This section details army special rules including Blood Angels Special Rules, Tactical Objectives, Warlord Traits and Wing Leaders.

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Blood Angels Special Rules

Combat Squads

Blood Angels squads can break down into smaller, tactically flexible formations known as combat squads. It is testament to the exceptional training and discipline of the Blood Angels that this division of their strength serves only to maximise their impact upon the battlefield.

A full strength, ten-man unit with this special rule can break down into two five-man units, called combat squads, considered to be two five-man squads of the same type. For example, a ten-man Blood Angels Tactical Squad can split into two five-man Tactical Squads using the Combat Squads special rule.

You must decide which units are splitting into combat squads, and which models go into each combat squad, immediately before determining your Warlord Traits. A unit split into combat squads therefore is now two separate units for all game purposes, including calculating the total number of units in the army and determining the number of units you can place in Reserve. Then proceed with deployment as normal. In an exception to the normal rules, two combat squads split from the same unit can embark in the same transport vehicle, providing its Transport Capacity allows. Once you have decided whether or not to split a unit into combat squads, it must remain that way for the entire battle. It cannot split up or join back together later on in the battle, nor can you use a redeployment to split up a unit or join it back together.

Note that Bike Squads count as being at full strength when they have eight Space Marine Bikers and one Attack Bike. If split into combat squads, one combat squad will have five Bikers, the other will have three Bikers and the Attack Bike.

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Special Rules

Aura of Fervour

All other friendly models with the Blood Angels Faction that are within 6" of the Sanguinor add 1 to their Attacks.

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Avenging Angel

The Sanguinor re-rolls failed To Hit and To Wound rolls during challenges.

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Blessing of the Omnissiah

In each of your Shooting phases, instead of firing his weapons, a Techmarine can choose to repair a single friendly vehicle that he is in base contact with or embarked upon. To repair a vehicle, roll a D6 and add 1 for each Servitor with a servo-arm in his unit, and an additional 1 if the Techmarine has a servo-harness. If the result is a 5 or more, you may either restore a Hull Point lost earlier in the battle, or repair a Weapon Destroyed or Immobilised result suffered earlier in the battle; this is effective immediately.

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Bolster Defences

After deployment, but before Scout redeployments and Infiltrate deployments, nominate one piece of terrain in your deployment zone (this cannot be one you have purchased as part of your army). The terrain piece’s cover save is increased by one for the duration of the game (to a maximum of 3+). Note that a piece of terrain can only be bolstered once.

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Drop Pod Assault

Drop Pods and units embarked upon them must be held in Deep Strike Reserves. At the beginning of your first turn, half your Drop Pods (rounding up) automatically arrive from Reserve. The arrival of remaining Drop Pods is rolled for normally.

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Fallen to the Black Rage

You cannot include Tycho the Lost in an army that includes Captain Tycho. Tycho the Lost can only join a Death Company Squad.

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Far-Seeing Eye

Once per game, as long as Corbulo has not been removed as a casualty, this ability may be used to do one of the following:

• Re-roll the dice to Seize the Initiative.
• Re-roll the dice to see if a unit arrives from Reserve.
• Re-roll a single dice used in a To Hit or To Wound roll, or a single dice used in a saving throw.
• Re-roll a single scatter dice.

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Fury Unbound

The first time Lemartes loses a Wound, add 1 to his Strength and Attacks for the remainder of the game.

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Guardian of the Lost

Lemartes can only join a Death Company Squad.

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Heroic Intervention

Vanguard Veteran Squads ignore penalties for disordered charges. Furthermore, the Veteran Sergeant automatically passes the Initiative test if he wishes to make a Glorious Intervention.

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Honour or Death

A model with this rule must always issue and accept a challenge when possible.

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Immobile

A Drop Pod cannot move once it has entered play, and counts in all respects as a vehicle that has suffered an Immobilised result that cannot be repaired in any way. This does not cause it to lose a Hull Point.

