Corvus's Blood Angels - Command Squad WiP

[Natanael]

I cant play this wednesday, unfortunately :( But maybe we can manage a game next week. Gives you more time to finish the raptor anyway =) 

 

I'm looking forward to the battle reports, nice to hear that you are winning. I guess I'll have to put an end to that, then ;)

[Corvus_Danseur]

Raptor Nearly Done

The Fire Raptor is making good progress. Now moved onto the edge highlighting stage, thus far only the front section and cockpit have been done. As I may have mentioned before... I really like this model!

Will try to get a batrep up from last weekend sometime this week... ehhhhhh, life!

[Leonaides]

Cheers... inspiring me to get mine done whilst also depressing me that mine will never look as good. Recepie for your red?

[Natanael]

Looking good indeed. It's gonna be nice to see it in person.

 

And I have to say that I am looking forward to that battle report. Hint hint. ;)

[Angelus Mortifer]

It's such a good looking kit (especially in red ) and you are certainly doing it justice. Top work.

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Looks great, brother. Looking forward to the battle report too -- I'm really interested to see what your new build is!

[Corvus_Danseur]

Thanks all .

You can for sure paint like this Leonaides! My recipe is actually embarrassingly simple, it just takes some patience. It is designed to look good on a table-top and on the shelf. It is by no means artistic!

Prime: Chaos Black Spray

Base: Mephiston Red. The trick on this stage is that as I paint the model I go back and rebrush/reapply thin coats of more red just before the initial layer is fully dry. This builds up the red into a nice deep and even shade/coat. Use the biggest brush you can.

Wash: On large vehicles like the Fire Raptor I skip my surface layering stage that I use on infantry, and just wash straight away. Nuln Oil into the recess and cracks. This wash can be a bit messy, so I go back with Mephiston Red and neaten up any that has spread away from where I want it.

Highlight: all edges are highlighted thinly with Evil Sunz Scarlet. Any mistakes are again corrected with Mephiston Red.

And uh... yeah... that's it!! Works surprisingly well. I feel like the main reason why it looks good is the good layer of Mephiston over the black... makes for a Red that is bold but not overly bright. So, no fancy tricks, just a bit of patience with correcting errors and re-brushing the initial coat of red and the Scarlet lining .

BAtrep- dealing with the Necron threat

So I finally get around to getting these three turn batreps up! This was fought two weekends ago so forgive any lapses in memory. I will do my best to highlight key moments and what I thought worked well and what didn't. I also need to preface this that I had a massive run of luck in these two games- my 3+ armour saves very rarely let me down!! I passed at least 85-90% of them. Even so, without this I still feel that I would have won handily, just perhaps not by turn 3 each time!

We played Dawn of War deployment, with escalating tactical objectives. My warlord trait was move through cover and +1 to ruins cover save. My opponents trait was to get an extra tactical objective on turn 1. Points limit was 1750. We both agreed to bring no flyers.

As-ever we played at Playoteket Malmo, shout-out to those guys for their excellent terrain and free use of the tables! (I make sure I buy the majority of my stuff through them... so the sales technique works ).

The Necron force was what is seen in the photo below:

Basically Gauss with more Gauss: two Ghost Arks, two Annihilation Barges, big warrior blob squad, two squads of Immortals, three lords and a bunch of Scarab swarms. My opponent would no doubt like me to point out that his painting is the orange Necrons, whilst the rest are still in the second hand colours he got them in!

The Blood Angels force consisted of:

- Bare bones Reclusiarch.

- x10 Death Company with one thunder hammer and two power weapons.

- x10 Assault Marines with two melta guns and gun slinger plasma sergeant.

- x10 Assault Marines with two melta guns and gun slinger inferno pistol sergeant.

- x5 Sternguard vets with combi plasma.

- x 8 Devastators, with x4 plasma cannon and signum link.

- Brother Corbulo

- x2 Sanguinary Priests, 1 with jump pack.

- Landraider Redeemer, with multi-melta pintle.

Game 1

Deployment

I deployed first. Placing only one combat squad of ASM in reserve (the quad melta drop as I like to call it), I placed five ASM on one flank to try and tempt my opponent into spreading his forces out at little cost to me. The rest of my forces deployed on the opposite flank, with (the unpainted and not yet fully converted, sorry!!) devastators, occupying the slightly left of centre ruin. The Redeemer loaded with the DC secures the end of the left flank. Corbulo and Sternguard are in the pod. The basic battle plan at this stage is to hit hard along the left flank and roll along his line whilst the Devs keep his infantry hiding and limited in where they can move without exposing themselves. One priest is with the Devs and another with the large ASM.

