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New player here. Decided to run Blood Angels against all advice and have already purchased a couple models (furioso dread and death company). I'm going to be buying more models soon to get a battle forged Baal strike force army together to start playing.

As you know, BA have only 2 troop choices to choose from to fill the mandatory 2 troops slots...

My question is what are the advantages and disadvantages of tactical marines vs scouts? What would you choose to fill the 2 troops slots and why?

Thanks in advance!

Well it depends on what you want them to do. The only real advantage of BA scouts is they are cheap. I've seen some argue using full squads loaded for close combat, but i don't see that as an effective use of points. I prefer two Tact Squads in razorbacks for grabbing objectives after my assault units have cleared them. The razor blocks line of sight to the Tacticals as much as possible and provides supporting fire where needed. The Tacticals try to survive as long as possible. If your Tactical Squads are fighting then you're already losing.


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Here are the two squads I use. I know the powerfist is a bad use of points most of the time, but I can't bring myself to completely abandon the BA's theme.

Tactical Squad (x5) w/ Veteran Sgt, Powerfist, & Meltagun
Razorback w/ Lascannon & Twin-linked Plasma Gun

Tactical Squad (x5) w/ Combi-Plasma, Melta Bombs, & Plasma Gun
Razorback w/ Lascannon & Twin-linked Plasma Gun

 Crimson Devil wrote:
Well it depends on what you want them to do. The only real advantage of BA scouts is they are cheap. I've seen some argue using full squads loaded for close combat, but i don't see that as an effective use of points. I prefer two Tact Squads in razorbacks for grabbing objectives after my assault units have cleared them.

I thought you lose Objective Secured with the Baal Strike Force FOC? I'm planning on running my Blood Angels as fast assault, trying to kill as much of the enemy as possible, as quickly as possible. Would tactical squads still be a better option that CCW/pistol scouts?

Welcome to the Blood, Pilgrim of the dark. A fellow Son of Sanguinius is always welcome.

Crimson Devil offers some solid advice, and I too prefer my 'core' two troops choices to be Tactical squads for the general durability Power Armor offers.

That said, I do plan on fielding a third troops choice in the form of a small 5 man scout squad with CCW & Bolt Pistols + Meltabomb on the Sergeant to serve two roles. Firstly, counter-infiltrate, and secondly, distraction + early objective claiming.

Each troops choice has their own benefits and drawbacks.

The question you have to ask is what kind of Blood Angels force do you want to run? Descent of Angels with emphasis on drop pods and jump packs? Razorback/Rhino mechanized? A blend of the two?

For me, personally, I am building toward a Descent of Angels style list. Tactical Marines in drop pods with a small scout squad with minimal upgrades and camo cloaks on them, backed up by lots of jump pack units, Death Company, etc. a Furioso in it's own pod, and a Storm Raven + a Skyshield Landing Pad to get it on the board turn 1. Might not be the most effective list but it'll be fun to play I expect.

For my troops, I eventually plan on having twenty tactical marines, each a squad of 10 in a drop pod with a Combi-flamer, flamer (or meltagun, still deciding on that), and heavy flamer in each squad, and locator beacons on each drop pod as well.

I can then saturate one area with six objective secured units (Two tactical squads combat-squadded out into four squads of five marines each and a pair of drop pods) and clear most infantry off of an objective or two with lots of flamer templates, bolter fire, and possibly also threaten some armor with limited meltagun shots as well.

Of course it won't work versus everything, but again, hopefully MSU works to my advantage here and I can then bring in reserves to support the fray without worry of scatter using the drop pods as a jump-off point.

One thing that helps BA tactical squads is the ability to have a Heavy Flamer as your heavy weapon in a tactical squad, backed up by a special weapon if you're running a full 10 man squad and the sergeant's combi-weapon. Makes putting them in a drop pod viable.

Just offering my thoughts on that, best of luck to you, Pilgrim, and if you want any help with list building, painting tips, or have questions about Blood Angels in general, feel free to shoot me a PM and I'll do what I can to answer and help you out as much as I'm able.

Take it easy for now, and welcome aboard.

-Red__Thirst-

Scouts are the more competitive option.

The reasons are twofold:

1: To get the tacticals to do anything, you need to buy them a transport, or else they will be walking at snail speed from your deployment zone taking long range bolter shots. Any opponent with any sense of target priority will leave them alive until he's dealt with other threats and is ready to murder them. If you do go with the transport route, the rest of your army should also be on the board turn 1 to maximize saturation, and not a lot of BA likes starting in your zone at deployment.

