Can Blood Angels still compete?

[Spagunk]

I think people generally want all our units to be effective. We unfortunately suffer from "Last edition" syndrome so we lost out with that. We actually were fairly balanced vs 5/6th edition marines but that's how things go.

 

Be that as it may, how many people can claim to be able to run around with an initiative 7 unit with 5 str +3 attacks on the charge, 2+/4++ and hit and run? Not many. We can also push I6 for our HQ priest and more than I6 with a good quickening roll on our libbies. There is also some promise in the new set of SM librarian powers but I haven't played with them yet.

 

I think, with DC, Priests,Libbies and our special characters, we definitely have some useful units. But not everything is terribly useful since other marines can do things better.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

If we're specifically talking about the weaknesses of our codex here's what I've noticed. Since 5th edition we HAVE to win the assault, but to do that we have to make it into assault. What I, and many others, feel is that we are an assault based army but lack any real ways to get into assault. I feel like our codex has to be treated as a tiered army right now, having  close, middle, & long-range threats.
We lack a lot of reliable ranged threats, however as well as AA, and if we lose/tie combat we become vanilla marines but worse. We also lack much reliable grav-support.

This is one of the main reasons I've been paying extra points for power swords on sergeants especially on assault based ones, If you're assaulting an IC based unit without your own challenger to take the brunt of that threat you're doing it wrong. It is so crucial that we win the charge and combat. Our Heavy slot is over saturated and its hard to choose between devastators/vindicators/storm ravens/etc. but you want to stay mobile, because that's the main strength of this army, fast mobile tanks that can stretch the table and still fire multiple weapons, while also having a somewhat resilient alpha and beta threat to draw fire away from the tanks while still being able to contest the midfield with grav-bikers or razorbacks teamed with a few splashed in land speeders and fast vindicators to put the boom to the opponent. 

I've basically begun to force my opponents target priorities by putting two types of immediate threats on them. 1) with drop pods, and 2) with reliable ranged S8-9 while still being mobile and claim objectives. putting a Knight just becomes a much larger bullet magnet for all your other units to work in unison to take our priority targets, while ignoring the things you know you can't afford to waste shots on until it needs to be addressed.

These are just personal practices that I've started incorporating into my army and I've had a load of success against other "better" MEQs as well as Eldar. I still have a super hard time against Tau as they intercept EVERYTHING! So I have to be much more careful with them. Necrons don't give me much pause as I've faced them so frequently I usually have a good match up against them. I do hope some of this has helped though.
 

[Indefragable]

Instead of Comparing Blood Angels to Dark Angels, that possess two very different style of warfare, i prefer compare what is comparable. So i compare prefer compare Blood Angels with White Scars, the two being Assault Forces. So lets start with what the White Scars force possess.

 

White Scars benefits (Chapters Tactics + Detachments benefits) :

 

- Hit and Run + Reroll on dice for Run

- Skilled Rider (+1 to jink and ignore difficult terrain test) + +1 Strenght for Hammer of Wrath Attacks

 

- Reroll Failed Initiative Test for Hit and Run

- Bike move +1D6 and Speeders Flat Out +1D6. Fast Vehicle and Flyers move +2D6

- Units gains Hammer of Wrath if their Charge Roll >/=8

 

Those are fitting advantage for an Assault Army, one that will be hard to rival.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Blood Angels Benefits :

 

- Furious Charge

 

- +1 Initiative on Charge (BA Detachment)

- Rage if Charge Roll >/=10 (FT Detachment)

 

Currently, Blood Angels Advantage is near to nothing compared with the White Scars one (Plus, note that Bike provide +1 Toughness).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Now, My opinion to what BA should look like, to rival the White Scars :

 

- Furious Charge + Fleet

- Jump pack units, ignore difficult terrain test (+/or) Scatter 1D6 less when DeepStrike

- +1 Initiative on Charge

 

- Rhino, Razorback, Land Speeders, and Baal Predator have the Skilled Rider Special rule, or at least, ignore difficult terrain. (Blood Angels mastery of their Fast Vehicles)

- Units gains Rage if their Charge Roll >/=8

 

This way, it would seem reasonable, while not copy/paste WS or RG chapter tactics.

 

This 1000x times.

 

I would add/flesh it out a bit more by saying:

 

-+1 Initiative in the first round of combat as opposed to just on the Charge. This acts as a deterrent as well without aping Counter-Attack from the Wolves.

-Jump Pack troops ignore difficult/dangerous terrain tests and can Charge 3D6". Combined with Fleet, this makes BA the undisputed masters of Jump Pack assault Troops (as they should be). I think the decrease to scatter is more of a benefit of having BA commanders who know how to deploy those types of troops better, while being able to Charge further is sort of a "Born in the Jump Pack Harness" type of inherit Baalite trait.

-Skilled Rider applies to all Rhino-Chassis vehicles and Flyers as well. So BA Flyers get 3+ Jink and can re-roll results on the Vehicle Damage chart and/or the D6 for Crash and Burn.

[Indefragable]

....but back on topic.

