The Blood Angels army set and new Codex Supplement was released back in early September, with a first wave of Blood Angels upgrades and new models for Astorath the Grim and Lemartes. You can check out our reviews of the new book both in text and video form.
After a few weeks stuck in the Warp, the Codex Supplement is now available to pre-order separately, along with more new models – three more plastic characters in the shape of the Blood Angels Captain, the Sanguinor, and the Sanguinary Priest, and the new Sanguinary Guard. We’ve gotten stuck in to these new kits, so let’s check them out, and thanks to Games Workshop for sending them to us for review.
Blood Angels Captain
A twin set of thoughts to start us off – this model is cool but also has to be the most unnecessary addition to the Space Marines range since, well, the last Blood Angels Captain. The core of the model looks great, there’s some nice bits that make it a little more Dracula than the regular Captains, it’s neat to be able to take an inferno pistol, but there’s a hell of a lot of Captains out there already and this is just one more in the range. Painting this one was a good opportunity to do a Death Company Captain and have him look the part, and I enjoyed the model for what it is.
Sanguinary Priest
Again, some mixed feelings on this one. The model taken alone is decent. Like more or less all of the modern Space Marine plastics, it’s a nice sculpt, goes together easy, nice details without the ridiculous fussiness of some of the latter-day Firstborn stuff. There’s three different heads and a neat little detail that you can pose the lamp/sensor on his backpack to point the same way as he’s looking, and although he doesn’t have weapon options he does have a choice of how you model the weapons he’s got.
On the other hand, despite having the standard array of blood drops, a grail, weird little canister things, he does look way more like a generic Apothecary than he used to. The old sculpt was actually pretty clean for its era, and distinctive-looking, whereas I feel like I wouldn’t even notice if someone used this guy as a standard Apothecary in a non-BA army. I guess the core logic is that since Blood Angels can take regular Apothecaries out of Codex: Space Marines now, this guy neds to remain a distinct sculpt, but it could have been more distinct.
Oh and no way was I painting it white.
The Sanguinor
Ok, having said all that, here’s the Sanguinor which is basically just the same sculpt as before but bigger and in plastic. Here’s the thing: all the Sanguinor needed was to be bigger and in plastic. His old 25mm base was a joke, and buying anything in resin from GW is always a gamble on quality. This version is just the old sculpt but with 14 years of further development in plastics tech to render him in. I don’t love him being suspended from the scrolls (shades there of Celestine, though he’s less springy than she is), but I’d rather have them than a flying stand. The online complaints about the face of the death mask are, as usual, overwrought from seeing it blown up on a computer screen in the studio photo – you’ll never notice or care when dealing with the real model.
For some reason I accepted painting the wings white on this, and it put me off finishing him until yesterday morning, but we got there in the end. Overall I like this sculpt, and I like having one fewer resin kit in the range, so a win for me.
New Sanguinary Guard
The old Sanguinary Guard kit was pretty comprehensively demolished by the new codex, losing access to plasma pistols, the ability to give everyone inferno pistols, and power fists. I think this is a good riddance, by the standards of any modern kit the proportions of the old Sanguinary Guard were terrible, so I’ll be glad to see fewer of them on the table. Assembly on these was easy. All the parts fit together well, and they’re the standard combined body and legs with separate arms, so you can mix and match well enough that they won’t appear overly identical across an army. I’m happy with the detailing on the armor, it’s enough fancier than normal marines to be clear they’re elite, without going so far as to be a headache painting, and I’m incredibly glad the godawful wings are gone.
On the down side, I’m not super happy with the poses. I built them according to the instructions, and while I think swapping some arms around could improve them I do feel like they’re kinda just bumbling around, similar to the complaints many people had with the new assault marines (I will note however that I disagree with those comments on the assault marines). The weapon options also don’t quite line up perfectly with the rules – while you can take a model with a sword and banner, there’s no actual way to build that; the only banner bit is part of a spear.
All told, I think they’re a glow-up from the old Sanguinary Guard, though not as good as they could’ve been.
Liam: Agreed with Jack, I built these but didn’t get them finished either. They’re cool sculpts, but the banner being part of the spear is really weird. It’s also a bit of a shame that the power fist and plasma pistol are just gone, but that’s the nature of the beast I guess. And death to the wings – anyone who’s ever assembled the old Sanguinary Guard knows how frustrating they were to attach, and for my money they never looked good.
That’s it for the new Blood Angels sculpts – let us know if you have any comments or feedback in the section below or hit us up at contact@goonhammer.com!
