The NEW "What will 2014 Bring?" thread

[Cyrox]

It's the Sternguard weapons on a Tactical sprue. With DC parts with the Saltires filled in.

 

Meh, I dunno. Aside from the Priest which is a beautiful sculpt, the releases are tremendously lacklustre for me

 

Not quite - a lot of the legs in the new tactical box are new, as are the torso's, none of which you would find in either the Sternguard or DC box

 

I'm sure there are DC parts that have been retooled, along with some of the Sternguard weapons, but thats the beauty (or evil) of CAD design

[Gaweda]

I'm thoroughly happy with this release. It gives me the opportunity to try a different style of play. I've completely ignored tacticals up to now, but the heavy flamer has me drooling. Because flamer.

[Shaezus]

I'm gunna wait til the dex lands before chipping in on which units are effective or not, but already this has been better than what I was expecting.

[Theduke08]

Im just excited about blood drop chest pieces and getting BA power armor without death company X's

[Ovidius Incertus]

I'm thoroughly happy with this release. It gives me the opportunity to try a different style of play. I've completely ignored tacticals up to now, but the heavy flamer has me drooling. Because flamer.

 

Me too.  My primary opponent plays DE, so a three flamer tac squad will munch the low strength, high save xenos.  Burn their transports, create failed charges, etc.  Imagine THREE wall of death overwatches.  Lol!  Charge me!!!

[Morticon]

It's the Sternguard weapons on a Tactical sprue. With DC parts with the Saltires filled in.

 

Meh, I dunno. Aside from the Priest which is a beautiful sculpt, the releases are tremendously lacklustre for me

 

 

Each to their own, for sure!!  For me, I was expecting a rebalancing of points and little to nothing else.  

So, this is all yummy icing! 

[Angelus Mortifer]

Have to agree with Shaezus and what some others have said. Given that some of the early rumours indicated we would only be getting a new book, anything on top of that can be seen as a bonus. I was surprised about the re-tooled Tac box but I do like have additional options for painting and modeling, and anything BA-centric I will happily swallow up (at the expense of a nice phone call from my Bank manager). The Termie box was also a surprise and happily helps to flesh out the excellent sculpts from Space Hulk - although it doesn't necessarily look like Termies will be any better than they are right now in this current addition, although I'm guessing a formation or two will give them extra utility. Either way, another great hobby option.

The Priest just screams Corbulo in all but name, and I think it's an excellent sculpt that allows some tweeking for personal preference.

Equally, I also agree they should have made a dent in the special characters, even if if it was just one or two. They're showcasing their capabilities with plastic and CAD with the kits we are getting, and given the wealth of visual material and references for the likes of Mephiston, Dante and Tycho etc, they have the capacity to make some truly excellent sculpts for them. Maybe once 'Crons get their book, and with everything updated (more or less), they might start a series of splash releases for characters and not just for us. It makes sense to get the core of every army in place so that they're playable and new, and then add the extra bells and whistles much like they did with the recent Nid wave(s) - although waiting a year or more for a new Dante or Meph would be a shame. Vect for one has to happen, and you have a few from IG like Al'Rahmen etc.

This is just personal opinion of course but I feel quite spoilt by our release to be honest. Yes, much of that sentiment comes from a more hobby related point of view, but I'm relying on changes to our mechanics to make the other side of what I enjoy about Blood Angels complete, i.e. the rules.

So when do we reckon we'll start getting leaked rules from early delivery? Shouldn't be too long now.

Also, and just as a P.S. I have really enjoyed being part of this forum (for years yes) during our currently ongoing update. Whilst scouring the interwebz for any snippet of info for this release it's amazing how much vitriol and utter nonesense you come across from other people. It's great knowing that you can always come here to share some honest brotherly love for a chapter that everyone really enjoys and has fun with. It shows we are all managing to hold the Thirst at bay

[thebymster]

Not exactly rumor related, but I had to repost. Some dude on Dakka posted asking if 30 Death Company with dual Thunder Hammers was still a viable unit. More amazingly, he posted a pic.

