Changes

==Organisation==

[[Image:BloodAngelsPreparingForWar.jpg|thumb|right|350px|Blood Angels Preparing for war]]

During the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy, the Blood Angels were a [[Space Marine Legion]] numbering roughly 120,000 warriors. The structure of the Blood Angels was to change with the return of Sanguinius. The winged Primarch was to bring a sense of order to the often fractious Legion, stamping a new structure onto it in the hopes of containing its hunger. Though in essence this new order would seem to be in accord with the Principia Bellicosa, the schema by which the other Legions were organised, in actuality it also varied a great deal from the standard pattern. It retained the basic structure of companies, initially forming the Legion into 200 companies of approximately 300 warriors each, although by the last years of the Great Crusade this would have increased to 300 companies each of 500 warriors. However, past this basic structure there were many discrepancies, each chosen by the Great Angel to serve a purpose in his plans. These companies were grouped into Hosts for campaigns requiring greater force of numbers than that possessed of a single company, though each Host was a temporary creature broken and made as need required.{{Fn|44b}}

The Legion's fleet assets were similarly impressive, boasting over 300 capital class ships, many of them heavy cruisers or even battleships of various classes. Many of these craft were outfitted to serve as orbital assault craft, mounting either banks of heavy linear cannon for use as bombardment weapons, launch rails for swarms of drop pods or vast hangar bays from which the large [[Stormbird]] or [[Thunderhawk]] dropships could operate. Few among their brother Legions could match such a fleet for sheer firepower or mass, for the weakness of the Blood Angels fleet lay in its single-minded obsession with a single stratagem. In terms of support craft, the fleet was less amply supplied, with less than 600 sub-capital craft, mostly slower escort gunboats with little in the way of fast strike craft. This was another side effect of the Legion's singular focus, for such craft were rarely needed for their preferred strategy and speciality, save as screening assets for the larger cruisers.{{Fn|44b}}

[[Image:DC10thArt.jpg|thumb|right|350px|The [[Death Company]]{{Fn|71}}]]

Today, as adherents of the [[Codex Astartes]], the Blood Angels divide their battle brothers among the chapter into [[Space Marine Company|companies]]. There are 10 companies in the Blood Angels and each one is led by a [[Space Marine Captain|Captain]] who is guarded by elite veterans known as the [[Space Marine Honour Guard Squad|Honour Guard]].{{Fn|4k}} The only exceptions to the Codex structure allowed by the Blood Angels and its Successors are the [[Sanguinary Guard]] and the [[Death Company]].{{Fn|4p}}