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Thought they'd be part of it in 2013, now in 2015 they still didnt get their own mention or chapter tactics. (At least the 6th ed codex SM had a Blood Raven in the miniatures gallery).

Just thought that after the immense success of the DoW games and their overall popularity, GW would include them as a perfect representative for an "unknown founding" successor.

But nope.

Once again, it's just the 6 codex-adhering Legions and the 2 Imperial Fist successors that made it into the SM codex.

Innovation definitely isn't GW's credo.

What is blood ravens thing, kleptomania, lots of psykers, well that's simple, take a relic blade on your hq, call it the sword of secrets.

Take the librairius conclave, then 2 hq librarians and bobs your uncle

Or a single chapter tactic that allows their psykers to generate warp charges on 3+ instead of 4+ would be fine enough.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Or a single chapter tactic that allows their psykers to generate warp charges on 3+ instead of 4+ would be fine enough.

The conclave already does that.

I thought the Blood Ravens were a Dawn of War exclusive. Like they were just made for the Dawn of War game and since then have only been mentioned here and there.

I don't expect them to be added to any codex or to be supported by any rules unless THQ makes a comeback and takes over GW.

The blood Ravens will never get chapter tactics, captain boreal is far too manly to be confined to a single book regardless of its number of pages or its purpose in the 40k universe.

Blood Ravens Chapter Tactics:

Psychically Gifted:
All friendly Psykers taken from Codex: Adeptus Astartes: Space Marines may reroll one die when attempting to cast psychic powers. In addition, a 6+ save may be taken against wounds caused by Perils of the Warp.

Steal Rain:
Before the game begins one character taken in the Primary Detachment may select one piece of wargear from an enemy character. That piece of wargear is taken from the enemy character and given to the Space Marine character instead. If the Space Marine character can not actually use this piece of wargear then it is simply taken out of play as it has been placed amongst the Chapter's sacred relics.

Steal Rain..?

Good riddance. One less super-special snowflake down, especially when the Chapter should have been strung up by the Ordo Malleus and destroyed. Or sent on a suicide penitent crusade into the Eye of Terror, not Segmentum Ultima.

Not surprised they're not in it. Remember, GW does no marketing or market research, so the idea of actually capitalizing on a successful series of video games based on their IP just isn't something that would cross the minds of GW management.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Not surprised they're not in it. Remember, GW does no marketing or market research, so the idea of actually capitalizing on a successful series of video games based on their IP just isn't something that would cross the minds of GW management.

There was talk awhile back that THQ technically owned the rights to the Blood Ravens Chapter rather than GW.

To be fair on the Blood Ravens supposed "special snowflake status" they're regularly shown to suffer through horrible mishaps, often by their own doing.

Boreale kills a sizable portion of the chapter (and himself) during the Karuva campaign, which they lose.

Depending on howyou play DOWII the Blood Ravens lose a high ranking librarian and a good number of marines to chaos or just get killed outright.

They're not UM or GK plot armor clad. They have a lot of noticeable drawbacks.

Also I don't think we'll see them (save perhaps a FW intervention but they're pretty caught up in the Horus Heresy now.)

If any 'new' Chapter Tactic should be added, I'd rather see it for the likes of the Relictors and thus allow us to properly field those Chapters who work closely with the masses of Radical Inquisitors & follow their similar beliefs.

Nah, the Bloody Magpies are something that's better left on the side like FFG's homebrew chapter the Storm Wardens. I mean they're not even a second founding chapter, nor comparable to the distinctive first founding chapters. At most I could see them being given rules/chapter tactics as part of a preorder bonus if DoW3 ever gets released/developed.

 Icculus wrote:
I thought the Blood Ravens were a Dawn of War exclusive. Like they were just made for the Dawn of War game and since then have only been mentioned here and there.

They make an appearance in Space Marine.

They are also playable and fleshed out in Deathwatch.

I was never overly impressed with GW's take on them anyway.

In Dawn of War 1 Rhino's didn't count towards the unit cap IIRC, in addition you could always upgrade Predators to Annihilators EXCEPT for Dark Crusade wherein you could ONLY take Annihilators.. so what drawback did GW give them in the 4th edition codex? Naturally the one that made Rhinos eat a Fast Attack slot and prohibited you taking ANY Predator Annihilators..

