Legions Imperialis is here! Watch our Battle Report on YouTube now!

 Hi all

Games Workshop sent us a review copy of the new Legions Imperialis game! It is fantastic!

Drake Seta, Son of Xana and Eyecon74 divided the box. Drake painted the Space Marines as Blood Angels.

We will be putting some other posts up later today and this week so stay tuned.

Eyecon74 and Drake filmed a battle report of 1.5k v 1.5k a side. You can watch here.

#adwip #legionsimperialis #warhammercommunity #solarauxilia #bloodangels

Battle Bunnies

Horus Heresy: Shadow Wolf’s Blood Angels

Hiya all

One of my long time friends has sent pics in of his Blood Angel army, so I thought I would put them up today on the site :)

Raldoron 1st Captain of the IX Legion. 

Details and blood have been painted really well. 

Stone looks great too. 

Imperial Space Marine

Spartan Battle Tank

Primus Medicae

Xyphon interceptor

And big Sanguinius himself. 

Really well done on the scenic base. 

Deciding on a New Legion

Hi all,

You may have seen from the last couple of Weekly Progress Reports and my last post that I’ve reached a point with my Iron Warriors where I’m intending on pausing them in favour of starting a new Legion project to mix things up a bit. My Iron Warriors have done me proud and at provide me with a 3,500 point gaming army. But it’s time for a change.

As the blog’s resident hobby butterfly, changing army projects is something I’m familiar with (and quite good at if I do say so myself); the bit I’m not so good at is sticking with the new project once I’ve decided to do it! To try and make sure that I stay motivated with my next Legion project, I wanted something that plays very differently to my Iron Warriors. I’d narrowed the selection down to a handful of Legions which I’d had some interest in; the Ultramarines, Blood Angels, Night Lords and Word Bearers. To help make the final decision, I looked at the following areas:

Allegiance

Whilst this isn’t necessarily the make or break decision for the entire project, I was leaning toward a loyalist Legion from the outset; the Bunnies have a number of campaign projects planned over the coming months, and having a Loyalist legion to counterbalance my Iron Warriors gives us a little more flexibility as a group. So while I wasn’t ruling out the Traitors at this stage, it was something I was going to bear in mind throughout the process.

Background

For me, this is one of (if not the most) important aspects of choosing a project; I’m the type of player who has to be emotionally invested in an army – I don’t see the attraction to playing a powerful army without really liking the background for them. As part of this, I looked at the character of each of the Legions, as well as the named individuals in the Horus Heresy book series. Sadly, I really like the background of all four Legions that I was considering, so this wasn’t too much help!

  

Colour Scheme

It’s at this stage I realised that I’ve clearly got a thing for red (Blood Angels & Word Bearers) and blue (Ultramarines & Night Lords)… But at any rate, I wanted a colour scheme that I could reproduce consistently across the whole army. I’ve recently started using the Vallejo paints along with an airbrush, so I was looking for a colour that I could apply mostly with an airbrush just to speed up the whole process.

Models

This is quite an important one; the look of unique units and the general army aesthetic are one of the key things I look for in a project. The Legions that I had in consideration all have a fairly distinct look from each other; I know that we haven’t seen the models for Blood Angels yet, however, the art that has been produced is a fairly good indicator. Word Bearers clearly have a lot to choose from when it comes to unique units and characters. Ultramarines only have the one unique unit currently, but the others are quite simple to convert. The Night Lords have their Night Raptors models, and the Terror Squads would be straightforward to represent with the existing range.

‘Typical’ Playstyle

This is where we start to see more of a divide between the Legions that I’ve been considering. I was looking for something which plays very differently to my Iron Warriors, especially around using different types of units such as Drop Pod, flyers, Land Speeders or bikes and jump packs. The Ultramarines began to show as potentially being very similar to the Iron Warriors in that they’re a very ‘conventional’ Legion when it comes to list building – They even essentially share a unique unit!  I’m not one who believes that certain Legions should only be played certain ways; the Death Guard would have carried out the occasional lighting raid, and the White Scars may have been forced to defend a fixed position - I’d like my new Legion to be flexible enough to be able to field different types of list where possible.

Rites of War

Each of the four Legions bring a pair of unique Rites of War. I was really quite taken with the Night Lords’ Terror Assault and The Last of the Serrated Sun from the Word Bearers; both provided a very different approach to gaming than my Iron Warriors. I also particularly like the Day of Revelation Blood Angels rite of war; who wouldn’t like the idea of the Emperor’s angels descending on plumes of fire to bring illumination to the foe?

