Angelus Mortis Stomps Da Red Finga

Yeah, it seems uneven. But it's only uneven in the model count, not their abilities.

OK, I have to admit, I never fully read through the Blood Angel codex. The reason is that I get so far along every time I try to read it through and all I see is "blah, blah, assaulty spess marinths, blah, blah, blah". Not very interesting to me.

I think my nephew, Drakur, knows this and decides to run things against me more to just mess with me than anything else. Through him I think I've seen just about every unit in that damn codex now. And then he's taken everything and has done something totally crazy with it just to show me how messed up the rules are.

1,000 points of Orky Goodness

So in our most recent game he decided to bring Mephiston and a Furioso Dreadnought with Blood Talons. It was a 1,000 point game. Dropping 250 points on a single model unit that ISN'T a Land Raider is just nuts. But he never fielded Mephiston before, so decided to take him for a spin.

Mephiston is a complete beast. It's best to think of him as a monstrous creature on a normal sized base. He has a power that can move him 12". He has a power that can increase is CC strength to 10. He has a 2+ armor save with 5 wounds. He can use three psychic powers per turn. When Mephiston jumps in water, he doesn't get wet, water gets Mephiston. Mephiston has counted to infinity, twice. Mephiston can divide by zero. Mephiston drinks napalm to quell his heartburn. Mephiston uses tabasco sauce as Visine. Mephiston knows the past digit of pi. When Mephiston.... well, you get the idea. He's a beast in the game.

However, when surrounded by a Big Mek and two full squad of boyz, he does die in a single round of combat. He killed my Mek six times over, but the two nobs beating on him with power klaws took him down.

Do you see Mephiston in this mess? Exactly.

The Blood Talons are just a cruel joke. Lightning claws on a Dreadnought that provide an additional attack for every unsaved wound. So the only time this thing stops killing is when it rolls a 1 to hit or a 1 to wound. Throw him up against a horde with no invulnerable saves and he will completely move through it.

I promised Drakur at the beginning of the game and at the end of the game that he will never use his Blood Talons against my boyz. He can field it every game, but I'll never allow it to live through a round of shooting. When the dreadnought arrived my Deffkoptas flew behind it and blew it up. Yes, I lost the Deffkoptas, but I can allow a single 125 point unit take out an entire mob.

The irony is that the explosion from the dreadnought almost did take out the entire mob. I moved my mob closer to prepare for the assault (there was no running from it), but the Deffkopta took it out in the shooting phase. The 6" explosion touched everyone! Then, when the redeemer rolled up the next turn, the remaining boyz were nicely packed together for the flame template.

There use to be a Furioso Dreadnought in there. 

The fun was trying to take out the Redeemer. It was the first time I have attempted to take out a Land Raider with a power klaw. Wasn't table to do it. Granted, rolling three 1's and a 2 to hit didn't help at all. But it really reinforced the idea in my mind that Orks suck against AV14 vehicles. But then again, what doesn't? The only thing that has any consistency is melta.

Attack the Land Raider!!

This time, attack the Land Raider and do something to it!

It moved less than 6" - all I need is a 4+ to hit!!!!

All I needed was 20 more attempts and I KNOW I could have done something to that LR.

In the end he won. I had one Nob and a boy left, he had an immobilized shooty dreadnought, a drop pod, a scout squad, and the Redeemer remaining. It was a great and brutal game.

The end of the battle.

I don't like terms such as "broken codex", but I understand why everyone is crying over the Blood Angels. Each marine codex is geared towards a specific way of doing things. Blood Angels are the fast assault marines and they do fast assault very good. If you fight them like you would vanilla marines, they will hurt you. So yes, it is JAMC (just another marine codex), but it is a completely different play style. You need to adjust your tactics accordingly or they will kill you and you will cry "broken codex".