Shadowspear and the BA

[Karhedron]

Maybe if Infiltrators get a points drop of ~5ppm and can take the not-apothecary in a 5 man unit I'll get some. I'll test them out by proxying them with my Intercessors anyway but I don't expect to like them and I'm not that interested to field even more phobos armour units either (my chapter is the KNIGHTS of Baal, not the Scouts of Baal ... and I don't feel like copying Dark Angels with their two wings either lol).

I am inclined to agree. Infiltrators have some useful abilities and are probably better than Intercessors if used correctly. The problem is that they also have a weaker gun so really aren't worth the extra 5ppm IMHO. 1-2 extra points maybe but currently they cost twice as many points as Scouts. I would definitely take 10 Scouts over 5 Infiltrators under current rules.

[Xenith]

 

So they have blue helmets?

 

If you go with the standard Blood Angels heraldry, yes.

They are basically Devastators that got a Jump Pack and got pushed into the Fast Attack FOC slot.

 

 

But intercessors Inceptors have double the firepower of devastators, are not built for combat, and get yellow helmets. 

 

This is the age old argument of whether to paint your bikers/landspeeder crew with red or yellow helms. Both are 'fast' but not 'assault'. The correct answer is, of course, whether the biker/speeder crew was drawn from a tactical company or assault company, i.e., up to you.

[Majkhel]

Inceptors you mean ;)

[Panzer]

 

 

So they have blue helmets?

 

If you go with the standard Blood Angels heraldry, yes.

They are basically Devastators that got a Jump Pack and got pushed into the Fast Attack FOC slot.

 

 

But intercessors have double the firepower of devastators, are not built for combat, and get yellow helmets. 

 

This is the age old argument of whether to paint your bikers/landspeeder crew with red or yellow helms. Both are 'fast' but not 'assault'. The correct answer is, of course, whether the biker/speeder crew was drawn from a tactical company or assault company, i.e., up to you.

 

 

Eh, no.

It wasn't an argument, it was a conclusion. Each unit has its fix battlefield role and the battlefield role dictates the heraldry. It doesn't matter whether they are Fast Attack, Elite, Heavy Support or whatever and it also doesn't matter what kind of weapons they carry. If GW says Suppressors are Ranged Support, they are Ranged Support and Ranged Support wears blue helmets via Blood Angels heraldry. Period.

One is crunch the other is fluff. They could be today Fast Attack, tomorrow Heavy Support, the day after Troop and next week HQ but their Battlefield role, and with that their heraldry, wouldn't change as long as GW doesn't change their fluff.

 

Weapons don't matter, FOC doesn't matter, melee or not doesn't matter, speed doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is as what GW has declared them. Everything else would be your own headcanon which you are free to apply as you wish but doesn't change how things are officially (I did it myself with Reivers which are Veterans instead of Close Support in my homegrown chapter).

[Xenith]

 

 

 

So they have blue helmets?

 

If you go with the standard Blood Angels heraldry, yes.

 

 

But intercessors have double the firepower of devastators, are not built for combat, and get yellow helmets. 

 

This is the age old argument of whether to paint your bikers/landspeeder crew with red or yellow helms. Both are 'fast' but not 'assault'. The correct answer is, of course, whether the biker/speeder crew was drawn from a tactical company or assault company, i.e., up to you.

 

 

Eh, no.

It wasn't an argument, it was a conclusion. 

 

Everything else would be your own headcanon which you are free to apply as you wish but doesn't change how things are officially 

 

Unsure why you disagree when we make the same point: that despite what GW shows you, there is some internal inconsistency, and the best thing to do is paint them how you think they look best. 

 

I guess I'm just trying to find the underlying logic, to which there is none. 

 

I went on a small diatribe about GW's helm colour inconsistency, which is uneccessary, however I'll spoiler it for posterity. 

 

What colour do you paint the helmet of a 6th company tactical marine that is now crewing a landspeeder? Did the marine have time to repaint? Or did they not, as per the original death co army rules where you could use your own models.

 

What colour helms do termiantor assault squads get? red for terminators, gold for veterans, or yellow for close support?

