Wednesday 14 October 2015

1850pt battle report - Dark Angels v Orks

Ben asked me for a last minute game the other night so I took the opportunity to get some more practice in with the Dark Angels and this time borrowed his Cerastus so I could field my potential Blog Wars list

The low down:
  • Hammer and Anvil
  • Kill points
  • Night fighting, won deployment, elected to deploy first and go first.
  • Warlord Trait - Ezekiel - Fearless to all units within 12"
  • Psychic powers:
  1. Psychic Shriek
  2. Terrify
  3. Shrouding
  4. Mental Fortitude
I had my Devastators in my Bastion, this time with an armorium cherub [the Watcher] which I never actually used.


I had Ezexiel taking cover in the wrecked Rhino from the blasted copse, we 'Forged the Narrative' that the Orks had blown up the tank prior to the game starting and the squad were abotu to leave it's confines. The Cerastus had the lead, in front of the other Combat Squad and the scouts while the Plasma Cannon Tactical squad held the sacred shrine. There was only 7 in this squad as I had to drop a couple of member to fit the Cerastus in. One unit of Deathwing and the Techmarine were int he Land Raider the others were dee striking.


Ben's set up, this time with a fair few tank busters.


I was able to wreck one of the Trukks thanks to the Devastators Missile Launchers but then was unable to use the Quad Gun because the target was no more. First strike to me.


Big Shootas managed to get some good field of fire from their vantage points but I'm not sure they did much damage in their first turn [certainly no First Strike] thanks to stupidly good cover saves helped by Ezekiel casting Shrouding and night fighting too. I think the Knight may have taken a Hull Point or two though.


My turn two and the Deathwing arrive and shoot up the back of one of the trukks but not sufficient to wreck it. Ezekiel leapt from cover and raced up behind the Land raider hoping to get in range for Psychic Scream, which he did but couldn't hit!


The Painboys trukk had come down my left flank and the Scouts had not alternative but to assault. They were going to die in the Ork turn with only overwatch to reward their sacrifice, so I may as well assault and get twice my attacks at a better 'to hit' roll. Sadly they failed to do anything more than perhaps 1 wound and were promptly slaughtered.


My disembarked Terminators shot up the Orks nearest so I no longer could meet my charge roll. I also kept the Techmarine with them. which in Ben's turn I realised was a mistake as he could have trekked over to the Knight and tried to fix his Hull Points. I think the Knight was able to wreck Ghazgkhull's trukk though, but it may have taken far more fire than it should have done.


With their ride imobilised the Tank Busters set forth with a couple of Bomb Squigs adding a Hull Point or two to the Knight.


The Dakkajet turned up but I'm not sure he was particularly effective.


Which was irrelevant really as Ghazgkhull was bearing down on them.


Things were not going to end well.


Kommandos turned up and I immediately remembered their burners and just how useless that bolstered 3+ cover really was.


 But there was still plenty going on in the middle of the board.


Having killed the Scouts the Panboy and krew headed for the Tac squad


The get into Kombat and wreck face.


It seems the Dark Angels were sporting some Apprentice-crafted armour! So the four marines were chopped up with hardly a wound in return.


Orks consolidated onto the crashed Aquila.


Ghazgkhull got into combat having shot three of the Terminators. It's one thing to have a full compliment of Deathwing in that assault but just three was never going to hold up against the Orks.


The Knight was charged by the Tank Busters who managed to get another 2 Hull Points on him through various means.


My other Deathwing were surrounded also with one Terminator being lost before the charge. The Techmarine was trapped in the assault too


Ghazgkhull finishes the Deathwing off with ease and moves back up the field.


The Tank Busters blow the Knight up which takes out all but two of their number.


With most everyone dead I decided to call it.


Even with a Knight I feel utterly out-classed with the Dark Angels. I'm not sure if it's early days getting to know them, the fact I have units that are sub-optimal, the wrong tactics or a tough opponent going up against hordes. Bottom line is that although this was a fun game, and we had a right old laugh, the fact it suddenly fell apart so spectacularly was not fun and the army is just painful to use at the moment.

Therefore, I cannot anticipate with any joy taking this current army list to BWX. Sure it's a 'non-competitive' tournament so sub-optimal is fine but if it needs to be sub-optimal it will have to look cool and right now it's neither. So, following this I've abandoned the Dangles for BWX, it will be nids again. I'm hoping to try a different list with more Monstrous Creatures but we'll have to see.

13 comments:

  1. I think it the correct decision Dave at the moment your dark angels are not quite there yet. BWX is a friendly tournament with some good restrictions devised by Alex but most of the armies in my experience are still really strong and quite frankly your dark angels won't stand up to them at this stage in their development .best waiting till next year when you have played some more and tweeked your list. Thanks for the game and your kids will be definately more fun for you to use and after all that's what we all want fun but close games cheers Ben. Get list writing and let me know how your list differs from last BW.

