Email in: 1600 point Blood Angels

Received an email recently, asking for my thoughts on a Blood Angel list.  First, here's the email:

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Sanguinor

2x Priests Jump Packs

2x 10 Assault Marines w/ 2 Melta Guns Hammer Combat Shield

10 Assault Marines w/ 2 Melta Guns Lightning Claw Storm Shield

2x 5 Vanguard Vets w/ Hammer (not on sarge) Jump Packs

Vanguard Vets are for deep striking into long fang squads etc. and making Lemon Russes not able to shoot, at least. The Sanguinor is for buffs. I will keep my assault squads within 6" when possible him for the +1 attack this will make my squads really be fast durable beserkers with melta guns. I really like the vets but two jump chaplains and a plain jump squad would be nice too... The blessing goes on the LC/SS sarge and the combat shields are point fillers. I took hammers instead of fist to slow down the big nids and stop tanks
from shooting if i hit at all. I will either deep strike all or blitz with everything, except vets.


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Cool, this looks pretty similar to my jump marine list I recently posted.  First, may I ask why 1600 points?  It seems like a random size, but anything above 1500 is doable, in my opinion.

I'd like to point out that with the Sanguinor's sarge upgrade, you don't actually get to choose which sergeant gets the upgrade- it has to be random.  I wish it worked like that, so that you could tool up your own character with a retinue and everything!  As it is, that's one of the reasons Sanguinor needs to be in very specific lists, with good sergeants all around.  If the upgrade is stuck with some Devestator sergeant, it's wasted.

Alright, done with the picky little stuff, lets get to the meat of the list.  43 jump marines, with a smattering of FNP and melta.  The VV suicide pretty quick, and you're left with 33 marines, probably all with FNP.

Lets see... the Vanguard are costing you *quick math*.... 390 points.  The general idea is to jump in and kill... something.  The likelihood of that is high enough, but how much damage can 2 isolated 5-man squads do?  Is it worth spending 390 points on?  They'll very likely only have a single turn in which to cause damage- nobody wants those crazy bastards behind their lines, that's for sure :)

So, assuming you're going to be dropping everyone in (since that's how the list is structured), if you can get a couple of assault squads ready in counter-attack range, it might work pretty well, since you'll force the enemy to deal with one threat or the other (hopefully they choose the VV, lol).  It's really your call whether or not to take the VV, but realize that you're limiting yourself to a single type of (effective) deployment.  Wasting 200 points on a 140-point long fang squad might be worth it to you, but if you do that twice, you're suddenly down 120 points in trade offs.  In this case, you're paying for the VV to come down with the rest of your army and force your opponent to make a hard decision (go for the currently unprotected VV, or the FNP assault marines in the distance?).  Those points might be worth forcing the decision, it might not be.  Just something to think about.

The VV will likely die soon after they deepstrike.  So I guess the question is:  do you think that 33 bodies are going to be survivable at 1600 points?  Granted, there will be a couple fewer Russes or Oblits, or whatever the VV went and tried to ruin, but generally speaking, while 33 marines with FNP are tough to deal with, pretty much every list out there can do it.  Besides, you know what's more difficult to deal with than 33 marines w/ FNP?  43 marines with FNP :)

Sanguinor looks a little lost here.  He needs to buff a unit with his +1 attack to be points-efficient, but if the list is all deep-strike, he won't even be in range to help a squad if they get charged lots of times.  He's the sort of character that is better surrounded by lots and lots of guys- the fewer models available to him, the fewer attacks he gives out as a bonus, and the less points-efficient he is.

So I propose this:  drop the Sanguinor, and add another squad.  The whole premise of this army is to provide an unreasonable number of jump troops, who are all harder to kill than usual (FNP).  Sanguinor is good, but at this point level, he won't be nearly as valuable as 10 more bodies.

This gives you a few extra points, and you can drop a few things here and there (such as a SS, combat shields, and random power weapons on the VV sergeants) to get a Librarian w/ JP, or if you can find the points, a Reclusiarch with a JP.  I personally prefer the Librarian, since he can protect a squad, and let them reroll misses in combat every turn, but Reclusiarchs are cool too (albiet 30 points more expensive).

Depending on how unwieldy the list is, and how hard it is to give everyone FNP, it might be a good idea to drop one squad down to a 5-man, and get another Priest.  It just depends on what works for you.

Overall, the list is pretty good.  A little tweaking here and there, and your list could really do well.  Plus, I just love the imagery of all those jump troops running rampant across the battle field!  :)

Anyone have more comments, tweaks, etc?  I'm sure he'd be happy to get more feedback!