2015-08-15

Illegal but fluffy

My force for tonight @ 1'500pts.

After the last two heavy losses with my Blood Angels against the Iron Warriors it was decided that my balanced army list needs less Bolters and more mobile Multimeltas - plus a unit that an really suffer a torrent of fire. So out the Tactical Squads went and in came the Devastators, the Attack Bikes, and the TH/SS Terminators:

--HQ--
Sanguinary Priest in Terminator Armor *
--Elite--
Death Company (6 Men, 1 TH, 2 Power Swords)
Terminator Assault Squad (5 Men, 5*TH/SS)
--Troops--
Scout Squad (5 Men, 4 Sniper Rifles, 1 RL, Camo, Homer)
Scout Squad (5 Men, 4 Sniper Rifles, 1 RL, Camo, Homer)
Scout Squad (5 Men, 4 Bolters, Vet Sarge with PF)
--Fast Attack--
Assault Squad (5 Men, 2 Flamers, Vet Sarge with Power Sword & Inferno Pistol)
Attack Bikes (3MM)
--Heavy Support--
Stormraven (AC, MM, Searchlight, Locator Beacon)
Devastator Squad (10 Men, 4 ML)

* I know this list illegal because Sanguinary Priests can't have Terminator Armor in the current Codex: Blood Angels. However, our house rules say it's ok. I calculated his point value by taking the base cost from the current codex and adding the Termie cost from the old codex.

With this list I wanted to test if my force is more balanced against heavily armored vehicles while still providing enough capability against infantry. Every unit in this list is either a dedicated anti-infantry or anti-armor list with the exception of the Terminators and the Devastator Squad who can flexibly react to what they get thrown at.

We set up across corners, so here you can see the field from the Blood Angels' corner. On the left you can see two units of BA Scouts with their yellow desert camo cloaks, two the very left two Obliterators because sin once again rolled D3 Infiltrate for his warlord traint again, so that was a headache. Then you have my combat squadded Devastators and the Attack Bikes.

On sin's turn 1, the Vindicator pulled up and started blasting at the Scouts killing three.

The Scouts didn't like it in the open so they started to run away from the MO.

The Scouts on top of the hill to the very left lost one Scout to the Obliterators' fire.

The Devastators in the central ruin lost their two ML to the Obliterators' (left ruin in the picture) and Havocs' (right ruin) fire.


sin got a VP for some MO he held.

In my turn nothing really exciting happened because three of my ML were already dead and the other three failed to do any damage. My Attack Bikes moved up into cover closer to the Land Raider to take shots next turn.

So with me not really doing anything, the score was still the same at the end of round 1.

Overview at the start of sin's round 2.

To my foolish surprise, the Land Raider moved up and the Chosen disembarked. This was going to have a bad end.

The Vindicator and Obliterators moved up, shot,...

...and killed all Scouts save two. These two survivors started to run, too.

The remaining three Devastators got all shot to pieces leaving the MO in the ruins empty...

...while the Emperor (praise to him!) had his protective hand here: the Chosens' fire caused only 1 wound, which I was able to save, and then they failed their charge roll.

Yet sin could collect MO points and First Blood so his score shot up to 4 VP.

In my turn, the Stormraven with the Death Company, the Terminators and my third Scout Squad (way in the back in the opposite corner) arrived.

The Terminators scattered a bit from the center of the table, but that was actually even better.

The Scouts arrived via sin's table edge...

..and were now right in the back of his cultists who held that MO that I had to hold, too.

The Attack Bikes circled around the wood...

...and fired at the LR, but due to my dismal luck with the dice were able to achieve a Weapon Destroyed on one of its laser banks.

The Scouts' Bolter fire in the meantime killed three Cultists.

So at the end of my turn 2 I still had no VP and I started to feel a little disheartened again.

In sin's turn 3, the Chosen had enough with playing games and wiped out the Attack Bikes.

The LR rolled back to support the Cultists against the sneaky Scouts. With their combined fire they managed to kill two Scouts.

The Vindicator turned now to take shots at the Terminator Assault Squad...

...and even the Obliterators came out of their Terrain to have LOS to the Terminators, too...

...yet with all the fire poured over them, still only two died.

sin's score shot up to 7 while I still banked a big zero.

