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Testing this list:

Blood Angels "Desecent of Angels" - 2,000 points

HQ

Librarian - jump pack, shield of sanguinus & unleash rage
Librarian - jump pack, shield of sanguinus & unleash rage
Honour Guard - jump packs & 4 x plasma guns

Elite

2 x Sanguinary Priests - jump packs

Troops

10 x Assault Marines - 2 x meltagun - sgt w/ power fist
10 x Assault Marines - 2 x meltagun - sgt w/ power fist
10 x Assault Marines - 2 x meltagun - sgt w/ power fist
10 x Assault Marines - 2 x flamers - sgt w/ power weapon

Fast Attack

5 x Vanguard Veterans - jump packs, infernus pistol, 2 x meltabombs - sgt w/ thunder hammer
5 x Vanguard Veterans - jump packs, infernus pistol, 2 x meltabombs - sgt w/ thunder hammer

Total: 2,000

Imperial Guard "Steel Lions" - 2,000 points

HQ

Company Command Squad w/ Chimera 4 x plasma guns
Company Command Squad w/ Chimera 3 x plasma guns

Troops

Veterans w/ Chimera 3 x meltaguns
Veterans w/ Chimera 3 x meltaguns
Veterans w/ Chimera 3 x meltaguns
Veterans w/ Chimera 3 x plasma guns
Veterans w/ Chimera 3 x plasma guns

Fast Attack

Vendetta
Vendetta
Hellhound

Heavy Support

Manticore heavy flamer
Manticore heavy flamer
Manticore heavy flamer

Total: 1,990

Game: Spearhead & Annilation

Deployment

Angels won the roll off and chosen to go second. Guard deployed top left corner putting Vendettas on the left table edge then a castle of armour with plasma units in the middle protected by meltas and the Chimeras against the board edge, the Hound was in terrain.

Turn 1

Nothing happens. Zero. Zip. Nothing

Turn 2

Guard move about spreading tanks to maximize deep strike mishaps using the terrain and board edge to help, all possible tanks pop smoke.

Angels call for reserves and both Vanguard units arrive, Honour Guard and a melta squad. Vanguard deep strike close to a melta Chimera and a Vendetta while the Honour Guard land near the Vanguard by the melta unit and the melta Assault Squad lands near another Vendetta - all units scatter but luckily not too far.

Shooting melta Assault Squad explodes a Vendetta after it fails cover saves a Marine from that unit and a Vanguard are hit in the eye by sharpnel and killed. Honour Guard blast the side armour of a Chimera but just score weapon destroyed breaking the heavy flamer. Vanguard fire at a Chimera and miss :(

Assault, Vanguard charge the Chimera and manage to stun it while the other Vanguard charge the other Vendetta and do nothing.

Turn 3

Guard mobilise moving into position to unleash a fury of plasma, melta, lasgun (oh noes!) and Manticore fire.

Shooting Vanguard which stunned the Chimera gets destroyed by plasma and heavy flamer, Honour Guard gets taken out by melta, plasma and heavy flamer and the other Vanguard get killed by plasma, Manticore and Vendetta. The sole surviving Assault Squad takes a battering from Manticore fire leaving half the unit left which luckily pass morale!

Angels call for reserves with all units coming down. A melta Assault Squads lands half in terrain (forgot to take dangerous terrain tests!) one lands near two Chimeras carrying plasma Veterans and the flamer unit comes down near another Chimera.

Shooting meltas fire at one of the plasma Veterans Chimeras and stuns it, melta squad in terrain fires at the Vendetta and does nothing. Battered melta squad fires at a Chimera and pops it, flamers unleash killing the squad inside.

Turn 4

Plasma Veterans bail out the two supporting Chimeras and aim at the melta Assault Squad which landed nearby, Vendetta moves about a bit as both CCS move into attack with melta support.

Shooting CCS issues first rank fire to two plasma Vet squads, one fails the order other passes ok both those units blast the Assault Squad to kingdom come. Battered Assault Squad gets hammered by plasma and Vendetta leaving three Marines left; they pass morale. Flamer unit with a Librarian attached gets blasted by melta and plasma, Librarian gets shield power off by several Marines die forcing a morale test, which is passed. Assault Squad in terrain with the other Librarian gets bombed by Manticores but all shots miss and do nothing - boo hoo.

Angels turn the squad in terrain walks out to blast the Vendetta as the battered melta squad moves to blast a CCS Chimera while the flamer squad goes towards a melta Veteran Chimera.

Shooting full strength melta Assault Squad fails to tackle the Vendetta via shooting, the other squad has more luck and makes the other go boom with just three Guardsmen of the CCS left; they pass morale and pinning test.

