April 5th, 2010 -- Blood Angels
This Monday I played Brandon with a 1750 point version of my Mech AC list. This was his first attempt at playing his new Blood Angels and had been doing some research on them for about a week prior to our game. He told me and I quote: "I want you to ream my ass out. Play me as you would if this was a tournament." So, I granted his wish. I did give him a couple stipulations though, he had to be at least semi-mechanized (since I would have crushed a foot list) and he couldn't list tailor to me (he was to build an All-comers list). He presented me with this 1750 point list: 1 Librarian, 2 Priests, 3x 10-man Assault Squads (1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, 1 hand flamer) in Rhinos, 3x 5-man Assault Squads (1 meltagun and 1 power fist), and 3 Baal Predators with Flamestorm Cannons and Heavy Bolter sponsons. The priests and librarian would ride with the 5-man squads. I let him know right off the bat, that he was sorely lacking in the long ranged firepower department but he elected to see how the list played.
Miraculously, we rolled another 6 to get a random mission from the new Battle Missions book. Brandon rolled a 35, so we would be playing "Flank Attack". I ended up being the attacker so I placed my objective in the required place and deployed my three Predators in the center of my deployment zone, outflanked my transports, and reserved the Land Speeders. While this seems to be a big advantage to outflank, it is only a slight buff to my plans as he had zero ranged AT. So I would have been at the same spot if I hadn't reserved anything. Brandon put his two objectives where they were supposed to go, and then deployed in what best can be called a Roman Numeral Three ( III ) pattern in the center of his deployment zone. He placed the Baals in front of each column, then the 10 man assault squads next, then finally the 5 man assault squads in the back of the columns away from me. Right before the game started, he made his scout moves with his Baal predators to drive directly forward to block some LOS for my predators. Additionally, he got 'Red Thirst' on 4 of his 6 assault squads.
First turn was a very critical one for me. My predators were masterful in taking advantage of Brandon's very poor deployment choices. When my three predators were done firing, the two front rhinos with 10 man squads were wrecked and the other front rhino was stunned. Not bad to start off. He proceeded to try and get out of his rhino blocked mess by moving his back rhinos to claim his two objectives with a priest/assault squad going to his right flank (my left) and the two other IC's & squads went to his left flank (my right) to capture. Brandon also moved the assault squads in foot to support the two different objectives. He then moved his Baals forward to be 1" from the front of my own predators and proceeded to fire the flamestorm cannons and heavy bolters at my side armor. Because of some bad math, we accidentally let the heavy bolters penetrate my armor (when they couldn't) so he stunned and destroyed an autocannon on one of my predators (right most one).
Next turn, I got only one of my Land Speeders from reserve. Not so good. But, it did make do its job when it came back on the board. Between the fire of my predators and the Land speeder, I destroyed two Baal Predators and one of the 5-man assault squad Rhinos. I believe Brandon was starting to see why long range fire was important. He used his turn to consolidate his forces on the objectives and to move the lone surviving 10-man assault squad rhino (henceforth squad #1) forward to my objective. He gained another turn of insignificant shooting, using our newly discovered math skills.
This turn, I got everything from reserve minus one Land Speeder. I chose to outflank my two of my rhinos/LRC on his right flank as that objective was the least defended. Moved them max distance forward, leaving them about 14" away from the objective. The last rhino moved to claim my objective. My other Land Speeder came on the board and shot the last Baal predator down. Unfortunately, only one of the 3 Baals had exploded so where blocking my front LOS to his forces. Fortunately, my side sponsons still had decent shots at everything so I made use of them by destroying another two rhinos, including the one with the 10-man assault squad rhino that was charging at me. With he only had one left, and it was out of LOS behind a ruin where the objective was. Brandon continued to move towards his objectives and his forces finally reached his left flank one. On the other side, he disembarked the last rhino on the objective and then sped it forward to rhino block my LRC. He moved squad #1 into possible position for charging one of my speeders. He barely made the charge, but missed all his attacks as the speeder had moved 12" the past turn.
Turn four was another big one for me. I got my last remaining Land Speeder and deployed it. This was the turn of the tank shots from hell. Knowing that Brandon was fearless on most of his squads, I chose to tank shock them. My land speeder that had been assaulted tank shocked squad #1 and if it wasn't brought down, it would hit another squad on his left flank objective. Because they are fearless, they automatically pass the test. However, they also can last stand. Well, because of poor rolling, Brandon lost TWO last stand meltagun users from two different squads from one Land Speeder. My other land speeder on that side of the board also tank shocked squad #1 and he failed to stop it again. On my right side, the LRC disembarked the terminators. It then destroyed the rhino blocking its way, but was unable to blow it up. The rhinos also put in a tank shock of their own, killing yet another meltagun user each, but stopped one of my rhinos from double tank shocking when the second squad stunned it a couple inches short of the objective. Brandon's gambles did not pay off there. 5 dead marines armed with his only AT fire, just from Tank Shocking. Pretty good for me. My predators started to wittle down the marines sitting on his left flank, primarily because that was the only good shot left to them because of LOS issues. My terminators moved up and assaulted the large assault squad that was on his right flank, and quickly put them back in their foam. His turn consisted of destroying my previously tank shocking Land Speeders and immobilizing the last one. His squad #1 moved within 6" of my objective, but fortunately I had my crusader squad sitting on it.
