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Hello. Dakka. As one can probably infer from the title, I've gotten my sticky paws on some Blood Angels minis (A friend split Shield of Baal with me - and I picked up some eBay offerings).

I have the following models, any advice on what loadouts to give them or what to add would be great.
HQ: Captain Karlean, Sanguinary Priest, Librarian, Chaplain.
Troops:Cassor the Damned, 10 Blood Angels Tacticals.
Elites: 5 Death Company (Could be assembled with Jump-packs)
Fast Attack: 3 Bikes (Converted from Dark Vengeance)

I also have 5 marines that could be used for anything, they could be used as Assault Marines if I don't put jump packs on the Death Company, or I may be able to find some bits to make them Devastators for some Range.

Any suggestions at all would be greatly appreciated.

Karlaen is ok, if only because he comes stock with a good wl trait if you use reserves.

The DC want jump packs, and don't assemble them as raphen's dc. Those guys have too many weapons on too few bodies. DC units are generally ok with 1 fist in 5 guys.

If you haven't assembled Cassor yet, use it to make a frag cannon/heavy flamer furioso and buy him a drop pod. If you have, get a stormraven. No dreadnought shall ever start the game on the board.

Chaplains are decent stock, the priest will probably want a sword that you can claim is valour's edge and a bolt pistol. The Libby is fine with base gear except that you may want a staff in case you want him to use the relic BA staff. All of them want magnet jump packs.

Give the ASM 2 meltas and a combi-melta sarge and buy them a pod.

Get a heavy flamer or two to go in tacticals. Those go in pods also, but could go in a rhino/razor if you want.

The GOOD units in BA are drop pods, frag cannon furiosos, sanguinary priests, jump death company, sanguinary guard, suicide melta ASM, suicide flamer tacticals, and grav gun bikers. Astorath and Dante are pretty good named characters that you can build around, (DC for asty and jump in general for Dante.) Mephy is average, seeing that you pay extra for t5, but the squad won't benefit from it until only one other guy is left. Decent automatically known power though. Tycho is hilarious bad. Corbulo is meh.

That's all the insight I have time for ATM.

The above poster has pretty much all bases covered, but I disagree with him on a couple key points.

I started running my 2 troop choices in las/plas razors a while back and have never regretted it. Being able to move 12in and fire everything you have is nuts. Heavy support choices for BA are a bit of a point of contention for me, as most people swear by fast tri las preds while I tend to stick with my trusty baal preds. Really you just have to look at who you commonly fight. Av10-11 and infantry/bikes of all kinds get shredded by the baal and it retains some utility vs monsters and heavy vehicles. This makes it perfect in a meta dominated by scatbikes and battle companies. That being said, it's significantly weaker than the tri las pred vs imperial knights, wraithknights, high toughness monsters and av12+ tanks. Your mileage may vary.

The only other thing I disagree on is Mephiston. The t5 comes into play when taking saves (including fnp) vs things like power fists, lascannons, and missiles. It also gives you a leg up in challenges. But what makes him one of the strongest characters in our book is his ability to take down targets we would otherwise struggle with. He is one of the few SM characters who can drop a daemon prince before it gets to swing, and he excels at cutting imperial and wraith knights in half. Never discount the power of a str10 ap3 force weapon rocking in at 8 attacks and init8.

Yeah second the Rhinos/Razorbacks. Fast vehicles had made a difference in my games, particulary when they have Objective Secured or I need them to screen my Bikes/Jump units. Drop Pods are good, but a full Drop Pod army probably makes better use of Chapter Tactics.

 Frozocrone wrote:
Yeah second the Rhinos/Razorbacks. Fast vehicles had made a difference in my games, particulary when they have Objective Secured or I need them to screen my Bikes/Jump units. Drop Pods are good, but a full Drop Pod army probably makes better use of Chapter Tactics.

Drop pods actually turn off BA chapter tactics.

Martel732 wrote:

 Frozocrone wrote:
Yeah second the Rhinos/Razorbacks. Fast vehicles had made a difference in my games, particulary when they have Objective Secured or I need them to screen my Bikes/Jump units. Drop Pods are good, but a full Drop Pod army probably makes better use of Chapter Tactics.

