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 Emicrania wrote:
I was thinking a terminator unit with Lightning Claws coming in T3 would be ideal , usually by that time is mostly lighter stuff left on the board or character with high Invu that don't care about high AP or multi dmg
They are 175 points and unbuffed Turn3 is 21A 2+ 5++, with sanguinor and Libby behind they can dish out what, 30 something Attacks -2 D1?

Everything is good in BA in melee with 2 buffers of any kind supporting them. Problem is that you cant use Descent on them if you really need that charge to make it and of you fail the charge against a faster unit you will not easily catch up. Also you are forced to put them in DS because they are too slow to walk.

They cant really do anything our JP units cant do and are way less flexible. Having 2 wounds isnt that much of a boon since there isnt many other targetd in a BA list you need that for.

For 180pts you get 10 DC or 2 5man assault marines with TH that are just flat out better in almost every scenario. LC isnt that much better than chain swords since you can easily get twice the attacks with chainswords.

I feel Deep Striking assaults get a huge boost from the Icon of the Angel special issue wargear paired with the Canticle of Hate litany (yes, I know it doesn't stack with Red Thirst, but +2 is better than +1). Deep striking terminators specifically, as they're coming in on turn 2 or 3, which allows the chaplain to get into position.

Either way, the Icon of the Angel on it's own will really help Blood Angels get off some charges without relying on 2 command points for Decent, which is huge.

I like the icon too and probably best choice is the sang priest with jump pack.

If I'm reading this right we get only 3 relics.

So angel's wing for the smash cpt.

2nd well my go to has been standard of sacrifice on my SG ancient warlord.

3rd.. this gets more tricky, veritas vitae, icon of the angel, quake bolts all could prove handy. Quake bolt hit before slamming a SG or DC/van vets with thunder hammers improves the damage out put greatly. Hard decisions. Wonder why they didn't give us the same relic strat ad vanillas. Well can't get em all..

Slipspace wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It has nothing to do with my skill or your skill. T4 1w doesnt get far in 8th. 18 pts for t4 w1 no ap and melee focus is still not very good.

They don't need 50% screens. Usually the whole problem is that a handful of points is preventing assault from very expensive ba units.

I think DC are best used as an early CC threat with Forlorn Fury to get them up the board if you go first. Throw them into your opponent's gunline turn 1 and make them deal with them. They'll die, but shouldn't do so until your opponent's turn, reducing the firepower coming back at the rest of your army. If you go second, hide them or Deep Strike them. 18 points for a 4 attack guy with +1 to wound and a Jump Pack isn't bad at all. I still think they're maybe 1-2 points overcosted because they're still a bit too easy to kill, but DC are best used as a throwaway unit who can cause a lot of destruction and disruption in the enemy lines. They're not a premier assault unit by any means and won't be single-handedly winning the game by smashing everything in the enemy army but they definitely have their place.

More generally, I think the BA super doctrine is pretty sub-par and a trap and you shouldn't build around using it. It's nice, but more as a bonus when it works rather than as the focus of the army. The problem is that Assault Doctrine takes 3 turns to turn on and by that time you may have already given up too much of the initiative if you're keeping all your assault units back to benefit from Savage Echoes. 40k games are often decided on turn 3, if not earlier, so you need to be able to make an impact earlier than that. I think it provides a decent boost for Sanguinary Guard as they need to be able to put out more attacks to be effective, but for units like DC that already get loads of attacks I don't think it's as important.

They're not priced like a throwaway unit. That's the problem. Especially once hammers start entering the conversation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 WisdomLS wrote:
For me deathcompany are a no-brainer.

We play on nice terrain heavy boards so that might be colouring my opinion but they always do work. Forlorn fury turn one, either puts you up in their face for a first turn charge or places them in cover mid table to make the opponent deal with them. With the cover bonus and now Transhuman Phys and Refusal to die a big blob of them is hard to shift, nothing does it super efficiently. Even a few left alive usually means alot of chainsword attacks for chaff clearing and the single thunderhammer can put a dent into whatever you want.

If you're worried about screens bring more stuff to clear them, our units have fly making them alot harder to screen against, whirlwinds aren't bad and basic bolters can get the job done as needed. You don't need to clear everything, just target a specific unit that is occupying where you want to go then head in and try to trap something. Punish them for giving you units to hug.

Good players screen against fly easily. I think you are dumping way too many resources into 1 W models that have to punch what you opponent lets them punch.

Xirax wrote:
I like the icon too and probably best choice is the sang priest with jump pack.

If I'm reading this right we get only 3 relics.