I'm kinda sad because people like these guys and I could imagine it'd be nice for DoW players...
...On the other hand I'm playing through DoW ever so slowly myself, and I find the Blood Ravens to be an incredibly lame chapter with nothing much to care about. Then again I seem to feel that way about most of the vanilla-Codex chapters (I like the Black Templars, most of the others bore me, irritate me or upset me in some way).
In fact, since I can't stand the Space Wolves and Blood Angels I guess that leaves my Marine selection kind of narrow, basically just Dark Angels, Grey Knights and Black Templars.
I do think the Blood Ravens should be in the vanilla codex anyway since they're semi-important from their game spotlight and people clearly like them.

 Gashrog wrote:
I was never overly impressed with GW's take on them anyway.

In Dawn of War 1 Rhino's didn't count towards the unit cap IIRC, in addition you could always upgrade Predators to Annihilators EXCEPT for Dark Crusade wherein you could ONLY take Annihilators.. so what drawback did GW give them in the 4th edition codex? Naturally the one that made Rhinos eat a Fast Attack slot and prohibited you taking ANY Predator Annihilators..

Rhinos definitely cost Vehicle Cap points in DOW1. The video game also permitted you to lose an entire Company of Marines in a single assault and replenish the Chapter by magically growing Space Marines in a Dixie cup or something.

I'm a dark eldar player myself, but the blood ravens are my favorite chapter of space marines. I think it's sad they don't have a little more fluff in the codexes, but I really don't think they need their own chapter tactics.

If you want a fluffy blood ravens list just always take at least one librarian. Outside of that they are pretty much codex. Some of the formations can also help.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Gashrog wrote:
I was never overly impressed with GW's take on them anyway.

In Dawn of War 1 Rhino's didn't count towards the unit cap IIRC, in addition you could always upgrade Predators to Annihilators EXCEPT for Dark Crusade wherein you could ONLY take Annihilators.. so what drawback did GW give them in the 4th edition codex? Naturally the one that made Rhinos eat a Fast Attack slot and prohibited you taking ANY Predator Annihilators..

Rhinos definitely cost Vehicle Cap points in DOW1. The video game also permitted you to lose an entire Company of Marines in a single assault and replenish the Chapter by magically growing Space Marines in a Dixie cup or something.

Yeah Pre-Heresy Death Guard and World Eaters could get away with casualties in the thousands because they were just recruiting non stop, more so then the other legions, and always had manpower issues (there's a reason why Plague Marines and Berserkers are elite units...).

The wonky tactics of modern space marines makes this not at all an option for a chapter like the Blood Ravens.

While its easily possible to build them with generic parts

at least some acknowledgement of its existence would of been nice.

They are Pretty popular from what i can tell.

IF they ever make a non chaos renegade list (like soul drinkers) i hope they add them in for some funzees.

Well, they're not renegades anymore. In their last appearance, they're on a Penitent Crusade, having taken on the dun brown pauldrons and changed their battle-cry.

Just take the Librarius Conclave formation (I believe it allows you to pepper the Librarians around your units, but I might be wrong - I categorically don't use formations so I'm not very familiar with them.) Blood Ravens chapter tactics are whatever chapter tactics you feel like using that game. They steal relics, why wouldn't they steal battle doctrines as well?

Ah, I fondly remember when they made their debut eleven years ago this upcoming September 20th.

The THQ game was a blast. I almost... almost... went for building them. They were a bright (dark) new (unknown founding) space marine chapter (of dubious origins).

A little GW recognition would have been cool. Alas, it is the grim dark future... and it is not a place for the new shinies.

Waitaminute... I just got into AdMech... D'oH!!!

I think their colors and symbol are shown in the ranks of other marine symbols in one of the painting guides.

If only pyromancy had a fire ball type attack as it's primaris, and there was a lightning based lore, I could see a librarius conclave zapping and fireballing around in blood raven colours

 Formosa wrote:
What is blood ravens thing, kleptomania, lots of psykers, well that's simple, take a relic blade on your hq, call it the sword of secrets.

Take the librairius conclave, then 2 hq librarians and bobs your uncle

Ability to snag specialists/heavy weapons with a leadership test from a defeated squad, one turn use only but its salvo/relentless/twin linked.

I'd probably have it so you could get more Librarians somehow (p.s. Don't see how they have loads of those, but I suppose I might just have not encountered the rest yet, only seen Isador so far) and let you pick Wargear from any Chapter in Codex: Space Marines, Codex: Space Wolves, Codex: Dark Angels or Codex: Grey Knights. GW would love the last three, get loads of extra Codex sales for them!

They aren't in it, but they did get a mention in the book at the Chapter Tactics section, if I remember correctly.

They are more likely to be in a FW release than a GW prime to be fair. Plus correct me if I'm wrong but they don't adhere to the codex astartes do they? So why would they be in the Codex Astartes book...?