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So, I think the Blood Angels have some cool models, And I like the Flesh Tearers color scheme.. But I hear Blood Angels player calling Blood Angels the weakest and most unplayabe army in 40k history, So I wonder, Are they realy that bad? What is wrong with them? Is it just that they are space marines that arent quite as strong as vanilla marines?

From everything I have seen, Blood Angels' problems really come down to 2 things:

1) They are in almost all respects directly inferior to vanilla marines
2) It is a close combat army in a ruleset that strongly favors shooting, so they have trouble getting into combat to use their strengths.

Fhionnuisce wrote:
From everything I have seen, Blood Angels' problems really come down to 2 things:

1) They are in almost all respects directly inferior to vanilla marines
2) It is a close combat army in a ruleset that strongly favors shooting, so they have trouble getting into combat to use their strengths.

Pretty much these. They also lack a Super Detachment that most armies possess now.

They also trade Grav Cannons, Centurions, Land Speeder Storms, Stalker tanks, Hunter Tanks, Thunderfire Cannons, Honour Guard, Stormtalons, Stormhawks, and more for the some mediocre assault units (Sanguinary Guard and Death Company), mediocre assault focused dreadnoughts (Furioso and Death Company), a tank that can't perform its function at all due to bad range (Baal Predators), the ability to pay points to make tanks Fast (or just pay more points without an option in the case of Rhinos and Razorbacks, screwing their Troops over), Heavy Flamers in Tactical Squads, Special Weapons in Assault Squads, and the only unit that is actually better than something C:SM have (Sanguinary Priests). They also pay more for basically everything.

Well, in my local meta, Most people like close combat (Exept one Guard player who only brings tanks..) So close combat almost always hapen. So here atleast getting into close combat normaly isent a problem. ^_^

Close combat army in a time where assaults much weaker than shooting.

My wolves mopped the floor with my friends angels last time we played he dropped in as close as possible I tore him apart with shooting then when he finally got to charge I counter attacked and sent him running.

6&7 suck for melee armies in general.

Merellin wrote:
Well, in my local meta, Most people like close combat (Exept one Guard player who only brings tanks..) So close combat almost always hapen. So here atleast getting into close combat normaly isent a problem. ^_^

In that case, run Raven Guard or Space Wolves. They do everything Blood Angels do better and then some.

As others said, they're CC specialists, in an edition which favours shooting.

It's also worth adding that they're CC specialists who are weaker in CC than pretty much every other CC specialist.

Their main problems are;
1. They were the last codex of early 7th, at a time when GW appeared to be toning down the power level of everything.
When they first cam out, they played pretty well against the other books of their release year, such as Orks, Dark Eldar & Grey Knights. Then came the Necrons who were not only noticeably stronger, but were the first army to introduce us to the 'Decurion' style detachments.
Now that the super formation-based detachments are 'the standard', anyone without one of their own is at a pretty noticeable disadvantage.

2. They've not yet received the latest 'Loyalist updates'.
BA's don't have grav cannons for example because the new Dev kit didn't come out until the 7.5ed Vanilla codex was released. Same deal with Eviscerators in Assault Squads. The added attacks to Dreadnoughts, boosted Scout profile, vehicle squadrons, etc... Give those basic options to the BA's, and they suddenly jump up into solidly middle tier.
Add in a 'Bloodcurion' and the basic Marine formations, and BA's will be able hang around the top middle/lower top tier.


Blood Angels are hardly in the sorry state that Chaos Marines - the true 'worst army in the game', are in...

Currently, as long was you're not going up against tournament level lists/decurions, BA's can do okay. They still have a decent MSU game, basic Grav guns, Drop Pods, Fragiosos, Death Co., and all the basic Loyalist rules that make them 10x better than Chaos Marines.

Yes, Blood Angels, just like Orks, Tyranids, DE & GK's *need* their 7.5ed updates, but to claim you're worse off than the poor CSM's, who are not only stuck 3.5 editions out of date with the entire game, but also suffer from the game's worst model line and are missing half or more of their basic options is pretty lame, and smacks of self entitlement.
Chaos Marines have been waiting more than long enough now, and deserve their stuff much sooner, rather than yet another 4-5 years from now.

