Blood Angels at the 2008 Grand Tournament

So as you know I am playing my Blood Angels at the 2008 GT. My list has been posted here and discussed in depth, but I am making a change. I am removing the Vindicator and adding a Speeder with MultiMelta/Heavy Flamer and an Attack Bike with MM. The Vindicator has been underperforming and I think that the other two units will make my army much stronger. They will both have a gun that is even more likely to destroy tanks and wound Giant Bugs, And they both have mobility. They can zoom in and contest objectives. I am giving the speeder the missle launcher also. While it is not as good as the new SM codex one, it is still a template from 4 feet away. Like a mini Whirlwind. More to come on these... I will be playing them on Sunday and Monday.

This post is atually about my display and my efforts to claim Players Choice. I can care less about Best general or Best Overall. Those guys are going to be the power gaming uber army players. I'm not about that part of 40k, and will likely never win one of those awards. My sights are set on Best Appearence, and Players Choice. This is my first GT but I think I have a chance, and believe me, if I do not win, I will not be disappointed. Some of these guys have been doing this for decades, I have been doing it for a year and a half. I think Best Appearence voting is a little skewed. I think that the GW judges might be a little biased towards regulars that they recognize. Also, that one is determined by Battle Points in the case of a tie... :( So I dont have high hopes for that one, but I think where I might shine is Players Choice. This is picked entirely by the players, and their favor can be influenced. Here is what I have planned:

Life Size 2nd Company Banner
Fully painted and beautiful army with authentic squad markings and banners
Cool Display of a battle between the BA and some Orks who were routed.
A custom made wooden case. I wont get too much into details because im sure some guys who will be competing will be reading this, but it will include cool compartments and hand made and illustrated army lists... :)

My friend The Warmaster Black Matt won Players Choice last year and he had a fantastic display, but I think I can compete!

I know, the comptetition will be stiff and I have no disilusions of victory... but I think if I have a chance at any thing at the GT, it is Players Choice. I will be uploading pics right before the GT.

Blood Angels New Pics

More pics! More to come.

Brothers Grim Tournament battle report

October 19, 2008
Brothers Grim, Selden, NY

At this tournament I played 3 games, and finished 6 out of 12. The competition was VERY strong. Of all the players, I would easily say I was one of the least experienced. Most of the guys were VERY experienced guys who participated in 'ard boys tournaments. Most of the armies were marines, which is a sign of things to come.

Game 1: Orks Major Victory plus 3 points Blood Angels 2 points

At random, I was paired up against the guy who created Battle Wagon Bitz! He was a cool guy and a great player. His army, a huge Ork army with a killer Nob Squad all but rolled over my Blood Angels. I fired my entire army at his Nobs and didnt kill a single model! I only wounded one. Then I was short on the assault... ouch. By the end of turn two it was pretty much over. Dante, Honor Guard, Baal Pred, my dreads, pretty much every thing was knocked out. I gave him a fight though! My RAS ran for glory, and charged his Lootas on a far hill. I jumped them right into the thick of them, making their dangerous terrain test, then assaulted, killing the bunch of them. For a brief moment I held the hill... But they were wiped out the next turn. By the bottom of turn 5 I think I had knocked out 2 of his squads and all I had left was a 7 marine tac squad. The game ended with him earning a huge victory, but I still scored 2 points because I killed his heavy support, and he didnt have a fast attack.


Game 3: Nids. I won every battle point and objective.

This game was straight forward. The only defense I know of for Nids is to hunker down, using terrain to slow the advance. We placed terrain, and I set up one side to facilite that, then I won choice and got to pick my side. But alas, I forgot about flankers. I deployed Dante, his HG and the RAS close to a table edge. He brought in 2 squads of 8 Genestealers on that side, and one on the other side. The 16 stealers assaulted Dante, and the 2 squads. The HG would die entirely. Dante lived the first charge. Next turn, my DC came in though and I charged them in to save Dante. I would wipe out all of the stealers and have 4 RAS and 4 DC left but it was costly... Then more stealers came. Two more squads would eventually come in on that side and charge me. But heroicly, 2 of my RAS, and 2 DC would survive the assaults. Brother Corbulo was hanging outside the assault and saving lives. I was getting creative with hiding the rends. I managed to stack 4 rends on ONE GUY! That saved 2 other lives. The stealers who came in on the other side had to face at least an 18 inch charge down the barrel of my Baal's 12 shots. I cut them all down. The scary part was his main charge. He deployed a hive tyrant in the center of the board with a large squad of gaunts. The Tyrant had 3 body gaurds with 2 wounds each. He had 2 lichtors coming in and 3 carnifexs that were forced to charge from the opposite table egde unfortunately for him. I held my ground until he moved his gaunts, lichtor and Tyrant into range, then I moved up my dreads and flamers, doused them with Liquid Prometheum, then charged. None would survive. My dreads ran through the tyrant, but he took one down. The next one moved on to engage a carnifex. My DC would engage the other. The lichtor would die to flame. We called it mid turn 5. He had a fex falling back, one engaged with DC and 1 wound left, and one engaged with a Furioso. My tac squad was about to flame then charge his gaunts. He had no synapse left. It was a total rout.

