40K: It’s Blood Time – Chapter Focus Blood Angels
Check out the latest preview of the Sons of Sanguinius. They are rarin’ for action (and also blood). Mostly it’s just blood.
Everyone’s favorite Space Draculas get a preview today. Warhammer Community has a Chapter Focus on the Blood Angels, which is a) a nice throwback to earlier this year when all the other Space Marines were getting their own Chapter Focuseses, but also it’s a good look at the upcoming rules for the speediest of all Space Marines (even Orks know that the red ones go faster).
And given what we’ve seen so far, I’m feeling pretty sanguine about their Codex coming up next week.
For starters these Blood Angels are Thirsty, making these the first models in the Imperium to officially be acknowledged as experiencing an emotion other than grim determination and/or righteous anger. So let’s take a look at what these thirsty boys get, ruleswise:
This is pretty bananas. It’s no unstoppable ferocity, but it’s going to ensure that you’re going to be putting the hurt on something in close combat. Especially good for these draculas.
The Blood Angels codex is also absolutely packed with new units. As you’d expect, Blood Angels now have access to the entire Primaris Space Marines arsenal, but what you might not know is that this codex also broadens the Blood Angels range of traditional Space Marines weapons and units.
You’ll now be able to escort your flyers into battle alongside the Stormhawk Interceptor, transport scouts into the heart of battle aboard Land Speeder Storms, or unleash the might of ancient technologies from the Horus Heresy, like the Contemptor Dreadnought as well as Cataphractii and Tartaros pattern Terminators.
As you’d expect, there are loads of Stratagems to use with your Blood Angels army. These have been designed to open up new and thematic ways to structure and use your army. Death Visions of Sanguinius, for instance, lets you give one Captain, Lieutenant or Chaplain the dubious blessings of the Black Rage:
Aw, we’re back from being thirsty to rage and anger again. Well, there was a beautiful shining moment where that happened. Whatever the Black Rage ends up officially doing, it does mean that you can power up your Death Company a little more with one of your character/hq/command point repositories.
A few more strategies round out this preview:
In case you didn’t know. Blood Angels love jump packs. And they get a pretty speedy redeploy for their jump pack units and can also come in guns blazing. If you’re playing against blood angels, expect most of your opponent’s deployment to happen at the end of their first Movement phase.
Speaking of unstoppable combos. Let’s talk Librarian Dreadnaoughts, which are mentioned alongside one of the new psychic powers for the Blood Angels, who in addition to being able to use the Wings of Sanguinius, can also take some of the relics and warlord traits mentioned later.
Phew. Fly. An extra 12″ of movement on your psychic phase. And you can re-roll failed charges. And it goes off on a 5? No wonder the Blood Angels are so thirsty. On to the Warlord Traits.
These are both pretty gross. Adding 1 to damage is amazing. The feel no pain/Black Rage one is also good, because it’s feel no pain with a reroll.
And finally, let’s take a look at some of these relics. The Standard of Sacrifice, which lets a unit of infantry or bikers get a 5+ feel no pain, as well as the Veritas Vitae which will help you keep your command points filled up.
There you have it folks. The Blood Angels–and we’re going to see more of these guys throughout the week, so time to get your hopes, dreams, and expectations meteorically high with no worries about repercussions or downsides, as we do with every codex release (except Grey Knights), right?
Okay but which Blood Angel is the thirstiest?