Awesome force sauce!

[Morticon]

Also, and just as a P.S. I have really enjoyed being part of this forum (for years yes) during our currently ongoing update. Whilst scouring the interwebz for any snippet of info for this release it's amazing how much vitriol and utter nonesense you come across from other people. It's great knowing that you can always come here to share some honest brotherly love for a chapter that everyone really enjoys and has fun with. It shows we are all managing to hold the Thirst at bay

^_^ :tu:

[ElectricPaladin]

Have any of you read the Knights of Blood story from Black Library? My fears are assuaged! The story is almost exactly what I would have written, including lines like "we are not the Flesh Tearers. Our excesses are not sanctioned by Terra" and "we are renegades... not traitors. An important difference" and "you know what the Inquisition wishes to be known."

Also, the Knight librarian is a BAMF. And sneaky enough to take off the blue armor and hide himself from the Blood Angel psyker.

Say what you want about James Swallow, he hit this short story out of the park.

Now, all I want is a full novel about my boys in crimson and silver!

[Valerian]

I was having such a nice time over here in the BA sub, and then someone just had to bust out the blue armor.

My DIY Blood Angel successor, The Sons of Cruor have blue armour. Just because

Aquilanus, have you seen these? I adore the blue and white themed Blood Angels counts-as/successors here; the scheme is just so damned striking.

Back on topic - I haven't even pulled out my old BA counts-as army in years, but I'm still pretty stoked about this release. Very excited for all of you loyal BA players.

V

[thebymster]

Y'know what? I'd like to say- in the obvious closing stages of this 2 part thread- what a joy it has been hanging with all you bros. This has been a very special place with all sorts of views and input. Tolerance and support abound. Thank you guys and girls. I hope santa

[Luca Pacioli]

I'd like to echo the sentiment on here and also ask: is anyone else suffering withdrawal symptoms?? I need more blurry pictures of soon to be released stuff in my life!!

[Reldn]

I'd like to echo the sentiment on here and also ask: is anyone else suffering withdrawal symptoms?? I need more blurry pictures of soon to be released stuff in my life!!

 

Definitely so! I'm eager for more info and pics, as well as having the Codex and Tac squad in my hands!

 

EDIT: and more fluff, always in need of it...even if it sometimes ends up biting me in the butt. Keeping my fingers crossed for awesome fluff/lore.

[TheHarrower]

A reader of my blog just emailed this to me. Not sure where he got him from. 

 

No terminator armour for DC. But there are good news, Jump packs are now only +3 points. On the other hand their WS has been downgraded to 4. 

 

 

What are the troop choices ? 

 

Only troop choices are Tactical squads and scouts. 

 

 

New units, centurions, storm talons etc? 

 

No new units. No Centurions and no talons. 

 

Dantes Axe is +2S, AP2, mastercraft and NOT unwieldy. BTW he is now eternal warrior 

 

Chalice gives +1WS 

 

Some changes are: 

 

- Death Company is now elite as DC dreadnought 

 

- Predator Baal is Heavy Support 

 

- Librarian Dreadnought is HQ 

 

- Mephiston is HQ and IC 

 

- All units have now Furious Charge 

 

No squadrons for Dreads. "Standard" dreads are now Elite, Furiosos and DC dreads too. Librarian dreads are HQ. 

 

1. Vanguard Veterans cannot charge after DS 

2. Only rule is combat squads 

3. As I see in the pictures of the codex there is nothing coming after the terminator kit. Librarian is separate. 

 

Warlord traits are: 

 

1. Warlod gets Rampage 

2. Warlord gets +1 I 

3. One warlord's weapong gets mastercrafted 

4. Warlord gets Adamantium will 

5. Warlord gets Descent of the Angles (Dante's trait) 

6. 12" fearless bubble 

 

What options do tactical squads have? As usual, or only the options that come in the new tactical squad kit (e.g. only heavy flamer or heavy bolter for heavy weapons)? 

