The Blood Angels are back with a new Codex, in line with the rest of the 7th Edition books. Though you might not know it from the content of this blog over the last year, Blood Angels were my first 40K army, started with the release of 3rd Edition back in 1998. They’re by far my largest army, and the one to which I’m most attached. They’re not as well painted as my Executioners or Eldar because I painted many of them early in my painting career, though I plan to add quite a few new units to them over the next couple months.
Overall, this book feels very similar to the 3rdEdition Blood Angels that I started off playing. The biggest reason for this is that all Blood Angels now have Furious Charge, which is essentially the new Blood Angels Chapter Tactic. This is great; I’ve never been a fan of having to unlock Furious Charge for specific units. It just seems like something that every Blood Angel should have.
This is supplemented by the Baal Strike Force Detachment. This has all the same requirements and options as the Combined Arms Detachment, with the addition of an extra required Elites choice. The Baal Strike Force allows your Warlord to re-roll his Warlord Trait on the Blood Angels Warlord Table, but more importantly, it grants all of your models +1 Initiative on the charge. This brings Furious Charge back to where it was in 3rd Edition. This is absolutely huge for assault units. While the extra strength helps your units to kill more enemies, the extra initiative makes sure that you kill them before they can kill you. This makes your squads last much longer in the game by reducing the attrition that they suffer in any given combat. I honestly doubt that I will ever run a CAD with my Blood Angels, so my reviews will assume the units are part of a Baal Strike Force.
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| This was the scariest thing you could see across the table in 3rd Edition. |
Combined, this almost brings Blood Angels back to the glory days of 3rd. Honestly, I don’t think we need the old Rhino Rush back. For those that don’t remember, Blood Angels in Rhinos could assault 27” in a single turn reliably. As much fun as it was to assault someone before they could even move, it wasn’t good for the game.