2: Scouts are cheaper, and come with infiltrate, scout, and by extension outflank, therefore not needing a transport. If you're going for a turn 1 threat overload, you can infiltrate while having pods and such arrive. If going for a beta strike with descent of angels, you can outflank. Being equipped with knife/pistol, they can put out a lot of furious charge attacks if left alone.

Well, I don't like min sized units in a world where you have to occupy and hold objectives, say in maelstrom missions.
I'd take two full Tactical Marine squads with flamer, heavy flamer, power fist, melta bombs, mounted in a Rhino. I'd expand from there, such as DC with jump packs, HQ with jump packs, and supporting Dreads and Predators.

I've had decent success running a 5 man tactical squad with combi-grav sgt, gravgun in a barebones Razorback. Its not too expensive points wise and has a reasonable damage output.

If I ran another tactical squad, I would go for the heavy flamer in either a drop pod or Razorback with a combi-weapon sgt.

I would rarely run a full 10 man squad as I think tacticals work better as smaller 5 man units in razorbacks/drop pods. More units on the table means more for your opponent to deal with and also gives you more objective capturing.

I do have a scout squad with shotguns if I have a spare 55 points left over or need the bare minimum troops slots used up.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Scouts are the more competitive option.

The reasons are twofold:

1: To get the tacticals to do anything, you need to buy them a transport, or else they will be walking at snail speed from your deployment zone taking long range bolter shots. Any opponent with any sense of target priority will leave them alive until he's dealt with other threats and is ready to murder them. If you do go with the transport route, the rest of your army should also be on the board turn 1 to maximize saturation, and not a lot of BA likes starting in your zone at deployment.

2: Scouts are cheaper, and come with infiltrate, scout, and by extension outflank, therefore not needing a transport. If you're going for a turn 1 threat overload, you can infiltrate while having pods and such arrive. If going for a beta strike with descent of angels, you can outflank. Being equipped with knife/pistol, they can put out a lot of furious charge attacks if left alone.

See, this was my thinking exactly when I was first considering CCW scouts. But, I also see the benefits of tacticals as outlined above by Red_Thirst and Crimson Devil.

I guess I'm confused on the FOC I'm going for (Baal Strike Force); I understand that you lose Objective Secured in exchange for The Red Thirst. However, I'm not sure if this is including your troops choices or if they still maintain objective secured? With the Baal Strike Force, I assumed I'd be playing a non-scoring army and was planning on gearing my BA towards assault and objective denial.

If I'm completely losing Objective Secured, I think CCW scouts are the way to go for me. They'll be cheap and able to harass while being mobile. If troops keep objective secured regardless, that makes the choice much more difficult.

 Pilgrim of the dark wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Scouts are the more competitive option.

The reasons are twofold:

1: To get the tacticals to do anything, you need to buy them a transport, or else they will be walking at snail speed from your deployment zone taking long range bolter shots. Any opponent with any sense of target priority will leave them alive until he's dealt with other threats and is ready to murder them. If you do go with the transport route, the rest of your army should also be on the board turn 1 to maximize saturation, and not a lot of BA likes starting in your zone at deployment.

2: Scouts are cheaper, and come with infiltrate, scout, and by extension outflank, therefore not needing a transport. If you're going for a turn 1 threat overload, you can infiltrate while having pods and such arrive. If going for a beta strike with descent of angels, you can outflank. Being equipped with knife/pistol, they can put out a lot of furious charge attacks if left alone.

See, this was my thinking exactly when I was first considering CCW scouts. But, I also see the benefits of tacticals as outlined above by Red_Thirst and Crimson Devil.

I guess I'm confused on the FOC I'm going for (Baal Strike Force); I understand that you lose Objective Secured in exchange for The Red Thirst. However, I'm not sure if this is including your troops choices or if they still maintain objective secured? With the Baal Strike Force, I assumed I'd be playing a non-scoring army and was planning on gearing my BA towards assault and objective denial.

If I'm completely losing Objective Secured, I think CCW scouts are the way to go for me. They'll be cheap and able to harass while being mobile. If troops keep objective secured regardless, that makes the choice much more difficult.

You can still claim objectives in a Baal Strike Force. The only thing you lose out on with Obsec, is that enemy Troops units who might have the rule will override your claim on any objectives you're fighting over.
It might seem like a huge disadvantage at first, but for the most part, Troops units are the easiest things in the game to kill. The only on that could give you serious problems would be Vanilla Marines/DA's, as their special detachment is completely gross.

