Spent a month distracted with a local tournament, but am now thinking about Blood Angels development again.

I think it might be worth thinking about a statement of intent for what we want the BA list to play like. Comparing with other marine lists, we have:

- Codex Astartes: Uses Thunderhawks to juggle a terminator unit, along with Scouts, Speeders, Thunderbolts, and Warhounds

- Space Wolves: can run cost-effective, very large Great Companies which are resilient to taking some wounds. Fill landers very nicely

- Raven Guard: Focus on very small elite units with Ambush for self-planetfall.

- Ordo Xenos: Also focus on very small units of elite Veterans and Vanguard Veterans, with inducted Guard as an option


Raven Guard and Ordo Xenos both run Vanguard Veterans, whose profile (but not unit composition) I want to steal.

I might suggest for Blood Angels that we emphasize the use of fliers, skimmers, and jump pack infantry for maneuverable, hard-hitting units, but ones which risk running out of steam. We currently have quite few units in the roster and I would feel comfortable adding more. Some suggested additions are:

- Vanguard Veterans: 75 points to add 2 to an Assault Detachment
- Sanguinary Guard: 25 point upgrade to Assault Detachment unit (must already have a Character)
- Fire Raptors: 275 points for 2, statline posted. Could do Thunderhawk CAS instead?
- Despoilers: 225 points for 6 plus transport
- Stormravens: Split into Stormraven Transport upgrade, and Strike Squadron, as said above.
- Destroyers: 225 points for 6, as a Jump Pack firefight unit

Profiles are posted here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Dw31Jv3zDkt5Dh56Vr-sRABd0OYT4YIziJliO8AbonI/edit?usp=sharing.

Questions:

1. Any glaring balance issues?
2. Is adding Destroyers introducing too much Heresy stuff?
3. Should I use the Fire Raptors, or just plug in the (very good) Thunderhawk CAS from the Scions of Iron list?
4. Any other ideas?


EDIT:

One very out-there idea I had - summonable Sanguinor? Like an Avatar equivalent.

Double-posting, but I had a brainwave about the Sanguinor, because it can help solve the "falling on your face turn two" problem with the list.

The Sanguinor
Type: INF
Move: 30cm
Save: 4+
CC: 3+
FF: 4+
Blade Encarmine: Assault Weapon, MW EA+2

Jump Packs, Reinforced Armour, Invulnerable Save, Commander, Leader, Inspiring

Deployment:

During the Rally phase, when about to roll to rally a broken Blood Angels unit which contains Infantry or Dreadnoughts, you may place the Sanguinor in the unit. It automatically rallies, and may make one move.

Remove the Sanguinor at the end of the next turn. The Sanguinor may only be summoned once per game.

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This puts him at a Winged Daemon Prince power level (no MW FF, but some helpful rules). You need to have a broken infantry unit to bring him in which restrains it as a free "win more" mechanic but it can pull your chestnuts out of the fire. It also makes the positioning of your broken units into an important subgame of its own, since you'll get one move but then he only has his charge move engagement range.

Thoughts?

I have a "V.3.1.5" list written. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Dw31Jv3zDkt5Dh56Vr-sRABd0OYT4YIziJliO8AbonI/edit?usp=sharing

Removals:
- Bike unit removed (nobody takes this)
- Land Raider Redeemer removed (doubt anyone takes it)
- Terminators are 0-1 (differentiation from Codex Astartes list, and the other terminators are busy on the space hulk!)
- Land Speeder Multi-Melta variant removed (differentiation from Codex Astartes list, overlap with Predator Infernus)

Changes:
- Stormravens split into Stormraven Strike Wing and Stormraven Transport
- Strike Wing get long-ranged guns, including an AA shot
- Transports lose missiles, discounted to 50 each

Additions:
- Vanguard Veteran upgrade option added to Assault Detachment
- Sanguinary Guard upgrade added to Assault Detachment characters
- Sanguinor added
- Fire Raptor Gunships added
- Despoilers (i.e. Mounted Assault) detachment added
- Assault Support Detachment added
- Predator Destructor Detachment added

The current intended theme is to focus in on jump pack infantry. These struggle from a small threat range, being melee-specialists with weak firefight and no guns. The customization options and chance for the Sanguinor to lead a battered unit back into the fray late game is my attempt at making these more relevant.

I do not fully know the process in which this would become the semi-official current version of the developmental list. Apart from helpful comments from my gaming group and others online, I seem to be the only one particularly engaged with the list. I don't even know if it has an army champion.

As always, any opinions are welcome!

