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Finally, at last, I face the new Blood Angels for the very first time. This will be a very interesting battle between two very assaulty armies. He's got a very fast army that may be slightly more assaulty than mine thanks to Mephiston, librarian furiosos and furiously charging assault marines with Feel No Pain and 18" assaults. On the other hand, I've got my ever-dangerous Rune Priests along with Ragnar and more shooting than he does.


2500pts BLOOD ANGELS

Mephiston

3x Sanguinary Priests - 3x Jump packs, 3x Power weapons
Librarian Furioso - Unleash Rage, Wings of Sanguinius
Librarian Furioso - Unleash Rage, Wings of Sanguinius

10x Assault Marines - 2x Meltas, Power Fist
10x Assault Marines - 2x Meltas, Power Fist
10x Assault Marines - 2x Meltas, Power Fist
10x Assault Marines - 2x Meltas, Power Fist
10x Assault Marines - 2x Meltas, Power Fist
10x Assault Marines - 2x Meltas, Power Weapon

Baal Predator - Flamestorm Cannon
Baal Predator - Flamestorm Cannon



SPACE WOLVES (My list)

Ragnar Blackmane
Rune Priest Blackheart - Chooser, Meltabombs, Jaws, Living Lightning
Rune Priest Loki - Chooser, Hurricane, Living Lightning
Rune Priest Goldmoon - Hurricane, Jaws

8x Wolf Guards - 4x w/2x Combi-flamers & 2x Combi-meltas & Powerfists (attached to Grey Hunters), 4x w/Combi-meltas in Drop Pod

10x Grey Hunters - 2x Meltaguns, Power weapon, Wolf Standard, Drop Pod
10x Grey Hunters - 2x Meltaguns, Power weapon, Wolf Standard, Drop Pod
8x Grey Hunters - Meltagun, Power weapon, Wolf Standard (Ragnar + WG here)
7x Grey Hunters - Meltagun, Power weapon, Wolf Standard, Rhino (RP + WG here)
7x Grey Hunters - Flamer, Power weapon, Wolf Standard, Rhino (RP + WG here)
7x Grey Hunters - Flamer, Power weapon, Wolf Standard, Rhino (RP + WG here)

6x Long Fangs Alpha - 5x Missile Launchers
6x Long Fangs Beta - 5x Missile Launchers
Land Raider - Extra Armor, Multi-melta (Ragnar's unit here)


Analysis:

SPACE WOLVES
He has better mobility and can combat squad so I feel he has the advantage in Seize Ground missions. I've also got a lot more Kill Points than him. As long as he doesn't get tabled, he has the advantage there as well. The only mission where I have a big advantage is Capture and Control as I can castle up on my objective and drop some drop pods onto his.

My biggest advantage, though, is my shooting. I need to shoot down his dreads and baal predators early. If I can't do that and most of his reserves come down on turn 2 (assuming he even reserves them), I'm going to be in trouble. But if I can, he's going to be in trouble. Mephiston's going to be a problem for sure. I guess I'm just going to have to melta/pfist him to death.

FNP will be a b*tch, but once I get in cc, I'm not too concerned with it. As I've said earlier, I think I have enough power weapons to deal with it. I just cannot let him get the charge or my guys will go down fast.


BLOOD ANGELS
He's definitely got enough meltas to crack any of my tanks. I'm wondering if he should've gave 1-2 squads dual flamers for a little more balance. He has the option of deploying everything normally or deepstriking his troops. Honestly, I think he should deploy everything on the table. I have no blast weapons that he has to worry about and my shooting is more geared towards tanks than mass infantry. However, Descent of Angels just makes it too tempting not to deepstrike - to get in close, avoid 1 round of fire and maybe destroy a couple of tanks all in 1 turn. We shall see how he deploys.

He will probably lose his preds on turn 1, but if he uses them to give his dreads cover, they may make it into combat. Once in cc, I really can't take them down with any reliability.


