How to start BA today?

[Robbie1984]

Hello all!

 

I am looking into possibly getting back into the hobby, and starting a BA army. Alot has changed since I last played and collected, so my big question is, where to start in buying mini's for an army?

 

I understand BA is currently in a slightly weird spot as we have a new edition and SM codex, but no BA codex yet. I've heard very mixed reviews on the BA combat patrol box, my personal view just looking at it is that it's just not very BA, but have no idea how it performs on the table.

 

I know things could change drastically once we do get our own codex, but until that point, what should be my first options for maybe say a 500 pt starter force?

[DemonGSides]

The Christmas battleforce box is actually a pretty solid starter set for a new marine jump pack army. Otherwise, our Combat Patrol kinda meh but I like aggressors so it's so good in mind. 

[Karhedron]

It's a good question. Death Company with Jump Packs are great at the moment but as a Firstborn unit, they may not even exist when our full codex drops. My advice would be to look at units in the main Marine Codex that are good and suit your style of play. Then sprinkle in some BA specific units such as Characters that are available as Primaris. That way you can run your army ad red Marines. 

[Robbie1984]

1 minute ago, Karhedron said:

It's a good question. Death Company with Jump Packs are great at the moment but as a Firstborn unit, they may not even exist when our full codex drops. My advice would be to look at units in the main Marine Codex that are good and suit your style of play. Then sprinkle in some BA specific units such as Characters that are available as Primaris. That way you can run your army ad red Marines. 

 

I seriously hope that doesn't happen, Death Company is what draws me towards BA over the other chapters.

[Rhavien]

Don't worry. DC won't go away. Just the firstborn DC probably. We already have DC Intercessors with either boltrifles or the assault variant. I guess we'll get the new jumppack ones as DC too, when the codex finally drops. However the firstborn DC kit is a treasure box of bits, so it could be worth to get your hands on one box anyway. You could build them future proof, mimicking the loadout of the new jumppack intercessors and just use them as as that, if the predictions will come true. It will provide many extra heads and shoulder pads to bling up Primaris Marines. If you don't care that much about wysiwig you could play them as powerfist/inferno pistol DC till then. I would say only a minority of BA players has a DC unit with that loadout ready atm. I certainly don't, even owning 25 of that guys and also don't plan to invest time. 

[Robbie1984]

Sounds like a couple of DC boxes would be a good start then, I'm going to look on ebay for some kind of spare models / parts so I can throw something together just for the purpose of trying out paint schemes etc, its been years since I last picked up a brush, and to be honest I'm tempted to go all in and try and learn airbrushing. 

[Blindhamster]

yeah DC won't go, but the current ability to do 10 guys with inferno pistols and thunder hammers almost certainly will!

 

I'd suggest keeping DC loadouts as chainsword/pistol combos with maybe a couple of "special" melee weapons thrown in for now.

[Karhedron]

Another option is to look at units that are clasically Blood Angel but work well in the Detachments listed in the new Codex too. Baal Predators and Vanguard Veterans with Hand Flamers work well in the new Firestorm detachment for example as using "Immolation Protocols" to give them Devastating Wounds can churn out damage on even the toughest targets. 10 Van Vets with Hand Flamers led by a Jump Captain for free use of Immolation Protocols will average about 6 Mortal Wounds per turn, can be fired in Close Combat since they are Pistols and will also deliver about 30 additional hits at S4 thanks to the Detachment's strength boost.

 

Stormlance Detachment is perhaps not the strongest but does allow for a very speedy force with Advance + Charge on all units. 

 

Since we don't know exactly what Blood Angels will look like once our Codex arrives, build units that can also work well as "red marines" if you so choose. This means you army will be more flexible and ultimately more fun in the long run.

 

For what it is worth, I am pretty sure Death Company will be sticking around since it has now been confirmed that the Black Rage affects Primaris marines too. It is just the current loadout special weapons out of the wazoo that might be changed.

[Tokugawa]

2024 is near now. I think it's no need to keep euphemistic: Avoid all finecast resin like plague. Try to avoid old kits and old born exclusive products. 

