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I have a few questions for how this list works. I have been a big fan of their models (death company, dreadnoughts, etc.). I love the lore and everything. But I want something different than a regular space marine army (I come from chaos). Blood Angels to me have always been the most colorful and varied (not a fan of the space wolves).

Is this army even fun to play?

Do I need dropods for this army? One for each dreadnought?

Is there a formation that specifically helps this kind of army?

What do you bring in the army besides the dreads? Death Company? Baal predators?

Anything else I should know? Thanks for anyone with info.

As a Blood Angel Player I will say the following:

Dreadnoughts are inherently not competitive. Perhaps with 8th edition we will see walkers get a much-needed buff, but as of now they aren't the best.

That being said, they aren't the worst, and in the right situation dreadnoughts can be a force to be reckoned with.

First thing: Lucius Pattern Drop Pods. They're a little more expensive, but they don't force your dreadnought to disembark the turn they come in. Keep in mind, they are open-topped vehicles. So the turn following your deep strike, your dreadnought can disembark and charge. Granted, it gives your enemy time to move away from the Pod. Either way, it also gives the Dreadnought cover while they're near the pod.

Second: With a Baal strike force, you can take a ton of dreadnoughts in one list. HQ dreadnoughts, elite dreadnoughts, and even one troop dreadnought. Most armies can't handle that much AV 12-13 and so you may stand a chance of winning that way.

Good luck to you, I hope your dreadnoughts kick some ass.

Thank you for responding.

Which dreadnoughts are a must have? I've seen like 4-5 different ones?

Can they take venerable dreads?

And most importantly...do you find the list fun to play?

Here's some suggestions for massed dreads, just to make a legal list with maximum.

Take Librarian Dreds as your HQ choice to get more dreadnoughts.

For elites, you have two choices. The stock dreadnought is bad, don't even think about it. If you're playing Blood Angels you want to hit things and the other two are way better at it. Death Company Dread vs. Furioso Dread comes down to personal preference. Death Company Dread puts out more attacks, while a Furioso has higher armor and weapon skill, with better ranged weapons.

If you take a Death Company Dread, keep it cheap. Power fists (not blood claws). Meltagun or flamer, not both (target priority will get messed with if you take both). Magna grapples to get charges off vs. Vehicles, because dreadnoughts will tear vehicles apart.

If you take a Furioso, make it a "fragioso". Frag cannon in one arm, heavy flamer in the other. That's 3 templates, two of which are rending, out of a drop pod. RIP enemy infantry.

For troops, you can sneak an extra Dread in as Cassiel the Damned (or whatever the hell his name is, I don't have my dex on me). However, he's a unique character so you can't grab more than one of him. For other troops choices, consider tac marines in drop pods, so that you can bring more pods in turn one. Also, more tac marines can help deal with whatever your list is struggling against. Need infantry clear? Give them flamers. Need anti-vehicle? Meltas. Pretty basic stuff.

Oh, and don't forget about the Chapter Ancients formation in the Angel's Blade supplement. 3 dreads solo is now a legal formation.

And I love Blood angel's play style. Its aggressive and probably will match chaos well.

My suggestion for formations would be a Baal strike force (you can get 7 dreadnoughts in there) and another 3 dreadnoughts in a Chapter Ancients formation. If you're just going for maximum dreadnoughts on the table. If you have points you could take another chapter ancients formation. That's 13 walkers, plus maybe a tac squad. 7 come in turn one and sit in pods (so your enemy can't move away from the pods BECAUSE THEY'RE EVERYWHERE! and then more come in the next turn.

Now I need to buy more dreadnoughts..........

Damn, that sounds like a lot of $$$ on the drop pods alone.
:(


Everything else sounds awesome though. Thanks for writing all that up, it's helping me.

Blood Angel dreadnoughts aren't that bad. When the codex was released, they had a disadvantage to other Space Marine dreadnoughts due to their lack of attacks. However, GW have released an errata to update all Blood Angel dreadnoughts to add +2 attacks to their stat line, and that includes Cassor the Damned (the unique Death Company dreadnought).

If you were to take the Baal Strike Force, you have 4 options to fill the troops choice.
1. Cassor the Damned (Shield of Baal character)
2. Raphen's Death Company (Shield of Baal squad)
3. Tactical Squad
4. Scout Squad

Dreadnoughts that are not part of the Blood Angels forces are venerable, ironclad, and of course anything Space Wolves.

If you did want to make a dreadnought based army, I would focus on ones specific to Blood Angels. You will have to put a fair amount in drop pods to have any kind of competitive edge. Other wise you'll be exposed and have to walk 6" and run everywhere.

I was poking around the new BA books this weekend, and it seems to me like the Chapter Ancients formation lets you dump 5 Furiosos on your opponent with relative ease. That's a nasty surprise for just about any army. 5 pods takes up enough space that you can hem your quarry in pretty nicely if you need to keep your opponent from running too far away. You'd need some shooty stuff to make it a reasonable army, of course, but having 3 AV13 Dreads that far upfield immediately is pretty sweet.

You can actually do a 100% pure dreadnought army with Blood Angels. The Flesh Tearers detachment only needs one troop choice, one HQ and one fast attack.

