Blog Wars Game 3: Dark Eldar Vs Blood Angels

The Kabal of the Pink Fuckers

Mission: Seize ground Deployment: Pitched Battle

Having come off the back of a beastly war with Bully in Game 2 (here) and drawn, I find myself ready to play…Bully. Normally, I’d be happy to play him again, but it was only a 3 game tournament so we asked to switch around. A Grey Knight Paladin army, run by Marc from Grey Knights of Titan and Jamie’s Blood Angels from Index Astartes were more than happy to switch around with us as they were on the next table. Marc fancied taking on Bully and Jamie was happy to play me. We of course cleared all this with the tournament organiser and it had no bearing on the outcome of the day, the other 2 lads were on 2 wins, so if they beat us they would still win.

Lets take a second here. I needed a lot of things to go my way to win this tourney. I needed Bully to beat or draw with Marc…no offense to Mark, but I was confident he could do this, on the otherhand this was put into doubt when I overhead Adam from the SpaceWolvesGrey blog talking about Marc being very familiar with Deathwing and had worked out ways to beat them etc etc.. still I had faith in my brother Son… I also needed Atreides to draw with Firewasp on table one. Not win of course, because then he’d win…lol Firewasp had smashed in his previous opponents and Atreides was on decent form so I was not sure how that’d go.

I had no choice in this one but to go for the throat and tear it out. Anything less and I would not stand a chance. If I did this I could win through merit of VP margin, with only 3 games played there would be quite a few dudes on 2W-1D…But there were potential 4 dudes playing for 3 straight wins…they had to be stopped, no matter the cost.

So, sorry Jamie.

5 objectives, positioned in an equal spread along the central line of the board. Jamie had a fairly ‘bitty’ army that despite the over-charged engines and Storm Raven, I felt would be unable to reach the spread objectives, I also felt that I could commit my anti-tank units to disable his mobility, whilst keeping my anti-infantry at range and claiming far off objectives.

Drugs were +1Attack.

Dark Eldar go first after the Baron forces a reroll on the initial role.

I set up in a balanced, central position, assault and dark light units split equally. The wyches could more than likely get a first turn charge depending on where Jamie deploys, but having learnt my lesson regarding only bringing partial force to bear in the Deathwing game, I won’t likely attempt it. Once again, the Hellions provide cover to the skimmers, whilst hanging around in cover themselves.

The Blood Angels look to combine a refused flank with castling. The Jump troops take cover behind a ruin as do the rhino-variants, the Raven holds back but cannot get cover. This is in the top right of the board, about 36-50” away from the furthest 3 objectives. Jamie was conscious of first turn charges from Haywire Wyches crippling his vehicles before they had moved, he maximised the distance from 2 of the groups, but all other anti tank could hit him. Jamie’s list was:

Librarian – Might of Heroes and Unleash Rage
Corbulo
Sanguinary Priest with Jump Pack
Assault Terminators x 5 (3xTH/SS, 2xPoLC)
10 man Assault Squad in Rhino, 2 Meltaguns
10 man Assault Squad with Jump Packs, 2 Flamers, Power Weapon
10 man Tactical Squad, MM, Power Weapon, Meltagun, Rhino
5 man Assault Squad, Meltagun, Razorback
Furioso Dread w Frag Cannon, Heavy Flamer/DCCW
Storm Raven – TLLas, TLsomething or other, 4 Bloodstrike Missiles

Jamie fails to seize the initiative.

Turn 1:
The Hellion screen sweeps across the centre left, clearing the Ravagers for shots. The Trueborn Venom, which started on the right, zooms over the ruin in front of it and immobilising itself, the boys jump out, the Storm Raven their target. The majority of the Venoms sweep to the left, keeping their 36” sweet spot, but only having one target- the Assault marines (jumpers), a single wych venom bombs right and behind the large manufactorum ruin, looking to sweep out turn next turn and put pressure on the far flank of the BA later on.

Shooting phase is largely ineffective from an anti tank point of view as all the ravagers and trueborn blasters are unable to down the Raven, they do however stop it shooting.




The Venoms however prove that poison can work against FNP…if you shoot enough of them! 4 of them target the squad and cause 4 wounds. Some poor FNP rolls on Jamie’s part. The dice then turn against him further and he fled the field, jumping 3d6 off the board.

The Hellion screen runs back across the front of the Ravagers, covering them once again.
Blood Angel Turn 1;
Nothing really happens bar the trueborn squad being gunned down by Tac Marines
Hmm…it turns out I can’t really remember much…over the next few turns:

• The raven goes down where it started
• The Termies make it as far as the immobilised Trueborn Venom, which they kill
• The wyches behind the manufactorum sweep out and after venom support, kill the tac squad that had pushed up the table to gun down the trueborn.

End of DE Turn 3: BA3, dread moves in 6" before immobilising from lance fire

• The Wyches subsequently tie up the terminators long enough to reduce them to just the Librarian,who is killed by the late arriving Incubi
• The remaining BA transports had swept up along the top board edge, got half way along, then were immobilised by ravagers then wrecked by haywire wyches in the same phase.
• The 10 man RAS was pinned by the explosion, could barely fit out inbetween wych squads and then poisoned to death by the Hellions and wyches.
• The 5 man RAS and Corbulo split, going after each wych squad. The wyches killed the RAS squad. Corbs was left stranded after the immobilised dread used its frag cannon on the wych squad, killing them.
• Corbulo was then targeted by the Ravagers, who doubled him out through cover. The dread died from Ravager fire in the arse
• Ultimately all that was left was a Rhino, a Ravager lined up to shoot…and rolled 3 1’s to hit.. Ravagers are fail.

Unfortunately, this was more than a little one sided, Jamie had won his previous 2 games and I needed to hit it hard, obviously to stop him from winning and to maximise my shot, or at least all I could control of it.

I was only the 50 point Rhino off from tabling, that combined with the extra 40 points from Game 1, meant I’d almost tabled 2 armies and Bully only had 235 left…so 245 off 3 tablings. Pretty deadly.

Bully beat the Paladins, after realising that if he got into combat with them, he’d smush them, 3++ beats 5++… plus the extra attack banner, the 2’s to wound, etc. It was a very close run thing by all accounts. Bully was claiming/contesting 3 objectives, Marc only able to claim 1 as Bully killed off one big squad of Paladins and had started on the other..

Atreides drew with Firewasp on table one after he forgot about some firewarriors in a Devilfish and allowed his troop to get bogged down in the central ruin of table one in close combat with something or other.

That was that. 2 wins and a draw..all of which I utterly slaughtered my opponents, with Bully killing more than double the other 2 games combined at 944…

Great tournament…more games next time – 6 please!!! Sorry this was brief too guys, but not too much to say tactically on it...