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 pretre wrote:

 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:
Sure, his fluff was bad, but his rules were good, you cannot deny that.

Sure, I can. I liked both the fluff and rules. Take that!

I just find it funny that we've come so far that people want Ward back.

no one came anywhere...

gamers want things in complete circles,

I really like the new ork, SW, and what this dex is looking like.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
They can either play unbound or get that single box of tacticals they claim they do not have. No big deal.

Really? "Play unbound" is your solution?

Actually use the rules of the game! Shocking suggestion, I know!

The problem is caused by the house rule of not allowing unbound, not by GW. And as long as you're house-ruling, you might as well house rule the assault marines into troops anyway.

Ok, so, play Unbound? Cool.

How do I get ObSec on my ASM squads then?

You know, like they've had since ObSec became a thing.

Obviously you can't (although I imagine if you ask few will object), but the point is that the army isn't suddenly unusable, which several people are trying to make out.

What would you rather have, a rule the army has only had for a few months anyway, or to be able to keep playing with no additional cost? The call is yours, but both are available options.

 Desubot wrote:

 th3maninblak wrote:

But lets not get ahead of ourselves here. Losing assault marines as troops seems to be the only real negative thus far. Granted, its big, but having an army that has old furious charge, and half of it with FNP, is gonna be awesome. I cant think of a non daemon prince unit that can take a charge from death co or sanguinary guard. Hell, if you run the math, a tac marine squad with flamer+combi+heavy flamer can shoot into a squad of thunderwolves and then stand a good chance of WINNING combat when they charge.

Thats right. Our tac marines beat thunderwolves in a fight.

I want to see your math on that.

Assuming 4 hits per flamer, thats 3 wounds from flamers and 2 from heavy flamers (5 so far). Then 7 pistols, which will do another wound (up to 6). This equates to one dead thunderwolf after armor saves. Marines charge in with 21 attacks at str and init5, hitting 10.5 and wounding 5.25, rounding out to another dead wolf before they swing. Wolves hit back 15 times, hit 7.5, wound with around 4 (rending once) and killing 2 marines total.

Ok, so not WIN combat. But tying with one of the best assault units in the game is nothing to sneeze at.

Now sanguinary guard with a banner is a different story. 20 master crafted attacks will hit 12 times, wound 6, killing 3 wolves before they swing back. MAYBE losing a guy in return.

So, as a recent purchaser of the Deathstorm boxed set, I am now grappling with the fact that I might want to start a Blood Angels army.

With that in consideration, I am wondering what people think of running Raphen's Death Company and Cassor the Damned as their two minimum troop requirements (350 points total)?

Their weapon load-out seems a bit schizophrenic, but it does allow for running Death Company in the troop slot.

If i were to start Blood Angels, am I better off building the Death Company as part of a larger squad, or outfitting them as outlined for Raphen's squad?

 th3maninblak wrote:
Assuming 4 hits per flamer, thats 3 wounds from flamers and 2 from heavy flamers (5 so far). Then 7 pistols, which will do another wound (up to 6). This equates to one dead thunderwolf after armor saves. Marines charge in with 21 attacks at str and init5, hitting 10.5 and wounding 5.25, rounding out to another dead wolf before they swing. Wolves hit back 15 times, hit 7.5, wound with around 4 (rending once) and killing 2 marines total.

Ok, so not WIN combat. But tying with one of the best assault units in the game is nothing to sneeze at.

Now sanguinary guard with a banner is a different story. 20 master crafted attacks will hit 12 times, wound 6, killing 3 wolves before they swing back. MAYBE losing a guy in return.

People take bare thunderwolves?

I know some people have the codex in hand now...Drop Pods in Fast Attack slot like the Space Wolves?

 pretre wrote:

 th3maninblak wrote:
Assuming 4 hits per flamer, thats 3 wounds from flamers and 2 from heavy flamers (5 so far). Then 7 pistols, which will do another wound (up to 6). This equates to one dead thunderwolf after armor saves. Marines charge in with 21 attacks at str and init5, hitting 10.5 and wounding 5.25, rounding out to another dead wolf before they swing. Wolves hit back 15 times, hit 7.5, wound with around 4 (rending once) and killing 2 marines total.

Ok, so not WIN combat. But tying with one of the best assault units in the game is nothing to sneeze at.

Now sanguinary guard with a banner is a different story. 20 master crafted attacks will hit 12 times, wound 6, killing 3 wolves before they swing back. MAYBE losing a guy in return.

People take bare thunderwolves?

