A very short post tonight for a very short section of the codex. On a personal note I still find it frustrating that some books have just two options for Troops whereas others, such as Eldar, have an array of options. Anyway, here are Matt's thoughts:
The
troops section only contains Tactical Squads and Scouts. Now, often players
these days will just run Scouts as they are the cheapest and offer other
bonuses such as Scout and Infiltrate for getting onto objectives etc. However, in this codex I do think tactical squads are worth more consideration. This is
mainly because they have access to heavy flamers. Heavy flamers are great at
the moment, many armies run large and/or many infantry squads and often these
have low armour ratings and rely on cover, even against heavy armour flamers
are good just because they can cause a lot of wounds from a single shot. In
addition to this it is worth noting that a heavy flamer is an Assault weapon,
this makes it the only heavy weapon that can be fired before charging into
combat, which suits the Blood Angels down to the ground. If you really wanted
to go template crazy a full 10 man squad can fire 4 flame templates if you take
a heavy flamer, flamer and a sergeant with 2 hand flamers (or a 5 man squad
with 3 templates of course)! Drop that out of a pod next to a cover hugging
infantry unit and watch it disappear.
Also
don't forget tactical marines, like everything else in the codex, have Furious Charge which makes them much better than regular marines on the charge. I think
I will probably run a mixture of Tacticals and Scouts in my lists, Scouts still
have a place and are very useful (even if that utility just comes in the form
of keeping points costs down).
Generally speaking then the Troops section here is the same as in the SM book. We all know that if they weren't compulsory we wouldn't take them any more. Since the faction detachment is pretty much a given there's no Objective Secured to worry about so I'm thinking the general rule of thumb will be min-max with basic Scout units. The Elites section is more interesting....
It's a shame about troops (in most codexs, not just Blood Angels); they just seem like FOC tax. My Dark Eldar only use 2 x 5 warriors in venoms :(
ReplyDeleteIs it worth small tac squads being mini melta squads, with a melta gun, and 2 melta (infernos ?) pistols ? With a drop pod they should be able to get in close with 3 melta shots. Or they could do the same with plasma for 4 plasma shots on the drop at 12" (however it gets expensive).
Rathstar
Got plans for FA? If not, a 5 assault squad w two meltas and your choice of combi melta or inf pistols. Free drop pod!
Deletesisters player here we only have one troop oh and one non-named hq so our choices are great fun. anyway bitterness over I do think its a real shame about tactical marines not being a good option in most opinions afterall they should be awesome anyway most people I know underestimate flamers due to the short range but its great to prove the error in their lack of faith
DeleteYeah it is a shame about troops now. But I do think that the BA tac squads can be dangerous if used correctly and tooled out to specifically target certain units. The dual pistol thing does allow this a bit more and like you said a 5 man squad with 3 melta shots will also be popular. It's just a pain to kit sergeants out with 2 pistols. Still it's a lot easier than doing it with a full unit.......
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