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Hellooo.

You may think this a bit odd but I don't wargame with my Blood Angel army. But I do appreciate the spectacle of a full (and correctly formed) battleforce - well painted ranks and superbly painted elites with the best jobs saved for your heros. I spend some time every couple of years converting a few of my units to match latest codices...

I liked the sternguard and vanguard vet models so I bought them, and I've done a sternguard unit despite what naysayers might, errr, say nay too. Hell, I can even make a "regular" BA veteran squad out of them as I'm being conservative with the special weapons. But I have a question that I hope someone can help me with? I only have the downloaded BA codex - what's the difference between a BA veteran assault squad and vanguard veterans? If you get my meaning, should I just paint these up as veterans with jump packs or can I model them differently? Essentially, I'm talking about the plasma pistols - if Vanguards are the same as vets, I'd take the pistols off and give them bolt pistols. If that's all they can take (apart from that huge two handed sword), I'd leave them with the plasmas.

The Stern and Van Guards are just Veterans, but with poncier titles and new weapon. In terms of organisation, they fulfil exactly the same role as their non-vanilla counterparts.

I guess I'm just being lazy - I can't be bothered to take the plasmas off right now even though I prefer boltpistols on my assault marines! I could be bothered to hack them off if it meant I could model other cool options on them!