Renegades vs Blood angels 1500: Strike force Alpha

In this game my Renegades and Heretics take on the forces of the Imperium, more specifically the Blood angels. I have yet to fight the new codex so I am rather looking forward to this game as I have played the old codex countless times. We play a 1500 point game of mealstrom of war, and end up with the mission Deadlock.

The Armies

Renegades and Heretics: Combined Arms Detachment

Renegade Command Squad – 190 (Warlord: )

Heretek, Power axe, Banner of Hate, command vox, 7 Disciples, carapace armour, plasma gun, covenant of Tzeentch

Chimera – 55

militia training, multi-laser

15 Mutants – 45

unnatural senses

15 Mutants – 45

Horns and Claws

3 Chaos spawn - 55

3 Chaos spawn – 55

10 Disciples – 130

lascannon, plasma gun, carapace, covenant of tzeentch

10 Disciples – 130

lascannon, plasma gun, carapace, covenant of tzeentch

Chimera – 55

militia training, multi-laser

Sentinel Squadron – 140

heavy armour, autocannons

2 Battle tanks – 280

Defiler – 195

4 Support weapons – 105

militia training, covenant of tzeentch, lascannons

Total: 1500

Blood Angels: Strike force detchment

Captain (Warlord:Artisan of war)

relic blade, artificer armour, digital weapons, combi-grav

Sanguinary priest

Chaplin

Terminator armour, valour's edge

10 Scouts

sniper rifles, camo cloaks

5 Tactical marines

melta gun, veteran sergeant

5 Tactical marines

melta gun, veteran sergeant

Cassor The Damned

10 Assault terminators

5x thunder hammer and storm shield, 5x lightning claws

Furioso dreadnought

Blood talons

2 land speeders

heavy bolter

This list is compact but hell does it hit hard. 10 terminators, with added Chaplin and priest makes this unit kill everything it touches with out breaking a sweat. Two dreadnoughts as well, make for plenty of ways to smash my tanks to bits. I'm going to struggle here.

The Battle

Again I asked to play mealstrom in order to get more experience with them. We roll up Deadlock so we start with a fair few objectives and get less as the game goes on. We just use the deployment type that is suggested, vanguard strike.

We place the objectives around the table, one in the stronghold, woods on my right, woods in my deployment zone, sandbags on the left, far deployment zone and top of the ruin in the bottom right.

We roll for deployment and the blood angels win. They deploy first, with the terminators taking the right flank with the Chaplin and priest. The tactical marines go on the left and the Captain joins one of the squad. Both dreadnoughts go in the middle supporting each other, hidden from view behind the imperial stronghold. In a support roll, the land speeders hang at the back. He infiltrates his scouts.

To counter this I place both the defiler and battle tanks on the left along with the sentinels. A unit of disciples deploys in the woods on the right while the other starts in its chimera. The command also deploys in a chimera next to them. I place a unit of spawn on either side of the table, and the horned mutants support the unit on the right. The support weapons hide in the ruin at the back of my deployment zone ready to shoot at anything that moves forward.

Infiltrating scouts manage to work their way onto the top of the stronghold next to the objective.

Night Fight: No

Steal the initiative: No

The Battle

Blood Angels turn 1

Pushing forwards, the Terminators take the right flank while both of the dreadnoughts move up the middle, but still hide in the shadow of the stronghold. The speeders cover the tactical marines as they move up.

Unloading their heavy bolters, the speeders kill a chaos spawn on the left and wound another. Attempting to do more damage, the tactical marines add their bolter fire but fail to do any damage. Firing all of their snipers at the mutants, the scouts kill 2 of them. The heavy hitters then run forwards.

Scoring: secure objective 6

Blood Angels: 1 – Renegades: 0

Renegades turn 1

I unleash the spawn, they move straight towards the closest enemy. The defiler moves towards the dreadnoughts while I take objective 1 with my disciples.

The battle cannons open fire at the tactical marines with Captain, but one shot scatters wide, so only 3 marines die. Trying a rather ambitious shot, the defiler targets a speeder and clips 4 tactical marines. The shot scatters back 1 inch and shakes the speeder and kills 2 marines. Snap firing its autocannon the defiler wrecks the speeder. Plasma and lascannon fire hits the terminators and 2 die from the combined fire of the disciples. The heavy weapons team adds their fire power but its mainly absorbed by storm shields but still 1 dies! Chimera fire brings down a single scout. I attempt to do some damage to the death company dreadnought with the sentinels autocannon but I do no damage.

Assault phase and the mutants attempt to charge the scouts, but fail.

Score: Objective 5, objective 1, Hold the line

Blood angels: 1 – Renegades: 3

Blood angels turn 2

Again they press forwards and the dreadnoughts are a bit too close to my defiler. The lone speeder back off though not wanting to suffer the same fate as its partner.

Sniper fire and speeder shots target the mutants killing half of them. A melta gun shot from the furioso targets the defiler and gets a penetrating hit shaking the walker, at least it would if it wasn't a possessed vehicle, it just looses a hull point. Again the tactical marines attempt to gun down the spawn but this time manage to do 2 wounds, killing the wounded one.

Assault and the terminators charge the spawn on the right and just murder them. Furioso charge, with re-rolls to hit and wound just killed them off before I could strike. Both dreadnoughts charge the defiler, the furioso does 2 penetrating hit but the daemon save prevents it. However Cassor wrecks the daemonic walker with ease.