5 bare thunderwolves are the easiest to math hammer out, since theyre 200 points even. Adding a fist and a couple storm shields is optimal but adds an extra 55 points to the cost. With SG thats another 2 dudes, or a priest, since a 5 man squad with a banner is 190.

 Paradigm wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
They can either play unbound or get that single box of tacticals they claim they do not have. No big deal.

Really? "Play unbound" is your solution?

Actually use the rules of the game! Shocking suggestion, I know!

The problem is caused by the house rule of not allowing unbound, not by GW. And as long as you're house-ruling, you might as well house rule the assault marines into troops anyway.

Ok, so, play Unbound? Cool.

How do I get ObSec on my ASM squads then?

You know, like they've had since ObSec became a thing.

Obviously you can't (although I imagine if you ask few will object), but the point is that the army isn't suddenly unusable, which several people are trying to make out.

What would you rather have, a rule the army has only had for a few months anyway, or to be able to keep playing with no additional cost? The call is yours, but both are available options.

The time frame isn't really relevant, because it remains a thing for other units and now BA ASM can't have it, meaning if you're going to contiue using them as is, they've lost something, as well as the other compromises one makes when running an Unboumd list, even if you and your regular opponents are fine with it.

I'm only really playing devil's advocate anyway, my own BA army is in fact painted as Raven Guard, I just used the codex to allow jump squads as troops for fluff reasons without needing to ask my opponent to compromise anything, I normally ran one or two Tac Squads too.

But my point is "play Unbound" isn't a solution, it is, at best, a lousy compromise for anyone who played a DoA force.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Spoiler:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Ok, so, play Unbound? Cool.

How do I get ObSec on my ASM squads then?

You know, like they've had since ObSec became a thing.

Stop whining Az. I lost a specific play-style borne of a special character that never got a model, and that's totally the same thing as having the entire structure of your army that's been in place for 5+ years removed for no other reason than to push a new Tactical Marine kit!

Shush you tart!

 cycluv wrote:
I know some people have the codex in hand now...Drop Pods in Fast Attack slot like the Space Wolves?

That would royally make me angry and want to boycott GW.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Shush you tart!

You wound me, sir!

niv-mizzet wrote:
http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Contact-Us

Sent in an email letting them know I won't be buying any GW product while the oversight about BA assault marines not being troops exists. Suggested that they could simply errata them to recover me as a customer.

If you are also one of the ones affected, or you just want to chime in because you might be affected by something similar (such as bikes not being troops for white scars, or necron immortals jumping out of troops section, etc,) then here's the only place I found to go to to send them some feedback.

Quite disingenuous there. It's not an oversight, it's a design change that you disagree with. I'm not going to argue the merits of the change to ASM from troops, but callin it an oversight and suggesting they simply errata it back to please you is a rather petty statement.

It wasn't unlocked by a special character, but losing ASM as troops is functionally similar to Orks losing Nobz as troops, GK losing Paladins and Purifiers as troops, SW losing Wolf Guard as troops, or Dark Eldar having the one thing keeping their Wych troops semi-useful removed.

Marines troops are Tactical squads and recruits (or their equivalents), with other units in other FOC slots. Dark Angels will likely lose Ravenwin/eathwing troop options, and Vanilla marines might even lose bikes as troops (which would hurt white scars badly, but they are not Ultramarines or Imperial Fists/Crimson Fists/Black Templars so it would be no different than continuing to avoid giving Iron Hands a SC, or having Salamanders watch Blood Angels get heavy flamers in tac squads, and a ton of flame and melta weapon options they lack)

 pretre wrote:

 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:
I wish Matt Ward had written this dex

Oh how the world turns!

How come I have a feeling that in ten years time Blood Angel players will be lamenting the losses of this codex release.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Ok, so, play Unbound? Cool.

How do I get ObSec on my ASM squads then?

You know, like they've had since ObSec became a thing.

Stop whining Az. I lost a specific play-style borne of a special character that never got a model, and that's totally the same thing as having the entire structure of your army that's been in place for 5+ years removed for no other reason than to push a new Tactical Marine kit!

You must know that's nonsense. Anyone that A: Has a substantial BA army and B: hasn't thrown it in to a recklessly unsupervised industrial vat of acid after reading this news will just pick up the 10 tactical marines they need for almost nothing on ebay/kijiji or dig them out from the couch.
The new kit is for new players and new BA recruits.

 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:

 cycluv wrote:
I know some people have the codex in hand now...Drop Pods in Fast Attack slot like the Space Wolves?

