Why do I love the Blood Angels? Why should I choose them as the parent chapter for my DIY? If I wanted to be succint, I would say simply this: I am Roman Catholic. But I am inclined to be lengthy in word, so I shall elaborate.
It is not too often, at least in my experience, that you find players like myself who choose the hobby for Christian themes and imagery (alongside the "cranked up to 11 feel and hodgepodge nature). My compatriots are largely of opposite ideological background, and chose the universe for love of old literature, negative caricatured portrayals of non-fictional evils, and the like. I am sure many on this board did the very same. I am also fond of such things.
To me, the Blood Angels are an echo, and a strong one at that, of my much beloved Faith, which by nature encompasses those values and cultural edifices that I hold most dear in This World. How can I look at the Noble Sanguinius, a nigh-seemless artistic combination of Saint Michael the Archangel and Jesus Christ, and not be shot through to the core with the Glory of it? Here we have a character which takes the fight to the "devils" and casts them down alone before the golden gates, in a display of iron resolve and nigh-unmatched martial skill. A character who shines almost as bright as his father (Michael means "he who is like God", and many a priest has remarked to me that it was Saint Michael's purity and rejection of taint that drove Satan from Heaven, that the force of his Fiat alone was enough for the battle to be won.) and who is bourne aloft by samite wings and shines in golden armor above the dirty bloodbath below.
And most glorious of all, a character, who like the one being I love more than all else, knew at the outset that he was to die at the hands of those he loved, and without Pride or Vainglory sallied forth on his appointed day to meet the Enemy and be struck down so that Humanity might not just survive, but truly live.
And if that wasn't enough, his legion, his followers, like my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, stand like heroes against not only a Universe of horrors and machinations by dark forces and their own mortality and weakness, but against the dark and deadly desires in themselves. Through prayer, meditation, and the creation of beauty through their art, they resist these forces with all the strength of their being. Many have fallen, and many more will fall, but they still fight on against all odds.
And while they fight, they seek to better their Universe. The Blood Angels, along with the Space Wolves, Salamanders, and Ultramarines, are among the most humane forces of the Imperium. They know of the precious worth that humanity is heir to, and they fight not for power alone, or mere survival, but for the future and the very soul of mankind.
Yet there is still more to be said: their recruits? Those who join them in their war for Mankind's Salvation? Wretches, twisted, broken humans who through the consumption of the Blood of the Primarch become heroes, and who are sustained by the continual reception of this blood. For someone who draws his own strength from the Eucharist and has to be repeatedly washed clean and made perfect by his Savior's Blood in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, very little, if anything, could be more poignant. That is why I love the Blood Angels.
