Blood Angels vs Imperial Guard at 1250

I had a fun game the other day playing against Imperial Guard as lead by my brother, Marc.  We played Big Guns Never Tire (3 objectives) with Vanguard Strike.  I ran a Librarian Terminator (Blood Lance and Wings), Sanguinary Priest(Plasma and Claw), three full Assault Marine units as combat squads with three in reserve (split a melta between the squads; sarge sporting a Claw) along with the fully kitted Stormraven.  I know a few players out there will drop jaws, cry foul or otherwise have fits about the points sink, but with very little else to deal with fliers, the Stormraven is a good choice and has so far succeeded in it's role more times than it has failed.  Marc castled up behind his Aegis with a Manticore, Command Platoon and Vets with his two Vendettas waiting for turn two. I focused on keeping my Marines out of line of sight as much as possible in deployment and turn one, which was Night Fighting, relying on my reserve units to make the dash for objective denial since Marc placed two of the three objectives in his deployment zone.  The whole of the game played very tactically with the only casualties being a Vendetta, due to the Stormraven and a unit of Marines that got too close to the Manticore.Neither the Librarian nor the four IG Psychers got a chance to duke it out, but I feel the threats were played very well.  Here's some highlights:

Blood Angel deployment and turn two disposition except for the preist...

...who took up position between the two combat squads.

Turn two and the arrival of the fliers!

IG deployment and disposition until turn four.

Turn three the Blood Angels begin advancing on the IG strong point and pay for their arrogance on turn four.

Turn three and four...taking fire!

"EVASIVE!!!"

As the Sun Rises!

Here's some shots of a game I had with Ben of Empire's Comic Vault in Sacramento.  Tau vs. Space Wolves at 1750.  Believe it or not: in all the years I've been playing this was my first game facing Space Wolves.  Yeah, I play Tau.  I've been playing them since late 4th edition and have seen the army change quite a bit. Any how, some particulars about our game:

Dawn of War, Big Guns Never Tire with three objective and Tau taking the initiative (I've been unusually lucky with this over the last dozen or so games).  Being a fan of random chance, I suggested we randomly place the objectives adjusting their locations per the rules.  The board I made for Ben is a three-part modular design, so a D3 to determine the section the marker lands in then another D3 to locate its final position.

The Tau reserved a Monat Twin liked Fusion Blaster suit and the Wolves reserved their Landspeeders and Scouts.

The Rune Priest and Predator were the main targets for the Braodsides and Hammerheads while the Suits and Devilfish worked on the tactical squads.  The Wolves, for their part, weathered quite a storm of rail fire and ultimately claimed victory.  In all a very fun game!

As I play more games, and become more familiar with the rules, I plan to start reporting more detailed battle reports.  

Multiplayer Mayhem at Empire's Comic Vault

Here's some photos taken of the carnage. The points were a thousand each. Cliff played Space Marines, Ben played Tyranids and I played Tau. The mission was The Relic. All I'll say is that by turn four Ben's Tervagon had sprouted quite a bit of gaunts. Fourteen in one spawning alone!  The Crisis Suits went away by turn three as did a team of Fire Warriors.  The Marines had the objective but had the Tyranids hot on their trail.  For a thousand points, it was a fun and tactically challenging game. Next time, I plan to take notes for a better Bat Rep.

Battle Report: IG vs. Tau 1500 points

originally posted by me on the Great Escapes Games forum...go check it out!



BatRep: 05-02-2010: Friday Night 40K League

Opponents: Chris (Tau) and Chris M (IG) at 1500


This was a great game with lots to learn from.

Our game started off with a stellar roll: Annihilation, Dawn of War. The Tau won the initiative; the IG attempted to seize and did not.
Turn one saw every unit enter the board except the Pathfinders and Stealth Team. Tau took to the center of the board with HQ and Broadsides. To either side of the table were a team of Firewarriors in Develfish. The IG set up fairly evenly…I’ll try to recall all the units: two Russes, a Demolisher and two Chimeras at center with a Vendetta at either end and the HQ with a Combined Squad camped out in area cover and behind hills. By the end of turn one, it was very clear that the Demolisher would be the bane of the Tau.

Mid Game: the IG was well ahead having taken out both Firewarrior Teams' Devilfish and a Firewarrior team. The Tau HQ lost all its Drones as did the accompanying Broadside. The second Broadside did well against the Vendettas, downing both and forcing the IG out; however, once on the ground, the North end squad (forced out of the downed Vendetta) pacified the disembarked Firewarriors from a previous Destroyed Devilfish. Near the end, the Stealth Team finally “materialized” and attacked the North end squad, eliminating them. While the Broadsides worked feverishly to wreck a few more armor, the IG hung back and relied on its cover to last the day. By game’s close, it was Tau 3, IG 5.

This Commander’s Retrospect:

After my deployment, I made several key mistakes: most notorious was attempting to press inwards with the Fish/Warriors and Pathfinders instead of falling back to the hills and staying out of LOS. Disruption Pods do wonders at keeping 4 shots, that don’t need line of sight, on the table…if you make the rolls. I didn’t need to gamble that as there was no need for the Fish/Warriors to be active in this fight. The Pathfinders would have had plenty of room in the area cover that I had. The other mistake was keeping the Stealthteam in reserve. They did their points worth once in and could have done more if brought in on turn one. Aside from the Devilfish (which failed their Obscured rolls epically) , they were my most mobile and hard to hit unit.

The Tau doesn’t do attrition, assault or armor very well (they really can’t “surf”). What they do well is bend the rules of the game with Jet Packs, Smart Missiles and Markerlights...essentially; they hide and sap their opponents until either the force in ineffectual to the mission or charging into a kill zone. Each time I've tested a tactic counter to this, it ends very badly. The key will be to minimize my army's footprint and cover its tracks.

Chris M took the photos. We agreed that set up, mid game and closing would be enough with alternate vantage points.

So...what's going on?!?!

My brother and I have been playing a few games a month now for about 5 months under the 5th edition rules. In that time, we have taken enough photos of the games to pretty much compose a story board of mayhem, destruction and all kinds of fun!

So, coming soon: PHOTOS!!