The thing with Chaos Space Marines is that we have, on good authority, confirmation that there IS a light at the end of the tunnel. NEW models and a new codex are coming. As to Blood Angels, absolutely nothing confirmed. In fact, basically no rumors at all.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
The thing with Chaos Space Marines is that we have, on good authority, confirmation that there IS a light at the end of the tunnel. NEW models and a new codex are coming. As to Blood Angels, absolutely nothing confirmed. In fact, basically no rumors at all.

The new FAQ/Errata's may still help BA's somewhat... Back in 5th edition, GW did update Storm shields and a couple other things for DA's/Templars at the time, to bring them in line with the new 'Marine standard' that Vanillas/BA's/SW's already had.

It's not out of the realms of possibility that some basic fixes such as access to the Grav cannon, vehicle squadrons, Dread/Scout profile adjustments couldn't be addressed once the codex FAQ's begin to roll out.

Blood Angels lack a balanced option for their theme. If something needs to be in combat, it needs to be able to get to combat and survive the time it takes to get to combat either through big numbers or pure survivability of the individuals, and deal damage in combat.

So we can take Sanguinary Guard as an example. They can get there with a 12" move, they can deal damage with Power Weapons for all and Fist options to boot, but the 2+ save is not enough for them to survive getting to combat. Modern armies can chew through it either directly with AP2 or mass shots. Compare to the Thunderwolves where each model is multiple Wounds, same speed, free Rending and pays for weapons, but also can pay for the most beautiful 3++ save. A Lascannon or even worse, Grav Cannon aims at Sanguinary Guard, you're removing nearly every model hit. FNP from a priest might save a couple from Grav but so what? Too expensive to waste these models and too few to stay at a critical mass. Grav hits TWC, they don't care and make their saves anyway.

Now take Assault Marines. They're unable to actually deal the damage in the Assault Phase that they need to. Dual special weapons helps them see play, but that kinda missed the point of Blood Angels, don't ya think?

Death Company do it right and are a good unit. They can get numbers, they have some survivability for their price and can move. This is why it's common for them to be blasted away early. It's the only unit there doing work...

The tanks suffer from being unable to squadron up, the troops are a tax with zero benefits that matter unlike in a Gladius or in many Chapter Tactics available. Heavy Flamers are just not that good. Flyers are nonexistent ESPECIALLY with the new Death from the Skies.

It's no surprise Angel players are upset. I actually play my CSM more than the Blood Angels because atleast CSM have themes the rules reflect instead of themes that will just cripple your army.

I think it's been covered by the other posters.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Blood Angels lack a balanced option for their theme. If something needs to be in combat, it needs to be able to get to combat and survive the time it takes to get to combat either through big numbers or pure survivability of the individuals, and deal damage in combat.

So we can take Sanguinary Guard as an example. They can get there with a 12" move, they can deal damage with Power Weapons for all and Fist options to boot, but the 2+ save is not enough for them to survive getting to combat. Modern armies can chew through it either directly with AP2 or mass shots. Compare to the Thunderwolves where each model is multiple Wounds, same speed, free Rending and pays for weapons, but also can pay for the most beautiful 3++ save. A Lascannon or even worse, Grav Cannon aims at Sanguinary Guard, you're removing nearly every model hit. FNP from a priest might save a couple from Grav but so what? Too expensive to waste these models and too few to stay at a critical mass. Grav hits TWC, they don't care and make their saves anyway.

Now take Assault Marines. They're unable to actually deal the damage in the Assault Phase that they need to. Dual special weapons helps them see play, but that kinda missed the point of Blood Angels, don't ya think?

Death Company do it right and are a good unit. They can get numbers, they have some survivability for their price and can move. This is why it's common for them to be blasted away early. It's the only unit there doing work...

The tanks suffer from being unable to squadron up, the troops are a tax with zero benefits that matter unlike in a Gladius or in many Chapter Tactics available. Heavy Flamers are just not that good. Flyers are nonexistent ESPECIALLY with the new Death from the Skies.

It's no surprise Angel players are upset. I actually play my CSM more than the Blood Angels because atleast CSM have themes the rules reflect instead of themes that will just cripple your army.

This. The Blood Angels are cool, but really are just SM-1. At least the Dark Angels got some much needed buffs (DW Knights have +1 AP, now threatening marines, a pretty damn sweet new psychic table, I won't even touch the bananas that is the whole Ravenwing), but god I would love to see Blood Angels back up with the other marines.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
The thing with Chaos Space Marines is that we have, on good authority, confirmation that there IS a light at the end of the tunnel. NEW models and a new codex are coming. As to Blood Angels, absolutely nothing confirmed. In fact, basically no rumors at all.

