Blood Angels in Action: IG Incoming!

It's time of course for another battle report, brought to you by none other than the Capt of the 8th. I'm sure you all missed me terribly (or not at all) since my last post, but I'm back today with a doozy of a write up.

I got in a fantastic game this past week against IG. It had been awhile since I had been able to play a game, but I found a friendly dude on a local gaming forum to go up against. We met up at the designated time and got straight down to business. I have to say I lucked out this time. The guy was a great gamer. He knew the rules and he was way cool the whole game. He played for the kill and this was one of my favortite games to date.

We rolled up standard deployment and capture and control for mission. Neither of us wanted to do the 2 objective thing, so we just went for annihilation. Points was 1750.

I brought my Descent of Angels list, true to my promise to stick with it and work out the kinks. I modified it from last game to add in some more combat punch. I wanted a hard hitting unit to get into assault fast. Enter Vanguard Vets!

Librarian - JP, Lance and Shield
Honor Guard - JP, 4x melta

Techmarine - JP, combi-melta, PW
Techmarine - JP, combi-melta, PW
Sanguinary Priestx3 - 2x JP and Infernus pistols, 1x on foot

Assault Squad - JP, 2x melta, PW and IP on sergeant
Assault Squad - JP, 2x melta, PW and IP on sergeant

Vangaurd Veterans - 6x models, JP, Glaive on sergeant, Pfist, 3x storm shields

Devastators x2 - 4x missile launchers

My opponent brought:

Company Command Squad with full command and sniper rifles

4x Vet squads - 10x models, 2x plasma and meltagun
4x Chimera

2x Vendettas

Leman Russ
Leman Russ Demolisher

3x Stormtroopers - 5x models, 2x melta

I won the die roll to go first, and chose to do so. I wanted my Devastators to have a shot at knocking out some tanks/skimmers before they got blasted off the table. I loaded them up in a ruin in my right corner to benefit from the Techmarine enhanced cover save.

Here are my Devs hunkered down in a nice ruin.

And as a side note, I am a terrible photographer for some reason. I can perform minor surgery on and around the eye, but I just can't take an in focus picture.
Go figure. So just don't look too close at the images, you might get seasick or dizzy.

He then deployed right across the board from me, ready to get into my face. He uses the chaos shrine to get cover for most of his tanks, and the AV 14 LRs covering the rest.



He also scouts his Vendettas to generate a cover save for round one. Wonderful I think, I have no good shots to take. Everything has cover or is a wasted shot into AV14.


So I do the best thing I can and fire all my missiles into his Vendettas. Nothing at all. He saves every glance or penetrating hit. This doesn't look to good. On his turn he repositions some of his Chimeras. Lucky for me 2 of them get immobilized on the terrain. Serves him right for hiding behind Chaos. But then he starts blasting me with that famous IG firepower. He wipes the lower squad off the face of the earth and the attached priest. He also knocks one of the ML devs from the top tier. It could have been worse I suppose, but he is already 2 KPs up on me after my bad round of shooting. I debated back and forth whether to send my troops to ground for the 2+, but I just couldn't do it. Seemed like I would never recover the loss of the Devs shooting. Oh well, next time I think I will be more apt to do it, and try to save the shooting for future turns.


(after he blasted my Devs to bits)

Turn 2 things should get better I felt. Until he tells me he has a Master of the Fleet. Uggh, +1 to my reserve rolls is bad news. After all my rolling, all I manage is my VV and a Techmarine. Good or bad, I don't know yet. It is pretty piecemeal. I land my VV next to his two Vendettas hoping to down them with my Pfist on the assault. I had no better options really. My Techmarine (all pewter model to the left with no arms, I call him David) landed spot on behind his LR Demolisher, and it was my turn to shoot.


(here is the first drop)


My devs target the Vendetta with 3 missiles and they manage to down one of the buggers! First blood for the Angels! The Techmarine then blows up the LR with his combi-melta. Alright, we are back on track now and tied 2-2 on KPs. The VV only manage to take a gun off and immobilize the vendetta. Not what I was expecting. I needed that last Vendetta dead, and my powerfist underperformed.

On his turn, he started blasting me again after his 3 squads of Stormtroopers dropped in to surround my VV. I really couldn't stand up to the onslaught. A multi-laser downed the Techmarine (so much for that 2+), and all the melta and hell-guns from the stormtroopers downed my Vets. The Vendettas with the remaining LR killed the rest of my Devs. He is up 3 more KP now, and I am down morally. I just am not standing up to all the firepower he can bring and things are not looking good for the Angels.

Turn 3 all the rest of my stuff drops in. I land my Techmarine by his remaining LR. One squad of melta toting marines and an attached priest land right near his Stormtrooper squads.


(second drop)

The Honor Guard with attached Librarian land near his outermost Chimera on the left flank, and two assault squads land behind them and within range of the Shield of Sanguinius.


(Libby with HG and vanilla assault marine combat squads)

The last melta toting squad landed in the back right corner, right behind all his tanks. They scatter a bit out of position which makes things a bit more difficult for me. Time to shoot some crap up now. My techmarine goes first and misses with his combi-melta. That sucked. Although the two of them together killed his one LR Demolisher, which was more points than they cost together. The melta squad in the middle of the Stormtroopers tries to vaporize a squad but fail to do so as he saved all the pistol shots. The other melta squad fails as well to do anything of value beside taking a multi-laser off an immobilized chimera. Now it is time for my Librarian to get in some action. He fired off his Blood Lance hitting both of the Chimeras in his path. The first one exploded spectacularly, but the next one was left unharmed, although it was already immobilized. I don't have any assaults to go with so it is time to take another beating from all his guns.