Assault flamer squad charges and blows up the Chimera losing a Marine in the explosion, Guardsmen get blasted by sharpnel but only two die and stick around. Melta squad charges the Vendetta and the Sgt smacks it with his power fist making it go boom, no Marines die this time. Battered melta squad charges the CCS leaving the Commander with two wounds though he stays in combat; hardcore!

Turn 5

Not a huge amount of movement from the Guard, Chimeras roll up to blast the Librarian and flamer Assault Squad which blown up a Chimera in assault.

Shooting CCS unleash plasma along with meltas and Manticore shots at the flamer Assault Squad but shield holds out and casualities are a minimum though the Librarian does take a wound. Manticores fire at the other melta squad which exploded the Vendetta but scatters and misses.

In assault the Commander holds his own and passes both armour saves! Unstoppable!

Angels turn melta Assault Squad moves up ready to blast a Chimera while the flamer squad mooches up close to burn the Veterans in their face.

Shooting a Chimera carrying melta Veterans gets popped by the melta squad, it explodes no Marines down but the Veterans aren't so lucky who take a lot of damage and fail morale and leg it. Flamer squad blasts the Veterans and they all die.

Assault the Angels finally kill the Commander.

Turn 6

The two plasma squads which nailed a melta Assault Squad eariler in game move round to finish off the battered melta Assault Squad which just killed the Commander.

Shooting plasmas fire at the battered Assault Squad but the Sgt toughs it out denying a kill point; hold on Sgt! Triple Manticores and remaining plasma, melta and heavy flamers fire at the Librarians flamer Assault Squad and wipes the squad out; the other melta squad also takes damage from Manticore fire, they pass morale and hang in the fight.

Angels turn the lone Sgt hangs it out in terrain while the melta squad moves to blow up the closest Chimera, that last CCS one which is just carrying the Commander as all plasma gunners are dead thanks to gets hot!

Shooting melta wrecks the Chimera, Commander passes morale.

Assault, the squad which wrecked the Chimera fails to move through terrain and the lucky Commander survives!

Blood Angels win with about 9 kill points to 6.

Summary

Feels a bit of a pyrrhic victory really as the Angels have about 5 Marines left and the Guard half the army. I don't think DoA works as good as people make out, as I've always suspected you don't get a good enough portion of the army down via deep strike to cause significant damage and with bad luck on scatters and the units actually coming down it meant FnP and shield was not really available which pro-longs the life of the Angels.

Vanguard are a bit gimmicky and one trick pony tbh. They didn't do a fat lot and both squads cost the same amount almost as a 10 man Assault Squad with dual flamers and a power weapon which can do more damage against infantry at least.

I got some bad luck with scatters and at the start not doing a fat lot but the Guard got cover saves on everything and Vanguard failed to do anything in assault. I was a bit disappointed with the DoA list, even though it won it felt hollow as it was a barely victory and the Guard had a lot more left. If it went to turn 7 the Angels no doubt probably would have been tabled. I tried infernus pistols again which are a pain in the arse to get into range, the extra melta shot helps though but it's rare I got it into 2D6 armour pen range, I think I did it once.

I think I am going to try a jumping list instead of deep striking with Devastator support and see how that goes.

Solid gauntlet to run those Angels through! Getting close to all those plasma and flamers is rough. I see the need for long range firepower.

Interesting report Mercer... thanks for taking the time!

kaiservonhugal wrote:Solid gauntlet to run those Angels through! Getting close to all those plasma and flamers is rough. I see the need for long range firepower.

I would in a jump list; not DoA. I'm more inclined to go jump list TBH with Dev support.

Gitsplitta wrote:Interesting report Mercer... thanks for taking the time!

Thanks man

Good to see you finally opted to deep strike the army for once. I think you should stick with a few more games and try to refine your tactics/deepstrike placements before you give up on it and throw in the towel. You did manage a slight win and to me that's a good start.

That's what I'm thinking mate. Refine it and get a couple of more tests as some was bad luck.

Looking forward to more of your reports, please to read.

Pics please Merc!

I think the list is pretty efficient, as well as the generalship. I surprisingly find my DoA list seems to struggle against Mech IG, which I thought I would do better with. Annihilation is a tough game with Mech IG and BA. Generally I would think if it weren't for Annihilation, you would of combat squadded and wrecked. But you adapted and overcame, congrats sir!

mech doa > normal doa

good game tho

Your opponent's army looks pretty much built to kill DoA - all that plasma and melta is dead on to bypass power armour/FNP. There's what, two Vendettas and two Manticores to kill anything at a reasonable range? A rough game against a massively tailored list doesn't write off the army concept.

