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So I hadn't heard anything about blood angels really before the new 'dex dropped. A few weeks before it did, i played a guy who had a mechanized list with fast razorbacks (with ASM inside), outflanking baal preds, drop podded fragiosos, and fast predators and vindicators.

It was glorious, and I wanted it.

I went in half with one friend for three deathstorm boxes and decided to start blood angels, with my major focus being the fast armored aspect of the blood angels. Needless to say, i am heartbroken about the movement of the baal preds to heavy.

HOWEVER, the magnificent optimist that I am, I want to see if it can still be done. Other than the Baal being moved, we still have access to razorbacks and land speeders in the fast slot. AND A HQ DREADNOUGHT TO LEAD MY MECHANIZED ARMY!

So I want your opinion on this: can it be done, and can it be done well?

in HQ we have the libby dread
in troops, drop pods, fast razors and fast rhinos
in elites drop podded dreadnoughts (pick your flavor, plenty to choose from) as well as dedicated transports
in fast attack land speeders
in heavies there are vindicators, predators, storm ravens, and even baal preds (though in this slot, i much prefer the two lascannon/autocannon pred instead), whirlwinds, and even land raiders (though these aren't fast)

Let's say it this way. Other aspects have been buffed significantly. While mech was mostly unchanged and just lost a few options. Not that it's bad or something. If you like it, can still go with baals, predators, stormravens dreads and razorbacks.

Well..... it can still be useful to BA because their Tac squads got access to Heavy Flamers. Making it possible to take 5 man squads with a heavy flamer and Razorbacks, rush up the field and jump out and you can actually use you're heavy weapon! yay .

Sadly for the Baal Predator , unless you really want those Flamers there's not much reason to take them over reg. predators who can have triple lascannon and buy fast engines.

and of course as was said you can use dreads, with up to 4 of them in the elite slot and 1 in HQ. with each having their own positives, Furioso Being AV13 so survivable , DC dread having good attack power and lots of attacks, and of course the Libby dread with force weapon and powers.

the stormraven is obviously a good flyer and with the triple stormraven + Tac. squad formation you can drop dread in on turn 1 and charge on turn 1. Pricey, both in models and points but a lot of fun for sure as a quick strike mech force.

No real advantage over standard SM mec.

Well, it's fast. That's pretty good.

Martel732 wrote:
Well, it's fast. That's pretty good.

iron hands get IWND
DA get death-wing landraiders

Everyones got something.

Fast razors is really the only thing that matters. It's still a razor though. lol.

Fast tri-las preds get off way more full barrages than regular ones. I hated using my preds as IH preds. Fast is much better than IWND or death-wing landraiders imo. Yeah, I just said BA have something better than the other marines. It's just that they are missing four for five awesome units in return.

I say go Baals to the wall.

Max out slots with the Baal or tri-las pred.
then tac squads in rhinos with the heavy flamer, remember the Heavy Flamer is not actually a heavy weapon! It's Assault 1.

And then max out landspeeders and drop pod dreads. What type of landspeeders? either double melta or double flamer.

Fast vehicles in this edition are pretty stellar.

The issue with the Baal isn't moving to HEAVY, it's losing Out-flank, which really didn't make much sense anyway; and wasn't in previous editions; regardless it was really nice to have and now it's gone.

The Baal, either version, is still very short ranged, so you need at least a turn of flat-out or smoke launchers with cover before it can be useful in most games. It is quite useful against Deep-striking and heavy outflanking armies however if you can keep it from getting killed as soon as they drop. It's good in City Fight as well. In mech lists I still like it, but if it's the only tank in your list it's just a throw-away.

I've mentioned this several times, but I'll repeat it. 24" guns on predator hulls suck because you have to expose the miserable AV 11 side of the tank. Tri-las preds are the pred hull of choice, since you can keep your butt to the back of the board and show AV 13 for most of the battle. The Vindi and Baal are both extremely subpar in my experiences.

Martel732 wrote:
I've mentioned this several times, but I'll repeat it. 24" guns on predator hulls suck because you have to expose the miserable AV 11 side of the tank. Tri-las preds are the pred hull of choice, since you can keep your butt to the back of the board and show AV 13 for most of the battle. The Vindi and Baal are both extremely subpar in my experiences.

I agree , the loss of scout on the baal was just such a killer.

Tri-Las with fast engines is nice and is very useable against a lot of things you'll see in most metas these days.

 BlackArmour wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I've mentioned this several times, but I'll repeat it. 24" guns on predator hulls suck because you have to expose the miserable AV 11 side of the tank. Tri-las preds are the pred hull of choice, since you can keep your butt to the back of the board and show AV 13 for most of the battle. The Vindi and Baal are both extremely subpar in my experiences.

I agree , the loss of scout on the baal was just such a killer.

Tri-Las with fast engines is nice and is very useable against a lot of things you'll see in most metas these days.

Tri-Las with fast is the best predator tank going... but remember not all games are back of deployment zone gunline shoot-outs. Without Scout the Baal has limited use indeed, but it's still great in some scenarios, facing Nids or Orks, Grey Knights because of their short range, Daemons and any deepstriking force. As I said earlier in City Fight it's pretty nice too because A) there is plenty of cover, and B) templates ignore cover.

For a barren tournament style table (no terrain) in an all-comers list the Tri-Las is just such a better choice though.

Annihilator preds are great. Giving them fast only helps their cause - though it does increase their price.

 Gunzhard wrote:

 BlackArmour wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I've mentioned this several times, but I'll repeat it. 24" guns on predator hulls suck because you have to expose the miserable AV 11 side of the tank. Tri-las preds are the pred hull of choice, since you can keep your butt to the back of the board and show AV 13 for most of the battle. The Vindi and Baal are both extremely subpar in my experiences.

I agree , the loss of scout on the baal was just such a killer.

Tri-Las with fast engines is nice and is very useable against a lot of things you'll see in most metas these days.

Tri-Las with fast is the best predator tank going... but remember not all games are back of deployment zone gunline shoot-outs. Without Scout the Baal has limited use indeed, but it's still great in some scenarios, facing Nids or Orks, Grey Knights because of their short range, Daemons and any deepstriking force. As I said earlier in City Fight it's pretty nice too because A) there is plenty of cover, and B) templates ignore cover.

For a barren tournament style table (no terrain) in an all-comers list the Tri-Las is just such a better choice though.

Orks, Nids and GK all have fantastic targets for lascannons, though. Deep striking against BA has its own problems: you're setting yourself up to get assaulted by units like DC and SG.