4/2 1500 Game 1: Blood Angels

So off to the races we go!  The LGS felt a little underpreparred which was too bad (and a little unusual), so they ended up using Ard Boyz mission from 2009.  Not the worst but, eh, this is a 1500 pt tournament.  Plus we only had 12 people show so they decided to just do 1st, 2nd, 3rd place (no paint, no raffles) which is a bit of a departure for the store.

First up I drew Frankie's newly assembled BA army.  I played Frankie's SW army a few months ago with my orks and had a narrow loss.  Since then he's gone on to go 5-0 at the Grand Waagh in Alameda and I think he just went down south to win the Broadside Bash in LA.

His list:

Libby, Jump Pack, Unleash Rage, Shield
Libby, Jump Pack, Unleash Rage, Shield
Furiouso Librarain Dread, Shield, Wings
5x Sanguinary Gaurd, 1 PF
2x Sang Priests, 2x PW, 2x Jump Pack
10 Assault Marines, 2x Meltagun, PF
10 Assault Marines, 2x Meltagun, PF
9 Assault Marines, 1x Meltagun, PF

Definately has that DoA feel like my army but some intersting other choices that I looked forward to seeing how they played.

The mission was a mix of objectives as primary and kill points as secondary.  Spearhead deployment, 6 turns. 

I lost roll off so he made me go first.  I put everything in to drop.  So he decided to start on the board.  Then he went to steal the turn, and did.

So he spend turn 1 and turn 2 moving forward to get to this position.

On my turn 2 I got my Champs squad, my termies, my dread, and one both speeders.  One speeder landed on his guy but went back to reserves.  One speeder landed back a bit from where I wanted.  The termies landed closer than I wanted.  My dread I was hoping to land to get a rear shot on his libby dread but my pod landed in the way.  The EC went over by the dread to support him.  I should have still shot the dread with my dread, but for some reason I didn't, thinking the flamer might kills some FNP marines. LOL.  Shooting overall did nothing but maybe kill one guy.  My termies ran  to get fully in cover.

This is just the drop.

Now I've got no pictures for several turns, because the game was fun, but I was really on my back heel the whole time.

His turn 3 and his libby dread flew to assault my EC squad, where he would be tied up the remainder of the game.  His Sang gaurd and another squad charged my termies.  The other squad was not needed, the Sang Gaurd wounded 9 times and I failed more than enough Invul saves to kill the whole squad.  He had a squad melta the Dread but only stun him, so they assaulted and got tied up in combat.

My turn 3 and I think everything came down.   One troop dropped back a bit trying to stay a way out of charge range of his Sang Gaurd squad.  My speeders moved to relative safety and the other speeder dropped down safe as well (they may have MM a marine or two).  My Marshal squad landed to try to support the EC in combat with the libby dread next turn.  Another troop I put on the farthest objective in my zone.  In combat my dread killed a few more marines but his fist popped my DCCW.  My own fist only managed to stun his libby dread and he killed a marine.

His turn 4 and he decides to send his Sang Gaurd after the Marhal Squad.  He killed everybody but I think the Melta marine and the PF (after my fearless saves), the Marshal I think took a wound, but my Marshal popped off 3 Sang Gaurd.  One of his free troops charged my troops on the rear objectives and does a real number, leaving maybe 2 or 3 guys and managed to pop the Drop pod.  His other troops tried moving toward my last free troop unit and I think whiffed melta shots against a speeder.  My Dread keeps fighting his guys but we are still locked in combat.  Same for the Libby dread who pops one more guy but we still stick around fearless.

My turn 4 and I remember I have a camera!  I was able to move both speeders and my free troop unit down to lay fire on his non FNP troop and really whittled them down a lot.  I charged them with my troops and I still took losses but was able to clear them out to a man and moved to get in cover.

His other troop squad wiped the rest of my squad and consolidated.

Meanwhile my dread keeps fighting with one attack, and now is immobilized to boot so grenades are now against WS.  His Libby dread kills another guy and is whittling down my troops.  Damn AV13 means my EC can't do a thing!  My Marshal manages to only kill one Sang Gaurd (DOH!) and my fist fails to kill his priest.  However it turns out my Marshal makes his saves and his priest only manages 1 wound killing my melta guy, and I make my fearless save.

His turn 5 and I promptly forget about the camera again!  His roaming unit hops toward my stragglers and amazingly his priest dies to jumping out of terrain.  He's not able to get in assault range  the way the pod and LS are positioned so he shoots them and maybe kills one.  He finally is able to kill my dread with his fist and he moves his unit a bit to go off toward an objective.  His libby dread kills another guy or two.  But the critical part for me is that his priest kills my PF, so I can't kill his Priest this turn and the Marshal kills off the last Sang Guard, and is now locked with the priest.

My turn 5.  I try the double flamer and shoot with my remaining troops at his unit but it doesn't go quite as well as the last time I tried.  I don't think I bothered charging as I would have to go through cover and he'd strike first.  In CC my marshal finally pops his last Priest and his libby dread kills another guy but I only stun him.

His turn 6.  His unit that killed the dread hops over to an objective.  His other free troop charges my last troops and kills them.  His libby dread kills another marine.

My turn 6 and I'm hurt.  I move on speeder up to flame and melta one unit hoping maybe I'll get lucky and break them or something.  I kill a guy or two but they hold, but we end up contesting there.

Meanwhile my other speeder blasts up to contest his troop that have squatted on an objective.  The last big thing is my marshal charges his libby dread.  He directs the attacks to the marhal, but I make my one Invul save to avoid being force weapon-ed to death.  If I can kill the libby dread my troops can move to the objective (they might even be within 3 now).

But despite being able to pen him once I think I only immobilized him.  It was a great game, and I like games that come down to a few dice rolls.

I had killed: Sang Garud, Sang Pried x2 (with help from terrain), and one troop.  4 kp
He had killed: Dreadnought, Terminators, 3 Troops, One drop pod. 6 kp

I thought that was respectable given he had 9 kp to give up and I had 16. :p

Since I could not kill the libby dread to claim a Major Victory for objectives without more kp, he received a Minor Victory for having the same objectives and Killpoints.

So I took my minor loss on the chin, it was a great game, and then drew my buddy Jason's bugs for Game 2.