Battle Report: Blood Angels Drop Pod Dreads vs Necrons!

Sorry guys, no pics here.  But I wanted to give a quick report on my game yesterday.

I went out to Comic Book Heaven in White Plains to pick up some drop pods I had Brother Captain James assemble and try to get a game in, and found myself against a player known as Twig. Why? Not sure, but he was a good guy.  :)

His list was fairly strong, Monolith, some destroyers, zandrack the guy who causes difficult terrain to become dangerous, ctan, some warriors in those transports, some imortals, some scarabs and three spyders.  Oh and some dude flying around in a little flyer thing.

I went with my new drop pod dread list. 2 dc dreads, 2 furioso dreads, 2 heavy support dreads, 10 dc, 10 tacticals, 5 assault marines, and 7 assault marines with librarian and 2 priests, all in pods.

10 pods total.

He won the roll to go first and took first turn. It was a kill point, DoW mission.

He chose not to reserve any thing and on his turn rolled his stuff on to the table, spreading out along his edge with the mono in the middle supported by Ctan and the flyer hq and he loaded his right side with destroyers, spyders, scarabs and a warrior transport.  Oh he had some nasty dudes with the Zandrack guy.

I would like to mention that this player was fairly new.  Be nice.

So any way, I choose to drop my DC, two furioso and two DC dreads on turn one.  I played it sorta safe, placing my stuff about a foot from his edge, give or take an inch.  My first dc dread lands on his right side next to some immortals and a warrior transport.  I place the other not far away, in position to take on the Ctan.  Then I try to place a furioso another foot away, right in the middle, and mishap! I rolled an 11 and off the edge he went.  The dice gods were nice though and had my oppponent place him, and he put him right on my edge.  Then I put my other furioso on his left edge, ready to go after the other warrior transport.  Finally I placed my DC pod, and WOOPS, I rolled boxcars for the scatter... right off the table.  Terrible accident, dead Death Company.

Sigh.

So my dreads get out and penetrate and explode both warrior transports with melta fire.  My furioso on my edge runs the other DC takes cover behind it's pod, having scattered away from threat range.

Aside from the loss of my DC, I was in good shape, game tied at 2 KP a piece, both of his transports dead so I would not have to chase them, and one of his warrior squads pinned.

On his turn he pumps a lot of shots into my furioso on the left near his destroyers and spyders but fails to hurt it. He blows an arm off my DC dread on my right, then assaults. He sends Ctan after my undamaged DC dread, which ends in a drawn combat due to his terrible dice.

But then we discovered the wonders that are Scarabs vs Blood Claws.  His scarabs attacked, my furioso and I looked up the rules for Blood Claws, having not used them in a while.  I was hitting on 3, wounding on 2, and instant killing bases because of my Str 6 vs his T3.  That was bad news.  On my first round of swings, I killed four bases, which set me up for 12 more attacks.  Please correct me if I'm wrong here!  But BT say that for every unsaved wound I get an additional attack.  Each base was 3 wounds.  Any way, you can see where this went.  The meat grinder finished off those scarabs in no time.

On my turn, my tacticals come in and shoot at his immortals.  My two heavy support dreads come in right in the middle of the table and my assault squad with librarian comes in safely on the right side away from most trouble.  I don't do much with shooting, but jump into assault hungrily.  My furioso on the left tears apart a squad of warriors.  On the right my DC dread with one arm jumps the other warriors but only kills a couple.  With a single arm the BT extra attacks are  gone right?

He kills my DC dread with the CTan and we go on to his turn.  He kills my heavy support dread with assault cannon. He pulls the immortals away from my tacticals with this monolith and pumps shots into my pods and the furioso on the left trying to score kill points.  My DC dread kills a couple more warriors and he doesn't have much else to do.

On my turn I assault his Zandrack with my heavy support dread with multi melta. I wanted to use him against the monolith but I had to kill that guy.  I pumped a lot of shots into his Ctan, bringing down to 1 wound, then assault him with my librarian squad, finishing him off.  My furioso on the left gets immobilized on terrain thanks to Zandrack. Zandrack survives the assault from my heavy support dread due to invulnerable saves and my 1 arm DC dread kills a couple more warriors.

On his turn he kills my immobile furioso and again tries to work on a couple pods.  He actually has the lead in KP for now!

But my turn seals it.  My Heavy support dread kills Zandrack, and the furioso that mishapped finally made it into combat and finished off the rest of that squad.

The dice say the game ends on turn five.  He had his spyders, destroyers, monolith, guy on flyer, and immortals.  I lost a pod, DC, DC dread, furioso, Heavy support dread, priest and assault squad to a fantastic monolith shot.  The KP total went to me by one in a close game!

Good outing for my first game with the pods.  Learned a couple lessons and played a fun opponent.

Oh crap, time to go, I have an appoint to look at a new car.

:)

More to come,

Jawaballs

26 comments:

Neil Gilstrap said...

As to the scarabs vs. blood talons thing, Blood Talon do wounds which cause Instant death to scarabs but don't increase the number of wounds done. The only time you consider the number of wounds the base had that was killed by instant death is when calculating the combat results at the end of the combat.

