The NEW "What will 2014 Bring?" thread

[Jorre]

So much info to absorb....

 

So many mixed thoughts. My initial thoughts are positive! I am extremely disappointed about Loosing assault marines as troops especially owning so many of them. If I can still make reasonably priced meltas assassin squads in drop pods I'll be happy enough. Although I have a jump pack assault squad half painted that will probably never get finished now.

 

Blood Angels are going to play different now. That's all there is to it. Adapt or die! Crying will change nothing!

[Drunken Angel]

I am happy with the preliminary information.  Okay Meph is not what he was but I am not surprised.  We appear to lose Chaplains, waiting on that TBC.

The army wide furious charge combined with the formation that grants I5 sounds great.  Natively I5, S5 marines with jump packs ?

This is what BA are in fluff, just that bit faster and harder hitting than any other PA codex.

No obsec assault marines is irritating but only slightly for less than 450 pts I can take 10 DC one fist and 2 libbies all with jump packs, that should give the unit a good chance of getting Telepathy/Invisibility and Divination/Prescience. 

 

With cheap enough jump pack units S5/I5 and a good chance of invisibility, assault units are a strong option now.

Objective secured is nice but not essential if you are in late game and your opponents obsec units are still abundant then your probably losing anyway.

Sanguinary guard look to be fixed as they will get I5 too now and furious charge, at about the same cost as a squad of vanilla marines. 

[ChapelXIII]

I use what I own because I don't generally have a lot of extra income to throw at the game which means that my fast attack slots are going to be a bit full and my works in progress will have to be finding more tacticals to paint for my games.

I am not so doom and gloom about the rumors though. I started in third edition and so I see this as a getting back to our roots as an army. Retooling and rethinking our strategies is another hurdle but true Blood Angels will relish the challenge.

I will miss all my jumpers on the field though. Loved seeing them fly up the field and crush my enemies, but times gotta change and so must we.

[Jolemai]

/unimpressed.,

[Jorre]

Loving the idea of repositioning after deepstrike with wings. Means you can deep strike from further away (less risk) then reposition out of the certain death blob and easily line up close range meltas shots. In fact that combo sounds even better than DOA the more I think about it.

 

12 inch move after a deep strike is a phenomenal tactical tool!

[knife&fork]

deep strike in, unleash blood lance, relocate 12", run or fire again at different target

 

next turn charge

 

Which also works with a Lib Dread.

[Drunken Angel]

I hope Snorri gets his artificer armour captain, he has only been waiting for like forever.  Really the sky is not falling I have seen enough that I know some assault units are very potent with cheaper psykers and troops.  BA are in a good position to roll out some very powerful options.  Having access to potent shooting and mobility with good psychic powers is very competitive and makes BA a viable army.  Sure its too early to be certain but only getting obsec pulled from troops is hardly a big deal.  

The other options are very strong.

[knife&fork]

A lot depends on who can take what, and the pricing on some of our options. 

 

Who can take grav?

Did fragcannons also get nerfed? (probably)

Can we get enough warp charge?

Furioso and Lib dreads still AV13? 

Is Dante fairly priced?

Command squad options?

Assault squad options?

 

From what we've seen so far I have a feeling new BA is going to play a lot like 5th ed BA. 

[simison]

*rises from the coffin* Bah! Nothing for a couple of days, then all of the rumors hit after I hit the hay. 

 

Still, woah, lots of new, tasty information. Overall, I'm liking what I'm seeing. 

 

Negatives -

1. This first one is more preference, but I like my Warlord traits affecting the army as a whole and not just giving extra buffs to the commander. But, for what they give, they're decent traits.

2. Lost of fast for half of our vehicles. Like some here, I've greatly enjoyed fast Vindicators and am curious if there will be an option to give them that upgrade or if the list is set at what it is. 

3. The debuff to Mephiston & the Vanguard Vets was disappointing but not unexpected. I'm more confused why the Sanguinor's invul save went down a notch. I have him and would like to field him more often, but this isn't helping.