So angel's wing for the smash cpt.

2nd well my go to has been standard of sacrifice on my SG ancient warlord.

3rd.. this gets more tricky, veritas vitae, icon of the angel, quake bolts all could prove handy. Quake bolt hit before slamming a SG or DC/van vets with thunder hammers improves the damage out put greatly. Hard decisions. Wonder why they didn't give us the same relic strat ad vanillas. Well can't get em all..

I plan on running an Inquisitor for some of the support he/she provides. If you want, you can run an Ordo Xenos inquisitor for 55pts who has a Warlord Trait that regen's CP on a 5+ when your opponent uses a strat, and he can also cast Terrify, which keeps an enemy unit from firing overwatch. Win/win.

I stand corrected about Phobos Libby.
I need to playtest the termi a bit before deciding anything

Hey guys getting back into Blood angels which i havent done in years. I was wondering if primaris are worth getting, I like the bigger marines but they all seem super limited on their war gear options and with the new book coming out we get primaris death company. Im not like super sold on a whole primaris army but like I think their neat.

Any merit to running BA as soup in a john Lennon style list replacing the white scars? Our 4D smash captains are great counters to centurions and the IH spearhead provides tfc's with the good stratagems and some untargetable lascannons. I need to point it out but it sounds good in my head.

Luthon1234 wrote:
Hey guys getting back into Blood angels which i havent done in years. I was wondering if primaris are worth getting, I like the bigger marines but they all seem super limited on their war gear options and with the new book coming out we get primaris death company. Im not like super sold on a whole primaris army but like I think their neat.

Definitely. Once you get used to not having mixed weapons in your squads, they work really well. Basic Intercessors are only 5 points more than a Tactical Marine but get twice as many wounds and attacks, an extra 6" range and Ap-1 on their bolter. Point-for-point, they are very efficient Troops.

Scouts have always been fun for Blood Angels but Incursors and Eliminators give them a run for their money. Incursors have 2 wounds and a 3+ save but are still Troops and can infiltrate just as well as Scouts. With 2 attacks each, it is like having bolter and ccw Scouts rolled into one package. Eliminators are great snipers although they are Heavy rather than Troops.

I really love Inceptors. Maybe it is just because Jump infantry and fluffy for BAs but they get a metric ton of firepower on a platform that can keep pace with our assault units. They have recently received an extra wound and now that we get Doctrines, the bolter Inceptors are Ap-2 while the Tactical Doctrine is active despite still being cheap as chips.

I have no intention of building a pure Primaris BA army but there is definitely scope for several of their units to act as line infantry or fire support while our more iconic units like Sanguinary Guard or Death Company act as a spear-tip and go for the enemy's heart.

Khornatedemon wrote:
Any merit to running BA as soup in a john Lennon style list replacing the white scars? Our 4D smash captains are great counters to centurions and the IH spearhead provides tfc's with the good stratagems and some untargetable lascannons. I need to point it out but it sounds good in my head.

Primaris units are very aggressively costed for there basic profile and weapons, in pure numbers they are just better than traditional marines.

That said they do have quite a few weaknesses. Firstly, as mentioned, they have no upgrade options (other than intercessor srg) meaning no special weapons and importantly for BA, no combat weapons. This lack of upgrades also means that when they lose a model they are losing an important model with them all being the same, no keeping the special/heavy weapon alive till last.
The biggest bonus for primaris is their extra wound, against small arms fire it literally doubles their durability for not many points but... against multi damage weaponry those points are just wasted. Depending on your opponents this will come up alot or not very often. I play against dark eldar regularly and they pack alot of D2 weapons making primaris a waste.

 WisdomLS wrote:

Khornatedemon wrote:
Any merit to running BA as soup in a john Lennon style list replacing the white scars? Our 4D smash captains are great counters to centurions and the IH spearhead provides tfc's with the good stratagems and some untargetable lascannons. I need to point it out but it sounds good in my head.

Primaris units are very aggressively costed for there basic profile and weapons, in pure numbers they are just better than traditional marines.

That said they do have quite a few weaknesses. Firstly, as mentioned, they have no upgrade options (other than intercessor srg) meaning no special weapons and importantly for BA, no combat weapons. This lack of upgrades also means that when they lose a model they are losing an important model with them all being the same, no keeping the special/heavy weapon alive till last.
The biggest bonus for primaris is their extra wound, against small arms fire it literally doubles their durability for not many points but... against multi damage weaponry those points are just wasted. Depending on your opponents this will come up alot or not very often. I play against dark eldar regularly and they pack alot of D2 weapons making primaris a waste.

