Blood Angels - Are we that bad? Part 2 Troops

Part 2

Hello and welcome back to the second part of my retrospective thoughts on the Blood Angels codex in light of the release and obvious disparities in the Vanilla marines codex. A short one today!

My aim in these article is to show that despite the doom and gloom naysayers all about, the Blood Angels still have a solid codex both fluff wise and competitively on the tablet top. 

As I've said before, these articles are not going to argue we didn't get the slightly suspect and smelly end of the stick but just to give dues to the bits of our codex that are really good and are the reasons that you play Blood Angels. As an example a friend of mine was messaging me about the injustice of the scouts stat line, which is I agree, ridiculous. However his point was that now he can't run a scout army of Blood Angels.. to which I replied that yes you should be able to run scout Blood Angels if you want and have their stats in line with Vanilla marines, but at the same time I don't understand why you are running Blood Angels for a scout army? Surely the reason you play Blood Angels is so you can access their unique and fluffy units that makes them different from red marines? 

That is just a personal bug bear of mine but I think most people will, to greater and lesser extents see my point. I'm currently swiping up cheap shield of baal death company kits so I can run a death company army. Its expensive in points and elite as hell but by god its as unique as the Sons of Sanguinius get and it'll look cool as hell. 

But I digress... on to the troops!!

Troops

So in this category I will cover the two basic troops options from the codex but also look at the unique Death company troop options that come in the shield of baal campaign set.

Tactical squad: So these guys are pretty much as standard as you can get with one exception. Flamers. Beautiful promethium fed flamers. As a 5 man squad these guys can rock a heavy flamer and 2 x gunslinging hand flamers on the sergeant. This provides a nice and cheap drop pod unit that can lay down some excellent ignores cover fire that can also really thin out horde armies.

Verdict: These guys are as good as they always have been in any space marine codex. The flamers give them a nice little unique something to flash on the table, but I do genuinely feel this belongs to the Salamanders remit and if its going to be unique to any chapter it should be unique to them. Still, I shan't complain!

Scouts: Well, yeah. These guys have nothing special going for them and they suffer an inexplicable lesser ability to shoot compared to almost all their loyalist brethren, Space Wolves excepted (I think..?). However, more inexplicably, they suffer a lesser ability to FIGHT, you know, for the blood crazed close combat chapter that specialises in fast hard hitting close combat, hand to hand, mano a mano style fighting tooth and nail stuff. Anyway, they are still useful as a tax if you want to just fill up on elites and such but this really should receive an FAQ in short order. Its an adjustment of 2 number and there is absolutely no reason for GW not to do it other than being lazy or being fearful of setting a precedent. I am inclined to believe it will be the latter that prevents them from doing it if they choose to leave them as is.

Verdict: Fine as they are but given how long in advance GW plans a codex (and I can't believe there wasnt some overlap between the vanilla being written as Blood Angels being finished) this should have been dealt with early and headed off. Le sigh.


OK and now the unique Death Company Choices:

Cassor the Damned: So Cassor is essentially a Death Company dreadnought with blood talons which are Sx2 AP2 close combat weapons, and these come with underslung melta gun and storm bolter. This build is 135 in the codex and 140 for this guy who occupies a troop slot. This is a steal and makes a full death company army viable. No dedicated transport options though!

Verdict: This chap is an absolute must if you want a full death company army taking up that valuable troop slot that he does for only 5 points more over the unnamed build. His biggest weakness is the lack of a transport option but I am getting round this by sticking him in the back of a storm raven. You could of course also buy a fast attack slot drop pod but I'm inclined to take the storm raven as air support also.


And finally,

Raphen's Death Company: This is a funny one. 5 man Death Company squad with fixed options and no way to increase the squad size. The fixed options are a thunder hammer, a power fist, a power sword and an inferno pistol, with 1 squad member just vanilla with chainsword and bolt pistol. This comes in at 210 points, They also come equipped with jump packs I should note. This would cost 10 points less as a normal build squad so again you are paying a tiny tax to get that all important troop choice selection. The problem here comes in the weapon choice and squad size, they aren't really designed particularly well for any one role. However these guys and Cassor the Damned allow you to have a a full death company army, particularly if you take the baal strike force detachment (which I will cover later on) as this allows you to take 4 elites.