4. Loss of troop choices, though the optional FOC might outright mitigate this one.

5. No stormtalon. 

 

 

Positive-

1. Relics! I can't wait to read the fluff, and at the prices and abilities I'm seeing, all of them are worth trying out. 

2. Dante at Initiative and Eternal Warrior? Awesome! 

3. All those excellent price drops. 

4. I don't mind the Sanguinary Priest moving over to the HQ slot because now I can have my High Priest idea and have them lead a couple of my companies. And that is a really cheap HQ choice, which works well if you need those points elsewhere in the list, while still giving you a decent unit buffer.

5. +1 Initiative everywhere for that FOC? Yes, please.

 

 

Now, that we have an alternate FOC, I'm curious. If you have enough points, can you deploy a CAD & this new Baal Strike Force detachment in the same list?

[Red-beard]

I must say, I'm totally IMPRESSED with this new codex release. 

 

 

1) Mephiston...  reasonably costed level 3 psyker that has independent character. Having him embedded in a squad is going to make him so much better. And he's affordable!

2) TWO Lords of War? (seem to remember someone calling that one yesterday =p.) 

3) Dante....Oh man....eternal warrior....S6 AP2 at initiative!?!?! wow....just wow. I hope he keeps his high initiative and independent character status. Can't wait to see what they did to Seth. 

4) Tac marine squads with two heavy flamers and a sergeant who can flamer. Awesome sauce. 

5) DC are WS4. Big deal....priests can make any unit in the codex into WS5? Whoa.....WS5 assault terminators....WS5 assault marines....WS5 sanguinary guard....and yes, WS5 DC. Even tac marines can be WS5. 

6) The whole army gains +1s on the charge. S5 attacks across the board as a minimum, when charging. 

7) The formation gives +1 initiative when charging....that is huge. Means we're attacking before any army not named Eldar/DE.

8) Corbulo gives +1WS/+1init....add that to the initiative from the formation and anyone around Corbulo is attacking at init 6, S5, WS5 when charging. Screw Eldar and DE, BA assault units is where it's at. 

9) Psychic powers are good. The primaris is really good for Meph.....level 3 psyker with WS6, A7, I8, S10, AP3 attacks anyone? Yes please. 

 

 

I don't care that we're not getting a storm talon (my SM army has two and they both collect dust). I don't care about assault marines not being troops. If you want more assault marines, go double-CAD. With all these army buffs, regular tac marines are good and I WANT them in my lists.  The only thing missing that is a negative for me is Reclusiachs joining DC to give them a re-roll on wounds. But it sounds like Astorath can do that now....I may actually need to field that beautiful model now. 

 

Damned you GW for giving us this great codex....a codex that is going to require me to purchase two boxes of tac marines for every one squad I equip with double heavy flamers! Tricksy....tricksy GW hobbitses....stealing my precious cash...

 

If these leaks are true, this codex is all about ASSAULT...and that's a beautiful thing. 

[ElectricPaladin]

Ok, so, the one thing I'll give you is that this new detachment? It's going to make things complicated.

 

I looked at the most comparable thing I have around - the 'Nids Hive Fleet Detachment - and compared it with the two standard Detachments - Combined Arms and Allied - in the corebook. Assuming that it's similar, here is what I can tell you:

 

Combined Arms Detachment

1. Grants Objective Secured to Troops
2. Allows the Warlord to reroll on the Warlord Traits table.

Allied Detachment

1. CANNOT contain your Warlord.
2. CANNOT be the same faction as the other Detachment to which it is attached (NOTE: This is important because outside of this limitation you can field as many Detachments as you want, from any book that you want, as long as you have the points for it all).
3. Grants Objective Secured to Troops

Hive Fleet Detachment

1. Warlord must roll for its trait from a special table.
2. Re-roll on the Instinctive Behavior table.
3. Warlord may reroll on the Warlord Traits table.

 

I am now about to speculate...

 

The pattern I see is that all Detachments (except Allied, which can't contain your Warlord) grant Ideal Mission Commander. This seems to be a special trait specific to having a Detachment (whereas Unbound armies don't get this benefit). Special (ie. non-CAD) Detachments also grant an additional special power, which is not Objective Secured - this ability seems to be the province of CAD and AD alone.