Was this meant for someone else?

Would Blood Angels Reivers be worth looking at? Lots and lots of attacks, wounding easier than most with chainswords, able to be sling-shot'ed across the field by a Phobos Librarian, etc?

Would Blood Angels Reivers be worth looking at? Lots and lots of attacks, wounding easier than most with chainswords, able to be sling-shot'ed across the field by a Phobos Librarian, etc?

I don't believe so.

The slingshot doesn't give them anything great when it comes to moving.

Sanguinary Guard move the same without a spell and hit much much harder.

Even DC Primaris Intercessors serve a better purpose as they have the attacks and can still be useful shooting on the approach.

Sad to say but Reivers are just outclassed by most things..

Khornatedemon wrote:

 WisdomLS wrote:

Khornatedemon wrote:
Any merit to running BA as soup in a john Lennon style list replacing the white scars? Our 4D smash captains are great counters to centurions and the IH spearhead provides tfc's with the good stratagems and some untargetable lascannons. I need to point it out but it sounds good in my head.

Primaris units are very aggressively costed for there basic profile and weapons, in pure numbers they are just better than traditional marines.

That said they do have quite a few weaknesses. Firstly, as mentioned, they have no upgrade options (other than intercessor srg) meaning no special weapons and importantly for BA, no combat weapons. This lack of upgrades also means that when they lose a model they are losing an important model with them all being the same, no keeping the special/heavy weapon alive till last.
The biggest bonus for primaris is their extra wound, against small arms fire it literally doubles their durability for not many points but... against multi damage weaponry those points are just wasted. Depending on your opponents this will come up alot or not very often. I play against dark eldar regularly and they pack alot of D2 weapons making primaris a waste.

Was this meant for someone else?

Sorry was ment for the post above yours, clicked the wrong quote button


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Would Blood Angels Reivers be worth looking at? Lots and lots of attacks, wounding easier than most with chainswords, able to be sling-shot'ed across the field by a Phobos Librarian, etc?

Reivers are just a pretty useless unit, in an all primaris army they may serve a small purpose as they can DS in but in a standard BA force they are just alot worse at any job you give them than the many similar units we have.

haven't been keeping up on this but did the BA get access to Masters of the Chapter?

 bullyboy wrote:
haven't been keeping up on this but did the BA get access to Masters of the Chapter?

Nope, not yet atleast. Mephy and Astorath have the keywords for those. Sad day for successor chapter builds. I just got my copy of chapter approved. Interesting..

For example.. dreadnought CCW is 20, but furioso fist is 30/40 single/pair. Ok.. it gives rerolls if two, but librarian dreadnought or fragioso armed furioso don't benefit from doubles nor the librarian dread can even take them even if wanted.

Don't think furioso's would have gained playtime even with the 10p drop. Fragioso is 124p with HF. Also DC dread with talons is 105p without ranged weaponry. A missed chance for our dreads become valid. Also sad that our baal pred is still unplayable in terms of points vs. Assback. Baal hull is 5p more expensive than regular pred hull.. huoh.

I find it quite glorious that, when buffed by a couple of characters, even a squad of Intercessors can become a pretty killy melee unit. How it should be!

Are Primaris DC worth using do you guys think? I’m grabbing another box of 10 Intercessors and I can’t decide whether to add them to a couple of my 5 man units or make them a big squad of DC.

I'm looking into getting into BA after their physic awakening book drops. I've never played Marines so i don't have anything, but I am interesting in running a decent amount of Primaris.

Any tips on what I should buy or what to run?

 Stus67 wrote:
I'm looking into getting into BA after their physic awakening book drops. I've never played Marines so i don't have anything, but I am interesting in running a decent amount of Primaris.

Any tips on what I should buy or what to run?

What is your meta? What kinda games you play, casual or competitive?

Xirax wrote:

 Stus67 wrote:
I'm looking into getting into BA after their physic awakening book drops. I've never played Marines so i don't have anything, but I am interesting in running a decent amount of Primaris.

Any tips on what I should buy or what to run?

What is your meta? What kinda games you play, casual or competitive?

Competitive usually. Most of my friends play Space Marines (Ultra, IH, and IF), and I play Guard or Knights. It's not a hyper competitive meta, but we're pretty far from casual play. I just don't want to drop money on things I think might be useful, only to find out they aren't.

Blood angels are probably the worst chapter if you want to focus on primaris. Primaris right now are mainly ranged focus and BA have 0 buffs for ranged units and almost everything is about CC.

