BLOOD ANGELS: BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GO...uuhh, sorry.

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.

BATTLE REPORT: CHAOS VS RAVEN GUARD

I'm back ladies and gents with another battle report.  Once again the night of nerds was held at the awesome nerd hole Reset Ultra Lounge and run by the Plains of War guys.  They have some awesome terrain and a ton of those awesome mats from Frontline Gaming.  They had around 10 tables set up and almost all were being played on.

I played Alex, a guy I have played only once before, who is well known for his amazingly converted Ork army.

Alex's heavily converted Ork army.

This time, I'm lucky enough to play against his new army, Raven Guard.  Which, while not done yet, is going to look really sharp.  I'm not 100% sure what his list was and I missed a handful of special weapons, but it looked like this:

"Fancy Raven Guard" detachment
Chaplain with jump pack
10 Assault marines
5 Scouts, missile launcher
5 Scouts
10 Tac marines drop pod
10 Tac marines drop pod
5 Tac marines drop pod
5 Devestators, 2 grav cannon, 2 multi melta Drop pod
8ish Sternguard, heavy flamer
Storm raven
Dreadnought

15 Kill points

That's 48 MEQ bodies, 38 of them are in drop pods.  His fancy detachment gives him all kinds of re-rolls for pregame things like first turn and table edges and such and he can bring in reserves turn 1 on a 4+  His scouts can also nominate an enemy unit within 9" of them and an ally unit gets ignores cover against the target unit.  Finally, he can add or subtract 1 to the dice roll when rolling for random game length.  I don't think my ragtag Word Bearer's list is up to the task.  I have:

Crimson Slaughter CAD
Dark Apostle, Crozius of the Dark Covenant, Mark of Khorne
Sorcerer, lvl 3, spell familiar, Prophet of the Voices
10 Cultists, autoguns, heavy stubber
20 Cultists, 2 flamers, Mark of Khorne
10 Marine, 2 flamers, power sword, rhino
5 Possessed
5 Raptors, 2 melta guns
5 Warp Talons
Infernal Relic Predator, Plasma destroyer, heavy bolters, havoc launcher
2 Hades autocannon rapier
Vindicator

Daemons AD
Daemon Prince, lvl 3, flight, Nurgle
3 Nurglings

14 Kill points

The mission we played was Purge the Alien with Hammer and Anvil Deployment.  We were pretty evenly matched in the Kill points division, so it would come down to the better list and better player.

Deployment:

Alex won the roll off to deploy and chose for me to deploy first.  I fanned out my army using the marines and cultists to bubble wrap my 2 tanks and the Rapiers.  My Sorcerer and Possessed were front and center and the Warp Talons took up residence in a building on my right and the Prince was next to them.  I then infiltrated my Nurglings in his far back corner where they stayed the whole game and did noting but score me Linebreaker.

Alex deployed his big Assault squad with his Chaplain behind a hill near the middle of the table and infiltrated 1 scout squad 18" away from my front line on my left, and the other in a building in the middle right side of the table.  Everything else went into reserve.

I forgot to take pics of just the deployment, but I got a pic after my first turn which I will describe...NOW

Turn 1:
Most of my army calmly shuffles forward a little, but my Possessed and Prince explode out of the gates like...like...something that...moves really fast all of a sudden.  I hate words.

The Prince goes into flight mode moving right next to the Assault marines and the Possessed became beasts and lined themselves up for a 7" charge into those damn Scouts who got a little too close.
My magic Phase is pretty sweet rolling a 6 and getting 12 dice.  I get off a slew of powers one of which, from the Prince, killed a couple Assault marines.  I also summoned a unit of Daemonettes who spread out to create a speed bump between my Sorcerer and his Chaplain fuelled Assault squad.
My shooting phase was rather un-impressive as there was not a lot for me to shoot at, and not a lot in range of shooting.
In the assault phase I hit and wiped out the scouts, FIRST BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!

End of my turn and the table looks like this

The Assault Marines and Chaplain, and my Prince are just out of the shot "north" of the Daemonettes and the sign in the middle of the table.