That being said, Blood Talon Furiosos still wreck face on Scarabs, and you would have likely killed them anyways. :)

Dalinair said...

Would say Neil is correct, also don't forget, you can re-roll that 2 just in case they weren't dead enough :)

Jawaballs said...

Cool thanks Neil! Believe me, it sounded pretty silly to be doing so many wounds, but we couldnt find a way to not!

artstthms said...

ewwww what an exciting battle report. i am just imagining the intense carnage. if necrons bleed, then that was a blood bath! poor DC boys, but in the end it looks like it was just the right amount of handicap to start you off with.
curious, how do you feel about furioso librarians?

Jawaballs said...

I wish I had taken pics! It was a good game. And had my DC landed would have been a slaughter. I had to risk them though, because the monolith would have vaporized them. My plan was to butt the pod up against the monolith, then get out and run up to it, spread out, so he could not land the ap3 template on them at all. But they jumped about 8 inches further than I hoped, and right off the edge of the table. Had they landed, they would have assaulted his tomb spyders and that Zandrack fellow with his squad at the same time, and ended the game. :)

Will Wright said...

Car or Sandspeeder?
I saw a kid and old man selling one on the cheap.

Dunn911 said...

+1 internets to Will

knightyc said...

show us your drop pod army now then :)

knightyc said...

show us your drop pod army now then :)

Jawaballs said...

Its not ready yet! Thats why i got no pics, I played with grey plastic...

Robert (Grovel) said...

Why not just give the assault marines jump packs and let them decent in? They can hop around as necesary that way.

Jawaballs said...

Because then I would have to spend 75 points buying jump packs for the ICs.

DK said...

His list was fairly strong, Monolith, some destroyers...

LOL. Sounds like a horrible army. IMO of course

Jawaballs said...

Guess you didn't read the part about Be Nice. And yes, I have seen Alex Fennel wreck face with a similar list.

Unknown said...

I do have pics! Though my battle report is hardly as well organized. ;) Take a look, and thanks for putting up your post Jawa, it's much more readable for understanding tactics/lists. (I have a lot to learn on posting these!)

Anyway, here's the link; http://twygcrons.blogspot.com/

Also, seasoned readers if you take a look at my report it's written more for a noob perspective, not a well seasoned, experienced player. Some of us are still just starting and don't know the basics of tactical concepts in the game. Just keep that in mind before hatin' too severely. When I first started I got a lot of tips from players, so I'm trying to post those up for the other new folks.

@DK, I hear you actually, this list was placed together as more of a "flash card" list so that I can understand as many mechanics as possible and see where I want to go with the army in general. For example I may drop the monolith in favor of having redundancy in the form of another royal court, or another anny barge and some additional goodies.

knightyc said...

i miss the live shows on ustream :p would be something cool to paint along too :)

DK said...

ME Criticizing a list is not being mean. The monolith is really inefficiency, and until Destroyers get their 6 ed. bump (please god make this rumor true) they are a sub par choice for a fast attack slot.

Don't get me wrong, destroyers are boss (i use 10), but they are not a good choice.

Drop Pod BA are IMO one of the best Necron Antidotes. It nullifies night fight, gets your scary assault units close (Necron lack of mobility shows up here), and fear of the dark is HILARIOUS against a Royal court death squad.

Badruk said...

What was your setup for your 2 Heavy Dread? MM/CC, AC/CC?

Jawaballs said...

One has a MM/CCW with Storm Bolter, the other has asscan and CCW with Heavy Flamer. They ideally work in tandem, the MM pops a transport full of juicy melta vets or assassins, and the HF/Asscan blows them away!

KevonTheBeardless said...

Just a note, you said you ran you DC dreads to take cover behind your pods. They have rage usr so if they run they have to run towards the closest visible enemy. I'm kinda up in the air about the claws tho, not really sure which way to go with that.

Jawaballs said...

Yah I noticed that snafu when I looked up rage. He only moved 2" though, so no bid deal, but I know for future!

Argeros said...

Hey Jawa, I was reading the Blood Angel Codex awhile ago and then I noticed that the Blood Angel Drop Pods can only have 10 models inside while the Vanilla Marines can have 12 models inside is this a typo or something that has been fixed in a FAQ? I was going to do a drop pod list the fact I can only have 10 models in it is putting me off.

Jawaballs said...

As far as I know it has not been FAQd. BA Pods can only carry 10 models, which puts me off as well.

Rau said...

Doesn't rage specify you must move towards the closest unit in the movement phase? As such, this would have no affect on any run moves you make? If it was compulsary to run towards the enemy, then no unit with rage would ever be able to fire or charge as they'd have to be running every turn!

Jawaballs said...

It says if I choose to run, I must run at the nearest enemy. But I can still assault any thing I want, or choose not to run.

artstthms said...

so i played a very similar match up last night. i took a 1500 point version of your list here but had an extra libby, both with shield and fear. against a necron list.
DK said fear of darkness is funny, let me share how funny. a squad of immortals joined by an HQ are running towards an objective at the end of the game and staying just out of range to be chewed up by my DC dread, my libby fears them off the objective and they run directly into charge range of both the DC dread and furioso that they have been kiting for two turns.
Hilarious!

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