I would like to start this off by clarifying: I do not want white scars stripped of what they are getting.
I don't think I need to tell anyway who blood angels are, but just as a refresher: they are a first founding space marines chapter. Their main gimmick is jump packs. We have a unit called sanguinary guard. They are the only chapter specific elite jump packs on table top as of april 2025. We have Death Company Marines with Jump Packs, who are one of two non elite chapter specific units with jump packs. We have Dante, Astorath the Grim, and Lemartes, who are 3 of the 4 characters in space marines who have jump packs. Our army rule is charge and mobility based, inherently rewarding jump packs.
Blood angels are also known as "Codex Divergent." This means that we notably stray from the codex in some way. We are a codex divergent chapter with rules. There are only 4 of those, and 3 are first founding. The other two first founding are dark angels and space wolves.
As it currently stands, Blood Angels will be the only first founding chapter with unique rules to not get a champion skin.
This is astounding. Maybe it's got something to do with how they chose which chapters to give which cosmetics too?
according to Community Manager Mzulft on the Discord: "we tend to base on the global popularity of a chapter; GW also give us help on that"
Allow us to analyze this claim.
According to Goonhammer tournament statistics there were 13198 games played by the blood angels faction (In the pariah nexus mission deck category) between 12/29/2024 and 05/06/2025 (this data collects from tournaments yet to happen this upcoming weekend). If we compare that to other factions who have cosmetics, Dark Angels have 10805 games played in the same time period, and space wolves 5040. Space marines all together (Including generic space marines, blood angels, dark angels, death watch, black templars, and space wolves) played 57935 games, meaning 22.78% of all space marine games are blood angels. Again this is not to say that DA and SW don't deserve their cosmetics. What it is to say is that Blood Angels are certainly a very popular faction.
"But Stock" I hear you say "That is table top, what about space marine 2?"
I have stats for that aswell.
On the r/spacemarine subreddit user u/gaeb611 made this post and did an unofficial survey of the chapters people play in sm2. There are two interpretations of this data. A few important control variables: The Imperial Fist and Space Wolves cosmetics had not come out yet when this survey was taken.
Interpretation one is by u/gaeb611 whos data is here. This data was obtained by simply taking comments, not by counting upvotes. the top 5 chapters are: Salamanders with 506 players, Dark Angels with 427 players, Blood Angels, with 370 players, Imperial Fists at 321 players, and Black Templars at 290 players. Note that two of these factions had in game cosmetics by this point, specifically a champion skin and weapon skins, and salamanders are incredibly popular amongst online 40k crowds. A flaw with this interpretation is in my (albeit light) research he does not detail his method, and he only included the top 22 results.
Interpretation two is done by u/PH0007 shown here. This data includes upvotes and phrases like "blood for the blood god" or "iron within" to get it's data. Our top 5 have changed slightly. Blood angels come in at number one with 1419, Salamanders come in second with 1239, Imperial Fists come in third at 688, Dark Angels come in fourth at 679, and Raven Guard come in fifth at 469. A notable self admitted flaw with this data is it doesn't filter out duplicate votes.
What does all of this mean? Blood angels are quite popular. Easily one of the most popular chapters in the game. Giving them so little in terms of cosmetics is a tragedy. Especially when they say they chose which chapters get what cosmetics based on general popularity. It's also not like blood angels lack inspiration. We have plenty of stellar art and models to draw inspiration from, even after our less than stellar refresh.
To get into a more personal aside:
This feels like an attempt to give BA as little as possible. Like they don't want to or don't care to put in the effort to give us what they gave DA and SW. If you have seen the leaked cosmetics you'll know that the armor pieces we are getting feel lack luster at best. If they can do 12 companies, 3 weapons, 4 stellar armor pieces, and a champion skin for space wolves, they can at least give us a skin for the BA specific weapon they added to the game. We waited patiently for our turn, and now we are getting bamboozled and shafted.
Comments
kunamashina
G4M3R Newcomer
kunamashina
G4M3R Newcomer
1 200g2g ptsReport comment
Why do you report kunamashina?
Are you sure you want to block kunamashina ?
BlockCancelAre you sure you want to unblock kunamashina ?
UnblockCancelMax_Will_It
Newcomer
Max_Will_It
Newcomer
4 000g2g ptsReport comment
Why do you report Max_Will_It?
Are you sure you want to block Max_Will_It ?
BlockCancelAre you sure you want to unblock Max_Will_It ?
UnblockCancelTheStockPurist
Chapter Master Dominator
By his blood are we made pure, By his holy wrath do we take victory, For the Emperor and Sanguinius!
TheStockPurist
Chapter Master Dominator
18 900g2g ptsReport comment
Why do you report TheStockPurist?
Are you sure you want to block TheStockPurist ?
BlockCancelAre you sure you want to unblock TheStockPurist ?
UnblockCancelTheStockPurist
Chapter Master Dominator
By his blood are we made pure, By his holy wrath do we take victory, For the Emperor and Sanguinius!
TheStockPurist
Chapter Master Dominator
18 900g2g ptsReport comment
Why do you report TheStockPurist?
Are you sure you want to block TheStockPurist ?
BlockCancelAre you sure you want to unblock TheStockPurist ?
UnblockCancelExcselcia
Newcomer
Excselcia
Newcomer
1 800g2g ptsReport comment
Why do you report Excselcia?
Are you sure you want to block Excselcia ?
BlockCancelAre you sure you want to unblock Excselcia ?
UnblockCancelModerate comment
Annotate comment