This was a key turn, as I needed to kill the stuff on or near two objectives to secure the win. I continued the fire of my Predators at Brandon's left flank squads, getting one squad down to one man but because he had another full squad over there, he still controlled it. With my one crusader squad on my objectie, I managed to kill his squad #1 while losing only two neophytes and secured my objective. However, the fight for his right flank objective was not so lucky. I pretty much wrecked his squad with the priest with my Emperor's Champion crusader squad charge, leaving only the Priest to fight on. However, when I rolled my last two power fist attacks against the priest, I failed miserably on the wounding rolls (snake eyes). The priest failed the resulting moral check, fell back but regrouped 7" away from my units. He didn't have a whole lot of options left at this point, so he just moved the 6" forward to contest that last objective and fired pretty ineffectively with whatever was in range his bolt pistols/bolters. The game ended after this turn and resulted in a draw.
Final Thoughts:
Brandon had two big mistakes in this game. The first was his deployment. It allowed me to effectively block his rhinos from advancing to my objectives after I wrecked the front ones in turn one. This was critical, as it forced an extremely fast army to play a slower pace that matched my army's speed. At this point, I had the edge from the get-go and he was forced to play reactively for the remainder of the game. The second really big mistake he had was to charge up his Baals so close to my predators. His Baals were poorly suited to AT roles, whereas mine could easily destroy his. It was a poor plan and gave me easy kills when he presented his side armor to my sponson guns. He also hurt himself quite a bit by not having any long range AT fire as Jeremy and I suggested (he also asked Jeremy's opinion of the list before the game). After those things happened, he really just went with the flow of the game. Made some bad rolls, but some good ones as well during the course of the game so there was no way this could be blamed on bad rolling.
I, on the other hand, should have just deployed on the board from the start. Outflanking ended up hurting me more, as I didn't get most of my units until turn 3. I would have been closer to the objectives had I been on the board and in better position to contest the last objective. However, it wasn't such a huge loss as I pulled every trick in the book out on Brandon to show the types of things that an opponent can do to him. The tank shocking worked out better than I could have ever hoped for, but I got a bit unlucky when he managed to stun my rhino just short of the objective. Because of terrain and my other rhino, there was very limited space for me to get things out and assault. Ultimately, this was a big contributing factor to the draw game result, as I was only able to get the EC's squad into combat. Mind you, I did fail horribly on the power fist rolling, but I cannot blame it on that. If I had been able to disembark my other crusader squad, I would have easily killed the priest and won the game. In the end, I only lost two Land Speeders and two Neophytes, plus some damage to my predators and the other land speeder. Brandon lost 90% of his forces and the game was pretty much a massacre that he was barely able to squeak out a draw in. Such is life. Good game overall and I hope he learned some valuable lessons about his army (and not to ask me to be ultra-competitive when he's learning his army!).
Miraculously, we rolled another 6 to get a random mission from the new Battle Missions book. Brandon rolled a 35, so we would be playing "Flank Attack". I ended up being the attacker so I placed my objective in the required place and deployed my three Predators in the center of my deployment zone, outflanked my transports, and reserved the Land Speeders. While this seems to be a big advantage to outflank, it is only a slight buff to my plans as he had zero ranged AT. So I would have been at the same spot if I hadn't reserved anything. Brandon put his two objectives where they were supposed to go, and then deployed in what best can be called a Roman Numeral Three ( III ) pattern in the center of his deployment zone. He placed the Baals in front of each column, then the 10 man assault squads next, then finally the 5 man assault squads in the back of the columns away from me. Right before the game started, he made his scout moves with his Baal predators to drive directly forward to block some LOS for my predators. Additionally, he got 'Red Thirst' on 4 of his 6 assault squads.
First turn was a very critical one for me. My predators were masterful in taking advantage of Brandon's very poor deployment choices. When my three predators were done firing, the two front rhinos with 10 man squads were wrecked and the other front rhino was stunned. Not bad to start off. He proceeded to try and get out of his rhino blocked mess by moving his back rhinos to claim his two objectives with a priest/assault squad going to his right flank (my left) and the two other IC's & squads went to his left flank (my right) to capture. Brandon also moved the assault squads in foot to support the two different objectives. He then moved his Baals forward to be 1" from the front of my own predators and proceeded to fire the flamestorm cannons and heavy bolters at my side armor. Because of some bad math, we accidentally let the heavy bolters penetrate my armor (when they couldn't) so he stunned and destroyed an autocannon on one of my predators (right most one).
Next turn, I got only one of my Land Speeders from reserve. Not so good. But, it did make do its job when it came back on the board. Between the fire of my predators and the Land speeder, I destroyed two Baal Predators and one of the 5-man assault squad Rhinos. I believe Brandon was starting to see why long range fire was important. He used his turn to consolidate his forces on the objectives and to move the lone surviving 10-man assault squad rhino (henceforth squad #1) forward to my objective. He gained another turn of insignificant shooting, using our newly discovered math skills.
