SoR Batrep: Blood Angels vs. Crimson Slaughter 1500 points

At our local FLGS, a friend and myself came up with a 7th edition tournament format which uses a combination of Eternal War missions and modified maelstrom objectives similar to BAO however more in-line with 7th edition.  We wanted to ensure we could maintain a competitive atmosphere yet still feel like participants were playing 7th edition.

 

In this battle report, we had 6 tactical objectives numbered.  Three of these doubled as crusade objectives. One in each deployment zone and a randomly chosen one in the neutral zone.  Crusade serves as the primary mission worth 4 points.  Winner of the maelstrom missions wins the secondary mission which is 3 points.  First blood, slay the warlord, and line breaker each count for separate points, for a total of up to 10 points available.

 

At the start of the first turn, the player who goes first, generates 3 tactical objectives off our modified table (which I'll post later in a separate entry) and these points are scored at the end of the player turn, unlike BAO where they are scored at the end of the game turn.

 

Enough about the missions, let's get to the armies.

 

Blood Angels (Flesh Tearers Strike Force Detachment) 1500

HQ: Librarian with jump pack, force sword, ML 2 (pyromancy), Sanguinary Priest with jump pack, power sword

 

Elites: 5 man death company with jump packs chainsword/bolt pistol x4, 1 thunderhammer, 5 man death company with jump packs, chainsword/bolt pistol x3, 1 powersword, 1 power fist, 1 death company dread with blood talons

 

Troops

5 man tac squad with heavy flamer in a rhino with dozer blade

 

Fast Attack: 8 man assault squad with 2 meltas, powerfist on the sgt

 

Imperial Knight allied Knight Errant

 

Chaos Space Marines: Crimson Slaughter (Combined Arms Detachment) 1500

HQ: Chaos lord with mark of khorne, sigil, demonheart, blade of the relentless

Sorcerer ML3 no mark, no upgrades

 

Elites: 3 man chaos terminator squad with combi-meltas/power fists, power axe on champion, 5 man chosen with preferred enemy upgrade with plasma in a rhino

 

Troops: 9 Chaos marines with bolt pistols/chainswords, power fist/plasma pistol on champion with Mark of Khorne in rhino, 9 Chaos marines unmarked with plasma gun, power fist/plasma pistol on champion

 

Fast Attack: Heldrake, 4 chaos spawn with mark of nurgle

 

Heavy: Maulerfiend with lasher tendrils

 

The idea here for my opponent was to use the sorcerer to summon on bloodletters and other daemon nasties. 

 

Pre-game rolls; He gets the infiltrate warlord trait from the strategic table. My warlord trait is FNP for warlord from Exterminatus table.

 

Psychic Powers: He rolls all on daemonology mainly to get summoning, but none of the other powers are really useful.  My librarian gets all pyromancy powers (no fire shield sadly).

 

Roll for sides and table edges (dawn of war deployment).  He chooses the side, but I get to deploy and take turn 1.

 

I set my knight in the center so I could get where I needed to get with him, depending on how he deployed.  On my far right flank I deployed the rhino, and to the left of the knight, I deployed the 8 man assault squad with librarian and priest.  Everything else was in reserve.

 

Chaos player deploys a squad of chaos marines in a ruin along with his sorcerer.  He then infiltrates the spawn, chosen, and the close combat marines behind line of sight blocking terrain.  He tries to sieze the initiative to steal turn 1, but fails to do so.

 

Blood Angels turn 1:

 

My assault squad moves up 12" and runs along the far left table edge.  The knight moves up so he can see around the building to shoot at the infiltrated rhinos.  The knight hits them both with his ordnance blast as they were parked next to each other managing to immobilize the rhino with the close combat squad in it. 

 

Crimson Slaughter turn 1:

 

My knight is approaching mid-field and threatening his lines.  He moves the maulerfiend up but not enough to get a good charge on turn 1.  Chosen wheel around for a couple of shots on the knight with their plasma.  Spawn move up the far flank where my rhino and tac marines are left by themselves on a crusade objective.  Thanks to the infiltrate, he was able to get within striking distance of the rhino, but he would end up failing the charge roll.  During the psychic phase, the sorcerer summons in a squad of 10 bloodletters and positions them between the knight and his back line.  They run in an effort to screen and box him in.  The close combat squad disembarks and moves along behind the spawn to provide support later.

 

Blood Angels turn 2:

 

Both squads of death company arrive via deep strike, however the stormraven does not arrive.  My tactical marines disembark into a ruin while the rhino moves along 24" up the flank towards his table edge. Behind them after a bad scatter, and along the far right board edge, one of the death company squads arrives.  The other death company squad arrives near the imperial knight.  Assault squad moves on up the flank positioning to charge the space marines and his sorcerer.  Imperial knight has no choice but to charge the bloodletters as they are in the way.  He manages to wipe them out after their demonic instability test giving me First Blood.  The assault squad makes the charge on the chaos marines squad.  With the combination of WS 5, a ton of attacks, and furious charge, I wipe this squad and the sorcerer out with relative ease. This, however, leaves me exposed for the incoming heldrake.

