Starting 40k for the first time

[PlayOn]

I loved Blood Angels in the books growing up, and decided to try and start an army instead of Dark Angels, where should i start with building this army, i am not a hard core competitive person and probably only be playing casual. Any point in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

[Xenith]

Hello, and welcome to Baal!

 

The best thing to do is to buy and paint the models you like the most.

 

Getting into BA has never been easier, with the mephiston red paints and sprays, and the Start Collecting! boxed set, which is a solid start to any army. The multiple detachment options in the main rulebook mean you can pretty much field anything you like, and have it as a legal army.

 

Blood Angels excel in combat, and in 8th ed, we seem to be all about our characters with lots of overlapping buff auras.

 

Cool options would be:

 

Start collecting Blood Angels + BA terminator squad. + your favourite character choice as a warlord.

 This will be about £100, but you get a lot for it. I'd give Karlaen in the SC box the banner from the terminator boxed set, then make the rest as THammer/SShield terminators. You end up with an awesome tank, tactical squad (can be 2x 5 man) and 6 terms.

 

The next step would be a rhino or razorback for the tactical squads.

 

What models do you like?

[bolvar]

Hmm, not a BA myself, but may I suggest this:

 

For characters, get the named ones, such as Dante, Lemartes, Mephiston, Brother Corbulo, Astorath... You can deploy them as they are, or as proxies for generic captain/chaplain/sanguinary priest... The more bang for your buck early, the better.

 

Xenith advice is pretty good, specially about the start collecting! blood angels pack

 

You'll need some troop choices, namely https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Blood-Angels-Tactical-Squad and scouts. I'd say with 2 full tactical squads and a full scout squad you'll get an all-rounder, pretty strong start. At least one dedicated transport, rhino or razorback too.

 

That's the basics, HQs and troops, then you should aim for the iconic BA units, such as death company, jump pack units (https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Blood-Angels-Vanguard-Veteran-Squad-2016 for example, vanguard veterans are great and you can proxy them if you want to use cheaper, fast attack assault squads!). Dreadnoughts got much stronger than before, and BA can get a very nice collection of dreadnoughts. I'd get a death company dreadnought for start.

 

After that I'd say some heavy armoured transport is in order. A stormraven gunship or a land raider. Terminators too, that should give you enough models to play around 1500-2000 and then think which will be your next unit while you're getting the full grasp on this.