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Hey all,
So I'm having a little trouble. As much as I love the game, I suck at 40K haha. I am a Blood Angel player. My army lists are never competitive. I find myself picking things I like the look of, rather than things that work. I'm just wandering if I can make a half competitive list, half fluffy. A lot of competitive lists I see are marines in Razerbacks. Spam. Spam. Spam. But I was wandering if anyone has anymore interesting, more fluffy ideas for army lists matching a 1500pt list, but are still semi-competitive.

I have looked through the new Marine and Dark Angel Dex's and weeped openly, but I'm sure there are ways to make the Bangels work well. The units I like most are Furiosos, Sanguinary Guard, Librarians and Vanguard/ Sternguard Vets. I only really like 10 man tac squads as well. I find the 6 man squads in Razerbacks pretty boring. I also like to use Dante with a squad of Sanguinary guard and a Sanguinary priest as my HQ choice generally.

Can I make a somewhat competitive list including these units?

These are 2 lists I made, out of things I thought sounded cool:

---List 1---

HQ
Sanguinary Priest
-chainsword
-jump pack

LORD OF WAR
Dante

ELITES
Sanguinary guard x8
-chapter banner
-2 axes, 4 swords
-2 power fists

Sternguard x10
-Srg with combi-melta
-2x combi-melta
-Rhino

TROOPS
Tac squad x10
-vet Srg with combi-grav and chainsword
-heavy flamer
-flamer
-rhino

Tac squad x10
-vet Srg with storm bolter and chainsword
-heavy bolter
-grav-gun
-rhino

HEAVY SUPPORT
Devistator squad x5
-4 lascannons
-Srg with storm bolter

---List 2---

HQ
Termie Librarian lvl2

ELITES
Assault Termies x5
-3 claws
-2 hammer shield

Furioso dread
-fist and melta
-frag cannon
-Magna-grapples
-drop pod

Vanguard x10
-jump packs
-4 power weapons
-Srg with power weapon

TROOPS
Tac squad x10
-heavy flamer
-flamer
-vet Srg with combi-grav and power weapon
-rhino

Tac squad x10
-heavy bolter
-grav-gun
-vet Srg with combi-plasma
-rhino

HEAVY SUPPORT
Baal Preditor
-flamestorm cannon
-heavy bolters sponsons

Preditor
-autocannon
-lascannon sponsons

Both lists seem to have a supreme lack of anti-tank and air. Anyway, help, thoughts and opinions are really needed and greatly appetites

cheers all!

Once again another Space Marine list pretending to be a BA list play as red marines and give them CT if you want a list like that. You have the SG right, but a competitive BA list would be something along the lines of.

BSF
Priest, Dante, 7 SG (2 fists, 5 swords, banner)
8 x jump DC - 2 fists.
8 x jump DC - 2 fists
15 x naked jump DC with Astorath (for fighting tough units with invulnerable saves)

Tacs in pod (4 flamers if 10 men)
Tacs in pod (4 flamers if 10 men)

Melta Assault pod (2 meltas and a c.melta)
Melta Assault pod (2 meltas and a c.melta)
Melta Assault pod (2 meltas and a c.melta)

Then saturate one half of the board with death, devastate his armour, fry his support and punch face in a shock and awe, aggressive action. Tie up his units with DC, hit his tough unit with SG and sweep the remains up with your pod troops after they have taken care of their primary role.

Don't set a BA army up like Imperial Fists, if you want to do that, go Space Marine IF (or Ultras) they do shooty or versatile a lot better. BA mainly punch stuff, but we do that very well, so play to their strengths.

Nothing to stop you having 2 armies, one BA one red marines. I do, and I enjoy the change.

Sorry if that sounds harsh.

If you only like 10 man tac squads then you're going to be playing down at least 140 pts on other people a lot. Vanguard and furioso are not very good.

So when I am facing someone who I know will play somewhat competitively I generally won't waste more than 200 pts on subpar units so that means you should only have one of those in a list, and if you have one of those than you probably shouldn't take sternguard either

Nostromo, sounds like a pretty cool list. The death company are something I've never thought of using before, but now that i look at the, again, it definitly makes sense as they're like vanguard but better with more special rules for virtually the same price haha.
Thanks for the list idea and advice! And it wasn't too harsh. I might make an Imperial Fist successor as a second army for shooty.

Hate to break it to ya, but if you're playing blood angels, you'll never have a competitive list, they're so tier 2 atm it's pathetic.

If it makes ya feel any better, you're probably not bad at the game! You're just playing on impossible mode.

