Collecting 30K Blood Angels

[Astartes Consul]

Hello all,

 

I'm dipping my toes back into hobby stuff after a decade or so and want to put together some 30K era Blood Angels - specifically late-Crusade era. This is mostly going to be a model/painting project (if I can still remember how to hold a paintbrush) but I also want them to be useable in game, just in case I decide to start gaming again.

 

The plan is to start with a MK III squad (with Forge World shoulder pads) and then look into some vehicles, characters. 

 

While I can obviously use vanilla marine rules for them in 40k games, can anyone give me any guidance on special Horus Heresy Blood Angels rules? IIRC the Forge World Retribution book has some Blood Angels rules, but I'm unsure as to whether they have been supplanted by anything later? Have the Army of Darkness books supplanted this? Want to be certain before I drop £££ on one of the books! 

 

Other than that, are there any decent resources on 30K Blood Angels out there that people know of? Other than reading the occasional Black Library novel I'm fairly behind on what is new with all things GW.

 

 

 

 

[Marcus Arias]

Retribution only contains the Legion astartes rules, Rites of War and some specialist wargear. The full rules for the Legion will be in the forthcoming Black Book Malevolence.

 

If you are starting HH, I would recommend the HH Rulebook and the two red books, Age of Darkness and Legion Astartes. Which gives you the necessary rules from which to build a viable force.

 

The Blood Angel RoW, Day of Revelation makes for a very thematic BA force, very fast moving and can be hard hitting.

[Astartes Consul]

Retribution only contains the Legion astartes rules, Rites of War and some specialist wargear. The full rules for the Legion will be in the forthcoming Black Book Malevolence.

 

If you are starting HH, I would recommend the HH Rulebook and the two red books, Age of Darkness and Legion Astartes. Which gives you the necessary rules from which to build a viable force.

 

The Blood Angel RoW, Day of Revelation makes for a very thematic BA force, very fast moving and can be hard hitting.

 

Brilliant, thanks for confirming this. Really didn't want to drop £50 on a bundle of books only to them not having up to date stuff.

[james71989]

If you dont plan on playing any other legion then the AOD legion book isn't worth you getting as there isn't anything of the blood angels in there. Everything for them is as said above in retribution until malevolence comes out and the generic AOD army list red book

[carlisimo]

Blood Angels can be a tough one to start. Their most popular build is using the Day of Revelations legion-specific Rite of War from Retribution, which means using Assault Marines as the core of your army. Three squads of 15 is a common recommendation, and that's a poor fit for the plastic starter boxes and quite expensive. 40k-style jump packs only really belong on Mk VI armor and later, and adding jump packs to plastic Mk III or Mk IV looks funny because the legs aren't posed for it.

 

Naturally, you don't have to go that route - they have a more defensive Rite of War that implies that squads are falling to the Red Thirst, and they can use any of the generic Rites of War in the Legiones Astartes Army List book. I've seen people run Pride of the Legion with them, or Armored Breakthrough (Predators as Troops, with Assault Cannons all over the place). The latter can be tough to write because of the Blood Angels' infantry > vehicles requirements, but taking bike variants helps with that (they count as infantry and don't need transports). With any army, you want to think about that sort of thing before buying much.

 

They'll get updated rules, with special units and special characters, in 10-12 months.

[Balthamal]

Agree on the above point about only getting one of the red books - there's nothing of use to Blood Angels in the AoD Legions book so go for the base army list and certainly the rules.

 

As for the rest it's tricky right now with Malevolence due this year but no definitive time frame put forward so it's sort of a catch 22. Personally, I'd be inclined to wait it out just to see how things can change because if the IX Legion are anything in keeping with the others there'll be options in there that can radically change the composition of an army. 

 

That being said, if you're really keen to get stuck in there's nothing wrong with getting some tactical/support/terminator squads done so you can settle on a paint scheme and take your time with them. That way at least if you do happen to need to go down a different route at a later date you haven't committed several hundred quid to units you won't ever use again

[The Milkman Of Baal]

I think maybe just start with the standard BaC set, from there you can paint them up and have a little play, maybe if your appo doesn’t mind you can proxi some units in that you were tempted to get therefore play testing before committing?

[nagashnee]

I have played 30k BA for a while, tournies, friendlies, whatever haves you. 

 

In my experience 3 things are MUSTS if you want to do well, Twin inferno pistol jump pack moriats, blade of perdition PVE ( avoid anything with good stats and a solid inva) HQ, and a horde of cheap extra cc dudes to abuse the wounding mechanism. 

 

Everything in the list should do 1 of two things, puke out attacks in CC or make sure your dudes are getting into CC, for the first i found tactical far better to assault marines ( all the BA ROW suck pretty bad), for the latter i found a mix of on foot, storm eagled and land raider dudes best.

 

If you can quickly take out the enemies main anti infa tools/transports the rest kinda does itself. Solo basilisk is gold as it can corner camp and laugh at 90% of heavy weapons which only have 48 inch range. Rapiers are cheap, dont count as tanks ( which is a thing for ba) and 2 laser destroyers ( at least when they were 48 inch range) can snipe tanks and are hard to kill in cover. Storm eagle is not only a great transport but also a great gun carrier. 

 

Moriats are best used to dictate deployment/mind game your enemy. As he is a single model it is very hard to stop his DS and very easy to make sure those nasty interceptors cant draw line of sight. He is FANTASTIC at killing tanks and small elite units. Make 2, only put 1 in your list (unless over 2k), but put both somewhere very prominent during pre game/deployment. 