Verdict: This squad is limited and does lack a clear competitive focus, BUT you aren't taking it for that you are taking it so you are entirely black and red army of frothing maniacs. Personally I will hide them away and use them to either grab objectives (being a T4, 3+/5+ FNP objective secured unit) or I will use them to bust tanks with the power fist, thunder hammer and inferno pistol all contributing good damage to that end.



Overall, the troop selection is small but we have a nice addition to your choices with the Shield of Baal campaign which although not optimised builds they can still be effective and grant you a great deal of fluff based variety.

The real winner in the selection is the drop podding wall of flaming death with the trip flamer tactical marines which I think will and are a popular build for alpha strike blood angel armies. However the obvious losers are the scouts with their bizarrely diminished stats line that we can only hope is rectified with haste.

As I said above though, scouts are not why you take Blood Angels and my main grip with this category is that they allowed force org shenanigans around bikes becoming troops to stand in the vanilla codex. By that logic surely a unique Blood Angel trait would be a relic jump pack that unlocks assault marines as troop by paying a premium for the jump pack. I think that would have been fair and Blood Angel players all over would have been happy as Larry.

But that isn't the way the cookie has crumbled and ultimately, the troops aren't what make this codex great (and it is great) so next time we will go through the Elites which will be a big old post I think. Following that will be Part 4 with heavy and fast attack and finally I will do part 5 which will look at relics and detachments both in the code and in shield of baal Leviathan which really should have been in the codex.

In between that I hope to post some finished assault terminators and a WIP librarian as well!

Peace out

Rob 

Blood Angels - are we that bad? Part 1 of a retrospective musing - HQ.

Hello readers,

So today I'd like to do Part 1 of a look at the Blood Angels Codex going over the HQ choice. Obviously there are plenty of reviews out there, but in the context of the new Space marines codex and the impending Dark Angels codex many people have been up in arms about both Space Wolves and Blood Angels. The obvious points of contention here are the disparity in points costs for common units (e.g. vanguard veteran power weapons) and even base stat lines (e.g. scouts WS and BS). These are all valid concerns and too a certain extent I'm not going to argue that we received a bit of a crapping on...

HOWEVER

Aside from these disparities I'm going to go over the codex and hopefully show that these disparities alone do not mean we have a bad codex. I actually think it is a very well written codex and remains a mid level of competitiveness if that is your thing. I'm not going to pretend that it competes with eldar and decurions shenanigans but I think it holds it own just fine and combined with the Shield of Baal supplements (which was a whole lot of love more than many other codices got and essentially fills our formation quota lacking in the codex.) it has great flavour and battlefield punch. 

Added to this we are not Dark Eldar (no lord of war and utterly, literally utterly useless units), Tyranids and Orks (difficult armies at the best of times with limited competitive builds and units requiring excellent generalship), Chaos Space marines (well,,, lots and lots and lots - caveat still to be updated), Sisters of battle (.......). And if you look historically at codices that have been left behind such as the previous Dark Angels Codex I laugh at anyone that wants to argue that the gap in power to the Blood Angels Codex from the current crop is similar. It isn't, it just isn't. 

The Blood Angels have their pride bruised and their feathers ruffled but they are still alive and kicking and I hope to go over the Codex sections 1 at a time to illustrate some of these elements. But I am still hoping for a FAQ-up to fix some bits :P

HQ

So what do we have in the HQ department then:

First off lets count this shall we... 6 unique character HQ's (7 including Shield of Baal) plus the 2 x generic unique characters sanguinary priest and Librarian Dreadnought HQ, that alone is nice to have compared to say Salamanders/Ravenguard/Imperial Fists with... 3 between them (maybe 4 I can't remember off the top of my head.) The point is we are individual beyond just red marines still. Now to actually look at some competitive options.

Astorath the Grim, Redeemer of the Lost: Essentially a 3 wound beast of a chaplain with a 2+/4++ that synergises so damn well with Death Company (who are still the boss) granting re-rolls to hit and to wound in the fight sub-phase, every fight sub-phase, not the charge, EVERY fight sub-phase. Yes his axe is unwieldy compared to say the Emperor's champion's sword. But honestly how many axes don't have unwieldy? I'm not an expert but the only one that springs to mind is in OUR codex on OUR LoW Dante! (Who is also boss). Also has adamantium will (Warlord Trait) for protecting your Death company from Pyschic attacks.