That would royally make me angry and want to boycott GW.

Why? They would still be available as dedicated as well.

While I do feel for those who don't have any tactical marines or scouts in their army, a quick question, I see a lot of people saying "loathe, now I have to buy new stuff!", do you think I was reasonable to expect a new codex, and not have any new units to buy in it?

How fast do the small format codex books come out after initial release? BA are not my main army, (Dark Angles are my Space Marine flavor of choice...) but am interested in maybe doing an Angels of Death (yay 2nd ed!) list that includes a detachment from both. I like the idea of the smaller book as well...takes up a little less shelf room, easier to cart around, etc.

Kangodo wrote:

 Las wrote:
And the only reason it was their thing to begin with (for ONE book I might add) was because of a much maligned codex author with a propensity for writing poor fluff and mono build codeces. This is a fix imo.

Does the reason matter?
Let's look at the facts instead of arguments, opinions and reasons.
The fact is that I own 5 Boltgun Tactical Marines because the rest of them are used as Death Company or Devastator Squads: I have 40 JP-Troops at the moment.
Another fact is that many people sold their Tactical Marines because to them the Blood Angels are about Jump Pack-Troops.

Most people don't "complain" because Blood Angels lost their ASM-troops.
Most people "complain" because they have a crapload of models that they can't really use any more AND because they now need to play units they don't want to play.
The last time I played a Tactical Marine was three years ago, I decided that I didn't like them and I got rid of it.

Another thing is that everybody was happy we'd finally have a cost-reduction on ASM.
In fact they were made more expensive since we have a Troop-tax now.
It's a crappy way of GW to promote Unbound and push their new sales.
It gets even worse when people are actually hoping for a 40 euro supplement to fix this nonsense.

And the worst part of all: People telling you that you shouldn't be whining when GW just invalidated half your army and forces you to spend another €34 on models you don't actually want.

Yes you have a troop tax, just like everybody else if you would like to play battle forged. Also it doesn't make sense that GW could some how be pushing unbound AND battle forged at the same time by introducing compulsory troops(unless you want to call it, I dunno, pushing the game itself as it's rules are written).

Not to mention that you can still use all those jump infantry without having to go unbound. You can keep your list and play unbound or run cheap troops units as a tax for forged. Either way you can still use all those models.

Kangodo wrote:

 Las wrote:
And the only reason it was their thing to begin with (for ONE book I might add) was because of a much maligned codex author with a propensity for writing poor fluff and mono build codeces. This is a fix imo.

Does the reason matter?
Let's look at the facts instead of arguments, opinions and reasons.
The fact is that I own 5 Boltgun Tactical Marines because the rest of them are used as Death Company or Devastator Squads: I have 40 JP-Troops at the moment.
Another fact is that many people sold their Tactical Marines because to them the Blood Angels are about Jump Pack-Troops.

Most people don't "complain" because Blood Angels lost their ASM-troops.
Most people "complain" because they have a crapload of models that they can't really use any more AND because they now need to play units they don't want to play.
The last time I played a Tactical Marine was three years ago, I decided that I didn't like them and I got rid of it.

Another thing is that everybody was happy we'd finally have a cost-reduction on ASM.
In fact they were made more expensive since we have a Troop-tax now.
It's a crappy way of GW to promote Unbound and push their new sales.
It gets even worse when people are actually hoping for a 40 euro supplement to fix this nonsense.

And the worst part of all: People telling you that you shouldn't be whining when GW just invalidated half your army and forces you to spend another €34 on models you don't actually want.

This is all true but consider this, if you have so many jump pack troops at the moment then you're not going to be buying any more in order to play the army in the same way. I know it's not a very popular move but at the end of the day GW is a business and they need to sell kits or books in order to make money. They are only going to make money if they give you a reason to buy other stuff. I know it seems like a money grabbing move but it's purely business from their point of view and there is no ill intent towards the player that some people in this thread think there is.

Yes we lost assault marines as troops but surely we all expected that with a new release we would have to spend some money in order to continue in our hobby. Now we know what to spend the money on and that's the new tactical squad.

For players who played BA because they specifically wanted a Jump Troop force I feel for you and I understand that the army doesn't work in the way you like any more. However I can't tell you what to do, you need to decide for yourselves what you want. Either it's change and adapt and continue to play Blood Angels, move to another army that better represents the fit i.e. Raven Guard or perhaps even stop playing all together if that is your wish.

