New Blood Angels!

I am still trying to wrap my head around 7th edition but I have some first thoughts on the new codex!

I think it is a great improvement. I pointed out my Lamenters list from BFS and saved about enough to buy another whole unit.  Some stuff is much cheaper and unfortunately some stuff is more expensive.

The winners:

Dante!  He is usable again. They made his ax go at normal initiative allowing him to take advantage of his high I score and swing away, and it is still STR +2 and AP2.  With his six attacks on the charge going at initiative 7 things are gona die.

He is now a must have for any assaulty BA army.

Oh and he is a Lord of War, which means you can take him in addition to 2 HQ choices.

Death Company.

The biggest issue with them was points. Without Jump Packs it was difficult to get them into combat. But Jump Packs used to cost 15 points for them which made it stupid.  Now JP cost 3 points a piece. This instantly turns JP equipped DC into a viable unit and a must have. A squad of 10 of them equipped with a few Power Swords and a fist will be among the top assault units in the game if they get the charge off.

Command Squad:
Maybe not so great a choice, but for 200 points you can get them on the table with jump packs, upgraded weapons and Storm Shields. A great unit for Dante to join.

Captain:
The BA had undeniably the worst SM captain in 40k. He was a joke. Now he is sick. Why? Well for 130 points you can get a 2+/4+ marine with 5 attacks on the charge at I6 and an AP2 power sword by taking the BA relic.  It is only 5 points more than a regular power sword!  What a steal!

+1 elite choice:
Fantastic seeing as how all of the good units are now elites...

Detachment:
+1 Initiative on charge! Welcome back to pre 6th ed assault glory!

And here is some of the bad...

Elite and HQ choices.  All of the wonderful killy stuff is wrapped up in Elite and HQ.  The priest got promoted and reduced to a single model per selection. No more flooding the table with FNP.  The Chaplain got promoted as well.  They are now competing with Librarians, Mephiston and the upgraded captain.  And it seems that every thing got slid into the Elite slot. DC, DC Dreads, Furiosos, Sang Guard, Van and Stern Vets, Termies. Holy Cluster of competition for available slots. Lucky we have four!

Dreadnoughts:
Not only are they more expensive, but a lot less killy with the removal of the meat grinder blood talons.  This is sad because BA still lack the torrent of fire that many armies had and the old talons helped balance that.  I simply can't see myself taking a dread any more with a BA force.

Troop Assault Marines:
Gone. Moved to Fast Attack.  Not a huge deal with the way the new game works cause you can still flood the table with assault marines, but JP troops were always a trademark of the BA and will be missed.

Troops:
Only 2 choices... Tacs and Scouts.  Scouts are crazy cheap though, 65 points for 5 snipers with cloaks.  Five tacs in a rhino are about 100.  But why bother. 240 points buys you 4 scout squads that your opponent will simply get bored of shooting at as they go to ground for 2+ saves and the ability to do some real, and annoying damage by picking out models and wounding big stuff.

What are my plans?  I am making a new army, going back to my roots.  Land raider of death with assault termies and a bunch of ICs.  The only problem is that it is much more difficult to do it.  I want that new Captain in there, and doing so means I only get one more HQ... so I get to choose between Priest, Meph who is now an IC and a Chap.  Priest lost the FNP bubble so he must be in the unit so he is needed which means I cant get my chap and meph.

How do I solve this?  Allies? Can I take a second BA detachment?  Or do I have to go with SM or SW allied force?  Rules guys help me out here!

jawaballs

14 comments:

JRBunn said...

Hey, a wild Jawa has appeared after a long slumber.

You can take any number of detachments in 7th edition, although this is occasionally limited by tournaments. For example, you could take two Blood Angels detachments - one Combined Arms out of the main rulebook, and one of the special detachments from the BA codex. Each one's special rules will only apply to units from that detachment - Troops in the Combined Arms detcahment will have Objective Secured but will not receive +1 Initiative on the charge, and vice-versa.

Anonymous said...

You can't ally with yourself generally, pg 122 for the allied detachment says that "all units.., must have a different faction to any of the units in your primary detachment". Some formats, like at the LVO tournament, overrode this to allow self-allying. The SM codex specifically allows it as do a few of the supplements.

You could just take two Baal Strike Force detachments, page 118 "There is no limit to the number of detachments a battle-forged army can include". No major tournaments have allowed this that I'm aware of, but they may change course.

Jawaballs said...