Mission: Seize Ground - 5 objectives
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Initiative: Blood Angels

Deployment:
There is a large area terrain in the middle of the board. On both its left and right are an impassable terrain that blocks LOS. There are 3 other smaller patches of area terrain - 2 on my side and 1 on his. We place 3 of the objectives on my side and 2 on his, behind the 2 impassable terrains (wonder who put them there?).

He rolls for the Red Thirst and only 1 squad of assault marines (w/Pfist) gets it. He actually forgets to do this until turn 2 - just one of those new codex rules misshaps, I suppose.

He combat squads the Power Weapon assault marines. Behind the left impassable terrain he deploys 1 dread, baal pred, combat squad and Mephiston. Behind the right impassable terrain he deploys the other dread, baal pred and power weapon combat squad. He leaves all his assault marines in reserves.

I deploy near my table edge (so he can't deepstrike behind me), from left to right - long fangs, Loki's unit, Ragnar, Goldmoon, Blackheart and 2nd long fangs. I also spread out 1 squad of 10 grey hunters (who were supposed to come in on a drop pod) in front of the LR so that he couldn't drop within double-melta range of it. I leave my wolf guards, 1 squad of grey hunters and the empty drop pod in reserves.

I fail to seize the initiative and the game begins.


Blood Angels 1
Everything moves forwards as fast as they can. His librarians use Wings of Sanguinius to fly forwards. He only moves his preds 12" and pops smokes. The dreads, assault squads and Mephiston hide behind the impassable terrains so that I couldn't see them. Both combat squads are claiming his 2 objectives.

Space Wolves 1
I drop both Drop Pods (with my wolf guards and grey hunters) onto his right objective (the one without Mephiston). Goldmoon's rhino zips up 12" and pops smoke. I also move my foot GH's up to try to melta his left predator. In shooting, my LF's explode his left pred despite its cover, the wolf guards immobilise and knock off the flamestorm cannon off the right pred and the grey hunters immobilise the right dread.

Blood Angels 2
He forgot to roll for the Red Thirst and does so this turn. Only 1 squad of assault marines succumbs to it. Despite his re-rolls for reserves, only 2 squads of assault marines come in (1 with Sanguinary Priest). He drops a squad + priest to the left on my left long fangs. He then does a risky drop with his plain assault squad into an opening I left when I moved my foot GH's. They land on target and within double-melta range of my land raider. Mephiston and dread both gets Wings off and jumps over the impassable terrain to within assault range of my foot GH's.

The left assault squad (I'll call them AS+SP1) only kills my long fang sergeant with their shooting but his regular assault squad hits paydirt. They blow up my land raider, killing 3 regular GH's in the explosion and pinning Ragnar's unit in the process. Mephiston shoots down 1 GH with his plasma pistol.

In assault, his power weapon combat squad charges my drop-podded grey hunters. It is a tied combat as I use my wolf standard and we both kill 3 marines each (too bad for him I killed his power weapon sergeant). Mephiston and dread both charges my foot GH's. I block Mephiston's attempt at Unleash Rage (as a matter of fact, in all his assault phases, he never once is able to get off another psychic power through my Rune Priests' runic weapons). Thanks to my wolf standard, I managed to put 1 wound on Mephiston. They then proceed to kill 6 of my GH's. I fail morale and lose another GH (my power weapon) to No Retreat saves.

Space Wolves 2
Payback's gonna be a b*tch. I move Loki but his rhino immobilizes itself. I also disembark Goldmoon's unit (but not Goldmoon) and they head towards the melee with Mephiston. I need to keep him preoccupied in assault for 1 more turn lest he moves and assault Ragnar's squad the next turn. Blackheart's unit disembarks and moves towards the regular assault marine squad. Goldmoon also disembarks and joins Blackheart's unit. Loki's unit stays in their immobilised rhino.