Drop pods actually turn off BA chapter tactics.

How is this the case?

Presumably because you'll just get counter-charged after podding in, and BA chapter tactics require them to get off the charge.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Presumably because you'll just get counter-charged after podding in, and BA chapter tactics require them to get off the charge.

Yup. Drop pods are for shooting units. You need to do your business the turn you come in, not the turn after, because a lot can change in that time. People tried to use the old DC from 5th ed codex in drop pods, and it only ever worked against poor players.

He has a very good point on that. But the unit is still good just because of its cost and what it brings to the table. Not being able to charge out of stationary transports is also super annoying.

Basically if you stick to these units in the BA dex you'll be fine.

LoW
-Dante

HQ
-Mephiston
-Astorath
-Librarian
-Sanguinary Priest

Elites
-Fragnoughts
-Sanguinary Guard
-Command Squads (debatable)
-Death Company (best unit in the book)

Troops
-Take as little from this slot as you can.

Fast Attack
-Grav Bikers
-Assault Marines

Heavy Support
-Tri las preds
-Stormravens
-Baal preds (debatable)

"Troops-Take as little from this slot as you can. "

Against many "reasonable" lists, five man scout squads with a melta bomb are actually incredibly annoying.

"Command Squads (debatable) "

Triple melta gun command squad w/jump packs is the most boss unit for Dante, imo as it gives Dante FNP and the ability to smoke tanks and weaken MCs before Dante goes in for the kill.

"-Sanguinary Guard "

I don't much care for these. However, if you can get them into the ranks of elite infantry an avoid high init AP 2, they can cut some faces off.

Add MM attack bikes to the list.
Add Sternguard (AMAZING) to the list. Their ammo does WORK.

"Stormravens "

I think these things suck and struggle to recoup their points, or more importantly, have a meaningful impact on the game. However, they ARE the best way to get into CC with a list like DA.

Martel732 wrote:

 Frozocrone wrote:
Yeah second the Rhinos/Razorbacks. Fast vehicles had made a difference in my games, particulary when they have Objective Secured or I need them to screen my Bikes/Jump units. Drop Pods are good, but a full Drop Pod army probably makes better use of Chapter Tactics.

Drop pods actually turn off BA chapter tactics.

Yeah, I meant to clarify my post as vanilla Codex Chapter Tactics.

Not that Blood Angels can't use them (DS Sternguard is always good) but a Drop Pod army would make use of shooting tactic,s, such as Sallies, Ultras, etc

Martel732 wrote:
"Troops-Take as little from this slot as you can. "

Against many "reasonable" lists, five man scout squads with a melta bomb are actually incredibly annoying.

"Command Squads (debatable) "

Triple melta gun command squad w/jump packs is the most boss unit for Dante, imo as it gives Dante FNP and the ability to smoke tanks and weaken MCs before Dante goes in for the kill.

"-Sanguinary Guard "

I don't much care for these. However, if you can get them into the ranks of elite infantry an avoid high init AP 2, they can cut some faces off.

Add MM attack bikes to the list.
Add Sternguard (AMAZING) to the list. Their ammo does WORK.

"Stormravens "

I think these things suck and struggle to recoup their points, or more importantly, have a meaningful impact on the game. However, they ARE the best way to get into CC with a list like DA.

Not sure how I missed sternguard from that list, and I don't have much experience with multi melta attack bikes. Stormravens should never carry expensive assault units, but carrying a 10 man squad of close combat scouts gives you a decent little assault unit to keep in your back pocket until late game. Command squads have been good to me, though usually with melta guns and storm shields in a pod as an escort for Mephiston.

I never leave home with my MM Attack Bikes, they are great for tank popping (only need to be within 12" for 2D6 armour pen), especially disgusting if you get the infiltrate WL trait (Veritas Vitea signing in), 2A base andT5 mean they can help tip an assault, TL bolters included if you need them to target infantry.

I generally run a squad of 2 and dance them around to try and get the most time on the board out of them.

D

Sanguinary Guard with a Sanguinary Priest and Dante make for a nice, high speed murdermachine. It IS expensive, but man can they get the job done. Three Swords and two Axes or an Axe and a Fist brings a lot of WS5 Str5+ attacks to the board. It is also a nice way to give Dante FNP.