Hah. Well I am in between semesters in Grad school, and I was home alone for the weekend so had a lot of time to read the book. So what I am seeing, unless there is a new BA codex supplement like a Lamenters book, I won't be able to ally more BA in most tournaments. BUT I could ally an HQ and troops of Space Marines and an HQ and Troops of Space Wolves? So the question is, what other combinations, within the fluff, could I do? In one of the paragraphs in the book it says that Craftworld Ulthwe actually helped them out in a fight... what kind of nastiness could I put in my land raider from the Eldar? What is the maximum units of eldar I could take? 1 HQ, 2 troops, 1 of each other?

Jawaballs said...

Oh wait what are the rules for allies joining squads now?

Jawaballs said...

Ok so I got out my rulebook and looked up the rules, I still don't quite understand Unbound vs whatever else the other "categories" are. So there are no limits on detachments but they cannot be of the same faction unless it says so. I also see that any one can ally now, just not deploy within 12" if they hate each other... :)

Anonymous said...

Provided you fulfil the minimum requirements for each one, you can have any number of detachments, both from your primary and allied faction. The nature of these detachments is up to you, so you can mix and match from the options your faction has.

So you could get a Blood Angels Combined Arms Detachment (the one in the rulebook), get the 1 HQ and 2 Troops you need for the minimum requirements, then add more stuff if you want. Then you could get a Baal Strike Force Detachment with its compulsory 1 HQ, 1 Elites, 2 Troops and then add more stuff again. Then you could get another BaalStrike Force and do it again and so forth ad nauseam.

Anonymous said...

You however cannot choose a primary detachment from one faction (so a Combined Arms or Baal Detachment for Blood Angels) and an Allied Detachment from the same faction. Getting an Allied Detachment would be easier as they only need one compulsory Troops choice.

Unbound is jjust GW's way of telling you to take whatever you want without limits. It is of course not legal in most tournaments. However, most tournaments also don't allow multiple Primary or Allied Detachment, limiting you to one each, or two in total, including exceptions like Dataslates (which are completely different and simply give you a precise list of what they include), Knights Detachments or Inquisitors, all of which have their own specific rules.

JRBunn said...

The concept of 'Allies' that you are using is outdated (6th edition), and it's causing issues with your understanding of building an army in 7th.

1) You can take any number of detachments. This can be a Combined Arms detachment, an Allied detachment, a formation, a detachment from your army book, etc.

2) An Allied detachment has the restriction that its units cannot be from the same faction as the Primary faction. A Combined Arms detachment, and most other detachment/formations, do not have this restriction. Nothing prevents you from taking two Blood Angels Combined Arms detachments.

3) The Primary detachment is simply the detachment that contains your Warlord. It could be a formation, a CA detachment, just not an Allied detachment.

4) The Allies Matrix is now just a chart of unit interactions within your army. It is used for Unbound armies and Batttle Forged armies.

Hopefully this helps. You can, for example, take a Combined Arms Blood Angels detachment and the new triple Stormraven formation in the same army, and there are no tournaments that I know of that would limit this.

http://www.thediceabide.com/2014/08/what-exactly-is-a-battleforged-army/ - a link to a friend's site containing a good diagram of how to make an army.

Jawaballs said...

Here are rules for an upcoming tournament. Can I play two detachments from the same codex in these rules?

All armies must be Battle Forged (no Unbound armies).

-All codices, dataslates, supplements, and formations released on or before January 17th, 2015 are allowed.

-You may include a maximum of two detachments following all rules in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook for selecting detachments.

-Character Lords of War WILL be allowed at this event. All other Lords of War are NOT permitted. This means you may include character lords of war from codices (Logan, Draigo, Ghazgul, etc.), but you cannot take any Lords of War from Escalation or other Super Heavy or Gargantuan LoW.

JRBunn said...

Yep! You could run two BA Combined Arms, one BA CA and one Formation, one BA CA and one SW CA, or one BA CA and one SW Allied - if my shorthand isn't too confusing :)

Troy said...

It does not say that you CAN'T take two from the same codex.....and that is the key... so rock out with your !@#$ out! or you can just put Dante in a unit of 10 DC and let them mop up everything

Matthew Beavis said...

Yes, you can't "Ally" yourself using an Allied Detachment (single Troop choice) but you can simply take a second full Combines Arms Detachment or Baal Strike Force. You can also include Battle Brother Independent Characters in any tansport (including at deployment), and Battle Brother troops can embark on Allied transports, just not deploy in them! My favourite at the moment is an Allied Inquisitor with Liber Heresius inside my Land Raider for a 12" Scout move...

Ming said...

Take a blood Angels strike force and a formation from the recent white dwarf. The benefit of going for a detachment or formation over plain unbound is the benefit of additional special rules.

Jawaballs said...

I will have to look in that white dwarf!

Post a Comment