Now I make a big mistake rules-wise. I totally forget that Jaws of the World Wolf doesn't work against jump infantry. He also doesn't catch it either. His psychic hood blocks 1 attempt but my 2nd attempt goes off, despite rolling snake-eyes and suffering 1 wound from perils for Goldmoon. 1 assault marine falls to Jaws. 2 flamers, bolt pistols and my right LF's take down another 5 from the same squad. Loki uses Murderous Hurricane against his left assault squad (squad AS+SP1) and 2 die despite FNP. Then my left LF's shoot down 3 more from that same squad.

In assault, the wolf guards charge the immobilised pred and shake it. My drop pod-GH's kill another 1 from the combat squad (they stay). Blackheart+Goldmoon's unit assaults his regular marines and kills the Power fist + 1 regular assault marine (I didn't use my wolf standard). Only 2 assault marines are left and they remain locked. Finally, my GH's (that used to be Goldmoon's unit) assault Mephiston. In that combat, his dread totally whiffs against my 2 foot GH's, Mephiston kills 2 from the new squad that just charged him and I put 3 power fist wounds on Mephiston (1 wound left). They stay locked.

Blood Angels 3
The rest of his army comes in this turn. His unit with the Red Thirst drops towards my left LF's, 1 squad with Sanguinary Priest drops in the middle (AS+SP2) and the last squad with priest (AS+SP3) drops towards my right LF's. AS+SP1 moves towards my left LF's and 1 regular assault marine + the Sanguinary Priest both die from dangerous terrain (Hurricane is just as nasty as Jaws!). They then fail their morale and fall back 6" (only 4 remaining), though they do manage to shoot down 2 missile launcher LF's before they do so.

AS+SP2 (middle assault squad w/priest) opens fire on Ragnar's unit, killing 1 regular, 1 melta and putting 1 wound on Ragnar. The left assault squad shoots down another 2 missile launchers from my left LF's (only 1 left) and AS+SP3 (the right assault squad w/priest) shoots down the sergeant + 2 missile launchers from my right LF's.

My drop pod-GH's finishes off his combat squad, though I do lose 1 in the process. My WG's glance his immobilised pred and wrecks it with another Weapon Destroyed result. Blackheart+Goldmoon's unit wipes out the 2 assault marines still in combat with them. In the assault with Mephiston and his dread, they kill 1 regular + 1 melta GH. I, in turn, slap Mephiston silly with my big, fat fist. After the fight, another grey hunter dies to No Retreat.

Space Wolves 3
My empty drop pod comes in, landing within contesting range of his left objective (where his other combat squad was claiming). Loki's unit disembarks and move towards his left assault squad (they are within assault range). 1 rhino moves towards my right objective to contest his AS+SP3. Both Ragnar's unit + Blackheart/Goldmoon's unit moves towards his middle assault squad, AS+SP2. My wolf guards move towards his other objective to contest.

Again, I get 1 Jaws off (the other was blocked) on AS+SP2, removing 1 assault marine and his Sanguinary Priest. Even if I hadn't gotten Jaws off, I don't believe they still would've survived a charge from Ragnar, 2 Rune Priests and 2 squads of grey hunters but anyways, I played it illegally. 3 more assault marines die to shooting from meltas and bolt pistols.

My drop-pod GH's shoot his immobilised dread in back but only stun it. Loki's unit kills off the Pfist sergeant, 1 melta and 2 regular marines from his left assault squad (the one with Furious Charge) with flamers, bolt pistols and Murderous Hurricane. Finally my right LF's shoot down 2 assault marines from AS+SP3.

In assault, his librarian furioso kills 2 more GH's. My lone melta-GH fails his morale test and falls back 7" (he is now within 6" of the assault marines that were falling back last turn, thus preventing them from regrouping). The dread is still locked in combat though as there were 2 squads locked in combat with it. Ragnar's unit and Blackheart+Goldmoon's units assault AS+SP2 and wipe them out as expected. Loki's unit charges his left assault squad (now with 6 members) and wipe them out as well without taking any casualties.