 

As usual + new options. They can get anti-air missiles BTW. And no more LR as dedicated transports for everybody, just for termies. 

 

 

 

Physic powers are: 

 

Primaris: Blessing. +D3 to A and I to psyker or target character at 12" 

1. Malediction. Target unit at 12" takes a Moral test with -2 

2. Blessing. Target unit at 18" gets Rage. If they had already that rule, they get +1A instead 

3. Blessing. Psyker and his unit get 5++ 

4. Focussed witch fire. Target makes 2 T tests. Take one W for each failed test. If targed dies, place 5" blast with S4 and AP5. 

5. Beam.12" S8, AP1 Lance 

6"Blessing. Targe infantry unit, moves 12" in the psychic phase. No charging after this movement. 

 

Fast vehicles are: 

Rhinos, Razorbacks and Baal Predators 

 

Special rules for DC: FC, Fearless, Relentless, FnP, Rage. They cannot reroll to wound if chaplain in the unit. Only Astorath gives them this ability. 

 

Detachment is nice: 

Mandatory 1 HQ, 1 Elite, 2 Troops 

Optional: as usual, but 3 additioanl Elite (Total 4) 

Special rule: +1I when charging, all the army, any turn. 

 

 

 

 

Mephiston has chaged a lot: 

WS BS S T W I A L A 

6 5 5 5 3 5 4 10 2+ 

Warlord trait: Adamantium will 

Lvl 3 

Special rules: FC, IC, Fleet, No Fear, Hypnotic Trance: Roll 2D6 if fighting in a challenge: If result is the L of the opponent or more, Mephiston hits on 2+. 

Has one unique power: Blessing, he gets S10. 

 

His sword is AP3 

 

Cost: 175 !!!!! (That's goooooood) 

 

Sanguinor pretty the same but: gets only 4++, re-rolls to hit and wound in challenges 

 

Sanguinary Priests are HQ, 60 points and units he joins get +1WS and FnP. The are IC btw.

[Valerian]

 

 

 

Dantes Axe is +2S, AP2, mastercraft and NOT unwieldy. BTW he is now eternal warrior 

 

 

Huzzah!

[TheHarrower]

Looks like he got it from Warseer. The thread is here: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?402599-Blood-Angels-vs-Tyranids-Seige-of-Baal-Box-Set/page21

[Praefectus Invictus]

What about the ASM?

[Defender of the Faith]

 

What are the troop choices ? 

 

Only troop choices are Tactical squads and scouts. 

 

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

 

I really hope that they didn't drop the Assault squads as a troop choice :(

[ElectricPaladin]

 

A reader of my blog just emailed this to me. Not sure where he got him from. 

 

No terminator armour for DC. But there are good news, Jump packs are now only +3 points. On the other hand their WS has been downgraded to 4. 

 

 

What are the troop choices ? 

 

Only troop choices are Tactical squads and scouts. 

 

 

New units, centurions, storm talons etc? 

 

No new units. No Centurions and no talons. 

 

Dantes Axe is +2S, AP2, mastercraft and NOT unwieldy. BTW he is now eternal warrior 

 

Chalice gives +1WS 

 

Some changes are: 

 

- Death Company is now elite as DC dreadnought 

 

- Predator Baal is Heavy Support 

 

- Librarian Dreadnought is HQ 

 

- Mephiston is HQ and IC 

 

- All units have now Furious Charge 

 

No squadrons for Dreads. "Standard" dreads are now Elite, Furiosos and DC dreads too. Librarian dreads are HQ. 

 

1. Vanguard Veterans cannot charge after DS 

2. Only rule is combat squads 

3. As I see in the pictures of the codex there is nothing coming after the terminator kit. Librarian is separate. 

 

Warlord traits are: 

 

1. Warlod gets Rampage 

2. Warlord gets +1 I 

3. One warlord's weapong gets mastercrafted 

4. Warlord gets Adamantium will 

5. Warlord gets Descent of the Angles (Dante's trait) 

6. 12" fearless bubble 

 

What options do tactical squads have? As usual, or only the options that come in the new tactical squad kit (e.g. only heavy flamer or heavy bolter for heavy weapons)? 