So after carefully considering the above points, I discounted three of the four Legions I’d been thinking about. The first to go were the Night Lords and the Word Bearers; though I love the look of these two Legions I really wanted a loyalist legion to offset my Iron Warriors. I liked the idea of converting up each of the Night Lords with trophies and chains to make them really individual, but I don’t have that amount of time to dedicate to the hobby, and I could see myself not making progress as quickly as I’d like to and becoming disheartened with the Legion.

Second were the Word Bearers; again, a fantastic looking Legion, but I’d want to do them with a massive number of cultists, militia and downtrodden scum (I mean… willing volunteers); as well as really going to town on the Chaos element of the army. I’d want to include Daemons alongside them, but I feel this could drag a lot of focus from what I really want to be a Legion project… I’m not saying never, and may come back to these one day…

This left me with the Ultramarines and the Blood Angels. I’ve always been a fan of the Ultras; they were my first 40k army many years ago, and I really like the background to them. The Blood Angels are a fantastic looking army in 40k, and I’ve always had a soft spot for them. In terms of making a decision for my next project, I went back and forth between these two Legions for quite some time (most likely winding up Ahmose and Darien as I agonised over the decision!). Eventually, Ahmose suggested I paint up a Blood Angel just to get it out of my system; I’d already painted up an Ultramarine in Mk 4 plate, so it seemed fitting to stand them side by side.

Now, I really enjoyed painting both of them up, but I’ve decided to go with the Blood Angels (he has been line-highlighted, they're just a lot more subtle than the Ultramarine!)

The Ultramarines are a great Legion, but their Legion Rules, Rites of War and even Unique Units (I’m looking at you Fulmentarii!) produce a Legion which is somewhat similar to the Iron Warriors. The Blood Angels favour a different style of play and their Day of Revelation Rite of War places an emphasis on units that I’ve not really used before. Eventually, I’ll be able to play through the story of Signus Prime with them, and the Siege of Terra will be awesome when we get around to it.

So… fingers crossed Angelus arrives sooner than later…

Well, that’s the very long-winded way that I’ve gone about deciding on a new army – how did you pick your Legion? Was it as painstaking a process as mine?!

Cheers!

Ikthelion

Community Question: Blood Angels

Hello everyone,

As you may have seen from my last post, I am the blogs Blood Angels player. The Blood Angels have probably always been my favorite legion and Sanguinius my favourite primarch so I'm really looking forward to eventually starting them!

I am stating to think about planning a scheme for them, but the photo below is pretty close to what I would like to achieve.

*For the record this isn't a model of mine, but its definitely a lovely model in pose and scheme so credit goes to the painter Gray Area over on the Heresy 30K blog :)*

 

It definitely captures the darkness of the Horus Heresy and although I do like the idea of the blood angles looking clean and regal, I do think I will be going for a similar battle worn look.

However, before I start a scheme I should really plan the initial units I am considering including in the army as well as learning how the legion likes to fight!

Some really nice 30K Blood Angels artwork above which I think captures the legion nicely!

So without posting the rules for the Blood Angels on the blog, they are obviously intended to be a rapid assault based army with plenty of close combat potential. The special rule for the legion Encarmine Fury represents the benefits of having the legion as an assault based force and the Rite of War: Day of Revelation in a nutshell gives you the ability to gain a cover save after deep striking and added initiative when charging into combat!

I have the 30 marines out of the calth box set which I will use to make tactical/despoiler marines and then I have been looking forward to working on some Mk IV assault marines for a while now so I think they will make an appearance! With an assault based theme to the army I think I will make twenty of the thirty marines into despoilers and maybe have one standard tactical squad. Other than this I am not particularly sure what I would like to include. Some terminators, dreadnoughts and a flyer will probably be added but I'm really looking forward to the release of the legion specific units.

So this post was really intended to ask the community, how you think the blood angels should play and what units both fluffy/competitive you would include in the force?

Also what do you think the legions special units will be? Another version of the Sanguinary Guard?

Just comment below as I am interested to hear anyone's opinion whether you have a 30K Blood Angels army or not :).