I would eventually score enough points to place 6th overall.

The highlight of the day though was my Blood Angels winning Best Painted! The prize was a Drop Pod box set. Most of the armies looked very nice, but the best were unfinished. I had mine on display board and I even had my full sized banner for good measure. It doesnt count in the scoring, but that doesnt mean it wont influence judgement. :)

What about Fritz? He played Black Templars. He would go on to win 3rd overall, and 2nd place in painting... :) Sadly brother, any tournament you attend with me, you will always be second in... Hehe. Over all it was a great day and I cant wait for their next tournament.

Takes Qs...Kicks Ass... Question and Answer time.

Hi all. pastiepete from my Youtube subscribers sent me a great question about his army list. I thought I would copy and paste the Q and A here for all.

Question about SM.
I am some what new to the game, and yes i did order the BA dvd's on painting. I was just wandering what chapter is going to be good for 5th ed as SM goes?
I looked into 40k about 6mnths back and picked blood angels but was going to go and all out Assault army style.
Chaplin with jetpack
9x DC with jet packs
7x Vet ASS. with 3 PF
7x Vet ASS. with 3 PF
10x ASS. with PF
10x ASS. with PF
5x ASS. with PF
5x ASS. with PF
2x Baal with HB Spons.
54 marines 10 PF and 2 baal's
Was my Idea For 2000 pts and 56 models
But I am a noob in the art of 40k tactics and army building.

Answer:

I tried the all assault BA army, and it gets owned by any army with ranged stuff. First of all, drop the chaplain. Take Dante, always. Dante grants every model within 12" rerolls on every CC attack. Chaplain only grants it on the charge. With Dante's leadership 10, you wont need to worry about leadership tests for fearless. Also take Corbulo. He gives your guys Furious Charge which is KEY. He cannot wear a JP but thats ok, trade in one of your ASS jump packs for a rhino and attach him to that squad, move the rhino up behind your assault forces and they will get his Furious Charge. Drop the extra DC. Use those points to buy Land Speeders upgraded with Multi Meltas and Heavy Flamers. Try to get 2. You can drop one of the Baals to do so. Try to get an Attack Bike with Melta.

So....
Drop:
1 Baal
Chaplain
10x ASS with PF
5x ASS with PF
any extra Death Company

ADD:
1 Attack Bike Multi Melta
2 Speeders MM and Heavy Flamer
Extra Armor, Heavy Bolters and Storm Bolter on Baal
Dante
Corbulo
Rhino (xtra armor)
Tactical Squad 1
+5 Marines
Lascannon
Flamer
Tactical Squad 2
+5 Marines
Plasma Cannon
Flamer
WhirlWind

Play with the points to make it work. Drop more assault guys and add what you can. 3 powers in your VAS is overkill. Drop them down to 1. Instead of a VAS take an Honor Guard with Dante's Chapter Banner. Add flamers to your VAS/HG. Play defensive. Plop your Tac squads on objectives and fire their heavies. Use your ASS to support Dante his HG and Vets, but dont commit them unless you are sure they will survive. Charge them in the second round of an assault to clean it up, that way the enemy cannot hit them back, they have to hit models they are already engaged with... They will last longer. Also, Use them to grab objectives. Consider a Devastator squad. Use as many template weapons as you can. The Whirlwind has a shot that denies cover saves. You will face more and more Orks and other horde armies so flamers and blast templates from Plasma Cannons and the WW are important.

Your army as it is now will win games if the conditions are right. They need lots of cover to jump behind before they get into assault. If they lack that cover... they are dead. AP 2 weapons will slaughter them wholesale. They are a little too focused on Assault.

