BluejayJunior's Seraphim Knights blog

[BluejayJunior]

Hey everyone,

This is where I am going to keep a blog of my Blood Angels successor, The Seraphim Knights. I'll post up pictures of units and some battle reports. Plus I'll put the lore of my chapter here as it comes together. Hope you guys enjoy. 

 

 

 

Fourth Choir (Company)

 

5th Squad - Isaiah - Intercessors

[BluejayJunior]

My army:
Blood Angels Battalion

Captain w/ jumppack, thunder hammer, storm shield (Warlord – Artisan of War, Angel’s Wing)

Captain in Terminator armor, relic blade, stormbolter

 

2x5 Intercessor – bolt rifle, AGL, power sword

1x5 scouts – CCW, bolt pistol

 

1x3 Aggressors – boltstorm gauntlets

1x8 Sanguinary Guard – 6 swords (2 with plasma pistols), 2 axes

 

1x3 Inceptor – assault bolters

 

Imperial Knights Super heavy detachment (Hawkshroud)

Knight valiant – 2 siegebreaker cannons, 2 shieldbreaker missiles

2x1 Helverins – heavy stubber

 

His army (from memory)
Nurgle demon battalion

Demon prince,

2x3 nurglings

1x30 plaguebearers

Chaos Spawn

 

Thousand Sons Supreme command

2 demon princes (1 was his warlord)

Ahriman

 

Death guard detachment

Malignant plaguecaster

Foul Blightspawn

2 foetid bloat drones (1 w/ plague spitters, 1 w/ lawnmower blade thing)

Plagueburst crawler

Hellforged contemptor dreadnought (chainclaws)

 

Mission: Maelstrom of War – Kill Confirmed (Chapter Approved)

Deployment: (Hammer and Anvil)

I deployed my Valiant on the line on the left flank within range of his Contemptor. The Helverins were deployed back in my deployment zone, one in the middle, one to the side behind the Valiant. Scouts deployed mid table on an objective. One Intercessor squad deployed behind terrain on my right flank. The other deployed midtable forward in the deployment zone with my Terminator captain and Aggressors.

Smash captain,

He zoned out half of his deployment zone with his plaguebearers, his nurgle DP and the close combat bloat drone. His nurglings deployed midtable, one on an objective. Across from my Valiant he deployed his TS princes, Ahriman, Contemptor, PB crawler and DG characters. His spawn and other bloat drone were back in his deployment zone to keep me from deepstriking.

 

Turn 1:

I won the roll off to go first. I moved my Intercessors, Aggressors (advancing), and Terminator Capt forward and into cover. Other intercessors moved forward onto a hill. One Helverin moved forward onto an objective in my zone, the other stayed still. The Valiant moved into range of his Contemptor, TS demon princes and plagueburst crawler. I used the Shieldbreaker missile strat to take out Ahriman (used a reroll for the damage and got lucky). The Aggressors and a Helverin took out one of the Nurgling units. Intercessors killed a few Plaguebearers. I think the other Helverin shot the Crawler but didn’t do much. I got 2 kill points and First blood. (3VP)

He moved his army forward (a lot of it Advanced), but kept me zoned out, so I couldn’t drop behind his lines. He smited 5 W off my Valiant, but that was about it. He got 1 VP for controlling an objective from a card. (1VP)

 

Turn 2:

Kept moving my infantry forward, except for the Aggressors. Captain dropped down in front of the crawler next to the Valiant. Aggressors double shot the plaguebearers, along with the Intercessors, killing a bunch. One Helverin targeted the closest bloat drone, the other hit the plagueburst crawler. Both did a little damage but saves and Disgustingly Resilient reduced it some. The Valiant threw everything into the Contemptor and smoked him with the harpoon. The captain charged the crawler and did some more damage, but it stayed alive. I got 1 kill point and 2 VP for my Helverin controlling the objective (6VP)

He smited my captain to death. I used Only in Death to fight with my Captain so he could pile into one of the Demon Princes and did 4W to it. (I got 1 VP for a Blood Angels character dying = 7VP) He shot my Valiant taking it down to 13 W. He charged my Aggressors and scouts with his Nurgle DP and bloat drone. He wiped the scouts and killed one Aggressor, they did a little damage back. He scored 2 kill points, Slay the Warlord, and a tactical objective (5 VP)

 

Turn 3:

