blood angels - are we afraid of them? do we want to recruit?

[Donkalleone]

Arent these formation in the White Dwarf? The one Posted on BellsofSouls Link

[Frater Cornelius]

My bad. I mistook them for the Exterminatus dataslates.

[Skallagoose]

I had a game last night against a Blood Angels player- he was trying out the new codex and I'm just continuing my wolves o' joy.

 

Well i used to rune priests on a 6 man unit of thunder wolves with a wolf lord. I got endurance off with one of the priests. All in all my wolves were roughly 800 pts. At the end of the game they almost single handedly took out the entire Blood Angels army, including the lord of war guy.

 

If you can get the charge off on them- YOU WILL WIN. its like facing a slightly better Marine if you charge them. However, if they charge you it hurts… 

 

Should you be scared of them? no- but they move fast and hit hard. They will do great this edition once people get a little used to them. 

[Donkalleone]

Just saw a mean mean build for the Lib Dread. The Primaris Power is Quickening giving it Fleet +3 Attack and Inaitive @ WS 1. This is a 8 xStr 10 AP2 Charge Dread which hits @ I7. Evil and relativly easy to pull off.

Pulling that off with a Formation Combo which means Charging Round 1 could deliver  a dead MC Round 1.

 

EDIT:  Pulling off  the Rage Power (WS1) it could get 9 Attacks.

[d@n]

Dc maybe cant go toe to toe with thunder wolves but they will rip through grey hunters long fangs ect and they have grav bikers for thunder wolves. Tons of flamers in tac squads, Libby and furious dreads, dc sang guard fast vindicators Storm ravens, grav bikers, being able to stick fnp and ws5 in any unit Dante is a monster and basically having the old furious charge rule. They are to be respected but the wolves have plenty that can deal with them .

[Rune_Priest_Rhapsody]

But we got a proper separate book for just one specific facet of our army. Now with these new book you have to wade through all of the formations and blah just to pick out army specific writing. There's (was) only 2 codices left, but they went ahead and changed things now... Not after the release of the Necrons. I don't even care about the Necrons but if I was a collector of the army, I'd be jealous and angered by the lack of dedicated information in a single book.

 

End of Line

[skeletoro]

not sure grab guns are particularly scary vs thubderwolves. I mean yes they are good but still, only wounding on 3+ and if the thunderwolf has a stormshield it works out to being not too scary. No ID or anything either.

[d@n]

The thing is a 5 man bike squad can put out 9 grav shot for 150 points. Ok it's not going to table a thunder wolf pack but it will hurt, especially as your likely to see multiple Units being taken, 18-27 grav shots on turn one is a lot of 3+ saves to make, even if you manage to spread the wounds around then you have a bunch of concussed TW which isn't such a big deal with the vanilla codex but blood Angels have a lot of very good assault units.

[skeletoro]

that 150 point unit will kill a couple of thunderwolves without shields, IF wounds aren't spread around, on average. And then theyre finished. If there is a shield you're looking at maybe one wound on average. For a nova? If you hit a storm shield, the average result is extremely underwhelming.

[Lord Blackwood]

Ive built / am building a fairly sizeable collection of Blood Angels  and they seem to be a fairly solid army but if you  charge them you will cut their legs out from  under them most of the time. I have been drafting allied lists with them my wolves and my imperial knights and every list  seems to be a  HIT FACE  , HIT FACE!!!!! list and there's nothing wrong with that. I wouldnt say they bring anything to the table that thunderwolves cant solve  granted if you put death company with jump packs an imperial knight and a thunderwolf deathstar on the board , what dose yer opponent shoot first?  Aka what is savagely killing him on turn 2

[Frater Cornelius]

I would never run TWC without a tanky character up front and I have invisibility up more often than not. Bike Grav is of no concern to my TWC.

If you want grav, take it from C:SM. It is much more threatening.

[ORKILL]

I play a numbers game against grav. I mix fenrisian and Cyber Wolves in my Star. An opponent the other day moved in close to my wolf star. He asked what the majority armor save was. I had 4 6+, 4 3+, 3 4+, and 3 2+. So, I told him 6+. He moaned and groaned and challenged me several times. Finally he took his shots wounding twice. I made 2 3++ saves and my opponent's head exploded!

[NightHowler]

This new formation looks like it can arrive T1, and as I read the rules, it looks like it can charge T1 as well.  

 

The rules for homing beacons only work if the beacon was on the table at the start of the turn, but the rules for the formation don't seem to have that restriction.  So as long as all 3 units are within 12" of each other when they arrive, they meet the requirements for the formation rule that lets them charge.

 

Admittedly it's only 3 tac squads, so not that big of a deal for us, but for Tau, Eldar, IG, or anyone else without a 3+ save, this could be really scary.  A T1 charge from reserves is definitely a game changer for the meta, even if we are relatively unphased by it. 

[Frater Cornelius]

 

This new formation looks like it can arrive T1, and as I read the rules, it looks like it can charge T1 as well.  

 

The rules for homing beacons only work if the beacon was on the table at the start of the turn, but the rules for the formation don't seem to have that restriction.  So as long as all 3 units are within 12" of each other when they arrive, they meet the requirements for the formation rule that lets them charge.

 

Admittedly it's only 3 tac squads, so not that big of a deal for us, but for Tau, Eldar, IG, or anyone else without a 3+ save, this could be really scary.  A T1 charge from reserves is definitely a game changer for the meta, even if we are relatively unphased by it. 

 

 

Am I the only one who sees this formation as complete garbage in 1500 to 1850 games? Everyone is going nuts about it like it is the best thing since sliced heretics or whatever.