Verdict: Stick him in a jump pack unit of Death Company as the striking blow of your force and he will wreck face. He's not a point and click Lysander but he costs 165 points versus 230 points. He's 15 points cheaper than High Marshall helbrecht who only has an AP3 power sword versus Astorath's 2+. I know who I'd bet on.

Mephiston Lord of Death: Adamantium will (Warlord Trait), psyhic hood and mastery level 3? Psychic beast that can make himself strength 10 so is capable of ripping through tanks and insta gibbing many things even without force activated on his sword (wording just says his force sword is strength 10 no mention of force being activated. Also has toughness 5 and a 2+ save for 175 points. Only let down is lack of an invulnerable save or eternal warrior. His transfixing gaze (roll 2D6 and higher than opponent leadership hits on 2+) is a nice bonus to his already good stats and price. 

Verdict: Tigurius is 10 points less. has 1S and 1T less. Has a lower save (3+). Doesn't have adamantium will. Doesn't have furious charge. Doesn't have transfixing gaze. Doesn't have warp charge 1 - I am strength 10 - I will rip your landraider to pieces power. An excellent choice for the psychically engendered.

The Sanguinor The Golden Angel: He doesn't have independent character and he costs 200 points. BUT he is a 2+/4++ eternal warrior WS8, S5, I6, W3, furious charging, fear inducing, jump packing, AP3 master crafted sword wielding beast. Who also grants a 12" bubble of fearless to ANY friendly imperium army units around him (Warlord Trait) and any models within 6" add + 1 to their attacks. And he re-rolls tro hit and to wound in a challenge. He's not perfect but for the price he comes with a whole lot of awesome baggage.

Verdict: Mid level useful in a competitive list but with correct usage can murder many things particularly of the 3+ save variety. AP2 weapons will hurt but he has eternal warrior and a 4++ to shake the odd wound. Avoid AP2 fire and you are good to go. 

Brother Corbulo Keeper of the Red Grail: 120 points with a 3+/5+ FNP. Has +1 initiative if Warlord. Also has 3 wounds for that price furious charge, a +1 strength rending chainsword, an ability to allow the re-roll of a single seize roll, scatter roll, reserve roll, to hit roll, to wound roll or to save roll per game. Only once but maximum tactical utility. That vindicator needs to hit that blob of centurions? You got it. Bam. Also grants +1 WS and +1 I to units within 6". 

Verdict: A very solid support HQ, particularly if you are running a beat stick like Dante for example. Excellent force multiplier if positioned correctly and might just make that crucial difference with a re-roll.  Strongly recommended for a support roll.

Captain Karlaen: Shield of Baal Special Character. 2+/4+ 3W dude with a mastercrafted thunder hammer, counter-attack as well as furious charge and also grants reserve re-rolls for 160 points.

Verdict: For 15 points more than a similarly kitted out Captain you get a mastercrafted hammer, counter attack and reserve roll manipulations. If there was a relic which granted that for 15 points? EVERYONE would take. A solid quite nice and fluffy character.

Now the Generic Unique Characters:

Sanguinary Priest: Yes they are a single HQ choice now. And that is how it should be, it makes sense, I'm also not comparing this to the old codex but to the field it sits in right now. This fella brings FNP and + 1 to WS to the party all for 60 points with 2 wounds. You can also give him a jump pack if you want to give that WS buff to Death company making them even more potent.

Verdict: One of the best value utility cheap HQ's in any marine codex. There I said it. Perfect for low points value games as a single HQ or as a support HQ. 

Dreadnought Librarian: 3HP drop podding armour 13/12/10 Mastery Level 2, furious charge, force halbard wielding dreadnought arriving turn one for 210 points? Beautiful. Also is a character so can have the Blood Angel primaris power cast on him. +D3 attacks and initiative? On a force halberd dreadnought? Cheeky.

Verdict: Popular and rightly so. Personally I'd take Mephiston but his ability to drop pod turn one is a lovely tactical buff to him.

In the balance of fairness I'll go over the others very quickly. 

Tycho of either variety: Nope. Nope. A big tall glass of nope. Not even from a fluff stand point his he ever worth taking as this badass sucks so hard compared to his fluff.

Librarian: Fine, as good as the vanilla equivalent. But take Mephiston. (Ironically I have 2 of these models as presents so they will be in my list). Not bad at all, pretty good but nothing WOW here.

