Warhammer 40k Blood Angels: Battle Report Blood Angels vs Salamanders

Tonight I played a proxied army of all drop pod Salamanders built using the new SM codex. He had two dreads including an Ironclad, terminator squad, and the rest were tactical marines with combinations of meltas and plasmas. He had the Sally commander from the new SM codex. I must say facing this drop pod army was scary, but I know how to defend against them and he knew it... so we were set up for a great game! The mission was kill points dawn of war. My opponent Ed gave me first go, so I deployed my two combat squads in cover and Dante with my assault squad behind ruble. Ed had his pods so nothing came in first turn for him, I used the opportunity to run my Devs into cover and move my squads out. I put most of my forces right in the center of the table, with my Lascannon com squd in the right in a building. That was a mistake because he was able to single them out. My Vindicator was a little exposed on the right too and it cost me.

Turn 1 saw 4 drop pods come in for him. He dropped them suprisingly outside of my assault range. I was waiting for all those marines to come out and rapid fire on me. He deployed with the pods between me and him. I think he tasted the burn of my assaults before and chose to play defensivly against me. The came out and reduced my Las CS to just the heavy weapon. It would die next turn and claim no kills. The same for the vindicator. He dropped a pod with a Dread next to it and he deployed and multi melted it. But thankfully I had a furioso lined up to assault that dread with furious charge... It did not survive. I ran my DC up on a tac squad which took all game to kill. Finally I killed it just in time for him to assault the last DC with his Ironclad Dread.

What the game ended up coming down to was how many of his pods could I knock out for kill points. I ran Dante up against a squad, knowing would probably not kill it, but I wanted to have fun. I should have kept him back to hunt pods. It cost me cause he died to Melta fire. The bright spot of the game was my lowly troop assault squad assaulting a force of Terminators. I won the combat, and he failed morale. They turned and ran and I let them go, then assaulted their drop pod with Krak Grenades! Sadly they did not blow it up and were almost wiped out, but the Sarge lived to run and hide. No Kill point for you! My Devs did a good job at keeping him at bay. Those Plasma cannons can be scary to advance into. But most of my squads spent the game hiding... :( After killing every thing that they could reach without exposing themselves to heavy fire, they just hid behind buildings. Sad I know, but the game is about tactics! I didnt want to lose a squad and trade kill points. I ended up claiming victory 6 KP to 5. I knocked out 3 drop pods, and left two of his squads standing with just 1 guy each. The game went 7 rounds! Ed is a great marine player and an all around great guy to play against. The game was fun and we both learned a bit. He learned how the Baal Predator works...Yes Ed, Fast Vehicles CAN shoot all their guns after moving 6. He also learned about Death Company Dreads. I learned about the new Salamander list. All I can say is, tanks beware!