 

Buy the models made by most modern techniques, e.g. Dante.

[Tokugawa]

10 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

yeah DC won't go, but the current ability to do 10 guys with inferno pistols and thunder hammers almost certainly will!

 

I'd suggest keeping DC loadouts as chainsword/pistol combos with maybe a couple of "special" melee weapons thrown in for now.

If they receive merged "furious weapon" in future rules, then never WYSIWYG headache anymore.

[Blindhamster]

21 minutes ago, Tokugawa said:

If they receive merged "furious weapon" in future rules, then never WYSIWYG headache anymore.

Like they had in 4th Ed where death company had close combat weapons but always had rending 

[Karhedron]

It is slightly curious that they did not receive this at the same time as Van Vets, Wulfen and TWC got heirloom weapons. Maybe the key difference is that those 2 units can get Storm Shields for a 4++ whereas DC cannot. 

[Wormwoods]

As tempted as I was to make some truescale firstborn jump DC, yeah, best wait till we see what they're going to be like in the Codex. 

 

If you're happy to wait for anything super jumpy, there's also the models currently cheap due to Leviathan? You can grab infernus marines and maybe even some upscaled terminators online. They're not explicitly BA, but easy to include. My current BA successor army is made mostly from Leviathan models, just with a lot of kitbashing and converting to vary things up.

[Rhavien]

19 hours ago, Robbie1984 said:

Sounds like a couple of DC boxes would be a good start then, I'm going to look on ebay for some kind of spare models / parts so I can throw something together just for the purpose of trying out paint schemes etc, its been years since I last picked up a brush, and to be honest I'm tempted to go all in and try and learn airbrushing. 

I can only recommend getting into airbrushing if you have the conditions and money to invest. Coincidentally I just started airbrushing this year with a cheap beginner set from Amazon with a rechargeable compressor. Now that I got the basic grip and are confident, that it's the way to go for me I invested in some better equipment. I'm no Angel Giraldez and don't have the ambition to become one, but painting vehicles and getting that super smooth color transition on your models is so so good. 

[Tokugawa]

On 11/13/2023 at 9:08 AM, Blindhamster said:

yeah DC won't go, but the current ability to do 10 guys with inferno pistols and thunder hammers almost certainly will!

 

I'd suggest keeping DC loadouts as chainsword/pistol combos with maybe a couple of "special" melee weapons thrown in for now.

Walking DC would go. They would be absorbed into the awkward primaris DC intercessor equivalent kit. The box art and content may vary(e.g. more melee weapon bits) from current version though. 

 

Jump pack DC would receive a whole new kit, as everyone wished. 

 

 

[Blindhamster]

27 minutes ago, Tokugawa said:

Walking DC would go. They would be absorbed into the awkward primaris DC intercessor equivalent kit. The box art and content may vary(e.g. more melee weapon bits) from current version though. 

 

Jump pack DC would receive a whole new kit, as everyone wished. 

 

 

Your summary and mine are effectively the same thing.

 

there will certainly always be both jump and foot DC

 

theyll have a close combat and a ranged option. 
 

the key thing, is that their specialist weapon options will be heavily reduced from what they get atm

[Robbie1984]

So I managed to pickup one of the spearhead forces and also a leviathan box. I figured that as these will be the first mini's and any painting I've done in 10 years, the Leviathan box should at least have a few min's that aren't too useful to a BA collector that I can at least get some practice on along with the Nid's, and hopefully we might have some insight with whats happening going forward by the time I get this pile done....

[DemonGSides]

That's a great and fluffy combination of Blood Angels units; jump packs are like, our thing; Terminators aren't our specialty but we are known for some cool looking terminators in the past and our 1st company has quite a few; flames are definitely in our life wheelhouse, as is the Librarian.

 

Good, thematic grouping of units, and one of our most hated enemies to run them into. Good buys!

[Spyros]

In a Sons of Sanguinius detachment, you can't go wrong with Bladeguard veterans (models that are here to stay). Changing from a Land Raider and buffed by characters and stratagems, they slay hard...