Bikes? Fine
Redeemer? Boooooo. Put it back =p

You should hit Dave up to get his blessings on taking over and testing the list. He's running the Marine section now that Kyuss retired

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Good to know - I messaged him.

I'm fine adding Redeemers back in. They don't seem particularly strong, for what it's worth. How do you run them?

with a landing craft and with glee

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I guess that's the way to do it. 3+ IC firefight priced at 125 for 2 feels a bit expensive. Normal raider firefight isn't much weaker and they get a decent pile of guns, and I still rarely bring them.

yeah they probably should be 25point cheaper for 4

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-Help me make Whitescars not suck!

After a good long while, I got specialty Blood Angels units painted and played two games today at my club. More concise battle reports and development thought below:

My List:

Death Company (2 DCD, Jump Packs) 475
Assault Detachment (2 extra, 2 VV, SG, Supreme Commander) 450
Assault Support Detachment 175
Assault Support Detachment 175
Predator Destructors (Hunter) 300
Baal Predators (Assault Cannon) 250
Stormraven Strike Wing 350
Scouts 150
Fire Raptor Gunships 275
Thunderhawk 200
Thunderhawk 200



Eldar: He brought a fairly standard-ish Biel-Tan army. 2x Guardians, 1x Aspects, some tanks and super-heavies, Revenants, phoenix bombers, 2x rangers. I put the Assault Detachment and Death Company each in a Thunderhawk, deploying other formations mostly along my center-right. Eldar spread his army equally across his DZ.

We both played very cagily, moving individual units up for potshots at each other. I broke some garrisoned rangers and the tanks, while he killed half of my Stormravens with the titans. Late in round I sent the Death Company in on the Revenant, but the Thunderhawk got critted by CAP planes, ouch. My second attempt with my SC assault detachment went better, killing a Revenant Titan and setting up to charge his Storm Serpent and strand a Guardian unit in the webway. 

Rallies went badly for Eldar, broken units remaining broken. 

I won initiative Turn Two, trying to send my Predators to shoot up the Storm Serpent and then charge it with my Assaults, but failed both 2+ initiative rolls because of the Red Thirst. Eldar set up to punish with the Guardians +  3 Wraithlords charging out of the Serpent's portal, but got deployment wrong, allowing my assault marines to countercharge and base most units, leading to me decisively winning the combat. We called it at this point, because his army was mostly broken.

Close Blood Angels Victory


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Orks: He had a very big Supa-Stompa formation (adding 3 stompas, flakwagon, bunch of killa kanz), a big mounted mob with his Warlord, a bunch of gunwagon formations each with an oddboy and a flakwagon, a warbiker mob, and 2x3 fighta-bombas. 

Similar deployment setup to last time, him spread evenly, myself more concentrated in the center. Also similar process of us both trickling units in and shooting, until he left his Warboss unit largely alone and still mounted. I strafed with my Fire Raptors and he bombed all saves, losing his warlord in the process, then dove on them with my Death Company thunderhawk, losing the 3 normal bases but wiping the unit out. Later in the round I sent my SC Assault formation into a gunwagon unit, wiping it and setting up for a round 2 charge into his Supa-Stompa BTS. I wagered I could avoid the melee stompas, and concentrate enough hits into the Killa-Kanz to swing combat resolution. 

Round two I executed it, shooting the BTS up with Baal Predator assault cannons (1-2 kills) and charging. We tied first round, but I got wiped out in the second round, my support fire having accomplished nothing. I still did enough damage to break the unit. We called it end of round 2, with the Orks reduced to just the bikers (who failed activation) and the Supa-Stompas encircled and about to be charged with a ton of supporting fire.

Blood Angels Victory

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Unit Analysis

Fire Raptors

Both players were quite fine with the list, with some concerns about the Fire Raptors. One suggested using an Epic 30k statline instead, which is 300 points (mine is 275) with marginally different weapon profiles, has 5+RA rather than a 3+, and is a Fighter-Bomber instead of a Bomber. I think getting the option of Intercept/CAP is actually an upgrade even with the 11% worse armor. Not sure what to do here. If people would prefer those, I guess I'm fine changing even though it seems better.

Stormravens and Predators

The Stormravens have finally found their place as a designated AV-shooting strike unit. Pop-ups work well with their range and their AA is a nice supplement. The Red Thirst was a notable liability for both them and the Predators, who need to be very close to do their job, and you don't always want to charge with the predators (and never want to with the Ravens). This nearly lost me the game with the Eldar player - many BA units are going to be stuck on -1 to activate for Turn 2 onwards.