In my turn 3 I got luckier with my MO. I still had to take this MO held by the Cultists, so the Scouts and the Terminators were assigned to this task.

The Storm Raven changed from zooming into hovering mode, unloaded the Death Company,...

...and shot the Blood Strike Missiles into the Obliterators now out in the open with great effect.

The Death Company charged the Vindicator...

... and the combination of Krack Grenades and TH gave me another VP desperately needed.

The Terminators failed to charge the Cultists, but the Scouts did and though they lost another Scout to the Cultists' defensive fire, they managed to wipe them out in close combat providing me with another important VP from this MO.


So at the end of round 3 with a score of 3 to 7 I had finally found back into the game.

sin's turn 4 had the two remaining Obliterators in this ruin use twin-linked Meltas on the Storm Raven. A success would have brought him another VP because had to destroy a vehicle - luckily the Meltas only took off two HP and destroyed the Storm raven's Multimelta.

Just an overview.

The LR moved up again and killed my heroic Scouts.

The Terminators lost one more to the Havocs' fire from this ruined building.

While the Cultists in the ruin near the Storm Raven also managed to kill one Marine of the Death Company.

So sin went up from 7 to 8.

On my turn 4, the DC moved into the ruins. I didn't care how many Cultists I could charge as long as I could charge 1.

Luckily I rolled well for the charging distance and this meant the end of the 2nd squad Cultists (=1 VP).

With the Cultists gone, the DC now shared these cozy ruins with the two remaining Obliterators.

The Storm Raven decided to chicken away - its job was done, so the only thing it could do now was not to die to enemy fire.

Accross the table, the Terminators charged the Havocs in this ruined building because I had to get the MO they held.

The Sanguinary Priest issued a challenge to the Havoc Champion (1 VP), the Havocs ran after that (another VP), and I now held twice as many MO than sin (D3 = 3 VP)...
 
...and all of a sudden I lead the scoreboard with 8:9.

In his turn 5, sin still had to get that pesky Storm Raven, so the Obliterators moved away from the DC and out of the ruins into the open, but their shots missed.

The Havocs failed their regroup roll and continued to flee...

...whereas the Chosen were now truly pissed...

...and boltered the two remaining Terminators away. There is always a point in time when you roll enough 1s.

sin took the lead again with 11:9.

In my turn 5, the Assault Squad finally arrived. Apparently they had to wait that long for their tea to be hot enough.

The Storm Raven continued to play chicken while initiating a turn so it wouldn't fly off the board.

The Devastators finally did their job and removed this plague...

...called Obliterators. Another VP.

Meanwhile, the DC sat on this MO in idle mode, yet earning another VP.

So at the end of turn 5, the score was tied at 11:11. I though this score was perfect because it did the game justice...

...but post game analysis showed that I scored Line Breaker (Assault Squad, DC, Storm Raven)...

...so after all the post game math was done, I narrowly won by 2 points.

Looking back I am really happy with the game because the list mostly worked as intended. With the Death Company and the Terminator Assault Squad I have strong units who can bring me back into the game against a shooty heavy opponent, yet they are not broken and still leave the opponent a fighting chance. What I'd like to do next is to play this list against my friend McMortison's fluffy mono-Khorne army to check if he also has fun against this list, too. If he does, this will be my new default allrounder list for pickup games.

Then I of course also have to work on my mistakes, the mistake with my Attack Bikes being the most blatant one. As the Colorblind Crusader says: "always check your opponents' threat range". Looking back it was also a bad decision to go second (so I could line up the Attack Bikes in relation to the Land Raider), because this gave sin the opportunity to pick the side with more ruins which had my Scouts more or less sit in the open.

Another thing I am uncertain about is having the illegal yet fluffy Sanguinary Priest in Terminator Armor as my HQ. My capability to ban the Chaos Sorcerer's spell was bad and I could have easily scored another VP because one Maelstrom card just wanted me to manifest a psychic power. So while I paint my Sanguinary Priest, I'll have the Librarian in Terminator Armor substitute for him to check if I like it better to have a Librarian in my army again. It totally makes sense because Blood Angels Librarians are still among the most cost efficient HQs, he opens up new Maelstrom cards for me, defends my units against enemy witchcraft, plus depending on the spells I pull he can also be quite a nice bonus to my Terminator Assault Squad.

Well, we'll see.