Intro
Brother Sergeant Standing Wolf stared at the ruins. The Fallen stood stoically with the electrocuffs around his wrists knowing that any attempt to change his fate had become futile. “Avenger, this is Death Wing One, do you copy?” – “Loud and clear, Death Wing One.” – “We are ready to teleport back into orbit with our freight.” – “Negative, Death Wing One, negative. Teleporting is currently not possible because of a solar storm, Brother Techmarine Rondran is adjusting the signal matrix. Please stand by.” – “Aye, we are standing by. Death Wing One over and out.” Standing Wolf had been watching the horizon for the entire conversation with the ship in orbit because he was expecting someone to arrive. And there he saw them. Red shapes bouncing from the earth as if they were human rubber balls. They were the Blood Angels who originally found a trace of the Fallen when he got too imprudent dealing with his stolen artifacts. The Dark Angels managed to sneak into the orbit and trace the Fallen while the Blood Angels were still busy exchanging formalities with the local authorities. Everything would have been perfect and gone unnoticed. This solar storm really happened at the worst possible moment – one could almost think that Chaos was behind this all. Yet Standing Wolf readied his Storm Bolter for the secret of the Chapter had to be kept at all costs. “Please, God Emperor, please don’t let this happen.”
“Capture the Fallen” Scenario
For this game, we played the homebrew scenario “Capture the Fallen”.
The game is being played over the long table edges.
The terrain is a city fight terrain that provides a lot of cover.
The Fallen is being placed with a Death Wing Squad in a bunker in the center of the table. As long as there is at least one Death Wing Terminator in base contact with the Fallen, the Fallen is captured. If the Fallen is free, he walks 2D6 into a random direction in every movement phase.
The Death Wing wins, if they manage to teleport back into orbit before the game runs out.
The Blood Angels win if the Fallen is still on the surface of the planet when the game runs out.
The Death Wing rolls a D6 at the end of its movement phase. The teleport is successful if the rolled dice beats one of the following conditions:
Turn 1: no roll
Turn 2: 6+
Turn 3: 5+
Turn 4: 4+
Turn 5: 3+
Turn 6: 2+
Turn 7: 1+
The Blood Angels may carry a jammer in a vehicle that worsens the Death Wing roll by -1 if it’s within 12 inches of the Fallen.
Army Lists (2’000 points each)
My Blood Angels list:
(all infantry has Jump Packs)
Lord Dante
Chaplain Lemartes
Death Company (10 strong)
2x Veteran Assault Squad VAS (8 strong, Thunderhammer & Stormshield, 2 pairs of Lightning Claws, 2 Flamers)
2x Regular Assault Squad RAS (10 strong, Powerfist, 2 Plasma Pistols)
2x Land Speeder (Multimelta, Assault Canon)
The Death Wing list:
Death Wing Squad (Apothecarius, guarding the Fallen in the bunker)
Land Raider Redeemer with Death Wing Squad and Grey Knight Psychic Johann Kraus
Land Raider Crusader with Death Wing Squad and Captain Belial
3x Venerable Dreadnought
Battle Report
Turn 1:
The DA get to move first. The Land Raider Redeemer and a Venerable Dreadnought are flanking the bunker on the left.
The Land Raider Crusader is flanking the bunker on the right.
The other two Venerable Dreadnoughts move into cover behind the bunker.
The Blood Angels move everything they have towards the bunker. The Death Company is in the center, a Land Speeder on every flank. The Land Speeder on the right flank is in fire range and shoots at the Death Wing Squad in the bunker, but doesn’t do any damage.
Turn 2:
The DA fail their teleport roll.
The missiles of the Death Wing Squad in the bunker manage to shoot the Land Speeder on the right; it explodes. Unfortunately, this Land Speeder also carried the jammer.
The Land Speeder on the left manages to shoot the Land Raider Redeemer with the Multimelta and destroys it.
The Death Company is landing in front of the bunker and is running into the room on 1st floor level (the Death Wing and the Fallen or on the 2nd floor).
Turn 3:
The DA succeed in their teleport roll with a straight 6 on the dice.
The Fallen and the entire Death Wing Squad guarding him are removed from play.
We decide to keep playing, however.
Belial and his Death Wing Squad exit the Land Raider Crusader and charge Lemartes and the Death Company in the bunker. They kill 6 Death Company Marines, but the Death Company is taking 3 Terminators with them on the journey over Hades.
The RAS on the left charges the Venerable Dreadnought, but only inflicts a shaken result.
Turn 4:
Belial and his Terminators continue to kill Death Company Marines.
Grey Knight Johann Kraus assists the Dreadnought on the left against the RAS, but sees himself cut up by their Chainswords.
The Death Wing Squad previously walking with Johann Kraus moves into the bunker to assist Belial.
Dante an his RAS land on the roof of the bunker.
Dantes Inferno Pistols has the Venerable Dreadnought behind the bunker explode.
The RAS on the left manages to destroy the Venerable Dreadnought’s close combat weapon.
The VAS on the left attacks the 2nd Venerable Dreadnought, but only gets a shaken result.
The VAS on the right attacks the Land Raider Crusader, but only gets a shaken result.
Turn 5:
The Death Company is finally being wiped out.
The Land Raider Crusader shoots at the VAS. They fail their morale check and fall back.
The Blood Angels on the left fail their moral checks as well and fall back.
Dante and his RAS descend to the 1st floor of the bunker and attack Belial.
They manage to kill all remaining Terminators except Belial. However, Belial kills Dante in return.
Turn 6:
The Dreadnoughts and the remaining Land Raider Crusader manage to kill all Blood Angels infantry models as they are falling back.
The remaining Land Speeder takes a shot at the Land Raider Crusader, but fails to do any damage.
Turn 7:
The Crusader kills the Land Speeder. The Blood Angels model count is down at 0.
Critical Review
Although it’s pure madness to fight Land Raiders and Dreadnoughts with such a Blood Angels list, it did a lot better than I expected.
After my last game, I wanted to balance my squads better by giving each VAS a Thunderhammer and Powerclaws. Also Dantes Inferno Pistol definitely was worth its points.
In the end, it was one factor that broke my neck: the Death Wing charging my Death Company instead of my Death Company charging them. The Death Company heavily relies on the Furious Charge and the Chaplain’s rerolls.
If I had had Dante and Corbulo nearby whenever I fought Terminators, I would probably have won.
Finally, this game has also shown that it’s pointless to fight Dreadnoughts and Land Raiders in close combat. A sergeant with Powerfist/Thunderhammer is hitting with 2 attacks (more or less) in every turn. This just isn’t good enough to get a lot of rolls on the vehicle damage chart.
Outro
Lord Dante moved with his men towards the bunker. Brother Lemartes and his doomed angels had already slipped into it. Dante was looking forward to finally questioning that shadowy character who may know something about the whereabouts of the Amulet of Sanguinius. Suddenly, the screams of the Death Company changed into some supernatural frenzy. They must really have hit a terrifying enemy. Dante landed on top of the bunker and his reflexes placed a clean shot on the giant standing behind it. He didn’t trust his eyes as he saw that he just fell Brother Dreadnought Bethor and all his honorable insignia. Dante rushed down the stair to the bunker’s first floor where the frenzy suddenly had stopped. There was black and bone colored armor all over the floor. “Belial,” Dante hissed, “what treachery is this?” The answer came back in form of a pair of Lightning Claws digging deep into his armor.
