For an already meh dex it's pretty harsh.

"Blood Angels have been restored to how they should have been. A codex chapter with certain buffs for their assault troops and also a few extra assault orientated units, but still largely a codex based chapter.


One step closer towards putting all the Space Marine codex's into one book like Black Templar were.

I'm all for it."

You know, i used to not be all for it, then i got tired of every other month's release being MOAR space marines.

I was looking to pick up Deathstorm, but if this holds I'll pass. It's too bad, I love the fluff.

 adamsouza wrote:

 BlackArmour wrote:
however .....once again I'll state that this lends HUGE credence to the argument that we should fold right into the Vanilla dex.

even I'm really wondering if what we gain by not being in the vanilla is worth what we got this time and I've been a HUGE HUGE supporter of us being separate but now...... I dono , I've just never lost that hope before.

Death Company
Sanguinary Guard
Sanguinary Priests
Furioso Dreadnaught
Librarian Dreadnaught
Too many personailities to be vanilla (Dante, Tycho, Mephiston, Corbolo, Astrorath, Sanguinor, Gabriel)

Compared to Black Templars
1 unique troop choice

LOL so you have marines with a different paint job and 2 dreads that codex chapters should have access to, from where I am standing that looks a lot like one unique unit and a funny looking medic.

Black Templars had more character than the angsty vamp marines before this new blander codex so if thus don't sell well there going to get rolled in so fast meph will end up in fantasy where he belongs

No....words.

Fluff justifications aside about troop ASM they were ICONIC Blood Angels, and have been for 7 years. Assault marines were the Blood Angels' thing, in the same way that Deathwing and Ravenwing was Dark Angels, bikers are White Scar's thing and Iron Hands are vehicle heavy.

I HATE tactical squads...they are garbage and I'm sick of playing with inferior troops after nearly 2 full decades. They are the core of every single space marine army in some shape or form, from chaos marines to vanilla tacticals to Grey Hunters. The reason a lot of people even used the BA book since 6th edition was to just get away from bloody tactical marines. That is just....gone. Welcome to vanilla space marine territory again gentlemen.

Okay, so what exactly does the BA book do now that vanilla cannot do, by at least a large enough margin that warrants giving up all the vanilla toys? Vanilla has better troops in bikers. Better AA and airpower in Storm Talons, Stalkers and Hunters. Better anti-horde in Thunderfire cannons and better anti-MC in Grav Centurions. BA has better assault, and not by a lot (Ironclad match well against Furiosos, Assault terminators will stand their ground against DC and Sang guard, Vanilla Honor guard might even trump BA assault options altogether and the assault marines are basically identical) and assault is the weakest it has been in years. Being good at an inferior aspect of the game is not awesome at all.

I'm interested to get my hands on the book to try to work out a best in slot list, and see if it stacks up....but with tacticals as your troop choice, and with a crap "chapter tactic" to back them up....I don't see how it's even possible, regardless of how good everything else is.

 adamsouza wrote:

 BlackArmour wrote:
however .....once again I'll state that this lends HUGE credence to the argument that we should fold right into the Vanilla dex.

even I'm really wondering if what we gain by not being in the vanilla is worth what we got this time and I've been a HUGE HUGE supporter of us being separate but now...... I dono , I've just never lost that hope before.

Death Company
Sanguinary Guard
Sanguinary Priests
Furioso Dreadnaught
Librarian Dreadnaught
Too many personailities to be vanilla (Dante, Tycho, Mephiston, Corbolo, Astrorath, Sanguinor, Gabriel)

Compared to Black Templars
1 unique troop choice

Chapter tactic = Furious charge
Preds, rhinos and razor can take sup'ed up engines at 10 points each

Baal pred = BA preds with sup'ed up engines can take a special load out....blah blah blah X points.
Death company = One Vanguard vet squad can get FnP and rage for X points per model, but give up heroic intervention.
Sanguinary Guard = Blood Angel Honor guard may take jump packs for 5 points per model.
Sang priests = BA field more apothecaries than normal, known as sang priests. Techmarine entry, swap special rules for Sang priest and servo arm for nathecanium for X points
Furioso Dread = Is now an ironclad dread....if you are feeling generous, let it take lightning claws instead of their normal weapon loadout.
Libby dread = should be had by all anyways.
Kill off Tycho, Astrorath, Sanguinor and Gabriel and have them come back in dataslates later.

