Blood of the martyr... Eldar vs Blood angels 1500

Well the second battle report for 40k and once again I am up against marines, but this time of the blood angel variety. The mission is capture and control with a dawn of war (again) deployment 1500 points. Taking elder again this wasn’t exactly a bad match up, just not perfect.

The army I went with this game was very similar to my last game, just changing a few units and unit configuration to hopefully make it excel against blood angels. I play against this blood angel player allot so we know what we both have in our collections and what the other likes to do. His tactic for the last few games has been an armoured spearhead right down the middle of the board so hopefully I can counteract this. Anyway onto the list:

Eldar 1497

Farseer – 85 w/ Dire Avengers

Doom

8 Fire Dragons – 128

Wave serpent – 130

Spirit stones, twin missile launcher

6 Fire Dragons – 96 (in Falcon)

10 Dire Avengers – 152

Exarch, 2 x catapults, bladestorm

Wave serpent – 130

Spirit stones, Twin missile launcher

16 Guardians – 158

Missile launcher, warlock, embolden

2 Vypers – 130

Missile launcher

Vyper – 75

Bright lance

Falcon – 180

Missile launcher, holo fields, spirit stones

2 War Walkers – 80

2shuriken cannons

Fire Prism – 160

Holo field, spirit stones

So taking a very fast army with plenty of transport/marine popping weapons I should hopefully be in for a good shot of taking down his army and then killing it from a distance. The only issue is that if many land raiders are taken it will be hard to deal with them, short of sacrificing the fire dragons. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Blood Angels 1505

Reclusiarch w/ Death Company

10 assault marines 

2 melta, power weapon

Rhino

9 Death company

Power weapon

Land raider

Honour guard

Banner, champion, melta, power weapon

Razorback

9 Veterans

Thunder hammer, power weapon,

Rhino

Sanguinary Priest w/ vets

Power weapon

2 land speeder

Tornado heavy bolter

So quite an armoured force and a land raider, if anything gets into combat with me my army will fold very quickly. We shall see how it goes.

Blood angels had the first turn after winning the roll for first turn and so deployed the land raider with Death Company and the chaplain in as his two troops and his HQ. No units were kept in reserve so everything would be rolling in turn one. Seeing that as quite a powerful force I held every one off board so turn one I could bring every one on and pick of the closer targets one at a time. The war walkers how ever were out flanking. I decide not to attempt to steal the initiative so allow blood angels first turn. 

Blood Angels 1

A nice short first turn to begin with. The blood angel’s army advances in a column of armour, with the land raider moving forward to spearhead it, backed by the speeders and finally the rhino/razorbacks. All those are able to use the smoke to hopefully prevent the oncoming Eldar war host.

Eldar 1

The war host moves on from my board edge, the serpents move on the left to attack the blood angel objective, while the guardians walk on to the right capturing the elder objective. The squadron of vipers unlikely to see anything first turn hide behind some trees in my table half while the more deadly lance viper moves up the right able to threaten the land raider. Finally the falcon moves on to unload the 6 fire dragons right in front of the land raider intent to either destroy it or if the lance can do that, toast some death company before they can deal any real damage.

Shooting and first off is the lance from the viper... who cant see the land raider by half an inch... it was upsetting but such is life in night fighting. Next up are the fire dragons to try to destroy the big tank... only 3 hits to my displeasure then only 1 penetrating hit, 1 glancing and 1 failure. Both the glancing hit and penetrating were then saved by the smokes cover saves. So I have signed the death warrant for the dragons.

Blood angels 2

The death company disembark from the land raider and encircle the fire dragons. The two land speeders brake off from the armoured spearhead to engage the guardians on my right. The rhinos then move forward and disembark 10 assault marines and the 5 honour guard so their meltas have a chance to deal some damage to tanks.