This turn, I got everything from reserve minus one Land Speeder. I chose to outflank my two of my rhinos/LRC on his right flank as that objective was the least defended. Moved them max distance forward, leaving them about 14" away from the objective. The last rhino moved to claim my objective. My other Land Speeder came on the board and shot the last Baal predator down. Unfortunately, only one of the 3 Baals had exploded so where blocking my front LOS to his forces. Fortunately, my side sponsons still had decent shots at everything so I made use of them by destroying another two rhinos, including the one with the 10-man assault squad rhino that was charging at me. With he only had one left, and it was out of LOS behind a ruin where the objective was. Brandon continued to move towards his objectives and his forces finally reached his left flank one. On the other side, he disembarked the last rhino on the objective and then sped it forward to rhino block my LRC. He moved squad #1 into possible position for charging one of my speeders. He barely made the charge, but missed all his attacks as the speeder had moved 12" the past turn.
Turn four was another big one for me. I got my last remaining Land Speeder and deployed it. This was the turn of the tank shots from hell. Knowing that Brandon was fearless on most of his squads, I chose to tank shock them. My land speeder that had been assaulted tank shocked squad #1 and if it wasn't brought down, it would hit another squad on his left flank objective. Because they are fearless, they automatically pass the test. However, they also can last stand. Well, because of poor rolling, Brandon lost TWO last stand meltagun users from two different squads from one Land Speeder. My other land speeder on that side of the board also tank shocked squad #1 and he failed to stop it again. On my right side, the LRC disembarked the terminators. It then destroyed the rhino blocking its way, but was unable to blow it up. The rhinos also put in a tank shock of their own, killing yet another meltagun user each, but stopped one of my rhinos from double tank shocking when the second squad stunned it a couple inches short of the objective. Brandon's gambles did not pay off there. 5 dead marines armed with his only AT fire, just from Tank Shocking. Pretty good for me. My predators started to wittle down the marines sitting on his left flank, primarily because that was the only good shot left to them because of LOS issues. My terminators moved up and assaulted the large assault squad that was on his right flank, and quickly put them back in their foam. His turn consisted of destroying my previously tank shocking Land Speeders and immobilizing the last one. His squad #1 moved within 6" of my objective, but fortunately I had my crusader squad sitting on it.
This was a key turn, as I needed to kill the stuff on or near two objectives to secure the win. I continued the fire of my Predators at Brandon's left flank squads, getting one squad down to one man but because he had another full squad over there, he still controlled it. With my one crusader squad on my objectie, I managed to kill his squad #1 while losing only two neophytes and secured my objective. However, the fight for his right flank objective was not so lucky. I pretty much wrecked his squad with the priest with my Emperor's Champion crusader squad charge, leaving only the Priest to fight on. However, when I rolled my last two power fist attacks against the priest, I failed miserably on the wounding rolls (snake eyes). The priest failed the resulting moral check, fell back but regrouped 7" away from my units. He didn't have a whole lot of options left at this point, so he just moved the 6" forward to contest that last objective and fired pretty ineffectively with whatever was in range his bolt pistols/bolters. The game ended after this turn and resulted in a draw.
Final Thoughts:
Brandon had two big mistakes in this game. The first was his deployment. It allowed me to effectively block his rhinos from advancing to my objectives after I wrecked the front ones in turn one. This was critical, as it forced an extremely fast army to play a slower pace that matched my army's speed. At this point, I had the edge from the get-go and he was forced to play reactively for the remainder of the game. The second really big mistake he had was to charge up his Baals so close to my predators. His Baals were poorly suited to AT roles, whereas mine could easily destroy his. It was a poor plan and gave me easy kills when he presented his side armor to my sponson guns. He also hurt himself quite a bit by not having any long range AT fire as Jeremy and I suggested (he also asked Jeremy's opinion of the list before the game). After those things happened, he really just went with the flow of the game. Made some bad rolls, but some good ones as well during the course of the game so there was no way this could be blamed on bad rolling.
I, on the other hand, should have just deployed on the board from the start. Outflanking ended up hurting me more, as I didn't get most of my units until turn 3. I would have been closer to the objectives had I been on the board and in better position to contest the last objective. However, it wasn't such a huge loss as I pulled every trick in the book out on Brandon to show the types of things that an opponent can do to him. The tank shocking worked out better than I could have ever hoped for, but I got a bit unlucky when he managed to stun my rhino just short of the objective. Because of terrain and my other rhino, there was very limited space for me to get things out and assault. Ultimately, this was a big contributing factor to the draw game result, as I was only able to get the EC's squad into combat. Mind you, I did fail horribly on the power fist rolling, but I cannot blame it on that. If I had been able to disembark my other crusader squad, I would have easily killed the priest and won the game. In the end, I only lost two Land Speeders and two Neophytes, plus some damage to my predators and the other land speeder. Brandon lost 90% of his forces and the game was pretty much a massacre that he was barely able to squeak out a draw in. Such is life. Good game overall and I hope he learned some valuable lessons about his army (and not to ask me to be ultra-competitive when he's learning his army!).