Blood Angels 4
His fleeing assault squad falls back another 9", their meltas hitting nothing. His dread finishes off the GH squad (there was only 2 left) still in combat with it and consolidates back towards his objective. His combat squad shoots its melta and then assaults the empty pod contesting his objective and manages only to destroy its stormbolter. Finally, his sole remaining assault squad with priest, AS+SP3, finishes off my right LF's and consolidates away from my guys.

Space Wolves 4
Ragnar joins Blackheart+Goldmoon's unit and they move towards AS+SP3. My fleeing melta-GH regroups, moves up towards his dread and explodes it with his melta. I then use jaws to take down a melta from AS+SP3. Murderous Hurricane fails to would that same squad. Loki's unit moves towards his fleeing assault squad, shoots and then wipes them out in assault, thereby consolidating towards his combat squad and objective. My drop pod-GH's blows off his immobilised dread's DCCW.

At this point, I have 2 objectives and the rest contested. He's only got 2 squads of assault marines left (1 combat squad) and a heavily damaged dread. Next turn, I could potentially table him (that is, if his assault marines don't keep running away) so he concedes the game.


However, because of my mistake in using Jaws, I declare this game to be a

DRAW

and a rematch in order.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Post-game Analysis:
I wasn't expecting a massacre, but with some bad rolls on his part and questionable deployment, there really wasn't much he could have done about it. Against a skilled player, every little mistakes will get taken advantage of.

The fact that only 2 of his assault squads came down on turn 2 really, really hurt him. It gave me time to crush both squads, though he did get a break when he blew up my LR, pinning Ragnar's unit in the process. Also, while Mephiston is good, he just can't kill fast enough. He works best with support, namely assaulting with the other assault marines. I essentially neutered him in this game by feeding him ATSKNF marines with a hidden Powerfist.


Since I've given a lot of analysis to my Space Wolves already, this time I'll just give an analysis of the Blood Angel units.

Mephiston: B - a very scary character. He wiped out a squad and a half of grey hunters. If only he had some type of Invuln save, he'd be really, really scary.

Sanguinary Priests: B - the jury is still out on these guys. 1 guy died to dangerous terrain, 1 got jaws'd when he should've been immune and the last guy did make his squad harder to shoot down. I think they are well worth it and no BA list is complete without them, unless you're playing all Death Company (like in my next battle).

Librarian Furioso: C+ - I don't think they're worth it. I'd rather go for regular furiosos with blood talons in drop pods instead. Those weapons are nasty as heck (I lost 2 whole squads and my long fangs to some Death Company dreads w/blood talons in my next game against BA). 1 libbie dread got immobilised behind LOS before he had a chance to do anything and was basically useless the whole game. The other was locked in combat for a good 4-5 assault phases before getting blown up on turn 4. Not very impressed with their performance this time, but they sure are scary.

Assault Marines: B+ - great units. The bread and butter of the BA. The thing that hurt them the most was that they were never able to get the charge off and take advantage of their furious charge as I made sure to charge them first. However, things might have been different if he had deployed them all on the board instead of deep-striking them or if 4-5 units came down on turn 2.

Baal Predator: C - a non-factor in this game, besides to provide cover. They were done before they even started. I think they have plenty of potential though.


MVP's:


BLOOD ANGELS

Assault Marines - they killed the most this game - namely my land raider.


SPACE WOLVES

Grey Hunters - solid as ever. Meltas destroyed dreads and vehicles. Assault took out the rest.

OUCH, I think his list was too basic.He is running his elite choices almost like I am, so thats worrying. Goog game hough

When you say "his list was too basic", was that a good thing or bad? What would you say he should've changed on his list to be more effective?

I drop both Drop Pods (with my wolf guards and grey hunters) onto his right objective (the one without Mephiston).

