BLOOD ANGLES: SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY

To continue on with my list of crappy Blood angels units, lets move into the Elites section.  Now, again, I am going iterate that most everything in this book is not as good as the same unit in the Astartes Codex, but I'm going to try and focus on the things that are terrible outside the context of that book.  So, lets take a deep breath, clench those butt cheeks and dive right in.

The Command squad is 100 pts for 5 dudes.  That's 20 pts a model because math says so and all they have is chainsword and pistol with the exception of the Champ who had a power sword and combat shield.  You then get the option to take special weapons making the Champ kinda pointless.  No, he's useless, he certainly isn't pointless because he is part of the reason you pay 100 pts for these dudes.  You can't make the unit any bigger than that, and it takes up an Elites slot.  Maybe I'm confused, or perhaps I'm remembering an older edition, but do you remember when these guys didn't take up a slot?  You could simply buy one to accompany one of your HQ choices.  However, you could only buy one if you took a specific HQ, now it seems you can take them willy-nilly.  To be honest, with the upgrades you can give them, you can make them a deepstriking, jump infantry, miniature ball of assaulty AND/OR shooty death.  In that they can deal out death AND die really well.  They also have a medic which gives them FNP, but since he is a character he can be challenged out and killed, after the Champ gets pasted of course, by which time the rest of the unit is probably already dead unless they all have Storm Shields.

I want to talk about Death Company just for a second, not because they are bad, but because the fact that they exist makes the Command squad that much worse.  The Death company have Fearless, FNP, Rage, and Relentless, can be upgraded to be just as deadly in combat, and can have up to 15 models in the unit for the same price per model as the Command squad.  Plus their jump pack are cheaper.

I have no clue what the fuck GW was thinking when they wrote the rules for these guys.  They game them all these neat bits of wargear and special rules, but each one comes with a caveat that fucks them over and they ARE STILL 33 POINTS PER MODEL!!

Let me explain.  They have these cool Stormbolter wrist launcher things that are S4 AP4.  That's cool right?  A little boost from the typical Stormbolter, except they are only 12" range.  FUCKED!

They each have a master-crafted power weapon, except they are 2-handed which means if they buy a pistol upgrade they won't get the extra attack for 2 weapons.  FUCKED!!

They have Artificer armour but no way to even get an invulnerable save.  FUCKED!!

They can BUY the FEAR ability.  FUCKED!!

And then you can pay 25 pts to get a banner that makes them as good as they should have been to start with.  FUCKED!!

The first line of their flavour text reads:"The Sanguinary Guard are the best their Chapter has to offer."  WHY DO THEY HAVE WS 4??????

These guys remind me of an expensive version of Warp Talons.

There is literally nothing about these guys that makes them any more special than any of the other jump pack wearing close combat units in this book, and there are a few to choose from, all of which would be better choices.  The command squad, Death Company, Vanguard Vets, even regular Assault marines who are HALF the price.  I have seen these guys charge into a unit of Daemonettes and LOSE COMBAT!

After all that, I have seen these guys used to decent effect with Dante, a Priest, and a Chaplain in a unit of 10 making a super Deathstar.  The poor bastards still ended up getting shot to death after they killed 2 whole units.  WOW!

Anyway, I'm done with them, onto bigger things...

Dreadnoughts.  I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail as to why Dreadnoughts suck because I mostly covered it in an old post I did on a previous Blog I used to write on called 40Kegger.  You can find that post here:

http://40kegger.blogspot.ca/2014/02/misfits-of-40k-episode-9.html

In that post I talk about regular Dreads, not the multitude of fancy ones that the Blood Angles break out, the Death Company Dread getting an extra attack and Rage for 25 pts more and the Furioso getting an extra WS and 13 FA for 25 pts more.  Both of which are really good for a moderate price increase yet still don't match the Astartes Codex since their basic Dreads can be taken in units of 3 and have 4 attacks base.

Terminators are pretty much the same as always.  40 pts a model for a single wound close combat focused dude who can't sweeping advance.  It's the same issue terminators have always had, they are way too expensive and have very little mobility once they either get out of their transport or deep strike.  I won't drone on as it's not a problem with Blood Angels specifically.  Perhaps I will do a Misfit episode on them some day, but I won't go deep today.

Now I know I said I wasn't going to re-iterate the fact that Furious Charge is inferior to all the other Chapter Tactics that appear in the Codex Astartes, but it makes itself even more apparent with the Sternguard.  These guys are shooting specialists.  With their generous amount of special and heavy weapon selections, and their special bolter ammo, there is no reason these guys should be charging anything.  And yet despite the fact that they have a pointless rule, and their points value suffers for it, they are still very good, giving them 2 heavy flamers and a drop pod will ruin anyones day.

Ok, well that was quite a lot of writing for the Elites section.  Poor Blood Angels.  Lets move on to the Fast Attach choices and hopefully things will get better.

Land Speeders are not very good and it's probably because Attack Bikes are a thing that exists.  Attack bikes are cheaper, more durable, can assault, are just as fast, and can actually benefit from Furious Charge.  They can't get the range of weapons, but all the extra weaponry actually makes the Land Speeder more of a liability when they die.  And they will die.

This is going to be a bit of a twist, instead of me talking about a crappy unit, I am going to mentioned one of the very few units that happens to be better in the Blood Angels Codex than in the Astartes Codex and that's the lowly Assault Marine.  Now you might be asking me what could possibly make these guys better than the Astartes version?  Is it a weird loop hole? A nifty rule?  Nope, it's simply the equipment options.  The Astartes have nothing but flamers and plasma pistols available to them.  The BA Assault marines have the full gambit of special weapons available to them.  Plasma guns, melta guns, fusion pistols.  Except Grav-guns, these guys can get it all, and can become extremely reliable when you can take a 5 man unit with 2 special weapons and a combi weapon on the sarge, then loose the jump pack and get them a drop pod for free.  115 points get you 3 melta shots and a drop pod.

And then we end with Bike units, which are all pretty good.  High T with good weapon options.  Even the scout bikers aren't terrible being able to take cluster mines and not having to worry about WS and BS with hammer of wrath and grenade launchers.  I hope you had a good time reading this, or at least as good a time as can be had listening to a grown ass man bitch about shitty rules for his toys.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.