Also, you're basing the whole 'you don't get enough' thing on a single game in which you seemed to have pretty poor dice. I know you don't 'get' stats from the other thread, but try and play at least a few games with it before declaring it doesn't work.

The Guard army isn't taliored. It's my normal Guard list and I was just testing it with DoA as it's a nightmare for Marines and Tyranids.

You obivously didn't read my last comment where I said I'd give it a few more tries..

Yep - missed that one!

n/p

I run a DOA list, Dante and Sang Guard, 2 Libby Dreads and 4 assualt squads, 1 5man in a drop pod, 1 5 man melta and 2 ten man squads, with and a few sang priests. I found myself that the dreads scare the daylights out of someone, and can ignore a lot of the enemy shooting, the drop pods while giving up KP's can force your oppenent to funnel his forces to move.

I saw one thing that immediately stopped me from reading. Turn 2 he arrived on the board via deep strike... and THEN ASSAULTED? Did I miss something here?

Unless there is some rule i missed units can not assault the turn they arrive by deepstrike. The only exception i know of is I think maybe the stormraven?

Vanguard Veterans can assault the turn they arrive provided it is 'declared' and they do not have an attached IC.

Stormravens don't allow things to assault on the DS. Heroic Intervention, which Vanguard Vets have, does.

Not too shabby, but I find your lack of pics disturbing.

mercer wrote:Testing this list:

Turn 2

Vanguard fire at a Chimera and miss :(

Assault, Vanguard charge the Chimera and manage to stun it while the other Vanguard charge the other Vendetta and do nothing.

Pretty sure you can not both shoot at and then charge the chimera with the VV. It's either one or the other (at which point you have to call heroic intervention before rolling to scatter)

Nice report, I've come to the conclusion that non biker non special character vanilla marines just can't compete with the new boys in town as I field a librarian who marches into battle wielding a fething BOOK and my opponent is an enraged bearded psychopath who rides a rabid 12 foot wolf.

doubled wrote:I run a DOA list, Dante and Sang Guard, 2 Libby Dreads and 4 assualt squads, 1 5man in a drop pod, 1 5 man melta and 2 ten man squads, with and a few sang priests. I found myself that the dreads scare the daylights out of someone, and can ignore a lot of the enemy shooting, the drop pods while giving up KP's can force your oppenent to funnel his forces to move.

How exactly do Librarian Dreadnoughts deep strike? If I'm honest I've had more luck with a Dreadnought heavy list than a full DoA list. And Furioso Dreadnoughts with blood talons rule

Tomb King wrote:I saw one thing that immediately stopped me from reading. Turn 2 he arrived on the board via deep strike... and THEN ASSAULTED? Did I miss something here?

Unless there is some rule i missed units can not assault the turn they arrive by deepstrike. The only exception i know of is I think maybe the stormraven?

That's your problem you don't read. Vanguard have heroic intervention which allows them to assault after deep striking, this is widely known....you need to immediately start reading the Space Marine codex instead of making yourself look silly.

Caboose wrote:Not too shabby, but I find your lack of pics disturbing.

This is just a test game to see how the army runs. I can get pictures if you want to see my pretty little toy soliders

Cyto wrote:

mercer wrote:Testing this list:

Turn 2

Vanguard fire at a Chimera and miss :(

Assault, Vanguard charge the Chimera and manage to stun it while the other Vanguard charge the other Vendetta and do nothing.

Pretty sure you can not both shoot at and then charge the chimera with the VV. It's either one or the other (at which point you have to call heroic intervention before rolling to scatter)

You are indeed correct sir

mattyrm wrote:Nice report, I've come to the conclusion that non biker non special character vanilla marines just can't compete with the new boys in town as I field a librarian who marches into battle wielding a fething BOOK and my opponent is an enraged bearded psychopath who rides a rabid 12 foot wolf.

Yeah I see your view points, some fething book, not book a fething book which makes it more powerful is far superior than most HQs and is on par with giant wolves

Drop pods let the dreads deep strike, not exactly DOA but run 3 pods 2 dreads and 1 5 man ASquad with meltas and you can drop in and kill things turn 1 and then turn 2 your VVets can hit the exposed cargo.

Assault Squad can't assault anything nor can Dreadnoughts so limited shooting and the opponent has the grand total of three offensive units to deal with first turn - bad idea.

Nice report!

