Destroyed...

[Brother_Byhlli]

Also - and this is a surprisingly hard idea for some people to get theri heads round - dont use deep strike/Descent of Angels if it doesnt actually benefit you!

 

Against the Orks, you could be in combat in turn 2 (so a turn faster), have total reliability of wehre they turn up and can move to, and will have amuch easier time making sure you ar eth eone doing the charging, instead of being charged. By Deep striking you're trading one, or two (if he goes first) rounds of long range ork shooting, for the loss of the charge on an army that relies almost totally on getting the charge - you come off so much worse there that its not funny. You say you've not played very much at all - my advice is forget about DoA (apart from if you happen to take a vanguard veteran unit) and stick to learnign how to manouvre round a board from the go, not leaving it all up to chance on turn 2 deep strikes...

 

 

This.

 

I haven't played a huge number of games but I know the value of tactical flexibility. I would never, ever advocate cheating, but this game is entirely about tipping the balance of the battle in your favour. One of the ways you can do that is make your opponent expect something and then do something completely different. The example here is golden: take a DoA army and deploy it on the table. Your opponent doesn't know what he's facing or how it's going to behave.

 

For me, the crucial point about DoA isn't even that they can use the DoA special rule - it's that they're so insanely manoeuvrable. Something that's hugely important - and I stress this in all of my battle reports - when you play with an army as small and elite as Blood Angels, it's not good enough to match up one of your units with one of your enemy's units and hope for the best. You're manoeuvrable. You're tactical. You're fielding a highly elite army. Take every single unit you have and use them in combination to completely and utterly destroy one of his units. Rinse and repeat. Never leave any of your units unsupported.

 

You might also find the game's easier to pick up if you start out at 750 points, then build up from there to larger games. 1,500 isn't a huge, massive game, but it's big enough that if you've only played a handful of games you've a good chance of being overwhelmed with stuff going on. Don't aim to run before you can walk, basically.

 

Also, stick to your guns for rules. You should always keep a copy of the rulebook handy. Sadly it happens all too often that disagreements come up and, if you think someone's taking you for a ride, make them show you the rule you disagree with. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. It's how you learn. But if you don't stand up for yourself, these guys will just take the absolute pee out of you every time you play them.