 I dropped my Sanguinary Guard near his crawler. And my Inceptors on the opposite side. My Aggressors fell back. One Helverin killed the bloat drone right in front of my units. The Valiant smoked one of the TS demon princes. Inceptors and Intercessors killed more plaguebearers. Terminator Captain charged the nurgle demon prince. Sanguinary guard charged the plagueburst crawler. Valiant charged the crawler and the Foul Blightspawn. Big mistake! He rolled Strength 11 and 6 auto-hits for his Blightspawn and did 12W to my Valiant, leaving it at 1. The Sanguinary Guard killed the crawler and he used the strat to make it explode, killing my Valiant. It then exploded and killed a few SG, Aggressors, Intercessors, his Nurgle DP, a nurgling, and injured both his DG characters. I got 3 kill points, another d3 (2) for a tactical objective for killing 3-5 units, and 1 more for killing a unit in the fight phase. (13VP) And he scored 3 kill points.

He smited a few SG. His warlord demon prince and his last bloat drone moved forward. The Blightspawn moved forward and killed my Aggressors. His plaguebearers charged a squad of Intercessors. He scored another kill point and another 3 points for tactical objectives (12 VP).

 

Turn 4:

I moved one Helverin so his Warlord was the closest unit. My terminator captain moved to support the Intercessors fighting the plaguebearers. The Inceptor shot the last bloat drone but didn’t do much. The Helverin killed the last Demon Prince. That gave me a kill point, Slay the Warlord, 2VP for Kingslayer, and 1 VP for Witch Hunter. Intercessors and Terminator Captain killed a few plaguebearers. Second Intercessor squad didn’t do much. (18VP)

On his turn, the Plaguecaster and Blightspawn finished off my Intercessors and Sanguinary Guard. His bloat drone killed an Inceptor. He got 2 more kill points and another 3 for Tactical objectives (17 VP).

 

Turn 5:

My Helverins killed the Blightspawn and Plaguecaster. The Inceptors, Intercessor, and Captain both fell back. The Inceptors killed a few more plaguebearers. I got those 2 kill points. (20 VP)

He killed my Inceptors with his bloat drone. And finished off my Intercessors (19 VP)

Rolled to continue the game and went to turn 6.

 

Turn 6:

My helverins finished off the Bloat drone and Plaguebearers. I also scored another tactical objective. (22 VP)

We called it at that point. All that was left was my Terminator Captain and 2 Helverins, and he had 2 Nurglings.

 

 

Takeaways from the game:

 

I'm liking the Helverins as fire support. They may not get the job done on one turn, but a constant barrage over several turns really takes its toll. If you can keep them away from enemies and in the fight. But Nurgle's disgustingly resilient and high toughness can take the punch out of their guns. 

 

First time using Valiant. If that harpoon hits, boy it kills stuff. Choosing targets isn't easy with it though. I put everything into a unit a couple times, but killed it first thing with the harpoon. If I split it up, I risk missing with the harpoon and not killing anything. But if I focus fire, everything else is wasted if the harpoon hits. I'm gonna have to get more experience with it. 

 

Smash Captain did alright. I didn't pump CP into him (and no Death Visions), but he still did some damage. Need to keep him away from psykers though. Storm shields don't work against smite. 

 

Never charge a Foul Blightspawn. Its 2d6 strength flamer will choose that time to roll HOT!. I was hoping to kill the Plagueburst Crawler with my SG and use my Valiant to stomp the Blightspawn. I should have just piled into him instead. Wouldn't have been able to hit him, but he wouldn't have been able to do anything the next turn. 

[Majkhel]

Congratulations! It's great to see how you focused on acquiring VP.
With Nurgle there's no such thing as overkill, so I'd say you made the right choices focusing down units. Even if it wasted a bit of Valiant's firepower.

[Karhedron]

I'm liking the Helverins as fire support. They may not get the job done on one turn, but a constant barrage over several turns really takes its toll. If you can keep them away from enemies and in the fight. But Nurgle's disgustingly resilient and high toughness can take the punch out of their guns.

Yes, Helverins have a lot going for them. High RoF, flat 3 damage and AP-1 are good vs Nurgle as it means that Invulnerable saves are relevant much and DR has to make a lot of rolls. High toughness targets are a downside but Bloat Drones fly making them tasty targets for Skyreaper Protocols.

 

Smash Captain did alright. I didn't pump CP into him (and no Death Visions), but he still did some damage. Need to keep him away from psykers though. Storm shields don't work against smite. 

 

Never charge a Foul Blightspawn. Its 2d6 strength flamer will choose that time to roll HOT!.

Captain Smash is in fact the perfect antidote to Foul Blightspawn. Assuming you have given him the Angel's Wing relic, he can charge into combat and negate overwatch before pounding them.

