Battle Report: Blood Angels vs Blood Angels! Battle for Salvation tournament game 3

You heard it... Dante intercepted a transmission from Mephiston to Fritz. Mephiston was trying to broker a deal with Saim-Hann to eliminate him on their next doubles engagement. Dante decided it was time to lay down the law.

Battle for Salvation Game 3
1750
Kill points

Blood Angels vs Blood Angels
My opponent had: Mephiston, Corbulo, 8 Jump pack Death Company, 10 jump pack assault vets with melta attached to mephiston, land raider, 5 gun terminators, 2 razorbacks, 20 tactical marines or so.

Coming into this game, I had to get a total victory. But I knew it would be nigh impossible. I had 50% more KP for him to score... I have never faced Mephiston, and it was scary to think about...

Turn 1: The deployment was Dawn of War. He deployed some tacticals with Corbulo, I deployed my tactical and Dante behind cover.

On his turn, he marched every thing on, and took some shots. Night Fight stopped most of his shots, but he did manage to reach my tactical with a razorback, so every squad after that was able to shoot. I lost a marine. The rest of his squads marched on to prep for ground assault.

On my turn, I did the same. Popped some shots but failed to reach. The rest of my forces moved up to attempt to brace for impact.

Looking at the makeup of his list, he had a distinct advantage. Most of his forces were equipped with assault packs, and were either advancing behind a Land Raider, or were able to jump behind cover to block LoS. I knew I was not going to push the attack. The bonus points were to select a piece of terrain, and take and hold them. My plan was to hold mine by fending off his assault... some how, and fast move my rhinos onto his to contest it on turn 5. My terrain piece was a large nurgly hill of poop looking stuff right in the middle of the board. It did a nice job blocking line of sight! I deployed my tacticals on his side of the piece. I wanted to get him to charge right down the middle of the table in the open, so I put them in a place where he might think that he could get at them. Then on my turn, I pulled them back! If he was going to get at them, he had to assault them through a good 8 inches of terrain, or go around it, through my predator fire. My dreads assumed support positions behind the terrain, while Dante moved off to the right a bit, to deter his death company from advancing too quickly. I knew my only chance was to slow him down, and try to isolate his assaulting forces to one at a time. If he hit me with every thing at once... I was done.

Turn 2:
He advanced some more. He decided to attempt to score some easy kill points this turn by shooting Lascannons at my rhinos. He managed to imobilize one. The others cowered behind terrain out of LoS. He made his first mistake of the game here. Knowing I would have to sacrifice some of my units to slow him down, I extended my Baal Preds over to the right, to tempt him out from behind his cover. I knew I would lose one to his DC assault, but I was banking on him exploding the tank, and leaving himself exposed to my counter assault... He jumped his Death Company up over the terrain they were hiding behind, and took the bait. They were isolated from the rest of his squads which would enable me to deal with them, then recover my defensive position.

On my turn, I unloaded on them. They had to die. I got both of my Dreads into position to flame and melta them. I managed to kill a few in the shooting. Dante popped a melta shot at them as well. My preds attempted to stun his lascannon razors, but were out of range this turn.

In the assault, he felt the first sting of my army. Even a Blood Angels player was not prepared for the ferocity that is my duo Furioso Death Company Dreadnoughts. They assaulted his Death Company, gaining Preferred Enemy from Dante and Furious charge from Corbulo. The 5 remaining DC would not be able to withstand 12 or so Dreadnought hits. They went down like a 3 dollar whore, and my dreads massacred back to their original positions.

Turn 3:
Now I had to deal with Mephiston and 10 assault vets. He finally managed to get Mephistons wings to work, and they jumped up to the left of my terrain piece but held back a little being just out of range to do their job... he would wait one more turn to close the deal, not wanting to isolate them as well. His land raider came right down the middle. He took this turn to fire more shots at rhinos but failed to do any real damage.

I took advantage of this respite to reset my forces. I huddled my tacticals behind the terrain, they had to live for me to hold my base. I wanted to keep them away from Mephiston and the vets and the Land Raider assaulting terminators... Yikes! I decided to sacrifice another Baal, this time on the left of my terrain to Mephiston. I moved it over and up, trying to keep it away from my squads. I shot at his Razor just to get his attention, stunning it. Now on Turn 4 I was hoping he would assault that instead of jumping his vets into my base and slaughtering my tactical squad. Dante stayed back to support with Preferred Enemy, and Corbulo sent my DC over to the left to Counter Assault mephiston.

Turn 4:
On his turn, things took a turn for the worse for me! He jumped Mephiston and vets up and took the bait again, killing that juicy Baal by assaulting it. He rammed his Land Raider right into my terrain and unloaded his terminators. They got out and shot at my tacticals, then assaulted them... :( He killed all but the Sgt. who lost combat, and failed morale, then fell back! He did not run off the table, so it seemed he would survive, since Terminators cannot sweeping advance. On my right, he advanced a combat squad, who abandonded their imobilized razorback. He was pushing to take my objective... They destroyed my last Baal with melta fire. His Corbulo was also attached to the squad. He was attempting to get in range for Furious Charge.