You can't bring both Drop Pods in on turn one. You have to divide the number of pods in half. Then one half comes on in turn one, and the other half are rolled in from reserves.

i dont think we should judge until a rematch, his units that were lost to jotww shouldn't have been and that accounted for a couple hundred pts of deaths.

ChainswordHeretic wrote:

I drop both Drop Pods (with my wolf guards and grey hunters) onto his right objective (the one without Mephiston).

You can't bring both Drop Pods in on turn one. You have to divide the number of pods in half. Then one half comes on in turn one, and the other half are rolled in from reserves.

I have 3 drop pods, though I left 1 empty and instead deployed that unit normally.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

NaZ wrote:i dont think we should judge until a rematch, his units that were lost to jotww shouldn't have been and that accounted for a couple hundred pts of deaths.

I'm not so sure about that. The only thing of significance that jaws took out was 1 sanguinary priest (the other died to dangerous terrain due to Murderous Hurricane). But I was getting ready to charge that squad anyways with Ragnar, 2 rune priests and 2 squads of grey hunters - that's potentially 8 S5 power weapon attacks, 8 S4 force weapon attacks, 8 S4 power weapon attacks and 8 S8 powerfist attacks if you factor in +D3A on the charge for Ragnar's unit and that's not counting my wolf standard that let me re-roll all 1's. That squad would've been massacred by all my power weapons.

But to be fair, that was my opponent's first time playing the new Blood Angels and he used it against my battle-hardened wolves. He forgot about the Red Thirst at first, forgot that his baal preds could outflank and probably made some other rookie mistakes like not popping smoke on his dreads on turn 1 when he knew I had pods w/meltas coming down.

To me this batrep is another prime example of the common mistakes that will occur when someone relatively new to Blood Angels plays a game. Lots of rookie mistakes that cost him the game. Shame shame on SW.

G

Excellent write up jy2. Good job in disabling the Preds in the beginning and dealing with Mephiston.

Since Jaws doesn't work against jump infantry, use Tempest's Wrath.

IMO, despite not knowing Jaws limitations, you played a solid. You deserve the win.

Black Blow Fly wrote:To me this batrep is another prime example of the common mistakes that will occur when someone relatively new to Blood Angels plays a game. Lots of rookie mistakes that cost him the game. Shame shame on SW.

G

SabrX wrote:Excellent write up jy2. Good job in disabling the Preds in the beginning and dealing with Mephiston.

Since Jaws doesn't work against jump infantry, use Tempest's Wrath.

IMO, despite not knowing Jaws limitations, you played a solid. You deserve the win.

My bad. As a veteran SW player, I should've known better. I just completely forgot as I haven't used Jaws on jump infantry in ages (the last and only other time I jaws'd some jump infantry were against some Tau crisis suits who later on came back to life ).

The reason why I didn't use Tempest's Wrath was because I didn't want to tailor my list against his. This would be my all-comer's 'Ard Boyz list and I only use combinations of Living Lightning, Jaws and Hurricane. Tempest may be good against his army, but overall the other powers are much more useful against the majority of the armies that I'll probably be facing at the 'Ard Boyz.

first of HOLY that alot of assualt marines and tell him to try out some sanguinary gaurd I put them into my Ard boys list and they are AMAZING!

I believe you'll find that your Murderous Hurricane would have been even more effective on the Assault Marines.

Keep in mind that it makes all terrain difficult/dangerous for the whole next turn. So move, run, assault and fallback for the next turn all count.

Example: In BA3, when the AM and SP die to Hurricane and the squad falls back, they would need to take another round of tests.

Also, I wouldn't consider Tempest 'tailoring'. I take it on my RP every game because it adds Deep Strike defense to your toolkit, which is not something just for BA.

Vlad Von Carstien wrote:first of HOLY that alot of assualt marines and tell him to try out some sanguinary gaurd I put them into my Ard boys list and they are AMAZING!

