Gonna build a Blood Angel legion, need help and advice

[bushman101]

Howdy,

So I've decided to do a slow build on a IX Legion list and need to get a idea on what I need/want.

 

So if I do a pure Blood Angel's army, the books I need will be: Retribution, Rules, and Age of Darkness Army List. Correct?

 

Being that I will be playing Blood Angels, probably running Sanguinius and mostly jump Marines, would the Betrayal at Calth box be overly useful? 

 

Speaking of JumpPacks, where do you get the 'spare' JumpPacks for the older armor types? I don't see these on the FG site, and I'd like a few Apothecaries with JPs.

 

What is the overall opinion of Volkite weapons? I'm not overly impressed by what they do on paper.

 

Any other recommendations?

 

Thanks, in advance

 

[m0nolith]

Although Book 6 Retribution has BA rules, they were only placeholder rules until they received their full rules in book 8, Malevolence, which is what you'll need for the BA.

The BaC wont exactly be useful if you're running a full assault army, but you don't really need to run only assault marines to play BA. I play with tacticals and dont have a single jump unit in my army...well except for the Jump Contemptor Dreadnought :D 

 

If you are going to run guys with jump packs and want to stay within the lore, easiest thing to use would be the MkIV Jump Packs that come with sanguinary guard. You can always get them from bitz sellers on ebay.

 

Volkites are awesome. I'v been running Volkite Calivers for a while and I love them. Volkite Culverins are incredible tho, especially at taking out large amounts of enemy troops.

But look, its 30k, its not really a min maxing type of game. For the most part, if you think its cool, run it. It's a narrative driven game compared to the more competitive nature of 40k.

 

Other recommendations; Damocles Command Tank is fantastic if you're running a Jump Heavy BA army running a Day of Revelation Rite of War because it prevents your marines from scattering in a large 24 inch bubble, really letting them get into the enemy's face without worrying about a deep strike mishap. Also if you run a full deep striking army, a Leviathan with a melta lance and drill in a dreadnought drop pod is your best bet when it comes to getting some much needed anti armor where it is needed, not to mention the Primaris Lightning loaded with Kraken missiles. Finally, although I haven't used them, on paper the new Dawnbreakers seem awesome, and if you run Sanguinius with them they can be taken as troops.  

[Qkhitai]

If you are going to run guys with jump packs and want to stay within the lore, easiest thing to use would be the MkIV Jump Packs that come with sanguinary guard. You can always get them from bitz sellers on ebay.

 

From the prices I've seen, it's actually cheaper to just straight up buy a box of Sanguinary Guard  Although if you are running Blood Angels at least you'd get a lot of use out of all the other bitz.

[bushman101]

Thanks for the responses.

 

So does Malevolence replace Retribution? Or will I need both? (I have Malevolence oredered)

 

From what I am seeing, HH isn't a full separate line of models from 40k. So I'm guessing there is a lot of crossover?

[james71989]

Malevolence replaced retribution, you dont need book 6 just book 8. There isnt as much crossover in models. Mkiii and mkiv marines, rhinos, most preds and only the lascannon land raider, normal 40k terminators cataphractii and tardos terminarors. Thats really about the only models that cross over. Your normal mark marines for 40k are mkviii and newer and werent around until the very end of the heresy to seige of terra armies, same with the assault marines. To make a true looking heresy army be prepared to buy most of your army from forgeworld

[Darkwrath121]

Units like bikes and landspeeders can be used too, but you'd want to be prepared to swap the upper bodies of the crew to more Heresy-era armour marks.

[m0nolith]

All in all by now it’s mainly it’s own thing.

Plastic MkIII and MkIV marines, although usable in 40k, were made to be used in 30k. And as far as crossover units go, there’s 30k versions of land speeders, land raiders, rhinos ect ect, which is what you mainly see on the table.

Honestly, 30k isn’t cheap model-wise and given the size of the average game, but well worth it given the quality of models, gameplay and community.

 

Given you are starting, I’d recommend that you look into first making a small Zone Mortalis Force or a Centurion force.

Centurion is a game type where there are no tracked and flying vehicles and some restriction for all other vehicles. It’s a good jumping off point.

[MARK0SIAN]

I started a Blood Angels army last year and I had the same issues with assault marines that you are asking about.