Take Cassor as your troops, a drop pod as your fast attack and give it to Cassor, and a librarian dread. You then have your elites slots and can slide a Deredeo, leviathan, even if you feel like it both into heavy support.

Oh, and it's -extremely- effective against most armies. Just because individual vehicles are underpowered at the moment doesn't mean that people come equipped to play against that much AV. Dread spam can be devastating.

What do you outfit the Librarian dreadnought with?

The cool thing about this is I can always add Blood Angels to this army if I want to play something different.

I've now got 6 dreads I was planning to run alongside my Tempestus and inquisition.

I was thinking chapter Ancients with:
Libby Dread (ML2, Melta) in a Lucious Pod
Furioso (Frag, Heavy Flamer) in a Lucious Pod
Ordinary Dread (Assault Cannon) in an ordinary pod that he doesn't really ride in, but instead deploys on the table, and the pod drops empty.

I feel like that gives me the Ignore cover, and assault threat that I'm missing from my Tempestus / Inquisition list.

I've also considered an allied detachment with
Libby Dread In lucious pod
Furioso in lucious pod
Tac squad in pod
Quad Mortar

It's good to remember the Forgeworld dreadnaught variants as well (Comtemptor, Deredeo, and Leviathan) As they can give you more variety to go with the Furiosos

Also a Blood Angel Dreadnaught list did very well at an ATC torunament going 6-0 https://spikeybits.com/2016/08/undefeated-dreadnought-army-goes-6-0-at-the-atc.html

Do they sell Lucius pods or can I just use the regular space marine drop pods?

 Whitebeard wrote:
Do they sell Lucius pods or can I just use the regular space marine drop pods?

Apparently ForgeWorld stopped production on them for a bit but since they're yet to send my order back hopefully they have decided to restart it.

The mold broke. You better find an alternate lucius pod, or not build around them.

Hope they bring it back.

Just use an alternate, cheaper model.

I've got 3 games under my belt now using 3 dreads in the chapter ancients.

Wow. They bring everything to my army I was hoping they would. I think the Furioso in a Lucious pod is the best "Distraction Carnifex" I've ever had.

I'm still iffy on how and when to use the libby's powers, and what specific powers I should roll for, but so far I'm very happy with the addition.

Martel732 wrote:
Just use an alternate, cheaper model.

I have been.
My group has been patient for months but are fed to the teeth with it - they want Lucius Pods to represent Lucius Pods.

Dreads are something that don't see a lot of play anymore. Use it to your advantage. Especially in lower point games. As a chaos player, I still drag a couple around as helbrutes have some fun rules, though they could REALLY use AV13, at least on the front. Librarian dreads and Furiousos used to be able to cause a decent amount of chaos. You should have seen the 5th edition rules for the claws.

tag8833 wrote:
I've got 3 games under my belt now using 3 dreads in the chapter ancients.

Wow. They bring everything to my army I was hoping they would. I think the Furioso in a Lucious pod is the best "Distraction Carnifex" I've ever had.

I'm still iffy on how and when to use the libby's powers, and what specific powers I should roll for, but so far I'm very happy with the addition.

Pyromancy.
Honestly I wish I had access to Libby Dreads just for the devastation a Pyromancy Dread can dish out.
Power Fist with Heavy Flamer.
Whatever the dice grant you by way of random powers.
Primaris Power - Flame Breath.
Force Weapon.
You want a distraction Carnifex? Drop the Pyro Dread in among as much of their squishy stuff as possible then psychic phase a Heavy Flamer template out one side, add in whatever else you got from the Dice Gods, then shooting phase a Heavy Flamer template out the other side.
There are armies that don't care about your Pyro Dread but there aren't many of them.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Just use an alternate, cheaper model.

I have been.
My group has been patient for months but are fed to the teeth with it - they want Lucius Pods to represent Lucius Pods.

You can't get them and won't be able to for many months or perhaps never. I'd find a GW competitor and get a drop pod looking thing from them.

I am going to go against the not taking normal dreadnaught advice here. If you are married to BA 1 or two is still a good option. alternatively I think a better idea would be to either just go unbound saying it is a themed dread list and take a few cheap normal dreds for more bodies (mm DCCW in a pod is pretty good use of 135 points.

alternatively add a few infantry and take the blood angels drop pod formation and a Iron hands CAD. gives you ability to take dreds as elites and heavy support along with giving them IWND and some objective secured troops/ and HQ support, maybe even a bike squad or two to snag objectives

Martel732 wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Just use an alternate, cheaper model.

I have been.
My group has been patient for months but are fed to the teeth with it - they want Lucius Pods to represent Lucius Pods.

You can't get them and won't be able to for many months or perhaps never. I'd find a GW competitor and get a drop pod looking thing from them.

Let FW know I'll buy some proper ones when they come out - hope this doesn't mean the end of the Lucius Pod in the rules.

Depends on the enemy.
Battle DE and you will see that they can hardly deal with Dreads unless they field dark matter weapons.
Have seen such a game last Saturday. DE was subpar.

I'm going buy these to use as lucious pattern drop pods.
https://hexy-shop.com/shop/sci-fi/ptt-0-a-capsule/

See? Problem solved!

It does look plenty different to a normal Drop Pod.