 

Yes we have "last codex release" syndrome. Yes we are not as bad off as Chaos Space Marines, Tyranids, etc.... blah blah blah blah.

 

Here is what I would boil the current Good, Bad, and Ugly to as the Blood Angels Faction stands at this moment in time, June 2016:

 

Pros:

-Maneuverability. If there is anything that BA can do more than any other Imperial Faction is Speed. Fast tanks and transports, and Jump Packs all over the place. The only ones that come close are White Scars, but really revolve around a few specific units (Bikes/Speeders)

 

-unique units that harness the inherit capabilities of Space Marines but add a little extra flavoring:

--Fast Rhino-group vehicles

--Assault Marines with better weapons (ours are the only ones that can take Melta and Plasma guns; "free" Jump packs/Pod/Rhinos)

--our "apothecaries" can be attached to whomever/whatever we want

-flying Honor Guard (Sanguinary Guard)

 

--Death Company are the most points-efficient unit in the Codex

 

Cons:

-lack of stackable bonuses via Decurion-style Detachments. This especially hurts when compared to Factions with re-rollable stuff (like Ultramarines Gladius)

 

-Resiliency. Our toughest Characters are not that resilient: Dante and Sanguinor are T4 with a 2+/4++ and Mephiston is T5 without a native invuln. Compare to a vanilla Chapter Master on a bike with a Storm Shield. 

 

-"regular" units pale in comparison to counterparts found elsewhere. Case in point: BA Tacticals, Scouts, Dreads, and so forth are at an inherit disadvantage compared to most other Chapters. Compare a BA Tactical Squad with Furious Charge to a Tactical with Chapter Tactics from nearly any other Chapter (or SW/DA)

 

Ugly:

-With the new Death from the Skies rules, the only organic Skyfire in the entire codex is Devastators with Flakk missiles

 

-Glaive Encarmines are inexplicably horrible: S- AP3 Melee, Two-Handed, Master-Crafted. They should at least be the stats of Relic Blades (they are super-special "angel steel" Relic blades, after all): S+2 AP3 Mele, Two-Handed

 

 

Summary:  IMHO, where BA struggles the most is that we do not have enough across-the-board Special Rules to counter the shootiness of 7th Edition. Our strengths like in speed and aggression: moving quickly into melee. However, without rules like Fleet, ignoring difficult terrain, or more Assault vehicles this becomes particularly hard to pull off.

 

I have found that BA's best chance of winning at this moment, June 2016, is to start with your entire army on the board and overwhelm individual enemy elements as quickly as possible. Get as many Fast Rhinos and Jump Pack units as possible and go for saturation. I.e., if an enemy uses Drop Pods, then use as many elements from your army as needed to kill that Drop Pod and whatever it spills out as quickly as possible. We can not afford to wound enemies...we must eliminate them as quickly as possible.

 

Learn and perfect the arts of Dog Piling and blocking Line of Sight with your Metal Boxes.

 

Channel the lost Primarch Michael Flatley become a Lord of Dance: always be positioning and planning to get the Charge while denying the enemy the same opportunity...be thinking a Turn or two ahead if necessary. 

 

Don't cross-pollinate. Use shooty units to hold enemies in place or absorb their charges. Don't be fooled by universal Furious Charge and try to make Tacticals into melee units. 

 

 

TL; DR: Blitzkrieg.

 

[ThatOneMarshal]

We are one step closer to being somewhat comparable to the regular space marines today. Our dreads (with opponents permission) get 2+ more attacks. It's something I guess.

[Indefragable]

We are one step closer to being somewhat comparable to the regular space marines today. Our dreads (with opponents permission) get 2+ more attacks. It's something I guess.

 

...where does this come from? A FAQ or just opposing players being chill?

 

 

In my gaming group we play 99.9% RAW since the consensus is that if "we" let BA players have Dreadnoughts with 4 base Attacks, then what's to stop Tyranid and Chaos Space Marine and SoB etc.... players from making their own house rules? The system is fair because it's unfair, if that makes sense. 

[The Pyrofessional]

FAQ

[NTaW]

FAQ

 

More specifically it's an officially suggested homebrew rule offered in a FAQ that says we have 2 attacks as per our Codex.

[The Pyrofessional]

 

FAQ

 

More specifically it's an officially suggested homebrew rule offered in a FAQ that says we have 2 attacks as per our Codex.

 

Wonder why is it a suggested home-brew rule

[Lasuria]

 

FAQ

 

More specifically it's an officially suggested homebrew rule offered in a FAQ that says we have 2 attacks as per our Codex.

 

 

I'm playing the devil's advocate here but it's actually a first draft of the soon to be official FAQ, so I guess it might still change no ?

[NTaW]

It may, you are right. Right now it's pretty much a waste of time but it sure could turn into something useful for us if GW wishes.

[ThatOneMarshal]

So I tried to create some lists for fun. I slowly got more and more depressed as I went on however. I added in allies to make up the areas we are weak in but then I realized I ended up spending more points on allies than actual BA.