Assault Supports

I'm very happy with these. 175 is just about the maximum they're worth. Unit is great for shooting, skirmishing, support fire, and 1-2 of these in a Thunderhawk is enticing. Fewer models than scouts, though, more expensive, and lack Scout so no Garrisoning or ZOC trolling. They're a good consolation prize for losing Melta Speeders.

Considering: Ruling that a Librarian is just 25 points, represented by the plasma pistol dual-wielding Moritats I've got in the models. Adding a single MW FF for 50 is not worth it, but 25 might be. 

Assaults, Vanguard Veterans, Sanguinary Guard

Also happy with this. The price gets up there - 350 before character - but you can send a Thunderhawk in late round 1, kill something, and combo into another unit round 2, which is what I wanted from them. They've got a bit of staying power (since you can tank wounds on the Assaults while the Veterans and Sanguinary Guard do the work). Not better or worse than Terminators, lacking guns or built-in delivery. 

Death Company
They do their job, but in a very one-note sort of way. They'll kill what you sent them at but only once. Would it be sacrilegious to make these 0-1 instead of mandatory?


Land Raiders?

I'll add Redeemers back in (Jimmy cried when I removed them). Tempted to add Raiders as an independent unit of 4. Considering you'll suffer Red Thirst activation penalties they're effectively debuffed relative to Codex Astartes.


Questions Going Forward
1. Change Death Company to 0-1?
2. 25 point Librarian (i.e. Moritat) for Assault Supports?
3. Land Raiders as independent unit?
4. Change Fire Raptors to Thunderhawk CAS or alter the profile?
5. I never got a message back about taking over the list. Is there any other way to contact Dave?

Thanks to all. Thoughts are much appreciated.

Two more Battle Reports, and some unit updates after consultation with my group.


Dark Eldar:

DE using UK list, with almost everyone in barges or raider ships. I brought the same list as above. Problem out of the gate is that my heavy hitter units were all melee. I made some bad moves turn one (lunging Stormravens way too far forward and getting them melted by TK) compounded by very good DE saving dice.

End of turn one it looked like game over, but we played the first few activations of turn two in which it started suddenly swinging around, compounded by us not taking it super seriously and the DE player forgetting his Teleport and webway portal units.

It swung around in my favor on turn three. But that was heavily influenced by my being right about to concede end of turn one (we were already sort of talking about it as a post-mortem and lost focus), so not a real win.



Skitarii Legion:

I brought a slightly modified list, dropping the Stormravens, Fire Raptors, and an Assault Support, adding another hunter, a Terminator unit, and devastators in Stormraven Transports. Also swapped Baals from AC to Magna Melta.

Skitters had two minorus formations each with Quake Cannon and Landing Pad, which influenced my cautious advance. Those supported a sagitarii unit on garrison, two infantry blobs mounted in minoruses, three crusader units, and two avenger fighter squadrons. Disaster arrived quickly on turn one, with both of my thunderhawk air assaults got shot down. First was from a single CAP fighter critical, second was the Death Company getting downed by 6x AA6+ Minorus flak shots. Groan.

We accepted that "timeline" was a loss for BA, and put the second Thunderhawk back into play with 1 damage to get more game out of it. The Death Company within mostly destroyed the Supreme Commander's infantry unit (2 secutor plus hypaspists) but got mauled themselves and were wiped out that turn.

I made a good try at it, pressuring Skitarii back and hitting the durable/fast units and trying to squeeze out a win on objectives, and nearly managed it. But Skitter player made good use of Avengers and artillery to pound my guys in the midfield for the win.


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The Sanguinor did arrive both of these games (I expect he's only going to arrive in games where things are going badly, which is good). In both he led a Jump Pack unit back into combat and he died both times (once to random wounds, once to eating a TK shot).

Some changes made based on games and feedback:


- Assault Supports up-costed from 175 to 200, and the number you can bring is capped at the number of Assault Detachments you bring. They also gain a Veteran Sergeant upgrade for 25 points, who is a character with just a MW EA FF shot.

- Baal Predators reduced to 225.

- Vanguard Veteran upgrade on Assault Detachment decreased in price to 50.

- Devastators have their Missile Launchers replaced with Assault Cannons. 2x 30cm AP5+/AT5+. Iliastus ACs are thematic for Blood Angels, and it gives them some more AT firepower but at closer range.,

- Fire Raptor profile has been tinkered with. 3+ save turned to 5+RA to slightly weaken it, and give Lance AA shooting a chance to influence it.

- Death Company are switched from 1 Mandatory to 0-1. They're such an expensive one-use unit that I don't want to force the list to be built around them every time.