Chaplain: Pretty much as above with the librarian but I would rather take a Sanguinary priest for 30 points less. Not bad but much like the vanilla version, there are just better options out there.

Techmarine: Does anyone take these beyond fluff and style and thunderfire cannons? I would genuinely like to know.

Captain: Again, bog standard. Some of the relics can make him pretty tasty but I think there is always a character I would take over him any day of the week personally. They all bring a lot of special rules that really enhance the army as a whole.

Well there we are! A quick retrospective of Blood Angel HQ's. There are so doozys aren't there? At least I think so and I hope I have convinced you guys that it is a packed slot with fluff, flavour and plenty of fight all combined. I think the comparison to Tigurius is one of the best I could come up with for me. The only real loser is Tycho, man they screwed him up so bloody much.

I will go over the Elites section when I have time to sit down and write, will be honest this post has taken a lot out of me! I'm just not a born writer...

Any comments questions or constructive criticisms (I will have only polite people on here please). Please leave a comment, I'd love to know if you agree or disagree. 

As I said we have been crapped on with recent vanilla changes but we are definitely still a good codex with lots to offer.

Till next time

Peace out

Rob

Astorath the Grim and Archangels List finalised

Hi there everyone!

First thing is first,,, 1000 views!! A pitiful amount compared to many blogs I follow (such as Alex @ From the Fang whom I received a FAT mat from after winning his 1 million views competition), but I hope to get more followers and views as I put more work out there. Incidentally I can't seem to add the followers widget to my blog, just the google plus widget, if anyone else has had this problem do leave me a comment or send me an email on how to sort the damn thing!!

Anyway...

I got back nice and early today from watching tennis in Nottingham which was good fun, if very delayed because of Britain's beautiful weather... I really wanted to make some significant progress today so instead of starting on a squad I decided to paint an independent character because I can finish those in a few hours if I really set myself too it. To that end I decided to paint the metal Astorath the Grim model that arrived on thursday and I had stripped down. I forgot to take pictures of it its stripped stated but here's a picture of him basecoated:

(Though I did give the striated parts an experimental wash and drybrush in this picture - but found it too bright)

And washed x 1:

And washed x 2:

And highlighted and done!

I've not finished his base because he is on a 25mm base and I want my Blood Angels to be fully on the 32mm bases. I have no intention to convert my Black Templars though they will just stay with the 25mm they are all already based on. To do the conversion I have ordered some secret weapon converters and am looking forward to receiving them and doing a little review of how they go together and how effective they are. I know many people are intending to re-base their models and this may prove an easier way than ripping them all off their 25mm bases and sticking on a fresh one, just add an outer layer and base it appropriately. 

Archangels

So I've finally settled on the list I'm going to take with my Archangels Strike Force. Obviously if you hadn't already noticed I'm not a super competitive player, a lot of my choices are based one what I think looks an plays cool with a lot of leaning towards fluff over competitiveness. I don't ignore that aspect but its occurrence is as much happy coincidence as it is design half the time!

Anyway here is the list and I'll put a little summary afterwards.

HQ

Captain Karlaen

Terminator Librarian with ML2 and combi-melta

Elites

Furioso Dreadnought with Frag Cannon, heavy flamer

+ Drop pod with deathwind missile launcher and locator beacon

5 x Assault Terminators - all with lightning claws

5 x Assault Terminaotrs - all with Thunder Hammer + Storm Shield

5 x sternguard with 2 x grav gun, 2 x combi-grav, sergeant has grav pistol + power fist

+ Drop pod with deathwind missile launcher

5 x sternguard with 2 x melta gun, 2 x combi melta, sergeant has combi melta, chainsword

+ Drop pod with storm bolter

5 x vanguard veterans with jump packs, melta bombs, all with storm shields and thunder hammers apart from sergeant who has relic blade, hand flamer 

5 x vanguard veterans with jump packs, 5 x bolt pistol, 1 x power fist, 3 x hand flamers, sergeant has melta bombs and relic blade.

So obviously not that competitive but has some tasty elements too it. Depending on the army I'm facing I can drop 2 of the 3 drop pods which deal with either 2 + saves (grav sternguard), tanks (melta sternguard) or cover hugging infantry/small hordes (3 x flamer dreadnought).

