So the next three battle reports are all similar in a few ways. One, they all involve Blood Angels opponents and 2, they all involve Mephiston. Now let me say that while the lord of death may not be broken, there are some fairly common things that counter him easily, be they plasma kitted IG squads, or TH/SS Terminators. However Mephiston isa very capable counter to some of my lists strengths(the Dreadnoughts), and I dont have a very effective counter measure for the beast.
Well Game 3 had me paired up against one of the 7 or so Blood Angelplayers in the field... considering the field was 20 thats a pretty high percentage. In fact going into the round the score sheet read Me at the top, followed by 5 of those BA players, and tops of them so far was Mike.
Mike's list was strong. He had the aforementioned Mephiston, along with a regular Librarian. 4 minimum Assault squads, 2 in Rhinos, one in a Razorback, and the last in a Landraider. He had a melta honorguard squad in a rhino, and a melta sternguard squad in a pod. He rounded all that out with a rifleman dreadnought, and a squad of Sanguinary Guard.
The mission for this game was 3 objectives, and spearhead deployment. The objectives show up about halfway through the pictures. Mike had first turn and set up everything but his drop podding sternguard squad.
On the Blood Angels first turn his army began to move out. His 5 sternguard landed near my board edge. One rhino with assault squad moved off from the main group while mephiston stayed near his home base as counter assault. All his vehicles popped smoke.
I landed my two dual flamer Ironclads in the top left of the screen. between their pods and bodies I blocked all the doorways on the rhino there. I managed to immobilize and stun it so the melta inside wouldnt be shooting me next turn.The shooty dread I landed opened up its guns and wrecked his razorback, while my other Ironclad popped smoke and settled into a defensive position.
On the second Blood angel turn things were relatively quiet. He stunned my shooty dread, while cover kept my Ironclad unscathed. The rest of his forces shifted towards me. Mephiston left the defensive position near his home objective.
On my half of turn 2 a lot of reserves arrived. I got both my scout units. Both my last shooty dread and last Ironclad also landed. On the left flank the scouts opend up the rhino for the Ironclads to assault the contents. On the right flank the other scouts wrecked the landraider.
On the second Blood angel turn things were relatively quiet. He stunned my shooty dread, while cover kept my Ironclad unscathed. The rest of his forces shifted towards me. Mephiston left the defensive position near his home objective.On my half of turn 2 a lot of reserves arrived. I got both my scout units. Both my last shooty dread and last Ironclad also landed. On the left flank the scouts opend up the rhino for the Ironclads to assault the contents. On the right flank the other scouts wrecked the landraider. In the middle of the board the Ironclad came out of cover to wreck the honor guard's rhino, however he was 2 inches short of being able to assault them. The fresh shooty dread wrecked the vindicator.
On the 3rd Blood Angel turn his dakka dread shot down the far scout speeder. The 4 melta's from his honor guard and the 5 shots from his sternguard took all the guns off my central Ironclad and immobilized it. His librarian and assault squad slid over to my home objective, and mephiston assaulted my shooty dread, but didnt destroy it.
On my turn 3 I began to try and mobilize towards the objectives. My Ironclads and scouts on the left flank began the long trek to the bottom left objective. My speeder on the right began to fly off to threaten the middle of the board. My lone gunman dreadnought began to thin his scoring options in the in the middle. In the top right my Ironclad immobilized his shooty dread effectively taking it out of play. In my assault phase he forgot to roll for mephiston's powers before attacking, so he again failed to kill my dreadnought in combat.
At this point his marines were roughly shuffling around the middle of the board looking for cover. Mephiston was stuck in no man's land with indecision.
Vulkan finally came in for me on turn 4. Landing near the objective in the north. Took more shots thinning his marines. On the left my Ironclads and scouts continued to advance.
On my turn 5 my Ironclads on the left used their missiles to destroy the rhino. Vulkan destroyed the assault marines in the north. In the center my dreadnought assaulted the sternguard which moved him into position to contest the objective there.
On the 3rd Blood Angel turn his dakka dread shot down the far scout speeder. The 4 melta's from his honor guard and the 5 shots from his sternguard took all the guns off my central Ironclad and immobilized it. His librarian and assault squad slid over to my home objective, and mephiston assaulted my shooty dread, but didnt destroy it.On my turn 3 I began to try and mobilize towards the objectives. My Ironclads and scouts on the left flank began the long trek to the bottom left objective. My speeder on the right began to fly off to threaten the middle of the board. My lone gunman dreadnought began to thin his scoring options in the in the middle. In the top right my Ironclad immobilized his shooty dread effectively taking it out of play. In my assault phase he forgot to roll for mephiston's powers before attacking, so he again failed to kill my dreadnought in combat.At this point his marines were roughly shuffling around the middle of the board looking for cover. Mephiston was stuck in no man's land with indecision.Vulkan finally came in for me on turn 4. Landing near the objective in the north. Took more shots thinning his marines. On the left my Ironclads and scouts continued to advance.On turn 5 he shook but didnt stun my shooty dread. And his assault squad in the north tried ineffectively to destroy my tactical marines.
On my turn 5 my Ironclads on the left used their missiles to destroy the rhino. Vulkan destroyed the assault marines in the north. In the center my dreadnought assaulted the sternguard which moved him into position to contest the objective there.
So we both controlled an objective, with the center contested. Time was rather short so we ended the game there. Overall the draw was a decent result. I think that I should have dropped Vulkan in to try and oust the Librarian and the five assault marines from the bottom objective. But I was afraid of his fear the darkness spell so close to my own board edge. I still should have taken the risk on the ld 8 test it would have been, and counted on my other combat squad being able to fight off the blood angels. But then again his Sanguinary Guard might have turned back to deal with me anyway so the result might have been the same.Overall it was a very tough game against a very solid player. Mike got frustrated that I neutralized Mephiston so effectively without really fighting him. And my willingness to drop in non aggressive zones while avoiding mephiston led him to take him off his home base, and into no man's land in the center of the board where he got hung up on a dreadnought for an extra phase and didnt accomplish much through the game. i felt especially with my ranged dreadnoughts that dropping them in quarters where there were no objectives meant that if he wanted to silence them that he would have to wander off of the objectives. Ultimately though my Ironclads proved too slow in the north and didnt have time to reach his Librarian. I think had I placed that objective more toward the center of the board it would have offered me more options.
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