2000pts Imperial Guard vs. Blood Angels
Had a fun throw-down with a good friend… I played my as yet unfinished Imperial Guard army, he played my Blood Angels army.
- The mission was ‘Crusade’ (objectives) and I eeked out a victory by one point.
- He achieved first blood and line breaker for 2 points
- I held a single uncontested objective for 3 points, and he held none.
- Although now that I think about it he could have simply moved Dante to his backfied objective (he rolled ‘immovable object’ on the personal warlord traits table and was thus a scoring unit) and he would have won by two points.
- So… ‘technically’ I won but ‘really’ he won. :)
I’m still learning the rules so there was lots of looking things up… battle too probably 4-5 hours total. I think we hit 90% of the rules though (still haven’t done anything Psychic and no monstrous creatures, but covered pretty much everything else).
Great fun!
List Summary:
Blood Angels
- 5 Assault Terminators in a land raider redeemer
- Storm Raven, twinlinked lascannons, hurricane bolters, hunter/killer misiles, twin-linked heavy bolter.
- 1 squad of 6 assault marines
- 1 squad of 8 assault marines
- vindicator
- Furioso dreadnought in a drop pod with whirlwind missile launcher
- Contemptor dreadnought with a Kheres Assault Cannon & Melta Gun
- Dante
Imperial Guard
- Ordinance battery with 2 Basilisks and 1 Medusa
- Leman Russ Squadron with 2 Battle Tanks and 1 demolisher
- 2 Vendettas
- 2 Platoons (platoon command squad, 2x units of lasgun troopers).
- 1 of the platoons has two chimeras
- 1 of the platoons command squads has a single auto-cannon heavy weapons team
- 1 company command squad with Astropath, Master of Ordinance, Commander of the Fleet
- 1 manticore
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1500pt Orks vs Blood Angels
I fielded my recently purchased, beautiful Ork army against my buddy playing my blood angels. Because I don’t get to play much the game was mostly learning the rules… but I had a great time! The Orks definitely have LOTS of dakka… but the list I brought mostly maxed at strength 6 & 7, which couldn’t touch the land raider or the dreadnoughts. The deff rolla’s show promise though, now that I know how to use them! (D6 S10 attacks is nothing to sneeze at!).
Dakka Dakka Waaaagh!
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Game 8: At Ease Games Final League Battle!
And I (sort of) fielded the reaver titan Saevus Verum!!!
While my 1500 points of blood angels faired poorly… Mostly do some very effective Dark Eldar (Allen!) dropping in on my flank and punching lots of painful, nasty holes in my army in the first two turns… my Reaver Titan walked the battlefield!! W00t!!!
Our tournament organizer, Josh, controlled the Reaver at the end of each turn (after all other 8+ players resolved their player turns). It was fun putting the apoc barrage template down… while it did do lots of damage, the dice rolls definitely still matter and many of the troops/squads targeted were remarkably resilient to the apocalypse missile launcher.
On the bottom of turn 4 or 5 (I’m not sure as I was tabled at the bottom of 3), Saevus Verum was finally reduced to 0 hull points and Josh rolled a ‘6’ on the catastrophic damage table… BOOOM!!! reactor meltdown = 6xD6 strength ‘D’ AP2 hit. This was especially brutal on the two blood angels players who had lots of troops near the Titan (I feel slightly bad, but what a great narrative!!!).
In any case, I had a great time… even won the ‘best sportsman’ league award. Everyone at the shop has been really frikken cool…and patient with me as I learn the rules. I’m really enjoying the ‘gaming’ side of 40k… only problem now is that my painting isn’t going as fast! :)
Folks measuring out…24″ (if I remember correctly) from the Titan to see who got hit by the reactor meltdown.
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Game 7: 2k vs. Chaos!
Had a lot of fun playing Mike and Jay. Lost the line breaker and kill the warlord objectives, but took ‘first blood’ tertiary.
Have to think what I’d do differently… wasn’t that close and I should be doing better.
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Game 6: Tyranid Swarm!!!
HUGE game. 3 players with 2k points each (Me, Jim, Mark) against a single Tyranid player (Josh) running approx. 4k of ‘nids. Josh looks to be the best w40k player at At Ease Games… he knows almost all model stats by memory, is super fast at gaming (hard for me to keep up), but a really great player/opponent. I had tons of fun! We ran out of time (the store closes at turn 11)… my 2k points were essentially tabled (killed) by what I think was the top of turn 4. The ‘nids went after my three assault squads first, neutralized them, then knocked them out. Josh definitely knows what he’s doing.
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Game 5: My Nemesis!
I demo’ed warhammer 40k with a friend from work (Mr. A). I was 0/3 playing him in WarmaHordes, now I’m 0/4 across two different game systems!