 

As usual + new options. They can get anti-air missiles BTW. And no more LR as dedicated transports for everybody, just for termies. 

 

 

 

Physic powers are: 

 

Primaris: Blessing. +D3 to A and I to psyker or target character at 12" 

1. Malediction. Target unit at 12" takes a Moral test with -2 

2. Blessing. Target unit at 18" gets Rage. If they had already that rule, they get +1A instead 

3. Blessing. Psyker and his unit get 5++ 

4. Focussed witch fire. Target makes 2 T tests. Take one W for each failed test. If targed dies, place 5" blast with S4 and AP5. 

5. Beam.12" S8, AP1 Lance 

6"Blessing. Targe infantry unit, moves 12" in the psychic phase. No charging after this movement. 

 

Fast vehicles are: 

Rhinos, Razorbacks and Baal Predators 

 

Special rules for DC: FC, Fearless, Relentless, FnP, Rage. They cannot reroll to wound if chaplain in the unit. Only Astorath gives them this ability. 

 

Detachment is nice: 

Mandatory 1 HQ, 1 Elite, 2 Troops 

Optional: as usual, but 3 additioanl Elite (Total 4) 

Special rule: +1I when charging, all the army, any turn. 

 

 

 

 

Mephiston has chaged a lot: 

WS BS S T W I A L A 

6 5 5 5 3 5 4 10 2+ 

Warlord trait: Adamantium will 

Lvl 3 

Special rules: FC, IC, Fleet, No Fear, Hypnotic Trance: Roll 2D6 if fighting in a challenge: If result is the L of the opponent or more, Mephiston hits on 2+. 

Has one unique power: Blessing, he gets S10. 

 

His sword is AP3 

 

Cost: 175 !!!!! (That's goooooood) 

 

Sanguinor pretty the same but: gets only 4++, re-rolls to hit and wound in challenges 

 

Sanguinary Priests are HQ, 60 points and units he joins get +1WS and FnP. The are IC btw.

 

 

As I wrote before. Hot and cold running damn!

 

Let me bullet out my opinions...

• Cheap jump packs on death company are great!
• I think we all thought that moving assault squads out of Troops was pretty likely. I'm not in too much pain.
• Lack of storm talons or a new flyer makes me sad. Oh well. Luckily the storm raven is fine. It's not GW's fault that I'm sick of having only one option.
• Dante without Unwieldy is pretty good. I'm pleased.
• I wonder what your reader meant by "chalice gives +1 WS?" I assume he is referring to what you wrote below, about the sanguinary priests granting +1 WS to their squad. That's nice! That said, moving priests to HQ and out of Elite entirely hurts bad... especially since I have a ton of priests! Way more than I'm going to need, and I'm one of those guys who doesn't bother to magnetize. Oh, well. I'll keep the metal ones and strip and rip apart the plastic ones. I can use the bits to make terminator and/or bike priests (assuming they are still an option...). I'm also sad to have lost the priest bubble... but honestly, that was kind of too good.
• Death company to Elite makes me sad... but...
• Baal Predator to Heavy makes me happy! Especially since assault squads will live in Fast...
• Librarian Dreadnought HQs sound amazeballs. I can't wait.
• Mephiston with IC is perfect, and the rest of his stats sound amazing. I can't wait to convert up a version for my own army!
• Army-wide Furious Charge is nice. It makes up for the priest bubbles going away.
• Warlord traits look good.
• I'm happy to have flack missiles for games where I don't want to bring a storm raven.
• Psychic powers look good. No huge surprises, but it'll be nice to have so many useful powers in a single discipline so I can get the focus benefit and spam Quickening on all my characters during challenges.
• Sad to lose reroll wounds on death company, but that's not too big a deal.
• The new detachment is amazing. It'll be sad to not have objective secured on anything, but +1S on the charge sounds great. It's a return of the old Furious Charge! Praise the Emperor!
• Sanguinor sounds great! I suppose if anyone was going to not get IC status, it would be him, being a weird psychic manifestation/ancient Space Marine/Warp ghost/whatever. And an ability to be amazeballs in challenges will help keep him alive if you can get him into combat.