Take any primaris BA list and then just change it to any of the codex chapters and it will be better. Not kidding at all. Like you could have a mediocre BA primaris focused list and by just changing the chapter to IF or IH successor or any successor for that matter and you might actually have a good list that will crush the BA equivalent list if they are 100% the same models and points.

Reivers are really bad and DC intercessors wont see competetive play at all since they are elites and we cant DS/infiltrate/outflank them like RG/WS so no reason to take over normal intercessors that are troops. Kind of the same with agressors since we only have movement stuff centered around jump packs so they are just to slow and have 0 synergy with the rest of the army. BA is all about those Jump Packs on old marines.

Oh right. New mephiston and Invictors are Primaris but wouldnt say thats enoughm

I’m not particularly a competitive player, but Primaris seem pretty able in melee with some characters backing them up. Then again, I’m converting a lot of old marine characters with Stormcast from Sigmar to look like Primaris and using them with them, so that probably helps. But if you take a Veteran Intercessors unit and back it up with a Sang Priest and Sang Ancient, or Librarian or whatever, they’re pretty damn pokey in melee considering they’re just a troop choice.

Though I do agree that the other chapters will most likely do better in competitive simply because their bonuses are granted sooner and gunlines pretty much always lol at melee.

They are good in melee against other troops and other weaker units but they are slow and lack enough hard hitting weapons that they just stop against the more dedicated melee units.

Great for having a durable backline that arent easy to shift from objectives etc but you arent gonna move them 6" a turn across the battlefield and beat your enemies to death in melee.

I ran a RG successor list with 3 ten man intercessors with TH. They worked really well when I was aggressive with them but I could deploy them 9" away or deepstrike them so they could get up close without problem. BA cant do that while RG and WS can.

I see people saying Incursors can be great in BA since with enough support you get a ton of ap 1 attacks turn 3 or later... Like anything in our army can hit well at that point and you get almost twice the attacks in melee if you take scouts and they can even have melee weapons on the sergeant...

I dunno...Blood Angels can do things other marine chapters just cannot.

For example, a unit of 6 Plasma Inceptors and Astorath could deploy on the board out of line of sight. At the beginning of turn 1, Astorath uses Recitation of Focus (+1 to hit when shooting) on the Plasma Inceptors, after which, they Upon Wings of Fire to an advantageous spot on the board in order to unload 24ish totally safe overcharged plasma shots on an enemy unit.

If you want to get crazy, you could land a Drop Pod (gasp) with a Company Ancient holding the FnP banner, a Captain for rerolls, a Chaplain for 2nd turn use, and whatever heck else you feel like throwing in there near the Inceptors landing zone to really give yourself a spot to set up your eventual turn 2 or 3 Sanguinary Guard charges.

Meanwhile, whatever Primaris or normal units you have advancing up the table will most likely be ignored as your opponent dumps much of his fire (remember FnP banner) into removing the 6 Plasma Inceptors that just vaporized something he cherished. That is, if you didn't decide to just have them charge something in order to lock themselves in combat...

Regardless, Blood Angels have tricks, and they don't all revolve around hitting people in the face.

I didn't plan on running any primaris DC, since the current jump pack DC look pretty dope as is, but rather bog standard intercessors for the troops choices. Although I am looking at Scouts to fill that role too. I'm more curious about tings like Sanguinary Guard, or the dreadnaught variants. I'm taking Mephiston regardless, since I love the new primaris model, but I don't know what characters to grab past that.

Keep in mind I literally own nothing Space Marine related, so I'm buying everything from scratch.

 Stus67 wrote:
I didn't plan on running any primaris DC, since the current jump pack DC look pretty dope as is, but rather bog standard intercessors for the troops choices. Although I am looking at Scouts to fill that role too. I'm more curious about tings like Sanguinary Guard, or the dreadnaught variants. I'm taking Mephiston regardless, since I love the new primaris model, but I don't know what characters to grab past that.

I run a mix of Intercessors and Scouts as Troops and I can confirm they work very well. Intercessors hold backfield Objectives and plink away with long ranged bolt rifles (twice as good as they used to be thanks to Bolter Discipline) while the Scouts deploy in the midfield and either screen against aggressive enemy or charge early to clear chaff out of the way of my good assault units. I may add a couple of units of Incursors to the mix as they combine the benefits of Scouts and Intercessors. Blood Angels tend to need a lot of CPs to really shine so I would recommend 6 5-man Troop squads so you can run 2 Battalions.

DC do look very nice. If you are planning to run DC, I recommend taking Lemartes. He gives DC rerolls to charge and to hit in addition to any Litanies he chants. Plus he is a pretty solid beat-stick character in his own right.

