Warhammer 40k Space Marine Blood Angels: Battle Report Battle for Salvation 2008

May 31, 2008

Battle for Salvation 40k Tournament, White Plains, NY.

Round 1:
Objectives: Loot Counters, Take and hold Terrain pieces, Victory Points

In the first round, I was more then a little worried when I was assigned to play an all drop pod space marine army. The nicely painted army included no less then 9 cool looking scratch built drop pods. There were 2 Dreadnoughts, a terminator command squad with a librarian, and the rest were 8 to 10 man tactical squads. The marines are a devastating army and feared at the club. When they come down, they all pop out and rapid fire on whatever they can see, and the dreads do their stompy stomp thing, and the Terminators..well..terminate! I knew I would have my work cut out for me.

In deployment, I won choice, and took the table side that had a single large terrain piece in the right cornerof the board. It would block LoS from any thing landing on the other side of it for my entire army. There was a small entrance on the left of the terrain piece, which I blocked off with my Whirlwind and Rhino. My strategy was to just let them come. I knew that in order for them to land, and rapid fire me to death, they would have to risk landing dangerously close to the edge, or they could land on other side of the terrain and it would create a wall. I left my Whirlwind and Rhino exposed to create a nice wall. Even if they were taken out, they would hopefully be rubble and still block LoS. Unfortunately for me, I forgot to deploy 2 squads. One was my death company. I remembered them before the start of round 2 and I simply deep striked them in, but I completely forgot to deploy a 5 man squad of Veterans with 3 power swords!!! Oh well..

So I won the toss for first turn, which I gave to my opponent. He could not go since he had nothing on the table, and I chose to sit tight and wait, so turn 1 ended in seconds.

Turn 2:


My opponent was able to bring in 5 drop pods, including 2 dreads and 3 tac squads. The tacs were decked out with meltas, plasmas and fists. The dreads had CCW and Assault Cannons. The marines played it quite risky. One tac squad nearly scattered off the of the table, landing mere inches from oblivion. The other two deployed nearby loot counters but still in range, while the two dreads deployed in the terrain piece I used as a wall. One came out of its pod right into the terrain, while the other deployed on the edge of it. In the shooting phase, the closest marines tried to zap my whirlwind, but missed, one dread shot at and destroyed my rhino. The other shot at and killed two marines from my Honor Guard 2. It was sitting within 6 inches of the Dread with a nice meltagun warming up to fire. His turn ended with only 2 of my angels dead and a destroyed Rhino. At that point I sighed a huge relief because I knew my chances just greatly improved...I survived the first wave of his landings, and his stuff was in assault range.. I would get into assault round 2... Never a good thing for marines facing my power swords.




On my movement phase, I got every one into position. I could only assault one of his tac squads that round, but I lined up the rest of my squads to jump all over his other ones in round 3. I moved Assault Squad 2 with the power fist over behind one of his dreads, while HG 1 lined him up for the Melta shot. I forgot to move my other fist into assault range to take out his other dread... Dante and his HG moved into asasult range on the closest Tac squad. Shooting phase was actually quite devastating. Dante and his squad killed 2 marines with bolt pistol and perdition pistol fire. The whirlwind hit dead on, killing 2 more marines from an entrenched marine squad. The melta blew the assault cannon off and stunned the dread in the cover, while the rest of the bolter shots just bounced off. In the assault, Dante charged with his HG and another assault squad and massacred the tacs. They them moved back behind cover to prepare for the next drop.



Round 3:
On this turn every thing came down for my opponent, except his command pod with Terminators and Librarian and a tac squad. He placed the rest of the pods in range to shoot, but still could not fire on any of my units. His dread moved into the rubble of my rhino and fired its AC, and Flamer killing 2 more marines and the Storm bolters all fired from the pods, but they inflicted no casualties. On his assault phase, his free dred assault a vet squad that had a fist and Corbulo attached. It killed one marine and the fist failed to hurt it.



On my movement phase, my assault squad chose to charge. From behind their cover all of them came pouring out. My death company managed to come down in a nice position for their next turn to assault, and all of my squads were in range to assult on their turns. My melta fired at the stunned dread again, and stunned it again. Every one else opened up with bolt pistols and killed a couple marines. The whirlwind fired again and killed another. Not bad work for the cheap thing. When it was time for charge, Dante and company charged and cut down two more tac squads. They lost a few in the process, which were costly casualties. At the end of round 3 I was down to 3 scoring units....



Round 4: This was the decisive round. My opponents last 2 drops pods came down. He placed a pod in range to disembark and cut down the squad I had holding a loot counter. They killed all except for the power fist. The other pod scattered off the table edge.. It was an unglorious death for a command squad of terminators and a librarian.. but I welcomed it. That misfire sealed the marines fate. His pods all fired and actually killed a few marines, reducing another of my units below 50 percent.

On my turn the game pretty much ended. The death company jumped into range to assault the entrenched squad in the center, while Dante detached from his HG to go deal with the last marine pod to come down. My melta finally destroyed the dred in the cover and in assault, I finally killed the other one, while the DC and Dante charged the remaining units. Seeing his commander horribly outnumbered by a 10 man squad, the lone power fist sgt. jumped into help. It was not needed though as The Axe of Mortalis cut through them in ranks.

The game ended in complete anhialation for the marines.



In the end, it was nothing but drop pods and dead marines... Blood Angels held the center terrain and one of the hills, also 2 loot counters.

I scored full points, 20 while my opponent scored none.

It would turn out that this might have cost him the tournament. His army went on to destroy two more opponents, and actually placed in the top 3. The winner of the tourny was a 60 genestealer army which is routinely beaten by the drop pod army at the club. I know that if I had not so devastated these marines in round one, then they would have faced the stealers in round 3 and cut them down.. Sorry Ed. :)