Should be able to roll them into the vanilla book in 3-4 page, 6 at most.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I don't mind the FOC swap from a fluff perspective, because truthfully BA don't use assault marines any more than other chapters do. Buuuut, my heart goes out to all the people who spent so much money building up there armies over the years, only for lots of it to be invalidated.

That's my take on it. BA's should have never got Assault Squads as troops in the first place - they're a Codex Chapter, even more Codex than the Dark Angels - but GW did do that and now they're wrecking the armies of basically every BA player by invalidating years of work and thousands of thousands of dollars worth of effort from thousands of players world-wide.

And that gak ain't cool.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I reject the notion that this is GW's attempt to "rein in" the codex though. GW has proven time and again that they don't give a gak about things like fluff or a faction's image.

That and they seem to think that by giving Malibu Stacey a new hat (BA Tac Squad) that all the problems will go away because everyone'll be distracted by ooh shiny!

While the required Troops tax is an annoyance with ASM moving back to Fast Attack, I think the bigger question that I've only heard one person even mention (props to you, Hulksmash) is the points cost.

I mean, under the previous 'dex, BA tacs are overpriced by 2 pts compared to both SM tacs and SW grey hunters. Even Skyclaws are cheaper than what the BA tacs were. If GW had the sense to drop the pts cost of ASM to what their tacs used to be and bring the pts cost of BA tacs in line with everyone else, then I think they'd be a strong unit. They're better than Skyclaws, so should be more expensive, but making them cheaper than SM ASM makes them attractive to field.

 cycluv wrote:
Noooooooooooooo! Oh, wait. I don't have the codex yet...

If that was a "clever" attempt at telling people not to panic because the Codex isn't out yet, then nice try, but no. We know what the Codex is. We're not going to suddenly find out that Assault Marines are Troops between now and Saturday. People have the Codex. They're giving out details. People's anger at this is justified and not at all premature.

 Death By Monkeys wrote:
While the required Troops tax is an annoyance with ASM moving back to Fast Attack, I think the bigger question that I've only heard one person even mention (props to you, Hulksmash) is the points cost.

I mean, under the previous 'dex, BA tacs are overpriced by 2 pts compared to both SM tacs and SW grey hunters. Even Skyclaws are cheaper than what the BA tacs were. If GW had the sense to drop the pts cost of ASM to what their tacs used to be and bring the pts cost of BA tacs in line with everyone else, then I think they'd be a strong unit. They're better than Skyclaws, so should be more expensive, but making them cheaper than SM ASM makes them attractive to field.

This. So much this.

Everyone panics about the changes in the troop section.
What happened? GW removed assault marines as troops.
The response? As if GW removed assault marines from the codex.

It isn't that bad. You now have to take 2 troop choices (tacticals in drop pods are probably a solid fething choice) and can now run a more solid army thanks to detachments and rules updates.

And all before we even *talk* about price drops.
It seems to me like players are making a mountain out of a molehill.

I agree with Neronoxx, i've never even seen people take ASM before as anything more than a way to get a cheaper drop pod/rhino/razorback anyways.

I'm not really scared of Tacticals swinging with Str 5 AP 0 chainswords, just sayin'. DC were a lot more of a concern, or something mobile. Assault Tacs in a drop pod? I'll pass.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 cycluv wrote:
Noooooooooooooo! Oh, wait. I don't have the codex yet...

If that was a "clever" attempt at telling people not to panic because the Codex isn't out yet, then nice try, but no. We know what the Codex is. We're not going to suddenly find out that Assault Marines are Troops between now and Saturday. People have the Codex. They're giving out details. People's anger at this is justified and not at all premature.

I don't have the codex, I dont have the full picture, I'm not panicking. I understand people's reactions to the early findings. Particularly those who have collected certain builds over many years. Change always hurts. With 7th edition, there are so many Imperium of Man combos out there. #centsinrepressors

There has to be strong BA builds a coming...remember the Nids?