 

The codex astartes (and traditional heraldry) states that gold is the equivalent of yellow for heraldic purposes (e.g., when the UM second company got repainted trims from yellow to gold in the 3.5/4th ed dex), so why do ranged support sternguard veterans get close support gold/yellow markiings when they are, by first appearance, a ranged support unit?

[Panzer]

 

 

 

 

So they have blue helmets?

 

If you go with the standard Blood Angels heraldry, yes.

 

 

But intercessors have double the firepower of devastators, are not built for combat, and get yellow helmets. 

 

This is the age old argument of whether to paint your bikers/landspeeder crew with red or yellow helms. Both are 'fast' but not 'assault'. The correct answer is, of course, whether the biker/speeder crew was drawn from a tactical company or assault company, i.e., up to you.

 

 

Eh, no.

It wasn't an argument, it was a conclusion. 

 

Everything else would be your own headcanon which you are free to apply as you wish but doesn't change how things are officially 

 

Unsure why you disagree when we make the same point: that despite what GW shows you, there is some internal inconsistency, and the best thing to do is paint them how you think they look best. 

 

I guess I'm just trying to find the underlying logic, to which there is none. 

 

I went on a small diatribe about GW's helm colour inconsistency, which is uneccessary, however I'll spoiler it for posterity. 

 

What colour do you paint the helmet of a 6th company tactical marine that is now crewing a landspeeder? Did the marine have time to repaint? Or did they not, as per the original death co army rules where you could use your own models.

 

What colour helms do termiantor assault squads get? red for terminators, gold for veterans, or yellow for close support?

 

The codex astartes (and traditional heraldry) states that gold is the equivalent of yellow for heraldic purposes (e.g., when the UM second company got repainted trims from yellow to gold in the 3.5/4th ed dex), so why do ranged support sternguard veterans get close support gold/yellow markiings when they are, by first appearance, a ranged support unit?

 

 

There is no internal inconsistency though. You only think that because you try to combine the crunch with the fluff. Just because it so happened that most close support was sitting in fast attack, ranged support in heavy support and veterans in elite so far doesn't mean it would be always like that. Vehicles for example are elite, fast attack or heavy support as well and they don't belong to any of those battlefield roles.

 

Tactical Marines don't crew Landspeeder. Landspeeder are listed as Close Support unit, so their helmets would be yellow. IF the narrative has a Tactical crew a lone Landspeeder for whatever reason it's obviously an exception and isn't represented in the heraldry as it's not his permanent assigned battlefield role.

 

Terminators are listed as Veterans and are supposed to have golden helmets. I'll give you that, it's an inconsistency on GWs part there.

 

Yellow = gold used to be the case but that obviously got retconned ever since GW decided to separate those two colours so not sure where you are going with that. Sternguard are veterans not close support, so their helmets are gold. 

 

I feel like you never actually looked into the Codex as many of your examples are clearly answered in the fluff section. To be more precise in the "Angelic Host" section where it talks about all the units.

[Xenith]

All I'm going to say is that GW base 'battlefield role' on the background fluff, which is guided by the weapons and wargear on their models, so to say weapons, fluff, have no impact on battlefield role, etc. is not true.

 

My point is that GW is internally inconsistent to a degree due to various writers over the years, and you should paint them in whatever the hell way you like.

 

Also, the 6th tactical reserve company and 7th tactical reserve company are fully trained to fight from bikes and landspeeders respectively. 

 

That said, this is old fluff.

[Panzer]

I didn't say they don't have any impact. I said they don't dictate what the battlefield role is. GW dictates it.

[redshadow]

I’m sure the gold helmets were just for honour guard and not ment for all elite choices

[dread05]

It was never for elite choices. Maybe you mean veterans?

[Xenith]

I’m sure the gold helmets were just for honour guard and not ment for all elite choices

In the 3rd Ed codex, Honour guard had gold helmets, while other veterans had helmet colours according to battlefield role, so tactical veterans had red and assault veterans had yellow.

 

In the 5th ed codex, this was changed to all veterans apart from veteran sergeants, command staff and terminators having gold helms, instead of denoting battlefield role.

