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I'll be taking my Blood Angels/Custodes out for a spin in the next week or two as I finish building this list.

Looking forward to testing out Lord Slamguinius.

Any tips or tricks I should keep in mind?

(See attached current kitbash model, decided to make him out of a Primaris due to the improved posing. Head/Jump Pack separate.)

Martel732 wrote:
What does Slamguinius do against a well-screened army? The whole point of DC/inceptors is to clear the screens out.

Not that I've done it, but I can see how 1 model could have a better chance of finding a cracked in a screen than a mid to large sized unit. I may have to start adding this tech to my gameplan, as I've yet to adopt Forlorn Fury.

I assume in the games you don't end up with first turn you just move as far forward as possible and stay out of line of sight? Shouldn't be impossible for one model on a table with decent terrain.

I've been playing blood angels more and more recently. I've got some questions on where to go with the army from here.

I've been running some variant of this:


Or doing triple battalion like this (Way more effective than I expected it to be):


1) Hellblasters seem to be all stars when paired with the Standard of sacrifice and a captain. But that makes them pricey (about 480 points for 10). For 480 points I could be running 4 Basilisks, a Master of Ordinance, and an infantry squad. Are Hellblasters the right choice for anti-tank?

2) My DC always die. Which is OK if they live long enough to let the rest of my army do their thing. But, I'm considering Vanguard vets to replace them. A squad of 10 VV has 1 fewer attack on the charge, but I could give 3 of them Store shields for 15 pts which would make them more durable in many situations. What do you think of Vanguard Vets?

3) Intercessors always feel overcosted when I build a list with them. On the other hand they are generally always left at the end of the game holding my backfield, and sometimes the midfield. It's probably because they aren't very threatening, but I'm wondering if they might be better than I'd 1st assumed.

4) Inceptors feel like garbage. On paper they are fine (less assaulty bikers), but their damage output is always disappointing. I thought they would be effective screen killers, but it's not uncommon that all 6 of them can't kill 10 guardsmen. I don't think they've ever killed their points. My last game, all 6 shot into a unit of dark reapers in cover, and the dark reapers took 2 wounds. The one neat thing about them is people seem to know they are garbage, and I deep strike them in corners, so my opponents rarely put effort into killing them, and sometimes they can steal an objective. Am I using them wrong, should I be dropping them with captain slamguinius so they get reroll 1's? Do you guys use them aggressively? Am I just suffering from bad dice, or do they really suck this bad?

5) Reivers: I'm leaning towards adding some to my lists. Have you found success with Reivers, or would I be better off adding Vanguard vets / Assault marines to harass my opponent's backfield? Combat Knife or Bolt Carbine?

6) Lemartes vs Mephiston. Which is the better choice if I'm running DC?

7) Sternguard. I've got an unbuilt box. Is there a way to make use of them in 8th ed blood angels?

Modeling Question: I want my HQ's to stand out a bit, so I was going to use some extra Inceptor bodies to make a Captain Slamguinius / JP Libby, but my buddies thought that might be a bit much, and recommended Intercessor bodies with JP's. Do you think anyone would object if I used 2 starter box lieutenants as the starting point for those characters?

tag8833 wrote:


Modeling Question: I want my HQ's to stand out a bit, so I was going to use some extra Inceptor bodies to make a Captain Slamguinius / JP Libby, but my buddies thought that might be a bit much, and recommended Intercessor bodies with JP's. Do you think anyone would object if I used 2 starter box lieutenants as the starting point for those characters?

Right at the top of this page, my dude. I did the same already, using hellblaster/BA chaplain bits. Totally fine. Fits on the same base, and most "jump pack" models are typically already posed as jumping, making them taller. Toss it on a 32 and call it a day.

1) Comparing to basilisks with marine units will always make you sad. Hellblasters are brutal mid-field control, but I wouldn't count on them for anti-tank. Autolas preds and russes rip them apart.

2) DC and vanguard, to me, have different jobs. DC are to be equipped with boltguns, chainswords, a couple hammers and sent on a suicide mission to clear chaff. Vanguards are dropped in next to high AP units and kill them or tarpit them with their storm shields.

3) Intercessors critical flaw is they have no heavy weapon and no good transport options. I guess that's two flaws. They will always be ignored unless they need to be pushed off an objective.

4) I usually package inceptors with jump captain #2, not slamguinius and a jump lt along with some plasma ASM and drop pod devs. 6 inceptors should kill an average of 13 guardsmen in cover with this setup. Inceptors also benefit mightily from upon wings of fire. But they are susceptible to any multi damage weaponry.

5) Reivers are great, imo. They have no power weapons, but they DO have 24" guns with two shots. They batman around the table, stay in cover, bully shooters, gun down chaff. And fill elite slots cheaply for brigades.

