3rd Ed. Brother, need advice restarting BA

[Gravelight]

Hello fellow Sons of Sanguinius. I last played in 3rd edition and don't own any Blood Angel models anymore, but am trying to get back into the game. I found a cache of Imperial Guard that I never completely put together in storage so I'm going to build those and slowly introduce BA forces as allies until I've got a full Blood Angel army. I like the new Primaris and will probably start with them, see how I like them, and then see if I want to add any standard marines.

I do not yet own the rulebook. I was just curious if the Dark Imperium set is a good purchase if I can't find anyone to buy the Death Guard portion? I understand the models are mono-pose and I'll still need the proper Codex, but was just curious if the models inside are useful to us and if the price is a good deal or if I'm better buying the Rulebook on its own and building from there.

I was also curious which pieces are compatible between proper non-monopose Primaris and normal marines. I've seen some picks that seem to imply the head and shoulder pads are interchangeable. I notice the Blood Angel upgrade sprue on the GW website and am just curious which pieces I can make use of.

Finally, a lore question. Is geneseed still harvested from Death Company members? I was not sure if it was considered more likely to make later marines suffer the Black Rage. I'm updating the details of my custom Successor Chapter to the modern era after reading the Devastation of Baal and I wasn't certain.

[Captain Caine 24th]

Check ebay if you'd like to get individual dark imperium squads. I didn't have much use for the hellblasters, so I instead used a few of the bodies to make conversions of captains. As to the intercessors, I think they're perfectly fine, despite lacking posing options. The inceptors I haven't used in a battle, but some have used them to great effect. This is a round about way of saying Dark Imperium can be a great deal, but you may want to flesh out a plan to build the army. The shoulder pads and heads are interchangeable. The primaris arms are a bit bigger, but I've converted regular marine arms without an issue. 

 

I think you can download a rules pdf for free from games workshop. I got the big rule book out of the dark imperium set, but I'm not sure you need it. Though, there are some notable lore updates in there... primarchs returning and such. There are also a lot more FAQ's & errata than ever before. You may also need the chapter approved books to update. For basic/friendly games it might not be an issue. Most rules are actually on an individual units data sheet now.

 

Good to have you back. The game is probably as good as it's ever been.

[Exilyth]

The biggest changes from 3rd edition are

• that vehicles have toughness now (no more armor)
• BS and WS are dice roll stats now, e.g. BS 3 will list as 3+ now - and that's what you'll have to roll.
• the roll to wound table is a single column now (and you can wound anything)
• morale tests kill models
• psychic powers have their own phase now
• army composition works via detachments now - you need 1 std and 1 hq for a patrol detachment (most basic detachment, slightly smaller than 3rd ed army comp), and different detachments have different slots available (rulebook has the detachment datasheets). Your army can consist of multiple detachments from different factions depending on point limit for the game.
• detachments grant command points which can be used on stratagems (some sort of single turn/phase special rules)

The battle primer (mini rulebook) can be downloaded from https://www.warhammer-community.com/downloads/

Errata and FAQs can be found on https://www.warhammer-community.com/faqs/ - grab the "big FAQ1" and "big FAQ2", they explain lots of stuff and change some rules.

 

 

Using Imperial Guard Astra Militarum to get to know the game again is a good idea, since elite armies (like BA) have it a little harder this edition.

[Ayatollah_of_Rock_n_Rolla]

If you don't have the rulebook yet, DI is a nice option to start. Even though Intercessors and Hellblasters have only one weapon option there (in normal boxes they have 3) they are OK, and since all the weapons are nearly identical you should have no issues with proxing in casual gaming if you find the DI loadouts not your thing (unless you run into some WYSIWYG-nazi). Note also that in general Primaris models are designed as monopose, so in normal box of let's say 10 Intercessors there will be 5 pairs. It is possible to assemble 10 different figs, but some combinations of arms and bodies can look awkward, especially close combat Reivers. I believe that you should have no problem with selling the Death Guard on ebay or some facebook groups if you sell them at 3/5 or 2/3 of GW price. Or buy seperately only the DI as CptCaine said.

 

I never thought about the gene seed of DC. Primaris do not suffer from Black Rage and they are created slightly differently from traditional BA, so theoretically that should have no bearing at least on them. As a rule, in many old BA successors rate of Black Rage and Red Thirst rises with each generation. But you know, it's your lore and i am sure, whatever you come up with  won't be worse than the bulls GW  concocts recently.

[Xenith]

I do not yet own the rulebook. I was just curious if the Dark Imperium set is a good purchase if I can't find anyone to buy the Death Guard portion? I understand the models are mono-pose and I'll still need the proper Codex, but was just curious if the models inside are useful to us and if the price is a good deal or if I'm better buying the Rulebook on its own and building from there.

 

Hi and welcome back!

 

If you've been out since 3rd, the rulebook is a must as it brings you up to speed on the fluff. If you cancel the cost of the book out of the Dark Imperium set, the box is £65, or the cost of 10 intercessors and 3 Inceptors, meaning everything else in the box is free.

 

In other words, the box is incredible value even if you only want one force. If you can sell the DG for £35 (easily), then you get pretty much all the primaris for free. 

 

Between the Dark Imperium box + Tooth and Claw/Wake the Dead/Shadowspear, you'll have a great starting force for about £120, if you can ditch the half you dont' need (£200 investment, £60 - 90) back.

