So, the question is do my little 6mm men have to be Red to use a Blood Angel list?

The reason behind this question is despite having a large collection of part painted marines I only have limited stocks of vehicles (Landing craft, thunderhawks, spaceships etc).

I'd like to paint enough in one colour scheme to have about 8,000 points available. Buying more landing craft etc. is just not economically viable, and I think the current cost of a landing craft is robbery on GW's part.

So would people be happy facing a blue Blood Angels army one week, then the same blue Black Templars army the next?

I certainly wouldn't have a problem with it.  I do it with Craftworld Eldar all the time: One week they're Aspect Warrior-heavy using the Biel-Tan list, then a fast attack battle force using Saim-Hann, etc, etc.

My Eldar are painted in my own Craftworld scheme... I'm not going to paint whole new armies just to use different lists.

Just make sure your *opponent* realizes which army you're using and what rules apply.  Different Chapters utilize different strategic and tactical approaches depending on the situation on the ground, so you shouldn't feel constrained by the "name" on a list.  

If you want a "combined arms/fast attack" approach with your Marines, Blood Angels are good to use.

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I don't particularly care what color your models are; there's a number of successor chapters and though I don't know of any blue BA successors no one could say if there aren't any.

(Now it's obviously more complicated with Black Templars who don't have any successors, but let's not get too pedantic here.)

That's of course awfully hypocritical of me as I tend to look down on people in 40k who change their variant Marine dexes every week and especially those who used to shuffle the Traits around back when they were available, but 1) there's too few Epic players and 2) I trust them to be a lot more mature and do this changing based on good reasons rather than just looking for tactical advantage. And I look down on most people in 40k for a lot of other reasons too.

So rock on.

I think its fine as they all have 'codex' roots or associations and are cross trained etc.

The one exception - if you want your UK tournament points you have to take an army that cannot be fielded in an identical fashion from the vanilla list (white scars with no bikes *cough cough cough*).

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
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Chris, the rules for bonus points changed this year from 'list' to 'race'. So you get 4 points for playing any of the marine lists assuming you played guard in a previous tournament.

Same with steel legion and siege.

You don't think that Blood Angels occasionally "roll heavy" and use an armoured approach like Scions?  Or rapid attack like White Scars?

I think that would be a wicked-cool looking army!  

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

My BAs are a medium Tactical Brown...    Ã‚                                                                                                   So FRAKK G/W's Fluff and Tourney Rules ...    

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Cuz they're putting their best Bike drivers into the field for this important mission!  *laugh*

Or, if you're a gentleman-player, you don't use that ability.  

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Can't you be a Blood Angel successor chapter though and be whatever colour you like. Or be one that had a schism with the main chapter and took after the white scar way of war, whilst retaining the red paint?

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If using E-Bay use this link to support Tac Com!
'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

Just another excuse to use red again, TRC ...  Weak ... very week ...  

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

There is a moderately simple way around this that I tend to employ. Paint the (plastic) infantry represent their craft world / chapter / regiment etc, while leaving the armour a "uniform" colour. The argument being that in organisational terms, the armour is usually added to each army from some form of central pool (possibly with flashes added).

This does mean that the flashes can easily be overpainted (if absolutely necesary) to field the re-organised army under a different banner.

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