Battle Report: Round 1, 1k Tournament

Welcome back Rangers to another exciting episode of “As the World Turns.” Today we are going to find out if the golden boys have what it takes to defeat the Drukhari Menace! It’s going to be a fast paced action packed game, so go get your favorite refreshment and find out how our friendly game of tag played out!

Blood Angels List

CHARACTER

Astorath (100 points)
 • Warlord
 • 1x Bolt Pistol
 1x The Executioner’s Axe

Chaplain with Jump Pack (85 points)
 • 1x Crozius arcanum
 1x Plasma pistol


OTHER DATASHEETS

Assault Squad (95 points)
 • 1x Assault Sergeant
 • 1x Astartes shield
 1x Inferno pistol
 1x Power fist
 • 4x Assault Marine
 • 1x Astartes chainsword
 2x Bolt pistol
 1x Eviscerator
 1x Meltagun
 1x Plasma gun

Assault Squad (95 points)
 • 1x Assault Sergeant
 • 1x Astartes shield
 1x Inferno pistol
 1x Power fist
 • 4x Assault Marine
 • 1x Astartes chainsword
 2x Bolt pistol
 1x Eviscerator
 1x Meltagun
 1x Plasma gun

Death Company Marines with Jump Packs (310 points)
 • 10x Thunder hammer

Death Company Marines with Jump Packs (310 points)
 • 10x Inferno pistol
 10x Power fist

My Opponents list was packed full of death company marines, two small squads of assault marines, astorath and a Chaplin. I figured I could handle his list, I just need to maximize my range and stay as far back as I can. If I can reduce the amount of marines that will hit, then I should be in good shape.

Deployment

I deployed as far back as I could. These terrain pieces are really frustrating to play against if you don’t call them before the game starts. Learning moment. Always make sure you and your opponent agree upon what the terrain is declared as. Before we played this mission, I elected to treat the top floor as the bottom to increase the available hiding spots for my opponent.

Knowing he was going to potentially throw both squads up the middle, I set myself up to try and make as many shooting attacks as possible with what I could see hanging out of the back of the building. I also was going to swing far wide, so that if he changed his path it would be away from my home objective.

Turn One

Turn one was awarded to me, having my plan in my head I move out to get shots on Death Company squad, and position venom with Lilith close by to discourage his squads from coming too soon. My missions this turn we’re Cleanse, and Engage on all fronts. Mandrakes always deploy close to a safe objective, so they Cleansed an objective along with the Cronos. Engage was achievable for two points but I did not want to over extend, discard for a CP.

Blood Angels turn one, he drew behind enemy lines, and investigate signals. His movement phase was a breeze, moved the full squad to the next hiding hole, the squad that has taken wounds went to his home corner to investigate some spooky signals. An assault squad made an amazing advance roll and got down to the bottom corner to make sure those weren’t the strange signals either. The last assault squad moved up with its eyes on the venom. I proceeded to put down my plane, which I would later find out is illegal, and did not play so after learning my mistake. I don’t believe this changed a lot in the state of the game, however it doesn’t make it right and we learned from mistakes and move on.

His shooting phase was brief, and he passed the turn back to me.

Turn Two

Deploy teleport homer and assassination were my secondaries for this round, which I felt was an easy task to accomplish. In my movement phase I kept moving around trying to keep distance, and screening out my ravagers. I’m the shooting phase I picked up almost every death company model that I could see. In the charge phase I went after Astorath, if I could kill him with Lilith then I would be in good shape. I spent the command point for the epic challenge stratagem, and just dumped all her attacks into the crazy winged monster man. This was her time to shine, she picked up Astro, and had so many attacks left over, which go to the grave with Astro, but it made me happy and I had a great turn. Completed investigate signals, time to pass turn.

Having kept his previous secondary of Behind enemy lines, he drew defend stronghold. There isn’t a lot of pieces on the board and my opponent is a great sport, so he tells me he’s taking some boats with him. I tell him that we simply cannot allow them to devalue our brand with their golden butts on our boats! His movement showed me that this man was not taking no for an answer. He moves out with both squads of death company and lines up a charge on a venom and a ravager. He makes both charges and takes out both targets, glory to Sanguinus! There isn’t much that happens on his turn.

Turn Three

On the top of turn three we looked at the board and came to the conclusion that this game was going to end soon. With my opponent being an absolute sport, we just played out the rest and I scored normally. I must say if you can hold back enough of your stuff you can really have a good time scoring at the end of the game. Mandrakes pop up and down, fast moving vehicles get your units where you need them. Looking back this was the confidence I needed to carry into each game, sit back and shoot for a turn or two, then mop up with bombers, catch-up on points at the end.

My opponents list was a solid list, I just don’t know if I would have brought two big squads of Death company. I believe this edition is all about utility first, Killy second. Then we have to break down Killy, which is where I noticed my list has a weakness. I can’t deal with hordes as effectively as I can vehicles. I think if he had more units to hold points he would have scored more points throughout the mission.

Conclusion

This was a great game and a great way to start off a tournament. I was nervous as normally if I win round one I get crushed all day. My opponent and I have played in the past, and after today I think we’re gonna start playing together more.

The all star of this round I have to give it to Lilith, even though it was her one play of the day, her being able to punk out Astro like that was amazing. I like the idea of a couple of character snipers, they can jump out of transports and get at what we need dead.

Thanks for reading, please leave a comment or follow the blog to stay up to date on what’s going on! Stay classy rangers,

Derek