Apr
201058:51
pm
201058:51
pm
Blood Angel Rules?
Okay, hear me out on this for a second, I want to get an idea of what you guys think.
I do not actually have the Blood Angels Codex, so everything I know about it is bits and pieces that I have inherited from various internet fora. But, I was thinking... wouldn't the Blood Angels rules be a pretty good fit for my Legion of the Damned army?
Let me make the case.
- Fluff-wise, both the Legion and the Blood Angels suffer from a disease. The Legion's is apparently warp-based, whereas the Angels suffer from a geneseed defect, but both produce a roughly equivalent result: consuming rage. I can see equivalencies between the Legion's contagion causing squads of the Damned to behave much like a Death Company.
- Sanguinary Priests make everything within a radius get Feel No Pain... and Legionnaires seem to slough off what would look like fatal blows. You could make a character like Sergeant Centurius and his Animus Malorum (a Fire Hawks Librarian's skull that steals the souls of the enemy and reinvigorates nearby Legionnaires) into a very, very easy Sanguinary Priest, and the effect would still be perfectly true to the Legion's fluff.
- Blood Angels can deep strike a Land Raider. Now, arguably, this is a really dumb rule and also probably very limited in effectiveness, since you can't always find a ton of room on the battlefield to just plunk a Land Raider down in even if you don't scatter. But. The idea is there - a Land Raider can appear from an unexpected quarter, as though from nowhere, bringing it's cargo of Legionnaires and heavy guns to bear. It's perfectly in tune with the Legion's 'appear-hit-vanish' style.
- Blood Angels appear to be a relatively elite army. This means you won't see as many of them on the board as a normal Space Marine army, because they trade numbers for abilities. By extension, since there aren't a ton of Legionnaires (they're the remnants of a chapter, after all), there shouldn't be many of them knocking around the board, either. It would seem Blood Angel's ability to deploy slightly lesser numbers fit the Legion's general fluff.
- Blood Angels get some of the coolest dreadnoughts. I love dreadnoughts. In fluff reasons, I've been telling myself that the Legion might have a number of dreadnoughts just because their relatively advanced and integrated life support systems might help slow or stem the contagion that afflicts them; they're a means of prolonging the Legionnaires so that they can deliver the Emperor's wrath.
- I don't know anything about the characters in the BA codex other than the fact that they cost a truckload and are awesome to compensate.
Now, problems with the idea include...
- Blood Angels seem to use a ton of jump packs. I don't know how to model jump packs on Legionnaires and not have it look ridiculous. You could conceivably play off the BA's angelic look and give them skeletal wings or something, or regular jump packs, I just think on the whole they'd end up looking a little silly.
- I've made an Ironclad dread for the army already. I don't know if BA can even take an Ironclad dread.
- I don't know if the 'counts-as Vulkan' model I have (Thanasius) actually fits anything in the Blood Angels HQ options.
On the whole, though, I think it's pretty viable. What do you guys think?
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April 6th, 2010
Let me tell you; I whole heartedly support this idea, and I really really think it’ll work. You’ve mentioned that most of the BA rules support this idea anyway, and well… As a fellow dreadnought fan I agree that the awesomeness of being able to swarm in dreadnoughts are just too awesome to pass up.
I can’t recall if ironclads can be used, but perhaps you could mod it into a furioso or death company ironclad? Or maybe just keep it on the offchance that gw will release legion rules.
You don’t need to use jump packs; there are oodles of ways to get you lotd intothe enemy; loading them onto deepstriking land raiders (as mentioned) or fast rhinos definitely caters to the hit and vanish theme too.
Lastly, I can’t think of one off the top of my head but with the plethora of characters available im sure you’ll be able to find one that fits. Failin that, you’ll have one very snazzy captain!
Hope you do it
April 6th, 2010
“Blood Angels seem to use a ton of jump packs” – nope, you can replace Assault Squad JP for dedicated vehicle at 35 pts discount. (LR included)
“I’ve made an Ironclad dread for the army already. I don’t know if BA can even take an Ironclad dread.” – No Ironclads, guess you would need to change his claddy handy to force weapon if you would like Furioso Librarian, or both hands for Blood Talons if you prefer DC Dreadnought
“counts-as Vulkan” – let me see… Hmm you could use him as Gabriel Seth (on foot, iron halo, not-power-weapon with s8 and rending), or maybe Tycho (Dead mans hand = pw, 2d6arm pen, digital weapons; combi-melta with sternguard ammo;; he comes in as captain or DC frenzied guy) – but with him you would need to add some kind of incorporated combi-melta to his fist.
Rest guys are on JP
(oh, there is mephiston, but I don’t suppose he would count)
April 6th, 2010
Just because you want to use a lot of the rules in the BA codex doesn’t mean you have to make your whole army into mock BA’s. The BA fluff demands jump packs, you aren’t playing BA’s your playing legion so you call the shots if they get to use em’ or not. There is no Legion Codex so you aren’t breaking any of your own rules. Keep your vulkan guy, he is way cooler as is. As long as you do a little give and take with your rules your picking to balance out, I don’t think its a problem to plant an Ironclad on the field. If your just playing for fun who cares right? As long as you dont come off as a power player who manipulates GW’s leniency for customization, the only people who will care are tournament mongers. Heck, you made a completely custom character from the ground up (Gargrim) with custom rules and all. Thats a little closer to stepping on the rules’s toes than bending the BA codex to your own custom army. Besides, if you do go into a tournament, I’m pretty sure they get really sensitive about “Counts as” anyways dont they?
April 7th, 2010
This is an awesome idea, and I say go for it.
And, as for figuring out how to model jump packs for LoTD, I’ve got one word: Fire. Have the jump packs spewing out flames. If you use them at all, of course.
April 8th, 2010
Just pick an overpowered marine ‘dex and stick to it. If you get bored, you can always switch to a different overpowered marine book, or wait for the overpowered marine book… there’s always a new one around the corner.
It’s not like you really need to keep changing the paintjobs. Marines are marines.
April 14th, 2010
Go with the BA ‘dex.
Some of the stuff in that is incredible!