Oh man these guys look so cool. They got some real attention from GW this year, getting a new book, a bunch of new models with their fancy 32mm bases, a campaign book with tons of new formations. So why are they being showcased on this Blog? Because Codex Astartes came out shortly after and EVERYTHING in it is better than the Blood Angel book. I thought that only happened to Dark Angels.
So perhaps it's unfair, but I'll most likely be comparing everything in this book with the vastly superior Codex Astartes book.
First up, Army wide rules...there are none. Well, that's not entirely true. While the "Special Rules" section only has Combat Squads listed under it (at least on the PDF version I have), everything that has a WS value has Furious Charge. Now I'll not to reiterate it a thousand times through this review but their lack of an actual decent chapter tactic makes almost everything in this book worse than it's equivalent in the Astartes book. They also have ATSKNF because...
On to the HQ section and lets start with the very first entry in the book, the Captain. Which can't upgraded to a Chapter Master which means Orloc and Sentikan can go suck it. Successor Chapter? What's that? Aside from that he's pretty much the same, except his "Chapter Tactic" is Furious Charge instead of something good.
And it looks like he is really the only bad one, and that's simply because he doesn't get the option to become a Chapter Master which doesn't actually make the Captain a bad choice. I did notice something, holy fuck are there a lot of HQ choices! There are 12, including characters, 6 non-unique, and all of them are necessary to make a good list. Simply making Techmarines and Sanguinary Priests and Elites section, or a unit add on that doesn't take up a HQ slot similar to Meks in an Ork army would boost this ENTIRE army.
Tactical Marines are pretty much the same except they loose out on the ever popular Grav-Cannon. Instead they get to take a Heavy Flamer! wow. But lets not look too badly on this swap as it saves us 25 points and can be useful against lots of things that the Grav-Cannon fails against especially when the unit comes out of a drop pod which is sort of the fluff direction the Blood Angels take anyway. 125 points gets you 5 guys in a drop pod with a heavy flamer and a combi-flamer. Not too bad if your hunting anything with 4+ armour or worse. Another Meh Factor is that they have Furious Charge, which is an ability that is only useful the turn you charge, yet they don't have the ability to take a close combat weapon. Seriously? Lets give a unit combat oriented abilities but not the equipment to really make it effective.
 |
| Durrrr |
This picture says it all really. Poor poor Blood Angel scouts. These guys got the short end of the stick with their Astartes counterpart came out with WS and BS of 4. What the fuck GW? That shit is weak. But perhaps having S5 on the charge Infiltrating, Scouting, close combat weapon wielding with WS 4 was a little too much for 11 pts a piece.
And with a measly 3 entries of sucktitude, we are done for this episode. Its a wonder why these guys are getting a Misfit review at all. Well, I might remind you that they only reason they are really getting one at all is because the Astartes book makes these guys look like chumps. There are a couple things that differentiate them from the main book that need to be talked about so the review won't be a total "my big brother is better than me" bitch fest.
Until next time, keep them dice rollin.
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