[Indefragable]

Nice victory. Seems like you kept your head during the course of it which is the most important factor at all times, regardless of setup, matchup, outcomes, etc... Have a plan, execute it as viciously as possible, adjust accordingly, repeat.

 

Overkill is a risk, but a good way to start factoring that in is to remember that "one dead enemy is better than 2 wounded enemies."  Yes, you can waste a lot of guns on a single target, but if you are prioritizing targets correctly, then the thing you are dumping all that firepower in must die that turn at all costs, so it's not really "wasted." Imagine if it went the other way and survived with a single wound left...you will have wished you had dumped everything you had into it!

 

One way to mitigate the feeling of overkill is to have overlapping fields of fire and backup options. I always try to start my Shooting round with the units that have only a single viable option: they're easy to get out of the way and if all goes well, they free up backup options to move to the next priority target and so on.

 

 

As for more Blood Angel-specific advice, remember that you never have to Deep Strike or WoF a unit around. More and more I have found the threat of it is as useful if not more so than actually doing it. I played a 2500pt game against a Khorne Berzerker + Daemon army a while back and the very threat of dropping DC and/or SG into his backfield forced him to deploy in such a way to negate that....which allowed me to kick in his front door all the harder by not Deep Striking in. For that reason I try to deploy units like SG as close to last as possible to see if he is counter-deploying in preparation for it. If he isn't, then make him pay! If he is, then make him pay by deploying on the board and jumping up the field! If he does T1, then let's guard down T2, T3, T4, etc... use WoF to make him pay! If you play your cards right, the tax man WILL collect from him!

[BluejayJunior]

Went to a small 10 person RTT this Saturday. It was 1750 points, 2 hour rounds, using the Forge the Narrative tournament pack.

Here was my list.

 

Battalion + Vanguard

 

HQs

Smash Captain - Angel's wing, Warlord (Artisan of War)

Terminator Captain - Relic Blade + Stormbolter

Librarian Dreadnought - Stormbolter; Quickening, Wings of Sanguinius

Primaris Lieutenant - power Sword

 

Troops

2x5 Intercessors - Power sword, AGL, bolt rifles

1x5 Scouts - CCW, bolt pistol

 

Fast Attack

3 Inceptors - Assault Bolters

 

Elites

3 Aggressor - bolters

10 Death Company - Jumppack, bolt pistol, chainsword

Primaris Ancient - Standard of Sacrifice

8 Sanguinary Guard - 4 sword + bolter, 2 sword + plasma pistol, 2 axe + bolter

5 Vanguard Veterans - Jumppacks, relic blade + plasma pistol + melta bomb, 2 plasma pistol + thunderhammer, 2 power sword + stormshield

[BluejayJunior]

The RTT was 3 rounds.

 

Round 1 vs. Ultramarines

His list had Guilliman, scouts, bikes, and biker librarians and apothecary. And two Stormtalon gunships.

I made a fire base with my Intercessors, Aggressors, Ancient, Terminator Captain, and Primaris Ancient. This was my basic strategy for all three games. Deployed my Inceptors and Sanguinary Guard in deep strike. We each had a single objective in our deployment zones.

He went first. I used the Prepared Positions strat. He moved up both Stormtalons and a castle of Guilliman, one or two bike squads, a librarian, and the apothecary. I had deployed conservatively behind a large bunker so he couldn't see a lot of my stuff. I also was rolling hot on saves, so i only lost an Aggressor and an Intercessor I think. I kept my librarian Dreadnought, VV, and Smash Captain together. They and the DC were able to take out one of the Stormtalons (mostly just from the Librarian, that halberd can destroy things with no invlun, especially with Wings and Quickening).

Turn 2 he kept moving forward, but wasn't able to kill much. My vanguard Vets took down the other Stormtalon. My Smash Captain took Guilliman down to 1 wound. The Sanguinary Guard and Inceptors dropped down at the edge of his DZ and each killed a few bikes that were in his backfield. The DC took out the apothecary.

His turn 3 went about the same as the last 2. His bikers with bolt guns and Guilliman weren't able to do much damage all game. I killed Guilliman with my Terminator Captain. My DC and Inceptors took out more bikes in the backfield and my SG took his objective. He failed his roll for Guilliman to come back and then conceded.

 

Game 2 vs. Drukhari/Eldar

This game did not go well. I deployed too aggressively. I won the roll to go first, but he seized. He proceeded to just shoot my army off the board. I was tabled by turn 3. He had 5 Venoms, 3x5 Dire Avengers, 2x5 Kabalites, 2 Trueborn squads with shredders (is this an Index unit? I know it's not in the codex), 2 Eldar psykers, 2 Razorwings, and 3 Ravagers with DCs. I don't really remember much about this game. I took out the Razor wings and a couple Dire Avenger units, but not much else. This was my first game against Drukhari and I got completely destroyed.