The Necrons deploy, and as hoped they spread out along pretty much the full width of the board. Admittedly with so much infantry and nothing reserved this was somewhat inevitable. But it seems like the ASM on the right flank had served to pull his line out. With tactical objectives the idea of an ASM squad bouncing around un-opposed on a flank with two objectives does not make for a happy opponent, even if it is to his general tactical disadvantage to take the bait.

Necrons fail to seize the initiative and BA pull an objective to kill a character.

BA Turn 1

Movement: Sternguard pod arrives on the left flank, Corbs to the fore! The small ASM squad moves forwards into the ruins and holds the objective just to the front of the ruins. The Redeemer moves forward just enough to close some distance, but not so close that the Scarabs could get a charge off in the Necron turn. The large ASM squad stays in place, as I resist my usual temptation to charge blindly forward un-supported.

Shooting: Sternguard fire at the Immortals with the lord in, having positioned themselves so that the lord was the second closet. As seen in the photo above, they use poisoned rounds to great effect and manage to knock down three immortals and the the lord. Sadly the lord gets back up with his reanimation, denying me the tactical objective. The plasma devs open up on the scarab swarms, but three scatter badly and only two of the five bases are destroyed. The Redeemer power of the machine spirits (PotMS) its multimelta and puts a penetrating hit on one of the Annihilation barges, resulting in its' main weapon destroyed (the big ass twin linked thing up top, can't remember the name!).

Assault: nothing happens.

Necron Turn 1

Movement: the Necron forces make a general advance, whilst one Ghost Ark and the Scarab swarms move towards the Sternguard. The barges stay in the ruins to benefit from a cover save.

Shooting: The Ghost Ark in the centre and the barges combine to put three glances on the Raider... luck just about falling my way as one more 6 would have left the DC walking into the teeth of the Necron gun-line. Meanwhile Corbs does his job and tanks about 20 wounds from the Immortals and second Ark.

Assault: the Scarab swarms and Immortals make their charge into the Sternguard. The overwatch takes two wounds off one base of Scarabs. The Lord (with mind-shackles scarabs) challenges Corbs, who promptly lets the Sergeant step up and take the hit. Photos above and below are before and after! The Sternguard suprise the foe once more in close combat and succeed in killing one base and putting one wound on another base. Meanwhile the Lord kills the plucky sergeant- however any wounds the Necrons manage to put on the veterans bounce off their seemingly increasingly impenetrable armour!

BA Turn 2

Movement: the quad-melta ASM squad fail to arrive, rolling two twos! The Redeemer roars forwards, successfuly moving over the low brick wall barring its way (ahahaha Nathanael!! ). The DC pile out. The large ASM squad also moves out towards the centre of the board, whilst the small ASM squad stays put in the ruins. I claim one objective point for drawing the objective in front of my dev squad.

Shooting: the Redeemer PotMS its Flamestorm cannon onto the central Ark, toasting four of the warriors inside. Then the multimelta pops the transport with a single penetrating hit! Sadly no warriors die in the explosion. However the plasma devs are more on-target this time and wipe out the remaining six warriors with little problem. The DC rapid fire their bolters (relentless, woop!) into the immortals in front of them knocking down two, one of whom gets back up.

Assault: the DC make their charge into the immortals, one bolter marine falling to overwatch. First we resolved the ongoing combat, and this time Corbs cannot refuse the challenge and so he promptly kills one of his own veterans... Fortunately he survives the lords attack and but doesn't manage to inflict any wounds in return. One Immortal dies and one wound is put on the Scarab swarms. Necrons lose the combat but pass morale.

And now the DC strike.... the Lord challenges my Reclusiarch, who accepts. In the challenge the faith of the Emperor is strong, and the Lord is slain by the Reclusiarch. The photo below shows the aftermath of a 9 man, power weapon wielding DC who are re-rolling to hit and to wound...

Yup. That's a completely wiped out Immortal squad! The lord fails/cannot stand back up and dies as well. The DC consolidate a mighty 2". One objective point is gained for killing a character.

Necrons Turn 2

Movement: The remaining Ark moves away from the drop pod and draws line of sight onto Redeemer which is sitting on one hull point. The barge with its main weapon destroyed moves to put its self between the warrior blob squad containing the Necron Warlord and the raging Death Company. Not many other Necron models are left or are free to move...

Shooting: The Redeemer is attacked by the Ghost Ark and the intact barge. However poor luck on the barge and a cover save from the shots taken from the Ark mean that it survives once more! The warrior blob squad manage to kill one DC (see what I mean about armour saves... I made 7 out of 9, and then passed one of the two FnP).

Assault: the interminable fight continues, Corbs passes his leadership test! Fails to do anything to the Lord, but he isn't killing his own men, which has to be an improvement, well done that man! Meanwhile the veterans put in a stellar display and manage to kill off a base of Scarabs and one Immortal. Necrons lose the combat and....

