Great Escapes' Contest of Champions 2012

1250 Blood Angels
Opponents:
Raven Guard
Chaos Daemons
Black Templars

Results:  3 losses
Impressions:
I feel I performed better with my Tau in last year's opening event than with the Blood Angels which only reinforces what I should have remembered and done: play the army you plan to play.  To be honest, I built the list from a gun line perspective with  Laser Cannon Razorbacks and a Devastator when I should have remembered that the Blood Angels are all about Close Combat. I gave myself only a few practice games and really should have clocked at least a game a week over the winter break.  Familiarization of a list is not something you have just by building it; there should be as many games as possible with that list before the tournament.  So I'll not be faulting my choice of units but rather my poor tactics and limited strategy. 

As for my opponents:  Each was as much fun to play against as I could hope for.  It's a good feeling to walk away from a lose and still feel that the game was good. 

Some shots of the games and the armies my Blood Angels faced

First Round: Raven Guard featuring 2 Landspeeders, Bikes, Scouts, TermiCaptain with Terminators and two Tacticals.  You can see from the first photo that I wasn't really paying attention to the missions and the army.
Sometime along mid game, I remembered that I was playing Blood Angels and having lost the LasCans and Demolisher, dove into my opponent.  Live and learn...assault marines are for assaulting.




Not too sure what I was hiding for...old habits?

 One fun moment of the game was tank shocking terminators. 

Round two was against a beautifully modeled and customized army of Chaos Daemons using mostly Slaanesh units.  My deployment felt a bit more thought out. I knew that the Seekers would be fast, but somehow forgot that my Baal Preditor would have more fun with them than the Daemonites.







Daemonette "Mermaids" advance on an immobilized Razorback.  It got exploded,  so the AMs inside weren't destroyed right off. Lyzz had the Daemonettes encircled about the Razorback.

 A Herald of Slaanesh; my VIP target. 

 Another fun moment:  Terminators, led by the Librarian, versus a Daemon Prince/King Crab.

 Last round of the day went fairly quick.  A single objective with table quarters added to the fun that is the good old fashioned annihilation mission. By this time, I was really getting the swing of the Blood Angels and was having a good time with the Baal Predator. Deep Striking Terminators into the open, while good for avoiding mishaps, is lethal when done in front of a Land Raider.  Last time I challenged one of them was the last time I used Tau Stealth Suits with Fusion Blasters.

 The remains of the Terminator unit scrambled up the hill to claim only to be reminded who the true king of the hill would be.

The southern end of the field was pretty much too far away to do anything useful.