His 1.5 squads of stormtroopers near the Vendetta target my assault squad with the attached priest and start to do some damage. After some poor roles on his side he managed to kill only 3 of the marines. The other squad had moved up to corner my half-blind Techmarine, and they subsequently downed him with melta fire. In the corner the two Chimeras unload all they can into the combat squad with attached priest. Only the sergeant and the Priest survived. On the other side of the Chaos shrine one of his Vet squads had already ditched their immobilized Chimera, and the other Chimera had just disgorged its vet squad its burning hull. Combined with the reaming Leman Russ and the Command Squad they unleashed hell on my Librarian and his Honor Guard. Shield of Sanguinius went up and I started making saves like I had no business doing. Sanguinius himself must have been there deflecting round after round for his sons. After the AP3 pie plate from the tank, a pie plate from the Master of Ordinance, a few sniper rifles, 4 rapid firing plasma guns, a couple of melta shots and loads of lasguns, my Librarian ( with one wound remaining), his Sanguinary Novitiate, and another veteran stood up from the malestrom with blood in their eyes. The IG had not brought enough guns to the fight and it was time to pay.

Top of turn four my squad breaks up to get maximum carnage in near the Vendetta. The priest moves towards the shrine to get one Stormtrooper squad, while the remaining marines move the opposite direction for the other squad. The combat squad in the back corner did not have any good targets so they went after an immobilized Chimera with their melta pistols. The Librarian and company moved up on the poor Guardsman who had exited their transports; the Angels would exact their revenge. Little shooting went on, except for the Chimera getting wrecked from the infernus pistols. It was time for the assault. One combat squad assaulted the closest IG squad and moved it out of the way with the pile in move so my Librarian and HG could get at the second squad behind them. It worked like a charm as the second combat squad piled into the melee to support the other assault marines. The priest charged a Stormtrooper squad solo, and the other marines charge the remains of the second STs. The priest gets killed as he flails around helplessly amid the STs. The assault marines fare no better against the toughened armor of the Stormtroopers, and they in fact lose one of the marines while inflicting no casualties at all. What a bad start for my assaulting this round. Luckily, my Librarian pulls his weight admirably. He and the HG wipe their squad on combat resolution, while the other 10 marines do the same to the remaining squad.

(after the rout, the Angels try to take some cover from the incoming STs, the CCS and the last LR)

The remaining assault marines after the ST squad that claimed the priest jumped into the fight. The last ST squad is behind the LR getting ready to come at the Librarian and friends.

Next round the LR takes aim on the Librarian and HG and manages to down the last two Vets, but the Libby still stands. The charging stormtroopers don't do anything with their weapons, and the CCS also fails to do any damage. The last Priest and sergeant in the corner behind the ruins also weather the fire to come out unscathed. The melee continues with the Stormtroopers near the Vendetta with neither side buckling.

Top of turn four, things begin to turn my way completely. My Librarian makes a suicide run for the incoming STs, while all my other available marines converge on the CCS in the Chaos Shrine. The Librarians righteous rage fills him as he unleashes the Blood Lance on the ST and the LR behind them. One of the ST is pierced through by the lance, which then penetrates the heavy armor of the tank and cooks off its ammunition store. Another ST is lost in the conflagration and the Librarian then charges into them headlong and slaughters them in combat.


(here is the Libby after blasting the tank and mangling the STs)

The CCS can not withstand the rage of the assault marines and the last Priest. They butcher them all to a man amid the Chaos suffused ruins.


(what remains of the CCS is too small to be seen here)

The drawn out combat near the immobilized Vendetta is slowly coming around in my favor as well. I have finally taken out one of the squads and begin to attrition the other.

At this point the game is about tied in KPs, 10-9 in my favor I believe. His remaining Guardsmen are completely unable to handle what I have left and I end up killing the remaining two squads of Vets and one of the Chimeras. At the end of the game he has only an immobilized Chimera and an immobilized Vendetta. I had lost my Librarian to a Perils of the Warp roll right in the middle of the Chaos Shrine, bitter irony, I know.

The final tally was 13-10 with a victory for the Blood Angels!

It was such a fun game and I learned some good lessons. Again, my opponent was top notch. He was way cool when he was beating my pants off the first few rounds, and he was just as cool when I pulled victory from the jaws of defeat. He was laid back and more than helpful in explaining all the new IG stuff to me. Kudos to him, hopefully I get the chance to play him again soon. He apparently runs a 7 Valk/Vendetta list that I would like to go up against sometime.

I finally used squads in support of each other this time and it really paid off. I normally feel like my marines are invincible (which they are not of course) and I hang them out to dry without the necessary support, especially on the DoA drops. This time I tried to keep things more centralized, except for a few instances, but it paid off. I applied massive force on one of his flanks and it crumbled. I was then able to sweep in for the win.

It was a hard fought game, and but for a few dice rolls it could have gone either way. It was a blast of a game though.

I need to get another game in soon, and maybe post up some of my Dark Eldar that I got for Christmas. I decided on a scheme and got some work done on them. Pics to follow.

Until next time!

Michael, Capt of the 8th