Overall, it's not a rule that's really worth fretting over... Outside of CSM's, Eldar, Codex: Marines & DA's with their Gladius/Lion's Blade detachments, almost no one relies on Obsec anymore.

Great info here! Thanks to all!

I'm starting to see that I was just misinterpreting objective secured. I'm still on the fence about which units to take as my troops choices (maybe a CCW scout squad AND a rhino riding tactical squad?), but this clears things up for me as far as pros and cons.

I'm still thinking the scouts' cost will allow me to maximize my elites/fast attack/heavy support options in smaller point games. Might be worth it and more fun to play since I'm going for a pure blitz/assault style.

What about HQ? I know Dante is great for Descent of Angels, but man, he is expensive and my army won't be that large anytime soon!

I'm thinking either librarian, sanguinary priest, or chaplain for now (remember, I'm going to be running a death company squad (maybe 2) and a furioso dread in addition to the troops.

I'm still wondering about drop pods...

Drop pods are high risk/reward. If something goes wrong, your units are stranded where you dropped them.

Martel732 wrote:
Drop pods are high risk/reward. If something goes wrong, your units are stranded where you dropped them.

How so? I mean besides being a beacon for more deep striking units, the already dropped unit can't really use the pod again for anything else, right? I also hear storm Ravens are very high risk, as are most vehicles.

For a <1000 point blitz/assault army, would multiple pods or a storm Raven be better options?

I'm a fan of 5 man squads in fast Razorbacks. Combi-weapon sgt, special weapon (or heavy flamer) marine.

 Pilgrim of the dark wrote:
Great info here! Thanks to all!

I'm starting to see that I was just misinterpreting objective secured. I'm still on the fence about which units to take as my troops choices (maybe a CCW scout squad AND a rhino riding tactical squad?), but this clears things up for me as far as pros and cons.

I'm still thinking the scouts' cost will allow me to maximize my elites/fast attack/heavy support options in smaller point games. Might be worth it and more fun to play since I'm going for a pure blitz/assault style.

What about HQ? I know Dante is great for Descent of Angels, but man, he is expensive and my army won't be that large anytime soon!

I'm thinking either librarian, sanguinary priest, or chaplain for now (remember, I'm going to be running a death company squad (maybe 2) and a furioso dread in addition to the troops.

I'm still wondering about drop pods...

For HQ's:
- Sanguinary Priest is a must-have for your 'main' non-Death Co. assault unit. Having more FnP is like having cake + ice cream!

- Chaplains likewise are great for creating another close combat beatstick unit outside of the Death Co. (they're honestly killy enough on their own) Their Zealot rules is amazaballs, though has the drawback of iirc, being unable to make use of the 'Our Weapons are Useless' rule.

- Librarians for now are a lackluster choice for BA's, as your HQ slots are severely limited, and you don't have the ability to take a Librarian formation like pretty much every other Marine army bar Chaos Marines now can...
With only 2-4 Mastery levels, you're going to struggle big time against the likes of Daemons, Grey Knights, Eldar, Chaos Marines (who can take Lv3 Sorcs) + any army running a Librarius Conclave.


When it comes to your Furioso, always take it in a Drop Pod, and make sure to give it the Frag Assault launcher + Heavy flamer under the remaining fist... That's 3 high powered templates that can & will erase an entire unit that's not itself at least a mini Deathstar!
Without the boost that other Loyalist Dreads have receives, it's best to only use actual Death Co. Dreads as actual assault units. The other variants are purely shooty support.

For Troops, think about a min sized Scout Squad, (as mentioned above for Infiltrate counter/table control), and a small 5 man Tac squad with either a Heavy flamer OR Meltagun + Combi-melta Serg.
If you take a podded 'Fragioso' (dread w/frag cannon), then consider taking a second Pod for your Tactical squad. This way you decide which Pod is the most worthwhile to have drop in 1st turn, while the other one hangs back in reserves and can follow up as a beta strike and/or once more favourable target(s) present themselves.
Otherwise, slap the Tac squad in a Razorback for the added fire support. (Las + TL Plasma gun seems to be the popular choice)

 Pilgrim of the dark wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Drop pods are high risk/reward. If something goes wrong, your units are stranded where you dropped them.

How so? I mean besides being a beacon for more deep striking units, the already dropped unit can't really use the pod again for anything else, right? I also hear storm Ravens are very high risk, as are most vehicles.

For a <1000 point blitz/assault army, would multiple pods or a storm Raven be better options?

