Questions on starting BA

[Ghost]

Hi everyone

Having followed the articles for a long time this is my first Bols post:)

I am looking to start up a BA army for competitive play and am hoping some of you guys could help clarify a few things for me:

The troop issues: There seems to be two ways to go, either small assault marines squads in razorbacks or larger squads with jumppacks. (Either one with meltas.) What are the ups and downs of either choice? Is a mix viable?
Should I be considering dreadnoughts

The fast guns issues: Vindicators are a threat, but las preds just seems a more solid choice. Any good advice here?

Special characters: What builds should or shouldn't inclkude them? Is mephiston the A choice?

Quite a few internet lists seem to favor thss termies in landraiders. Why is that?

All right - that's it. I hope I have studied the army enough to ask the right questions;)

Thanks for any and all advice:)

[White925]

the best blood angels list that i have seen at the tournaments is mech blood angels.

hq: librarians with shield of singuineius and fear of the darkness
Troops: go with small assualt squads in las plas razorbacks because there cheap and jump pack marines die way to easy in my opinion.
Fast attack: baal preds because they are amazing with scout move and outflank with assault cannons and heavy bolters
heavy support: destructor preds auto cannon turret and two lascannons.

the list is very strong super mobile and will win games. hope this helps you a bit.

[wittdooley]

Yuck to that entire idea. You can be just as Competetive with DoA angels and it's a ton more flavorful.

[AbusePuppy]

If you are looking for the strongest possible army from the codex, mechanized BA is going to be a superior choice; Jumpers is very strong against some armies, but suffers against others- you may end up feeling like some matchups are unwinnable and others are complete pushovers. (This isn't entirely true, but especially for someone new to the game it's an easy mistake to make.) Mechanized BA is a bit more "even" in terms of its fights and has, I feel, better overall percentages against the field. On the other hand, it can be quite expensive to build, albeit a little bit less so than some other mech armies.

Although many players try to mix the two, I don't feel there's any real advantage to doing so; you're just splitting your vulnerabilities up to give the enemy easier target priority. It's not horrible, and especially for those working on a budget or from an existing supply of models it can be done, but if you're starting from scratch I wouldn't recommend it.

Most of the special characters in BA are for, um, well, special builds. Mephiston is perhaps the most generally usable, but I think even he will only really benefit you if you're focusing around using his strengths and weaknesses. (That would be the build that uses Dreadnoughts the most, but I wouldn't suggest it off the bat. Build yourself a more flexible force of models to use first, then look to specialized armies.) Dante is also widely lauded, and certainly he's a good character, but I feel he only has a place as part of an army that uses Sanguinary Guard almost exclusively, which is not really an ideal build these days, especially with Grey Knights so popular. Most of the other named HQs are middling or poor, so I wouldn't worry about them.

Terminators in a Land Raider are a "rock," a single, powerful unit that takes a large portion of your army's resources and pretty much shoves it in the enemy's face and says "Deal with this or you lose." The reason they are so popular is because their raw statistics make them very scary and they are an extremely aggressive choice- you will be assaulting the enemy turn 2 or so and (hopefully) smashing their face in. The downside is that there are some armies you will simply lose to (like Dark Eldar) and an intelligent general will be able to delay your "rock" while tearing up the rest of the army and eventually focus all his fire on it once you're weakened. More so than almost anything else their performance runs hot and cold; if you are looking to get good at the game, I would definitely recommend avoiding playing a rock army to start off.

Vindicators inspire a lot of nerd-boners because of the stats on their gun (OMG S10 AP1 SO GUD!) but the truth is that their weaknesses (single weapon, side AV11, inaccurate, doesn't ignore cover, etc) actually make them rather weak compared to many of your other options, not to mention the possibilities of scattering onto your own models at close quarters. Avoid them at all costs; AutoLas Predators are generally a superior choice, although Dreadnoughts (with two pairs of Autocannons) can be better depending on the type of army you're running. Devastators with Missiles (and a Priest to babysit) can also be considered.

3++ (http://www.3plusplus.net/) has quite a lot of articles on BA, different builds, tactics for playing them, etc; you might check that out, to plug shamelessly for Kirby. Even just "mech BA" has several different incarnations that play in very different ways, so you've got a fair number of options depending on what you want to do with the army (shooty, assaulty, rock, etc.)


Yuck to that entire idea. You can be just as Competetive with DoA angels and it's a ton more flavorful.
Yes, people who play differently and have different preferences you are bad and wrong and should feel ashamed of the things they like. Thanks for contributing.

[Ghost]

Very good advice. Thanks:)