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Inertial Guidance System

If a Drop Pod scatters on top of impassable terrain or another model (friend or foe), reduce the scatter distance by the minimum required in order to avoid the obstacle. If a Drop Pod scatters off the edge of the board, it suffers a Deep Strike Mishap.

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Killing Strike

When a weapon with this special rule rolls a 6 To Wound, the target is wounded automatically, regardless of the target’s Toughness, and the Wound has the Instant Death special rule.

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Liturgies of Blood

In a turn in which Astorath charges into combat, all Death Company Marines in his unit re-roll failed To Wound rolls in the Fight sub-phase. A model that has made a disordered charge that turn receives no benefit from Liturgies of Blood.

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Mindlock

Unless it also contains a Techmarine, an unengaged unit that contains at least one model with this special rule must roll a D6 at the start of its turn. On a 4+, this special rule has no effect this turn. On a 1, 2 or 3, the unit is mindlocked until the start of its following turn. A mindlocked unit may not voluntarily move, shoot or charge, but must still complete compulsory moves, such as Pile In and Fall Back moves.

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None Can Stay My Wrath

Dreadnought with this special rule ignore the effects of Crew Shaken or Crew Stunned damage results (but still lose a Hull Point).

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Rage-fuelled

A model with Gallian’s Staff can re-roll any dice rolls of a 1 when making a Psychic Test, but will immediately suffer a Wound, with no saves of any kind allowed, for each re-rolled dice that is also a 1.

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Repair

If a Rhino is Immobilised, then in subsequent turns, it may attempt to repair itself instead of shooting. To make the attempt, roll a D6 in the Shooting phase; on the roll of a 6, the vehicle is no longer Immobilised. Note that a successful Repair does not restore a Hull Point.

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Skies of Fury

If the Stormraven Gunship has moved more than 6", passengers can still disembark, but they must do so as follows:

Nominate any point over which the Stormraven moved that turn and deploy the squad as if it were Deep Striking onto that point. If the unit scatters, every disembarking model must immediately take a Dangerous Terrain test. If any of the models cannot be deployed, the entire unit is destroyed. Models that disembark using the Skies of Fury special rule cannot charge in the turn that they do so.

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Tactical Precision

If Commander Dante is your Warlord and the mission you are playing has the Tactical Objectives mission special rule, roll on the Tactical Traits table immediately before deploying the first unit in your army. Dante has this Warlord Trait in addition to the Descent of Angels Warlord Trait.

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Transfixing Gaze

Roll 2D6 at the start of each Fight sub-phase in which Mephiston is fighting in a challenge; if the result is greater than or equal to his opponent’s Leadership, Mephiston’s melee attacks will, until the end of the Assault phase, hit on a 2+, irrespective of the two models’ Weapon Skill values.

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Whirlwind of Gore

When Gabriel Seth fights in close combat, any To Hit roll of a 6 causes 1 additional hit on the target.

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Anti-grav Upwash

Whilst this unit includes three Land Speeder Squadron, it can move an additional 6" when moving Flat Out.

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Killshot

Whilst this unit includes three Predator, all Predators in the unit have the Monster Hunter and Tank Hunters special rules.

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Linebreaker Bombardment

If this unit contains three Vindicator that can all fire their Demolisher Cannon, the squadron can fire a single Linebreaker Bombardment instead of firing normally. To do so, nominate one model in the squadron as the firer; the firer’s demolisher cannon changes its type from Large Blast to Apocalyptic Blast and gains the Ignores Cover special rule.

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Rites of Blood

In a turn in which a Death Company Chaplain charges into combat, all Death Company Marines in his unit re-roll failed To Wound rolls in the Fight sub-phase. A model that has made a disordered charge that turn receives no benefit from the Rites of Blood special rule.

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Suppressive Bombardment

Whilst this unit includes three Whirlwind, each model’s Whirlwind Multiple Missile Launcher has the Pinning and Shred special rules (regardless of which missile type it fires).