... Run away!!! My opponent starts to examine the dice he had just bought in the store before the game...

BA Turn 3

Movement: The quad-melta ASM squad fails to arrive once again with two rolls of two!! The lucky-plucky Redeemer moves forward and takes aim at the surviving Ark. Meanwhile the small ASM squad breaks cover and moves to pincer the warrior blob squad with the DC, who move round the blocking barge and gain LoS with little problem. The big ASM squad loiters in the mid-ground waiting to see where it is needed, if at all.

Shooting: the Redeemer toasts two warriors inside the Ark, but sadly they manage to self-repair. One glancing hit is all that the rest of the guns manage on the living metal. The plasma devs fire on the intact barge sitting in the ruins, but only manage one glance on the machine.

Assault: both the DC and the ASM squad make their charge. The ASM attacking first in order to draw the overwatch fire away from the more dangerous DC, 1 ASM is lost. The results of this can be seen in the photo below... devastation... only the Lord and one warrior remain standing. And to no-one's surprise they break and are run down. The DC consolidate towards the barge in the ruins. In the combat between the Scarabs and Corbs-Veterans, one wound is put on the swarm, leaving it on one wound. No wounds are taken in return.

Necrons Turn 3

At this point my opponent has left, one Ark, one Barge and one Scarab. So he fires the Ark and Barge at the Redeemer, finally killing it. And then concedes the game. Big props to my opponent, who despite facing some bad luck on his part and good luck on mine, remained cheerful throughout, and only swore a few times . Good sportsmanship!

Post-Game Analysis

Caveat- yes I had some good armour saves, so what is said below should take that into account. Also this was pretty much the first time my opponent played Necrons (he normally plays Eldar/30k marines), so he made some mistakes in this game that he would not make in the next, primarily charging with his Immortals into the Sternguard, that tied up a very shooty unit of his in cc, not good!

Having said that, where did it all go so right?

I think that actually NOT bringing a flyer really helped me out here. Don't get me wrong, I love the Storm Raven, but having never played without it before I think I had got stuck down something of a tactical back alley. With the DC in a Landraider, on the board from Turn 1, making a charge Turn 2- I can be much more pro-active and push the enemy into making bad decisions. Most people know what the DC can do, but in a Raider, on a proper board with LoS blocking terrain... its damm difficult to stop entirely.

The plasma devs are a great addition, in this game they did not kill a huge amount (next game though, oh-ho-ho!)- but they made my opponent terrified to move into their fire-lanes, effectively giving the DC a clear run down the centre of the board. The synergy between the Raider DC moving forward under the covering fire of plasma devs is something that I definitely want to try out more.

The pod of combi-plasma with Corbs did its usual good job. But having not invested points in making it an uber unit, was I think a wise choice. Corbs exponentially increases their survivability- but I have not got so many points in that one pod that I can't afford to lose it. Therefore slamming it down close the enemny lines is not quite such a liability as it has been before. And in this game, successfully tying up a lord, unit of immortals and a load of scarabs, was more than worth a risky deployment.

However there is definite room for improvement. The ASM squads did little, partly due to not turning up before the game ended in one case! But in general I think I should keep them to five man melta heavy squads... in this set-up, 10 man squads is something of an over-investment. Additionally I could certainly lose one, if not both of the priests. Whilst a priest with the devs increases their survivability, if they are sitting in a ruin with good LoS it is perhaps not neccesary. Also in the same vein, the four extra marines in the squad could probably go for the same reason. Although this will depend on the backfield assault/long range fire power that I am facing. But all in all, with these changes I could probably afford to buy a Baal... never a bad thing .

It must also be noted that this Necron list in particular is about as useful as soggy noodle in a bar fight when it comes to close combat. The Lords in the infantry units add some nasty punch. But in general, if the Blood Angels (in particular) get a charge off with a near to full strength unit, those 'crons will be a-runnin! And with initiative 2 they are very likely to get caught. I was able to use the combination of the terrain blocking his LoS, whilst covering open fire-lanes with my Devestators to my advantage in this regard. Rarely did he get more than one round of shooting out of any unit.

Thats all folks! Thanks for reading if you got this far! Second batrep from the second of these two games will hopefully go up before the end of the week.

/salute

[knife&fork]

Have you considered an honor guard? 

 

That way you can get a cheap hidden priest as well as concentrated special weapons. You can even double up if you feel crazy. 4 meltas + 4 flamers is a pretty nice unit to have in a pod.

[xenjang]

Blood angels are so op!!! Nerf Corbulu and Sanguinary priests!!! +3 armour is too good!!! floookin Mahreeens!!!!!!!!!!! THE COWARDS THEY HIDE IN THEIR TITANIUM BAWKSSS!!!  -Quote 

Well jokes aside, nice write up mate. I really enjoyed the two battlereps, seeing how many times a space marine can make an armour save in a row is both nerve wrenching and a real life sanity test. 