 

Game 3 vs. Harlequins/Drukhari

This game ended up being closer than I thought it would. He had 3 squads of Harlequin bikes, a solitaire, a shadowseer (? the Harlequin psyker), a big unit of grotesques, a unit of wracks, a haemonculus with the vexator mask, and some eldar snipers.

I went first and threw my DC at one of his bike squads. Between the Aggressors and the DC, I was able to take out 5 of the 6 bikes, despite being close enough to be targeted by the vexator mask and the solitaire heroically intervening. He then moved up his bikes and the grotesques, and his solitaire with killed my smash captain (mostly due to the cloak that causes MW on a miss combined with multiple -1 to hit debuffs). The grotesques killed my scouts and a couple Intercessors. On my turn, I threw just about everything at the grotesques. The Librarian Dreadnought, Term Capt, Primaris Lt, Vanguard Vets, Sanguinary Guard. I killed a few, maybe half, but not nearly enough. 

His grotesques were able to fall back and then he shot up a lot of my units with his bikes and snipers. By the end, I had my Lt, an Intercessor, and my Inceptors left.

We ended up ending after turn 3 due to time, but he was in control of the game. In this game, we scored objectives at the beginning of the turn, starting on turn 2. This worked out for me. I had scored 2 objectives, and he had 5. With this mission, a difference of 0-3 between the objectives was a tie on primary, so we each got 7 points. But he scored way more secondary and tertiary, so it ended up being 21-7.

 

In the end, I went 1-2, but ended up in 5th out of 10 people due to my big win in round 1. This was my first real tournament, so I'm happy with the result. Especially taking pure Blood Angels. It was a lot of fun. I can tell how much I've improved in playing over the last few months. 

[BluejayJunior]

I am heading to Adepticon in a couple of weeks. I'm taking a Knights/Blood Angel list. Just a hair more Blood Angels to make that my primary.

 

Blood Angels Battalion

 

HQs

Smash Captain

Terminator Captain, relic blade, stormbolter

 

Troops

2x5 Intercessors, bolt rilfe, AGL, power sword

1x5 scouts, CCW, bolt pistol

1x5 scouts, bolters, sgt w/ chainsword

 

Fast Attack

1x3 Inceptors, assault bolters

 

Elites

1x3 Aggressors, bolters

1x8 Sanguinary Guard, 4 sword + bolter, 2 sword + PP, 2 axe + bolter

 

 

Hawkshroud Super Heavy

Valiant

2x1 Helverin

 

It's a fun list to play. Definitely not the most competitive list, but it's got some teeth. Especially with the Valiant. My goal is to go 2-2 at Adepticon, but I'll be happy with a 1-3 record. This will be my first big event ever. 

[QuarterPounder]

I like the list! Best of luck...

[Lynnean]

I like it as well! Maybe a way to swap the termi captain for mephy?

[BluejayJunior]

I like it as well! Maybe a way to swap the termi captain for mephy?

I could probably make the points to do that, but I don't have Mephiston. If I had a cheaper captain option, I'd switch it out with the terminator one, but this is what I have built and painted at the moment. I like to use the smash captain to kill things and use the other to sit with the intercessors and aggressors to support them. 

Thanks for the suggestion though. It's something I can look into more. 

[BluejayJunior]

Back from Adepticon. Had a lot of fun and played in the Champs. Did slightly better than I was hoping for. My goal was 1-3 and I went 1-2-1. I'll be posting more detailed battle reports soon, but wanted to give a quick update. I had fun with my first little dip into the competitive scene.

I played one RTT last year and ended up 4219 ish place in ITC out almost 10K and 136 in Blood Angels. 

I am planning on playing more tournaments this year, focusing on Blood Angels as primary. My goal is top 2000 in ITC and top 75 in Blood Angels. 

[Morticon]

Well done, dude!! 

[Xenith]

I'll post up pictures of units 

 

*cough, cough*

 

[BluejayJunior]

 

I'll post up pictures of units 

 

*cough, cough*

 

 

Thank you for the reminder. I added my most recently painted Intercessors. I'm still in the process of updating the paint scheme on some older units and need to take more pictures of them. Will definitely take pictures of the completed ones soon. 

[BluejayJunior]

Finished up my Assault Squad and Biker Squad for the ETL. Trying to finish up everything before ETL ends.