The new FAQ/Errata's may still help BA's somewhat... Back in 5th edition, GW did update Storm shields and a couple other things for DA's/Templars at the time, to bring them in line with the new 'Marine standard' that Vanillas/BA's/SW's already had.

It's not out of the realms of possibility that some basic fixes such as access to the Grav cannon, vehicle squadrons, Dread/Scout profile adjustments couldn't be addressed once the codex FAQ's begin to roll out.

I won't hold my breath. GW won't fix something for free that they can charge money for. And I really don't expect the FAQ/errata to be all that extensive for any one faction besides Codex:Space Marines.

You can still run them and do fine if you play them right.

It is just potentially going to be frustrating at times, especially against some of the cheesy formations that have been introduced giving ridiculous bonuses.

 troa wrote:
You can still run them and do fine if you play them right.

It is just potentially going to be frustrating at times, especially against some of the cheesy formations that have been introduced giving ridiculous bonuses.

I'm still looking for how to "play them right". That obviously means avoiding the trap units in a codex full of them. Terminators, predators, devastators, assault marines and vindicators are all examples of this. Should we go mobile shooty, or try to actually fight in melee? We kinda fail at both. We can try to chop the shooty and shoot the choppy, but we don't have the choppy or shooty to really pull it off.

Blood Angels are Space Marines, but without all of the units and special rules that make Space Marines good. In return for that they get units and special rules that suck.
BA want to get into close combat, but they are not durable or numerous enough to survive getting there. That is their biggest problem.
In fact, the most effective thing the BA have probably is flamer pods. Just plain ol' tactical marines. That says everything about the BA you need to know. BA units, weapons and special rules are just too outdated to stand against the power levels in modern 40k.

I think flamer fast Rhinos are better than pods. You can fire the flamer and a krak grenade out the firing ports. And then fire on over watch if your Rhino gets assaulted. Then fire your flamer again. And then overwatch again.

The best way to run BA is to snag the best BA model (priest) as an ally and run a better imperial book, sadly. The only thing that I find works halfway decent in a pure BA list is pod spam with fragiosos and meltacide ASM, but your damage output per point is still too low to do anything other than bounce off things like necrons and tauzilla.

Angel's fury formation gets exponentially better if you're playing at high point values, but it really doesn't work at 1850.

I don't think they're the weakest army, but they're definitely in the bottom 25%.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
The best way to run BA is to snag the best BA model (priest) as an ally and run a better imperial book, sadly. The only thing that I find works halfway decent in a pure BA list is pod spam with fragiosos and meltacide ASM, but your damage output per point is still too low to do anything other than bounce off things like necrons and tauzilla.

Angel's fury formation gets exponentially better if you're playing at high point values, but it really doesn't work at 1850.

I don't think they're the weakest army, but they're definitely in the bottom 25%.

Angel's Fury works when paired with the Archangels detachment. Run some drop pod Furiosos that don't scatter and can charge turn one.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Blood Angels are Space Marines, but without all of the units and special rules that make Space Marines good. In return for that they get units and special rules that suck.
BA want to get into close combat, but they are not durable or numerous enough to survive getting there. That is their biggest problem.
In fact, the most effective thing the BA have probably is flamer pods. Just plain ol' tactical marines. That says everything about the BA you need to know. BA units, weapons and special rules are just too outdated to stand against the power levels in modern 40k.

Podded Fragiosos are great choices.
There's still MSU Grav bikes.
Honour Guards w/jump packs & loaded up with Melta or Plasma guns.
MSU Tacticals either in Pods or Rhinos with either a heavy flamer or meltagun + matching combi-weapon on the Sergeant. Assault Squads can do similar with doubled-up special weapons + combi.
Death Company kitted out properly will mulch most units in combat that aren't Superfriends Deathstar ridiculousness.

BA's are far from toothless. They're just currently the 'have-not' of the Imperial side of things, which has up until now, been the traditional role of the Dark Angels.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Blood Angels are Space Marines, but without all of the units and special rules that make Space Marines good. In return for that they get units and special rules that suck.
BA want to get into close combat, but they are not durable or numerous enough to survive getting there. That is their biggest problem.
In fact, the most effective thing the BA have probably is flamer pods. Just plain ol' tactical marines. That says everything about the BA you need to know. BA units, weapons and special rules are just too outdated to stand against the power levels in modern 40k.