#stayingpositive

I wonder what the company expects people to look forward to or buy in this release.

Tactical Marines? If you play SM, you have a spare bathtub of random tacticals somewhere.

Terminators? DV and other terminators on Ebay average about 2 dollars a pop.

And both of them have pretty weak tabletop performance. I guess you could do a drop pod thing, but every other SM codex besides DA does that better, so I don't see why you would.

Compare this release, from a sales perspective to if they released a plastic LOW Mephiston, give him an iron halo and ML 5. There is your character clamshell.

New cut assault marine sprue with new helmet types, narcatheium, and all the special weapons.

Rebox the Stormraven with one new BA sprue that allows a gunship, no transport version to be built.

Keep RAS as troops, make sang priests cheaper but no bubble, taken 1-5 as an elites choice, make a gunship version of the StormRaven, put in a power from pain type mechanic to show the army going bezerk towards the end game. Buff Meph into a LOW and fix Dante's axe, cut price on vehicles. No other changes.

Nice, balanced, and you would sell a truckload of new minis.

Instead we get this and Tyranids get a 5 shrouded flyrant battleforged list with exploding KP deniers for troops. Awesome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cycluv wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 cycluv wrote:
Noooooooooooooo! Oh, wait. I don't have the codex yet...

If that was a "clever" attempt at telling people not to panic because the Codex isn't out yet, then nice try, but no. We know what the Codex is. We're not going to suddenly find out that Assault Marines are Troops between now and Saturday. People have the Codex. They're giving out details. People's anger at this is justified and not at all premature.

I don't have the codex, I dont have the full picture, I'm not panicking. I understand people's reactions to the early findings. Particularly those who have collected certain builds over many years. Change always hurts. With 7th edition, there are so many Imperium of Man combos out there. #centsinrepressors

There has to be strong BA builds a coming...remember the Nids?

#stayingpositive

Remember the Dark Angels?

No ASM as troops worries me. But I'm likeing everything else. FINALLY Dante is EW!

Oh, and Sanguinor is still the same? As in, still only AP3? WTF!?

Loads of people moaning about rubbish sub-par tactical marines... Just wait till power lists start turning up that takes advantage of having 4 flamers in a tactical squad drop podding into enemy lines (that can hold it's weight in a charge if need be) with some insane deathstar that no-one has realised is possible yet from the codex, backed up by an allied in cent-star.

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
No ASM as troops worries me. But I'm likeing everything else. FINALLY Dante is EW!

Oh, and Sanguinor is still the same? As in, still only AP3? WTF!?

And apparently 4++

 adamsouza wrote:

 BlackArmour wrote:
however .....once again I'll state that this lends HUGE credence to the argument that we should fold right into the Vanilla dex.

even I'm really wondering if what we gain by not being in the vanilla is worth what we got this time and I've been a HUGE HUGE supporter of us being separate but now...... I dono , I've just never lost that hope before.

Death Company
Sanguinary Guard
Sanguinary Priests
Furioso Dreadnaught
Librarian Dreadnaught
Too many personailities to be vanilla (Dante, Tycho, Mephiston, Corbolo, Astrorath, Sanguinor, Gabriel)

Compared to Black Templars
1 unique troop choice

Really, I was stoutly against rolling BA into the codex marines before, but they did a good job of pouring BLAND all over them with this book. Now I can easily see them getting rolled into the next core marine codex.

It's a shame too. My BA wish list literally got hacked apart today. Don't need any more ASM, probably will just repaint some black for extra DC, don't want extra land raider crusaders anymore, don't want chaplains anymore, don't want more dreadnought variants anymore, don't need any more priests, don't want vindicators anymore...

Pretty much the only things I will want now are heavy flamer tacticals and more drop pods, and you can be damn sure I will only buy second hand to make sure bad designers are rewarded as little as possible for their idiocy.

 Silverthorne wrote:
I wonder what the company expects people to look forward to or buy in this release.

Tactical Marines? If you play SM, you have a spare bathtub of random tacticals somewhere.

Terminators? DV and other terminators on Ebay average about 2 dollars a pop.