Taking aim at the guardians, the speeders kill 8 of them instantly under a hail of heavy bolter fire. Thankfully the warlock passes the moral test thanks to embolden. The razor back that dropped of the honour guard aims at the lone viper and blows off its bright lance with his heavy bolter. The 3 melta guns on the falcon do little damage thanks to a combination of bad rolls to penetrate and the holo field meaning it only shaken. The land raider then turns its attention to the falcon but once again bad dice rolls mean he misses (even with the reroll). And for good measure the death company open up with their pistols and kill 3 of the fire dragons before they assault.

Assault phase and the death company declare a double charge on both the fire dragons and the falcon in a desperate attempt to silence the tank before it can do any real damage. Needless to say the fire dragons died failing to take any one with them but the falcon managed to further live with only another shaken result to show for it. The falcons looking good. At this point I would like to point out that I forgot to bring on my fire prism in my last turn, only just realising this it now lives in reserve till it appears.

Eldar 2

Rolling for my reserves, neither unit appears to help me leaving my army to fend for itself. The Farseer attempts to cast doom on the assault marines but after passing a psychic test the marines appear to be out by a few inches.

Movement and the wave serpents focus their attention on the marines out of their transports. They vipers come out of hiding and the falcon falls back away from the death company while the weapon less vyper get given kite duty to distract the death company. In either moment of genius or madness the guardians move towards the rhino full of veterans in an attempt to prevent them being able to support the rest of the blood angel army.

The Eldar shooting phase is abysmal as the guardians miss the rhino, the vipers miss their targets and the only casualties came from the wave serpents targeting the honour guard and manage to kill the champion and a regular guy

Not willing to let the prey get away the warlock leads his guardians in an assault on the rhino. After some how managing to get a single hit the dice roll to pen needed anything but a 1... So obviously a 1 appeared. Then to add insult to injury I roll a 6. So if I hadn’t have rolled a 1 that rhino would be destroyed. But no... Instead it’s immobilised. Very heroic... very heroic indeed.

Blood angels 3

The marines jump back into their transports (both the assault and honour guard) and we had an interesting dilemma, the death guard had to move towards the vyper but... if the land raider was next to where they ran could they embarked if it meant they theoretically moved closer to the enemy? We discussed this and decided that yes, they could. So they embarked as well. The rhino moves towards the serpents while the razorback moves slightly towards the vyper. The vets jump out of their rhino and move to encircle the guardians.

In a storm of lead, the speeders blow up one of the two vypers and shake the other one. In a similar move the weapon less vyper is destroyed by the razorback’s heavy bolter. Again attempting to soften up with enemy before a charge, the vets down 4 guardians with pistol fire. The land raider attempts to split its lascannons and fire them at two different tanks with power of the machine spirit and both fail to penetrate the hulls.

Assault phase and the veterans obliterate the guardians and spread out with the massacre roll.

Eldar 3

Finally both of my reserves enter play, unfortunately the walkers outflank on the wrong side of the board entering on the left. Never mind, it happens. The prism at least shows up (such a stupid mistake). The serpents move around to flank the rhino containing the assault marines. The remaining fire dragons jump out to hopefully kill the assault marines when the rhino is hopefully destroyed by the combined fire of the war walkers, prism, and 2 wave serpents. Well that’s the plan.

Shooting and the war walkers open up shooting at the rhino... shaken. The serpents open up next... shaken again, finally the prism has a go.... shaken. With no option the dragons open up on the transport and make it explode. At least two assault marines die in the explosion.

Blood angels 4

The land raider moves towards the fire dragons and unloads the death company. The honour guard follow suite and disembark so they can threaten the serpent that unloaded the dragons with melta. The speeders move flat out towards the back of the board to threaten the rear of the tanks next turn. The vets slowly start the slog towards the fight.

In a massive explosion the empty wave serpent explodes from having a melta shot at it. 1 marine and 2 fire dragons die in the explosion.

The shots from the assault marines both miss the last wave serpent so that’s a spot of good luck. The death company shoot at the remaining dragons with their pistols killing two more. The dragons fail their moral test and flee from the scene towards the honour guard. The land raider targets the fire prism with a lascannon and cleanly blows off its prism cannon.