Sanguinary Guard are lovely but quite expensive to field. I normally only run one of Death Company or Sanguinary Guard unless I am playing 2000 points and above. They are best reinforced by a Sanguinary Ancient with the Standard of Sacrifice and the Sanguinor if you can afford him. A Sanguinary Priest with Jump Pack (now a valid Codex option again thanks to Blood of Baal) is also really good here for +1 Strength and healing injured models.

Our Dreadoughts are rather overpriced for what they bring. The Librarian Dreadnought is really good but don't run him in the same list as Mephiston since they want to be using the same powers (Wings of Sanguinius and Quickening) to get into melee quickly. Of the two, I normally prefer Mephiston since he knows a 3rd power (I normally take Unleash Rage). And the new Mephiston model is sweeeeet!

The other HQ that literally every Blood Angels player takes is Captain Smash. This is a Captain with the following upgrades:
Death Visions of Sanguinius (turns him into a Death Company character)
Thunder Hammer and Stormshield (for hitting power and survivability).
Artisan of War Warlord trait. Gives his Thunder Hammer a flat 4 damage. This guy can kill a Knight by himself on the charge with a few good rolls.

That covers your Troops, HQs and melee, the other thing you need is some fire support. Devastators, Eliminators and Inceptors all do pretty well in this role so it is just a case of choosing which squads and weapons you want to spend your remaining points on.

Primaris get more attacks per point in general. I think primaris is fine for BA. The overall problem is that punching with meqs is still pretty bad.

Once you accept that 3rd ed and 5th ed style lists are dead, and that BA are inferior to other marine chapters significantly, its' not so bad.

One wound DC are particularly poor imo.

Nice summary. A few things I'd change/add

DC do look very nice. If you are planning to run DC, I recommend taking Lemartes. He gives DC rerolls to charge and to hit in addition to any Litanies he chants. Plus he is a pretty solid beat-stick character in his own right.

Astorath is the beat stick you want. He can give any squad a reroll to hit, once per game +1 to hit, knows more Litanies and is a beat stick and a half. He buffs himself to do d3+1 damage and on 5+ does a flat 4. He's like a smash captain that buffs everyone.

Sanguinary Guard are lovely but quite expensive to field. I normally only run one of Death Company or Sanguinary Guard unless I am playing 2000 points and above. They are best reinforced by a Sanguinary Ancient with the Standard of Sacrifice and the Sanguinor if you can afford him. A Sanguinary Priest with Jump Pack (now a valid Codex option again thanks to Blood of Baal) is also really good here for +1 Strength and healing injured models.

Sanguinary got a lovely points decrease and I love these guys. Rocking a 2+ 5+++ make them survivable. You can DS, Charge up the board or Upon wings of fire.

The other HQ that literally every Blood Angels player takes is Captain Smash. This is a Captain with the following upgrades:
Death Visions of Sanguinius (turns him into a Death Company character)
Thunder Hammer and Stormshield (for hitting power and survivability).
Artisan of War Warlord trait. Gives his Thunder Hammer a flat 4 damage. This guy can kill a Knight by himself on the charge with a few good rolls.

Lastly you need the relic to ignore overwatch and reroll charges. Smash captains don't cost points they cost CP. Enjoy spending all of your CP on this guy. However when he smacks over 1 or 2 really big things it's a magically sight to behold.

The thing I'm struggling to remember is your auras and buffs on buffs. My last game I had so many going it was hard to keep track.

Anyone got some cool tokens they've made up to remind themselves?

Thanks guys

Loving all the new blood of Baal stuff but one thing that they missed on was relic melee weapons.

Compared to more or less any other faction we have a woeful selection of relic weapon options, especially given the close combat focus of our chapter.

Codex options:

Hammer of Baal - A thunderhammer with no neg to hit, not awful and likely the best of the bunch but you will nearly always up a normal hammer to Dam4 instead.

Archangels shard - A situationally slightly better powersword, but only vey situationally and very slightly better. Just awful.

Gallians staff - a standard force staff with a +1 to cast smite, ok I guess if you really want to cast smite.

BOB options:

New Crosius - an extra AP and gives a LD debuff, urrggg

Master crafted weapon - this is easily the best of the bunch but is pure generic and whilst powerful isn't anything to get excited about.

DOn't get me wrong, we have some really great and interesting relics but no decent relic weapons. Its especially bad given we have various models that have locked wargear. What I wouldn't give for a relic chainsword half as good as teeth of terra (which is admittedly a bit too good).

What do others think, have I missed something in my weapon assessment?