For more than half my career in the Emprah's service, I was a "Blood Angel", eventually becoming an 'Assault Marine' (the old guys know what I'm talking about). The first army that I saw was from a friend in middle school bringing his Blood Angels to class and me being way too curious. The first army I saw when I walked into a GW was my old boss's Blood Angels, sitting in the figure cabinet in the front window. I helped to paint the Blood Angel chapter that the US presented in Gamesday a few years back. I painted a few more Blood Angels for a number of shops. I chose to play Ultramarines in my youth because everyone played Blood Angels, and I avoided ever having an army of them because they were downright 'cheezy' for most of their years. But my exit from the company saw me spending some of my severance on a new Blood Angel army and painting that reward in record time (many posts to the left).So why am I so happy and laughing now that I'm a Blood Angel player and the new codex was released? Well, the most common complaint I've heard to date is that GW moved everything out of the Troops slot and put them in their 'codex' slot. Assault Marines are now Fast Attack while Death Company and Dreadnoughts are Elites. Sanguinary Priests and Psyker-naughts are HQs while Baal Predators moved to Heavy and Vanguards moved to Elites. You know what that leaves?
Tactical Marines as Troops!
I was the only Blood Angel player on Earth, it seemed, that chose to use Tactical Marines. While everyone else was playing the ridiculous "Razor-spam" armies, I was using bolters and putting jump packs BACK on my Assault Marines. I chose not to use Razorbacks or MSU style and instead stuck to the codex- exactly as the chapter is described! Now I understand that I'm probably going to get flamed again, but I believe that the armies should represent what the story represents! It's the fluff-bunny in me...
That being said, I did suffer a bit. I had built a Destructor, Vindicator, and Stormraven to be my Heavies, while I also built two Flamestorms and a Vanguard squad as Fast Attack (remember that I like to fill FOCs with my armies). I also used two Assault Squads WITH JUMP PACKS as Troops, to back up the two Tactical Squads in Rhinos. Two Death Company squads were supposed to round out that department. In addition, I built multiple Chaplains and Sanguinary Priests for obvious use. Unfortunately, I now have faaaaaar to many of everything except Troops. I'm now forced to buy a new BA Tactical squad. Which, by the way, I will be using 25mm bases for...
Well played, GW, well played...
One last parting shot- I thought I was the only person to build my Stormraven with the Plasma Cannons on top and the Cyclone Launcher in front, then included the Hurricane Bolters. Remember this, my often-criticized flyer-in-red?
Let me know how you feel about the new Blood Angels...
You are not alone in using tacticals.
ReplyDeleteI surely am upset about loosing the Assault Marines as troops but the troop core of my BA have always been 2 tacticals in Rhinos. Personally I did not like the Razorback and assault Marines approach. If I use food assault I used them in a LR. Oh, how I will miss DSing them! Even thou people knew about that the faces always were like "you are really doing that!?"
Exactly! "Jump Packs on Assault Marines? Deep Striking? You don't want to win, do you?" is a response that I've heard too many times (hell, once is too many) and I always refute with "Um, that's how the army is SUPPOSED to work!", which is a different language to these gamers these days...
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