I think Sanguinary Guards may work better in a list with Dante. Elite slots are valuable especially if you like Sang. Priests and Furiosos.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pretre wrote:I believe you'll find that your Murderous Hurricane would have been even more effective on the Assault Marines.

Keep in mind that it makes all terrain difficult/dangerous for the whole next turn. So move, run, assault and fallback for the next turn all count.

Better believe it. I honestly think Hurricane and Lightning are the 2 best powers for the Space Wolves. Hurricane did more damage as it took out 1 Sanguinary Priest (he failed his dangerous terrain test) and broke that squad of assault marines. Then next game I used it on 20 Death Companies (no jump packs). That made him stop for 1 turn so as to not have to take dangerous terrain tests but now that I think of it, that was illegal of him to do. With rage, he had to move towards my units.

pretre wrote:
Example: In BA3, when the AM and SP die to Hurricane and the squad falls back, they would need to take another round of tests.

Yup. They did and passed.

pretre wrote:
Also, I wouldn't consider Tempest 'tailoring'. I take it on my RP every game because it adds Deep Strike defense to your toolkit, which is not something just for BA.

Actually, maybe I ought to seriously consider switching out one of the powers for Tempest. With the Tyranids, BA, Drop Pod armies, Mechdar and Chaos Daemons, it may come in handy.

Just a question and maybe I'm misreading or possibly OVER reading, but JotWW does affect Jump Infantry. My reasoning is this line in the FAQ:

Q. Does Jaws of the World Wolf affect Jetbikes?
How about Artillery?
A. Yes, because ‘Jetbikes’ is a subcategory of the
‘Bike’ unit type. As for Artillery, the crew models
may be affected, but the gun models, being
vehicles, are not affected.

If jetbikes are a subcategory of bikes then wouldn't it be the same for Jump Infantry being a sub category of infantry?

part of his problem is deep striking all of his jump infantry. Most of the points in the unit are tied up in 'assault'. very little shooting. So it was highly wasteful. I agree he should have started the jump infantry on the board.

I have 2 predators and magnetized sponsons for any variant, as well as turrets for ac/lc/baal. I find in BA that the AC/LC predator is superior in its role. baal pattern preds are very high priority and have to work much closer to enemy lines, making it hard for them to survive unless very, very well supported.

I'd go with dual ac/lc preds in his list and drop a libby dread in favor of 2 pairs of attack bikes with MM. He'd have to strip some points from somewhere to make up the 25 points extra he'd need. But I think in principle the mm squadrons synergize very well with the ac/lc preds. Also,make hte libby dread a furioso and put it in a pod.



and whre's the death company lead by a chaplain? Worth the points all the way. Mathematically, with re-rolls of to-hit and to-wound on the charge with WS5, they hit 3X- 4X harder than a standard assault squad even with FNP against T4 WS4 opponents. Despite the high cost of packs for these guys, 10 DC with ccw/bp and one guy with a T-Hammer lead by an elit chappy with JP is worth it on the table. 505 points for this setup, and I've run it in 2000 points games.. makes the points back every time I've done it. Also done it by dispensing with JP, one DC member, and taking a godhammer pattern raider. Works just as well.

LucasLAD wrote:Just a question and maybe I'm misreading or possibly OVER reading, but JotWW does affect Jump Infantry. My reasoning is this line in the FAQ:

Q. Does Jaws of the World Wolf affect Jetbikes?
How about Artillery?
A. Yes, because ‘Jetbikes’ is a subcategory of the
‘Bike’ unit type. As for Artillery, the crew models
may be affected, but the gun models, being
vehicles, are not affected.

If jetbikes are a subcategory of bikes then wouldn't it be the same for Jump Infantry being a sub category of infantry?

Except that Jump Infantry are not a subcategory of Infantry.

+1 to Shovan.

Jumpers have their own title and column in the BRB, whereas jetbikes are a box blocked out underneath the 'bikes' title in the BRB.