Additionally all scatter in this formation is 6 inches for units arriving from deep strike (which I think includes drop pods?) and I can re-roll my reserves as either a formation benefit or a Captain Karlaen benefit. Though I assume these don't stack, i.e. I can't re-roll the same reserve roll twice if it fails the second time? Feel free to correct me if I can!!

This means I have fair chance of my reserves coming in hot and fast, the terminators are self explanatory, the hammer vets are back up against 2+ and tanks and the flamer vets have some punch in close combat but can gunsling bolt pistols and templates against troops.

The librarian is token psychic defence as well as taking the blood angels powers which means he will get the primaris the quickening. This is intended to be cast on none hammer vets and the dreadnought as well as the hammer vets in a pinch as this will give the sergeant an edge in any challenge hopefully! It will also help if any hammer unit attacks a high AV target, maximising the odds of the hammers rolling 6's with a potential 3 extra attacks each!

I'm not going to change the list, but any suggestions on how best you would run it beyond what I have said would be interesting to hear :)

And I think it is also fair to say that I have resigned myself to also making a Death Company themed army. It already has its HQ and a troop choice in Raphen's Death Company and I purchased 5 none jump pack Death Company off ebay to ride in a storm raven in the final list. So it's happening.

Incidentally if anyone is interested in buying my converted Militarum Tempestus models I have resigned myself to selling them and the Baneblade off together. Please email me any sensible offers that include postage costs :)

Till next time (which could be literally whenever at the moment) my readers and here's to the next 1000 views!

Peace out

Rob

Raphen's Death Company finished

Good evening returning readers.

A short gap between posts this week as I am off to Nottingham Friday evening to visit my partners sister and watch some tennis apparently. I had forgotten that I had agreed to this so it cam as something of a shock! This makes it unlikely I will have much time to post on Sunday so in case I fail to make any progress on other models and get a post up I thought I'd let you see the "finished" Death Company as they are.

I say "finished" as the bases are currently done only up to the first thin layer of snow effect, I will add bits and bobs of character to the bases before lumps of super glue and snow effect are piled on which gives an icy snow drift kind of effect, its not the best snow effect but its far from the worst and looks nice when totally finished I'd say, such as can be seen on Captain Karlaen. 

I've had a blast painting these and they have come together really quickly compared to the terminators and that isn't because they are short on detailing as the kit itself is fantastic with lots of different death company marking all about the model. I have determined to buy another dreadnought so I can use it as Cassor the damned from the Shield of Baal series and I may have accidentally slipped and pressed buy on eBay and purchased Astorath the Grim (in metal no less), so I have the beginnings of a small death company force.

Anyway here's lots of pictures with lots of angles as I am very very happy with how these have turned out, tempted to say best looking squad I have painted ever. Opinions on the standard of these models and how you would rate them would be really really appreciated, I'd just like to get some scope for where I am at :)

For the rest of the month I am going to focus on a few things. Firstly it is to lay down the major blocking colours on the terminators and maybe get to the wash stage, I'd be very happy with that. 

Secondly I need to put time aside to tidy up the drop pods for the blood angels, they were second hand and I had to hack of some dark angel icons and the pods in general have lots of flash and sprue that need filing off. If I can get hold of them I will buy some new icons to glue to the doors as they do add a nice little break in the flatness. 

Finally if they are built I will wait for a nice day and undercoat the inside in black for drybrushing and then close the doors and undercoat the outside in mephiston red as well as undercoat my blood angel librarian in maccrage blue and give it a purple wash. 

The plan through July would then be too finish the terminators, paint up the pods and librarian and purchase some 32mm bases so I can build myself a couple of squads of sternguard with grav and melta loadouts. Except I've just remembered I'm moving house and that includes having to stay at a friends for 2 weeks because my tenancy ends on the 19th of July and my new house starts on the 1st of August... scrap that plan then! I'll see what I can smash out at the beginning of July before they are packed...

If I can get all that done by August I will be a very happy bunny and the blood angels will be well on their way and then I can switch back to my templars to get them ship shape for Fluffageddon in September! Which I also need to buy a ticket for :/

Hobby like you mean it!

Peace out

Rob

Black Templar Review and Death Company Progress

Hello again readers, I'm actually updating on a Sunday for once! Lets hope this is a regular occurrence from now on.