Podded Fragiosos are great choices.
There's still MSU Grav bikes.
Honour Guards w/jump packs & loaded up with Melta or Plasma guns.
MSU Tacticals either in Pods or Rhinos with either a heavy flamer or meltagun + matching combi-weapon on the Sergeant. Assault Squads can do similar with doubled-up special weapons + combi.
Death Company kitted out properly will mulch most units in combat that aren't Superfriends Deathstar ridiculousness.

BA's are far from toothless. They're just currently the 'have-not' of the Imperial side of things, which has up until now, been the traditional role of the Dark Angels.

What you listed is pretty toothless. The Tau laugh mightily at such feeble tools. Non-skyhammer drop pods get worse and worse as 7th goes on.

To be a threat, your list needs to be able to tank a lot of damage, deal out an excessive amount of mid str wounds, or deal out a lot of AP 2 wounds, or preferably more than one of these things. BA can do none these things. DA have been better since the Wardex was invalidated by 6th ed. Given that BA and DA original had the same codex, and then DA were better than BA when BA had a frickin WD codex, I'd say BA are closing the gap on duration as Astartes whipping boys.

Fragiosos hurt like hell.
I've seen two of my friends (Space Wolves and Blood Angels) play from time to time. They both play friendly lists (the Wolves taking non-cheesed up Twolves, brick flyers, dreads, termies, Angels even having some of the fancy FW stuff like Sicaran and Deredeo). I think the current score is 10:1 with Wolves winning

Fragiosos do nothing if you opponent A) uses reserves well or B) has transports. Tau could completely ignore them if they bought their pathfinders transports. I guess the Devilfish is overcosted now. I don't know. Everyone sees them coming and can take precautions. They aren't that good anymore. Eldar already completely ignore them.

they are towards the bottom of the mid tier (possibly the bottom of mid tier) they can be fun but as mentioned are probably the worst marines, they can still be very fun, and in my opinion are one of the better looking space marines model lines out there.

 G00fySmiley wrote:
they are towards the bottom of the mid tier (possibly the bottom of mid tier) they can be fun but as mentioned are probably the worst marines, they can still be very fun, and in my opinion are one of the better looking space marines model lines out there.

They are not mid-tier. Mid-tier codices have a fighting chance at the top dogs. BA are arguably the worst list in the game with no MCs, no viable death stars, poor firepower, poor assault, and little durability. CSM are contenders because they are very mono-build and have gak models.

Given that there are 20ish armies in the game, not counting the tiny "ally" factions like assassins or inquisition, and assuming your tiers are low-mid-high, you would need to be able to list 6 or 7 books worse to call something mid-tier. And tbh, for BA, I can't do that. Chaos marines and Astra militarum are really the only ones that come to mind. Tyranids would be down there if they weren't being pulled upwards by a single model. That's about it.

I think IG plays much better than BA, having played an IG as part of a team up match recently. Not miraculous of course, but better.

How badly off are the DE after the jinking nerf? That seems serious.

Martel732 wrote:
I think IG plays much better than BA, having played an IG as part of a team up match recently. Not miraculous of course, but better.

How badly off are the DE after the jinking nerf? That seems serious.

I'd say that comes down to case by case. The venom/raider spam with kabalite warriors was already bleh, and just got worse. On the other hand, the more coven style lists with pain engine MC's and the like are pretty ok. The last time I played one I barely won thanks to a divination termie Libby that rolled precognition, never failed to cast it or force, and tanked like 40 wounds over several rounds of combat eventually killing 2 squads of grotesques, some swarms, his haemonculus warlord, a talos, and some khymerae.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I think IG plays much better than BA, having played an IG as part of a team up match recently. Not miraculous of course, but better.

How badly off are the DE after the jinking nerf? That seems serious.

I'd say that comes down to case by case. The venom/raider spam with kabalite warriors was already bleh, and just got worse. On the other hand, the more coven style lists with pain engine MC's and the like are pretty ok. The last time I played one I barely won thanks to a divination termie Libby that rolled precognition, never failed to cast it or force, and tanked like 40 wounds over several rounds of combat eventually killing 2 squads of grotesques, some swarms, his haemonculus warlord, a talos, and some khymerae.

Most people really, really underestimate just how obnoxious & powerful Precog is...

Re-rolls on everything bar leadership/stat tests is pretty freaking ballin', no matter who you are.