Thanks for reading,

Aveinus Kaane

Overview of the Blood Angels - Retribution rules

Hi guys,

So after an amazing weekend we have been flicking through the new book Retribution and looking at all the new characters, rules and campaigns. Notably, for myself, I have been checking out the new rules and rites of war for the Blood Angels. For those that haven't seen them yet I will be going over what is in the new book. I wont be going over word for word over the pages but give a brief explanation of the rules that are applicable here. So lets dive in:

First and foremost, there are no characters or Sanguinius rules in this book. This is just a taster for rules so people can now pick up a legion and tune it to the rites of war. This is also the same for the Dark Angels and White Scars, which were also featured in this book. 

BLOOD ANGELS RULES

Legiones Astartes

Of course they have the Astartes special rule like all of the Legions. This allows units to regroup regardless of casualties, at their leadership value.

Encarmine Fury

This is a tasty little rule which is a great rule suited to the 9th legion. This allows any model with a melee weapon, in an assault, to wound a model with one lower result than required. So for example lets say you have a s4 weapon fighting a t4 enemy. Rather than on the chart having to roll a 4+ to wound it becomes a 3+, and so on to a minimum bonus of 2+. 

This is a great rule that showcases the melee prowess that the Blood Angels are known for. Get your despoilers at the ready!!!

Without Remorse, Without Relent

This is a rule that forces any model with the Blood Angel Legiones Astartes (going to shorten this to BALA for the duration of this post) to make Sweeping Advances where possible, and makes them unable to Go To Ground voluntarily.

This makes sense as they would be relentless in their assaults and keep going no matter what.

Host of Angels

This is a restriction on the army lists you may use. This rule forces Blood Angels armies to not have more units with the Vehicle special rule than those with the BALA special rule. 

This will need to be concentrated on as this will inevitably limit a player to certain Rites of War. Basically we all just need to be sure we take a lot of infantry and only a couple of tanks and flyers as a small support option to the ranks.

BLOOD ANGELS WARGEAR

Some nice options are available to the Blood Angels here, most of which allow the swapping of wargear and the rules regarding this, and a certain lovely prototype weapon....

Here is a list of weapon change options for certain units;

Any model with the BALA rule that can take Volkite Serpentas can take hand flamers instead for a small points increase, and any which can take a plasma pistol can take an Inferno pistol instead (read below for the description) for the same points increase as above.

Any leader option (a model that is a Praetor, Consul or Centurion) with the BALA rule that can take a power fist can take a new weapon called the Blade of Perdition (yes I'm excited too....!!!! See below for rules)

So what do these new weapons mean and look like? Here is a brief look below:

-The hand flamer is your typical flame pistol, with s3 ap6

-The Inferno pistol is basically a melta pistol. It has a 6" range, s8 ap1 with the Melta rule. Very handy I think to include this with your various assault squads to have a go at those pesky tanks your adversary will no doubt place in front of you!!

-The Blade of Perdition, a marvellous creation in my opinion!! Its a master crafted, two handed sword that hits at the users strength and has an ap2 value. "But Darko", I hear you cry, "that doesn't sound so menacing...." But you see the Blade has a special rule called Deathfire. This is a tasty rule that causes every wound you make with this sword doubled!!! Tell me that isn't exciting and I would say you have already succumbed to the Bloodlust!!!! And even the extra wound has to be saved seperately!! A great weapon that I think will be very defining in your custom characters that you have in mind.

Now the Blood Angels also have access to a vehicular prototype weapon. This weapon is called the Iliastrus Pattern Assault Cannon. 

This is a unique weapon that replaces any unit including vehicles with heavy flamers if you so wish for a few extra points, and the Predators main cannon for free. This has 4 shots with it, a 24" range, with s6 ap4 and the rending special rule. 

It does have a slight drawback rule called Malfunction. This effectively is a 'Gets Hot' parody which can cause the weapon to permanently break down if too many '1' dice results are rolled to hit.

A lot of great unique choices here that anyone playing a IXth Legion army will be very excited to use. I will definitely be throwing some of these into my army lists!!! But lastly lets look to the Rites of War that the Blood Angels can use.

Really enjoyed going through and looking at the new things coming for the Blood Angels. In another post I will go over what Rites of War the IX Legion can be subject to and even throw out some example lists that I have concocted from these. Also I am very excited to see what characters will be forthcoming, and how Sanguinius will be depicted in his entry when his book is released.

What do you guys make of the new Blood Angels introduction? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below :)

Darko Thane