Warhammer 40k Blood Angels: Battle Report BA vs Salamanders

I took on a generic marine force colored as the salamanders last night. I say generic because a true salamander force would focus on flamers and meltas. This force focused on Lascannons. The mission was Anhialate and the deployment was table corners. My opponent won choice and selected the corner with hard ruins as cover. The other corner had nothing but brush and grass. His force included 3 vindicators, and a librarian with a jump pack. The rest of his force was small squads in Rhinos and Razorbacks with heavy bolters. Every squad had a lascannon it seamed and plasmagun. There were also two speeders with flamers and multimeltas.

I fielded my standard force with a few modifications. I dropped the Honor Guard, and added a Baal. I added a Rhino to my Tac squad, and beefed up my armor with Extra Armor. I deployed very risky with my assault forces pushed up, but covering each other in the cheezy 5 man cover formation. I gave my heavy weapons as much cover as I could and lined up my Rhino and Baal back a bit and ready to move up on him.



Turn 1: He opened up with his Vindicators. The first scattered wide. On the second, the model he targeted was just out of range. On the third, he scattered and only managed to wound 2, killing one Death Company because they were not in the cover formation. He immobilized my Rhino with a Lascannon shot.

On my movement, I pushed up my assault forces. The DC moved up in range to assault 2 vindicators, and my AS moved up to assault the third. Dante and the VAS were out of range to assault any thing this turn so they took cover behind terrain. My shooting was all but useless. None of my heavies landed a kill. But in the assault, my AS used their krak grenades against the vindicator and knocked it out. One of the DC knocked out his Vindicator, while the other was unsuccessful. Unfortunately, the AS exploded their Vindicator, leaving them wide open to shots and assault...

Turn 2: Salamanders speeders moved up and opened up with Meltagun fire. They knocked out my VIndicator, and took the AC off my Baal. The last vindicator knocked out most of the VAS. On his assault, the Librarian wiped out my entire AS.

On my turn, I fired back trying to knock out the speeders in prep for my Furiosos to come in. They failed to land turn 2. However, I did not knock them down. Dante moved up on the last VIndicator, and destroyed its weapon, the last to VAS assaulted it and knocked out its other weapon. It was also immobilized.

Unfortunately, this would be just about all the killing I would get in.

For the rest of the game, Dante would go on to wipe out a Razorback and a 6 man squad before falling to Lascannon fire. My Dreads came in and failed to do much before being shot up with Lascannon fire. I would get sweet revenge on the Librarian after he wiped out one of my Dev combat squads. I shot him down with a Lascannon myself.

In the end, my opponent would win by 4 victory points or so. But I believe that no matter what, a Blood Angel army is just out classed by a generic mechanized 4th edition Las/Plas army. He had way too many tanks on the table, and way to many Lascanons. Would it be different if he was using a 5th edition book? Yes. His prices would be more in line with mine and he would have less models on the table. He would be unable to get a Las and Plas on the table by fielding 6 marines in a Razorback. He will still be able to field the Razors with Las and Plas, but he will simply be down some points because he will have to field more marines to do so. This will result in less Lascannons. I think that I did fairly well against this army. The all star for him was the Speeders. They move fast and can get the double d6 shot from 12 inches away. My armor popped like balloons. When my dreads came down, he was able to redeploy his cannons quickly and knock them out easily, but more devestating then the cannons were the plasmaguns. He would pop guys out of the Razors and rapid fire at the back armor.

In order for me to have a chance, my DC had to be successful at knocking out the last vindicator. That would have freed Dante, the VAS and the rest of my guns to deal with his Speeders. I had to waste shots on the Vindi that should have gone to swatting down those speeders. With the Vindi down, and the speeders taken care of by heavy weapons, Dante could have gone on to intercept that Librarian who tore up my tac and devs. Then I would have been free to fire Las/Plas cannon shots at his troops and support my Dreads when they finally came down. Hell, I could have dropped them all the way in back and just popped his transports for kill points with Lascannons.

Changes to my force? He and I discussed possibilities. He suggested deploying the Dreads on the table and using Run to get them into combat. I could then deploy the Tac in the drop pods on top of objectives, or just use them as LoS blockers to protect the dreads. I am thinking I will take off the jump packs from the AS and give them the Rhino. I will also take off the jump packs from the DC. I can free up enough points to get Brother Corbulo back on the table. He will be able to join the DC, and since there are only 4 DC, the 5 of them can hop in the rhino with the AS. That will be a Rhino full of hurt! I can move it up behind the Baal and Vindicator, allowing them to swallow up shots with their 13 front armor, and supported by Dante, and the VAS. Coming up behind them are the Furioso dreads, and finally a 5 man combat squad coming down in a drop pod to claim an objective. Or hell, I could put all 10 men of the tac squad into the pod and then use the Lascannon for the last 3 rounds of the game. 5th edition had me leaning more and more towards armor, and anti armor. I guess I will have to see!