My major wrong doing was not focusing all of my firepower on that Land Raider, and charging Sternguards with Immortals... What was I thinking, lol,... 

Well GG, I hope I perform better next time. 

 

Edit:

So that someone doesn't comment on the validity of my list, I had an Overlord and 2 lords. Not 3 Lords. Next time my Overlord is riding the Catacomb Command Barge so that he has fearless and actually doesn't have to fear his unit getting smacked in the face in Close Combat. This is my first time playing the Necrons, and other changes to the list would be to include some Wraiths aswell since they can actually handle a close combat pretty well since they are fearless and have a 3++ save combined with a high toughness and devestating close combat attacks. Furthermore, I would like to see the addition of 3 Tomb Spyders to the list so that I can spew out some Scarab Swarms, the ability to do this is sickening since I can contest objectives, hold up troops with them, and the risk for doing it is so much lower then the reward. 

 

+ What the bejeezus was Matt Ward thinking when he gave the Overlord a sickening Ws of 4??? WS4???? An overlord of a Dynasty has the same Weapon Skill as a Space  Marine??? Sleeping for a few millenia really turns you into crap. Would be nice to hit Muhreens and their equivelants on a 3+, rather then a 4+ (in most cases)... 

 

+ note to self DOOM SCYTHES and NIGHT SCYTHES FOR MOBILITY

 

+ Tesla immortals are really good when hiding in a cover 

 

+ Fook plasma Devestators


we were in real luck since they had a big warhammer battle in the other room and we were allowed a table to play at, really nice, god bless playoteket and the community. 

 

/Erik

[Angelus Mortifer]

Cool batrep mate, and excellent looking army on a very cool board. More batreps please

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Thanks for taking the time to write the batrep. I really "dig" your army -- it's definitely in a style if like to employ. Those DC in Land Raider were killers. What was their load out? Also what points level was this game ? Thanks!

[Corvus_Danseur]

My pleasure :) 

 

@knife&fork: oooo no I haven't, that's a good idea. Will take a look at that and see what I can do. Want to get more of what I have painted first, then will do so I think :). But yeah, sounds like a good alternative. I do love the special ammo of the Sternguard though.

 

@Angelus Mortifer: will do sir! Well, will do my best anyway! 

 

@Nicodemus: DC where all bolter marines apart from two power weapons and a thunder hammer. Point limit was 1750. 

[Natanael]

Movement: the quad-melta ASM squad fail to arrive, rolling two twos! The Redeemer roars forwards, successfuly moving over the low brick wall barring its way (ahahaha Nathanael!! ). The DC pile out. The large ASM squad also moves out towards the centre of the board, whilst the small ASM squad stays put in the ruins. I claim one objective point for drawing the objective in front of my dev squad.

I hate you and your Land Raider...

No, but seriously, does your driver have some kind of educational pamphlet that my LR Crew can read about driving through low walls? :P

Nice report. The LRR does make a good addition, as you say. Making the DC charge earlier in the game is usually a good idea. The Necron list could use some spiders and maybe some wraiths, but other then that I dont think the list is that bad. As you pointed out they die in droves in CC, but they should be able to put out quite a lot of shooting. Blame the dice gods =)

[Jolemai]

Have you considered an honor guard?

 

That way you can get a cheap hidden priest as well as concentrated special weapons. You can even double up if you feel crazy. 4 meltas + 4 flamers is a pretty nice unit to have in a pod.

Sanguinary Novitaes are now characters meaning they are no longer hidden.

[Corvus_Danseur]

Fire Raptor Complete!

The Raptor is complete! It's taken the better part of Sunday and a significant number of evenings, but got there in the end. There is of course more that could be done and as ever I have noticed in the photos some touching up that needs to be done. But all in all the beast is table ready- may my foes tremble before the Angels Wrath!

And some high contrast shots just for fun .

[tsijben]

I hate you, now I want my own Fire Raptor :O

[Natanael]

It looks awesome. The high contrast was cool as well. "Combat footage" ;)

[Unbreakable]

Loving the fire raptor! Really must get on with painting mine

[The Red Thirst]

Love the Fire Raptor, so awesome to finally see one in Red ;)

[TheHarrower]

Very purty. Great job.

[Zedrenael]

I love it and I need to get one myself.

[Angelus Mortifer]

That is one sexy looking bird

[Corvus_Danseur]

Many thanks all! It's a great looking model and can't recommend it enough... sorry for the temptation caused ;) 

[Shaezus]

Really, really nice job there. The red is nice and rich and it still has a great weathered look.

[Morticon]

Lookin sooo sexy.

 

Well done.

 

Also....

 

 

Heavy bolters :P 

 

just saying.