If you are forced to drop your units before your opponent has fully deployed, it can backfire mightily. With a Rhino, you can get back in and go somewhere else. (Fast, in this case)


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Experiment 626 wrote:

 Pilgrim of the dark wrote:
Great info here! Thanks to all!

I'm starting to see that I was just misinterpreting objective secured. I'm still on the fence about which units to take as my troops choices (maybe a CCW scout squad AND a rhino riding tactical squad?), but this clears things up for me as far as pros and cons.

I'm still thinking the scouts' cost will allow me to maximize my elites/fast attack/heavy support options in smaller point games. Might be worth it and more fun to play since I'm going for a pure blitz/assault style.

What about HQ? I know Dante is great for Descent of Angels, but man, he is expensive and my army won't be that large anytime soon!

I'm thinking either librarian, sanguinary priest, or chaplain for now (remember, I'm going to be running a death company squad (maybe 2) and a furioso dread in addition to the troops.

I'm still wondering about drop pods...

For HQ's:
- Sanguinary Priest is a must-have for your 'main' non-Death Co. assault unit. Having more FnP is like having cake + ice cream!

- Chaplains likewise are great for creating another close combat beatstick unit outside of the Death Co. (they're honestly killy enough on their own) Their Zealot rules is amazaballs, though has the drawback of iirc, being unable to make use of the 'Our Weapons are Useless' rule.

- Librarians for now are a lackluster choice for BA's, as your HQ slots are severely limited, and you don't have the ability to take a Librarian formation like pretty much every other Marine army bar Chaos Marines now can...
With only 2-4 Mastery levels, you're going to struggle big time against the likes of Daemons, Grey Knights, Eldar, Chaos Marines (who can take Lv3 Sorcs) + any army running a Librarius Conclave.


When it comes to your Furioso, always take it in a Drop Pod, and make sure to give it the Frag Assault launcher + Heavy flamer under the remaining fist... That's 3 high powered templates that can & will erase an entire unit that's not itself at least a mini Deathstar!
Without the boost that other Loyalist Dreads have receives, it's best to only use actual Death Co. Dreads as actual assault units. The other variants are purely shooty support.

For Troops, think about a min sized Scout Squad, (as mentioned above for Infiltrate counter/table control), and a small 5 man Tac squad with either a Heavy flamer OR Meltagun + Combi-melta Serg.
If you take a podded 'Fragioso' (dread w/frag cannon), then consider taking a second Pod for your Tactical squad. This way you decide which Pod is the most worthwhile to have drop in 1st turn, while the other one hangs back in reserves and can follow up as a beta strike and/or once more favourable target(s) present themselves.
Otherwise, slap the Tac squad in a Razorback for the added fire support. (Las + TL Plasma gun seems to be the popular choice)

All of these things. However, if you use the Flesh tearer strike force, you can cut your troop tax down to one per detachment and take 4 libbies with only two troops! One can be Mephiston.

Unless you can access Telepathy, I wouldn't recommend going the Psyker heavy route with BA's, since Divination is really meant for shooty armies, and Biomancy is better used by psychic MC's.

I personally use Cassor the Damned as one of my troops
ITS A GOD DAM DREADNOUGHT AS A TROOP CHOICE

Martel732 wrote:
If you are forced to drop your units before your opponent has fully deployed, it can backfire mightily. With a Rhino, you can get back in and go somewhere else. (Fast, in this case)

Plus if you get Infiltrate with Veritas Vitae, you can get Outflanking Rhino Tacs with Heavy Flamers or Melta, right?

Well, I'd take Sang Priests for regular Assault squads with jump packs. Ten men with two special weapons of the same type incl. a Sergeant with melta bombs is a unit not everybody likes. But it has its uses.

well, I can't even say how much I appreciate all the advice! It's one thing to try and go off the codex, but it helps so much more to hear from those of you who've actually worked this stuff out on the table.

Like I said, I have a furioso dread and a death company squad right now, both still in the boxes. I think I'll go with a sanguinary priest, a couple drop pods, 2 troops, and another unit I have yet to decide on

See about picking up Lemtares as an Elites option, he's a chaplain that can only attach to Death Company, but he makes them a lot stronger and leaves your HQ slots open at the cost of one of your (extra!) elite slots.

Just offering the suggestion, that way you can run a Librarian and a Sanguinary High Priest as your 2 HQ's while still letting a Chaplain run with your DC. Bonus points in that Lemartes has Rage and Feel no Pain as well along with the DC squad he'll be leading.

