Friday, January 6, 2017

40K Friday: Blood Angels Holiday Battle 1: 500 points, "Cloak and Shadows"




Even as I was busy figuring out how to paint up the last of the Eldar for the year, I was playing a still-forming Blood Angels army in a series of battles against Apprentice Blaster's Space Wolves. I have been noodling around with these guys for 2-3 years now without every really digging in. I figured it was time. Blaster's Wolves have been gathering dust since he got into his Eldar about 2 years ago and he was interested in taking them out for a spin. So we have two not-at-the-top-of-the-heap armies run by two rusty generals facing off. We decided to do a series of encounters at 500, 1000, 1500, and 2000 points. We would only do one battle per day so we had time to plot and plan for the next one and stick together any new units we might need.

The Battlefield

The Blood Angels Force
I took a librarian dreadnought as my HQ. With only 500 points it let me check off two boxes with one mini. Beyond that I had a 5-man scout squad set up for assault, a 5-man tac squad with a heavy flamer, and a 6-man assault squad with a veteran sgt wielding a power sword.


The Space Wolf Force
Blaster had an Iron Priest, a lone wolf, ten grey hunters with double plasma, a 5-man grey hunter squad, and his long fangs with missile launchers and a plasma cannon.

About Turn 2 - even armor 13 won't save you from repeated Krak missile fire. One bad roll and poof - no HQ!
The assault squad took a beating too.

Birth of a legend: Assault Sergeant Nameless survives missiles and bolters and wipes out the long fangs - he is the only survivor.

I had awful rolls the whole game. I am sure the phrase uttered right before this was "Hittin' on 3's!"
I did learn to stop saying that after another game.

Assault Sergeant Nameless bears down on his new target.

Meanwhile tac trooper Hapless is the last member of his squad on the field.
His heavy flamer is not really helpful at this point.

Assault Sergeant Nameless reaches his goal


Victorious!
The legend grows!

Sometimes you have to get farther away ...
... to get closer to victory 

The Lone Wolf spies a challenge and heads for the Sergeant.
Nameless is only too happy to oblige!


The only ending that would have made both of them happy - and that's how it ended. 

Yes, I lost, but Assault Sergeant Nameless was born! The objective cards just were not with me in this one. The tac squad sat on an objective for 4 turns and I never saw one card related to it or another one nearby. Losing the librarian dread early really hurt me for combat power. I didn't mind sending Nameless against a smaller squad but I wasn't going to have him get "overwatched" by the big squad of hunters.  If this had been a Baal Strike Force instead of a CAD he might have lived through that last fight and made one more charge for glory!

We had a lot of fun with the game  - we always seem to with these smaller fights. Maybe it's because every move and every roll of the dice means a lot more. I also started re-learning about charges and jump packs and the power of missile launchers.

Next up: 1000 potins!





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