Today I'm going to go over the new Black Templars as seen in the new Space Marine codex released yesterday! I have the ebook addition as I am an eager beaver and downloaded it as soon as it became available and I have ebooks on both my phone and tablet so it works out pretty well. In general the book is very nice looking as we have come to expect with GW's recent releases but I shan't dither on that today, lets get right to the meat of the topic, the Templars!

Black Templars - Chapter Tactics

Now there are 3 of these and 2 of them are essentially unchanged from the previous codex with one lost and one gained. Previously we had:

Accept any Challenge, No Matter the Odds - re-roll failed hits and gain rending in challenges (REMOVED)

Crusaders - gain crusader and adamantium will rules (KEPT)

And a separate rule outside of chapter tactics was the inability to take Librarian (damn witches!)

I am sad to see the loss of Accept any challenge.. it was nice and fluffy but was very situational and my sword brothers usually got smushed anyway :(

Now what do we have from the new Chapter tactics? We have:

Holy Crusaders - exactly the same as the previous crusaders rule

Lost Librarium - No librarian allowed - just rolled into CTs

Righteous Zeal - casualties sustained in the shooting phase or during overwatch grant the squad the Rage and Counter-Attack special rules (NICE!)

I think this is an overall gain for the Black Templars as with a 20 man blob squad of crusaders your are unlikely to lose all of your models in the shooting and if you are assaulted you have a good chance of putting wounds on the enemy with the additional attacks from counter attack and having 2 x CCW. A 20 man squad at half strength after shooting being charged still puts out 30 attacks! That is awesome sauce. Not only does this work well in combat I feel the knowledge of this will make people sit back and just shoot them even more so than usual, this has implications with board control and manoeuvring your enemy with threat bubbles. Stuff I know about but never really put into practise....

White Dwarf Exclusive Black Templar Warlord Traits

1: Masterful Swordfighter: +1 to WS and Attacks of the Warlord

2: Furious Rage: If the unit the Warlord is in fails Morale Test in the Psychic or Shooting Phase, it does not fall but, but moves 2D6 inches towards the next enemy unit.

3: Loathe the Witch: The Warlord has Hated (Psyker) and Preferred Enemy (Psyker)

4: Honour requires Battle: You can re-roll failed Attack rolls for the Warlord and his unit

5: Loyal to the Oath: The Warlord gets Fearless. Additionally re-rolls failed rolls to hit in Challenges.

6: Iron Resolve: The Warlord and every friendly Unit in 12” around him re-roll failed Morale, Pinning and Fear-tests

I bloody love these! They are characterful and great for individual characters but also buff the Warlords units nicely. They aren't the most competitive if you're going for tournament level but for regular games where you still want to win they will hold their own nicely!

Black Templar Special Characters

Lets start with Helbrecht shall we. Sadly he is almost virtually unchanged. His warlord trait now grant Furious Charge to him and his squad all game which is a nice minor buff, but for a space crusade borne chapter master he still lacks an Orbital Bombardment which makes no sense whatsoever. I will still pick him up as he is an awesome fluffy character with some good rules but I wish he had a little more punch about him in close combat to be honest.

On to Grimaldus now. His is now 150 pts. That is a whopping 35pt drop! His rules remain largely unchanged, but I now have great incentive to use his awesome model (after I paint it.. cough) as it makes him so much more affordable. His warlord trait Rite of War also now grants his leadership to all models in his detachment whilst he lives, its no longer limited to a 12" bubble, great news! His cenobyte servitors have got more expensive but still grant FNP to units within 6" of one of them. Whilst this sounds good, I always have preferred putting him in a unit to protect his squishy 3+/4++ myself. But I can see use being had out of Grimaldus at the centre of 5 Servitors flanked by 2/3 20 man crusade squads in a true black tide!

Finally, but my no means least, The Emperor's Champion! This fella remains the same points value as before but is infinitely better now I think. Instead of choosing between a stance that grants Instant death rule on a 6 or a stance that grants +2 strength but unwieldy The Emperor's Champion now has re-roll failed to hit rolls AND Instant death on a to wound roll of a 6 AND +2 strength (so strength 6) AP2 goodness AT INITIATIVE! Oh and the sword is mastercrafted... The only thing keeping him from being an absolute monster is his 2 wounds, but any more and he would need a good points hike or be OP I feel. 