 

In the 8th ed, official documentation says that veteran sergeants and command staff all have gold helmets, however the studio army veteran sergeants are not painted with gold helmets, as per this image, where Inceptor, intercessor and Agrressor veteran sergeants all have helmet colour based on battlefield role.

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/11/27/chapter-focus-blood-angels/#gallery-2

 

 

As I said, GW is internally inconsistent both in fluff, crunch and painting terms with BA helmet colours, a main offender being Primaris aggressors with firefists, who have ranged support blue helms, yet are very, obviously, close support units with weapons of shorter range than Inceptors, who are close support.

 

In the end, you either have to just accept whatever colour GW paints them, which has no consistency, or you paint them however you like.

[Panzer]

 

In the 8th ed, official documentation says that veteran sergeants and command staff all have gold helmets, however the studio army veteran sergeants are not painted with gold helmets, as per this image, where Inceptor, intercessor and Agrressor veteran sergeants all have helmet colour based on battlefield role.

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/11/27/chapter-focus-blood-angels/#gallery-2

 

 

 

There are no Inceptor, Intercessor or Aggressor veteran sergeants in that article though. Just regular Sergeants which aren't supposed to be wearing golden helmets anyway.

[dread05]

How can veteran sergeants have gold helmets when there are not veteran sergeants anymore? :P Unless of course you mean the sergeant in veteran squads, but in those squads everyone has a gold helmet anyway.

 

Fun fact, the helmet colour question was my first ever thread I posted on this forum.

[Karhedron]

I like gold helmets to distinguish my veterans but I am not a fan of yellow or blue on regular squads so all non-veterans in my army get red helmets. Blue is reserved for Librarians.

 

If I ever get around to painting some more Terminators, I would definitely be tempted to give them gold helmets too.

 

I know it doesn't match the official BA heraldry but I always remember the first rule of painting.

[Blindhamster]

I like gold helmets to distinguish my veterans but I am not a fan of yellow or blue on regular squads so all non-veterans in my army get red helmets. Blue is reserved for Librarians.

 

If I ever get around to painting some more Terminators, I would definitely be tempted to give them gold helmets too.

 

I know it doesn't match the official BA heraldry but I always remember the first rule of painting.

Two thin coats?

 

[Karhedron]

 

I know it doesn't match the official BA heraldry but I always remember the first rule of painting.

Two thin coats?

 

Nah, that's the second rule.

 

The First rule is, "They're my minis, I'll paint them how I like!"

[keeblerartillery]

They’re

[Vermintide]

Considering the pattern we've seen with other units released as part of a box set over the last couple of years, how likely do you think it is these guys will get some more options in future? Intercessors couldn't originally take things like power swords on the sergeant, IIRC, but they were given that ability later.

 

If Infiltrators get something like that I can see them suddenly becoming very attractive to BA players. You need as much board control as early on as possible to give your assault units room to breathe, and as much as we love Scouts, it sounds nice having something to do that that doesn't also die to a stiff breeze.

[Xenith]

Considering the pattern we've seen with other units released as part of a box set over the last couple of years, how likely do you think it is these guys will get some more options in future? Intercessors couldn't originally take things like power swords on the sergeant, IIRC, but they were given that ability later.

 

Viatually guaranteed. I think GW will want to see sales of Shadowspear drop and the chaos bubble to burst before hitting SM players with the 8.5 codex and multipart kits of the things from Shadowspear. 

 

GW won't allow rules for things that don't have a model anymore, so expect more rules when you get more options.

 

I'd expect a box parallel to intercessors with 3 bolt weapon options: Instigator, Occulus and Marksman bolt carbines, potentially with an option for grav chutes. I'd also hope we get some kind of power weapon on there.

[Majkhel]

I'm also certain we'll be getting more loadout choices in the multi-part kits.
I'd really like to see old-style Heavy/Special weapon options the Tacticals had. Ability to add a 'specialist' to the Infiltrators gives me hope, but I admit it's a slim one.
Allowing all sergeants entry to the halls of the "Sergeant Equipment List" would also be great.