Welcome back rangers! Just getting back from my first practice round with my tournament list. I felt as if my Tactical Missions were spot on every turn, I’m not sure if it was the luck or if I felt confident that I could handle whatever was thrown at me. So needless to say I actually took pictures, because I am trying to practice things outside the game during all of my games. So here is a loose form of a battle report.

Army List

Here is a link to my list! http://rageagainstthemeta.home.blog/2023/07/17/first-tournament-in-tenth-edition/

Dark Angels

  • Apothecary
  • Chaplin on bike
  • Judiciar
  • Sniper scout squads x2
  • 3 bikers
  • 10 hellblasters
  • 3 bladeguard vets
  • Impulsor

With all the armies situated we rolled off and I won the roll, I chose to be the defender. No real reason other than I normally pick attacker.

This is what the table looked like for our deployments. I chose to play tactical, my opponent is playing fixed, Bring it Down and Cleanse.

He deploys scouts aggressively, I know he is going for cleanse, he has higher priority targets. We have to clear the space for our bombing run. So I can afford to not focus on missions in the first two turns, positioning to start damaging him.

Here is the view of the board from my deployment. He did really good to deny me shooting, I would have to extend more than I would like if I want to start chipping at the hellblasters. I drew hold the center, and investigate corners. I knew I would have to sacrifice my venom, but I had to score to match his turn.

His deployment looked really solid, hiding the impulsor from all the hungry ravaged shots. If the hell blasters had shuffled a little bit to the left they would have been blocked from line of sight turn one. Always deploy like you’re going to go second.

This is the end of one, dark angels hop from cover to cover. Hellblasters line up to shoot the venom, the venom dies and I lose 3 wracks. I knew I should have deployed them before I moved with the Venom. Rapid ingress the bomber in, as there is only one real threat and I’m going to risk it. Mandrakes hop up into deep strike.

Turn 2

Turn two saw a lot of good action, I moved up more to hold points and start applying angles to reduce cover. Moving in this game is so stressful now, I am fortunate that my bomber survived the movement. He did drop a bomb, but that didn’t do anything as expected.

After a round of shooting from the bomber he picked up the hellblasters. I managed to hurt a couple of bikers. Lilith didn’t really do what I thought she would to the scout squad, but that’s what I get for fishing for all the 6s with rerolls. Normally I don’t take those risk in tournaments, but this is practice! My secondaries were achievable this round, I maxed both of them.

Dark angels turn two saw the infurnus marines come in and pick up a venom. He did get out with his blade guard to charge the ravager. They couldn’t destroy the ravager, was kind of underwhelming.

Final thoughts

At this point we just talked it out, and agreed that the blade guard might not be the best for a 1k list. We are gonna try to work on a list that has a few dreadnoughts, and is an absolute threat in the shooting phase!

My list felt strong, Lilith still needs her time to shine, everything else performed as I thought it would. The aircraft is a funky rule set that will make risky decisions that much more rewarding. I think the best plan for these guys is to bait your opponent into an early overwatch, and try to vect it. However that’s not a possibility at the moment, so we will see how it fairs out in the next match!

Do you have any tips on playing dark angels or Drukhari this edition? Please start a discussion down below, or join us on the 40K ear casting discord! Stay tuned for more fun in the future,

As always, stay classy rangers!