I run four different Elites that I run (2/10 Fist Jump DC, DP Fragiroso, Sanguinary Dante Star, and the Tri-Melta CS).

The DP Fragrioso with a heavy flamer is an auto include for me. It's one of the best shock troop killers I've played with.

I run a 10 man DC squad (2x sword, 1x fist) with jump packs accompanied with a Librarian who has Gallian's Staff. As a unit, they attract a hell of a lot of fire power when I start them on the board. They're a great distraction and even if only half of the unit makes it into combat intact, they power straight through it.

I've found a lot of success with a larger Assault Marine squad too. A unit of 10, 2x melta and a combo-melta + Auspex on the Sergeant. They deep strike in with a Chaplain, pop whatever heavy armour there is and still get to re-roll hits in the combat phase where I anticipate they'll get charged.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Sanguinary Guard with a Sanguinary Priest and Dante make for a nice, high speed murdermachine. It IS expensive, but man can they get the job done. Three Swords and two Axes or an Axe and a Fist brings a lot of WS5 Str5+ attacks to the board. It is also a nice way to give Dante FNP.

I run four different Elites that I run (2/10 Fist Jump DC, DP Fragiroso, Sanguinary Dante Star, and the Tri-Melta CS).

For even more efficiency, give the SG the priest and have Dante lead a normal jump assault squad or no-weapon DC aka meat shields with jump packs. If needed he can always hop over to the SG mid game.

Super Killy squads like SG don't want badassmofo characters, they just want force multiplier characters. Badassmofo characters don't want elite retinues. They just want meatshields. By giving both squads what is most efficient, you end up with two high level threats instead of one.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Sanguinary Guard with a Sanguinary Priest and Dante make for a nice, high speed murdermachine. It IS expensive, but man can they get the job done. Three Swords and two Axes or an Axe and a Fist brings a lot of WS5 Str5+ attacks to the board. It is also a nice way to give Dante FNP.

I run four different Elites that I run (2/10 Fist Jump DC, DP Fragiroso, Sanguinary Dante Star, and the Tri-Melta CS).

For even more efficiency, give the SG the priest and have Dante lead a normal jump assault squad or no-weapon DC aka meat shields with jump packs. If needed he can always hop over to the SG mid game.

Super Killy squads like SG don't want badassmofo characters, they just want force multiplier characters. Badassmofo characters don't want elite retinues. They just want meatshields. By giving both squads what is most efficient, you end up with two high level threats instead of one.

This... is actually a very good point.

But to provide a counterpoint, sanguinary guard DO want a tank character that can eat the occasional plasma or lascannon gak, which is why characters like Dante and iron hands biker masters work so well with them.

 th3maninblak wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Sanguinary Guard with a Sanguinary Priest and Dante make for a nice, high speed murdermachine. It IS expensive, but man can they get the job done. Three Swords and two Axes or an Axe and a Fist brings a lot of WS5 Str5+ attacks to the board. It is also a nice way to give Dante FNP.

I run four different Elites that I run (2/10 Fist Jump DC, DP Fragiroso, Sanguinary Dante Star, and the Tri-Melta CS).

For even more efficiency, give the SG the priest and have Dante lead a normal jump assault squad or no-weapon DC aka meat shields with jump packs. If needed he can always hop over to the SG mid game.

Super Killy squads like SG don't want badassmofo characters, they just want force multiplier characters. Badassmofo characters don't want elite retinues. They just want meatshields. By giving both squads what is most efficient, you end up with two high level threats instead of one.

This... is actually a very good point.

But to provide a counterpoint, sanguinary guard DO want a tank character that can eat the occasional plasma or lascannon gak, which is why characters like Dante and iron hands biker masters work so well with them.

This was my train of thought. Between his 4++, EW, and FNP, Dante can keep the SG alive longer to do more killing. In the case of the DC, I think a Chaplain is still the better option there.

Dante also gives that squad that he is in Hit and Run, which is just a little thing I like, allowing Furious Charge and the Red Thirst to trigger again. Though this is situational due to them getting overwatch again. Usually SG can take these shots though in comparison to anything with a 3+.