Battle Report: BA vs. new Tyranids (1′500 points)

Mission was capture & control with a dawn of war setup; the game ended in a draw.

Captain Parcival checked his Tac Com and knew things didn’t look good. The 2nd Company formed a first line of defense in the outskirts of Plethora Hive, the last position the Blood Angels still held on Tenebra IX. The incoming data showed that Class C organisms were moving three klicks NW inbound. Soon there were going to be Tyranids everywhere.

Parcival went through his geotactical situation. In his immediate area of control there was a Dortis Sugar refinery and his own locator beacon. The Tyranids were surely going to feast on the sugar, but if they had a chance to destroy his locator beacon and cut him off from supplies, they wouldn’t let it slip either. Parcival told his troops to hide among the buildings so that the Tyranids would run into a seemingly empty area. He figured they only had a chance if they attacked by surprise and did a mechanized countercharge into the back of the Tyranid wave.

All of a sudden, there they were. A Hive Tyrant was directly charging with Termagants towards the locator beacon. Parcival ordered his very own Razorback and the Rhino of Squad Calrissian to move against these incoming creatures.

On the right flank, the Rhino of Squad Derian and the two Baal Predators rolled onto the scene and went straight for the sugar refinery where Hormagants and a Carnifex were trying to dig themselves in. However, just when the Rhino reached the refinery, the Carnifex charged the vehicle and tore it apart killing the entire squad with the exception of Sergeant Derian himself. Derian ran into the refinery and up the stairs onto its roof so he could take shots at the lingering Tyrandis outside. The Carnifex followed him into the refinery, however, and Derian could hear the brutal noises as this creature was smashing its way through the machines. Derian just hoped that the creature was too heavy to make it to the upper floors.

In the meantime, the two Baal Predators were busy killing Zoantrophes which they successfully did as they were still fully operational. However, mopping up the Zoes took away precious time when the Blood Angels’ infantry was in bitter need for their support.

On the left flank, Parcival and his Honor Guard exited the Razorback and took shots at the Hive Tyrant. The creature produced infernal screams as it felt the cleansing fire of the Emperor, but stayed focused and destroyed the Rhino of Squad Calrissian first. The Termagants quickly fell over the proud Warriors and the Hive Tyrant started to collect a heavy blood toll, too. However, Parcival stood firm in his decision not to yield a single meter to these creatures and let his Powerfist hammer onto the Hive Tyrant until the creature was no more. Parcival felt the stinking scent of the alien when he gasped for a breath of fresh air and tried to refocus, but in this moment a couple Venators came in and a Trygon dug out of the earth. Parcival played his last ace and called in Assault Squad Vincenzo who shocked down on the surprised Tyranids. Parcival’s and Sergeant Vincenzo’s Powerfists continued to do their ugly work, but a huge blow by the Trygon’s tail finally knocked Parcival off his feet and left him with an intense pain in his chest. He felt the warm comfort of Sanguinius wing’s folding around him and in the corner of his eyes he saw how Vincenzo delivered a last and final blow to the Trygon. And as Parcival’s memory was about to fade away, he heard the familiar beeping sounds of a locator beacon delivering its coordinates to some battleship in orbit…

Why Blood Angels have 4+ INV Stormshields

Today’s merry topic is why Blood Angels have worse Stormshields than any loyal Space Marine Chapter of the Second Founding. Nobody knows quite the reasons, but rumors indicate that the Blood Angels actually order their Stormshields from Grotz in the Terto sector.

In other words, since the advent of the latest Codex: Space Marines it is especially evident that the Codex: Blood Angels is outdated. Common sense tells you that it is just natural to use some of the rules for the Vanilla Marine for the Blood Angels as well. Over at Bolter & Chainsword one can even download a nice homebrew “Codex: Blood Angels – Revived” that allows you to adapt the Blood Angels rules in a three tiers system depending on how close you wanna stick to the original. With this document, you can iron out all errors in the current Codex: Blood Angels and everybody could be happy – if it weren’t for reasons of jealousy.

You see, with the Codex: Space Marines, all those Vanilla players felt treated well again. Suddenly they had cheaper troops and cool wargear to play with – if you compare the Ironclad Dreadnought to the Furioso Dreadnought and the Vanguard Veterans to the Veteran Assault Squads, you can sort of see where the ideas were coming from. So, everything in Vanilla world was good and that’s okay as every fan deserves a Codex he’s happy with.

However, some Vanilla players reacted to Blood Angels players’ attempts to unify the rules with utter refusal. Obviously, the new Vanilla Codex was theirs and nobody else should have a part of it as this would endanger them feeling special anymore. When a Blood Angels player vented his frustration over at Librarium Online about Blood Angels Stormshields still being a 4+ INV save rather than a 3+, he was corrected by a Vanilla player that this differences are necessary for balancing reasons. Yeah, right. When there were rumors about a new Codex: Blood Angels in 2010, people commenting over at Bell of Lost Souls already know how broken it will be. The truth is, the Codex Blood Angels can be considered broken right now, but not in favor of the Marines in red. There’s a list of challenges a Blood Angels player has to think of if he wants build an army list that is as efficient as a Vanilla list.