With the fire dragons still in range of the death company they are charged and are over whelmed by the sheer number of attacks. The assault marines, not giving up with their mission to destroy the remaining wave serpent, assault the serpent throwing krack grenades. I didn’t expect anything to happen with then needing 6 to hit but that’s always the kiss of death. 4 hits, 3 pens and it explodes killing 4 dire avengers.

 Eldar 4

Seeing the strands of the future dooms the assault marines as it’s the most likely way they elder can win the day. Moving towards the objective the dire avengers and Farseer move slightly towards the objective. The prism now being useless moves as close to the death company as possible to kite them. The war walkers move towards the land speeders to see what damage they can do. The falcon knowing the only chance to win would be if the dire avengers survive jumps over the land raider to target at the assault marines and distract the honour guard.

Knowing it was imperative that the assault marines had to die the avenger’s blade storm into them, thanks to doom, killing the sergeant, melta and a regular marine. The Falcon opens up its pulse laser as the dire avengers didn’t kill enough, causing two wounds the marines go to ground and fails both cover saves. Only 2 left. The war walkers open up on the speeders destroying one and stripping the weapon off the remaining speeder.

With this potentially being the last chance to remove the assault marines the dire avengers attempt to assault them, but thanks to a double 1 don’t make it into combat.

Blood angels 5

The death company rage towards the fire prism while the speeder backs off after the hail of fire that has been plunged into it. The honour guard move towards the falcon.

The shooting phase once again is very kind to my opponent as the honour guard melta destroys the falcon but the luck is balanced out as the land raider splits it fire one lascannon at the prism, which does nothing, and the other plus heavy bolter at the dire avengers who lose two of their number. The speeder and razor back also lay into the avengers killing 1.

Assault phase and the death company charge the prism, and from 36 attacks, it’s only shaken.

Eldar 5

The Farseer once again dooms the assault marines. The war walkers move towards the two remaining assault marines while the prism back off to remove the death company from any further turns.

Attempting to prevent the blood angels from having any chance at winning the game the war walkers open up on the only scoring troop choice left on the table. Only killing 1 of the remaining 2 assault marines. How ever the Farseer then stand up, seeing the fate of the last marine and sends him to meet his primarch with a single shot. If the game ends now I can win... just got to hope it ends.

Roll to see if it continues... 6 of course it does.

Blood angels 6 

The speeder, land raider and marines take aim at the dire avengers in a last ditch attempt to remove them from the objective. The death company however continue their walk after the fire prism as it’s the closest enemy.

And the most important phase of his turn, the land speeder opens up first, causing 2 wounds, but going to ground prevents and damage. The land raider continues the onslaught but manages to deal a wound to the Farseer who failed his cover save. The razorback adds its fire power to the mix and does nothing.

Combat and the death company charge the prism and make it explode with no casualties to the marines.

Eldar 6

The war walkers move towards the death company so they have to chase them and not the dire avengers. They then attempt to shoot the small amount of razorback they can see, to prevent it contesting the objective next turn if the game continues, but happens, not even a glance.

Then thank god the game ended. Eldar 1 – Blood angels 0

It wasn’t deserved, it was unlikely, and it was nothing to be proud of but the Eldar win.

Now that was an interesting game. I expected to be tabled towards the end of the game but some how stayed in there and won. This was purely down to my opponent only taking 1 scoring troop unit so I took advantage of it as much as I could. I defiantly misplayed my army; I made several mistakes though out the game. As with the fantasy reports, I’m going to leave little learning points, more for me than anything else.

Learning points

·         Always remember to deploy the full extent of your army that you mean to. Never forget to deploy your damn Fire prism. I still can’t believe I did that.

·         Fire dragons shouldn’t get out of their tank unless what they want to kill is also out of their tank. Expecting the rest of your army to do anything useful so the dragons can get a target appears to be a bad idea.

·         Take out transports ASAP; the land raider was a massive pain in the ass all game.

For now that will do, any more points you can think of, comment.

Malduran.