 

I suspect that the special Blood Angels Detachment will look like this:

1. No new Warlord Traits (because I doubt they'll print two Warlord charts in the same book), but...
2. It will grant Ideal Mission Commander (reroll on the Warlord Traits table). It may also require you to roll on the Blood Angels table (no rolling on the corebook tables).
3. Organized so as to grant more Elites than the CAD.
4. +1 I on the charge (as we've seen).

 

It will not grant Objective Secured.

 

What I am prepared to grant will be kind of annoying is that in this Detachment, Troops are truly a tax. There's no particular benefit to taking them except that they are required  to unlock the benefits contained herein.

 

That said, I'm not sure this is entirely disastrous. I can see a lot of ways around this. What about two squads of scouts, both of them up to 10 man (to give them a chance to survive). One with sniper rifles and camo cloaks to infiltrate and provide fire support, the other with bolters to ride in a gunship-Stormraven, ready to hop out and contest an objective held by an opponent's non-Objective Secured unit. Then you can fill the rest of your list with Ball predators, sanguinary guard, death company, bikers, assault marines - whatever floats your boat.

 

Or, alternately, tac squads really aren't all that bad, especially with a flamer, a heavy flamer, and a teleport homer on the sergeant. I could easily see a place for at least one of them in a list, with the intention of driving it up my opponent's nose - safely bubble wrapped in their rhino - and using the teleport homer to bring in a terminator squad and the rhino to screen the terminators for that key "stuck standing around in the open" turn.

 

All in all, what we've seen so far seems to open up some very interesting possibilities.

 

A final point.

 

I started another thread a while back that I called "Are We Chaos?" in which we discussed the possibility that there is a fundamental disconnect between what we wish our army was and what GW actually wants our army to be. In this thread, we discussed the possibility that GW does not want the Blood Angels to be an assault army.

 

It turns out that we were right... and wrong.

 

GW does, in fact, want the Blood Angels to be competent at assault. I wouldn't call the new codex an assault codex, but it looks to me like it could be a very effective combined arms approach, bringing a mix of tanks, mechanized infantry, shooting, assault, and jump infantry, with a focus on speed and tactical aggression. What GW don't actually want us to be is the all jump packs all the time army.

 

But that doesn't mean that jump packs are gone from the Blood Angels repertoire.

 

We can still bring assault marines. We can still bring other jump infantry units. With the possibility of grav pistols on our assault sergeants (or grave guns on a nearby unit), +1 I and +1 S, (relatively) inexpensive ICs who grant +1 WS, and retaining chaplains as an Elites choice - not to mention the fact that sanguinary guard just got better and death company, while perhaps taking a moderate nerf, also got cheaper - I definitely see a place for jump packs in our armories.

 

The sky isn't falling. Perhaps our Blood Angels will spend a little less time falling out of the sky, but that doesn't mean that it's all over. Change can be good. We can grow from stunted little dwarves with an ancient malfunctioning codex to a beautiful and ass-kicking army. Have faith.

[Gaweda]

I love that I can't decide what HQ to take as it stands right now. It has been a Reclusiarch this entire time, with sometimes Mephiston for fun. But I've never played a game without my Libby Dread, and I am SO happy that he can become my warlord now. So there is slot one. But who next? Mephiston looks to be more fun than I have previously found him because he can be in a squad. Astorath, man I've loved his model for a long time but haven't seen a point in taking him. But now that he fulfills the Reclusiarch role, and I adore the Death Company, it makes me want to use him! Sanguinary Priests, they sound like a great buff HQ.

 

And then I want to fit Dante in somewhere. Because now he's AWESOME.

 

Ugh....choice choices. Can't wait to get my hands on the codex!!!

[Red-beard]

Formations are the new thing. All the new codexes, campaigns, and supplements have them. They all give different benefits. The formation in the BRB gives OS. Other formations give other things. For example, Tyranids have like 20 different formation options due to all the supplements that have been put out. BA got a formation in the Deathstorm box set as well, it gives the units in the formation fearless. 