 

From everyone has said on here it seems that DC are one of our best units. How many does everyone run normally? I tried doing 4 5 man squads and that looks quite decent. After that however I feel like there is simply nothing else that's interesting or worth it. Our HQs are pretty good I guess, as well as Dante.

 

Am I overreacting or this the reality of our situation? Am I overlooking something?

[NTaW]

Maybe post up the lists you're theorizing or units you'd like so we can help point you in the right direction?

 

DC is pretty widely equipped with a power fist per 5 with added power swords to taste/points left over.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

So I tried to create some lists for fun. I slowly got more and more depressed as I went on however. I added in allies to make up the areas we are weak in but then I realized I ended up spending more points on allies than actual BA.

 

From everyone has said on here it seems that DC are one of our best units. How many does everyone run normally? I tried doing 4 5 man squads and that looks quite decent. After that however I feel like there is simply nothing else that's interesting or worth it. Our HQs are pretty good I guess, as well as Dante.

 

Am I overreacting or this the reality of our situation? Am I overlooking something?

It depends on how fluffy you want to be and how you interpret the death company. Narratively 20% of a full company represents a huge surge of the black rage overcoming a decent portion of BAs. Alternatively some believe that the forsaken brothers are locked in cryo-sleep and released upon a battle field or until the redeemer can make his way to give them mercy, some brothers create oathsworn packs to end them if they fall, etc.

 

Mechanically 4-5 MSU squads is fine, although I would be inclined to look at some of our other fun elites like Death Co. Dreads and Furiosos and Fragrioso variants as well, as they have a very big prescence and can do a ton of damage.

[Indefragable]

Those brothers who haunt these BA forums have certainly seen my formula before. The standard disclaimer or "depends on your meta" applies.

 

The MSU:

Death Company x 5

-Jump Packs

-Bolters x 5

-Power Fist x 1

 

The Death Star Inc.

Astorath

Death Company x 15

-Jump Packs

-Power Fist x 4

-Bolters x 4

add Dante and Librarians as well to taste

[The Pyrofessional]

sorry , but what does MSU stand for?

[SlangWhanger]

sorry , but what does MSU stand for?

Minimum sized unit (i believe). So MSU tactics rely on have lots of small units which may be individually fragile, but present many different targets to the enemy. Each normally packs enough punch to cope by itself.

 

I myself prefer large units due to fluff and survivability etc., but MSU tactics can be really effective if used well.

[Charlo]

Slight correction - it is Multiple Small Units.

 

But the idea is the same. If you run lots of small units it makes it harder for your opponent to bring his firepower to bear as he can only ever kill 5 models or whatever.

 

Works on the idea that one squad of 20 Death Company will be shot to high hell, but with 4 squads of 5 a squad or two may make it.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

It also staves off Death Stars. Example your opponent has a 1,000+ point unit on the board, you effectively take that unit out of the game as it goes from killing you big units etc. with multi assaults to killing roughly 100ish points a turn or less.

 

Which there aren't enough game turns to make their points back, unless you shoot at it, which you should never do unless you have the means to deal with a Death Star.

[Indefragable]

Slang, Charlo, and Haten all are correct. And I've known the term as Multiple Small Units.

 

In MSU fashion, I prefer DC with Jump Packs and Bolters since that gives a 36" threat range, and you can double-tap Bolters before Charging (Relentless). The idea is that 4x 5-man units can split up or dog pile a larger unit as necessary. DC can uniquely use this strategy since they are one of the few Jump Pack units that can take Bolters, and they are Fearless so the enemy has to kill Every. Last. One. Of them.

 

For inspiration, think the US/UK paratroopers on D-Day. Even though they were scattered as divisions, they would form LUPs (Little Units of Paratroopers..favorite military formation ever) that would work together to harass the enemy and do whatever damage they could while making their way to their larger command organizations. Though not entirely planned by Allied HQ, it proved extremely effective since the Germans would hear I dedicate 60-100 men just to flush out a LUP of 5-10.

[Charlo]

I'm still against bolters, but YMMV.

 

It basically boils down to do you want an extra S5 AP- attack in combat or do you want a S4 AP5 outside of it.

[appiah4]

The only problem with the Derodeo.. is that it's fugly.  Just like the Sicaran.  The best guns we have are ugly Forge World models..  Sad world we live in.

[Jolemai]

The only problem with the Derodeo.. is that it's fugly. Just like the Sicaran. The best guns we have are ugly Forge World models.. Sad world we live in.

Whilst all true, love can blossom even in the darkest depths of the 41st Millennium

[Charlo]

The only problem with the Derodeo.. is that it's fugly.  Just like the Sicaran.  The best guns we have are ugly Forge World models..  Sad world we live in.

 

I would directly disagree with you sir!

[Dont-Be-Haten]

The only problem with the Derodeo.. is that it's fugly. Just like the Sicaran. The best guns we have are ugly Forge World models.. Sad world we live in.

I love the sicarian and think it's a great looking mod! I also feel like it is what predators should have been. As far as the derodeo dread goes, it's not my favorite and does feel a little out of place aesthetically.