Quickie Batrep: White Scars vs. Blood Angels.

[Prot]

Sorry I don't have a ton of time to write this out and I only have a few pictures, but I wanted to follow up with the game we talked about in another thread.

Keep in mind this is probably the first time I haven't had to face Sanquinary guard from a BA player in a long time and he was experimenting with some units he's trying out as well.

What a blood bath! Crazy back and forth game.

The Reiver Lt ended up doing pretty good for me. I got off one smoke grenade on Mephiston. The only time I was going to use the Obsec shut down, the targetted squad ended up dying.

We played a map that was an angled deployment.... Priority Target. I ended up going first which I did not want since I love Oath of Moment.

First turn was surprisingly good for me, as I don't have a ton of shooting but I got rid of his flying potato and one Whirlwind.

I took a big chance though on possessing that critical middle objective and plopped my 5 man Vanguard squad on it with shields. I knew they couldn't tank his whole army but it might force some bad movements on his part.

^Shortly after my first movement phase.

His turn one was just as destructive as mine, perhaps more because Mephiston pretty much single handedly and quite easily wiped the Vanguard.... just way too many saves for me to make.

My turn 2 was a very hard hit back to his center board but he now had the lead with getting bottom of turn scoring for seal of Oath. I had to push forward and his large bike squad was actually giving me problems and reinforced that they are far superior to the 'new' shiny Outriders/ATV's. They just get better rules with core all the way around and they are quite a bit cheaper for the same number of Melta shots, plus he had a Fist in the squad which gave me further problems.

As the turn ends I successfully push out all the stuff he had at mid, but most of his army is in reserves. He decided to try some different units in this game and drop pods in a squad with two melta's and 2 HQ's to get bonuses to charges with his rerolls as well. This also included 2 squads of assault Terminators.

When that all came in, it was good night for my back line. I had left it open because in my opinion I would lose the game if I held back to defend and relinquish mid board, but when I saw all that stuff come in and kill a few Assault Intercessor squads, and my Redemptor, I literally had one Incursor squad left in my zone.

I was in quite a quandary at this point. It was looking pretty bleak, and I thought of 2 ways to proceed... either I come back to my zone to stop him from scoring an easy 4 points a turn from Relentless Assault (what a fantastic secondary!) which was just.. incredibly easy for him to score with 6 units in my zone. Or I push forward into his zone, and see how long I can hold on to mid as I slink into his zone by late game.

I just did not see any hope for me by going back to my zone. I had one hard hitting CC unit left, my 5 Bladeguard. My other losses were too substantial. I had no Outriders left, no ATV's, and of course the Vanguard were toast as well.

Not feeling great about my chances we did what the Khan would do... we kept advancing into his zone. My "Encircled" Eradicators completely fluffed scoring two of 6 shots, wounding on one for a total of 3 Damage.

I did my third Scrambler, got that out of the way at least at mid table with Incursors. I advanced everything like I said and here's where I knew I was in trouble IF the BA player so it.... I advanced a "1" on my Apothecary, and he was furthest back in my zone so I had to reroll it. Even with Plume I was still too slow so I rerolled into... you guessed it.. another 1. And now my stupid Apothecary (who was useless this game by the way) was stuck just 2" past the center line.

What I was wondering if my BA opponent would figure out or not is if he recognized that he could tag that unit at center and use it to 'climb' back to mid field this meant I was going to be hit again and lose center. To be safe I kept my Reiver staggered a little bit behind the Apothecary with the Khan to make sure I could Heroically intervene and/or count those characters within 6" of mid for Oath.

Anyway my turn is far better than I thought. I somehow kill everything else in his zone aside from the last Whirlwind. This includes large bike squad, assault Intercessors, regular intercessors, and Redemptor. I took my speeder in for a few cheeky Terminator kills and had my best turn ever with that stupid speeder... I killed 3 Termies with it! And he fails leader ship leading to a fourth death and one Termie remaining. Lucky, but I'll take it.

His ability to come back from that is in serious jeopardy. We both have very little left, and I see now that vacating my zone was the way to go. He forgot to do a scrambler action one turn ago so this puts him in a real quandary. I know he wants to count 4 easy points for "Relentless Assault" so I calculated that if he wants to complete Scramblers, he MUST leave my deployment zone, and go to mid table with one unit. This one unit leaving my zone means he would only have 3 units in my zone, and I calculated this so I made sure I had 3 in his zone.

^ An approximation of my zone on the left, mid table, BA zone on the right. This is past mid game, and behind that center red piping is mid table objective with my (hidden) Apothecary scared as heck standing on it. The Reiver is just to the right of him.

Common sense dictates he must leave my zone to deploy the last scrambler getting 10 points instead of the 4 for Relentless. Now he's pushing out Termies as far as he can, and his solo Termie from the other squad is in ruins holding an objective, but is wisely taking cover.

At this point it is literally a 4 point game. I am leading 45 to 41. He will score last of course, and has a great chance IF he can get to mid with foolish Apothecary stuck too far back.

Luckily for me he fails the charge at mid with his Tactical squad BUT he makes a charge to Mid with Corbulo? (I think) which is desperation, but he also makes a charge towars my Incursors (you can barely see them at the top of the picture (close to middle hiding behind a structure).

Somehow my Incursors survive the Chaplain, and I roll super hot to kill him in return! Very ridiculous but I'll take it. Corbulo hits my Apothecary in such a way that I can't heroically intervene so it's just Doctor vs. Doctor. Did you know Primaris Apothecaries don't even have a chainsword? Seriously? I had to look this up since it's been so long since Dr.Nick Riveriera has been in a fist fight.

We exchange slaps at mid, but this move does get him 2 Points for mid table Oath of Moment. Incredible.

But with no real support I take my Bladeguard and push back hard taking down Corbulo and he has now finally got his 5 Termies up to come at me in Turn 5, but I now have Bladeguard waiting.... he can't push past that. My Speeder finishes the final Termie on the other flank... barely.

That marks the end of the game. He can't clear my HQ's and remaining Bladeguard. He can't score Relentless Assault now.

The game ends with the final score being a close one... an 11 point differential in favour of the White Scars.

I wish they could all be that close and bloody!

[Dosjetka]

Wow, that was a very tight game! I'm not really "in" with what's good/bad in 40k right now and haven't played since the autumn but I nevertheless enjoy reading your batreps so thank you for taking the time to share them with us. :)

[Prot]

Thank you. It was easily his game to win as well. BA are just so hard to counter with an assault based army.