Score: First blood

Blood Angels: 2 – Renegades: 3

Renegades turn 2

In from reserve come the outflanking mutants, who attack the tactical marines on the left flank. The mutants on the table get close to charge the terminators while the chimeras and disciples get ready to target the terminators. Trying to get away from the dreadnoughts the battle tanks move to the left.

Firing all lasguns within rapid fire range, the mutants on the left bring down an amazing 0 marines. The battle cannons fire at the marines in the back field and kill off 2, leaving 1 man alive. This turn the sentinels go after a more likely target, the land speeder and only get a single penetrating hit, which it jinks. All of the plasma and lascannon shots land on the terminators and kill off the last 2 hammer/shield terminators. The chimera shots attempt to kill some more but just bounce of the 2+ save.

On the left the lone spawn charges into the tactical marines with captain, but the captain uses his relic blade to cut the spawn to bits, killing it. The mutants charge the terminators and their hammer of wrath faisl to do any damage, so once again the terminators shred a unit with ease.

Blood angels: 2 – Renegades: 3

Blood angels turn 3

The dreadnoughts go their separate ways, with Cassor going towards the chimeras while the furioso goes after the battle tanks. Moving towards the disciples in the woods, the terminators get ready to charge. Trying to move undetected the lone marine moves into the middle while the others go after the mutants.

Sniper fire from the scouts targets the heavy weapons team and kills a single base.

Assault and the blood angels show their worth. The furioso charges into the battle tanks and manages to take 2 hull points and stuns one of the tanks. Cassor charges the closes chimera and explodes it killing 4 of the disciples inside. Stampeding though the woods the terminators charge into the disciples, some how I kill 2 of the terminators with overwatch fire but it wasn't enough. Again lightning claws and the aid of the priests frag grenades kills off the disciples before they can strike. On the left the tactical marines and captain charge into the mutants, a single marine dies to over watch, I do no wounds and the captain kills 3, the mutants run and get cut down.

Blood Angels: 2 – Renegades: 3

Renegades turn 3

I move the chimera up and the russ which can move to objective 4. Sentinels back away from the marines.

Autocannon fire from the sentinels shoot at the furioso but does no damage. The chimera targets Cassor and takes a single hull point off him, the disciples add their fire power but do no damage. One lone battle cannon targets the scouts and despite their camo cloaks 3 die!

In the assault phase the furioso gets to attack again, and rolls up 2 explodes results, so both tanks are destroyed despite only 1 being in base contact. That stops me taking an objective.

Blood angels: 2 – renegades: 3

Blood Angels turn 4

Now that Cassor has forced the other unit of disciples out of their transport, the terminators go after them while Cassor goes after the heavy weapons teams. Furioso dreadnought and tactical marines now go after the sentinels.

Again the snipers target the heavy weapons and deal a single wound to them. Again the furioso fires its melta and this time explodes a sentinel.

Assault phase and Cassor charges into the heavy weapons and instant-deaths all of the remaining bases. Again the terminators charge into a disciples squad and shreds them all. Blood claws ready, the furioso charges into the sentinels and explodes the rest of the walkers. In a moment of heroism, the lone tactical marine charges into the chimera, but a renegade with plasma gun gets out if the fire point and guns the guy down, with both shots hitting and evaporating the marine.

Blood Angels: 2 – Renegades: 3

Renegades turn 4

I don't have much left and the only achievable card is grab objective 4. So the chimera blocks the terminators while the command gets out and moves towards objective 4.

Shooting phase and the command run and grab the objective. Chimera fire attempts to damage Cassor but fails to do anything.

Score: Objective 4

Blood Angels: 2 – Renegades: 4

Blood Angels turn 5

The marines take objective 2 while the terminators and Cassor move towards the command squad.

Cassor manages to charge into the command squad killing them while the terminators charge into the chimera, wrecking it.

Score: Slay the warlord, objective 2, issue a challenge

Blood Angels: 5 – Renegades: 4

The Game ends here with me having no models left.

Victory to the Blood Angels

Post-Battle

Well that went badly towards the end, when it came down to the crunch my army really didn't have anything to hold its own in combat and just fell apart. This is an issue that needs to be addressed in the future. My force had plenty of anti-tank weapons, but I spread them too thin, trying to take out terminators with them instead of the dreadnoughts. This was a mistake, but I had little room on the left flank to get everything that I should have put there so I had to make do with the battle tanks.

Speaking of which, the battle tanks didn't do much, being ap 3 is awkward this edition. They bounce of 2+ saves and can't explode a vehicle unless its open topped. Very awkward. As of right now I don't really have any other options for my force so I will have to stick with them, maybe proxying them as a different variant would be better, any recommendations?

The mealstrom mission I didn't like. A game which limits your options as the game progresses really does seem counter intuitive. Its like you have to win the game in the first 3 turns while you have options to win. It didn't work that way as he stole victory right at the end, but still limiting options, I don't like it.

This list, I don't feel it does much, I need to experiment around with it more, maybe add in some allies to help the list as a whole. I'm just not happy with it right now. If anyone with Imperial guard experience could give me a few pointers on basic army selection that would be great.

Anyway I have gone on enough for this post. Hope you enjoyed.