Blood Drinkers

The Blood Angels were my first 40k army. It felt weird but exciting starting them. I had grown up as a Fantasy player and thinking 40k was just guns and tanks. Add to that the image of Space Marines as the golden poster child and there wasn't much drawing me to 40k. I like the manoeuvring involved in fantasy, and magic, but much preferred combat over missile heavy armies. But I have no idea what finally pushed me over the edge into 40k. It was probably peer pressure that had me looking into it further.

So what should I pick for my first 40k army?
Space Vampires of course, and better yet, noble and good space vampires! I can't remember where I was at with my Blood Dragon Vampires in Fantasy at the time of picking Blood Angels, but the parallel in what I was doing with both is definitely there.

Getting started with 40k took a while, I didn't really know enough of the system to be in a position to get creative with conversions, and was definitely in option overload in what to equip my fancy new models. There's a lot of the early BA models that don't see much game time anymore because of what I've armed them with.

I tried to narrow my field to just jump pack marines, I like the image of a swift moving, hard hitting force of the Emperor's finest. This has always kept me somewhat hindered in army selection, but I'm happy with that. I am finding it a bit stifling though now that assault marines aren't troops.

At some point I discovered the Blood Drinkers successor chapter and was really intrigued by it. They had found a way of controlling the onset of Black Rage to a degree, however this came with certain strings attached.

The legend goes, a mighty Blood Drinker warrior signed a pact with a daemon, some say it was Kairos, some say it was Tzeentch himself. The conditions of this contract was rites to control the black rage that was tearing the heart out of the chapter, however each warrior that does fall is given the choice of insanity and a swift death with the black rage, or sanity but dooming the chapter to chaos forever. So far no brother has taken the daemon's hand in order to save their own mind.

This fine balance is really great and gives me the chance to suddenly flip my chapter on its head by providing a character that chooses poorly. Opening up a massive chance to write and explore so much more of this chapter.

For now they remain loyal to the Imperium.

As it currently stands, I have my army poised at the end of the Battle for Baal. They have heeded the call of Dante to return and defend Baal, and as a result of their devotion are severely depleted from the ravages of the Tyranids.

The Chapter Master, in a selfless display, crossed the rubicon primaris to become the first Primaris Blood Drinker, but as yet there are no primaris marines in this force. Something I'm keen to stick to.

As you can see, there's still a lot of work to do on my Blood Angels...