Blood Angels Articles

Oath  of Moment : In your command phase choose one enemy unit in your  opponents army.  Until your next command phase your units get to re-roll  all hit rolls against this target enemy unit.  A terrific army rule  that allows you to focus on the biggest threats one at a time and make  sure your force is able to hit it maximum efficiency. 

Space  Marine Chapters :  This is the generic 'You can only have a maximum of  ONE second faction keyword in your army at a time'.  For example, it  stops you from playing with both the Dark Angels Primarch Lion El'  Johnson while also bringing Calgar from the Ultramarines in the same  army.  NO SOUP FOR YOU!  (which is fine, no one wants to go back to the  early days of 8th edition ever again).

Detachment Rules : Red Thirst 

"Each time an ADEPTUS ASTARTES unit from your army is selected to fight, if that unit made a Charge move this turn, until the end of the phase, add 1 to the Attacks characteristic and add 2 to the Strength characteristic of melee weapons equipped by models in that unit."

 An absolutely fantastic Detachment, it is arguably the best in the book as it makes even a basic marine equipped with a standard close combat weapon a threat on the charge.  

Enhancements :

Speed of the Primarch - An amazing Enhancement, this will basically turn any Character into a temporary "Judicar" for only a moment, but in all honesty you are probably only going to need to use this once.  

Rage Fuelled Warrior - Do you miss  Gabriel Seth?  This is how you get him back.... well, the closest thing anyways.   This Enhancement gives the user [Sustained Hits 3] once per battle, but if you use it on a Captain who also has access to a once per battle 'Finest Hour' ability adding 3 additional Attacks and [Devastating Wounds] to all of his melee weapons, on top of the +1 attack and +2 strength you get from charging.... yeah this Captain will get medieval on someone very quickly.

Icon of the Angel - A bit of a dud Enhancement if you ask me, this one forces enemy units (Excluding Monsters and Vehicles) that try to fall back to take a Desperate Escape test as if they were Battle-shocked.  If they already are Battle-shocked then you subtract 1 from each of those tests.  So this one will only come up if you face an enemy unit that doesn't want to be in melee with you but at the same time it has to be a unit that can survive your units initial assault.  This is a very limited range of targets..... so this is a pass.

Gift of Foresight - This one is a good one as it is able to be used each battle round.  After you roll a Hit, Wound, or Saving Throw you can treat the roll as an unmodified 6 instead.   This has so much potential to be used in a lot of different ways, its almost unfair and I love every moment of it.

Detachment Rules : Upon Wings of Fire

"At the end of your opponent's turn, you can select a number of Adeptus Astartes Jump Pack units from your army (excluding units that are within Engagement Range of one or more enemy units).  The Maximum number of units you can select depends on the battle size.  Incursion up to 1 unit, Strike Force up to 2 units, Onslaught up to 3 units.  Once you have made your selections, remove those units from the battlefield and place them in Strategic Reserves.  In the Reinforcements step of your next Movement phase, set each of those units up using their Deep Strike ability."  This is the detachment that received the most interest after the book came out and it is easy to see why. Armies that have access to Up-Down abilities are typically seen as powerful at their core, but unfortunately I don't see the advantage here.  Upon playing this detachment a few times I have found the problem is that Blood Angels units just don't have the punch to take advantage of the Up-Down abilities.  It is a fun one to play with and I am sure there are those out there that can make this Detachment work, but I would rather just punch harder and make sure what I charge dies.

Enhancements :

Artisan of War - A great enhancement, not only increasing the AP of the bearers weapons (both melee and ranged) by 1 it also gives the user a 2+ save.  Good on a Chaplain or Captain in Gravis Armor, more useless if the bearer already comes with a 2+ save.  

Visage of Death - Another one of those 'We are so going to make Battle-shock a thing' enhancements that GW is constantly trying to get us to use, this one forces every enemy unit within engagement range of the bearer to make a battle-shock test in your opponents command phase.  Sure, its pretty neat.... but it's not going to do much really as again, what is better, making your opponent possibly become battle-shocked or destroying the enemy unit to begin with?  PASS.

Archangel's Shard - This enhancement is OK, giving the bearers melee weapons [Anti-Chaos 5+] and [Lance], which is kind of cool if put onto a Captain and tied in with 'Finest Hour' but it really will only shine if your facing an opponent that has the Chaos keyword.  

Gleaming Pinions - A pretty interesting enhancement that gives a jump pack bearers unit a reactive move once per turn, its not a bad enhancement at all.  Once per turn when an enemy moves within 9" you get to make a 6" move.... OK.  Movement shenanigans are always useful.  

Detachment Rules : A Noble Death in Combat

"Each time a Death Company model from your army makes a melee attack, re-roll a Wound roll of 1 if that model's unit is below its Starting Strength; if that model's unit is below half-strength, you can re-roll the Wound roll instead." This is a painful detachment rule.  Any rule that requires you to take damage before you do anything is bad to begin with, but looking at it closer it is worse that that.  It only affects Death Company models, which means it only affects 4 units in this book but one of those units already comes with re-roll wound rolls and 1 of them is not a good melee unit... why GW decided to make Death Company unit that is bad at melee I have no idea but they did it.  This is the dud detachment of the book which is sad because it could have been so cool....

Enhancements :

Sanguinius' Grace - A once per battle enhancement has to be really good to make you want to take it and unfortunately this one isn't that.  It's a once per game if at the end of the fight phase the bearer is within engagement range of 3 or more enemy MODELS it can fight one additional time.  It is nice that you don't have to activate this until you know your going to be able to take advantage of it, and fighting twice in a fight phase is incredibly rare in 10th edition, but it can only be taken by a Death Company Character and really, its just not that interesting.

Blood Shard - This one lets you get back up upon death on a 2+ with 3 Wounds remaining.  Not a bad ability really, putting this on a Death Company Captain with Jump Pack could be funny but in all honesty it is probably not going to matter all that much.

To Slay The Warmaster - Ok, this one is kind of interesting.  Once per battle (why does GW keep doing this?) if at the start of the fight phase the bearer is within engagement range of an enemy character you can activate this 'Surprise Grenade' enhancement.  Roll 6 dice, each 4+ is a Mortal wound against that enemy character.  If I was going to take an enhancement from this detachment this would be the one I would start with.

Vengeful Onslaught - Another interesting enhancement, this one turns your character into a martyr.  When it dies it gives all friendly Death Company units +1 to Hit until the end of your next turn which is cool... but not THAT cool.  Marines are not hard up for figuring out ways to hit better after all.