BA contribute the following competitive or somewhat competitive options:

-jump DC
-pod fragioso
-obsec podded 5 man heavy flamer tactical. Combi flamer or 2x hand flamer on sarge optional.
-pod tri- or quad- melta asm
-empty pods for other armies and/or assassins
-outflanking obsec melee scouts if the rest of your list has enough turn 2 distractions for them to live a turn.
-sanguinary guard can make it, but a small amount of ap2 that your pod forces can't take out and you might as well consider the unit a liability.
-priests.
-extra strategic trait relic

As you can see, there's not enough in that list that synergizes well with the rest to really make a mean pure BA list other than drop pod spam. They can be PART of a good list though. Taking a small BA primary for a warlord with double strategic, some outflanking melee scouts, and a pod for a culexus helped my tourney marine battle company out quite a bit.

wait, how do you reliably get blood angel scouts to have outflank?

BA can be competitive, though you will have to go cheesy. I have done very well with and beaten very good armies, with heavy DC lists.

Astorath with large DC unit.
SG with Dante and Priest
8-10 man jump DC with 2 fists
(troops tax can be flamer pod tacs or actually small assault scouts, S5, I5 on the charge).

Most points are sunk into DC, which are very good for the points cost, and not many people enjoy 40 to 50 S5 I5 attacks with 8 S9 AP2 attacks on the charge. Having them with jump packs and built in fnp helps, but to be decent with BA you have to play to their strengths and make an army that gets stuck in fast and punches face. Play DC as the fluff, as suicidal hardmen, get them into action fast and you will be suprised what they can do.

They may not be uber competitive, but played right they can give even the best player a good fight.

 Walnuts wrote:
wait, how do you reliably get blood angel scouts to have outflank?

Units with infiltrate or scout can choose to outflank.

You could try something like;

Librarian w/ Angel's Wing - 90
Priest w/JP - 75

2x Furiosos w/ Frag Cannon and Heavy Flamer, Drop Pods - 330

10 man Tac Squad, Flamer, H Flamer, 2 Hand Flamers, Pod - 210
10 man Tac Squad, Flamer, H Flamer, 2 Hand Flamers - 175

10 man Assault Sqd, 2 Meltagun, 2 Inferno Pistols, JPs - 220

Stormraven - 200

Total - 1300pts

HQs go with assault squad and target the scariest looking tank, hopefully survive a turn, then generally piss about killing things.

2 Fragnaughts arrive turn one and become a big nuisance.

2nd Tac squad arrives in SR, disembarkes, flames something, then assaults.

That leaves 200pts for a little bit of DC or SG. Maybe stick another dread on the Stormraven.

 alanmckenzie wrote:
You could try something like;

Librarian w/ Angel's Wing - 90
Priest w/JP - 75

2x Furiosos w/ Frag Cannon and Heavy Flamer, Drop Pods - 330

10 man Tac Squad, Flamer, H Flamer, 2 Hand Flamers, Pod - 210
10 man Tac Squad, Flamer, H Flamer, 2 Hand Flamers - 175

10 man Assault Sqd, 2 Meltagun, 2 Inferno Pistols, JPs - 220

Stormraven - 200

Total - 1300pts

HQs go with assault squad and target the scariest looking tank, hopefully survive a turn, then generally piss about killing things.

2 Fragnaughts arrive turn one and become a big nuisance.

2nd Tac squad arrives in SR, disembarkes, flames something, then assaults.

That leaves 200pts for a little bit of DC or SG. Maybe stick another dread on the Stormraven.

I'm a fan of the gunslinger inferno sarge, but he needs to be podded, not jumping. Even with angel's wing, you have to land darkwing duck levels of dangerous close for him to be in his 3" melting range. Even rerolling on the mishap chart, all the results are bad. Asm also aren't very good except for the meltacide trick. Give them a 5 man pod with 2 melta and combi or gunslinger sarge to add variety to your pod force. So far all you have is flames and more flames. Having both flame pods and melta pods makes the opponent's deployment a lot harder, because both his cover reliant boys/numerous body troops and his armor are at risk.

I find the full 10 man hvy flame/flame/handflames tac squad to be overkill and inefficient on points. Because you fire each flamer type one at a time, 2 different flamers are usually enough to clear the template kill-zone if you were firing at an appropriate target. As for combat squadding, it's rare that opponents put two cover-abuse squads close enough together that you can knock out both. Also a suicide bolter squad isn't exactly good. In fact they may just reserve any cover reliant troops when they see all the flamey pods you have. Long story short here, cut the tacs to 5 man for heavy flamer and hand flamers, or drop them if you don't have enough pods to get some melta in.

They might have furious charge, but that doesn't make tac marines good at assault or worth raven-ing in. In fact, try to stay away from tacticals in general. If you want a fairly cheap assault out of a raven, go with cc scouts. Whole bunch of furious attacks, and if you happen to lose the raven before they get out, you didn't lose that much extra from the scouts dying in the crash.

Cassor the damned is one of my favorite raven passengers. 6 s10 ap2 attacks on the charge that can challenge is lovely. Bonus for being a troop choice.

With a Libby and no-weapon priest, you're set up for a sanguine guard mini-deathstar. If you drop the priest, you could instead run the Libby with jump DC. Either are decent options and have their own brick walls that they might run into. In either case, try to get an invuln save power with the Libby. (Divination has a 4+.)