[depthcharge12]

My buddy runs a wacky RoW that actually does surprisingly well. He does recon company to spam scouts and get bikes + Assault marine blobs into position. He tools out the assault marines to 11 all with shields, a few power weapons, and an attached praetor + champion with a paragon blade and perdition blade respectively and a cheeky boarding shield for blocking extra attacks.

 

I really like the guy and his out of the box ideas though I shun the cheese that is the 10 point boarding shield. No extra attacks for your opponent’s unit on the charge just because one guy has a shield. Love the player, hate the game.

 

 

Anywho he runs those blobs up in your face and dares you to assault while being supported by Contemptors and scoring scouts everywhere. Honestly scouts are annoying as hell in both editions due to their hardiness and cheap cost. I learned from our game too that graviton guns auto wound rapier platforms and can deep strike quite easily. Take 3 of the inexpensive buggers with graviton and assault cannons to annoy the hell out of your opponent.

 

 

Also...ahem...FIRE ALL ZE ASSAULT CANNONEN. Equip everything and everyone with assault cannons until FW finally and intelligently nerfs them.

[Indefragable]

...but I like underslung assault cannons on my assault cannons!

[carlisimo]

A note on combat shields - they can make sense on squads of 20, but I don’t think the math makes sense in smaller ones. They cost a third of a marine and save a third of the time… so just take an extra marine. Same survivability boost, plus more attacks.

[Hesh Kadesh]

A note on combat shields - they can make sense on squads of 20, but I don’t think the math makes sense in smaller ones. They cost a third of a marine and save a third of the time… so just take an extra marine. Same survivability boost, plus more attacks.

Take it on your Sarge though. Keeping your Powerfist guy alive against their AP2 guy is pretty good. In the last month alone, a Combat Shield has allowed my Powerfist Sergeants to claim the lives of 3 Praetors thanks to passing multiple 5++ and retaliating with a Pfist save. 

[carlisimo]

Good point!

[depthcharge12]

 

 

A note on combat shields - they can make sense on squads of 20, but I don’t think the math makes sense in smaller ones. They cost a third of a marine and save a third of the time… so just take an extra marine. Same survivability boost, plus more attacks.

Take it on your Sarge though. Keeping your Powerfist guy alive against their AP2 guy is pretty good. In the last month alone, a Combat Shield has allowed my Powerfist Sergeants to claim the lives of 3 Praetors thanks to passing multiple 5++ and retaliating with a Pfist save.

I fought a scrub BA Assault marine with a shield and he managed to roll 3 6’s to deflect Horus’ talon swipes. Yup totally worth the points. Statistical outlier but it does make them survive longer on the whole.

[nagashnee]

To be a bit more on point, unless your local meta has a TON of mechanicum players, never take power fists on srgs in BA, power axes are cheaper, get +1 attack for pistol and with the bonus to  wound are practically p.fists for everything but instant death and feel no pain.

[Spiritual Liege]

Except that you can ID marines with that fist, he has a decent chance of getting that one wound through against for example a Centurion. 

 

Its a matter of preference, really.

[Hesh Kadesh]

To be a bit more on point, unless your local meta has a TON of mechanicum players, never take power fists on srgs in BA, power axes are cheaper, get +1 attack for pistol and with the bonus to wound are practically p.fists for everything but instant death and feel no pain.

I don't mean to be rude, but cmon dude, give good advice at least.

[nagashnee]

Except that you can ID marines with that fist, he has a decent chance of getting that one wound through against for example a Centurion. 

 

Its a matter of preference, really.

I point i noted above, however you must also note that some legions will play special weapons that struck at I ( dark angels, white scars, night lords, etc), some legions will not play cc centurions ( iron warriors, iron hands, etc).   I was pointing out the unique benefits of playing p.axes on BA to a new player.

 

 

To be a bit more on point, unless your local meta has a TON of mechanicum players, never take power fists on srgs in BA, power axes are cheaper, get +1 attack for pistol and with the bonus to wound are practically p.fists for everything but instant death and feel no pain.

I don't mean to be rude, but cmon dude, give good advice at least.

 

Sure, never listen to someone arguing against you if he offers no argument.  Dont mean to be rude ;) .

[Marshal Rohr]

Do you have any advice that isn’t game related? Like good red recipes or places to find marble stencils. Has anyone found good third party transfers by any chance?

[nagashnee]

Do you have any advice that isn’t game related? Like good red recipes or places to find marble stencils. Has anyone found good third party transfers by any chance?

Sorry mate pretty mediocre painter, i can upload a pic of my models if you like, but they will be far better people on this. Heresy painting and modeling group on facebook is a great place for painting advice. 

 

Ebay is a great place for transfer sheets. 

[Spiritual Liege]

 

Except that you can ID marines with that fist, he has a decent chance of getting that one wound through against for example a Centurion. 

 

Its a matter of preference, really.

I point i noted above, however you must also note that some legions will play special weapons that struck at I ( dark angels, white scars, night lords, etc), some legions will not play cc centurions ( iron warriors, iron hands, etc).   I was pointing out the unique benefits of playing p.axes on BA to a new player.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes. I did not say you are wrong, as it says I said it is a matter of preference.

 

 

(Also a little off topic but those DA and NL weapons are ap3 so not so great chance of getting though that artificer but as I said off topic)

 

EDIT: Stupid editing function, nothing to do with my editing skills, really!