First game against Blood Angels

[gojira316]

Had my first experience against Blood Angels recently. After skimming through their codex a few times I was impressed with the amount of units they have available. All Rhino chassis vehicles being fast is pretty awesome and worth the extra 15pts.

 

Unfortunately for my opponent all these shiny new toys weren't too effective. He used three Baal Predators, two with Heavy Bolter sponsons and one with a Flamestorm Cannon and Heavy Flamers. Only the outflanking Flamestorm Pred managed to do anything significant, killing one squad of Grey Hunters in two turns of shooting before getting wrecked. The other two did some damage but were gone by turn three. Assault Marines with Sanguinary Priests are pretty good but even with furious charge they can't hang with Terminators in combat. Bjorn the Fell-Handed loves to kill Librarians, he snuffed both of them in CC along with an Assault Squad and he was only immobilized for his troubles. With the mission being annihilation my opponent had only 6 kill points to my 10. It was a fun game but at the end all that was left of the Blood Angels was three Assault Marines. I still had 21 Grey Hunters (two squads at 100%), Bjorn, 6 Long Fangs and 3 Drop Pods.

 

Once the game was over I was rather unimpressed with the new Blood Angels. He played the list the way I would have but I'm thinking the three Baal Preds and two Furioso Dreads at 2000pts was a bit of a point sink. Especially when I had all 5 gone by turn 4 and took minimal damage from all but the outflanking Flamestorm Pred.

 

As of right now it doesn't look like Blood Angels are that great. They pay a heavy price for their new toys and that takes away from the reliable stuff they need to be taking in order to be competitive.

[Lord Ragnarok]

Remember, their lists are versatile and you can't really decide the whole army effectiveness in one game. I worry more about the super fast BA's. Having the dreads in the list seems like a liability with respect to speed. I'd worry more about the Baals, with storm ravens and Jump packs aplenty.

Also what was the experience level of your opponent? IMHO you probably should play some more lists vs that opponent and keep your list the same and probably the mission type. Or play your same list, same opp. with different lists/styles and record specifically what happened in each mission type. That would probably be a better experiment.

[gojira316]

I'm not saying that the codex is junk after only one game. What I meant was that my opinion of the codex wasn't changed. I still don't think the codex is that good. Speed is always a concern in 40k but since I use drop pods I am able to cut off my opponents before they have the chance to set up their plans.

 

I generally don't change my list from game to game. I do make small adjustments here and there but for the most part I play the same list every game. As for my opponents skill level, he's a solid player who usually has sounds lists and knows how to use them to his advantage. I just happen to have a lot of experience against power armor armies and I know how to take them apart.