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    1. Will let you know what's different although I keep coming round to the things I've used before. The Leviathan list seems liek a non-starter as none of the troops are obsec and I'm forced to take Deathleaper so I could get two Flyrants. Alternatively there's the Swarmlord but he's 285pts! and needs a Spore Pod to cross the board, as I don't have any Tyrant Guard, which leaves a big lot of points in reserve and his abilities help reserve but aren't on the table. Alternatively it's Old One Eye but he's still expenseive and needs a pod so it keeps coming back to a similar list to last time the only difference being swapping out the Manufactorum Genestealers for Children of Cryptus and working out if Hive Guard and Biovores are better than a Trygon...? Or some't like that.

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  2. I think it the correct decision Dave at the moment your dark angels are not quite there yet. BWX is a friendly tournament with some good restrictions devised by Alex but most of the armies in my experience are still really strong and quite frankly your dark angels won't stand up to them at this stage in their development .best waiting till next year when you have played some more and tweeked your list. Thanks for the game and your kids will be definately more fun for you to use and after all that's what we all want fun but close games cheers Ben. Get list writing and let me know how your list differs from last BW.

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  3. Shame to see you abandon them, but on the other hand I would relish playing against your lovely nids! I personally feel that you have a lot of small elite units that don't particularly synergise well together, par example I would take terminators or a knight or a bastion but not all three and spend points on more bodies instead, you can also get two librarians for not a great deal more than ezekiel alone which is nice flexibility.

    The bastion works better with long range fire support ala greenwing whereas the deathwing and knight work better as anvils to the hammer of a fast force like ravenwing.

    Anyway just my tuppence worth, hopefully doesn't come across as confrontational! I am interested to see how they progress as an army and look forward to seeing big gribblies at Blog Wars :)

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    1. Well they're only abandoned for Blog Wars, they're still on my To Do List. Sadly the choices were dictated by what's painted so it's not great to be forced to take units you really don't know how to use to best effect. Thanks for the advice, really appreciate it, it's just it'll take a good while before the army is actually painted enough to have a decent set of army choices. Still it's been variety to play them and renewed love for the nids is a good thing too.

      I do fear this will become more a display army than a playing army though...

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  4. A shame you won't get to use the Dark Angels, but I agree with you. With two units of terminators, a bastion and land raider, that's a lot of points eaten up with some difficult to use units.

    I'll be interested to see how my Ravenwing fare in blog wars. Lack of objective secured is a big issue and I have not come up against a horde army yet, so not sure how they will deal with them.

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    1. That's one of the reasons I'm abandoning my Leviathan idea, no obsec on the troops. It's difficult to put a value on that special rule. It's galling to take them again but I just can't take the Dark Angels. As for the army painting competition - Liam will be taking his Chaos Marines which are awesome and Otty's nids are great too and no doubt there'll be some other spectacular armies on display so I have no expectations on that score, I'll probably not enter anyway as I know some see it as inappropriate and the army may very well be very similar to BW9s.

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  5. I agree with corrm, a lot of points are taken up by the raider and the bastion. Having the techie also is points sunk in the wrong place. Ravenwing is needed to give fast harrying units that the deathwing can then back up post teleport. The shrouding speeder is also useful. Going from a horde army to an elite army is also hard as the playing styles are radically different. The other way you can look at it is that you gain experience in how to kill certain marine builds by playing with them. Take your time, get the build right, do some research then get them ready for blog Wars 11.

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  7. For the same cost as the knight, bastion and raider, you could get 12 bikes, the land speeder plasma death thing, the darkshroud and a nephillim fighter. With points to spare. This is more mobile, more hard hitting than the list you have at the moment. The bastion is too static, the redeemer can be outmanouvered easily and the knight can be tied up by horde armies too easily. Saying that, they look fab and will look brill when finished.
    The easiest way to beat the orks is gunline with what you have. Put it all on the table. Use your missiles to kill the trucks, then shoot the orks. You should get a couple of turns shooting, then receive the charge with termies. With a static list, Castle up.

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  8. I am bringing my Blood Angels this time (instead of Skitarii that lost to your nids at BW9) and they are much the same. I have something like 4k to choose from but nothing seems to work that well at the moment. I will be one of the fluffy players right near the bottom of the table for the day haha!

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    1. Hey Ian, you need to check Rob's blog [who commented above] here: http://30kplus40kequalsinfinity.blogspot.co.uk he's got loads of Blood Angels stuff that looks quite competitive. You might have something in your 4k that correlates?

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    2. Thanks! I will have a look. I am bringing Skitarii again now due to not getting nearly enough things painted but maybe I can bring something vampirey to BW11!

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