Tactica: Blood Angel Reserves & Finesse

As a new blood angels player (though a decent C:SM player), Ive began to really investigate the new BA codex and officially getting my hands on my copy yesterday (along with my death company box set, which will be used to spruce up the army - if your interested in bitz go on ebay now, more BA bitz than you can shake a stick at).

While Ive was able to glance over the BA codex to get my next purchases lined up, I hadn't yet fully thought through the meta game strategy behind my army. While my army consist of a few RAS teams (again, razorback assault squads - 5 man assault team with sang. priest with melta gun, 2 power weapons, twin linked lascannon on razorbac), a baal pred or two, a lascannon pred and so on, I now think more people are overlooking the finesse style you should play with when running the BAs.

The codex is certainly a stronger codex, and while I contend all new 5th edition codexs out are just about equal in strength (though that IG codex is still #1 in my book), most people see the BAs as a smash mouth army. I think there true power lies in having fast vehicles and there reserve abilities (though, having the ability to smash along with the finesse aspect is powerful). In my 1500 point army, im going to be using at least 2 twin linked lascannon razorbacks and 1 baal predator. While the razorback is a nible piece of armour, the fact all BA tanks are fast means ill have the ability to come off the board edge 12 inches and still be able to fire. So going forward, unless I like what I see, I will be holding my razorbacks in reserve if I dont get to go first. So I will hand my opponent nothing to shoot at except rock hard units so I dont get alpha striked to death.

Now, as for the ability to re-roll my failed reserve roll on my jump pack marines means I can be (for all intent) much more confident I can get that unit in round 2 if I want, or choose not to reroll and keep that squad aside for another turn. The power in this is depending on the battle field situation, Ill be in more control about how I want to dedicate my army (or not...). The ability to further influence my deep striking units when I choose is something I again see being overlooked as everyone goes for the deep striking land raiders and 15 man death company squads.

Ill continue to ponder these thoughts the next few days as deep striking hasnt been a preferred means of deployment before...

And finally, one last thing to note, why dont I see Blood Angels scout heavy bolters carrying the hellfire rounds??? Did I just miss it?

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