 

Crimson Slaughter turn 2:

 

Heldrake and terminators arrive from reserve.  Heldrake flies in at a sharp angle near his table edge to flame my assault squad.  The terminators deep strike in behind the knight.  Spawn move up for the charge on the far side against my tacticals.  The remaining chaos marine squad moves over to secure a tactical objective.  The chosen wheel around and disembark to shoot up the death company right in front of them.  Maulerfiend moves up and sets to counter charge my knight now.  After some combi-melta hits from the terminators, he takes a hull point off of the knight.  Plama chosen with preferred enemy wipe the squad of death company to a single model.  The heldrake kils only a couple of assault marines with the baleflamer thanks to Feel No Pain.  Spawn charge into my tacticals and the maulerfiend assaults the knight.

 

I felt the game would go downhill for me after this.  Fortunately his spawn dealt no wounds to my tactical squad.  The other combat, however, was not so good for me. Because of the lasher tendrils on the maulerfiend I only made a single attack against it, which missed.  He then proceeds to hit the knight 3 times, penetrating 3 times, and on the subsequent damage results got an explosion for another d3 hull points.  He does 5 hull points of damage to the knight, killing it.  The catastrophic explosion scatters over to my death company marine killing him, and doing nothing to the maulerfiend.  Imperial Knight is officially out of the game on turn 2.

 

Blood Angels turn 3:

Stormraven finally arrives. I had my units positioned in such a way that the heldrake's flame wouldn't be much of a factor on turn 3, so I focused my shooting from the raven into the mauler fiend killing it.  Assault squad jumps out of the ruins, and charges into the chosen squad, finishing them off.  Death company on the far side get a great charge roll and manage to bail out the tactical marines. They kill a couple of spawn but remain locked in combat.  Overall a solid turn.

 

Crimson Slaughter turn 3:

 

At this point, the left flank has pretty much collapsed for my opponent. He moves his terminators up, but as the knight is now dead, they are out of the fight essentially as there are no more units in the area except the stormraven which is zooming.  Heldrake seeing no viable targets, wisely flies off the table to avoid dying to the stormraven on turn 4.  The close combat marine squad and warlord move up to the center to secure a tactical objective.  I manage to finish off the spawn on his turn moving the death company out to get ready to assault his marines and warlord.

 

Blood Angels turn 4.

 

This is where it begins to look grim for my opponent.  I drop the raven into hover and disembark the dread with talons. I position my raven to get a good line of sight onto both remaining rhinos.  Tactical squad moves in to flame the chaos marines, with the death company on the right ready to charge and the assault marines behind ready to charge as well.  Dreadnought manages to kill off the terminators in assault.  The raven shoots and with power of the machine spirit is able to strip the final hull points off each rhino.  The death company and assault squad charge into the chaos marines.  They have counter attack so the battle is fairly bloody. I lose a couple of marines, and he loses the majority of the squad. He's unable to wound my priest with his chaos lord in the challenge, however with his 2+ save he easily deflects the hits.

 

Crimson Slaughter turn 4:

 

Heldrake flies back onto the board and flames the tactical squad, forcing a morale check and the remaining marine breaks and begins to run away, back to my crusade objective. The combat continues and I manage to kill off the remaining chaos marines and put a wound on his chaos lord from the challenge. He wounds the priest as well.

 

Blood Angels turn 5:

 

I move my stormraven up to shoot the drake.  I force a jink but he still takes a glancing hit.  The combat continues but the 2+ save is bailing his lord out. He takes another wound.

 

Crimson Slaughter turn 5:

 

He can't afford to move the heldrake off the table, so he moves up to my table edge exposing his rear armor. He vector strikes the lone remaining tac marine killing him.  Finally, his chaos lord falls and my units consolidate towards the drake.  The rhino moves over to grab a crusade objective.

 

We roll the die and the game continues.

 

Blood Angels turn 6:

 

I put the raven in hover, and move up the assault squad with a single melta gun remaining.  I manage to get a snap shot lascannon from the raven onto the rear armor, glancing the drake.  He fails the jink.  My assault marine melta gun snap fires into the drake, penetrating it. He again fails the jink, and crashes.  The game ends.

 

Blood Angels 10-0 over Crimson Slaughter after the tabling.

 

Thoughts on the game afterwards:

 

The speed of the Blood Angels was too much for the Crimson Slaughter.  Summoning the bloodletters to screen the knight from a huge charge was smart.  As a result, he was able to charge the knight with maulerfiend on his turn and kill the knight.  That was a what the hell just happened moment and I couldn't believe what happened.  Honestly, I felt that was a turning point in the game I might not be able to recover from.  Then on my subsequent turn I saw that the table was set for me to pull it out.  There were some poor rolls to be sure on the chaos side, and the lucky hits off the snapfire taking the drake down at the end was unlikely.  In several games now with the new codex, it seems apparent to me that a Sanguinary Priest with an assault squad makes for a very formidable force.  They hit like a ton of bricks with WS5 and Strength 5 on the charge.  And if you use the Baal Strike Force they can be even better at initiative 5 on the charge.  I wanted to get fire shield on my librarian just to help get that unit across the board, but it wasn't the case and I moved them along the board edge to prevent his army from being able to fire on them.

 

There's a lot of power in the codex to be had.  This army performs very well on the table and relies less on the crutch of needing a CAD to work.  In all the games I've played with them, win or lose, there are very few models left on my opponent's side.  This was the first time I managed to pull off the tabling with the new codex.  Overall it was an impressive showing for the Blood Angels.