Tabletop Teacher

The Blood Angels are a brutal close assault army, but they're not exclusively melee. They have some great ranged firepower options to support your Red Thirst induced charges. Just like the red angels you command, your effectiveness as a commander will be your ability to resist your more violent urges in applying firepower, before ripping off heads! The goal of the following section of the Complete Beginners Guide to Blood Angels is not to give an all encompassing discussion of every unit and combination in the codex. Instead, it'll be looking at the unique flavours of the faction, and the primary strategies or tactics you'll be using in your first few games. Amazing picture by zmanwoo Overall Army Aim Just like any Space Marine army your goal will be to dictate the flow of battle, using your more flexible troops to counter enemy plans. You won't have the numbers to absorb a lot of damage, but you should be able to mitigate a good deal of it through assaulti...

Just a few pictures before the next post for the Complete Blood Angels Beginners Guide. Of all the Chaos Space Marine Legions, I'm most drawn to the Alpha Legion (with Sons of Horus being a close second), and I've tried a few times to do their colour scheme justice. Two weeks ago I managed to find a local supplier of Tamia paints, and I picked up some Metallic Blue. The colour is nice, but the paint dried really quickly, and separated out on the pallet extremely quickly as well. I added some thinner, and it seemed to work better. The highlights were done with Stormhost Silver, and then washed over with Waywatcher Green glaze. I also gave the model a pin wash of Drakenhoff Nightshade in the crevices of the armour. I like the effect, but I think the blue metallic paint is a bit of a waste. You can get a similar effect with just washing Drakenhoff Nightshade over Stormhost Silver. You might be able to get a more vibrant blue with Guilliman Blue glaze, but I haven...

Love them or hate them, you're not building an effective army without them. Your rank and file are the soul and centre of your army, and as such, these will be the only one's I will discuss in detail in the Beginner Guide... otherwise we'll be here until The End Times. At the end of the discussion, I will give you my opinion as to which Troop unit to try first. It should also be said, that if you don't like a faction's Troop options, you probably shouldn't collect that faction. You will have more of these units than anything else in a balanced force, so you will need to be happy seeing them all the time. Image from Warhammer Community I've bought the codex, and have done some hefty reading. The Blood Angels have three options available to them for Troops; Tactical Squads, Intercessor Squads and Scout squads. Many have preferences for each one, but there is no dud unit to be had here. They may not be as exciting as other factions, but each is very...

So in the middle of releasing the Complete Beginners Guide for Blood Angels , a Deep Strike heavy faction, this is released: Let's just summarise the rule: Half the total number of units of your army must be set up on the battle field. Half the combined Power Ratings must be on the battlefield. Any unit arriving in Turn 1 must be deployed in your Deployment Zone. Any unit that has not arrived by Turn 3 is destroyed. The two changes are about the Power Ratings and where units can go in Turn 1.  The implications are that 1st Turn charges just became harder for Deep Strike units, and that anchor units cannot just be cheap and cheerful Guarsdmen cover campers.  The Good I have to admit, when the option of a first turn decimation became available it was pretty much all I built armies around. One of the reasons my Astra Militarum Armageddon Female Regiment was so depressing to students was the ability to put some many plasma guns directly in rapid fire ...

This is the first of a series of comprehensive beginner guides. They are designed for raw beginners to Warhammer 40K first, but can be good for veterans looking to start a new army. If I've missed anything vital, let me know! The Blood Angels are one of the Imperium's finest forces, with both an enviable list of victories and an inspiration to humanity. Few chapters can count themselves as valorous as the Blood Angels, and few suffer the tragedies they do. Let's dive into their history. Lore and theme I'm not going into expansive detail here, as that would take all the fun out of your own collecting journey. But here are the key parts of the lore: The Blood Angels are one of the most revered and celebrated Space Marine chapters. Their Primarch and leader was Sanguinius, a literal angel with wings growing from his back and an angelic visage. Everybody loved Sanguinius... even the bad guys. They were vehemently loyal in the Horus Heresy, a defining momen...

Just a short posy on complete projects before I start on the Blood Angels Beginners guide. Here are the completed Aeldar/Eldar Ranger/Guardian conversions I started a while ago. Rather than model ranger cloaks, I've painted on cloaking fields. Each ranger is in the process of dropping or putting on their field, so the orange and blue of my Craftworld is still there. The model affected by the field is my usual Mechanicus Standard Grey, Nuln Oil, Celestra Grey and Seraphim Sepia combo that I use on all my bases. I'm quite pleased with the camo cloak effect, despite my sloppy painting. The line betwen the two colours was a simple palette; a thick line of watered down Caledor Sky, a thinner line of Baharroth Blue, and a few splodges of White Scar. Looks good! I think there's a little too much orange on the unit as a whole, but otherwise I'm quite pleased with the conversion. Until next time! Thanks for reading. If you liked what you saw, and ...