Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am building a blood angels army from scratch. So far I have a 10 man tactical squad (grav gun, heavy bolter, combi-grav), Captain Karlaen, and a Librarian in terminator armour. I was wondering where I should build up for this. I would be using the Baal Strike Force and I like to keep my armies fluffy. I personally was thinking a unit of assault terminators to bring either Karlaen or the Librarian in (otherwise they seem quite out of place) and a unit of scouts to keep the overall army point cost low. Any opinions? Thank you

Don't put grav guns on non-relentless units.

The setup on your tac marines is pretty bad, but its an easy fix. Either 2x hand flamers on the sgt with a flamer+heavy flamer, or a melta gun+combi melta and a heavy flamer. As a general rule, you should keep your troops to an absolute bare minimum.

Also here are some things that people consider the best in the book.

LoW
Dante

HQ
sanguinary priest
Libby with galliens staff
Captain with valours edge
Astorath
Mephiston

Elites
Death company
sternguard
Sanguinary guard
Frag dreads
Command squad

Fast attack
Tri melta assault marine squads
Grav bike squads

Heavy support
Baal predators
Fast tri las predators
Stormraven

If you stick to these choices youll be just fine.

Could you explain Dantes role in a typical army, along with astorath.

How in the Emperor's name did you get Karlaen????
Go for the grand effect. this means you get the most powerful weapons allowable by the rules.

 ninjafiredragon wrote:
Could you explain Dantes role in a typical army, along with astorath.

Astorath is easy. He's a decent combat character who gives rerolls to hit and wound to death company, who are arguably the best unit in the book.

Dante... well, he does a lot. He's a very powerful combat character, with 6 str7 ws6 init6 ap2 attacks on the charge, and gets even more powerful when paired with a sanguinary priest and/or a sanguinary guard unit with a chapter banner. He also gives his squad hit and run, fundamentally changes your army with his warlord trait (reroll reserves for fliers, jumpers, skimmers, scatter d6 less for deep striking skimmers/jumpers), has a 6 inch fear bubble, and can tank hits for his squad with his 2+/4++, 4 wounds and eternal warrior. He is, in short, a gigantic cheeseball.

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
How in the Emperor's name did you get Karlaen????
Go for the grand effect. this means you get the most powerful weapons allowable by the rules.

Bought him off ebay. Grand effect?

I gave my tacticals a grav gun since I plan on using them for forward objective holding. I also figured they would be good against the Dark Angels player I play against since he likes his Deathwing. In light of this I assume I should look into a close combat elite unit such as death company or vanguard vets (since they're elites). Maybe a sang priest for my HQ?

ojiarichards wrote:

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
How in the Emperor's name did you get Karlaen????
Go for the grand effect. this means you get the most powerful weapons allowable by the rules.

Bought him off ebay. Grand effect?

I gave my tacticals a grav gun since I plan on using them for forward objective holding. I also figured they would be good against the Dark Angels player I play against since he likes his Deathwing. In light of this I assume I should look into a close combat elite unit such as death company or vanguard vets (since they're elites). Maybe a sang priest for my HQ?

Plasma would give you more killing power in general on tacs.

Grab some death company. Make them about a 5 bp/CCW to 1 bp/power weapon to 1 bolter/fist ratio. I run them in 7 man units exactly like that. You CAN magnetize the packs, but I seriously haven't even considered running them without packs since the new book, so I just glued packs on. I'll rip em off again a few years from now when they make the jump DC bad again.

Astorath makes a great scary hq if you have 2 or 3 DC units. A DC unit that charges with Asty in the squad will tear faces apart.

The hq that you'll find yourself constantly coming back to is the sanguinary priest. Get at least two if you stay single foc, more otherwise, magnetize their packs and arms.

Heavy flamer tacticals are boss. Get some rhinos, razors, or drop pods and start burninating the countryside.

Asm squads are also good for snagging a few melta shots in a 5 man squad. Packs rhinos or drop pods.

You're going to want Dante at some point. Not so much because he's a hardcore unit (now,) but because you're going to eventually want to run a deep strike jumper list, and you will want his warlord trait. The fact that he's a top tier independent character is just icing.

Mizzet is my kind of blood angels player.

Ive actually had luck running full 10 man tri melta assault squads, too. Mainly in my lists without Dante, but str5 init5 on the charge is pretty good.

Pick up sanguinary guard over vanguard vets. Particularly with a priest theyre the better unit. All swords with 1 or 2 fists and a chapter banner is fine. They also make a sick unit with dante that looks beautiful on the table.

I got the boxsets and bought some lighting claws off ebay. And Karlean deepstrikes in with them.

While they aren't worth it in points, they get rerolls from reserves and look awesome to me.

I also did libby dreadnought, furioso dread with heavy flamer and frag cannon, and a regular dread with 2x twin linked auto cannons using from a quad gun.

Deathcompany are a mix of weapons with jump packs. The troops are from Dark Vengence.

So all in all, a cheap army i can build upon.