This Formation will only be good around 2.5k and upwards. Below that it is garbage.

 

Explanation:

Three SR T1 sound like a big deal, until you realize that an SR usually just has TLAsC or TLLC and TLMM. What are they going to do that a drop pod with combi-weapons or even tacs can't do? Eldar and Tau will laugh at it. Necrons might have a bit more trouble, but they can easily win air superiority back. Against SM, they are going to kill around 2 Marines per Raven. The only factions threatened by this are Imperial Mech factions, like Mech IG and Mech SM.

 

The tacs inside are alright, but they either will get out T2 and thus you miss an awful lot of field presence T1 or they jump out of Raven T1, in which case the assault from reserve thing is moot.

 

The assault thing itself is a bit sketchy either. What are you going to assault with? The formation costs 1020 point base bones. This means Tacs only have Bolters and SR has no upgrades. To get another detachment you need to pay for HQ and Troops tax. Alternatively, they use Archangel detachment, in which case the Tax is 1 HQ (which must be a Terminator that can only deep strike T2, since Archangels have no FA slots available) and two Elites.

You have no points left to buy units with which to assault.

 

Even if you get a few assaulty units. To effectively assault T1 you need to move 36" with the Ravens and deep strike pods within 12" of two Ravens (according to wording. I expect an FAQ on this). This means that the Ravens either need to leave the field on T2 or go into hover mode, which will spell their doom.

Also, the positioning it very restrictive. All you need to do is split your force up and he will have to choose, which way to go. If you are playing an SM faction, you have access to pods, meaning you can just deep strike on objectives across the field or into his deployment zone. If you go second, you can mess him up completely.

 

Lastly, is the field presence. You can easily out-cap this list. All his points will be spend on Ravens or assaulty units. All you need to do is outmaneuver him and you are good. He will either split up and abandon this formation or he will lose.

 

I am sorry, there are simply too many points and hazards involved to make this one work. You get equal, if not better results if you drop pod the enemy T1 and follow up assault T2 with TWC or whatever your preferred choppy unit is.

 

Verdict: Too many points sunk into a gimmick. Only useful in apoc games. It will have no impact on the competitive scene.

[NightHowler]

I don't think the formation is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it is a formation that lets you assault T1.  Because stormravens can deepstrike, this formation, plus any thing that deepstikes in the middle of this formation, can assault T1.  

 

I don't think anyone will wreck face with this formation, but it is nice to have the option to threaten a T1 assault.  It applies pressure to your opponent during deployment by forcing them to prepare for that possibility.

 

Plus, I'm sure people are already coming up with combos at 1850.  For example, this formation barebones pluse one of their assault dreads in a pod or some similar nonsense.

 

It's not Adamantine Lance big, but it's pretty big.

[TopToffee]

I'm really tempted (for friendly games, obviously) to take a squad of DC as allies and model them as Wulfen (a use for my old metal Wulfen models!)

[Rift Blade]

So, just to clarify, this formation the BA have specifically states that a unit from that formation can assault off the deep strike?. I'm curious 'cause if anyone got that ability I would have expected it to be Nids.

[Frater Cornelius]

Codex BA units that deep strike within 12" or two Ravens can assault the same turn.

[NightHowler]

So I was wrong earlier when I said that it lets you assault T1.  I was under the misguided impression that Stormravens could still deepstrike.  

 

If they could then you could assault T1, but they don't.  

 

Since they don't deepstrike, the way that the formation works is your formation of 3 stormravens and 3 tactical squads can all come on together, they can reroll reserves rolls, they can start rolling their reserves roll T1, and each sergeant has a teleport homer.  Any other blood angels unit that arrives by deepstrike within 12" of at least two of the teleport homers arrive without scattering and can assault the turn that they arrive from deepstrike.

[skeletoro]

it is amazing depending on size of game. So I agree immersturm. At 1500-2k you are hard pressed to capitalize on it. At 2.5-3k, alongside a Baal detachment, I think it would be very strong. But yeah that is a big caveat (I already said that too)

[Rune_Priest_Rhapsody]

Does it have to be 2 ravens, or is it just 2 beacons?? If it's the later, jst give 2 TDA units the LB and deepstrike the :cuss out of someones face!!

From a casual viewpoint, I think the formation is killer. It's INCREDIBLY fluffy and thematic for the Blood Angels and harkens back to the old Heroic Intervention ability the VV had. I won't be playing it myself, mostly because I don't have the codex yet and don't know the restrictions of it.

If I have the models already, I will play it at 1500 all. day. long.

 

End of Line

[Frater Cornelius]

Does it have to be 2 ravens, or is it just 2 beacons?? If it's the later, jst give 2 TDA units the LB and deepstrike the out of someones face!!

From a casual viewpoint, I think the formation is killer. It's INCREDIBLY fluffy and thematic for the Blood Angels and harkens back to the old Heroic Intervention ability the VV had. I won't be playing it myself, mostly because I don't have the codex yet and don't know the restrictions of it.

If I have the models already, I will play it at 1500 all. day. long.

End of Line

The exact wording is that the unit must arrive within 12" of two units carrying a beacon to charge first turn. Technically, you could disembark from Ravens with tacs and still benefit from it.

Tacs also must start in the Ravens and are not allowed to purchase other dedicated transports.

[Ishagu]

You're all savages compared to the purity of the Sons of Guilliman :-P

[Baulder]

 

You're all savages compared to the purity of the Sons of Guilliman :-P

 

challenge accepted!

[Z00Z]

You're all savages compared to the purity of the Sons of Guilliman :-P

 

You make it sound like its a bad thing :P