And both of them have pretty weak tabletop performance. I guess you could do a drop pod thing, but every other SM codex besides DA does that better, so I don't see why you would.

Compare this release, from a sales perspective to if they released a plastic LOW Mephiston, give him an iron halo and ML 5. There is your character clamshell.

New cut assault marine sprue with new helmet types, narcatheium, and all the special weapons.

Rebox the Stormraven with one new BA sprue that allows a gunship, no transport version to be built.

Keep RAS as troops, make sang priests cheaper but no bubble, taken 1-5 as an elites choice, make a gunship version of the StormRaven, put in a power from pain type mechanic to show the army going bezerk towards the end game. Buff Meph into a LOW and fix Dante's axe, cut price on vehicles. No other changes.

Nice, balanced, and you would sell a truckload of new minis.

Instead we get this and Tyranids get a 5 shrouded flyrant battleforged list with exploding KP deniers for troops. Awesome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cycluv wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 cycluv wrote:
Noooooooooooooo! Oh, wait. I don't have the codex yet...

If that was a "clever" attempt at telling people not to panic because the Codex isn't out yet, then nice try, but no. We know what the Codex is. We're not going to suddenly find out that Assault Marines are Troops between now and Saturday. People have the Codex. They're giving out details. People's anger at this is justified and not at all premature.

I don't have the codex, I dont have the full picture, I'm not panicking. I understand people's reactions to the early findings. Particularly those who have collected certain builds over many years. Change always hurts. With 7th edition, there are so many Imperium of Man combos out there. #centsinrepressors

There has to be strong BA builds a coming...remember the Nids?

#stayingpositive

Remember the Dark Angels?

Yep. First 6th edition codex release...

 King Pariah wrote:

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
No ASM as troops worries me. But I'm likeing everything else. FINALLY Dante is EW!

Oh, and Sanguinor is still the same? As in, still only AP3? WTF!?

And apparently 4++

That doesn't worry me as much. Back in 5e when Power weapons ignored all saves, it didn't really matter if he had a 3++ or a 5++: Once he got into assault, you WON, end of story.

Then Power weapons became AP3...

Oh, just a thought, wonder if bolter based death company can take special weapons by any chance (but far fetched) and if they can, wonder if they can take a few grav guns? drop pod relentless death company into the back field with a couple of grav guns could be nasty.

Blood angel bikes with grav guns and furious charge as well...

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Loads of people moaning about rubbish sub-par tactical marines... Just wait till power lists start turning up that takes advantage of having 4 flamers in a tactical squad drop podding into enemy lines (that can hold it's weight in a charge if need be) with some insane deathstar that no-one has realised is possible yet from the codex, backed up by an allied in cent-star.

Yes, I am sure BA players are pumped at the thought that there might be a gimmick somewhere that will make all their opponents groan at the sight of their army being taken out. Surely that is better than solid tactical, but themed gameplay.

WellSpokenMan wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Loads of people moaning about rubbish sub-par tactical marines... Just wait till power lists start turning up that takes advantage of having 4 flamers in a tactical squad drop podding into enemy lines (that can hold it's weight in a charge if need be) with some insane deathstar that no-one has realised is possible yet from the codex, backed up by an allied in cent-star.

Yes, I am sure BA players are pumped at the thought that there might be a gimmick somewhere that will make all their opponents groan at the sight of their army being taken out. Surely that is better than solid tactical, but themed gameplay.

I'm not saying it's correct by any means. I like finding absurdly strong combinations in lists, I don't actually use them, much prefer a chilled out narrative driven game myself. Worth knowing in case you do come across some WAC guy who is butt hurt he couldn't make a sport team back in school and uses this as his competitive outlet though.

Everyone is talking about the Tactical Squad as an Tax...Their Dynamic Just Changed Dramatically.
You can now shove 5 in a Pod with 1 Heavy Flamer and 2 Hand Flamers for around 145 points. [Assuming they are the same price as C: SM]
Add 5 more Guys with a Flamer to bring the total around 220.
The it 4 Template Attacks split between 2 Targets if you Combat Squad, like everyone does with their Sternguard for a lot less.

If anything this Codex just made Vanguard Vets and Sternguard unnecessary with Death Company now being an Elite Choice.