Check out my blog. http://warhammer40kbloodangels.blogspot.com/

and

http://warhammer-40k-space-marine.blogspot.com/

You will find my army list there, and lots of other advice. I am going to copy and paste this into my blog since it is a good question and good info. Any further questions, ask there! :) Thanks for buying my vids. Jawaballs

Warhammer 40k: Blood Angels in Action Oct. 19th Brother's Grim

My army has been refitted and upgraded. In my last tournament showing, while the Blood Angels took Best Painted, they got embarrassed on the gaming tables. I won my first game against a tough Ultramarine Drop Pod army, but got owned in the second two. This army is much stronger! That first army focused on assault, at the cost of range. This army has plenty of both but lots of Blood Angels flair! Here are some pics! Look for battle reports after the tournament. I will be shooting video and pics all day. :) Jawaballs.

Tough decision... Vindicator vs Land Speeder and Attack Bike

I just dont know. I am currently using my vindicator with Storm Bolter in my list for 130 points. For 125 points I can buy a Speeder with Multi Melta and Heavy Flamer, and Attack bike with Multi Melta, then add a flamer to my Honor Guard.

Vindicator Pros: Str 10 blast. That gun is awesome, with the new scatter rules very accurate, and it forces people to deploy in ways they might not want to. I can roll it up into cover, and blast away to defend held objectives, or knock out transports.

Vindicator Cons: It is just one model and glances can essentially eliminate it from the fight. A lucky str 7 shot at its front armor can take out the gun. In every game I play, it is usually the first thing taken out, and usually pretty quickly.

Land Speeder: In using my Templar landspeeder, I have fallen in love with them! Its multi-melta means it can take out ANY armor from 36 inches away. If it gets within a foot and hits, it is almost a guaranteed pen. The heavy flamer is death. Only marines get saves against it, and it wounds most models on 3s I think. It works best when you jump it up on a disembarked squad, target the transport, pop it with the meltagun and hopefully explode it while washing the flame over the squad for good measure. Finally, I can give it a Typhoon Missle laucher as well as the flamer and MM. Just saw that. Str 5 AP 5 small blast twin linked. 48" range. This means it can move 12 and fire ALL three weapons. Its a killing machine!

Attack Bike: Super Fast, toughness 5, 2 wounds, Multi Melta and twin linked bolter, cover save when moving fast! Plus it is small and able to hide behind cover... This thing can zoom up and pop out to knock out tanks.

Simply typing this up has pretty much decided this for me. I must go with the Fast Attack choices. Given all that, PLUS they can zoom across the board at the end of the game and contest objectives... I believe this weekend will be the last appearence of my Vindicator... :( This change will simply make my army stronger!

Warhammer 40k: Blood Angels Battle Report, Blood Angels vs Orks

Today I played my 1750 list against an Ork army. He had 3 Defcoptas, Grotsnick in a squad of 30 orks, a squad of commandos with a special character, a squad of lootas with some str 7 heavy weapon, and about 50 other orks. He had a 7 man strong squad on bikes with the Warboss and a painboy. 4 loot counters and Dawn of War. He deployed loot counter first, and placed his towards the center, then I placed mine in terrain close to an edge. He placed his in another terrain piece in the center, and I placed the last one in the middle as well. That heavily weighted the advantage to whomever got the side with the counters close to the edge... he got his choice, and selected the other side, much to my glee. So I deployed, I placed my Tac squad in 2 combat squads, each on a loot counter, I placed my RAS behind a wall, and Dante with his HQ as one HQ squad as far up as I could and still be out of sight. That forced him to deploy at disadvantageous spots for his foot sloggers to have to charge against my plasma and vindicator.

Turn 1:
I moved Dantes squad to the right flank from the center. My Lascannon rolled DoW and had range so fired on an ork squad and vaped an ork. I moved the rest of my units into the game, running them as well to get them as far as possible, this moved my heavies into cover, and got me a good start with my Dreads. My opponent deployed his forces too, but held 3 coptas and the commandos in reserve. He had no good shots that turn. Turn 1 ended quick.

Turn 2: My death company advanced to assault Grotsnicks squad. I killed a few orks with shots, and Dante and the RAS moved to assault the warboss. I pumped as many shots into them as possible and failed to kill any. They had lots of saves including 3+ cover and an invuln save. My dreads moved up again and popped smoke, as well as my Baal. In the assault, Dante and co. went in for the Warboss squad killed a couple, and lost a couple, tied combat. The DC went against Grotsnick and killed 3, but were wiped out by power claws. On his turn a couple of Coptas came in and dropped a template, but his shooting didnt do much except immobilize one of my dreads.