 

Not having OS isn't a problem, it's just the way things are with all the formations. Every formation is different in its benefits. 

 

I don't see troops as a tax. All mainstay codex formations require troops (although some supplement formations do not). BA troops are very good units, particularly tac marines w/ heavy flamers =p. 

[grouchyoldsailor]

Meph is still the biggest hit I can't get over. He is useless outside if his ML3, he can longer hang with the big nasties in the Grim Dark, he was always kind of reliant on physic powers but the new stats don't match the combat beast he has always been. This guy could go toe to toe with Khârn and Abaddon for every edition on stats alone. Sure an Iron Arm Meph is still the Incredible Hulk on crackroids but the 3W no inv really takes away his bite, he went from 30 Days of Night space vampire to Twilight sparkly sissy boy vampire and that makes me sad. Dante can be our new super awesome beat stick, so it's a trade off i guess. The formation with +1I doesn't stack with the grails, at least Corbs version says so, but still S5 I5 marines will be nuts. Dante Meph and Corbs will be in my first list, just for the hell of it.

[girot]

I'm gonna need about a dozen of those Heavy Flamers...

[Red-beard]

I'm gonna need about a dozen of those Heavy Flamers...

Yeah, they've got us by the balls on that one. They write it in the rules that each tac squad can take two, then only put one in the tac squad box. Brilliant. Everyone has to purchase 2x the number of tac squads they really need. '

Fortunately I have a couple boxes of stern guard bits that have heavy flamers in them .

[Praefectus Invictus]

*News Flash: Bitz sellers around the world sold out of heavy flamers.*

*This just in: no heavy flamers left in the world!*

*dun dun dddddduuuuuunnnnnn!*

 

I wonder what would happen if that happened? lol

[ElectricPaladin]

I thought it was still one special, one heavy on the tac squads. So you could go a normal flamer and a heavy, but not two heavies. Or we going "full Sororitas" here?

 

*News Flash: Bitz sellers around the world sold out of heavy flamers.*

*This just in: no heavy flamers left in the world!*

*dun dun dddddduuuuuunnnnnn!*

 

I wonder what would happen if that happened? lol

 

Best post.

 

Not to mention that the sternguard kit comes with a heavy flamer, and that's been available on eBay for months now.

[Red-beard]

The rumor/leak I saw said two heavy flamers per 10-man squad.

[ElectricPaladin]

The rumor/leak I saw said two heavy flamers per 10-man squad.

 

Well. That would be something else. I'd also want the option of kitting my squads in that manner. But I doubt it, to be honest. It doesn't seem quite right. The general tone of the new 'dex has been moving the Blood Angels back towards codex compliance, and one special/one heavy is pretty classic.

[Gaweda]

Why have I only just noticed there is BA bling on the meltagun on one of the pics in the tac squad.

 

Muh......muh meltaguns have BA bling! Muh muh muh melta!!!!

[Jorre]

I'm pretty sure someone got confused with sterguard being able to take 2 heavy flamers. Normal tacticals are just 1 heavy 1 special. If I'm wrong I'll be extremely happy.

[grouchyoldsailor]

I wouldn't mind two specials, a la chaos. Zip up and two grav or two plasma someone's face off.

[Zynk Kaladin]

Hello, my name is Zynk and I'm a plastiholic. *hugs Sanguinius plushie*

 

 

Although I'm disappointed my jump pack assault marines are potentially getting the shelf(EMPEROR GOSH-DARN FETH), I'm fairly excited about these new rules.  It looks like a lot of units will synergies really well with each other birthing very cool strategies and tactical plays.  That 12" move in the psychic phase is going to be hilarious.

 

Looks like my DIY Dante-equivalent model shall finally get the love he deserves.

[Red-beard]

I'm pretty sure someone got confused with sterguard being able to take 2 heavy flamers. Normal tacticals are just 1 heavy 1 special. If I'm wrong I'll be extremely happy.

 

 

Ah, well that would save me some cash...won't need to buy as many tac boxes=p.