Where are you getting 4 flamers from?

Flamer
HF
Combi-flamer

...that's three, one more then salamanders... Whoopy! they get rerolls to wound with them which is actually relevant.

Ok, so lets separate the good and the bad here. Starting with the bad.

1. No assault marine troops: this sucks. No way around it. I have 40+ assault marines and no actual troops for my BA army. Of all the things they could have done, this is what i was afraid of.

2. Sanguinary priest FOC change: not being able to take bubbled out priests in strategically placed positions also sucks. Both theloss of our bubble and the decreased number of them will be keenly felt in the durability dept.

3. The relics: ok, so some of them are super efficient and kinda cool, but nothing really jumps out as being holy crap awesome, like the burning blade or shield eternal.

The good.

1. Death company and sanguinary guard: holy crap these guys are good now. 23 pts for jump pack death co, 33 for sanguinary guard, and both benefit hugely from the +1 initiative from the force org. Expect to see a lot of these.

2. Psychic powers: rage or +1 attack, initiative and attacks boosts, some good offensive witchfires, this list is solid.

3. Dante: if my info is correct, he hasnt changed much other than losing the force org swap and becoming a lord of war. Oh, except for his +2 str ap2 weapon at initiative. And eternal warrior. Hell yeah.

4. What sanguinary priests actually do: +1 ws and feel no pain is awesome for a 65 point character to bring to a unit. Enough said.

 Anpu42 wrote:
Everyone is talking about the Tactical Squad as an Tax...Their Dynamic Just Changed Dramatically.
You can now shove 5 in a Pod with 1 Heavy Flamer and 2 Hand Flamers for around 145 points. [Assuming they are the same price as C: SM]
Add 5 more Guys with a Flamer to bring the total around 220.
The it 4 Template Attacks split between 2 Targets if you Combat Squad, like everyone does with their Sternguard for a lot less.

If anything this Codex just made Vanguard Vets and Sternguard unnecessary with Death Company now being an Elite Choice.

Alrighty......maybe for some of us, it was more about how we win, than the fact that we can exploit rules to win.

In other words .......Salamanders the Blood Angels are not. however you're right I'm sure we will see a lot of green marines running around with BA codexs now. while also hearing them cry about how the BA stole their goodies.

I know we cant do full points cost, but can anyone tell me if the Sanguinor dropped at all, and maybe compare him to something? Because dropping his invul to 4++ at his current price point made him worse, a feat i thought unachievable

21stPrimarch wrote:
I know we cant do full points cost, but can anyone tell me if the Sanguinor dropped at all, and maybe compare him to something? Because dropping his invul to 4++ at his current price point made him worse, a feat i thought unachievable

same as stormraven is what the leak said

 Anpu42 wrote:
Everyone is talking about the Tactical Squad as an Tax...Their Dynamic Just Changed Dramatically.
You can now shove 5 in a Pod with 1 Heavy Flamer and 2 Hand Flamers for around 145 points. [Assuming they are the same price as C: SM]
Add 5 more Guys with a Flamer to bring the total around 220.
The it 4 Template Attacks split between 2 Targets if you Combat Squad, like everyone does with their Sternguard for a lot less.

If anything this Codex just made Vanguard Vets and Sternguard unnecessary with Death Company now being an Elite Choice.

so a 10 man squad split into 2 heavy flamers, 3 bullet shields and 1 sgt w/ twin hand flamers and 4 bullet shields?

Because, using this all as one squad seems inadvisable since you'll burn yourself out with one of the two types of templates.

Everyone complaining about Assault Troops not being in the codex apparently didn't play before 5th edition.

It does suck, because it was fun to field Assault as troops since it made us feel "unique", but it's not that bad.

With Baal Predators moving to heavy support, you can still take your 30 Assault Marines, and honestly they kind of suck in this edition anyways since the assault phase is pretty rough.

The points dropping to vanilla values opens up a lot of opportunities. I can see a lot of armies being Dante, Priest, x2 Sanguinary Guard, x2 full tacticals.

I think the only thing that makes me sad is the drop in Mephiston's power. Even though he was a baby demon prince, he still got his butt handed to him on MANY occasions.