Turn 3: My shooting was vicious, the Baal moved 6 and unloaded all of its guns on his loota squad, killing half of it. My heavies swatted the defcoptas and my Vindicator took a shot, killing a few orks. Not much was in range. In the assault, my Dread assaulted Grotsnicks squad killing a few and taking no hits, and Dante routed the warboss. They then moved in towards the center to continue the sweep of the board. On his turn, his commandos came in. His shooting was again ineffectual, but he assaulted my Vindi and Dev Combat Squad. He wiped out the Devs and immobilized the Vindi. The Dread killed a few more orks, including Grotsnick, and lost an arm to a power claw. Dante and his banner moved behind the Baal to be in assault range for turn 4 and my RAS moved to take an objective.

Turn 4: This pretty much ended the game. My shooting took a toll. I fired the Vindi at another ork squad, but the shot scattered, landing half on the squad, and half on the squad that was in assault with the Dread. It killed 10 Orks. The Baal finished off his loota squad, except for one. My tac squad moved to shoot up the commandos then assaulted them. Corbulo would need to come help, but they ended up killing them off and the tac squad went back to take objective. In the assault, Dante and his banner knocked out another ork squad with a sweeping advance and the Dread would finally finish off that 30 man squad by forcing it to make a morale test, fail, then get run down in turn 5. We played out turn 5 for fun, but it was over, at the end of the turn he had a single ork on the table, and I had almost my entire army including 3 objectives held. In his defense, my opponent was trying a new Ork army build, and the location of the loot counters heavily weighed in my favor, but even had he taken more boys and less toys, I think the game would have been mine. I simply had too much firepower at distance, and when he got into bolter range, it got really messy, and Dante and co. swept through 3 squads themselves including a rock hard Command squad. If my games at the Bros. Grimm go any thing like this, I like my chances. :)

Video will be added shortly

Warhammer 40k: Lifsize Blood Angels 2nd Company Banner

Here is the banner almost complete! I dug up some bones to use as the cross piece... :) All I need to do is a few more highlights on the blood drops, some purity seals on the bottom right, and some name plaques on the middle tassle. Pretty sweet!

Full Blown battle prep.

SO, I am in battle prep mode. My Black Templars are going to go into a holding pattern, and my Iyanden Farseer is going to be completed then shelfed for Fritz's competition. The Grand Tournament is about 5 weeks away, and just as important is the Brothers Grim tournament on October 19. That is 10 days! I will be representing the Brothers Sanguinius at both events. Here is what I have to do and my goals.

Goal 1:
Win best painted at Brothers Grim.

Goal 2:
Win Best Overall at Brothers Grim.

Goal 3:
Win Players Choice at Grand Tournament Baltimore

Goal 4:
Get an honorable mention at the GT Golden Daemon.

To do this I need to
A:
Finish my life sized BA 2nd company banner

B:
Finish my Blood Angels 2nd company army

C:
Start and finish a display board for both events

D:
Start and Finish Golden Daemon entries.

I plan on painting a new Honor Guard for the GT GD. I am using a Vanguard squad to do so for the Squad category. I will also build and submit a few vehicles. I am submitting a Vindicator, and Rhino. I will submit a Forgeworld Furioso Dread for Monstrous Creature, and that will also be entered for the Forgeworld best of show entry. These are VERY VERY ambitious and lofty goals for the GT. Believe me, I have no disillusions of actually winning, but it would be nice to have my models perhaps mentioned.

This will be a LOT of work. Honestly, I have no idea when I will do it...:( But I will try.

My top goals are Best painted at the brothers grim, and players choice at the GT. I think I have a shot at both. Stay tuned! :)

Way of Saim-Hann Eldar Farseer on Jetbike Conversion

This work in progress is my submission for Fritz's Eldar Farseer contest. I imagine the competition is stiff, and I dont expect victory, but this is a great excuse to finish an idea I have had on a back burner since December. This farseer is made from a jetbike, autarch left arm, Dire Avengers right arm, Mounted high elf mages body and farseers head. Painting yellow fabric is hard to say the least. This is the first yellow robes I have attempted. I have decided to downplay the yellow robes by switching most of them to blue which I am a little better at. I have also switched most of the chasis of the bike to blue too. One of my strengths is in my hand painting, I hand painted the base coat for an Iyanden logo on the chasis of the bike. Look for me to do lots of runes on the edges of the bike and the robes of the farseer. I gots to get going it is due soon!