 Rippy wrote:
While I do feel for those who don't have any tactical marines or scouts in their army, a quick question, I see a lot of people saying "loathe, now I have to buy new stuff!", do you think I was reasonable to expect a new codex, and not have any new units to buy in it?

because most of the changes for the past 20 years have only been minor changes in wargear, etc. Not a fundamental change as ASM from troops to FA. I built the core of my army around Assault Marines, of varying styles (jump packs and non) And to basically have my entire army gutted, I don't have the money to go out and buy $400 worth of models to rebuild and adjust my army into a coherent build...

 th3maninblak wrote:

 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:
I wish Matt Ward had written this dex

Oh how the world turns!

I actually liked the Matt Ward dex, as I bought it the day it was released and fell in love with it. Sure, his fluff was bad, but his rules were good, you cannot deny that.

Matt ward rightfully caught a lot of flakk for his fluff (which was awful) and his 5th ed grey knights (which were worse than the abortion that is the current eldar). His rules in 5th ed space marines, BA, and necrons were actually really cool and strong.

But lets not get ahead of ourselves here. Losing assault marines as troops seems to be the only real negative thus far. Granted, its big, but having an army that has old furious charge, and half of it with FNP, is gonna be awesome. I cant think of a non daemon prince unit that can take a charge from death co or sanguinary guard. Hell, if you run the math, a tac marine squad with flamer+combi+heavy flamer can shoot into a squad of thunderwolves and then stand a good chance of WINNING combat when they charge.

Thats right. Our tac marines beat thunderwolves in a fight.

Oh man I would like to see this one worked out. In saying that we're not very likely to get the charge on them but still it's only a basic tac squad.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

Kangodo wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
If you build your army to that edition's codex then you will always be screwed over by GW. Happens every time. Build your army with the long view over multiple editions.

Well, better not buy Ork Boyz for Orks because they could move them to elite.
Let's also not buy Terminators for my DA, who knows what will happen to those.
I also own Necrons, should I get rid of my Immortals because they might want to push Warriors as the only Troop-slot?

In short: People are pissed.
People have the right to be pissed, because they aren't able to use the majority of their models.
I was happy because I knew ASM would get a point-cost reduction.
But that is out of the window because I now have to pay a Tactical-tax before I can play those guys.
That is NOT why I play Blood Angels and I am waiting for some FW-model or dataslate to fix this gak.

You can be as pissed as you want be. Why didn't you protect yourself? If you deal with GW then you have to expect this stuff.

I've been taking Plague Marines as Core/Troops since 2nd edition.

This is not the sort of thing you expect. You expect them to expand the Troops options rather than decrease them. And in the case of the Blood Angels? They straight up halved them.

This was not like other codexes that had come before, where the 'alternative' Troops were as a result of a Special Character enabling Force Org shenanigans. These were straight up Troops. And Troops that had persisted over two editions and two versions of a Codex. I think it's fair to say they established themselves in that slot. It's worrying that GW suddenly decide to force people into 'Unbound'.

But it's in the core rules! - I hear some argue this.

That may be the case - it's still not allowed at GW's own tournaments, or the vast majority of other tournaments out there. For something that's in the rules it says a lot, when Tyranids can take an allied Knight but an Unbound List is a no go.

rollawaythestone wrote:
So, as a recent purchaser of the Deathstorm boxed set, I am now grappling with the fact that I might want to start a Blood Angels army.

With that in consideration, I am wondering what people think of running Raphen's Death Company and Cassor the Damned as their two minimum troop requirements (350 points total)?

Their weapon load-out seems a bit schizophrenic, but it does allow for running Death Company in the troop slot.

If i were to start Blood Angels, am I better off building the Death Company as part of a larger squad, or outfitting them as outlined for Raphen's squad?

You're probably better off just paying the troops tax for a scout squad and then maybe Cassor the damned. It would be cheaper. The problem with that specific DC build is that it's too full of special weapons for a 5 man squad. Four out of the 5 guys have something and so any losses are big hits against that unit.

If the upcoming Archangels detachment doesn't appeal to me, I'll probably put Cassor the Damned in 1 troops slot and a flamer-heavy tac squad in a Rhino in the other.

I'm excited for these changes frankly. Two boxes of tac marines and my old army is up to speed. I would rather have msu shooty marines in rhinos than assaulty. For 140 points I can get 3 bolter marines, one infernous pistol sergeant and a melta gun marine in a fast rhino. Army wide initiative +1 and furious charge is great considering we no longer have to pay a priest tax. With cheaper troops and an extra elite slot I'm thinking some fun army builds are around the corner. By the way rules are dropping right now in 4chan.