 

Monolith is right in that Heresy is the expensive end of an already expensive hobby and in many ways you just have to accept that (it’s made easier by how gorgeous most of the models are).

 

However, the assault squad from FW is one of the most unreasonably priced units out of the whole range in my opinion, given that they’re a compulsory troops choice.

 

For a start they don’t offer a MKiii version which limits you to either MKiv or MKv. The main problem though is that they charge £39 for 5 models, which means a minimum sized squad is costing £78.

 

Now the biggest problem you’ll find trying to kitbash your own from other kits is the arms, let me explain:

 

You can buy a set of plastic MKiii or MKiv marines for a reasonable price. However they have a very limited number of arms that are not shaped to hold a bolter or similar weapon i.e. they’re not suitable for holding a chainsword and bolt pistol.

 

Possible solutions:

 

1) You can combine a plastic MKiv or MKiii set with 2 standard assault marine/death company kits for less than the price of 10 FW assault marines. That will give you plenty of chainswords/pistols, arms and jump packs and lots of spare BA bits. The downside of this is that the jump packs, arms and bolt pistols will be of the wrong era. It’s less noticeable on the arms and pistols but is quite evident on the jump packs so it depends how much of a purist you want to be in your models.

 

2) You can combine a plastic MKiii or MKiv set with 2 of the Sanguinary guard kits (again for less than the FW price). The benefit of this is you get lots of BA stuff and you get the correct jump packs. The downside of this is that, again the arms are a different pattern (although they’re very BA decorated so it doesn’t look too odd) and the kits don’t have many chainswords etc so you would have to source some chainswords and bolt pistols from your bits box or online. Fortunately chainswords and bolt pistols are very easy to get hold of for very little money.

 

Both solutions have the benefit of costing less, giving you lots of spares after and being purely plastic. The downside is that they’re probably a bit more work and they will never be 100% accurate in terms of era of marks of armour/equipment.

 

Personally I can accept the slight inaccuracies for the benefits and saving. However not everyone is like that and I have the utmost respect for people who insist their armies are as pure/accurate as possible. You’ll just have to decide which way you want to go.

 

I’ve rambled a bit but I hope it was at least a little helpful :)

[SkimaskMohawk]

I hope you're ready for a monologue on armour marks, supply infrastructure and the general timeline.

 

First of all, there were thousands of forgeworlds active during the crusade and later heresy. A lot of these produced variants of the standard template of gear, like the ultramarines praetorian helmet/armour and the sarum pattern rebreathers. This is to say, the Mars pattern hulls for vehicles most definitely existed during the crusade and heresy eras.

 

Now the Blood Angels in the Heresy did....relatively nothing. They went to Signus and fought daemons, went to Ultramar and hung out for a number of years, and then got back to Terra and helped defend segmentum solar and the palace. That means they replenished and fixed their armour stores in one area that had divergent armour patterns and another that was known for supplying its marines with Mark 7 armour. The blood angels, along with the imperial fists, are most likely to have more 40k looking armour.

 

In terms of tabletop aesthetic, the various marks don't stick out at all when combined throughout a force. No one notices mk7 arms or back packs or whatever. My advice is to mix armour marks in general, as the less strict adherence to a specific armour mark for the force allows you to mix in 40k bits extremely easily.

[infyrana]

In terms of tabletop aesthetic, the various marks don't stick out at all when combined throughout a force. No one notices mk7 arms or back packs or whatever. My advice is to mix armour marks in general, as the less strict adherence to a specific armour mark for the force allows you to mix in 40k bits extremely easily.

I like this post ! :)  Definitely a great idea in general.  I've mixed Chaos SM arms and anvilus power packs with my MkIII / MkIV Heresy Death Guard, this gave me some bulkier forearmed melee poses for my assault marines (who use BA Sang Guard Jump Packs from bit sellers).  I've also cleaned up a bunch of Chaos shoulder pads to act as MkIII style shoulders.  There's the Sternguard kit and individual pieces from other marine kits (like all the MkVI legs/heads etc) which if found/mixed/used could definitely bulk out your forces without spending resin prices.

[bushman101]

hmmm....lots to think about.

 

I don't know if I have ever looked at the armor marks of my spare 40k bits. That might be worth considering.