Since the Blood Angels have been confirmed for April 2010, we will see a few types of players come into focus:

1. Veteran Blood Angels players enjoying the new Codex.
2. Blood Angels newbies picking up the army because it’s either just the latest strongest army (they think) or because they like the fluff.
3. Vanilla players bitching about the new Codex: Blood Angels. I assume those are the ones who picked up Vanilla Marines just because they were the latest strongest.
4. Vanilla Veterans who are still proud of their own Chapter and are happy for the Blood Angels players because ultimately it’s diversity that makes this game great.

I will play anytime with a happy Vanilla or Blood Angels Veteran. I will also play anytime with a Blood Angels newbie who wants to commit himself to this army because he likes the Chapter’s fluff and background. However, I won’t have much patience for unhappy whiners. Everyone gets a little jealous every once in a while because the time frame when one’s army is the latest fad is relatively short. If you let that dominate your game, you’re missing a whole lot of fun. All the Space Wolves models that will be left unpainted when the Codex: Blood Angels arrives will speak for themselves.

Blood Angels rumors

Just a quick note to spread the word that there’s a current and condensed thread with Blood Angels rumors over at Bolter & Chainsword.

Don’t bring guns to a knife fight

Over at the FTW network there is currently a series of what must have unit we always have in our army list. Not the type of unit we put onto the table because the Codex says we have to, but the type of unit we simply like too much to leave it at home.

Well, from the intro picture my choice is obvious: it’s the Baal Predator, of course. On the one hand, the Baal Predator is very fluffy as it’s a unique Blood Angels’ build that isn’t mimicked by the Ultramarines yet (see e.g. Vanguard Veterans or Ironclad Dreadnoughts).
On the other hand, the Baal Predator is a fairly devastating weapon: it’s twinlinked Assault Canons fire with a high and reliable accuracy and the Rending rule even allows them to crack a Land Raider with a little bit of luck. If you add Heavy Bolter side sponsons, you pump out quite a few shots in every turn, especially if the Overcharged Engines throw is successful and the Baal moves and fires all weapons.

I for my part don’t use Heavy Bolters, however, as nothing screams “Assault!” more than Heavy Flamer side sponsons. Yes, Heavy Bolters are indefinitely better because you can fire them all game and not just in the last round when you closed in on the enemy (or not at all if the Baal explodes while getting there). However, Blood Angels are a close combat army and I think nothing’s cooler than tanks scorching everything before the Rhinos with the infantry arrive. Plus my fellow Tyranid player has a huuuge respect from my Heavy Flamers, so even the better.

Of course, the Heavy Flamer loadout has one huge drawback: distance. My default setup is filling the three Heavy Support slots with two Baal Predators (both with Heavy Flamers) and one Vindicator meaning that my thread bubble is limited to 24″ of firing range. Especially when I play against Imperial Guard or other tank heavy lists this is a real problem as my tanks tend to die before they do any real damage. Furthermore, using Heavy Flamers in a turn automatically means that the tank will get charged in the next turn, so you better make sure you always drive minimally 6″ far.

In conclusion, one can say that my must have pick is mostly based on fluff and style reasons rather than pure power. However, rumors go through the WWW that in the new Blood Angels Codex Games Workshop makes taking Heavy Flamers worth their points again…

Bug hunting!

Last night we had another Apocalypse game over at the League of Gentlemen. It’s part of Goldark’s campaign about his hive fleet landing on Imperial planets. Once again, the Tyranids won by a sight margin having Goldark win every single game of the entire campaign!

So, here’s what happened during the Apocalpyse to Parcival’s Blood Angels (click for larger pictures):

The 3rd and 4th Tactical Squad dig in in an old industrial ruin to score on the mission objective hidden there. A deepstriking spore mine can be successfully shot before it does any harm and everything is tight for flanking Genestealers.

In the meantime, Parcival and his Honor Guard are fighting a desperate fight in the trenches along with his tanks and Dreadnoughts plus the support of the Inquisition.

The Death Company is doing what they’re best at – dying! (against a swarm of winged Tyranid Warriors. Me: “Gee, the Death Company is easily going to wipe those Gargoyles! What’s that you say? Those AREN’T Gargoyles???”)

In the meantime, the Deathwing is holding the western flank.

On the northern flank, the Tyranids are closing in!

The Landspeeder is teaching a lesson to the Biovore with the remaining Heavy Bolter: it’s being shot into pieces and decides to flee.

With their retinues dead, Parcival and the Inquisitor still hold the trenches against the masses of bugs.

So does Belial at the western front.

The Tyranids finally charge into the factory and the Blood Angels greet them with waves of Bolter fire. Since this was the last turn of the game, both Tyranids and Blood Angels contested the mission objective.

The Imperium lost against the Tyranids 10:12.