Overall The Emperor's Champion is the best of the three for character and values for points, followed by Grimaldus and then Helbrecht, who while fairly fluffy doesn't fulfil his points cost compared to a standard Chapter master with the Shield Eternal and Burning Blade and getting Orbital Bombardment, a real lost opportunity with him personally (Oh Holy Orb of Antioch where art thou!).

Crusade squads and conclusions for my Army

Crusade squads are exactly the same, no change there at all, nope... Wait, whats that? Neophytes (or scouts as lesser chapters call them for some reason) now have a marines stat line with a 4+ save!? This is brilliant for Crusade squads, we alone can now have a 20 man squad that pours out up to 20 bolt pistol shots hitting on 3's and on the charge at full strength this squad will put out 60+ attacks hitting on 4's most of the time. The Black Tide lives!! As I have said earlier this coupled with Chaplain Feel No Pain Grimaldus would be a nightmare to face (unless you're a wraithknight but yeah, who do you struggle against!?)

I will be taking 2 of these 20 man squads all with bolt pistol and CCW set up I think, and I have plans for a 10 man squad of 5 initiates (2 x CCW) and 5 neophytes with shotguns in a drop pod for funsies.

Other than reinforcing how I would play my army anyway and making me overjoyed to run my Emperor's Champion even more so than I was already not much as changed for my Black Templars. I will happily take the Black Templar Specific traits as they are fantastically fluffy and a lot of them will buff The Champion (I'm looking at you +1 WS and +1A), or are great unit multipliers so would be great for a character in a black tide crusader squad high tailing it at the enemy to bash their heathen skulls in!!

Other stuff

Right after that wall of text here are some pictures of my Death Company as they come along and also a little chat about paint brushes right at the end (If you aren't already sick of reading!!)

So here is my death company at the moment after almost all base coats, there are some blue gems that I will leave till the end and I am leaving the eyes till everything else is done. I plan on trying a dark blue highlight for the armour and seeing how that turns out.

And finally brushes! I have been after new brushes for a while and I have been pestered a few times by Nathaniel at objectivesecured and Nick at theburningeye about buying Windsor Newton series 7 brushes. I bought a very fine, fine and a medium/large brush today for about £25 and I am very pleased with the results. I used the two smaller ones for putting all the paint onto the death company an it was a wonder to not have to fight the paint and it really follow your direction. On the flip side I can't blame mistake I made on these models on the brushes any more.... Would thoroughly recommend these brushes to anyone else looking to upgrade! I also went the whole hog and bought brush cleaner to boot!

Anyway, thanks for making it through the wall of text if you did and see you again soon!

Peace out

Rob

Blood Angel Progress

Hello dear readers!

I have some Blood Angel progress to share with you today including a little group shot of my growing painted force. This will be a short post, but I have booked this Sunday off from friends family and the girlfriend specifically so I can review the rules in the new Space Marines Code that are pertinent to the Black Templars which by now we know are still included! And the rumours all indicate we have received a nice boost, but I shall go into that in more detail when on Sunday when I have the facts in my hands.

For now I will show you my progress on Captain Karlaen. The last picture I put up was the good Captain in the latter stages of basecoating:

And he looked like this last night:

And now the dapper fellow looks like this:

I am relatively pleased with how he has come out, but once again I look at him and I see so much that I wish was better. The face is better than I expected but still seems very flat and I am also surprised how not unhappy I am with the cloak as I expected to really really struggle with that. All in all a not too shabby average job on him. Still hoping to make marked improvements as I move forward, but part of that will be dedicating more time and certainly patience to the hobby.

I have become a little tired of painting red for the moment so I decided to have a go at painting Raphen's Death Company which I have made up. When I painted my Templars I ran their black by line highlighting but I was not very good at it, so on the Death Company I decided to try dry brushing with Dawnstone with the following (poorly photographed) result:

I am relatively happy with the effect actually and it was nice to just do some heavy drybrushing to be quite honest. I am looking forward to putting some colour on these guys on Sunday as well as writing my review of the Black Templars.

Finally here are a couple of group shots of what I have painted so far. My main gripe with this group is the whiteness of the Hammernators but I am reluctant to go over it as I have already done so several times and I feel the detail is just about on the edge of being lost so I think I will just put up with it:

Righto that it for today! I still have plenty of stuff to paint in the months to come of both Templar and Angel Variety so hopefully you'll keep with me!