On my turn, it was do or die time. I was facing a huge assault force who had overrun my base. He had lots of Lascannons that were going to shoot down my rhinos once they left their cover. The worst, was that he had a Land Raider on my base that had just moved 12". I would need 6s to hit it with my dreadnought and I could not get rerolls. But I stuck to my guns! My assault squad on the far left, that was sitting in an immobilized rhino finally abandoned it. I had been trying to get it fixed since turn 1. They ran through terrain to head for his base. My other assault rhino and the empty tactical rhino burst out from behind their cover. The empty one took lead, blocking for the one carrying the troops. If I was going to have any chance of winning the tournament, those troops had to do their job! My lead blocking rhino popped smoke. I broke off Corbulo from the DC, and sent them to intercept Mephiston's squad. My last Tactical sgt. regrouped and ran for cover, staying within 6" of Corbs to get his heal, and out of assault range from Mephiston. Dante jumped to intercept his Corbulo and combat squad. My two Furiosos moved to intercept the Terminators and Land Raider... If I was going to have any chance, all had to go perfect! I had to make the decision, do I go for the Land Raider, or focus on the terminators with both Dreads... I decided to split them, let one dread deal with the Terms, and let the other shoot and assault the LR. In a fantastic bout of luck, my melta shot from the dread EXPLODED his Land Raider! The rest would come down to assault. My DC charged Mephiston, foolishly. He went first, and cut them all down. The only chance I had was to try to get them away from Meph, and kill some veterans, trying to win combat and force them to fail leadership. But instead I wasted them... :( Dante shot then assaulted the combat squad, killing off the marines. Corbulo survived and would be locked in combat with Dante for a turn. My other dread assaulted his terminators. I dealt 5 wounds to 4 remaining terminators, and he failed 4 saves... they would all die. But their hits back immobilized my dread. What a change of fate! In one turn I wiped out a Land Raider, terminator squad and Combat Squad. But I still had to deal with his Corbulo, Mephiston and a jacked out assault squad. My resources were dwindling.

Turn 5. He would take his turn and fire his lascannons at my rhinos making their move. He immobilized the lead rhino, but was unable to target the important one. I would need it to roll a 4+ to move fast on my turn to contest! He broke off Mephiston from the assault squad. They jumped into the terrain to assault my dreads. They had meltabombs, krak grenades, and a power fist. Mephiston jumped over to take on my Corbulo. He fired his immobilized Razorback with a TL heavy bolter at my lone tactical sgt... like Neo he managed to doge the shots by making his armor saves! In his assault, Dante would kill his Corbulo and massacre away towards the HB razor that just fired on my Tactical. Mephiston assaulted my Corbulo, wounded him 4 times, but The Grail of Sanguinius saved him all four times! His assault vets assaulted my immobilized dread trying to get the KP. But only knocked off an arm and got stuck in combat. Their fate would be sealed on my turn...

So on my turn, I moved into position to try to win. My foot slogging assault squad would move towards his objective, while my rhino with troops inside moved onto it to contest. My imobilized rhino managed to fix itself. Dante jumped over to the Immob Razor, missed his meltashot, and failed to destroy it on the assault. I had nothing else to shoot... My other dread joined the assault on the Jump Vets, and the two of them combined would destroy them all. My last tactical marine moved up and ran into the terrain again, to claim it for myself. After massacring the vets, my last mobile dread moved to block Mephiston from getting in to kill my last marine. He was safely nestled between the two dreds. Mephiston cut down the valiant Corbulo using his force weapon and instant killing him. However, he had suffered two wounds in the process, and was not interested in any more death, namely his own. Instead of massacring towards my tactical marine, he ran for the hills.

At the bottom of 5, he and I were tied in Kill points. I held my objective, contested his, and had a better KP ratio. But the game, if it ended, would be a draw and I would only get 2 bonus points. I had to wipe out the marines on his objective, and try to score more kill points for the win. I could not have the game end on turn 5. So, after a brief prayer to Sanguinius, the die was rolled, and the game would go on!

Turn 6:
Desperate now, he would try to score some kill points to try to draw. Mephiston, looking around and finding himself all alone, ran away. He did not want to face my furioso dread. He tried to dislodge my rhino that had moved onto his objective with heavy weapon fire, but failed due to smoke. With nothing left to assault at my base, that battle was over and I won. All he could do now was try to deny me kill points and maintain the draw.

On my turn, Dante would have nothing to do with that. He destroyed the razorback with his Perdition pistol. My foot slogging assault squad managed to get into assault range, and pulled his guys away from his base. I unloaded my rhino, and those marines assaulted the combat squad that was holding it, and killed them all. Leaving his base uncontested and in my hands. I rammed his razorback with the rhino that fixed itself, hoping to stun it. But had no effect. But it did not matter.

At the end of 6, I had the lead in Kill Points, and held all 3 of the bonus points. The die roll would end the game. Victory Jawaballs!

This game was fantastic. I would say it was the third best game of 40k ever. Charly was a great player, fair and smart. What appeared to be a rout in his favor, turned into a runaway for me. Emotion, suspense and drama... cant ask for better then that! It came down to the wire, and the game was decided by how 40k should be. The dice. No cheap BS, no rules twisting. Just tactics and dice.

So as you already know, I went on to win the whole thing. It was an utter shock... I knew I had scored enough points to contend for a place, but at the end, took the trophy! Thanks to Charly for the great game, and for buying some of my Jawa-Bases! After playing against me, he placed an order for some of my ruined wall bases to base his own army. :)


Here is the video! Blood Angels vs Blood Angels