Blood Angels - Are we that bad? - Part Three Elites (and Hobby update)

Hello dear readers,

I have finished my house move and have a nice big new bedroom with plenty of space for my hobby work. We also have a shed that I'm hoping to use to build a foldable gaming table so I can better use out of my FAT mat without destroying the cervical and sacral sections of my spine. 

Today I'm going to go over the elite section of the Blood Angels Codex. This is a big section so I will just give a summary of verdicts at the end rather than for each choice. After that you can see a few pics of my new set up and sneak peaks of what's on my hobby table. I'm also going to be putting up my several parts of my collection on ebay today and tomorrow so please stay tuned for links to those auctions and maybe pester a friend or your wallet to bid or buy it now :)

On we go!

Elites

Command squad - 100 points basic - FNP - issue and accept challenges for company champion - These guys are very limited and in such a rich slot as the elites are in the Blood Angels Codex I see no room for you to take them over other choices.

Death Company - 2 attacks, S5 on charge, rage = 4 attacks on charge - 5 attacks with 2 x ccw, striking at I5 in strike force (and why wouldn't you), Astorath re-roll to hit and to wound on the charge - FNP - relentless for bolters and charging - fearless - hand flamers and inferno pistols = awesome. These guys really are fantastic, they will destroy pretty much anything in close combat and the jump packs will hopefully get them there somewhat intact. 

Squads of 10 are a must I think to mitigate the fire power that will definitely be directed at them. These are still the last word in face punching as they should be and the Vanilla's have nothing that can shake that position. A good mix of weapons and bolters on power fist guys to take advantage of relentless is always good. Add Lemartes or Astorath to taste. Or take 2 10 man squads like I am and put one character in each ;)

Lemartes Guardian of the Lost - badass chaplain with mastercrafted crozius - +1 s and A after lost a wound all the rules of death company aside from fearless but has zealot as well. This guys really adds a nice whallop to a squad of death company and to top it all of hey-zeus he has a great model. Really fantastic, always admired it and got mine in the post recently - I'm not a fan of finecast but this one had 0 flash on it essentially and the detail is awesome, look forward to showing you in fully painted up. Hopefully I will get him painted to an Asotrath level of detail for me.

Sanguinary guard - golden angels of sigmar---I mean death ;) 2+ save and Ld 10 with marine mulching weapons (encarmine sword....ap3 master crafted two handed and encarmine axe... +1 ap2 mastercrafted unwieldy 2 handed). These guys are fantastic, the models are really great, though I have ordered some flying sigmarites to convert into them so they are extra bad ass.. but they suffer from no Invulnerable save or even FNP, be careful with them, maybe throw in a couple of storm shield characters to tank wounds if you really want to take them, but more importantly pick your targets carefully. I recommend the sword and leave 2+ saves to someone like death compay who can drown them in a mixture of ap - and ap3 attacks as well as throwing ap2 attacks at I1.

Dreadnought basic - a dread is a dread is a dread - except the cc chapter dread has 2 attacks less.... bugger. Very little to say on these guys. If you are taking dreads then take either of the other 2 dread option we have available.

Death Company Dreadnought - has furious charge and rage which is fun and can get ap2 shred blood talons but only has 3 attacks and really should have 5 (though it gets 5 on the charge so its not too bad and possibly 6 with 2 CCW weapons..I think?)I doubt this will be faq'd though sadly still awesome though and ignores crew shaken and crew stunned results. The ignoring crew shaken and stunned results are the best thing about this beast

Furioso Dreadnought - suffers from the bizarrely low attacks but the best way to run this guy is in my opinion as a holy crap tonne of horde cleansing. Frag cannon and underslung flamer produce 3 template attacks a turn with 2 of them at s6! Oh and those ones are RENDING! Drop this guy in a pod next to any units in cover (T3 for maximum effect) and watch them burn.This beast also has AV13 on the fron for extra survivability. Very tasty profile

Terminator Squad - 200 points and still too expensive for what they do and the models don't even look bad ass like the assault marines do - sad to say I will never be taking these guys - they are marginally better in the vanilla codex due to price drop but still too easily wiped.

Terminator Assault Squad - a different story - the hammernator squad is the same price as the vanilla marines but the kit we have is simply awesome, really beautiful models indeed. The claw variant is over costed compared to vanilla but not by much and they are great at shredding units especially as ours are S5 on the charge and at I5 in the baal strike force formation so it really ups your chance of killing marine squads no problem. A top choice compared to vanilla because of these unique Blood Angel buffs.

Vanguard Veteran Squads - I love the whole concept of these guys and will have two in one of my angel armies eventually (still lying in bits :( ) but the vanilla codex got a MASSIVE reduction in their weapon upgrade costs. Sadly these guys took in the neck the same as the dreadnoughts.

Sternguard Veteran Squads - are as good as they ever were with their fantastic utility. I will also have 2 squads of these drop podding in with my archangels because of their effectiveness. Price point wise they are little changed if at all as I recall but even if they are more expensive compared to vanilla they are still well worth taking

Verdicts

Overall the winners in this section are, as they should be, the Blood angels unique choices. Death company squads and dreadnoughts are top of the class, with flame spewing Furioso dreadnoughts a close second I think. Assault terminators come next, they are really and truly better than marine equivalents when you take the claw variant as they are +1 strength on the charge and can get +1 initiative also. Throwing a sanguinary guard or chaplain in there will boost them even further. I love the sanguinary guard but they are expensive for what they do, you will have to design around these 

guys to get them to really fulfill there potential but they can do it if you want it.

Losers are dreadnought base attacks and vanguard veterans costing significantly more than the vanilla counterpart due to weapon upgrade costs. This can be mitigated somewhat if you take a particular formation but I'll get into that in my final post.

Hobby

So here we have a few pictures of my new hobby set up, I have enough space to have a to do pile:

And a working pile and also have a two lamp set up for better light. The window also provides better light in this room so its very nice all round. 

You can see how much I have to do and also how many brushed I have accumulated!! 

This sits at the foot of my bed and will now be reserved for finished models only so I can get a nice sense of how far I am coming along. 

I'm hoping to get a decent amount of hobby progress this week as my girlfriend is away so hopefully there will be a couple of posts from me this week in addition to my sunday post which will be going through the heavy and fast attack choices for the blood angels codex.

Here is a sneak peak of my WIP Dante conversion:

And finally, I always wonder what bloggers look like so I though you guys could have a picture of me to put a face to a name :) (I don't smile for photos but I am much friendlier looking in real life I promise!)

Peace out till next time

Rob