6) If you are using a max blob of 15, I'd say Astorath. If your plan is forlorn fury, I'd say Astorath. For smaller drops, Lemartes is your guy. Mephiston has little synergy with DC except for shield of sanguinius and unleash rage.

7) Sternguard are okay for us since we have the +1 wound strat. They can tear up other marines and T7 vehicles pretty good. But I prefer longer range shooters.

I'm not a good source for modeling. But your idea sounds fine to me.

I feel like 10 Sternguard with Storm Bolters could be pretty handy. I do like the idea of 40 shots from a squad popping out of a Rhino (or even Drop Pod if you are plahing casual).

Guys, what happened to Blood Angels Command Squad box? I wanted to buy one but it is only available in Australia!
Does anyone know?

tag8833 wrote:

4) Inceptors feel like garbage. On paper they are fine (less assaulty bikers), but their damage output is always disappointing. I thought they would be effective screen killers, but it's not uncommon that all 6 of them can't kill 10 guardsmen. I don't think they've ever killed their points. My last game, all 6 shot into a unit of dark reapers in cover, and the dark reapers took 2 wounds. The one neat thing about them is people seem to know they are garbage, and I deep strike them in corners, so my opponents rarely put effort into killing them, and sometimes they can steal an objective. Am I using them wrong, should I be dropping them with captain slamguinius so they get reroll 1's? Do you guys use them aggressively? Am I just suffering from bad dice, or do they really suck this bad?

I love inceptors - 6 not dropping a guard squad is an anomaly - they should kill 13 in one round, jumping to 15.5 with a cap. Have you tried them with plasma and a cap? I prefer them to hellblasters now. Four less wounds but +1 toughness, no alpha'ing them off the board and they get to choose deployment, so as to limit los. One squad with a cap does 10 expected damage to a predator. Basically, I think a jumpcap is nice on the dakkaceptors, but an essential on the plasceptor - so given I prefer plasceptors, they always run with a cap.

Bought another scout box today.. now that the dust is settling are you guys still thinking that BA melee scouts are superior over boltgun squad? I've run mine with boltguns and chainsword on the sergeant, they shoot almost every turn and hold objectives. They get to shoot more often than they are charged.. I use them as screens and objective grabbers straight through deployment. In this role boltguns have felt better.. might even add a heavy bolter in 1-2 units..

What have been your experience with them, what is your preferable load out/usage with them. I haven't tried the shotguns and snipers have always been, no sixes.. no sixes..

I have only run the CCW Scouts so far and found they seem to punch above their weight. 59 points for 5 plus a Power Sword on the Serg and they come with infiltrate and ObjSec. I haven't tried other builds though so maybe there are other good value builds.

I'm running mine up for Shotguns. Want the mix of close, fast shooting and the ability to charge. Run and gun.

 Karhedron wrote:
I have only run the CCW Scouts so far and found they seem to punch above their weight. 59 points for 5 plus a Power Sword on the Serg and they come with infiltrate and ObjSec. I haven't tried other builds though so maybe there are other good value builds.

Same here, though I don't run a power sword on the sergeant, just a chainsword. I've been impressed with how hard they hit. I also have run mine with Camo Cloaks if I have points for it, so they're harder to shift off of an objective in cover. I may get another squad of them and give them bolters instead. Haven't made up my mind on that yet.

I love my scouts. As you said they punch above their weight class in melee with the Red Thirst helping them.

Just my thoughts on that. Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

I am building 4 Scout squads, 2 of the 5 man squads with pistol and combat blade, the other 2 squads with Bolter. I have been impresed with the pistol Scouts so far, they are a great distraction and hit hard enough for me to not think them a waste.

My local club had many IG army. All of them like to play 100+ guardmens. The one I usually play with ( 1500 pts ), he like to play 3 tank commander reman russ + 3 wyvern sit on some Conner and then layer by 200 guardmens.
He is professional for dropping guardmens so thick around 1 feet and 1 more leyer wrap out side 1 feet from thick layer protect deep strike.
Do someone have recommend list for dig down that IG?
FYI my local club like to play No mercy mission.

200 guardsmen means you need 30 DC just chainsword and bolters. with lemartes, a slam captain, and a lieutenant buffing them they destroy them.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
200 guardsmen means you need 30 DC just chainsword and bolters. with lemartes, a slam captain, and a lieutenant buffing them they destroy them.

I try many time but if you see in picture, He have some small outside layer you can kill just 10-20 guardsmen. So can not deep strike to inside layer. Then next turn DC will easy kill by wyvern 3 of them 12 D6 shot and reman russ 6 d6 + 27 HV bolter.

Bolter aggressors in cover with a company ancient with the standard of sacrifice (to help them survive enemy fire) will shred those guardsmen to pieces. Captain and lieutenant would be useful to reroll 1s. After punching a hole DC will deepstrike and attack the tanks.