 

Overall, it looks like an improvement. Weirdly enough, it seems like the new Blood Angels will be both more and less "red marines." We lost a lot of what made us unique, but on the other hand, I think that these benefits will help us to win close combats that we have been losing since the start of 5th.

 

Of course... this is pretty salty stuff. Still, we're at that point where lackadaisical sellers in other countries are accidentally shipping out books early, so it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility.

 

For my part, if this is accurate, I will mourn what we have lost and celebrate what we have gained. I think, overall, it's a win, but only time will tell.

[d@n]

Why are all the arine codices getting toned down? Well that's how it seems anyway

[SnorriSnorrison]

I'm a bit worried that these rumoured changes make assault marines weird to play, as well as Assault Veterans. What's the point of taking the former when you're getting a beefed up version of that unit with the latter? I don't know man...this seems odd. No other rules for our VAS makes them redundant when you have DC or SG - especially at those prices.

Baals HS I can see, but to justify that, they've probably lost Scout?

DC are elites? Because I think in Deathstorm they're depictured as being troops.

What's that detachment anyway? Does it mean I have to ally in another BA army into my existing one to get +1 initiative on the charge? I'm confused.

I hope priests will stay elites. Having one for HQ would hurt, hurt me so badly. So instead of granting FnP to my squads independently I'll have to take 2 HQs for that? Come on!

Also, I don't believe we lost all the other fast vehicles except for rhinos, rb and Baals. The engines were described to be put on the rhino chassis, and that's, like, every bloody tank in our army except for the LRs.

Meph no wings...well, at least he's very cheap right now. I do wonder, however, why there's no mention of the Relics of Baal.

These rumours....I don't know. I hope the ones that sound crappy turn out to be false. But then, I knew that hope was the first step on the road to disappointment.

Snorri

[TheHarrower]

Hmm... I don't know what to think about all this. Juggling around all of the FOC stuff is just weird and really messes with what I have. Really hard to wrap my head around this until I see the Codex myself. Not thrilled with what I see so far, but I'm not going to cry that the sky is falling or anything. 

[Angelus Mortifer]

Interesting.... almost, toooo interesting :P

 

Over the last few days I was fearing I would have to do up another Tac Squad (only have one currently and 5 Scouts), but I guess if you provide a cool looking BA Tac kit on release then you also have to shift them off the shelves. No real biggie, it just screws up my painting schedule a little.

 

As for everything else (assuming this is genuine) I think overall it's still more of a positive than negative. I don't think we have lost as much as at first it seems, it's just that some of our previous boons are now localised to units rather than bubbles or army wide (Astorath now granting re-roll Wounds for DC as an example) and I'm generally ok with that. It was to be expected given the general toning down across 40k anyway, but GW could have outright removed stuff completely, which would have been worse and flavourless.

 

Also, I think it makes us think about are armies more and how they play - more thinking man's scalpel and synergy, rather than pixie dust that applies to everything. It also encourages list variation, and on face value it seems like we have a pretty varied series of choices. We also have things that are actually playable again because of points decreases and some FOC swaps, which is welcome.

 

That formation sounds delicious and it makes me wonder whether GW do indeed listen to their customers, even if we don't know it: Dante's Eternal Warrior, striking at I, Formation granting an I bump for assaults across the board, cheaper DC with Jump Packs, cheaper Mephy, useful Sanguinor etc - all the things we have often repeated that we needed.

 

So far I'm digging this, assuming it's not someone's idea of a pre-release joke. Would like to know about Frag Cannons next :)

[Morticon]

YAY INFO BUUUUURST!!!

 

 

NOOOOOOO MEPHYYYYY !!!!