Even with those stats, it suffers from being a nu-skool GW unit with far too many weapons. Come on, four distinct weapon systems on a transport? Is that not a classic case of power creep?

And where are they paying for planetfall? Other ground units have to give something up (rhinos/teleport) or pay for a transport to ride in. They can do everything, so I suspect that ability is very hard to balance.

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OK guys, let's take the Storm Raven conversation here instead. The unit isn't BA specific, just prominent here and frankly, this is actually a good conversation to allow. However I don't want to muck up the BA thread with a wider impacting discussion.

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Did we ever try teleporting Land Raiders, like in the 5th edition 40k codex?

Sort of. The inclusion of tbrick transporters was made last year which is the general extrapolation of how that happens in 40k

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Batrep blood angels vs biel-tan:
http://taccmd.tacticalwargames.net/view ... 84&t=29206
Marines win 4-0 in the third turn.

My thoughts:

1. The Frenzied rule seems beardy. It came up several times, all of which were of benefit to the marines, allowing them to automatically engage either on a retain or with BMs. The downside never came up, and I notice you've only given it to the units for whom engaging is actually a positive. Auto-retaining has been a bone of contention for the ulthwe and iyanden lists and it is frustrating for the opponent. When the whole army can do it...

2. Storm ravens are excessive. When these things fire, they do a lot of damage. They can alpha strike from mid-board out of sight thanks to planetfall (which they don't have to give anything up for), and after that they have the armour to not care too much about return fire. They are like artillery that you don't have to risk deploying on the board at the start. How these things are not 400 points for a formation I don't know. I guess they are this price because warhounds are around the same. But 50 points less than predators?? They are just all around better in every way. And that's with predators given a free +5cm move. As it stands I would not want to use or fight against the list with these storm ravens in it. Most things in Epic can be fixed with points, but for these guys planetfall in particular I have a problem with. Even assault marines can't drop pod; it's not fair with their movement, let alone to pop up and shoot from 60cm away.

3. Death company: seems about right in terms of stats, if undercosted given the chaplain. Significantly better than devs, and only 75 points more than assaults for fearless, twice the attacks, invulnerable save. They can be a cheap terminator alternative. Do they really need the invulnerable save?

4. Super special engines: I didn't field many ground vehicles, the scouts engaged with infiltrate so it only really came into play with the tacs. It allowed me to get them right up the field to take over from the planetfalling devs, and then that meant they were also close enough to the jetbikes (in the eldar deployment zone) to sustain on them.

Overall: I'm left looking for the nerfs in this list. They lose vindis and destructors, both below par niche units and replaced with 2 new tanks anyway. Death company is an assault formation that's actually worth taking, and none of the special stuff comes with any points increases.

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I'm fairly sure I know the answer to this one, but want to confirm anyway:

In a recent game my Blood Angels opponent elected to Air Assault with a Thunderhawk filled with Sanguinary Guard. It was a retain, and he failed his 2+ Activation roll, even with SC re-roll. He then announced that, since he was getting into an Assault, his Frenzied rule kicked in and that he actually could make the Assault.
I let it slide since the game had been pretty one sided in my favour, but for future reference am I right in thinking that the Action Test for an Air Assault is done by the Thunderhawk, and the Sanguinary Guard's Initiative is ignored? As the Thunderhawk is not Frenzied, this would mean no Frenzy kicks in and the Assault would have failed to happen.

For general feedback on my experiences:
I've rarely found Frenzied to be a positive or negative. Maybe it's just my opponent's luck, but I think it has made a positive difference twice (including the above Thunderhawk incident), and a negative impact once, in 5 games.

I agree that Storm Ravens are probably too good. They are fast, tough, have good transport capacity and have strong firepower for every situation, all for only 50pts. I know they replace Rhinos to get that point discount, but I still feel they're too much. As an Eldar player I keep comparing them to Wave Serpents- identical stats and points (ignoring the Rhino discount), but the firepower imbalance is amazing.

I haven't found Death Company too bad except for one combination of issues (which combines with the Sanguinary Guard, extra-fast vehicles and Storm Ravens)- Blood Angles can get a lot of fast, fearless units, with excellent saves. Even though the Death Company can't claim objectives, denial is almost as powerful. I've found almost all games forced to a fourth turn as, even when horribly mauled, it's simply too difficult to put the final nail in the coffin of enough Blood Angel units to actually take the objectives, and the Blood Angels units can easily march 90cm+ to claim or contest whatever they need to. ATSKNF makes this tough already, Fearless makes it near impossible.
This may just be a tactics issue on my part- I'm not an experienced player.

You're correct that the aircraft is activating and frenzy does not come into play.

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DC's Invu save is because their resilence to pain/injuries, etc. Invu save is my personal favourite save (never worked, really nevernevernever. true story.), and a really fluffy thing.

The main problem with comparing units (as an eldar player also) I think Eldar (Wave Serpent equipped) units can be activated 3 times in a row, so this rules' cost is included in every eldar units points cost.. So aunit by unit comparison can be a real comparison, without the context of the army list!

BTW, why everyone forgets about the lack of titans in the list?

I have a minor nitpicks that I stumbled across will reading the current list (2.4)

*) Infernus stats are missing
*) Storm Raven comment needs to say that it can transport Sanguinary Guard
*) inconsistent naming of vehicles - Blood Angels Predator vs Baal Predator and Land Raider/Storm Raven/Bikes/Land Speeders have no Blood Angels prefix.
*) Heavy support lists Annihilator and Baal but not the Infernus. is this intentional ?
*) should the Assault upgrade be limited to 0-2 ? I read something on this thread along those lines

thanks for all the work making the list stable.

Thanks! We need all the eyes we can get on things.


IIRC, This is actually pulled but left in the list (i'll confirm today).


Oh good one. We actually need to rename this to BA Storm Raven as 1. everyone uses them according to the new fluff, 2. we're using them in multiple lists so best to to make this explicit.


The Baal doesn't need a prefix as it is what it is and is a BA (and successor only unit). Good notes on the others


infernus was pulled and thats legacy.


yup.


thanks for looking over it. Any chance we can see you take them on an outing?

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OK folks just to let you know Xenocidal Maniac has decided to step down as Sub-AC on the Blood Angels list. Let's thank him for all the hard work work put in.

We will be holding off taking nominations on a new sub-AC just quite yet. I feel there's need to do some hard thinking on the nature and whys of the Storm Raven unit. A discussion that may have some serious consequences in this list. A no-topic/idea-offlimits type of discussion. I'll be restarting the conversation we had going in the Storm Raven Why thread shortly.

Also not to piss off those that love the Italian Space Vampires (no one more than me), but I want to keep the focus on pushing IF through to approved right now so the BA are way lower on the priority when balanced against the number of active playtesters.

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Nope no titans in this list. This is basically reflecting a BA, or successor force operating independently from other Imperial forces where the distrust and antagonistic relationship with the AdMech is allowed to run wild.

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I think that storm raven discussion will have an effect on Grey Knights as well.

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EPIC WIP: Grey Knights, Space Wolves, Eldar

Yes, the stormraven is part of the grey knights so will be looking at that as part of its development.

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