Man his turn 3 counter punch on your initial drop was pretty brutal. I have no idea if it was possible in this case without know the exact positioning, but Vanguard really need to be assaulting infantry units on the turn they arrive otherwise they just get their expensive 3+ save selves shot to pieces. Ideally you want to multicharge a vehicle to make sure you don't win the combat until their turn (and with a Thunderhammer and some melta bombs you have a decent chance of killing the vehicle as well), this is particularly important against Guard as they are very rarely going to stick around for more than one round of combat unless you position things properly. As Vanguard either shoot or assault on the drop I probably wouldn't bother giving them any shooting upgrades.

This report really shows the value of long ranged shooting through. If you can somehow find the points this list would really benefit from a couple of units of ML Devs (1 Librarian, 1 couple of Infernus Pistols and the flamer Assault Squad gets you 2 units easily). They can start opening up transports turn 1 which both limits his ability to respond to your Drop and makes sure the Vanguard will be hitting infantry the turn they arrive. I would still go this route even if you are using DoA with everything else, if you deploy very deep in your zone you won't be worrying about plasma etc and you can always put a Priest in with them if you are worried about them being torrented off the board.

Inquisitor Cyotle wrote:Nice report!

Thanks man

Powerguy wrote:Man his turn 3 counter punch on your initial drop was pretty brutal. I have no idea if it was possible in this case without know the exact positioning, but Vanguard really need to be assaulting infantry units on the turn they arrive otherwise they just get their expensive 3+ save selves shot to pieces. Ideally you want to multicharge a vehicle to make sure you don't win the combat until their turn (and with a Thunderhammer and some melta bombs you have a decent chance of killing the vehicle as well), this is particularly important against Guard as they are very rarely going to stick around for more than one round of combat unless you position things properly. As Vanguard either shoot or assault on the drop I probably wouldn't bother giving them any shooting upgrades.

This report really shows the value of long ranged shooting through. If you can somehow find the points this list would really benefit from a couple of units of ML Devs (1 Librarian, 1 couple of Infernus Pistols and the flamer Assault Squad gets you 2 units easily). They can start opening up transports turn 1 which both limits his ability to respond to your Drop and makes sure the Vanguard will be hitting infantry the turn they arrive. I would still go this route even if you are using DoA with everything else, if you deploy very deep in your zone you won't be worrying about plasma etc and you can always put a Priest in with them if you are worried about them being torrented off the board.

Vanguard can't assault infantry if they're inside tanks. Without those Chimeras being popped Vanguard can only go for tanks, that's why I'm doing double fists in them and a power weap - the power weap is for infantry making them flexible.

Devs don't belong in DoA lists. They will be the only units deployed from the start and will be shot at. If they come in reserve they cannot shoot. In more likely I'm going to do a jump list with Dev support instead.

mercer wrote:
In more likely I'm going to do a jump list with Dev support instead.

You will be happy you did, just bring enough FNP! I have been running JP w/ Dev support had have a lot better success than my old DoA list.

I more than likely will. I wrote a jump list for my mate ages ago which he added his own stuff on, lots of people were slating the Devs now everyone loves them, dick heads .

Here's the list I wrote for my mate more or less:

Librarian - jump pack, shield, rage
Librarian - jump pack, shield, rage
Honour Guard - jump packs & 4 x meltaguns

2 x Priests - jump packs

10 x Assault Marines - 2 x meltas + fist
10 x Assault Marines - 2 x meltas + fist
10 x Assault Marines - 2 x meltas
10 x Assault Marines - 2 x flamers
5 x Assault Marines - plasma gun

5 x Devs - 4 x missile launchers
5 x Devs - 4 x missile launchers
5 x Devs - 4 x missile launchers

My list is like this but slightly different. Even though I mostly wrote this list I wanted something just different to make it it's own if that makes sense.

mercer wrote:I more than likely will. I wrote a jump list for my mate ages ago which he added his own stuff on, lots of people were slating the Devs now everyone loves them, dick heads .

Here's the list I wrote for my mate more or less:

Librarian - jump pack, shield, rage
Librarian - jump pack, shield, rage
Honour Guard - jump packs & 4 x meltaguns

2 x Priests - jump packs

10 x Assault Marines - 2 x meltas + fist
10 x Assault Marines - 2 x meltas + fist
10 x Assault Marines - 2 x meltas
10 x Assault Marines - 2 x flamers
5 x Assault Marines - plasma gun

5 x Devs - 4 x missile launchers
5 x Devs - 4 x missile launchers
5 x Devs - 4 x missile launchers

My list is like this but slightly different. Even though I mostly wrote this list I wanted something just different to make it it's own if that makes sense.

There should be a "Like" button! ha! Very good list though, quite similar to mine, although I run 2x Flamer/PW & 2x Melta/PF. I have also been toying around with swapping out Dev's for some Libby Dreads, so far so good in two games vs Mech.