BA really can't deal with this set up atm. Guardsmen are just too cheap atm.

 p5freak wrote:
Bolter aggressors in cover with a company ancient with the standard of sacrifice (to help them survive enemy fire) will shred those guardsmen to pieces. Captain and lieutenant would be useful to reroll 1s. After punching a hole DC will deepstrike and attack the tanks.

That I try before not work due to fire power too difference. fire to fire with IG that rally bad idea. He have many guardmen to fill up the hole. I have win other mission but it rarely play. In no mercy mission very difficult to win IG because he never need to move full of them get relic of lost Cadia aura.

I don't think there is a reliable way to handle that setup with a BA list. With our current tools we have a good matchup vs the kind of lists that have a good matchup vs that setup. That is, we will generally be better off vs an Alaitoc+Ynnari list or an Alpha Legion list but those lists are going to beat an IG gunline with 200 guardsmen, who in turn beat us. It's not quite this simple but the point is that I would not expect to win that game with any BA list and if it was a casual game I would ask the opponent to change their list next time.

I think that we do have a place in the current tournament meta due to our matchups with some of the popular lists but we will still get blown out by something like this.

Scouts + scout bikers on table turn 1. Kill that first layer of chaff. He kills most of them. Keep one unit of scouts alive or one of your random on the board place holders.

Turn 2 drop 2x 7 man DCs + lemartes + captian slam + sang + unit 1 of plasma ceptors (w/in 6" of captian slam + 18" of tanks). Charge and kill a couple units of Guard. Make a hole in a flank or two.

He kills ceptors. Hopefully you can wrap up a unit of guard or he falls back and kills most of your DC.

Drop 4 more plasma ceptors and last unit of DC, overcharge and kill 2 more tanks. New unit of DC should be able to wrap up a unit by now to remain in CC due to needing to fall back there should be gaps in his army for you to get captian slam into something valuable. Use 3d6 charge strat on this unit of DC (no lemartes for re-rolls)

How I'd play it.

captian slam
lemartes
sang if you have the points

3x 5 man scouts w/ shotguns
1x 7 man scout with pistols ccw (set-up for first turn charge)
?2x 5 man scouts with snipers?

3x 7 man DCs (pistols, jump packs, chainswords)

2x 4 man plasma ceptors

2x scout bike squads

2 more of anything that will fit (snipers maybe to get rid of his orders, never used them so not sure about this one). If you can find a use/points for 3x heavies you can field this as a brigade (devs w/ 1 las?)

Other option would be 2x storm ravens dropping DC supported by captain slam+. -1 to hit really messes with guard armies and they get a lot of shots when fitted for dakka mode.

Actually, for starters, insist on playing some random missions/maelstrom.

The above might work, but seems highly tailored.

Don't forget about tri-locking, you may be able to keep your DC stuck in this way.

It's possible, but I wouldn't count on it.

You could try just blowing up the vehicles and then locking up squads of guardsmen in close combat. If the vehicles are that closely surrounded, they have the potential to explode, wounding other tanks and killing infantry in the process. Once the heavy lifters are gone, you can deal with the infantry by avoiding them, locking them in combat, etc. For your troops, I would suggest using max squads of intercessors. They are twice as survivable as normal marines, and when split using combat squads, they can get an aux grenade launcher into each 5 man squad, which can be used to shoot krak grenades at tanks or frag grenades at infantry.

Ultimately though, I don't think that Blood Angels are equipped to deal with a multitude of horde type lists while taking Blood Angel specific units due to the expensive nature of those BA units. For example, Death Company and Sanguinary Guard are expensive, and they lack durability, especially against weight of fire lists.

Dont think this IG to easy if you kill first layer then they will send more mans to fill up out side layer that just spend 10-20 more guardmen from big layer.
Also cant do like lock in CC becasue he deploy by measure every gap can not put any model base in.

P.S. You guy will not imagine this IG need almost 1 hr for deploy units. I always finish dinner when wait for him put down all guardmens.

Had a lot of fun today with DC.

2 13 man units. 1 power sword, 3 inferno pistols, rest chainsword and bolter.

Backed up with Lemartes and a Smashtinent.

They wrecked a rhino, a vindicator, some berserkers, and a jusggy lord. The also melted kharn the betrayer with an inferno pistol shot (after he killed 7 of them).

At end of game there was still 10 of them alive from the second squad.

Kingfox, do you have another place to play? That doesn't sound like an enjoyable experience.

Unfortunately not much club to play in my small county. The meta here is perfect for shooting team, CC team rarely win here.

senor_flojo wrote:
Kingfox, do you have another place to play? That doesn't sound like an enjoyable experience.

Sadly, running away from IG doesn't usually work when they are as popular as they currently are.