 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:

 Rippy wrote:
While I do feel for those who don't have any tactical marines or scouts in their army, a quick question, I see a lot of people saying "loathe, now I have to buy new stuff!", do you think I was reasonable to expect a new codex, and not have any new units to buy in it?

because most of the changes for the past 20 years have only been minor changes in wargear, etc. Not a fundamental change as ASM from troops to FA. I built the core of my army around Assault Marines, of varying styles (jump packs and non) And to basically have my entire army gutted, I don't have the money to go out and buy $400 worth of models to rebuild and adjust my army into a coherent build...

The concept of BA's as a heavily jump-pack oriented force is relatively recent, and their availability of jump pack units as troops only came about in 2007 and the heavy emphasis on BA's as something heavily "flying" oriented only came about in 2010. From their mid-90's Angels of Death nearly 20 years ago book up until almost 5th edition, Assault Marines weren't treated any differently than they were for any other Marine chapter.

 pretre wrote:

 th3maninblak wrote:
Assuming 4 hits per flamer, thats 3 wounds from flamers and 2 from heavy flamers (5 so far). Then 7 pistols, which will do another wound (up to 6). This equates to one dead thunderwolf after armor saves. Marines charge in with 21 attacks at str and init5, hitting 10.5 and wounding 5.25, rounding out to another dead wolf before they swing. Wolves hit back 15 times, hit 7.5, wound with around 4 (rending once) and killing 2 marines total.

Ok, so not WIN combat. But tying with one of the best assault units in the game is nothing to sneeze at.

Now sanguinary guard with a banner is a different story. 20 master crafted attacks will hit 12 times, wound 6, killing 3 wolves before they swing back. MAYBE losing a guy in return.

People take bare thunderwolves?

Well their invulnerable saves are 3++ as well I believe, so it doesn't really matter if they are taking armour saves or invulnerables but I suppose if they are running throwaway wolves then that will bring the losses down a bit before hitting back.

 plastictrees wrote:
You must know that's nonsense.

GW changing rules to require Tacticals in the same week they release a new Tactical kit specific to that army?

Yeah. I'm sure that's a total coincidence.

 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:

 Rippy wrote:
While I do feel for those who don't have any tactical marines or scouts in their army, a quick question, I see a lot of people saying "loathe, now I have to buy new stuff!", do you think I was reasonable to expect a new codex, and not have any new units to buy in it?

because most of the changes for the past 20 years have only been minor changes in wargear, etc. Not a fundamental change as ASM from troops to FA. I built the core of my army around Assault Marines, of varying styles (jump packs and non) And to basically have my entire army gutted, I don't have the money to go out and buy $400 worth of models to rebuild and adjust my army into a coherent build...

In function it's the same as the other players who built their armies around unlocking units as troops by using characters. OK those units may not have been ipso facto in the troops slot of the codex but those players still bought stuff to base an army around that theme and then that theme changed in the next codex and was removed. This is something that is basically pretty much happening in every new release from now on.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 plastictrees wrote:
You must know that's nonsense.

GW changing rules to require Tacticals in the same week they release a new Tactical kit specific to that army?

Yeah. I'm sure that's a total coincidence.

It's obviously not a coincedence. I'm saying it's not a trick to force veteran players to buy the new tactical box.
It's a release aimed at people that are picking up new BA armies that will need the new kit. They could just as easily have made a new BA Assault kit, whatever the reason for the change I don't think it was just to screw with people.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm more curious about the BA Terminator kit from a 'why?' perspective. There doesn't seem to be any particular incentive to pick them up unless it's just a kit you like.

Have GW been able to drop tooling costs for new molds dramatically?

 Rippy wrote:
While I do feel for those who don't have any tactical marines or scouts in their army, a quick question, I see a lot of people saying "loathe, now I have to buy new stuff!", do you think I was reasonable to expect a new codex, and not have any new units to buy in it?

I think a better option is to introduce something new and cool that I would want to buy. Not force me to buy because my army was invalidated. Eldar got Wraithknights, 2 flyers, and wraithgaurd and they were one of the most crowded books to begin with. Space Marines got the hunter, stalker, and centurions. Tau got Riptides, Flyers, several SC. Space Wolves got a new dreadnought kit and 2 fliers. Blood Angels (and GK, DE) get no new units

I fail to see why removing options is a solid business plan. There isn't a single thing I'm excited about for this codex release. Tacticals are the most basic and boring unit and a poor choice for a codex launch. Who's really ever exciting to plop down tactical marines on the tabletop.