Just food for thought. Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

In the interest of not clogging the forum, and seeing as how I was scouring the BA codex today after all your suggestions on troop choices, I need help deciding which models to purchase next.

Objective: battleforged Baal Strike Force BA blitz/overwhelming assault-style army able to play at a few different points levels and be somewhat competitive, but overall just fun to play.

Already owned:
- Furioso Dreadnought (still new in box)
- Death Company Squad (still new in box)

I can afford to buy 7 new models during this next shopping trip.

What would you guys do? (I'm just using your suggestions as a guide to help me figure things out).

7 new models or 7 new kits? (Lulz)

Ima assume 7 kits. I'd grab a BA tac squad (has heavy flamer in it) kit, a couple scout kits, a couple pods, a priest, another DC, and a sanguine guard.

That seems like a reasonable force and reasonable point value vs dollar amount.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
7 new models or 7 new kits? (Lulz)

Ima assume 7 kits.

Yeah, kits.... Lol! Sorry for the uber-noob stuff, haha!

With that you could run:

Baal strike force

Priest w/ jump pack and Veritas vitae
Sanguine guard with banner and 1 fist
DC with jump packs and 1 fist
DC with jump packs and 1 fist
Fragioso in a pod
Tacticals with heavy flamer and combi flamer in a pod
Ccw scouts with meltabomb sarge
Ccw scouts with meltabomb sarge

Off the top of my head that's pretty close to 1k points.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
With that you could run:

Baal strike force

Priest w/ jump pack and Veritas vitae
Sanguine guard with banner and 1 fist
DC with jump packs and 1 fist
DC with jump packs and 1 fist
Fragioso in a pod
Tacticals with heavy flamer and combi flamer in a pod
Ccw scouts with meltabomb sarge
Ccw scouts with meltabomb sarge

Off the top of my head that's pretty close to 1k points.

That seems like a really cool army. Though, aren't power fists unwieldy? Wouldnt that put the DC sarge at 1 initiative?

Also, all I ever hear about sanguine guard is that they're no good on their own for how many points they cost. What is your opinion on the unit itself (pros/cons)?

SG are best on their own. Just avoid AP 2 weaponry the best you can.

Yes the fist is unwieldy, although standard DC units don't have a sergeant, so the fist can't be challenged out or anything. It's important to have that high str low AP threat somewhere in expensive units so you can count on them to be able to bust through good saves and high toughness, or at least do more damage than they receive so they could cause a sweep.

In short, it's worth losing one dude's worth of normal swings at initiative to make the unit threatening to a much more broad range of targets. (Monstrous creatures, badassmofo characters that are t4 or less and don't have eternal warrior, multiwound swarms etc etc.)

Sanguinary guard are pretty stout until they see a few specific units on the opposing board. The ever-famous ion accelerator riptide is among those. But as long as they can stay away from the enemy's AP2 shooting (not always possible,) they can do serious work. With every dude other than the fist having master crafted power weapons, they chop up units quick. The priest goes with them of course, making them ws5 and fnp 5+.
Also sometimes the ap4 angelus bolter can be shockingly relevant.

But yes if the enemy has a unit that hard counters them, like say with a long range s8ap2 blast, they're not in for a good time, but that's all part of the game.

Mind = blown... That makes a lot of sense and I never thought about that.

I'm really liking the list you came up with. The one thing I'm wondering is whether it'd be better to run a second tactical squad in a pod instead of 2 CCW scout squads? Thoughts? Why or why not?

You could, that's sort of a personal call. I would favor the scouts in that list with meltabomb sarge because it sort of balances out your role spread.

Flamer pod squad=roast dudes
Fragioso=Really roast dudes
2x DC and SG= high threat speedy melee that can engage most unit types
Scouts=Cheap moderate threat melee to weak units, melta threatens vehicles.

With scouts in the list, if you have first turn, you could overwhelm with infiltrate, 1 of the 2 pods, and a mass move-up plus run with the 3 elite jumper units.

If you go second, you could outflank, jump in with the jump units, and just suicide the first pod to try and snag first blood, before bringing in a heavy beta strike wave. (You will want to have gotten reroll reserves to make this not so risky.)

But like I said, it's not a clear "omg this is so much better" choice. I tend to favor more, smaller units, so usually I go with scouts over tacticals. A lot of competitive lists accidentally overkill them massively and waste a lot of their efficiency doing so.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also as your BA collection grows, you'll probably grab more tacticals, pods, AND scouts, so really either route isn't a waste.