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Wall of Firepower

Whilst this unit includes three Baal Predators, you can re-roll all To Wound rolls of 1 when shooting their weapons.

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Tactical Objectives

Codex: Blood Angels describes six Tactical Objectives to use in your games of Warhammer 40,000 that are exclusive to Blood Angels players, and reflect their endless war against the enemies of the Imperium.

If your Warlord has the Blood Angels Faction, these Tactical Objectives replace the Capture & Control Tactical Objectives (numbers 11-16).

If a Warhammer 40,000 mission has the Tactical Objectives special rule, players use the normal rules for using Tactical Objectives with the following exception: when a Blood Angels player generates a Capture & Control objective (numbers 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 or 16), generate the corresponding Blood Angels Tactical Objective instead, as shown in the table below. Other Tactical Objectives (numbers 21-66) are generated normally.

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Warlord Traits

When generating Warlord traits for a Warlord with the Blood Angels Faction, you can either roll on one of the Warlord Traits tables in Warhammer 40,000: The Rules or roll on the table below. Note that if your Warlord is a Librarian Dreadnought, you must roll on the table below – he can never roll on any other Warlord Traits table.

D6	Warlord Traits
1	Red Rampage A master of devastating headlong assaults, this Warlord epitomises the darker side of the Blood Angels’ dual nature. Your Warlord has the Rampage special rule.
2	Speed of the Primarch Honouring the memory of Sanguinius upon the field of battle, this Warlord strikes as fast as the mighty angel of Baal once did. Your Warlord adds 1 to his Initiative.
3	Artisan of War This Warlord is a true artist both on and off the battlefield. His talents are reflected in the exquisite workmanship of his wargear, for he insists upon personally crafting his weapons of war. Nominate one weapon carried by your Warlord. That weapon has the Master-crafted special rule. Note, however, that this cannot be applied to any Relics of Baal.
4	Soulwarden This Warlord is possessed of an iron will, his sheer mental determination ensuring that neither his own Red Thirst nor the evils of enemy sorcerers can easily find purchase upon his soul. Your Warlord has the Adamantium Will special rule.
5	Descent of Angels So practiced is this Warlord in the use of air support that there are few who can outmanoeuver his forces on the field of battle. Units in your Warlord’s Detachment with the Jump, Flyer or Skimmer unit type can re-roll failed Reserve Rolls. In addition, Jump and Skimmer units from your Warlord’s Detachment arriving from Deep Strike Reserve scatter D6" less than they usually would (normally D6" rather than 2D6").
6	Heroic Bearing The Warlord is a beacon of hope in a dark and hateful galaxy. No matter how dire the odds, friendly forces are inspired by his mere presence. Friendly units from the Armies of the Imperium within 12" of your Warlord have the Fearless special rule.

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Strategic Genius

This Warlord possesses a natural gift for planning and executing wars, his knowledge of military strategy second to none.

You add +1 to any Seize the Initiative roll. In addition, whilst your Warlord is alive, you can re-roll any Reserve Rolls (failed or successful).

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Wing Leaders

Blood Angels Wing Leaders

All Blood Angels are natural pilots, but only a handful of their Techmarines display the iron-willed self control and purity of spirit to guide their brothers in aerial combat as squadron leaders and stave off the deleterious threat of the Black Rage.

Faction: Blood Angels.

D6 Special Rule 1-2 Red Thirst: Add 1 to the Wing Leader's Pursuit value. If he wins the Engage sub-phase in a Dogfight, add 1 to his Ballistic Skill but he must choose to close the distance to the enemy Flyer by 12", or 24" if his Pursuit Value is at least 2 points higher than his opponent's.  3-4 Supremely Skilful: This Wing Leader automatically passes any Break Turn tests — there is no need to roll the dice.  5-6 Aura of Sanguinius: If the Wing Leader is Wrecked or destroyed, then they can make one final attack before the damage is applied, as if it were their Shooting phase.

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