Battle Report: Jawaballs vs Jwolf!

Ok, I finally have some time. I will add pics later.

So despite the hectic atmosphere of Bolscon, jwolf was gracious enough to make some time to take on my Blood Angels. The game was pretty close!

Deployment: Dawn of War
Mission: Bases
Points: 2k

I used my standard list, plus 2 attack bikes and a squad of two speeders.
Jwolf had a Russ Battle Tank, and one with a 24" str 10 direct shot, a hell hound, a valkrye with 10 vets, marbo, platoon with a troop squad, 3 lascannon team, and some other guys. He had two chimera, one with a melta toting vet squad, and one with his command squad. He also had a 3 autocanon team, and 2 ratling sniper squads.

If you were following the pregame hype, you can find our lists on our various posts.

I won the dieroll, and gave him first turn.

He deployed some troops and his HQ on his base and I countered with a combat las squad on my base, and Dante all alone behind a wall near his base. My intention here was to get him to bring out all of his guns at angles to try to pop Dante, and rely on DoW and my invul to keep him alive, then move him back behind a tank, leaving his stuff exposed.

Turn 1:

As I hoped, Jwolf brought out all of his stuff at angles to pop Dante. He would have probably brought most of his stuff where he did any way because of the vicinity of his base, but I do feel that some of his choices were made based on the location of Dante, which was enough for me! None of his shots managed to find range and he pulled back away what he could from Dante's charge. He reserved the Valk and Marbo... much to my later chagrin...

On my turn, I brought on every thing except for my deep striking speeders. I charged my tanks straight at his base, and intermixed my rhinos to grant cover saves. I turboed my bikes to get them in range to shoot from the left. I wish I had made better choices with them later in the game... they popped his hell hound, but I could have used them to clear out some of the armor by his base later in the game. My shooting was pretty fruitless, but I did move dante back behind a baal.

Turn 2:
Jwolf has an average round of shots. I don't recall but i think he failed to really do any damage what so ever. I had smoke and cover saves where it mattered and his shooting dice were pretty poor. He only managed some stunned results, which became shaken due to my stuff having extra armor.

On my turn, I popped his hell hound. I left the other combat squad in it's rhino and my furioso to defend my base. I started ramming rhinos down his throat (the ones that did not immobilize themselves on terrain that is) and advancing Baals. I messed up this turn though. I managed to pop his vet chimera with a baal, and that pinned his vets as well... but then I tried to take down his russ tanks with the others. I should have focused on his troops from the start. If I had managed to take down his troops defending his base, and he did not have a lot of them, I could have refocused some fast moving stuff back to mine. I knew he had Marbo and a Valkrye coming right for my base when they came on. I also made another big mistake... I moved up Dante, and he was exposed from the right...

Turn 3:

Jwolf would punish me this turn. He fixed his dice, and started popping rhinos and slaughtering my troops. He blew up one of my Baals and killed my bikes. marbo and his valk failed to come on. The worst though was Jwolf seems to have an ability to curve his scatter shots around cover and tanks. He targeted a tank, but the shot scattered perfectly onto dante, and killed him. But he started to realize that he was in some trouble! It became obvious that he was not going to stop my rhinos from reaching him. He popped my Death Company rhino, but was unable to take them out. They would assault his base next turn.

On my turn, I saw the situation with his troops. If I killed them all, I would not have to worry about taking his base. So I started unloading on them. I shot up his vet squad and they fell back, and shot up a troops squad, reducing them to just one or two models. My Death Company assaulted and slaughtered another troop squad. That left him with two falling back, a Lascanon team and a command squad coming over to help. Things began to get serious here. On a big sad note, my Speeders managed to come in and deep strike. I dropped them where I needed them most and rolled the dice. Sadly they mis striked, and Went back up into reserves.

Turn 4:
Finally his Valk and marbo came on. He moved the valry 12" from my edge but stayed out of range, and brought in Sly. Sly threw his Demo charge, and here was another perfect scatter. It pretty much had only one direction it could go to hurt me, and of course it went that way. He killed my dread and a few of my base defenders... crap. He saw he was in trouble at his base, and attempted to compensate. He started moving in armor to block my tank shocking rhinos. He got some of my assaulters into close combat with his command squad to slow them down, and managed to kill my death company. But my turn would be big!

On my turn, he managed to make 3 or 4 huge leadership tests. I tank shocked the crap out of him with rhinos, and his boys made all of their leadership tests... in opposition to that, I managed to fail all of my own. I failed 3 in a row and watched most of my blood angels fall back in disgrace, and one was actually pinned by ratling snipers! Travesty! This would pretty much mean the game. I shot and killed Rambo, but he did his damage. The game was turning to Jwolf's favor.

Turn 5:
Jwolf managed to secure his base. He had any troops I could get in range in close combat and bogged down. He wisely got a sentinal into combat to tie them up. He would probably not manage to kill me, but I would not kill it. He did leave a few holes though, that would give me an approach vector for more fast moving tanks. He moved his Valk into my base and unloaded his troops. Now all i had left was 4 tactical marines with a PW and a meltagun to try to kill his Valk and 8 veterans who were left.

On my turn I made my last ditch effort to deny his base. I tank shocked again with preds moving 18", and actually would manage to deny him his base by contesting. It would all hinge upon my base and how my last marines could hold. The worst die roll of the game came when I tried to tank shock his vets that were contesting my base. I might have dropped them back without having to shoot at all, but instead I rolled a 1and immobilized the damn rhino. Oh well. I decided to shoot his valk, which was contesting, with my meltagun. I was hoping to simply damage it, that way I could dual assault and lay into it and his vets with my power weapon. Sadly though, i exploded it instead. This left my poor 4 marines in the open and looking down the barrels of quite a few Imperial Guard guns. At this point, the game would end a draw... if I was able to work my magic... I rolled the die... and the game went on. Damn my uncanny ability to roll 1s. It only works when I don't want them!

Turn 6:
Jwolfs base was contended. He did not have LoS to stop me from getting tanks into range and taking it away, but I could not kill his boys holding it. So, focusing on my base it came down to 8 vets vs 4 marines. They shot, and killed 3 of them, including my sgt with power sword. Only the meltagunner was left. Then he assaulted! My boy killed two of them, so if he lived, he would win combat by two forcing Jwolf to make a leadership test of 6. Then it would be a matter of sweeping advance, or them just falling back far enough to be out of range of my base. On his attacks though, he managed to slip in one power weapon hit... and then rolled a 5 to wound. That would wrap up the game! Jwolf took my base and scored a victory, on the extremely lucky back of one Veteran Sergeant who managed to find a power weapon off some dead commisar. I contended his base, but he claimed mine. Game over.

In the end, the game went pretty much as good as it could have. Very few mistakes were made and a lot of luck happened to favor the other side of the table I was NOT on. My heavy fire power and fast moving tanks put a scare into Jwolf, and actually did their job by denying him his base. My biggest mistake was to not spread out my base defenders more... I forgot, and left them clustered nicely, along with the Rhino and Dread for Jwolf to slaughter with the Demo charge that I knew was coming. He managed to do some Matrix Zen crap with his scatter dice and made some huge leadership tests to save his guys from several tank shocks.

I think that if any thing, Jwolf will rethink his opinion of the Blood Angels... or at least of MY Blood Angels. Sure, I only finished 22 in the tournament. 5 draws did nothing to help me there... but I faced some tough opponents, and put a whooping on some guys with supposedly superior armies.

Jwolf scraped out a victory this time. But our next game will be at 1750 points where my army excells. Looking forward to getting a chance to play him again!

I took some pics and some video, I will get them posted tonight. Check back later.

Jawaballs