We played 1 HQ, 2 troops, 1 elite, and 1 dedicated transport (razorback) each. The game went about 3 hours… but in me ‘teaching’ the game I actually learned quite a lot. I enjoyed the game, and so did Mr. A., but not enough to hook him into painting up an entire army.
Oh… and Sanguinar can’t hurt a contempt or pattern dreadnought. :/
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Game 4: VICTORY
(Image by Eddie Sharam)
Wow, big game tonight! 2v2. My partner was Chris (taught me w40k in game 1!) and I (blood angels) took on a Tau and Eldar pair (Mark & Ryan, respectively).
The game lasted a solid 4 hours (4k points is a lot of action!) and we tied on primary (control a center objective) and secondary (messenger) but won on kill points (tertiary).
I actually did okay! Learned a lot (as usual), am now starting to think through the ‘points efficiency’ of my models. For example, I had a drop pod with a furioso (170 points) that took out a fire prism (115) so was not a good trade. However, it did soak up a two rounds of ranged attacks from a unit of fire warriors and a unit of plasma crisis suits. (120 its + 240?)…. so It soaked up 360 points of damage, killed 170 points of damage (530) and cost 170 points. Worth it??? YES!!! (I think??).
Anyhow, having fun playing the game!
-Justin
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Game 3: 1250 Blood Angels & Tau vs. Chaos & Eldar
My parter was a Tau player, Will. Opponents were Mark (Eldar) & Mike (Chaos Space Marines).
We lost the roll to decide who chooses deployment order, our opponents went first. It was interesting… we rolled off TWICE with both sides rolling snake eyes, finally on the third roll of there was another 1 (us) and a 5 (them).
We got hit HARD with an alpha strike. I lost my vindicator and my dreadnought at the very top of turn 1… which meant that 15% of my army didn’t do anything before dying. I also choose to deep strike my two assault squads… so there weren’t a lot of models on the table in turn 1 which meant we soaked up a bunch of pain right off the bat.
Time to rethink my list, moving away from a DOA strategy… maybe mechanized assault.
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Game 2: 1.3K Blood Angels 2v2 Tau
W00T! My second game!
It was a team game… my ally was Joe, playing Dark Angels. My opponents were Ryan and Jim, both fielding what ended up to be very mean and shooty Tau.
While me and my fellow space marine lost in actual ‘victory points’ I learned a LOT and had great fun.
A quick synopsis and lessons learned from the battle…
- The 3 man squad of Tau XV-88 broadsides with with shield drones and rail guns HURT. Between the other shooty units doing some damage and the 6 railgun hits (AP1/2) my assault squad wasn’t able to close into assault after deep striking in. I’m not sure how to counter this and need to think this through.
- I need to bring a regular tape measure…the fabric one I have isn’t great for 40k.
- I need to write my name on all my stuff…when theres 12 players all with rulebooks and gear out, it can get a bit confusing.
- Dreadnoughts are slow and while tough, haven’t been relevant until late game when the tide is already not in my favor. I need to either drop-pod them in and hope they survive an enemy round of shooting… and/or order the lucius pattern drop pod from Forgeworld.
- The contemptor patter dreadnoughts 5+ shooty invulnerable saved ended up being worth it!
- When I WAS able to charge into assault with my assault marines…the Tau dropped like flies.
- I purchased a $12 brand new combination blast/spray template, put it in my back pocket, then sat down. I now have 1 template in two pieces. :/
- I still need to study assault rules & vehicle rules. I have movement and shooting phases more or less down (although I still have to ask for opponents toughness and think for 5-10 seconds on to wound roles in the shooting phase.
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Game 1: 2k Blood Angels vs. Space Marines Battle Report
My first game of war hammer 40K! I went on down to At Ease Games in Poway. I entered the league for $10 (although not sure what being in the league means?) and was matched against Chris, who was running a mech heavy space marines list. (Thank you Chris for your patience and teaching me the basics of 40K!)
As this was my first game, I lost BADLY. I was tabled at the top of turn 5. Here are some of my lessons learned:
- Holding 70% of my army in reserve for deep strike, even with descent of angels, was a bad idea. (I kept on failing on my reserve roles)
- Remember to roll for ‘red thirst’
- When deep striking, you have to do it well away from cover and the table edge… and your squad arrives in a nicely packed group that fits nicely under the large blast template (not good). Sanguinary priests are more of a must here.
- My ‘shooty’ terminators weren’t so great against assault terminators.
- To hit is easy to remember.
- I’m starting to understand/remember the ‘to wound’ chart in my head but not the toughness of all the models.
- I need to study the assault rules at length.
- The ‘Master of the Forge’ and ‘Vulcan’ (need to look up in more detail) hurt me badly.
- Remember to pop smoke on the predator and vindicator when appropriate.
- I forgot to take my contempt or pattern dreadnought, even though he was in my list!
30mm Madness! 