Warstore Weekend Game 4: The Champ's Angels

Game 4 turned out to be my title bout. Against Blood Angels again, this time commanded by Dimitry from Russia. HIs list was a nice mixed bag of effective unit choices. Mephiston once again highlighted the list. Along side a regular Librarian with the shield power, an elite Chaplain leading the Death Company in a Land Raider, a Sanguinary Priest leading an Assault Squad with dual meltas and a second such Assault Squad. He also had 2 Baal Predators and 2 Auto cannon/Las cannon Predators.

The mission was victory points, and you had to win by 250pts or more in order to get the win, any margin closer would be a draw. The deployment was Dawn of War. The deployment and mission makes for some interesting choices. A choice I could have made was to simply go for a draw from the beginning and perhaps steal a win with a lucky turn of shooting, by simply hiding all game. However this type of play is not something I see as being in the spirit of having fun. I'm all for advocating smart tactical play, which is why I enjoy the objective based mission types a lot more. But in terms of style I prefer the motto go big or go home. Going for the win is what costs me sometimes but ah well on to the battle report.

Dimitry won the roll to go first and took second. i deployed nothing, however I had my shooty dreads slotted to come in turn one from the board edge.

On turn 1 I landed two Ironclads off to the right, and walked and ran my shooty dreads forward. i also dropped 2 empty pods off to the left. Sadly in victory point missions all the pods as immobilized vehicles are already coughing up half points. So I started this game in a 123pt hole.
Turn 1 for the blood angels saw his army castle up in the far corner. Dimitry had forgotten about night fight, so shooting was nil.
On my turn 2 I began my aforementioned goal of playing for the win. I landed an Ironclad in the upper right, giving a healthy distance from mephiston, but hoping that 2 missile shots on the side armor could net me a dead predator... sadly that gambit failed.

On the left flank a scout unit came in with their speeder. The scouts melta slagged a baal pred, and hope sprung eternal that the speeder's multimelta could make it a 2 for one and bust open the other one, not to be but 1 for 2 isnt too bad.

Shooty dreads being the only chance I had to get mephiston they began unloading shots hoping for rending. Actually managed to wound him even with his 2+ save and feel no pain.

My other dreads were simply shifting around, too scared of mephiston to close with the enemy.
On the second Blood Angel turn Dimitry began to sweat. His ranged shooting immobilized one of my shooty dreads. But all his other shooting only managed to stun my landspeeder. Multiple meltas, and tons of pistols. And in his frustration he didnt even assault the darn thing.
Got some more reserves in the form of the other speeder and my last dreadnought. in hindsight I wish the dreadnought hadnt come in this turn. So going along with the all out kill stroke I took my last chance. I moved the speeder 12" into difficult terrain, passed the dangerous test and then got the scouts out. Landed the dreadnought in the side arc of the predator.

Dreadnought killed the Predator, but melta shots only stunned the landraider, my shot at victory had neatly flamed out on this simple 4+ roll. Two shots, 1 pen. A 4 wrecks it and likely wins me the game. But failure means bad things as the collected chips I had thrown into his den hadnt managed to make up their points yet, and were likely dead the next turn. This is why I dont like the killpoint/ victory point missions quite as much, as if you play fun and aggressive the game can likely hinge on this kind of moment early on, and leave you playing catch up against an impossible margin

My scouts in the other speeder got out to wound mephiston, and the dreads took another wound off him as well.

in the assault phase the scouts at the top of the screen tried to mitigate their disaster by hoping krak grenades could wreck the nearby predator in a combined assault with the landraider, however even with a pen I didnt manage to kill or in fact hurt the predator.
On his turn 3 Dimitry began to close the game off. Mephiston killed my Ironclad with his plasma pistol. One assault squad killed my northern scouts, while the other assault squad got stuck in with my other scouts, safe from return fire since they didnt kill them all.
So on my turn 4 quick math put me at losing. So the only thing to do was drop the now ready vulkan into the fray and hope for luck. Did another wound or so to mephiston with shooting. Killed some assault marines with flamers. But not enough.
On Dimitry's 4th turn he turned his landraider and got the death company out in front of Vulkan. His Baal Pred used a nice tankshock to make sure vulkan was the only person I would get into combat when it came as well. And then he started shooting, and the marines started dying and then Vulkan fled, right out of assault range. Mephiston cleared out another Ironclad.
My flee rolls werent great, so vulkan and the remaining members of his squad got to shoot some more this turn.. to not great effect. However my shooty dreas finally downed that pesky daemon prince Mephiston.
Dimitry kept my marines running in his half of the turn, and then we shook hands and called the game. My run at the top table was over.
In terms of winning the tournament and the mismatch this list had against me in the mission type it may have been prudent to simply play all out for the draw in this mission, and then hope to leap frog Dimitry while playing on separate tables in the last round. But I really like trying to win every game, and felt that the two melta shots on that pivotal turn gave me a good shot to do just that. Well one more game to write up!