[appiah4]

Space Marines are on life support, if you want to restart BA just go ahead and start buying Primaris models..  It's pretty much a dead investment at this point, just a matter of time before GW pulls the rug from under regular SM models by packing their rules away into Index like books and facilitating their obsolescence through points and rules.  This happened in AoS and is happening in 40K, so beware.

[Xenith]

I mean, appiah is 100% correct, in my opinion. Old scale marines are being phased out in place of the new ones, and it would be wise to invest in Primaris only.

 

The only reason we don't see Primaris Death Company or Sanguinary guard is because GW hasn't made a model for them yet. The Chapterhouse and other cases made clear that it's fine for competitors to make models for units GW hasn't made models for yet, so GW won't (often) produce rules or stories that feature models that don't exist.

 

When we start hearing about Primaris falling to the rage, is when we'll get Primaris Death co., Etc.

[dread05]

I was also curious which pieces are compatible between proper non-monopose Primaris and normal marines.

 

 

I just want to clarify that the non easy to build primaris are also monopose more or less. You dont have the freedom to equip them or build as you would an old marine squad. A certain pair of legs matches a certain torso and a certain pair of arms. Kits like the aggressors the only option you have is at which direction the head will look at. Special characters  the only option you have is if they will be helmeted or bare headed. From a modelers point of view the primaris boxes are pretty boring, there is no room to get creative. Dont get me wrong, they look awsome but every squad of 5 intercessors or hellblasters that you build will look exactly the same as every other squad of 5. Even the 10 man boxes are 2x the spures for a squad of 5.

 

Also while I agree with Xenith, at this point Primaris dont match with the rest of the blood angels very well, a pure BA primaris army is more or less red marines.

[Gravelight]

Thank you, everyone. I had kind of noticed a lot of the Blood Angel stratagems and tactics didn't exactly match up with the Primaris stuff, and wasn't sure what direction they were going, which is why I wanted to go slowly on them. Of course considering I'm learning to paint again it will probably take some time to get what I have put together, anyway :P

[Xenith]

No worries, I bought Dark Imperium almost a year ago and still have only painted one model from it! By the time you paint it all, there might be assault primaris!

[appiah4]

Primaris are fairly impressive figures, but they turned out to be rather boring and easy to paint for me..  You would probably find them great for brushing up on old skills (see what I did there).

[Panzer]

They kept it simple with Primaris, yeah. Mainly because in the past they overdid it with details on basic infantry so they wanted to start from very simple and add details for higher ranked Primaris. We haven't seen any veteran Primaris units yet aside of the Victrix Guard for Ultramarines so they might not stay this simple.

That being said I don't mind it. A minimalistic design can look great too and it's easy to add lots of bitz from already existing Marine kits. No reason to build them as they are.

[Wassa]

So for a player starting Blood Angels, what is futureproof and safe to buy? Just Intercessors?

[appiah4]

So for a player starting Blood Angels, what is futureproof and safe to buy? Just Intercessors?

 

Yeah, Intercessors, Chaplain, Ancient and a Lieutenant would be what I would get right now.  You can get most of those out of a Dark Imperium box set so try to split a box with someone maybe.

 

The Infiltrators and Phobox Captain from the new box set are probably also good picks.

 

Or you can just do what I did and start an SM Primaris army and shelf your BA until Primaris completely replace old marines and then you have an actually sensible line of figures to choose from for BA.

[dread05]

The only squads I picked up are aggressors and hellblasters. I dont like the primaris HQ's cause they cant get jump packs.

[Panzer]

Anything Primaris would be 'future proof'. The question is what you actually want. ^^

[Wassa]

What I really want is Death Company and Sanguinary Guard, maybe some Scouts. 

[Majkhel]

What I really want is Death Company and Sanguinary Guard, maybe some Scouts.

DC and Scouts can be easily converted from the Primaris range.

For Scouts, just use Reivers. For DC use Intercessors with added shoulder pads from DC kit and jump packs. "Old Marines" arms work pretty well with Primaris bodies.

With SG it's not that easy unfortunately.

[Panzer]

Reivers are more Assault Marines than Scouts the way you use them though. Deep strike is very different from Infiltration.

These new Infiltrators and Eliminatoes would be the proper replacement for what Scouts do in a list ... however probably not as cheap so they won't fill detachments as easily.

 

Deathcompany have no real Primaris translation as there simply aren't any choppy Primaris yet. The closest would be once more Reivers but their damage output is pretty different and since Reivers only have grav-chutes/grapple hooks instead of Jump Packs they'd be less mobile after the drop as well.

 

Funnily enough Reivers are the closest thing to Sanguinary Guard as well. They too have the LD debuff aura and they are the only melee-ish Primaris unit we have. Hence why I declared Reivers to be my Sanguinary Guard stand-in for now. They don't perform like an elite melee unit though, obviously.

[Majkhel]

Reivers are more Assault Marines than Scouts the way you use them though. Deep strike is very different from Infiltration.

These new Infiltrators and Eliminatoes would be the proper replacement for what Scouts do in a list ... however probably not as cheap so they won't fill detachments as easily.

 

Deathcompany have no real Primaris translation as there simply aren't any choppy Primaris yet. The closest would be once more Reivers but their damage output is pretty different and since Reivers only have grav-chutes/grapple hooks instead of Jump Packs they'd be less mobile after the drop as well.

I agree with this.

I meant using Reivers as count-as Scouts conversions rather than using them instead of one another.