Peace out,

Rob

Musings + Finished Dreadnought (mostly) and WIP Captain Karlaen

An early post for me this week as I will be off up north at the weekend for a family reunion. As nice as it will be I really want a weekend where I can sit down and just crack on with my hobby for a solid two days. I'm determined to make some serious headway into my Blood Angels over the coming couple of months and hopefully finish off some Black Templars Vanguard.

With regards to my Blood Angels, I now have 5 Hammernators and a Furioso Dreadnought finished and Captain Karlaen on the go as you will see below. This leaves a lot to do! I have 2 drop pods to finish filing ready for an undercoat, I have 5 lightning claw terminators ready for a lick of paint that I am hoping to start on Tuesday depending on my train times and then I have a librarian in terminator armour that needs undercoating and also Raphens Death Company. Thats all the built stuff... but I still have 10 sternguard veterans, 10 vanguard veterans and 10 blood angel tactical marines that need building! I need to pick up 32mm bases for the veterans as I want them to match the other power armoured infantry in the army.

Primarily my blood angels will be set up around the archangels strike force which allows 2 HQ in terminator armour and then a crap load of elite choices! These guys can re-roll reserve rolls in this formation (and possibly again if Captain Karlaens ability stacks with that? Anyone know?) and they are a fun fluffy way to field expensive units that will probably get destroyed post-haste! 

Raphens Death Company and the tactical squad are there to give me the option of utilising a CAD if I so wish. I also have 20 old metal scouts that are awaiting stripping before painting, originally these were going to form the neophytes for my fluffy templars list so I could have a black/red tide of 40 marines plus neophytes storming towards the enemy as the emperors champion rocks up in his crusader with a terminator squad. Lovely stuff. However I am going to hang fire on getting started on these because of the rumours surrounding the Black Templars being squatted from the vanilla marine codex, I'm hoping they are still there but if not I will make a nice scout heavy force for my Blood Angels so all is not lost.

I'm hoping to make it to two other tournaments this year with Fluffageddon going on in September and Blog Wars 10 happening in November (here is a link to Blog Wars 9 if you are interested). Both of these are happening at the Stockport Gaming Centre that I have heard a lot about but have never been so the prospect of a couple of weekend of good gaming here really excites me. If anyone in the south west would like to attend and provide a car share to save me an exorbitant train fare as well as have half your petrol paid, do drop me a line :).

Anyway that is enough of my ramblings for this week. Here is pictures of the mostly finished Dreadnought, I noticed there is some grey under one of the arms that needs touching up and when I get confident enough I would like to add battle damage to him (as well as to the termies already painted)

And here is the colour blocking mostly done on Captain Karlaen, his rules are OK but he very nicely fills the special character fulfillment for Blog Wars should I choose to take Blood Angels and he fulfills the terminator HQ for the Archangel formation so he's handy in that sense!

Obviously a long way to go with him, I've been sloppy and spilt blue all over the place gah! I need to finish blocking out the blue, overlay the brown with auric armour gold and then the model will be liberally washed with sepia/agrax in varying measures.

Any thoughts, comments and criticisms (if constructive) are always welcome :)

Peace out

Rob

WIP - Blood Angels Dreadnought

Just a quick post from work today with some picture I took last night as my girlfriend watched Wallace and Gromit The Wrong Trousers (the best by any measure of the films :p). I had done very little hobby stiff beyond planning and buying over the past month or so, after a very productive April so I decided to just jump in and get started. Thankfully the bug took over and I made good progress on my Blood Angels Dreadnought to go with the Termies.

Pics are below:

Obviously quite a bit of work left to do on this fella. Need to first and second highlight the blue and greens (also realised I missed a few of the green areas off on the first run through), need to highlight the red, give the grey areas a very thin coat of white, add some small gold detailing around some of the blue gems and ammo feed for the frag cannon, the black needs highlighting. the scroll work and bones need a wash and highlighting and the gold needs silver highlights. After that all the rivets need picking out. And the base of course!

After all that, once I have a technique that I'm confident with then I will have a stab at weathering as well.

I'm hoping to get the majority of this done tonight so hopefully some pictures soon, especially as I am away again this weekend so free hobby time is still at a damn premium! After this chap is finished I think I will put some paint on to either Captain Karlaen or my Blood Angel Librarian. This would give me a valid (if pretty tactically rubbish) Archangel Strike Force to ally in to my Templars which is nice!

Peace out

Rob