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

Blood Angels in Action: A Moral Quandary

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The Capt of the 8th is back, this time with a battle report. And an ethical dilemma that we have probably all run into. This made for a very interesting game. Let's get some back story though.

Rewind about a month, and I'm across the table from an Eldar player. He's got 6 tanks on the table, 3 w/ fire dragons, and 3 with warriors, I think, and Eldrad hanging out in there somewhere. I am playing a hybrid Angels list. 3x las/plas razors 2x dakka preds, and 2x terminators w/ 2x cyclone missile launchers each. We are playing annihilation, and true to the title, he gets annihilated. We call the game turn four, 5kp to 1kp in my favor. I would have tabled him next turn, but there is no need to rub salt in the wound. I trounced him fair and square.

So here we are again across the table to play another pick up game. He has a small Dark Eldar army he is building up and wants to use it instead of a full blown 2000 pt game. He tells me he has 1,150 points ready to go. So I trim this list down to fit.

Librarian, Shield, Lance and JP
Techmarine, jp, combi-melta, and power weapon
Sanguinary priest w/ jp
Sanguinary priest on foot
2x 10 man assault squads, power weapon on sarge, and 2x melta guns
Flamestorm Baal predator
2x 5 man Dev squads w/ 4x missile launchers each

1,150 on the spot. Seemed like a balanced list to me. Anti-tank and anti-horde.

He has this list, as best as I can remember. It's not perfect, but its about 95% accurate keep in mind.

Lelith Hesperax
Archon- Soultrap, Huskblade, Shadow-field, combat drugs, and Ghost Plate I think.
10x Incubi
3x 10 man kabalite squads each with Blaster, splinter cannon, Sarge upgrade, power weapon and blast pistol.
4x Raiders with Flickerfields, chain snares, splinter racks and Grisly trophies



We roll Spearhead and Annihilation, and I get the roll to go first. I place my Devs in a ruin for the 3+ save with a Priest to babysit, and reserve the rest. He then places his four Raiders in a ruin clustered together to try and generate cover. Now I deployed poorly, in that I placed my devs so only a few of them could draw LOS down field the the windows in the ruins. Stupid move by me, and was a major contributor to this debacle. Oh well, you live and learn.

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(Here is deployment, the Deldar army is the gray blur left of the building. Sorry for the bad image quality, I need to change the f-stop or something on the camera. No depth of focus. . . .)

At this point he starts rolling for combat drugs, and he wants to roll multiple dice. I then tell him that in the new codex drugs have been streamlined and that you only roll once, and the result is applied to the whole army. He tells me I'm full of it and wants to roll for each unit with drugs. We go back and forth until he has to appeal to the store manager as an impartial judge. We show him the codex and of course reason and fundamental reading comprehension win out. So he then rolls one die and gets +1 str for his Archon.

The game then opens and I have first turn. LOS is blocked because of my stupid deployment, so I shoot the missiles that I can. I fire first at his Raider with Lelith in it. I really had no answer to her, other than taking her out of the equation by wrecking her ride. I smoked her raider with a well placed shot. It blows up and I put 8 wounds on the squad inside, he then makes 6 5+ saves.



Oh well, I can live with that.

This is the point that I realize he has 2 of the 4 Raiders with 11 models in them. What a joke. I'm wondering at this point if the guy even read his codex. Raiders can only transport 10 models. This way he gets the benefits of the 10 man squad, and he has room to carry around his heavy hitters, namely Lelith and the Archon. I don't want to hear him whine and cry about it, especially since he was complaining about losing his Raider already. So I let it slide.

But did I make the right decision? It is a friendly pick-up game, do I call the guy out on it? Is he trying to cheat, or is he just ignorant of the rules? Would I do him a favor by pointing out the correct rules, or will I just ruffle his feathers some more and make the game less enjoyable for the both of us? I suppose we will never know, we just don't have the technology.

So my shooting is over, and he then turbo-boosts his Raiders directly towards me. He has the two warrior squads come right at me, but his Archon takes a more indirect approach. He then wants to fire at me out of all the transports. Correct me if I am wrong, but open-topped or not I thought you can't fire at all when you are going flat out. I start to look in the book for the relevant rules, and he starts complaining again. I don't know where to look exactly for them, in the vehicle shooting rules, or the skimmer movement rules, so I decide not to throw my brick of dice at the dude and let this one slide as well. He kills a few devastators with his shooting, nothing too serious.


(Archons ride is over to the left)

My second turn everything from reserve comes in. This is the first time this has ever happened to me. And even better, nothing mishaps! I am learning after all how to place units and judge distances better. Everything drops in with good melta range all around and my Baal out-flanks on from the correct edge and all is looking well.



I will later come to realize my mistake in letting the Archon alone. I proceed to fire my Blood Lance at both his tanks, getting penetrating hits on both. He rolls his saves from flat out movement and gets a 3 and 4 and tells me they both save. I just have to laugh to myself at this point. I know where to find this rule in the book so I pull it out and show him.

Again, is he cheating or does he just not know the rules? Is he trying to take advantage of me, or just an inexperienced player? I don't know. I'm the type of person that would rather give the benefit of the doubt and let the game go smoothly, rather than get into a fight about toy soldiers.

So I blow up both the raiders with all the melta, and gun down some of the survivors as well with my pistols. I can't draw LOS to his Raider with the Archon with my missiles, so it gets ignored another turn. My devs instead choose to fire at the stranded squad of his in the ruins with Lelith. I don't really want to scatter onto my own troops, because even just one unsaved wound hurts in a combat squad. So I played it safe and maybe killed one warrior on the opposite side of the board.

So that ended turn 2 for both of us. I'm going to cut this post in half; I don't want to loose some of the important points in the wall of text.

Let's talk about sportsmanship then. What are the prevailing opinions out there regarding what happened? Do you interrupt the game to set the dude straight. Do you risk the game running smoothly to show that you know the rules better than the other guy? When do you make the jump from "this guy needs to learn the game" to "this guy is a cheater weasel"? And can I chalk this up to petty vindictiveness, because my sub-par foot Terminator list curb stomped his Eldar? In addition, I don't want to get a "rules lawyer" label in the store. I'm a relative newcomer there, and this dude has been playing there awhile and seems to know everyone else. I'd like to be able to play games in the future, but I'd also like to play by the rules.

I'd like to hear your thoughts, because I don't know that I handled it the right way. Chime in with your collective wisdom please. Inquiring minds would like to know!

And keep your eyes peeled to see the exciting conclusion to this riveting game! Will those Incubi get their revenge in the end? Or will your intrepid hero end the game with a well placed missile to the Archon's measly face? Tune in next week, same Blood Angel time, same Blood Angel channel!

Michael, Capt of the 8th