 

My copy of Malevolence comes in tomorrow, I'm gonna have to give that a look to consider armor types and such.

 

Is there a good resource on the types of Jump Packs and who used which? That might also be worth looking into

 

 

Thanks for the replies

[Spagunk]

Related to necessary books, the only two you need for BA (excluding the main rule book) are the Age of Darkness Army List and Malevolence. If you decide to include some automata, you may need others but most of your content is in two books.

 

Related to units, I wouldn't say there is no wrong choice. Most of our bonuses are wrapped in the one assault trait so jump units tend to be favored. But you're not going to be handicapped if you field a lot more tacticals, in fact you can give them chainswords in addition to their own gear so there really isn't that much of a detriment.

 

The only thing to keep in mind is that the BA legion trait specifically limits the number of vehicles, dedicated transports excluded, based on the number of infantry units you take. But there are plenty of infantry units to pick from so there isn't that much of an issue.

[bushman101]

So I've been flipping through Malevolence and it seems like good stuff. 

The paint schemes seem neat, especial the original grey for the Revenants. 

Does Retribution show any different paint schemes/heraldry?

 

Looking around the forum, it seems folks prefer the spears over swords for Dawnbreakers. Any experiences to share?

 

Do Xenos have a presence in HH or does the game focus purely on the civil war?

[MARK0SIAN]

So I've been flipping through Malevolence and it seems like good stuff.

The paint schemes seem neat, especial the original grey for the Revenants.

Does Retribution show any different paint schemes/heraldry?

 

Looking around the forum, it seems folks prefer the spears over swords for Dawnbreakers. Any experiences to share?

 

Do Xenos have a presence in HH or does the game focus purely on the civil war?

I tried running Dawnbreakers with a mix of spears and swords and I remember wishing everyone who had a sword had a spear instead :)

[m0nolith]

Heresy is 100% to do with the civil war and has no Xenos in it.

That being said, there are plenty of community rules out there that people have created for Xenos players.

[Spagunk]

RE: Spears vs. swords

Spears are the superior option since it means you're probably going to wipe the squad you charge in the first turn. That being said, there are very few options for melee only units with both 2 attacks base AND ap3/2 options with jump packs. Those that fit have restrictions on melee weapons or don't really have that coveted 2 CCW/AP combo that maximizes melee.

 

[bushman101]

So I keep seeing the Sanguinary Guard mentioned, but no separate rules. Are they in the game?

[UtariOnzo]

Not... really, and that was a big controversy for plenty of folks.

[bushman101]

so, what are people's opinions on Terminators?

They seem to have a lot less options as far as getting up the board then 40k (examples: teleports and Drop Pods)

I have a unit from the Calth box, but trying to run them looks rough

[Bung]

Thete are options. But you need to Look at the rest of the army list.

Without the right Rite of War you need to take seperaten Drop Pods. For teleporting you need to take a Warmonger.

 

Thete are only 2 Legions with teleporting Terminators, Imperial Fists and Nightlords.

[SkimaskMohawk]

You basically either want a dreadclaw or Spartan for terminators, which always want to have chain fists. Dont fall into the trap of equipping them to benefit from the melee legion modifiers; a power sword wounding on a 3+ or an axe on a 2+ will never have the same benefit as the chain fist.

 

If taking a warmonger for deepstrike, then I'd recommend combi plasma either combined with the fists or even just by themselves.

 

They're a great unit for all legions, but very blunt and usually very predictable in their threat range.

[bushman101]

Where is the sheet for the Warmonger?

I can't seem to find it

[SkimaskMohawk]

Malevolence.

 

It's a great consul. 45 points for iron halo, digital lasers and deepstrike for him and any unit he joins.

[bushman101]

hey, I'm back. I've made a few purchases and things are shaping up....

 

Let me ask something about the Contemptor Incaendius Dreadnaught.... do people run them with the Talons? I would think that 2 Dread CCWs would be better. ( I plan on magnetizing, but I figured I would ask as well)

[battle captain corpus]

Sanguinary Guard boxed set is the simplest place for jump packs, however there are plenty of 3rd party companies that make some excellent options too. Obviously it depends on if you want to play at a Warhammer store or where people don’t mind etc.

 

BCC