Alex's first turn he gets a little aggro.  He avoids my left table edge, where the Sorcerer and Possessed are bubble wrapped by Daemonettes and loads up my right flank and because of his fancy ability that allows him to roll for reserves on turn 1, his Stormraven and a 3rd drop pod arrive.

After seeing this happen my asshole puckers up tighter than a snare drum as I prepare for a pounding that I will not soon forget.
Things start off well for Alex as he wrecks the Vindicator and wipes out the Warp Talons with ease.

What Talons?

After this his shooting seems to dry up as he only manages to kill a handful more models, to which I let out a sigh of relief.
The Assault squad and Chaplain had moved toward the Daemonettes and after killing a couple with pistol shots they charge into them and loose combat fairly badly, the high initiative and rending attacks see off 3 marines before they can swing.  The retaliation is rather lack luster thanks to some poor dice on Alex's part and because of Cursed Earth, a power I was able to get off during my turn that boosts their Invul save to 4+.

Turn 2:

It was about this time, as is common for me, that I forgot to keep taking pictures getting too engrossed in the game, so you will mostly have to use your imaginations from here on out.  It was also the time I realised Alex had made a mistake.  He had deployed out of his drop pods too close together, and I took full advantage of this.
My first move was to jump the Raptors, who still had both Meltaguns left, up close to the drop pod.  I was hoping to make it explode and take out a couple Marines as they were all within 4" of the pod.  Then I moved the Prince to right under the Stormraven so he can poison flame breath the large Tack Squad that just deployed from the soon to explode drop pod.  My last movement was to turn my Marines around and move the Cultist down the hill to engage the Marine squad that had orbitally inserted itself into my backyard, they both have flamers.
My Psychic phase was pretty good as I rolled 5 dice this time.  The Prince once again killed a bunch of marines with his AP3 poison breath weapon, one day I'll figure out what it's called, I also cast Endurance on the Cultists as they plan on charging the invaders, and Alex stops Cursed Earth.
My combined shooting reduces both of the Tac squads to 2 men each, an exploded drop pod and a lost hull point on the Stormraven.
In the assault phase I got the Possessed and Sorcerer into the Assault marines and between them and the Daemonettes they erased the last of them leaving just the Chaplain.

Alex's turn starts by the Stormraven disgorging it's bowels and dropping a deuce of a Dreadnought and a spray of Sternguard.  It goes into hover mode to pull this off however, making it vulnerable to my gun later.
His shooting phase is quite potent as he wipes the last of the Raptors, kills a handful from my Marine squad, and kills one of the Marines on the artillery.  He also uses one of his sneaky Raven Guard and manages to get a Scout squad within range to use their ignore cover ability.  They use this in conjunction with the Sternguard using their wound on 2+ rounds and kill the shit out of the Prince, or should I say the Daemon formerly known as Prince.

Finally in his assault phase this happens...

See what I did there?  His Chaplain died.  Get it?

Turn 3+:

The rest of the game kind of plays itself.  I've done quite a number on Alex's army as he only has a couple Marines left, the Scouts, and the Stormraven (which dies turn 5).
A couple interesting things to note; I finally get the Cultists in to the Marines on turn 3 and with 4 attacks each, with Hatred re-rolls, these guys will put the smack down.  One of those Cultists manage to survive right up to the last turn when Alex's Deathwind launcher on the drop pod in my deployment zone, which has gone unmentioned thus far due to it's abysmal display of effectiveness, shoots at said Cultist and scatters just far enough to hit the last Chaos Marine of that unit and kill them both.

However even with that fantastic display of marksmanship the Chaos manage to run away with this game 14-9.  I score Linebreaker, First Blood, and Slay the Warlord, and that damn sniper drop pod scores Linebreaker for Alex.

Tactics:

Alex made some target priority mistakes, I think, when he decided to charge the Daemonettes with the Assault squad.  Moving that squad to that side of the table while putting the rest of his army on the opposite side gave the Assault squad no support.
Also, considering the Plasma Destroyer he should have deployed a little more spread out.  This would have prevented it from killing 15 Marines.

Alex is a great guy and I look forward to seeing him across the table from me again.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.